Banana Wars

The Banana Wars were a series of United States military interventions and occupations in Central America and the Caribbean between the end of the Spanish–American War and the early 1930s. The marines, and sometimes the navy and army, were sent to Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama and Mexico, to protect American commercial interests, such as fruit companies, banks and the Panama Canal, and to keep order and collect debts. The occupations of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua lasted for years and faced guerrilla resistance. General Smedley Butler, who fought in several, later criticised them. They ended with the Good Neighbor Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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