Banana Republics
A Milestone Documents E-text
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Banana Republics
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844605.book.part.048

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Abstract

The breakup of the Federal Republic of Central America between 1838 and 1841 left five tiny states populating the jungles, mountains, and swamps of the isthmus running between Mexico and Colombia—Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. With small populations and weak economies, none of them found it easy to develop independent governments. The result was what the American short-story writer O. Henry referred to pejoratively as “banana republics.”

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