Banana Massacre

Banana Massacre Masacre de las bananeras
Leaders of the banana plantation workers' strike. From left to right: Pedro M. del Río, Bernardino Guerrero, Raúl Eduardo Mahecha, Nicanor Serrano and Erasmo Coronell. Guerrero and Coronell were killed during the massacre.
Location	Ciénaga, Colombia
Coordinates	11°00′39″N 74°15′06″W / 11.0108°N 74.2517°W / 11.0108; -74.2517
Date	December 5 and 6, 1928
Attack type	Strike crackdown
Deaths	47−2,000 killed[1]
Victims	United Fruit Company workers
Perpetrators	Colombian Army General Cortés Vargas

The Banana Massacre (Spanish: Matanza/Masacre de las bananeras^[1]) was a massacre of workers of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) that occurred between December 5 and 6, 1928, in the town of Ciénaga near Santa Marta, Colombia. A strike began on November 12, 1928, when the workers ceased to work until the company would reach an agreement with them to grant them dignified working conditions.^[2] After several weeks with no agreement, in which the United Fruit Company refused to negotiate with the workers, the government of Miguel Abadía Méndez assigned Cortés Vargas as military chief in Magdalena department and sent 700 from the Colombian Army in against the strikers, resulting in the massacre of 47 to 2,000 people.

U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State.^[3] The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.^[4]

Gabriel García Márquez depicted a fictional version of the massacre in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, as did Álvaro Cepeda Samudio in his La Casa Grande. Although García Márquez references the number of dead as around three thousand, the actual number of dead workers is unknown.