New York, Boston, and Chicago in Costa Rica? Sounds Bananas!

Every day, when you walk into the ‘53 Commons Dining Hall — locally known as FOCO — or any other dining location at Dartmouth, you can pick one out of three choices of fruit: apples, oranges, or bananas. The latter, in particular, are displayed in an array of baskets of their own, for you to select the one you desire. The variety extends not only to the state of ripeness, but also to the brand. At least at FOCO, Dartmouth alternates between Dole and Chiquita bananas, offering one brand on some days and the other on the next.

Dartmouth’s connections to these fruits extend beyond their availability within dining locations. Victor Cutter, one of the college's beloved Trustees and Alumni, was president of the United Fruit Company, the corporation that became Chiquita. Cutter, a Dartmouth ‘03 and Tuck ‘04, took a job as a timekeeper for the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica shortly after graduating. He quickly began to rise within the ranks of the Company, landing a promotion that placed him as the superintendent of the Costa Rican Zent division, located in the Province of Limón.

The United Fruit Company is notoriously known for its monopolistic and exploitative operations in Latin America. The company left behind a legacy of environmental degradation, labor abuses, and political interference in the region, as the United States profited at the expense of local workers and governments. Cutter’s personal collection, housed at Rauner, is firsthand evidence of such.

One compelling artifact is a leather-bound collection of maps of the UFCO’s properties in Costa Rica, which Cutter saved from his time as superintendent in Costa Rica, carefully preserved for around a century. These maps are detailed cartographic records of United Fruit’s landholdings in the country, with delineations of the different farms, existing railroad crossings, and even projected railroad lines, as the company sought to tighten its grip on Central American transportation networks.

Strikingly, individual farms are labeled New York, Boston, and Chicago—names of U.S. cities imposed onto a foreign land. This naming was not merely administrative. It reflects a deeper form of colonial capitalist thinking: that Costa Rica could be transformed into an extension of U.S. commercial and cultural space. The land was not only used, but renamed, repurposed, and reimagined to serve corporate interests.

The railroad system, in particular, was a key tool of United Fruit’s monopoly. In Costa Rica, as in other countries where it operated, the company owned and controlled the very infrastructure that allowed bananas to be exported, often to the detriment of national sovereignty. Railways were designed not to connect Costa Rican communities, but to move bananas efficiently from the plantation to the port.

To this day, that legacy of corporate colonialism remains visible. Incredibly, some locations in Costa Rica still bear the names given to UFC-owned farms. Boston and New York remain identifiable on modern maps of the Limón region, corresponding precisely to locations recorded in United Fruit’s internal documents. The names that once served as internal waypoints for corporate logistics have, in some cases, become permanent fixtures of local geography—reminders of a time when a U.S. company could redraw the map of a sovereign nation to mirror its own.

Cutter's maps of Boston Farm and New York farm overlaid onto the modern Google Maps satellite image. The corresponding areas are still labeled "Boston" and "Nueva York."

To take a look at these maps, come to Rauner and request MS-63, Box 2, Folder 7, or see what else is in Victor Cutter's papers.

Posted for Alejandra Sequeira Argüello '27, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2025 summer term. The Historical Accountability Student Research Program provides funding for Dartmouth students to conduct research with primary sources on a topic related to issues of inclusivity and diversity in the college's past. For more information, visit the program's website.