Bananas are originally Asian. They originated in Asia Minor, India specifically, and then were taken west by Arab traders and conquerors in roughly 327B.C.  Then it moved to Africa and was finally taken to the New World by the first explorers and missionaries to the Caribbean. Mass production of bananas began in 1834 and took off in the 1880s when it replaced the sugar crop. Alexander the Great first tasted the fruit when he tried to invade the Indian valleys. After he tasted the unusual fruit, he took them with him to the west from where they became a global phenomenon.