Located in the so-called “American Mediterranean,” Honduras presents multiple geographical identities: Mesoamerica, Central America, and the Caribbean are the most used classifications. Central America is positioned on the isthmus extending between North and South America, covering more than two thousand kilometers in length between 8° and 18° north latitudes, with a total area of 540,000 km². Despite the cultural unification brought by the Spanish administration, seven independent states eventually emerged in this space. These political divisions can be partly explained by the extreme fragmentation of physical and human units (Musset, 1998). Although distances between regions are short, the rugged terrain contributes to spatial dispersion. Added to this is a highly contrasting climate, alternating between dry and rainy seasons.

On the northeastern coast of Honduras, the landscape transitions into low-lying Caribbean zones covered by tropical rainforest. This region, with its challenging climate, was largely ignored by Spanish colonizers, who preferred to settle in the cooler, highland interior. Until the 19th century, the Caribbean lowlands were poorly connected to the rest of the country, serving as a refuge for rebellious indigenous groups like the Miskitos. The northern coast of Honduras follows an east-west orientation, featuring long sandy beaches and four major sandspits, which later became the sites of key urban centers: Omoa, Puerto Cortés, Tela, and Trujillo (Davidson, 2002). Near the coast, mountains rise dramatically, reaching altitudes of up to 2,400 meters near the port city of La Ceiba. The early cultivation of bananas began in the Bay Islands during the 1860s (Soluri, 2002), eventually expanding to mainland Honduras. This shift not only established a thriving agro-export industry, boosting the economy, but also integrated vast Caribbean territories into the national administration for the first time. These territories were structured around the five major Caribbean urban centers mentioned above.

Regarding the original inhabitants of the Honduran Caribbean, these belonged to both Mesoamerican and Macro-Chibchan groups. In the western region and the Bay Islands, archaeological evidence points to the presence of Mesoamerican, Maya, and Toquegua peoples. The area where the port of Tela is located was historically inhabited by the Tolupanes (Stone, 1941; Chapman, 2007; Davidson, 2009), who were known as Jicaques during colonial times. The Tolupanes (Chapman, 2007) were semi-nomadic, dispersed across the Ulúa River Valley. A census conducted by Spanish Governor Ramón Anguiano (1801) estimated that the Jicaque/Tolupán population in the region was only 500 inhabitants. By the late 18th century, they had disappeared from the coast, retreating into the interior mountains to escape first Spanish persecution and later attacks from English pirates (Davidson, 2009). However, these coasts did not remain unpopulated for long. Within a few decades, a new ethnic group, the Garífunas, settled in the region, marking a significant shift in the area's demographic composition.

Historically, the Honduran Caribbean coast served as a frontier zone for the Spanish Empire, facing constant threats from foreign powers. During the colonial period, the territories of Central America were governed as part of the Kingdom of Guatemala, which was divided into provinces—including Honduras. By the 17th century, escalating foreign threats led to a new administrative classification: the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Research highlights the growing importance of the Captain General’s position as external pressures increased. However, this contrasted with the Spanish authorities' neglect of remote areas, such as the Honduran and Nicaraguan Caribbean coastlines. Several factors contributed to this neglect. To begin with, the depletion of early mineral deposits and the demographic decline of the indigenous population, as well as harsh natural conditions, which made Spanish settlement difficult, resulting in the Spanish prioritizing the more accessible and fertile Pacific lowlands, which extended from Guatemala to Costa Rica. These areas had denser populations and held greater economic and administrative importance, as evidenced by the settlements and trade routes established since the 16th century. The only Spanish trade routes that connected the Caribbean to Spain were through Puerto Caballos and Trujillo, both located in Honduras. These ports facilitated commerce in indigo from Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as gold and silver from Honduras.

Halfway between Puerto Caballos and Trujillo, the Spanish established a new settlement in 1524, named Triunfo de la Cruz, founded by Cristóbal de Olid, a lieutenant of Hernán Cortés who arrived from Cuba (Troy, 1990:19). This early settlement was located between the Tela and Gilantrique Rivers, where nearby hills were home to indigenous inhabitants. However, Olid’s rebellion against his superiors likely led to the abandonment of the settlement. Despite this, the name Triunfo de la Cruz persisted in cartographic records for centuries, often abbreviated as “T. de la +,” which later evolved into the name Tela. To make matters worse, French pirates began attacking the Honduran Caribbean coast in 1543, prompting Spain to change its colonization and defense strategies in the region. By 1667, Spain formally recognized England’s presence in the New World, marking the emergence of a third European power in the Americas. The Spanish Empire, weakened by internal challenges and external incursions, was infiltrated by foreign traders and pirates who allied with local indigenous groups in exchange for weapons and alcohol. This was particularly evident in Honduras, where indigenous groups who had resisted Spanish control aligned themselves with the British. Together, they engaged in smuggling and slave raids, targeting indigenous populations from Honduras to Costa Rica. These activities became deeply embedded in the Caribbean region's economy throughout the 17th and 18th centuries (Floyd, 1990, p. 48).

In 1797, the Black Caribs or Garífunas were forcibly deported from Saint Vincent to the Bay Islands by the British, which by that time was under British control. This was the result of the Garifunas being defeated alongside their former French allies. From the archipelago, the Garífunas moved to Trujillo, where they were granted permission to settle by the Spanish governor as a strategy to counter British-backed Zambo incursions. The Garífunas were not treated as slaves and eventually became Spanish subjects, serving the crown during the wars of independence. Their population exceeded 2,000 individuals. By 1807, Garífuna communities—known as morenales—had been established along the Gilantrique River, near present-day Tela. As we have seen, the challenges inherited by the newly independent Honduran State were particularly pressing in the Caribbean with a territory comprising 200 leagues without being considered within the administration scope, with diverse populations which could, to some extent, be hostile. By 1824, Honduras had an estimated population of 137,000 inhabitants, which increased to 300,000 by 1856, most of this population was concentrated in the central and southern regions, while the northern and northeastern areas remained largely unincorporated into national administration and inhabited by smugglers, and foreign traders as well as by “some thousands of indigenous people from diverse ethnic groups such as Caribs, Jicaques, Payas, Zambos, Miskitos, etc. were absolutely neglected and ignored by civilian and religious authorities, which were being decimated by political figures …” (Garrido, 1964, p. 66).

The former quote refers to the decades of anarchy that Honduras fell into after its independence from Spain. Under these conditions, the Church assumed a leading role in the organization of this region, alongside the Spanish missionary Manuel de Jesús Subirana, who arrived in Honduras in 1856. Meanwhile, the challenges faced by President José Santos Guardiola to restore territorial sovereignty included stopping incursions by the American filibuster William Walker, who was executed in Trujillo in 1860, and ending the English presence in Mosquitia and the Bay Islands, which were returned in 1862. To assert his presence in these territories and lacking resources, President José María Medina (1862-1876) granted all the lands requested by Subirana for the indigenous towns he founded, more than 15, including a group of Tolupanes/Jicaques for whom he requested, in 1864, seven caballerías (2.705 km²) of land in Tela, granted on September 30 of that year (Garrido, 1964, p. 88). Thanks to the governments of Guardiola and Medina, as well as the missionary and cultural actions of the Church with Father Subirana, Honduras was able to reaffirm its sovereignty on the Atlantic coast. This event will be decisive for the future development of the port of Tela, as we will see next.

To understand the stability reached by the second foundation of the city of Tela compare to the unsuccessful attempt of Triunfo de la Cruz in the 16^th century, it is necessary to fathom the new twist world politics and economy had taken during the 19^th century, as well as its impact in Honduras. Innovations introduced with the industrial revolution, in addition to the rise of republicanism in the West, resulted in a boom in communications, commerce, and technologies, which brought economic growth for industrialized countries and the opening of new markets for raw materials. When the economic incentives were not enough to subjugate the neighboring countries to the new world order, imperialism as a mechanism of hostile pressure emerges as it was demonstrated in China during the opium wars. As for the historical English presence in the Central America region, this was over due to US pressure through the Clayton-Burwell 1850 treaty. This is the framework that allowed Honduras to recover the Bay Islands and Mosquitia through the 1862 Wyke-Cruz treaty. To the United States, the Caribbean had become the most important geopolitical zone in terms of foreign policy. In fact, this policy, also known as the Monroe Doctrine (1823), ¹ for many scholars, above all, is a Caribbean doctrine (Nehemkis, 1966) in which the United States imposed a hierarchical relationship with the rest of the countries.

It all began in the mid-19th century when the vast natural tropical resources at short distances provided the opportunity for multiple extraction companies, import, cultivation, and transport (railroad and interoceanic canal). As it has been mentioned, decades of anarchy took hold of Honduras practically since its independence from Spain in 1821. Still, the alternating government of José María Medina (1862-1876) managed to promote some liberal legal reforms that stimulated the colonization of rebellious or abandoned territories. These settlements were regulated by the Law of Immigration and Colonization in 1866, and new departments, municipalities, and cities were created. Medina promoted a colonization project nearby San Pedro Sula (Davidson, 2009), starting from ex-American Confederate families that influenced Tela as we will see. The sole objective of this policy was to reinforce the huge Interoceanic Railroad Project ² which Honduras had begun during the presidential period of Trinidad Cabañas (1849). For this, the Medina and later Soto administrations promoted the founding of new cities not only in the Caribbean: La Lima (1871), La Ceiba (1877), El Progreso (1892), but also in the Pacific: San Lorenzo (1876) and Amapala (1871). The old Caballos Port (1525) is named Puerto Cortés (1869), and from then on, the first railroad section is built (Fig. 1).

These urban Caribbean settlements redefined furthermore the urban hierarchy of the country. This Caribbean conquest cherished by the Honduran government was carried out by American companies. The first step was the policy of tax concessions ³ foreign companies received in exchange for investments. The impact generated by these tax concessions was evident when the 30-kilometer Tegucigalpa-based New York Rosario Mining Company boomed and motivated the shift of the capital from Comayagua to Tegucigalpa in 1880. Eventually, the banana commercialization replaced in matters of importance the mining business moving the economic, urban, migratory, and working epicenter to the Caribbean coast. For instance, in 1910, only 16.9% of the Honduran population lived in crowded settlements of more than one thousand inhabitants. In the 1940s, the Caribbean coast had become the most urbanized area in the country.

Yoro governor founded the Municipality of Tela on June 2^nd, 1876 (Elvir, 2000, p. 58). This settlement had been previously populated by Tolupanes, Spanish, Garifuna, and ladinos who had survived with their own economies. Therefore, Tolupanes were experts in tannery, sarsaparilla, and colored wood trade, whereas the Spanish controlled export from Trujillo, the Garifuna controlled the regional trade with Utila and Belize, and the ladinos the commerce with Comayagua and Tegucigalpa through Yoro (Elvir, 2000, p. 44). The city center was organized in three neighborhoods: the neighborhood known as the Morenos’ neighborhood or Barrio abajo, along the Tela River where the Garifuna settled; the Spanish neighborhood, located around the main square or El Centro, which hosted white traders, and the neighborhood by the Gilantrique River housing mestizos or Barrio Arriba. The three neighborhoods were communicated by a main street, La Morena, later named General Cabañas (Table 1). The indigenous villages in Tela were seven (like the seven caballerías obtained by Father Subirana) and were scattered inland (Fig. 2). In the first decade of the 20^th century, the Garifuna moved to new settlements called morenales or caribales (San Juan, Tornabé, and Triunfo de la Cruz) probably as a result of pressure from foreign newcomers, which is evidenced by the relocation of Black settlements to suburban areas near downtown.

American Confederates arrived in Honduras in those years, including Peter Jackson, who met President Soto in Comayagua, the capital city at that time. According to Elvir’s research (Elvir, 2000, p. 51), in 1880, Jackson obtained a concession called the Honduran Tropical Fruit Company which was on the market up to 1890. This Company took up the coconut oil extraction from natural coconut plantations in Punta Sal. In 1879, Marco Aurelio Soto hired services from Ward, an American ship, to trade coconuts and bananas from Tela (Elvir, 2000, p. 185). The land concession regime was a reality with the agrarian reform in 1877 and meant the colonization and effective settlement in the Caribbean Honduran coast, followed by urbanization. Thereafter, Tela moved beyond its embryonic foundation period. The city was strengthened by the addition of services such as mail, telegraph (1877), cemetery (1885), schools (1886), kerosene lighting (1889), rural roads and church (1890), all part of its urban development.

In 1898, the municipality of Tela declared the banana as municipal heritage, recognizing its crop and exportation as the most important economic activity in the city. The joint banana business developed in the Caribbean Honduran ports of Puerto Cortés, Tela, La Ceiba, and Trujillo, triggering the creation of three new departments: Colón (1881), Cortés (1893), and Atlántida (1902). By that time, Tela still belonged to the jurisdiction of Yoro, becoming now part of Atlántida, obtaining the category of Mayor Port as a result. Moreover, railroad tracks are installed to communicate it with the surrounding banana plantations. In 1909, the municipality obtains common land (ejidos) which are land properties surrounding the downtown area, and are fundamental for the infrastructural development in the community and providing arable land and water resources.

As reported by the concept of definitive urbanization by Lampard (1965), Tela reaches this category because of the combination of political, urban, and economic conditions which allowed the population a period of prosperity based on the banana crop (Table 2). Elvir recorded at least thirteen banana producers in 1891 (Elvir, 2000, p. 95) with an average land size of thirty hectares for each. The owner comes from all origins, such as Hondurans, foreigners, and even a Garifuna, Simón Valerio. A remarkable milestone for the city was the construction of a small park in 1907. The so-called peace in Tela during that period, away from unceasing civil wars in the main Honduran cities, was affected by the wildfires that devastated the villages in 1884, 1916, and 1933.

Regarding the sense and style of new cities like Tela, founded under the Honduran administration, these sought to establish republican modern politics. This distinctive urban planning style during the 19^th century will be called republican urbanism, which is neither a Haussmannian urbanism nor a similar style, but it is characterized by new treatments with a great deal of symbolic meaning. In fact, these new urban hubs are modest, and poorly designed in an orthogonal plan around a central plaza, consistent with the old Spanish urban model. As a way of illustration, in the new construction of a republican urbanism trend, the catholic churches lost their privilege around the central square. Another adjustment in the planning given to the public streets and plazas is that Marian invocations or traditional Spanish names are not used anymore. For instance, the main square in Tela was named after the Honduran national hero José Trinidad Cabañas. Main squares, later called by the English word ‘park’, were decorated with national heroes’ statues, kiosks and modern urban pieces resembling the French and English urban planning style, which was applied in Tela at different stages.

As part of the liberal strategy to upgrade the sense of nation and identity, civic festivities were highly important, among them, the celebration of independence stood out on September 15^th (Navarrete, 2008). There is information on files about this celebration in Tela since 1891. The date was propitious to inaugurate infrastructure works, which in that year was the road section known as the Cacao, on the old royal road to Yoro. It was also customary to hold ceremonies such as flag raising, parades, concerts, and a dance. These acts, besides having the square as their epicenter, were also held in the town hall building. Located in front of the square, this enclosure had several versions, the first of “yagua y tejamanil” of 1880, a second in 1887 of clear Spanish influence, with a frontal corridor, of a story, double height to ease the heat, and a cover probably of zinc, another in wood and a British-style bell tower. In the Cabañas Park, a kiosk was erected in 1911, where the Municipal Band played musical concerts (Fig. 3).

These public events, full of civic symbolism, manifested the country’s will to establish the nation’s idea in the new incorporated territories. In front of these, there are constructive elements that reveal other influences, or the continuity of old Caribbean identities present in Tela. In the beforementioned photographic archive, Elvir (2000), with the oldest photographs of Tela, we can appreciate that the architecture of its houses exhibits more British colonial influence (West Indies) than the Iberian architecture. There are several reasons for this particularity. In the first place, the influence of England over the entire Caribbean through its possessions, such as Jamaica, has been constant since 1667. This influence has been increasing in Central America, especially since the occupation of British Honduras or Belize, the main British commercial port in the Caribbean, and the English presence in the Bay Islands. The city and port of Tela, close in distance to these centers, is influenced by British “picturesque” architecture, as is well illustrated by the kiosk in Cabañas Park.

Since its beginnings in 1876, Tela has been frequented by foreigners and emigrants, not only English. A significant Spanish colony dedicated to commerce was also established in the Spanish neighborhood. In 1890, the Spanish citizen José A. Solá concluded the map of the population with streets and nomenclature. In 1901, the American Henry Carpenter Guifford arrived, an important businessman who developed diverse economic activities in Tela. He was also a builder and built his own house and many others. His arrival in Tela and his activity were linked, undoubtedly, to the municipal politics issued some years earlier. Despite all this dynamism, a municipal minutes form 1889 pick up the problem of insufficient population for the development of the municipality. For this reason, incentives were created to attract national and foreign migrants, granting a four/year free tax period to those who built houses and plant the soil (Elvir, 2000:71). As a result of this, the municipal archives started to register capitalists from diverse origins: Olancho, Cortés, Belize, El Salvador, Cuba as well as foreigners from France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine since 1890 in Tela, contributing to the economy and culture and influencing its construction with their own cultural references, predominantly British (Fig. 4). Many of these migrants stand out in the list of predominant capitalists in many fields such as banana and coconut farmers, ranchers, businessmen and hoteliers. In the last two activities, the urban image and the city’s modern outlook are outlined with vibrant stores that introduced all types of novel commodities, resulting in the increase of consumerism. A different angle of modernity were hotels, including the Cabañas Hotel, owned by the Elvir family, later called Balderach, where Tela citizens not only had access to modern services of laundry, restaurant and bar, but also to social events like banquets, balls and the meeting venue for personalities, intellectuals, politicians and businessmen in search for the Caribbean Dorado.

The UFC (founded in 1899) celebrated a contract with Manuel Bonilla, the Honduran president in 1912, which originated in Tela Rail Road Company (TRRC). Its first office was in Tela, possibly in the Spanish neighborhood. Due to the event magnitude and importance for the Teal economy, in that year, the municipality organized festivities for the 4th of July, Independence Day in the United States (Elvir, 2000). The transformation of the former U.S. trading companies into banana producers, ultimately served to consolidate the Monroe Doctrine in Honduras. This is because the nature of the concessions that had been granted since the liberal reform of Soto (1876), changed significantly after Bonilla. It should be noted that Bonilla came to power thanks to the financing of Samuel Zemurray to invade and carry out a coup d'état in 1910 against President Miguel Dávila. In return, Bonilla initially granted Zemurray the Tela concession on extremely generous terms. But Zemurray did not keep the concession for long as he sold it to the UFC in 1912. The new nature of the concession was exposed in the Municipal Act of 1914, where the residents of Tela complained about not having access to land “within the 10 km from side to side of the railroad line to which the TRRC is entitled...” (Elvir, 2000, p. 114). This unequal access to transportation and land granted to the ejidos in 1909, marked the end of the prosperity stage for the rest of the banana producers, who from then on would be called “poquiteros” (Soluri, 2002). In his research, the author delves into the eco-social relations of the different actors in the banana environment: producers, businessmen, rulers, farmers, as well as the diseases that affected the crops. These relationships were not free of tension and confrontation, but the situation was resolved in favor of the CFU thanks to its relations with Honduran rulers.

In 1914, the TRRC and the Municipality signed a contract, committing the former to build important urban services: drinking water, electricity, a 400-meter-long dock, and an ice factory. The outbreak of World War I in that year caused the breakup of trade with Europe, leaving the USA as the only buyer. This event contributed to the absolute consolidation of the UFC in the decades to come. In 1916, a fire destroys a part of the town, so the Municipality applies a tax that will allow it to raise the funds to rebuild the city. The TRRC provides its engineers for important urban works: new schools and town hall, paving of streets with curbs and sidewalks, and a new church. In 1918, in anticipation of future disasters, the TRRC announces its intention to demolish its building in Tela to create the urban complex west of the Tela River. Despite lacking the Municipality's agreement, the new TRRC building was constructed to the west of the original settlement, called Tela Viejo by that time. Thus, Tela Nuevo emerged as a prototype of the North American Company town at the beginning of the 20th century in Honduras (Fig. 5).

The new campus stands out for its modern urban units. The residences, spacious for executives or first class employees (Fig. 6), the new hospital (1914), recreational buildings (golf course, tennis courts, Mess Hall, billiard room, bowling alley), commercial houses (New Tela commissary dates from 1917, there were others in the farms), infrastructure for communications (aerodrome, pier, railway, roads, bridges, mailing service, telegraph service and telephone) and state-of-the-art technology (heavy machinery, cranes, trains, power plants and use of explosives). The plantations were organized collectively with access roads, digging swamps (Fig. 7), building irrigation systems and providing housing for farm or second-class workers which are known as barracks (Fig. 8), making up as a whole estate, real workers’ neighborhoods in the countryside. These were wooden houses built on tilts (foreseeing frequent flooding), with drinkable water, dispensary, commissary and school. In 1928, a steel hanging bridge was built across the Tela River to join both cities and a new open market. While Tela was growing, Tegucigalpa was going through a bloody civil war in 1924, therefore, allowing the urban primacy to move to San Pedro Sula and its surrounding cities: Puerto Cortés, La Lima, El Progreso, and Tela. Trujillo is left behind because its plagues had destroyed the banana plantations and the fact that Tela had replaced it as the economic epicenter in the eastern region.

The arising buildings by the TRRC strengthened the Caribbean British style with which Tela had been built since its beginning, containing an abundance of “picturesque” instance (Cole, 2002), as the use of the veranda (roofed balcony or gallery), the porch (roofed entrance to a building or house), being made out of wood and with slight decoration. According to the Caribbean region studies, the architectural influence in the banana Company buildings was established by the American encroachment in Cuba, starting in 1899. Between 1901 and 1904, Cuban sugar mills, property of the United Fruit Company, were founded, deeply changing the landscape and the economy in the territories where they were built in. first, American arrived in Cuba, Colombia and Panama where they took people that had previously worked with British companies or in the management of the British empire. These people came from Java, India, and tropical Africa (Préstamo et al.,1996). The author demonstrates that the so-called British colonial architecture continued and deepened through the Caribbean which boosted the American companies, choosing it to resemble the banana conglomerate:

These claims are confirmed by testimonials linked to the fruit companies in Honduras:

From the previous paragraph, one can conclude that the existing architecture in Tela by the UFC was the response to three criteria: stylistically, to the British colonial models, functionally, it was adapted to the natural phenomena such as the frequent floods and earthquakes.

The 19th century imperial style was dominated by the garden city movement with the novelty of three elements: health, air, and light. This was a response to the needs of the industrial city adapted to the neighborhoods and their realities, among them the local people’s situation. Some authors (Colby, 2009) argue that the UFC conveyed through its employees, not institutionally, two-way racism or white supremacy. In employees of southern origin, in the context of the Jim Crow era, as well as northern WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) racism, common in New England, where the founders of the UFC came from.

Did urban planning follow criteria based on divisions between white and dark, rich and poor, employer and worker, as suggested by some authors (King, 1977)? Bearing in mind that the model followed by the UFC in its divisions in the Caribbean was that of Britain (Préstamo et al., 1996), Njoh's (2008) assessments for Africa are useful as the author identifies how racist philosophies and European white supremacism were particularly strong in Britain and Germany. Njoh (2008, p. 588) argues that Western racism and imperialism reached its apex in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, the same years in which the UFC was founded in the Caribbean. ⁴ With the reasoning of protecting the health of Europeans, residences in British colonies in Africa were racially segregated, as it was believed that mosquitoes only bit at night, so they could work integrated in the daytime. Behind these policies were the renowned physicians and scientists of the time. This segregation between natives and Europeans on medical grounds reinforced racism on health grounds (Njoh, 2008, p. 588). The colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, adopted residential racial segregation in the rest of British colonies since 1904 (Njoh, 2008, p. 589). There is no evidence that these reasons may have been taken into consideration while deciding to build New Tela in 1914, although the combination of factors, such as wildfire danger and disease outbreaks, could have enhanced this layout.

A similar concern for sanitation existed within the U.S. government, which had officials in the ports of shipment of fruit from the beginning of the commercial activities of the fruit companies. In these ports, the assigned doctors, such as Spencer Franklin, a doctor of the United States Public Health Service in La Ceiba, Honduras, kept detailed records of contagious diseases such as malaria, smallpox, influenza, and yellow fever found in the ports visited by the fruit ships in the Caribbean (Carson, 1900). Once settled in the Honduran territory to cultivate bananas, the construction of hospitals is one of the priorities to be addressed. In Tela, for example, it was necessary to apply quarantines on several occasions due to influenza and smallpox.

The most important sanitation structure built in Tela was the TRRC (1918) hospital, located across from the sea on the west side of New Tela which was an impressive building for that time (Fig. 9). The hospital was demolished in the 1960s.

According to Kramer (2011), the United States reconfigures the urban landscape of other societies from the racial authoritarianism of hygienist regimes in American-ruled cities. These cities also fabricated landscapes as industrial enclaves in globalized Company towns, as the UFC did in Tela. In these towns, corporate discipline, remote exploitation of natural and human resources, as well as the installation of the American style of construction, came together. Does the racial and imperialist perspective apply to urbanism in Tela? The findings show an executive campus, Tela Nuevo, clearly distanced from Tela Viejo in geography and in the material quality of its first-class facilities, as was the style in North American Company towns (Garner, 1984). There were also rural residences for employees, located in the banana fields or farms. According to authors like Meza (1991), these farms did not have the necessary facilities, and it was because of this and other labor abuses that the banana strike of 1954 took place. Photographic, material, and testimonial evidence contradicts this author, since the farms had better housing conditions than the rest of the country. There was water, housing, schools, health clinics, commissaries, and eventually electricity. This is why the northern coast of Honduras became the destination of thousands of migrants in search of the Caribbean version of the American Dream. If there were racist practices, they did not seem to be tied to the Company’s practices per se, but were attributed to the individuals who were part of it. This could result in tolerated practices not only by foreign executives but also by locals in intermediate ranks and against other minorities, such as the case of racism against Black British, which will be discussed later.

The Wall Street Crash happened in 1929, the same year in which the UFC merged with its rival, located in Puerto Cortés, Cuyamel Fruit Company, owned by Samuel Zemurray, who ended up being the majority shareholder and presided over his new Company, the UFC. As a first palliative measure, he decided to move the management of the TRRC from Tela to La Lima in 1930, an action that changed the center of gravity of the banana emporium. The advance of banana pests had already damaged the farms of Trujillo (Table 1 shows the population decline) and Tela, the beforementioned economic crash forced them to make the pharaonic deployment of their companies more efficient. At the same time, the geographical proximity to the plantation in Puerto Cortés favors the plant in La Lima, where Zemurray himself has his home. The unification of the two companies resulted in internal layoffs in the port of Tela and a slowdown resulting from the damaged international economy. Politically, by overcoming the rivalry between the UFC and La Cuyamel, promoters of civilian conflicts, the longed-for peace is reached. Tiburcio Carías’s was strengthened (1932-1948) with a strong connection to the UFC.

Prior to these events, social issues started to arise, resulting in strikes in the banana plantations (1916 in La Cuyamel of Puerto Cortés and in 1920 in Standard of La Ceiba). There were banana plantation strikes in Costa Rica (1934) and Guatemala. In the Port of Tela, there were organized groups associated with the communists’ ideas since the late 1920s, exacerbated by the Factor Social newspaper. It is likely that this turmoil motivated Zemurray to regroup his companies near San Pedro Sula and his strong command of arms. During those years, in 1933, Tela was the center of a ravenous fire, so the central government issued a ban on wooden constructions, leading to Old Tela stopping building with its very distinctive and original constructions in the Caribbean city. In 1937, a cement kiosk was built, replacing the wooden one in Plaza Cabañas, designed by Pompeyo Guzmán.

Over decades of cohabitation of at least two major cultures, Honduran in Old Tela (Garifuna, Tolupan peasants, and migrants arbitrarily included) and American in New Tela, the question arises: Was there a banana culture in Tela? It is important to highlight the cultural element around labor, since then of a Fordian-industrial type and which is the real meaning behind the adjective “bananero.” According to Roncayolo (1990), there is no stereotyped, uniform, and linear urban personality that stands out when moving from rural to urban. In ports such as Tela, hybridizations are generated. The city of the 19th century created new spaces of encounters where new dynamics arise between people and their customs. In nineteenth-century Tela, the new meeting spaces are the plaza where a kiosk for concerts is located, as well as a modern hotel, the Cabañas (later called Balderach), with a restaurant, bar, and cafeteria. According to studies conducted in Costa Rica, (Shragai, 2011), the customs brought by the “First Class” employees of the TRRC, generated new individual and collective identities in the CFU sites in Central America, identities that undermined the accepted ethnic, national and cultural differences and led to the formation of the “Banana Culture,” a term coined by the employees themselves. Although anthropological research on the banana plantations in Honduras is scarce, there is evidence that allow us to infer similarities with the Costa Rican case. In Tela, dance halls, animated by mostly Jamaican musicians (probably from Barbados or other British Islands), who introduced music genres like jazz, blues, calypso, and other Caribbean rhythms in Honduras.

The case of Black Antilleans or Jamaicans in Central America has been studied in several areas, such as Costa Rica (Echeverri-Gent, 1992) and Honduras (Centeno, 2004). West Indians arrived in Honduras to work in the banana plantations at the beginning of the 20th century and were distributed in the main enclaves of Islas de la Bahía, Puerto Cortés, Tela, La Ceiba, Trujillo, and La Lima. They spoke English and occupied an intermediate scale between white employees and Hondurans. In other words, they were subject to multiple differentiations based on race, nationality, social class, and religion. Centeno states that Jamaicans adhere by race to the Garifuna, but by ethnicity, language, and culture, they do not. The Garifuna speak their own language, the Antilleans speak only English, and this is the origin of their last names. In La Ceiba, the English quarter was occupied by the Antilleans, as well as in Tela, they were found in the neighborhood La Curva (Valladares, 2012) which was reached by Jamaica Avenue, after Tela Nuevo. They had an Anglican school for their children (called Negro school in the files of the UF). ⁵ In fact, because of their nationality, they are British subjects of the colonies, so that on rare occasions they were protected by the British Crown (Echeverri-Gent, 1992). Centeno points out that this community, also called Black English, did not have access to the ladino spaces (upper class Hondurans), such as the Casino of La Ceiba, unless they were cooks, waiters or musicians (Fig. 10), even though they could access to the Masonic Lodge, an organization brought by the Americans (having one chapter in Tela). Rejected by Hondurans, even in migration and foreign affairs (1929, 1934), the Jamaicans “were instrumentalized by the white bosses as scabs in intermediate positions of trust as commanders and foremen so that they would not identify with the mixed-race agricultural workers” (Centeno, 2004).

Another group that burst into the labor modern scenario in Tela were women. The UFC employed women as secretaries, assistants, teachers, cooks, washerwomen, being these jobs, the start point for women in Tela (Fig. 11). For people in Tela, it meant a turning point in their traditional society to have witnessed working women, such as the botanist Dorothy Hughes Popenoe (Joyce, 1994) and the archeologist Doris Zemurray Stone (Ibarra, 2016). Recent studies in gender perspective show in depth the role of cooks (patronesses) who cooked for the agricultural workers (Portillo, 2021) in the banana plantations.

Consumption was one of the novelties introduced by the inhabitants of the American zone. Heirs to the “Gilded Age,” their appetite for consumer goods and positioning, they broke the siege of the big stores in cities like Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, to reach remote places like the banana farms scattered around the Port of Tela. Powdered milk, Coca-Cola, nylon stockings, instant oatmeal, canned sardines, and other goods galore were distributed through the commissary system (Fig. 12). An ex-employee of the TRRC writes:

A feature that differentiates the gastronomy of the Hondurans of the coast from the rest of the territory is the consumption of wheat tortillas. This element was possibly derived from the “roti,” which was introduced by the “cowly,” natives of India, then an English colony, ⁶ who worked in the botanical divisions of the CFU. It is important to remember that the Honduran diet is a fusion of Mesoamerican foods (corn, beans, squash), macrochibchas (yucca), and those resulting from the Columbian exchange (pork, beef, chicken, rice). The diet of the campeños included signature elements of the coast and its macrochibcha culture (cassava, fishing) as well as fruits: plantains, bananas, and new products brought by the TRRC commissaries. The baleada is perhaps the emblematic dish of this fusion of flavors, the wheat tortilla, filled with ground and fried beans, accompanied by cheese, butter, and egg.

Another example of cultural fusion in banana towns like Tela was music. In the TRRC's party hall (known as Mess Hall), social animations were introduced, such as gala parties with dances, accompanied by musical bands or big bands, or jazz and fox trot groups such as the Banana 6 from Trujillo (Fig. 13).

It is in this context that the coastal identity or banana culture was reaffirmed around Caribbean rhythms, such as merengue, salsa, calypso, and other rhythms that emerged in the 1950s. The worldwide success of the song “Sopa de Caracol” (1991, Banda Blanca) by Honduran musicians has Caribbean roots, especially Garifuna. Public spaces are the scene of new syncretic cultural expressions such as ‘desfiles’ or parades adapted to the patron saint fairs, and marching bands in the style of New Orleans are adapted to the patriotic celebrations of September 15. The same happens with sports, as in countries with a strong American presence, such as Puerto Rico, Panama, and Cuba, in the banana cities, baseball, cricket, boxing, tennis teams and clubs are formed, and swimming pools are introduced for sports and recreational practices. Another significant feature is the Spanish that develops in the banana cities, full of Anglicisms linked to new technologies, and that designate the places where they are located (Table 3). The most tangible legacy of the banana era on the coast is undoubtedly the character of its inhabitants, perceived by the rest of the Hondurans as more open, industrious, and belligerent.

The general understanding of the banana-producing period is strongly influenced by literature, specifically novels. Four culturally communist writers were instrumental in cementing the darker side of the banana plantations in collective memory as cruel, inhumane, and exploitative enterprises. These authors were: Honduran Ramón Amaya Amador, an active member of the Honduran Communist Party at the time of his death in Czechoslovakia ⁷ and author of Prisión Verde (Green Prison) (1950); Costa Rican Carlos Fallas, author of Mamita Yunai (1940); Guatemalan Miguel Ángel Asturias (Strong Wind in 1950, The Green Pope in 1954, and The Eyes of the Buried in 1960); and Colombian Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) (1967). Asturias, in addition to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, was also the recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1965, awarded at the height of the Cold War. To confront this literary war, the UFC used marketing campaigns based on new mass media, specifically film, aimed at an American audience. In 1935, the short film “About Bananas” was made, and in 1950, the Technicolor reports “Journey to Banana Land” and “Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas” were released. Both productions were made to convince the American public and government officials of the benefits of banana plantations in Central America (Navarrete, 2019). According to notes from the State Department, they were on the verge of applying the Anti-Trust Act to these companies in those years. This was not done for fear of affecting the owners of the entire strategic communications infrastructure on the isthmus. ⁸ On their side, the banana companies assumed that the large investments in infrastructure, hospitals, schools, communications, technology, and job creation would generate enough good press in the countries where they operated. This optimism was evident in the banana divisions in Honduras on the eve of the 1954 strike. A year earlier, in August 1953, a top UFC executive was honored in La Lima with lavish celebrations including barbecues by the Company town club's pool, Broadway-style shows with ballet dancers, tap dancing, and Spanish dances brought from the US. The working conditions of the banana farmers, which were far superior to those of Honduran peasants and even migrant farm workers in the United States itself, ⁹ could not prevent widespread discontent during decades of harsh repression by the Carías government (1933-1949). This discontent was capitalized on by the communists, who had been active since the late 1920s and founded the Communist Party in San Pedro Sula in April 1954 (Meza, 1991, p. 105), taking advantage of Carías's departure from power in 1949 and the subsequent relative political liberalization. The communist leaders of that era were later idealized in quasi-hagiographical writings produced by social researchers trained in the Soviet Union or with an affinity for Marxism. In this way, these narratives gained strength, first from the collective imagination created in novels, as well as from the political propaganda widely disseminated at the country's only public university. Thus, the contradictions engendered by both positions, that of the authoritarian Honduran government supporting the UFC on the one hand, and that of radicalized unionism on the other, resulted in the General Strike in May 1954. Thirty-five thousand workers paralyzed all the country's plantations for 69 days (Meza, 1991, p. 81).

Among the demands made to the Company by the rural residents were wage increases, reduced working hours, double pay for overtime and holidays, access for families to the network of medical centers or clinics throughout the camps, and an end to racial discrimination and equal pay for equal work, among others. The last two are revealing in that they allude to the differential labor treatment granted to foreigners, in addition to the better segregated housing in Tela Nuevo.

The strike was initially led by communist militants, but after a month, they were replaced by cadres more sympathetic to the companies, who signed agreements with them. The strike ended with agreements that achieved partial results, but undoubtedly brought about labor improvements. Overall, the outcome was favorable for the workers, who gained organizational experience, and for the country, where it set a precedent for future demands. The strike also resulted in many layoffs; ten thousand employees were dismissed due to Company reorganization in the six months following the strike (Meza, 1991, p. 97). In the long term, this contraction would result in the end of the UFC in Tela. As with any social event of this magnitude, the experiences were very diverse, and it is important to open a dialogue of sources that have long been monologues from a single perspective. Among the employees themselves, there is no uniformity of experience, as revealed by the testimonies of former employees, which are necessary to complete the view of that historical reality:

It was even pointed out that the mistreatment that led to the Strike of 54 came mostly from Hondurans themselves who rose as bosses or foremen to the peasants, as stated by a TRRC employee in a publication of August 28, 1985, in the newspaper La Tribuna (Fig. 14).

The strike had a direct urban impact on Tela, as part of the strikers' demands, the TRRC implemented the return of uncultivated land. Thanks to this, new neighborhoods were created with these plots in the south and east of Tela in 1956: San José, San Antonio, Suyapa, Buenos Aires, Terencio Sierra, and Subirana. That same year, the city lost its elegant iron bridge over the Tela River; the structure was demolished due to poor maintenance and, in some ways, serves as a metaphor for the end of an era, one of economic prosperity for some and labor tyranny for others. The last projects introduced in the city during the study period were carried out by the national government during the administration of Ramón Villeda Morales (1959-1963). A new concrete bridge was built over the Tela River, replacing the suspension bridge. New schools were also built, all in functionalist architecture, concrete and devoid of ornamentation, aesthetically breaking with the previous architectural quality. UFC ceased to be run by Sam Zemurray in 1951, and in 1970, it merged with other companies and was renamed United Brands Company, with Eli Black at the helm. In the early 1970s, two consecutive hurricanes, Laura (1971) and Fifí (1974), caused losses due to flooding of remaining banana plantations (in the 1960s, a transition to other crops such as abaca and African palm had begun). But the worst storm was the managerial one. Overwhelmed by financial mismanagement and losses from the hurricane, director Black became embroiled in the scandal involving bribery of Honduran President Oswaldo López Arellano to reduce export taxes for the Company in 1975. ¹⁰ Known as Bananagate, the US government denounced the fraudulent scheme, which led to the definitive closure of the Company's operations in Tela. In 1977, a chapter in Tela's agricultural export history ended, but Tela Nuevo reinvented itself when it was converted into a beach hotel in 1978, which still exists today. ¹¹ Although the hotel was successful, it was not enough to replace the TRRC, so the rest of the city's economy, centered on services complementary to the banana industry, began to decline, eventually losing its railway infrastructure, the pier (destroyed in a fire in 1994), and some industry (Valladares, 2012, p. 107).