.SB 3l? 
Compiled and edited by Philip K. Reynolds, 
Assistant to the President of the United Fruit Co. 
EARLY HISTORY. 
P ROBABLY few of the millions who enjoy the banana as a 
daily article of food ever stop to consider its origin or 
growth or the long and rapid present-day journey of this 
remarkable fruit from the tropical plantation to the 
consumer’s table. 
While the commerce in bananas is of comparatively recent growth, 
the plant has been cultivated and used from the earliest historical 
times. The bas-reliefs of the monuments of Assyria and Egypt 
show that the fruit was known and used in those lands in ancient 
times. When Alexander the Great invaded India he found large 
tracts of land in the lower valley of the Indus devoted to the 
cultivation of the fruit. 
The original home of the banana is believed to be India, at the foot 
of the Himalayas, where it has been cultivated since remotest 
antiquity. Its origin in the New World is as doubtful as the origin 
of the American Indian. Indigenous to Asia and Africa, where more 
than 60 distinct species of the genus are known, it is said to have been 
brought first to America from Spain early in the sixteenth century 
and planted in the Dominican Republic, 1 whence its spread was 
rapid throughout the surrounding islands and the mainland. This 
has never been authentically established, however, and some authori¬ 
ties include the banana among the articles that formed the base of 
the food supply of the Incas and the Aztecs before the arrival of 
the Spaniards. Certain it is that throughout the whole of tropical 
America there is a strong tradition that at least two species of the 
banana were cultivated long before the coming of the Europeans. 
Furthermore, it is singular that in all the languages indigenous to 
the regions where the banana appears the plant has a special name, 
not proceeding from the conquerors, as was the case with the names 
of many other plants, animals, and various articles introduced into 
America after its discovery. 
1 The modern name of the eastern 'paiTTofHispaniola. 
1 
