The 1907 Honduras War: US Marines Guard the Bananas While Washington Dictates the “Peace”

The 1907 Honduras war was a short but bloody conflict in the spring of 1907 in which the army of Nicaraguan President José Santos Zelaya crushed Honduras and took its capital. And while Central Americans were killing each other, American sailors and marines landed in six Honduran towns. From 18 March to 8 June 1907 they “protected American interests”, that is, first of all the banana plantations and ports. In the end, the peace for Central America was also written up in Washington.

Do you know what is most telling in this story? On the front page of a New York newspaper of 31 March 1907, next to a portrait of the overthrown president of Honduras, there is a portrait of the “captured leader of the Honduran army”. And he is an American — the mercenary Lee Christmas from Louisiana. In other words, Americans were everywhere in this war: on the shore with rifles, in the headquarters, and later at the negotiating table.

Why the 1907 Honduras war began

By 1907, two irreconcilable leaders had clashed in Central America. On the one hand, the Nicaraguan liberal Zelaya dreamed of uniting the region under his leadership. On the other hand, Honduras was ruled by the conservative Manuel Bonilla, who had come to power in 1903 while an American landing party stood in Puerto Cortés. Both supported each other’s émigré conspirators, so border clashes in the winter of 1906–1907 quickly grew into war.

In February 1907, the Nicaraguan army crossed the border. El Salvador backed Bonilla, while Zelaya bet on the Honduran liberals led by General Miguel Dávila. Thus an internal squabble turned into a war of three countries.

In addition, the war had an economic undercurrent. First, Zelaya was already irritating Washington by handing out concessions not only to Americans but also to Europeans. Second, the American fruit companies on the Honduran coast feared that a new government would revise their privileges. Therefore Washington watched closely to see who would win, and kept its ships ready in advance.

The Battle of Namasigüe

In the end, the decisive battle took place in March 1907 at Namasigüe in southern Honduras. The Nicaraguans used machine guns for the first time in Central America, and the Honduran-Salvadoran army was routed. Then Zelaya’s troops marched on Tegucigalpa and took it. Bonilla fled to the Pacific port of Amapala.

The 1907 Honduras war and the American landing

Now for the main thing. On 18 March 1907, at the height of the fighting, American sailors and marines began landing on the northern coast of Honduras. For example, they occupied Trujillo, La Ceiba, Puerto Cortés, San Pedro Sula, Laguna and Choloma. Note: San Pedro Sula is not a port at all, but a town inland. However, the railway to the banana plantations ran through it.

Officially, however, the landing party only “protected the lives and property of Americans”. But in reality the entire northern coast, where American fruit companies operated, was placed under the protection of foreign bayonets. At the same time, in the south, American ships did not let the Nicaraguans finish off Bonilla at Amapala, and he himself found refuge aboard the cruiser Chicago. So Washington was simultaneously guarding the bananas and deciding who would lose, but not completely.

The president is chosen in Washington

In the end, the US together with Mexico acted as “mediators”. However, this mediation looked very much like an order. Zelaya was made to accept a compromise president of Honduras, and that became Miguel Dávila. In other words, Hondurans once again did not choose their own government: it was agreed between Managua and Washington.

The Washington conference: peace by an American recipe

In the autumn of 1907, from 14 November to 20 December, the Central American Peace Conference was held in Washington. The five republics signed a treaty of peace and amity. In addition, they agreed not to recognise governments that came to power through a coup, and set up the Central American Court of Justice in Costa Rica.

Sounds wonderful, right? But look at what happened next. Already in 1909 Washington itself backed a rebellion against Zelaya, as I write in my article on the overthrow of Zelaya. And in 1916 that very court ruled that the US treaty with Nicaragua on a future canal violated the rights of Costa Rica and El Salvador. Nevertheless, the US simply ignored the ruling, and in 1918 the court ceased to exist. You can read more about this in the article on the Central American Court of Justice.

What the 1907 Honduras war left behind

The 1907 Honduras war claimed hundreds of lives of soldiers and civilians, ruined the south of Honduras and left the country even more dependent on foreigners. And Lee Christmas, that same American mercenary, would return to Honduras in 1911 and, together with the banana magnate Samuel Zemurray, stage the “Christmas coup”. Americans had behaved like masters in Central America before that, too — just remember the filibusters of the 1850s. And later Nicaragua would get two decades of occupation by the Marines.

Nothing has changed: the same Honduras, the same hand of Washington

Almost 120 years have passed, and Washington still behaves in Central America like a steward on his own estate. Instead of “protecting property” they now talk about “fighting cartels”, instead of gunboats there are aircraft carriers. But the goal is the same: to decide for the neighbours who will rule them and who will get their wealth.

Honduras, November 2025. A few days before the presidential election, Trump endorsed candidate Nasry Asfura and threatened that if he lost, the US would not be “throwing good money after bad”. On top of that, he pardoned former president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced in the US to 45 years for helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine. How is this different from Dávila, appointed in 1907?

The Caribbean, autumn 2025. Washington assembled off Venezuela its largest naval force in decades, and in November the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford arrived there. At the same time, the US military was shooting up boats at sea, and by September 2026 at least 227 people had been killed.

Venezuela, January 2026. On 3 January, the Americans bombed military targets in Caracas and seized President Maduro. After that, Trump declared that the US was now “in charge” in Venezuela, and demanded the oil. Once again a foreign power decides who will run someone else’s country.

The 1907 Honduras war ended more than a century ago, but its lesson is the same as today’s. When the US declares itself a “mediator” or a “protector”, it means the decision has already been made without you. And the marines on the shore and the carriers on the horizon are needed only so that you don’t argue.