Smart Collection: 5: Banana cultivation and trade, British Honduras 1930s

This film is held by the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum (ID: 2001/096/011).

Synopsis

Clearing forest for banana plantation. Cultivation (including air spraying of crops) and harvesting and transportation of the crop to the port for export to Europe. Loading of ocean freighters and ocean voyage (including stop at Kingston, Jamaica) and unloading at Rotterdam.

Production / Donor Details: Film shot by Harold Smart OBE. Mr. Smart was born in Lesotho (Basutoland) in 1899, and became the first Agricultural Officer in British Honduras, where he served between 1928-1938.

 

Context

The filmmaker Harold Smart was the first Agricultural Officer in British Honduras, serving from 1928 until 1938, when he assumed the post of Senior Agricultural Officer in Tanganyika. His amateur films record his work and life in British Honduras, along with some footage from Basutoland (his birthplace) and Nyasaland.

In 1929 the Empire Marketing Board published H.C. Sampson’s ‘Report on the Development of Agriculture in British Honduras’. Sampson’s report indicated the need to create and develop local agriculture, as at this time, he suggested, ‘timber is the colony’s main industry, and the inhabitants despise agriculture’. The Empire Marketing Board noted the appointment of Harold Smart, and recognised his role in showing ‘what crops can be profitably and successfully grown’ and in developing British Honduras as an ‘agricultural country’ (The Times, 8 May 1929, 15). The Colonial Office’s annual report in 1938 suggested that, on average, the value of forest products still comprised over 80% of the country’s total domestic exports between 1924 and 1937 (Waddell, 1961, 83).

In the aftermath of the First World War, British Honduras experienced a sharp economic decline. Trade unions emerged and a nationalist political agenda was launched. Historian Mark Moberg has noted the growing political and economic influence of the United States within the region, while the Great Depression of the 1930s further impacted on the local economy, particularly as British demand for timber plummeted (Moberg, 2003). This further highlighted the need, earlier noted by the Empire Marketing Board, to broaden the export industry.

By the 1930s the banana trade had been declining for many years. An outbreak of Panama Disease saw production fall between 1917 and 1931 from an annual peak of 886,881 stems to 78,867, and a severe hurricane in 1931 brought further devastation to the area (Moberg, 2003, 165). The Government’s relief efforts were heavily criticised and, with widespread poverty, unemployment and, in some areas, famine, opposition to the colonial system grew stronger. This was further exacerbated by the government’s failure either to introduce a minimum wage or legalise labour unions. In February 1934 a group calling themselves the ‘Unemployed Brigade’ marched to the Governor’s office and, over the course of the year, further demonstrations and riots followed. The demonstrations in British Honduras were, as Nigel Bolland noted, one of the earliest episodes of the major unrest that would shake the whole Anglophone Caribbean throughout the remainder of the decade (Bolland, 2004).

Certainly the film should be viewed within the economic, social and political context of the wider Anglophone Caribbean, but it can also be seen very specifically in relation to Harold Smart’s own writing on the banana trade in British Honduras. In November 1936 he published an additional report outlining the spread and causes of the Sigatoka disease on banana leaves. Smart reported that the disease, which had been first noted in 1935, had spread rapidly to affect 22,000 acres of British Honduras by November 1936. An article written in 1942 suggested that banana exports more than halved between 1930 and 1938 on account of the disease (Shaw, 1942). 

 

Analysis

Although an amateur film, Banana Cultivation and Trade, British Honduras 1930s most closely follows the narrative structure of the industrial process films produced during the 1930s. The film shows the work of the banana industry, from the preparation of the land, to the final delivery of the fruit in European ports. The film is technically accomplished, whether filming from air or on water, while the narrative is produced through an editing process that mimics continuity editing. For example, the film cuts from a shot of a man cutting a tree, to a shot of a tree falling and finally a shot of the cleared lands. The cameraman, as Agricultural Officer, enjoyed access to all stages of the process, enabling him to record the work of the local population.

Unlike many of the industrial documentaries, this film is not sponsored by a commercial company, but it is evidently intended to cast a positive light on the work of the agriculture office in British Honduras. The film’s depiction of the local workforce is largely consistent with other industrial films, and at times appears carefully choreographed. For example, the framed shot of the single European positioned next to the family of nine local men and women indicates, through its evident staging, a division and lack of interaction between the two groups (particularly as the single figure looks away from the family). The rare scenes of interaction further highlight this division, such as when the large European man gingerly climbs down from his ship onto the far smaller boat steered by a local worker. 

While there is inevitably no evidence of worker unrest, or direct dissatisfaction with colonial rule, the images of the colonial figures and local people do provide insights into colonial race and class relations. There is a sharp contrast between the inactivity of colonial officers and the activity of the labouring local people. Two Europeans stand on high as local men pile up bananas; another European sits and fans himself with his hat in the heat; a single European sits as the bananas are loaded at the port, while activity surrounds him. Even the cameraman is observing, rather than directly participating in the work. The one notable exception, of course, is in the shots of the aeroplane. This symbol of modern technology is piloted by a European, and works in stark contrast to the initial shots of the single local man cutting down an enormous tree (the enormity of the task is emphasised as the film cuts to a longer shot). The emphasis here on modern technology, essential in preventing the spread of disease and in developing the land, signals a further reconfiguration of the plantation economies of the region. In a period of extreme unemployment, the rapid, widespread work of the aeroplane would appear to mark a further move away from the agricultural traditions of British Honduras.

Tom Rice (February 2008)

 

Works Cited

Bolland, O. Nigel, On the March, Labour Rebellions in the British Caribbean, 1934-1939 (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 1995).

‘British Honduras: Need for Agricultural Development’, The Times, 8 May 1929, 15.

Moberg, Mark, ‘Crown Colony as Banana Republic: The United Fruit Company in British Honduras, 1900-1920', Journal of Latin American Studies, 28:2, 1996, 357-382.

Moberg, Mark, ‘Responsible Men and Sharp Yankees: The United Fruit Company, Resident Elites, and Colonial State in British Honduras’, Banana Wars: Power, Production and History in the Americas, edited by Steve Striffler and Mark Moberg (Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2003).

Shaw, Earl B., ‘Recent Changes in the Banana Production of Middle America’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 32, No. 4., December 1942, 371-383.

Waddell, D. A. G., British Honduras: A Historical and Contemporary Survey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961).

See also

Thomson, P. A. B., Belize, A Concise History (Oxford: MacMillan, 2004).

Twigg, Alan, Understanding Belize: A Historical Guide (Ontario: Harbour, 2006). 

 

Titles

  • Smart Collection: 5: Banana cultivation and trade, British Honduras 1930s (Archive)
Series Title:
Smart Collection
 

Technical Data

Year:
1930
Running Time:
17 minutes
Film Gauge (Format):
VHS 16mm
Sound:
Mute
Footage:
400 ft
 

Production Credits

Production Details
See synopsis
 

Countries

 

Themes

 

Genres

 
 

Groups

This film belongs to the following groups.

Smart Collection

 

 

Smart Collection: 2: Enjoyment and Work in British... (1930)

Leisure, ceremonial, and celebrations in British Honduras, including a regatta and cricket matches. Followed by plantation work and bridge construction.

Production ...

 

Smart Collection: 3: River, Jungle & Soil Surveying,... (1934)

British Honduras: river scenes with boats, jungle and village scenes and soil surveying with Professor Hardy.

Production / Donor Details: Film ...

Smart Collection: 5: Banana cultivation and trade, British Honduras 1930s

Smart Collection: 5: Banana cultivation and trade,... (1930)has video enhanced entry

Clearing forest for banana plantation. Cultivation (including air spraying of crops) and harvesting and transportation of the crop to the ...

 
 

Archive Work Groups

Groups

This film belongs to the following groups.

Smart Collection

 

 

Smart Collection: 2: Enjoyment and Work in British... (1930)

Leisure, ceremonial, and celebrations in British Honduras, including a regatta and cricket matches. Followed by plantation work and bridge construction.

Production ...

 

Smart Collection: 3: River, Jungle & Soil Surveying,... (1934)

British Honduras: river scenes with boats, jungle and village scenes and soil surveying with Professor Hardy.

Production / Donor Details: Film ...

Smart Collection: 5: Banana cultivation and trade, British Honduras 1930s

Smart Collection: 5: Banana cultivation and trade,... (1930)has video enhanced entry

Clearing forest for banana plantation. Cultivation (including air spraying of crops) and harvesting and transportation of the crop to the ...