<P> The United Fruit Company was an American corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas), grown on Central and South American plantations, and sold in the United States and Europe . The company was formed in 1899, from the merger of Minor C. Keith's banana - trading concerns with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company . 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, Ecuador, and the West Indies . Though it competed with the Standard Fruit Company (later Dole Food 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 . </P> <P> United Fruit had a deep and long - lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries . Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism, and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the banana republics . After a period of financial decline, United Fruit was merged with Eli M. Black's AMK in 1970, to become the United Brands Company . In 1984, Carl Lindner, Jr. transformed United Brands into the present - day Chiquita Brands International . </P> <P> In 1871, U.S. railroad entrepreneur Henry Meiggs signed a contract with the government of Costa Rica to build a railroad connecting the capital city of San José to the port of Limón in the Caribbean . Meiggs was assisted in the project by his young nephew Minor C. Keith, who took over Meiggs's business concerns in Costa Rica after his death in 1877 . Keith began experimenting with the planting of bananas as a cheap source of food for his workers . </P>

When did the united fruit company became chiquita
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