As the modern history of the West Indies would begin with events in Southeast Asian islands, so too would it end. The U.S. began pressuring Spain towards war, and soon enough, Manila Bay in the Philippines was conquered. Hawaii would be annexed days later, and Guam would also be captured.
The success in the Pacific motivated the U.S. towards Cuba. New York magazines and newspapers had already been painting the Cuban freedom fighter as handsome and bold, and the public was poised to free Cuba from the clutches of Spain.
Perhaps it is a coincidence that as America was about to go to war in Cuba, Americans had just been introduced to a new fruit. They were going ape shit over the banana. So much so, that their streets were being littered by the peels. There was so much optimism in the future of the banana that American businessmen started seeing the prospects of banana empires in the close-by Caribbean.
American fruit companies, among them the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit, began massive investment in Central American and Caribbean countries, vying for land and labor. In some economies, the meddling was so strong that local government's became puppets of the U.S. banana companies. The term banana republic would eventually be coined in reference to countries ruled by United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit.
American investments in the Caribbean soon topped over a billion dollars in value. Bananas were everything, and this fact would at least partly explain American troops engaging in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and nearby Central American economies - protecting investments, protecting bananas.
Banana fever grew, but not only in America. Islands like St. Lucia would fill the newfound European demand.
