Backyard Empire: The U.S. in Latin America · Episode 10 of 14 · 32 min
How Corporate Monoculture Built Slave Empires in Sugar and Henequen
After 1898, American capital turned Caribbean and Mexican societies into single-crop suppliers. In Cuba, U.S. sugar companies built mill-town enclaves and left workers hungry in the dead season. In Yucatán, the henequen boom ran on a secret 1902 International Harvester pact and on the debt peonage of Maya laborers and deported Yaqui prisoners.
Who's who
- Olegario MolinaYucatán's dominant henequen exporter and International Harvester's local partner
- John Kenneth TurnerAmerican muckraker who exposed henequen slavery in Barbarous Mexico
- R. B. HawleyOrganizer of the Cuban-American Sugar Company in 1899
Where it happens
- Cuba+2 more episodesSugar island dominated by U.S. corporations
- Yucatán, MexicoHenequen 'green gold' region worked by Maya and Yaqui laborers
- Puerto Rico+2 more episodesAbsentee American sugar estates took coastal land
- Dominican Republic+1 more episodeAbsentee American sugar companies and later U.S. occupation
Timeline
- 1898Spanish-American War brings U.S. control of Puerto Rico and occupation of Cuba
- 1899Cuban-American Sugar Company organized
- 1901-1903Platt Amendment makes Cuba a U.S. protectorate
- October 1902Secret International Harvester pact with Molina consolidates henequen market
- 1910Barbarous Mexico exposes henequen debt slavery
- 1916-1924U.S. military occupation of the Dominican Republic
Still debated
Historians debate how far henequen debt peonage amounted to outright slavery, how decisive International Harvester was compared with local elites, and the exact share of Cuban sugar held by U.S. interests.
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