Cecil Vernon Lindo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1870 |
| Died | 1960 |
| Parent |
|
| Family | Lindo family |
Cecil Vernon Lindo (1870 - 1960) was a Jamaican banker, industrialist, planter and philanthropist. [1]
Cecil Vernon Lindo | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 1870 |
| Died | 1960 |
| Parent |
|
| Family | Lindo family |
Cecil Vernon Lindo (1870 - 1960) was a Jamaican banker, industrialist, planter and philanthropist. [1]
Cecil Lindo was born in 1870, in Falmouth, Jamaica, to Frederick Lindo and Grace Morales, the sixth of ten children.
He migrated to Costa Rica from Jamaica at age 18. His older brothers, Howard, Abraham and Robert had arrived in 1885 to work for Minor Cooper Keith, who was building a railroad from Limon to San Jose. [2] He worked as a paymaster from 1889-91 for £2 per week. [3]
Cecil organised the Lindo brothers in 1891, starting with the purchase of a commissary at Matina from Minor Cooper Keith.
The brothers soon expanded, opening a store in Limón and planting bananas. In 1899, they opened a bank in Limon. [4] [5]
He was Vice Consul of the United Kingdom in Limón from 1896-1901. [6]
In 1907, the brothers entered the coffee business, starting with the purchase of Juan Viñas, a vast sugar and coffee farm from Federico Tinoco Granados. [7] They continued purchasing properties and soon became largest coffee and sugar producers in the country. [8] [9] In 1908, the brothers founded the Florida Ice and Farm Company.
By 1911, the Lindo properties were producing half of Costa Rica's bananas, and Joseph DiGiorgio, on behalf of the Atlantic Fruit Company, approached Lindo Bros with idea of purchasing all of their banana plantations, although the entire production was contracted to United Fruit Company until July, 1914. [10]
On October 27, 1911, Cecil gave the Atlantic Fruit Company an option to purchase their banana plantations for $3,500,000 before August, 1912. Cecil was to be the General Manager of the Atlantic Fruit Company in Costa Rica. [11] [12]
The company could not or would not execute the option, and in 1912, the Lindo's was sold the properties to United Fruit Company that year for $5,000,000. [13] [14] [15]
By 1913, the Lindo brothers were owners of vast sugar, coffee and cocoa estates, lumber and flour mills, breweries, ice-making and aerated factories. They operated 7,000 acres of Coffee plantations, which were producing and exporting three millions pounds of coffee each year, with an approximate value of half a million dollars.
In 1914, Lindo Bros & Co. Ltd. was formed in Jamaica began to purchase large agricultural properties in Jamaica. [16] [17]
In 1916 Lindo Bros & Co. bought Appleton Estate and J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. in 1917. [18]
In 1925 the Lindo Bros, in partnership with Allan Keeling, invested £1,000,000 in the establishment of the Bernard Lodge Central Sugar Factory. [19]
In 1928, the Lindo Bros sold 56,600 acres of land St. Catherine & Clarendon to the United Fruit Company for £2,000,000, which at the time, was the largest transaction in the history of the island. [20] That year Cecil purchased Devon House from Reginald Melhado. [21] [22]
In Who's Who in 1938 we are told his philanthropies were in the region of £60,000 annually in Jamaica alone.
The United Fruit Company was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of the Boston Fruit Company with Minor C. Keith's banana-trading enterprises. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Costa Rican cuisine is known for being mostly mild, with high reliance on fruits and vegetables. Rice and black beans are a staple of most traditional Costa Rican meals, often served three times a day. Costa Rican fare is nutritionally well rounded, and nearly always cooked from scratch from fresh ingredients. Owing to the location of the country, tropical fruits and vegetables are readily available and included in the local cuisine.
Limón is one of seven provinces in Costa Rica. The province covers an area of 9,189 km2, and has a population of 386,862.
The Bribri are an Indigenous people in eastern Costa Rica and northern Panama. Today, most Bribri people speak the Bribri language or Spanish.
Minor Cooper Keith was an American businessman whose railroad, commercial agriculture, and cargo liner enterprises had a major impact on the national economies of the Central American countries, as well as on the Caribbean region of Colombia. Keith's work on the Costa Rican railroad to the Caribbean, a project begun by his uncle Henry Meiggs, led him to become involved in the large-scale export of bananas to the United States. In 1899, Keith's banana-trading concerns were absorbed into the powerful United Fruit Company, of which he became vice-president. Keith was also involved in a number of other business ventures, including gold mining in Costa Rica and real estate development in the US.
Rail transport in Central America consists of several isolated railroad lines with freight or passenger service. The most famous one is the Panama Canal Railway, the oldest transcontinental railroad in the world, connecting Panama City with Colón since 1855. Other railroads in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama were built by private and public investors mainly to facilitate the transport of local agricultural produce to export markets and harbors. Their market share and profitability went into decline in the second half of the twentieth century and most lines have been decommissioned by the end of the 1990s. As of 2018, railroads operate locally in Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama only; all rail transport has been suspended in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The railways still operating do not cross national borders.
In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Guatemala and Honduras under economic exploitation by U.S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company. Typically, a banana republic has a society of extremely stratified social classes, usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites. The ruling class controls the primary sector of the economy by way of the exploitation of labor; thus, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile oligarchy that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.
Afro-Costa Ricans are Costa Ricans of African ancestry.
Golden Grove is a settlement in the parish of Saint Thomas, Jamaica. Historically a sugar plantation, it had a population of 3,057 in 2009.
The Boston Fruit Company (1885-1899) was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indies to north-eastern America. At the time, the banana was "considered a rare and delicious treat" in the United States. The major challenge for all banana importers was to get the highly perishable fruit to the American market before it spoiled." Ship captain Lorenzo Dow Baker served as president of the company and manager of the tropical division. By 1895 "the corporation own[ed] nearly 40,000 acres, included in 35 plantations, and deep-water frontage [in Jamaica] in the harbors of Port Antonio and Port Morant. They owned their own lines of steamships, which they operated between those ports and Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Besides carrying their own fruits, they carried some outside freight, and afford passenger accommodations for many tourists visiting the West-India Islands."
Costa Rican agriculture plays a profound part in the country's gross domestic product (GDP). It makes up about 6.5% of Costa Rica's GDP, and 14% of the labor force. Depending upon location and altitude, many regions differ in agricultural crops and techniques. The main exports include: bananas, pineapples, coffee, sugar, rice, vegetables, tropical fruits, ornamental plants, corn, potatoes and palm oil.
Florida Ice and Farm Company S.A. is a Costa Rican food and beverages company headquartered in the province of Heredia, Costa Rica. It has a catalog of over 2000 products, sold in over 15 countries.
Costa Rica has a very strong beer industry centered on mass-produced Lagers. Imperial beer, produced by Florida Ice & Farm Co. is known and associated with Costa Rica all around the world.
SS Tivives was a United Fruit Company passenger and refrigerated fruit cargo ship built 1911 by Workman, Clark & Company, Ltd. in Belfast. The ship was launched 1 August 1911 as Peralta but renamed before completion. As a foreign built vessel operating for a company in the United States the ship was British flagged. With outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 the ship, as did all British registered company ships, changed flag to the United States. Between 5 July 1918 and 25 April 1919 the ship was chartered and commissioned by the United States Navy for operation as USS Tivives
Albion was a sugar plantation in Saint David Parish, Jamaica. Created during or before the 18th century, it had at least 451 slaves when slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833. By the end of the 19th-century it was the most productive plantation in Jamaica due to the advanced refining technology it used. By the early 20th century, however, its cane sugar could not compete with cheaper European beet sugar, and it produced its last sugar crop in 1928. It subsequently became a banana farm for the United Fruit Company.
Edward McGeachy was the Crown Surveyor for the county of Surrey in Jamaica. He trained Thomas Harrison, the first Government Surveyor of Jamaica. He owned Bull Park plantation and Brighton Pen in Saint David Parish and in 1837 received compensation for the loss of eight slaves following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.
Alfred Constantine Goffe was a Jamaican businessman noted for his role in the banana trade.
The Lindo family was a Sephardic Jewish merchant and banking family, which rose to prominence in medieval Spain.
Percy Lindo was a Jamaican banker, planter, industrialist and Member of the Legislative Council of Jamaica.