Belize History Belizenet

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When the Europeans came to the Americas in the 15th century, there were about thirty million people living in this hemisphere. These people were of very different cultures and lived in varied and separate societies. Some societies were as complex as the Aztecs, whose large cities were supported by innovative agricultural methods; or the magnificent mountain cities of the Incas, who practiced terrace cultivation.
The first Americans came from Asia across the Bering Strait.

The first inhabitants of the Americas appeared about 50,000 years ago. At that time the Bering Strait between Asia and North America was not covered by water. American Indian GirlScientists believe that over a period of several thousand years people from Asia travelled east over this passage. In their search for food, they probably followed herds of animals to what is now the Americas.

These newcomers were the ancestors of the indigenous people of the Americas. Their descendants slowly travelled south, making homes all over the continent. After thousands of years they adapted to their different environments, learned new skills, created new traditions and developed diverse cultures. By the time the Europeans came, various peoples occupied different areas of the Americas - for example, the Iroquois in the northeast, the Navahos in the southwest and the Cherokees in the southwest of what is now the United States of America.

We know these people had many skills which they used to survive and communicate. They knew how to use fire and they made tools out of bone, wood and stone. They were good hunters and made clothing from the skins of animals.
Farming and Settling

Some of the early settlers in the Caribbean and Central America were the Arawaks and Caribs. They were skilled hunters and fishermen who caught birds, fish, turtles and other animals.

The Arawaks were also farmers. Like other groups in the Americas, they learned how to farm about 9,000 years ago. It was an important development when they learned not only the different uses of wild seeds, fruits, and roots, but also how to cultivate them. Some of the crops grown by the early peoples of the Caribbean were yam, cassava, maize, tobacco and cotton.

In what is today Central America and Mexico, the Maya developed complex civilizations. This took place thousands of years before the Europeans came and called this continent a "new world".
The Maya

The Maya lived in the area that is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize. The peak of the Maya civilization was between 250 A.D. and 900 A.D. But it took thousands of years to develop.

The Maya grew corn, beans, squash, cocoa and chile peppers. They learned to make clay pots, hardened by fire, that were both useful and beautiful.Pre-Columbian Figurine They cultivated cotton and learned to dye and weave cloth in bright patterns. They constructed buildings and created sculptures from stone. They made jewelry and ornaments from jade, and traded gold, silver, copper and bronze with other peoples.

The earliest known settled community in the Maya world is Cuello in the Orange Walk District. Cuello existed as long ago as 2,000 B.C. The Maya of Cuello were great pottery makers and farmers.

Eventually many communities in the Maya world grew and became more complex. Great cities flourished. The Maya built grand temples, palaces and public buildings, plazas and ball courts, and created sculptures that showed the lives of their gods and heroes. Many people came to these cities to trade and worship. This period of development between 250 A.D. to 1,000 A.D. became known as the Classic Period of the Maya. Among the communities that became powerful civic centres at this time in Belize were Altun Ha, Lubaantun, El Pilar, Xunantunich and Caracol.

Religion, mathematics and astronomy played an important role in the culture of the Maya. All these were closely connected. The priests were also astronomers and very active in public affairs. Many of their most important buildings were devoted to these activities. With these combined skills, the Maya were able to make calendars that were far more complicated than those we have today, and just as accurate.

The Maya had a system of writing. They recorded important events on big slabs of stone called stela. Maya StelaThese writings are still visible 2,000 years later and are helping us to discover more about their culture.Writing was also set down in books made from bark. Very few of these pages have survived to this day. Most of the books were burned when the colonizers arrived because the symbols and their meanings seemed evil to the Spanish priests.

There is still much we do not know about Maya society, but every year archaeologists make new discoveries among the ruins of the ancient cities. We do know that each city was largely independent but often they would go to war to expand their control and influence to other cities. Maya society was divided into strictly ranked groups. Each group had its own rights and duties. At the top were the supreme rulers who inherited their position. The merchants were also important to Maya society. They traded by sea and by land. They traded salt, cotton, cocoa, fish, honey, feathers, shells and precious stones. Cocoa beans were used as money. Belize was an important trading centre for the entire Maya area. Some major trading centres were Moho Caye, Santa Rita, Ambergris Caye and Wild Cane Caye.

The majority of the Maya were farmers. They lived in simple thatched houses surrounded by forest gardens. They ate tortillas, beans, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables. The rich had a more elaborate diet of turkey, fish and game meat, and a chocolate drink made of cocoa and chile. Most Maya wore simple cotton clothes and occasionally sandals. The rulers and merchants wore jewelry and feathered headbands.

All civilizations have periods of growth and decline. By the middle of the 10th century, Maya society began to decline rapidly. Although the causes are not certain, archaeologists believe this may have happened because the land was no longer able to produce enough food for the people. Changes in climate, wars and scarcity of products to trade may have further contributed to weaken Maya society. As temples and public buildings were abandoned they began to decay. Many people moved to other areas. The population became smaller. Yet there were still many Maya in Belize by the 16th and 17th centuries. They had been there since ancient times, and survived the decline of their great civilization. But when the Europeans arrived and began to colonize the land, Maya civilization was dealt yet another blow.

Today the indigenous Maya live in areas of Guatemala, Mexico and Belize. They speak twenty-four Maya languages that evolved from the Classic times.
From the 15th century onwards, European countries like Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain began to build empires around the world. These nations expanded their political control, their economic systems and their cultural influence in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

Portuguese sailors and navigators were among the first to set out on remarkable voyages of exploration. In 1415, the Portuguese captured the city of Cueta in North Africa. Port of Sevilla, SpainThey then went on to conquer the West African coast that was rich in gold, ivory and silver. In 1498, an explorer named Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, going around the continent of Africa for the first time in history. This opened up a sea route to India for Europe.

While the Portuguese explored the east, the Spanish set out to explore the oceans to the west. Encouraged by an Arabian idea that the world was round, Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain in 1492, hoping to reach China and India. After a hazardous ten-week voyage, he sighted the Bahamas on October 12, l492. To the Europeans this was a new world. But Columbus at first thought he had reached India. It is because of this mistake that we still call the people who first lived in the Americas "Indians" and the islands in the Caribbean the "West Indies". The Continent itself was later named America after another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who reached this "new world" in 1499.
British Supremacy in the Caribbean

It was the Spanish ships the "Pinta," the "Ni“a" and the "Santa Maria" that first landed in the Caribbean. Spain wanted absolute control over the "New World". They wanted only Spanish people, Spanish trade, Spanish religion and Spanish government to control the lands and bring riches of gold home.Spanish treated Amerindians cruelly Spain defended its monopoly by destroying the island peoples such as the Arawaks and the Caribs. They also conquered the great Aztec and Inca civilizations on the mainland.

The riches of this new world, however, attracted other European powers. The British, Dutch and French challenged Spain's monopoly in the 17th century. They used piracy, smuggling, and outright war to take over lands and set up their own colonies.

The Dutch, for example, took Guiana, and the British captured St. Kitts, Barbados and Jamaica from Spain. In the middle of the 17th century, some British pirates settled among logwood forests on the coast of the Bay of Honduras - what would later be called the Settlement of Belize. The French were also settling in North America and the Caribbean.

In the 18th century, the British and French fought for supremacy over the "New World". The British took control of more and more territories in the Caribbean. By the 19th century the British were the major power in the Caribbean. The British empire extended to all parts of the world, including the Americas, Africa, India, Asia and Oceania.

In the centuries that followed the great powers of Europe struggled with each other in heated and often violent rivalry to build their huge world empires.
The Spanish and British in Belize

n 1519-20, Hernan Cort»s conquered the Aztec empire in Mexico. His lieutenant, Pedro de Alvarado, defeated the Maya in Yucatan. Expeditions were sent to conquer what is now Guatemala and Honduras. CortÈs himself passed through the south-west corner of the Toledo District in 1525. Scattered settlements of Mopan and Chol Maya in that area were also devastated by Spanish incursions in the 17th century.

The Spaniards tried to control the Maya of Chetumal. Chetumal was then the capital of a large Maya area, and was located just west of present-day Corozal Town, possibly at Santa Rita. In answer to a demand to submit to Spain, Chetumal's chief, Nachankan, replied that his only tribute would be "turkeys in the shape of spears and corn in the shape of arrows". The Maya defeated the Spanish and old Chetumal in Belize became a place of refuge for Maya fleeing the Spanish rule.

The Spanish invaders moved farther south, but all attempts to control other Maya villages, like Lamanai in New River Lagoon, and Tipu, a Maya village of about 500 inhabitants near Negroman in the Cayo District, eventually failed. The Maya fought back. They burnt the churches the Spanish missionaries had built and returned to their old beliefs. In southern Belize, the Chol Maya opposed the Spanish in the same manner.

The Spanish never had lasting control over the Maya in Belize. They never settled in the area but they did cause social disruption. During the Classic Period of the Maya, the population of what is now Belize was at least 400,000. After the decline, the population was greatly reduced. Of those who remained, as much as 86 per cent died after coming into contact with the Spanish. Some were killed in war, but most of them died from new European diseases brought by the conquerors.

By the time the British came to Belize the Maya were no longer living near the coast. When the British arrived in the 17th century they did not mention any contact with the Maya. It was only late in the 18th century that their records show contact with the Maya inland.
British Settlers

The first British who arrived on the coast of Belize left few records. They were pirates, buccaneers and adventurers, and lived in rough camps which they used as bases to raid Spanish ships. BuccaneersBy the middle of the 17th century these pirates began to cut the logwood they found in the area. In 1670 the Treaty of Madrid put an end to the piracy and encouraged these settlers to cut logwood. These settlers were called Baymen.

Logwood is a tree from which a valuable dye used to colour woolen cloth was made. It was the economic basis for the British settlement in Belize for over 100 years.
Spain versus Britain

There was frequent conflict between the British and the Spanish over the right of the British to settle in Belize and cut logwood. During the 18th century the Spanish attacked the settlement many times, and in 1717, 1730, 1754 and 1779 forced the settlers to leave. However, the Spanish never settled in Belize, and the British returned and expanded their settlements and trade.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris gave the British rights to cut and export logwood. But Spain still claimed sovereignty over the land. By this time the logwood trade declined, but the mahogany trade started to grow, and the Baymen continued to log the area.
St. George's Caye

On September 15, 1779 the Spanish captured St. George's Caye, where most of the settlers lived. One hundred and forty prisoners and 250 slaves were captured and shipped to Havana. The settlement was deserted until a new peace was declared in 1783. By that time, mahogany had become the major export.

New agreements continued to be made between the Spanish and British about the rights of the Baymen. The Treaty of Versailles, in 1783, gave the British rights to cut only logwood. It allowed them to cut trees between the Hondo and Belize rivers, with the New River as the western boundary. The settlers petitioned the British government, and a new agreement was signed in 1786.

This Convention permitted the Baymen to cut both logwood and mahogany as far as the Sibun River. But they were not allowed to build forts, to govern themselves, engage in agriculture, or do any work other than woodcutting. In addition, this Convention gave the Spanish the right to inspect the settlement.

The British continued to have only limited rights over the area. Then on September 10, 1798 there was another Spanish attack on the Settlement of Belize. The Spanish forces were strong, but the Baymen were more familiar with the coastal waters. This time, with the help of their African slaves, an armed sloop, and three companies of a West Indian Regiment, the British side won what became known as the Battle of St. George's Caye. The Spanish retreated and never again tried to control Belize.
The British versus the Maya

In the past, some historians claimed that when the British settlers came in the 17th century, Belize was uninhabited. But we have seen that the Maya still lived in the area. As the British moved deeper into the interior they came into contact with them.

The Maya strongly resisted British attempts to take over their territory. In 1788, the British reported a Maya attack on woodcutters at New River. In 1802 some troops were ordered to "be sent up river to punish the Indians who are committing depredations upon the mahogany works". There were many such conflicts throughout the 19th century.

Despite their strong resistance, the Maya were forced back by the British. By 1839, they had retreated into the forests around San Ignacio. But they did not stop fighting. The Maya continued to attack mahogany camps and to control inland areas of Belize.

In 1866, the Maya leader Marcos Canul led a raid on a mahogany camp at Qualm Hill on the Rio Bravo in what is today the Orange Walk District. Two men died and a ransom was demanded for the captured prisoners. Mestizo familyThe Maya also demanded rent to be paid for the use of the land the British occupied. Later that year Canul's army defeated a detachment of British troops. Five British soldiers were killed and 16 wounded.

The settlers were very scared. The British sent more troops and weapons, went into Maya villages and burnt their houses and fields. Their intention was to drive the Maya out by destroying their food supplies. Over the next five years the Maya rebuilt their villages and replanted their fields. Canul and his men continued to fight. In 1870 they took over Corozal Town. In 1872 they attacked the British barracks at Orange Walk, New River but they could not capture it. Canul was mortally wounded, and they retreated. This was the last major Maya attack on the British.

The British had been determined to get the Maya from their lands so they could cut mahogany in the areas surrounding the colony. They saw them as an obstacle to their mahogany business. They felt the Maya could provide them with cheap labour, and try to prevent them from owing land. In 1867, Governor Austin ruled that "No Indians will be at liberty to reside upon or occupy or cultivate any land without previous payment or engagement to pay rent whether to the Crown or the owner of the land".

By 18XX, the British wanted to attract white settlers to the land. Refugees from the United States Civil War were encouraged to settle in Belize and farm. The Maya, who had farmed the interior of Belize for hundreds of years, were forced off their land.

he British woodcutters who settled Belize in the 18th century soon looked for people who could work for them. They could not find enough labourers locally, and so they began to use the same source of labour used in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean - slaves from Africa.

Slavery is a system in which human beings are owned and forced to work by their master. Slaves can be bought and sold, and are denied all rights, even to have a say about what happens to their children.
Gathering slaves

Slavery has existed throughout history, in societies as varied as those of Rome, China and Africa. Many kinds of people in history have been, at some time or another, both slaves and slave owners. But in the Americas there developed a system of slavery that was closely associated with race - almost always, the masters were white and the slaves black. The child of a slave mother was born into slavery, and generally a black person was assumed to be a slave until he or she could prove otherwise. Slavery was built upon the unjustifiable theory that black people were inferior to white people. Because of this, several generations remained in bondage. Racism was used even after slavery to continue the abuse and discrimination of people, simply because of the colour of their skin.
A Labour Force for the Americas

The Europeans severely reduced the population of the Caribbean through war and disease. When they began to use the lands to grow sugar and tobacco and other crops, they needed workers. They took the lands of the indigenous people and forced them to do the work. As the plantations grew larger and larger, more people were needed.

They then looked for white labour. Convicts from Europe were sent to the Caribbean and forced to work. Poor white people came from Europe as "indentured servants". However, there were not enough Europeans who were willing to come to the Americas under these conditions.

In the 15th century the Portuguese began slave trading with Africa. Europeans in the Americas now became involved in this trade to satisfy their need for workers.
The African Slave Trade

Slavery existed in Africa long before the Portuguese arrived. Captured prisoners from wars between the tribes in Africa were often kept as slaves. A slave trade existed within Africa and with East India as early as the 12th century.

The trade in Africans across the Atlantic Ocean began in the early 16th century and continued for almost 350 years. The Europeans made huge profits from this trade. It helped to expand and enrich their economies.

In 1518, the first African slaves arrived in the Americas. They came to Hispaniola from Guinea in West Africa. What began as simply trade in gold, ivory, pepper, and only a few human beings, became a huge trade in human cargo in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Slave posterThe slave trade was part of a triangular trade route. Manufactured goods were taken from Europe to Africa. The goods were exchanged for slaves who were then taken to the Americas. There the slaves were exchanged for sugar and other colonial products which were shipped back to Europe. Many people were involved in this profitable trade, from European and Arabian merchants to African kings.

The trade in Africans across the Atlantic was the largest and most terrible experience of forced human migration the world has ever known. During the 300-year period of slavery, between 15 and 20 million Africans were transported. Millions of Africans were forced to suffer the nightmarish trip into slavery across the Atlantic. This voyage across the Atlantic, the middle stage in the trading triangle, was called the Middle Passage.

People were captured and traded in Africa, then crowded into pens, called baracoons, like cattle. Many died before they even boarded the ships. Once on board, the slaves were so crowded and provided with so little food and water that they often became sick and died. It was common for about a third of the number on a ship to die before they reached the Americas. One ship, the "Hannibal", lost 320 of its 700 slaves. The captain complained about his own "misery", "pain", and "ruin", because he lost so much of his cargo.

While millions of Africans were being enslaved in the Americas, the proud and ancient peoples of Africa were also being conquered and colonized and their cultures destroyed.
The Africans

The earliest human beings appeared in Asia and Africa. Discoveries in eastern and southern Africa show that tool-making peoples lived there more than 500,000 years ago. Like every early civilization around the world they discovered fire, learned to hunt, and cultivated crops.

African hunter-gatherers later became farmers and cattlemen. Around 500 B.C., stone tools and weapons were gradually replaced by iron. This improved their ways of working and fighting so quickly that in a few hundred years different African peoples developed advanced civilizations. Some cultures became skilled metalworkers in gold, copper, tin and bronze. In time, powerful kingdoms and empires were formed. All these developments took place almost 2,000 years before the European slave trade.
African Life

Ancestors played an important part in the lives of African people. They felt that their ancestors could still influence their lives for good or bad. Elders and priests reminded the people of their ancient customs and traditions and they were advisors to the kings. They were also the judges, the medicine men, and the religious leaders.
Musical Instruments

Although African religions are very different from one another, they are similar in many ways. African religions, like many others, believed in many gods. Each god had special powers, or watched over a special activity. Each craft and trade had its own god. There were also the gods of the earth, sky, and the sun.

Music was closely connected with the religious traditions. Two important features of African music were intricate rhythms and call and response compositions, where the leader sings, then the chorus sings back.

Music festivals were used to celebrate important social and religious events. Drums were used to communicate from one village to the next. These were called "talking drums." Even today Africans have many different kinds of drums. A wide variety of instruments were used in addition to drums, such as banjos, castanets, clarinets, trumpets, fiddles, fifes, flutes, rattles, tambourines and triangles.

The slave trade destroyed the wealth and property in African societies, but most Africans kept their cultural heritage. Those who came to the Americas brought their culture with them.
Slavery in Belize

hroughout the Caribbean, slavery was associated with sugar plantations. Sugar production made each island a single-crop economy, entirely dependent upon colonial trade. Large numbers of slaves worked on huge plantations and slave communities developed. As the slave population increased, large black majorities developed who were ruled by white minorities. This became the typical Caribbean society, divided by race, culture, and class.
Trading Slaves

In Belize, slaves were used for logging. Therefore, slavery and Belizean society developed differently from other parts of the Caribbean where slaves and their families worked and lived in plantations. Slaves in Belize worked in scattered gangs in the forests, separated from their families in Belize City.

But there were similarities. Belizean masters had control over the lives of their slaves, and treated them like mere property. But because of the kind of work they did slaves were able to maintain some control over their lives.
Origins

The earliest historical record of black slaves is from a Spanish missionary in 1724. He reported that they had been "introduced but a short time before from Jamaica and Bermuda".

Most of the slaves were brought to Belize in the late 18th century from the West Indies. Often they came through markets in Jamaica but some were brought directly from Africa, or from the United States. Belize City 1912At that time most of the slaves bought by the British were taken from the Niger and Cross Delta regions in the Bight of Benin (present-day Nigeria) in West Africa, and from further south in the Congo and Angola.

In 1850, African slaves in Belize still identified themselves according to the tribes they came from in Africa. It was stated that there were in Belize "Congoes, Nangoes, Mongolas, Ashantees, Eboes, and other African tribes". One section of Belize Town was known throughout the first half of the 19th century as Eboe Town. In 1850 it was said to consist of "numerous yards, flanked with long rows of what are called negro houses, being simply separate rooms under one roof, which used to be appropriated to slaves, and now accommodate the poorer labourers".
Population

African slaves were the majority of the population before the middle of the 18th century. An early census in 1790 showed that three quarters of the population were slaves, a tenth white, and the rest were free blacks and people of mixed races. Hundreds more slaves were brought to Belize before the slave trade was ended in 1807. But in the next 25 years the number of slaves declined from about 3,000 to 2,000, or from about three quarters to less than half of the population. This was because the free black and coloured population increased to almost half. The white population stayed at about one tenth of the total.

As long as slaves were imported into Belize their number increased. But after the abolition of the slave trade the numbers declined, in part because of the high death rates and low birth rates. Slave punishmentThe slaves died from disease, malnutrition, ill- treatment, over-work and accidents; sometimes they killed themselves. The birth rates were low because there were generally two or three men to every woman. Abortion was probably common because slave women did not wish to have their children born slaves. In addition, there were large numbers of slaves who escaped from the settlement. Between 1807 and 1834 approximately 200 slaves escaped. About 600 slaves gained their freedom in that period.

But, as in other parts of the Caribbean, slaves died mainly because of the horrible living conditions under slavery. Their populations were maintained only by the slave trade.
Woodcutting

Slaves in Belize were initially used to cut logwood. Because of the way logwood was cut, a large number of small timber works developed along rivers, creeks, and lagoons in unsettled areas. The white settlers, with only one or two slaves, cut the logwood themselves.

When the settlers began to cut mahogany instead of logwood they needed more money, land, and workers. Mahogany trees were larger and grew farther inland and farther from each other than logwood. After 1770, 80 per cent of all male slaves aged ten years or older logged mahogany.

Woodcutting was seasonal and required the workers to spend long periods of time isolated in camps, away from their families. The mahogany trees had to be found, cut, and trimmed. Then logs were taken through temporary paths to the nearest riverside, at a place called the "Barquadier". The logs were formed into rafts and floated down the river, usually during the rainy season. Wood CuttersThe rafts were floated to a "boom" before reaching the mouth of the river. There they were squared for shipment to England.

Several different jobs were needed in this process. The huntsman's job was to search the forest to find the mahogany trees. Because this was an important skill, the huntsman was a very valued slave.

The axemen cut down trees. This was a very dangerous and highly skilled job because the axe was heavy and sharp. The axemen had to stand on a springy platform called a "barbecue" about 12 or 15 feet high. The rest of the gang had to trim the tree after it had fallen. They also had to clear the path through which the logs were dragged.

It was the cattleman's job to take care of the cattle used to pull the huge trunks to the river. Women and children prepared the food and looked after the provisions.

It was stated in 1809 that "The gangs of negroes employed in this work consist of from ten to 50 each; few exceed the latter number. The large bodies are commonly divided into several small ones, a plan which it is supposed greatly facilitates labour". This was another major difference between the work experience of the slaves in Belize and those who worked in large gangs on the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The smaller gangs reduced the need for close supervision. The foreman, whose job was chiefly to coordinate the gang's activities, had some authority. But the whip-wielding drivers of the sugar plantations were unknown in Belize.
Other Work

Apart from the jobs that were directly connected with woodcutting, slaves engaged in domestic work and some farming.

As elsewhere, the masters in Belize had slaves to clean their houses, sew, wash and iron their clothes, cook and serve food, and raise their children. Most of these domestics were women and children.

Slaves were often obligated to cultivate provisions, known as "making plantations". This allowed the master to save money by having the slaves grow their own food. Most of the slaves making plantations were women and old men. The young, strong men were used for the harder work of woodcutting. Many slaves also farmed on their own in their spare time.

There were other occupations among slaves, including sailors, blacksmiths, nurses and bakers. But most slaves had no choice and little freedom in their jobs. Young boys and girls started work waiting on their master's table, where they were taught to behave and obey their masters. Most of the young men joined the woodcutters, and the young women continued in domestic work. As they became older or sick, men were transferred to plantation work.

In Belize, a few settlers owned most of the slaves. In 1790, 20 estates owned over 100 slaves each, or more than half of the total. About a fifth of the settlers had no slaves. In the early 19th century the five largest owners owned 669 slaves, or over one quarter of the total.
Master-Slave Relations

Slave crueltySuperintendent Arthur reported in 1820 that many settlers treated their slaves with "extreme inhumanity" and "increasing severity and cruelty". In 1824, the settlement's chaplain stated that "there are instances, many instances, of horrible barbarity practiced there". There are descriptions in the Belize Archives of horrible cruelty to slaves. In Belize, the Superintendent, the head of the colonial administration, was in charge of the management of the slave system. Even if sometimes he and the settlers disagreed, they usually agreed on how to control the slaves. He would call the British navy for support when the slaves revolted. But the slaves were also controlled socially and psychologically by practicing the principle of "divide and rule".
Divide and Rule

The Colonial administration and the British settlers succeeded in dividing slaves from each other, African-born from Creole, blacks from brown, skilled and favoured from unskilled and unfavoured, converted Christians from "heathen", and so on. They also managed to divide the slaves from the "freed blacks and coloured" by giving the freemen just enough privileges and favours to make them identify with the whites.

The "free people of colour", as they were called, had some privileges but not as many as the white settlers had. They were free, but they could not hold commissions in the military. Their economic activities were restricted. They could not become judges or even sit on a jury. They had to own more property and live in the area longer than the whites in order to vote in elections. Many of the coloured people petitioned for more privileges. They stressed their loyalty and their "whiteness", and tried to keep separate from the black African slaves. By 1832 there were about 1,800 free coloured and black people in Belize (1,000 free coloured, 800 free black). This was almost half the total population.

The freemen of Belize were among the last in the British West Indies to receive equal rights with the white settlers. The white settlers controlled the early legislative assembly called the Public Meeting. In response to petitions, they allowed only one free coloured person at a time to become a member. They did not want the free people of colour to have power, but they expected the free coloureds to take their side against the blacks.

Once the free coloured in other British colonies in the Caribbean were accepted as equals, the Colonial Office in London pressed for change in Belize. The Office threatened to dissolve the Assembly if they did not agree. As a result, on July 5, 1831 the Public Meeting of Belize granted civil rights to "coloured Subjects of Free Condition".

The colonizers also succeeded in separating all the people of African ancestry from the Maya and Garifuna peoples, and the Maya and Garifuna from each other. In 1817 the magistrates of Belize were afraid that escaped slaves would join with the Maya and overpower the British. There is no recorded evidence that this ever happened, but it is believed that some runaway slaves were assisted by the Maya in their escape.
Slave Revolts

The Slaves' own actions tell us how they viewed slavery. They took drastic and dangerous actions, such as abortion, suicide, murder, desertion, and revolt to escape from slavery.

There were four recorded revolts and many desertions of slaves in Belize. Three revolts took place during the period between 1760 and 1770. During this time the price of logwood fell. The settlers had a difficult time getting the provisions they needed to feed the slaves. Because they tried to export more logwood to make up for the lower price, the two thousand or more slaves in Belize had to work harder, but were fed less. They revolted in 1765, 1768, and 1773. The third revolt was the biggest. It began in May on the Belize River. Captain Davey arrived in St. George's Caye and reported in June:

"The Negroes before our people came up with them had taken five settlements and murdered six white men and were joined by several others the whole about fifty armed with sixteen Musquets, Cutlasses, etc. Our people attacked them on the 7th inst. but the Rebels after discharging their Pieces retired into the woods and it being late in the afternoon we could not pursue them". Unfortunately, there are no records giving the slaves' side of the story.
Slave Revolts

Fourteen rebels surrendered soon after, but Davey could not take the rest. The revolt continued through October. Davey reported that trade in the area had stopped, and that the white settlers were scared and "in a very bad situation". If they did not stop this revolt, they feared other slaves might run away or decide to revolt also.

The H.M.S. Garland was sent to Belize. Nineteen of the surviving escaped slaves were trying to reach the Spanish territories in the north. Captain Judd of the Garland sent some marines to stop them. Eleven of them, however, succeeded in reaching the Spanish port in the Rio Hondo and were not returned. These slaves had crossed about one hundred miles of bush in the five months since they began the revolt.

The last slave revolt in Belize took place in 1820 on the Belize and Sibun rivers. The Superintendent declared martial law because a "considerable number of slaves" were well armed. He sent troops up the river. He discovered that "the Negroes who had first deserted and had excited others to join them, had been treated with very unnecessary harshness by their owner, and had certainly good grounds for complaint".

About ten days after the revolt began, Superintendent Arthur offered rewards for the apprehension of two black slaves, Will and Sharper, who were supposed to be the leaders. He offered "a free pardon to any of the other runaways, who will at this time voluntarily come in and deliver themselves". This revolt lasted for about one month.

Even when there was not a revolt the white settlers were scared that one would develop, so they kept what they called dangerous slaves away from the settlement. In 1791 the settlers were said to be "panic struck" when a French ship carrying over 200 rebels from Saint Domingue (Haiti) arrived. It was decided that "they should not be permitted to land so infectious a cargo". In 1796 the Belize Magistrates prohibited the landing of five Jamaican slaves who were suspected of having been Maroons, and in 1800 a Public Meeting discussed the settlers' "apprehension of internal convulsion and the horrors of Saint Domingo" happening in Belize.
Runaways

Apart from the four recorded revolts, we know the slaves were discontented because they ran away across the borders or created their own communities in the interior of Belize. It was relatively easy for the slaves to escape because they lived in small groups scattered in isolated parts of the country, and many slaves, like huntsmen, knew the bush well. In the 18th century, many slaves escaped north into Yucatan where the Spanish offered them freedom. Some of these former slaves even helped the Spaniards attack the British settlers in 1779. When the Belize settlement expanded to the west and south early in the 19th century, the runaways went through the bush to the Peten in Guatemala, and by boat down the coast to Omoa and Trujillo in Honduras. In 1823, for example, masters complained that in a little over two months, 39 slaves had escaped to the Peten where there was a community of blacks who had left Belize. This happened over and over again.

Some of the runaways began independent communities within the Belize area. In 1816, such a community was reported "near Sibun River, very difficult to discover and guarded by poisonous snakes". The following year, Superintendent Arthur reported that "a considerable body of runaway slaves are formed in the interior." In 1820, he mentioned "two slave towns, which it appears have long been formed into the Blue Mountains to the Northward of Sibun." We cannot find the exact site of those towns now, but there is a tributary of the Sibun River called Runaway Creek. These communities provided a place to which other slaves could run.

This shows that slaves in Belize, like those elsewhere, rejected the system of slavery whenever they had the chance. They revolted, fought against their masters, ran away, and even killed themselves. But the slaves in Belize did not succeed in freeing themselves.

Indeed, the only known case in human history of a successful slave revolt is the one which began in Saint Domingue in 1791, and ended with the Declaration of Independence of the new nation of Haiti in 1804.
End of Slavery

Belize, like other British colonies, lasted as a slave society until 1838, when slaves were emancipated throughout the British empire.

With the growth of industrialization in Great Britain came the need for a free market economy, where labourers were paid wages. By paying wages capitalists could make more profit by selling products to workers who now had their own money to spend. The slave system did not provide this.
1824 Act

Religious people and humanitarians had campaigned for the abolition of slavery since the 18th century. By 1831, increased humanitarian concern, the new economic interests in Britain, and slave revolts in the Caribbean combined to bring about the Act for the Abolition of Slavery. This was passed in Britain in June 1833.

The Abolition Act, however, did not produce drastic changes. Slavery was abolished, but land and labour were still controlled by Europeans. The Act included the introduction of the "apprenticeship" system, which was used to keep control over the workers and condition them to accept this control. Under this system, all slaves over the age of six years became "apprenticed labourers," and were forced to continue to work for their ex-masters without pay. This system lasted from 1834-1838 when it was abolished. The Abolition Act was generous and sympathetic to the slave owners but not to the slaves. The slave owners were even paid compensation by the British government for the loss of their slaves, but the slaves, even when they were legally free, still had to depend on their former owners for jobs, and were unable to own any land.

Until 1858 free land grants were given by the Superintendent but after 1858 the Colonial Secretary in Britain made it clear that Crown land would no longer be granted. He said that allowing the ex-slaves to obtain land might "discourage labour for wages."

The former masters in Belize controlled their ex-slaves by denying them land and by developing a system of labour laws, as we will see in Chapter 9. By these methods, the people of Belize, whether African, Maya or Garifuna, remained in a dependent situation, dominated by the British colonialists.

Dependent Belize in the World Economy

To understand our history, we must understand the place of Belize in the world economy. Over the last few hundred years more and more countries of the world have joined together in one global economic system. But the countries that make up this world economy are not equal. Those countries that began with more wealth and power were able to control and exploit poorer countries.
European Influence

The Western European nations controlled the economies of their colonies - dominated their capital, land, labour and markets. As a result, the Western European countries benefited from the profits made in the colonies. They became richer while their colonies became poorer.

Belize was totally dependent on the changing demands of the European markets. Its development- or lack of it - was defined by the needs of Europeans. Although our land was rich in resources, our people stayed poor.

In Part Two we will find out how the market forces shifted forestry exploitation from logwood to mahogany and how the early settlers monopolized the land. We will also find out how development of an import trade led to the raise of a merchant class and the suppression of agriculture, although some people did engage in subsistence farming. Part Two also discusses the role of new immigrants- Garifuna, East Indians and Mestizos in the expansion of the colonial economy.

The Dominance of Forestry

he extraction of forest products in Belize created conditions different from British colonies in the Caribbean.

First, because forest work required less labour than sugar plantations, there was no need for a large population. This is why even today Belize has only 7 per cent of Jamaica's population, although we are twice the size of that island. Secondly, forest exploitation as practiced in Belize did not require much machinery, capital, or roads. Thirdly, there was no attempt to replace the trees that were cut. Eventually, slow-growing mahogany trees became scarce.
Logwood

We have already learned that the first product exported from Belize was logwood. But logwood did not remain the main economic activity in Belize. MahoganyBy 1770 there was more logwood in the market than was needed, and the price fell. Later, the development of cheaper man-made dyes in Europe lessened the need for logwood even more.

When settlers were driven out from Belize by the Spanish in 1779, they had already found an alternative that was more profitable and longer lasting - the export of mahogany.
Mahogany

Mahogany dominated the economic, social and political life of our country until the middle of the 20th century.

In the 18th century, mahogany was valued in Europe by cabinet makers, by the shipbuilding industry, and later by builders of railroad carriages. The forests of Belize contained a great deal of mahogany. The British settlers were ready to log it.

The shift from logwood to mahogany cutting produced several dramatic changes in the settlement. The cutting of mahogany required more land, workers and capital and resulted in the creation of a small wealthy class who owned most of the land and labour.
Trade

Like logwood before it, mahogany suffered from rises and falls in demand and price. The years 1819 and 1826 were good years for mahogany, 1903 was bad. From 1834 to 1844 mahogany trading was very good but at the same time that exports were increasing, prices were going down. Between 1835 and 1841 the price dropped by half.

The rise in demand encouraged the cutting of trees, but no new trees were planted. Since mahogany takes many years to mature, the loggers had to move farther and farther inland to find trees. The time and effort increased the cost of logging. Since prices were going down at this time, the mahogany trade became less profitable.

The market continued to fluctuate. In the 1850's there was a severe decline in exports. By 1870, only two and three quarter million feet of mahogany were exported, the lowest yearly figure since the 1700's. By this time the settlers began to look for other economic activities.
Banana Plantation

A report of the Public Treasurer in 1860 noted that "agriculture is beginning to command a larger share of public attention." However, mahogany remained the most important export, and timber still earned the most money for the colony until 1959. It was only then that the combined value of sugar and citrus products was greater than the value of forestry products.

The total control of the economy by the logging companies meant the complete dependency of the colony on the mahogany trade. When the price of mahogany fell, it affected the whole economic and social life of Belize. At times, when companies went bankrupt their property was bought by other companies. This meant more land and capital ended up in the hands of a few.
The Merchant Class

Ever since the establishment of logwood settlements in Belize, The British settlers imported almost everything they needed to live and work. Most of what was needed but specially flour and salted pork, was imported.
James Brodies Flyer

The merchants and traders in Belize became rich and powerful. In 1885 the United States Consul in Belize wrote about "the tendency for persons to be disparaging about local agriculture efforts, least success in the direction might reduce the profits from imported foodstuffs".

At first, imports were totally controlled by the same people who controlled the export of timber. Then, in the 1920's, the entrepot trade with Central America grew and about four-fifths of the Central America trade went through Belize. Goods from Britain and the United States were imported into Belize first and then exported to other countries of the region. In 1860's, during the USA's civil war, the Belize merchants also profited by contraband trade with the Confederates.

Even without the entrepot and contraband trades the merchants were still very rich and powerful. They continued to be so long after forest exploitation declined.

The Monopolization of Land

and is a very important natural resource. The Maya, like Africans, believed that the land belonged to the entire community, not to individuals. But the Europeans believed land was private property that could be bought and sold at any time.

With colonization the European system of land ownership was brought to Belize. A small class of rich, absentee landlords developed. They took over the land for their own profit and excluded others from owning and often even from using the land. This system resulted in the growth of private wealth alongside wide-spread poverty while rich resources lay unused.

In Belize today there are about 200,000 people on almost 9,000 square miles of land. This means that there is a lot of land for very few people - one square mile of land for every 22 persons. Jamaica and Barbados have about 1,500 and 500 persons per square mile respectively.

So in Belize, a land scarcity is only possible if people are excluded from the ownership of land. This is what we find throughout our history.
Effects of the Monopolization of Land

During the years of slavery, about 12 families owned almost all of the private land in the settlement. Very little land was put into productive use. After the abolition of slavery, most of the population still could not own land. A few farmers tried to make a living on small farms without any real guarantees that the land was theirs.

The few landowners were more interested in the profits from logging than farming. People were not encouraged to farm and so remained dependent on imports. The most important effect of the monopolization of land was that the power to make decisions depended on ownership of land since only those who had land could vote. Land owners would also decide whether or not to use the land, and so controlled the amount of people working and their wages. We will now look at how the early settlers monopolized the land.
Logwood and Mahogany "Works"

For more than a century the early British settlers had no regulations about ownership of land, and each person cut logwood wherever he found it. This lack of regulations was because Spain still held sovereignty over the territory. MapBut in 1763, Britain signed the Treaty of Paris with Spain and gained the rights for its settlers to cut logwood. Then the settlers agreed on a system for regulating the boundaries of their logwood "works".

On April 10, 1765, the Public Meeting agreed that "when a person finds a spot of logwood unoccupied, and builds his hut, that spot shall be deemed his property". They also limited the amount of land a person could claim to 2,000 yards on the river. No cutter was allowed to hold more than one "work" in any river or creek.

The war between England and Spain in 1779 interrupted the cutters' work. The Peace Treaty of Versailles in 1783 gave them rights to cut only logwood, so the settlers were unhappy with the limitations imposed by the Treaty.

At a Public Meeting on June 12, 1784, the settlers re-established the regulations they had in 1765. They declared that the original settlers were to be "reinstated in their respective possessions... and all other property whether derived by right of possession or through purchase". As we can see, mahogany works and plantations, as well as logwood works, were established before the war in 1779 when they had to leave the settlement. It also proves that some of the land was already being bought and sold as if the cutters actually had rights of ownership.
Belize City Harbor

In 1786 the Convention of London extended the boundary southward to the Sibun River, and permitted the settlers to cut mahogany, but Spain still claimed sovereignty. The settlers did not respect the boundaries defined in the treaties. By 1799, they had gone as far south as Deep River; by 1806 they were as far as the Rio Grande. In 1814, there were settlers at the Moho River. They reached the present southern boundary of Belize, the Sarstoon River, by 1820.
Location Laws

In July and August, 1787, the settlers passed new laws about the mahogany works. These resolutions were known as "location laws". They required that a person "locate" a piece of land and stake his claim. The occupied lands were called locations or works, but they were actually treated as freehold property, being sold and inherited like private property.

Unlike the logwood works, the mahogany works covered large areas of land, and each person was allowed up to two mahogany works on any river. The largest areas of land were reserved for the richest settlers, those owning at least "four able negro men slaves".

The Public Meetings were controlled by the few wealthy white landowners. They passed resolutions to suit their own interests. Within a few months after these resolutions were announced, Superintendent Despard reported to London that 12 of the "Old Baymen" held four-fifths of the available land under the treaties, or about 2,000 square miles.
"Crown Lands" Established

When Superintendent George Arthur came to Belize in 1814, he was surprised at the "monopoly on the part of the monied cutters". He asked the Secretary of State for the colonies to take away from these settlers the right to grant lands to themselves. Col. ArthurSuperintendent Arthur issued a proclamation on October 28, 1817 that no occupancy of land would be permitted except by written permission from the Superintendent. He also ordered those who claimed land to record it, explaining how they got it. This was an unsuccessful way to stop the monopoly of land ownership. The Commission he appointed to check the owners' claims to the land was made up of the same people who were the largest landowners. They insisted that the land was correctly theirs.

Although the Superintendent was not able to stop the monopoly of land ownership, he did succeed in giving "the Crown" (the British monarchy) the sole rights to all unclaimed land.

This was especially important for the lands south of the Sibun which were outside the treaty limits. Superintendent Arthur was able to keep this land from wealthy land owners. The effect of this was still visible in Belize until the 1960's when most of the Crown Lands were south of the Sibun River.

During the 1850's Britain signed treaties with the United States and with countries in Central America to define Britain's role in the area. In 1859, the Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty was signed, admitting British sovereignty over Belize and agreeing to the boundaries as we know them today. In 1862 the settlement of Belize was declared a colony and was named "British Honduras".

During the period from 1858 to 1861, the Honduras Land Titles Acts were passed to allow land in Belize to be sold even if a legal title to it could not be proven. This encouraged people in Britain to buy land in Belize.

The law was written in England by a lawyer employed by the company that became the British Honduras Company. This company's name was changed to the Belize Estate and Produce Company (B.E.C.) in 1875. The B.E.C. so completely dominated our country that the history of Belize for the next hundred years was largely the history of that company. It owned one-fifth of Belize, half the private land in the country.
The Belize Estate and Produce Company

The largest of these partnerships was James Hyde & Co., a combination of two of the oldest settler families, James Hyde and James Bartlett, and John Hodge, a London merchant. They took advantage of all the land that was for sale during the depression, and also used marriages to control more. In 1859, James Hyde & Co. was bought out by the British Honduras Company, formed in England in 1859. In 1875 it changed its name to the Belize Estate and Produce Company (B.E.C.). With the land acquired from James Hyde & Co. and with others lands bought from bankrupt partnerships, the B.E.C. soon owned over a million acres in Belize, or about one-fifth of the entire country. This gave it enormous powers. Its lawyers drafted laws that helped them acquire more land.
B.E.C. Flyer

In 1867, Maya villages on B.E.C. lands in the Yalbac Hills were destroyed by armed force and again in 1930s fields and villages at Indian Church, San Jose and Yalbac were totally destroyed. The B.E.C. made hundreds homeless and fought strongly against the rights of its workers. Its chairmen were able to influence the Governor in Belize and the government in England. In 1847, the Chairman of the B.E.C. felt so confident about the company in Belize that he claimed "the interests of both are nearly identical."

Except for a brief period in the 1870's when it invested in sugar cultivation, the B.E.C.'s only use of the land was forestry exploitation. Yet it never used proper forest management nor did it replant trees - it just cut and shipped them. The B.E.C. was never able to use all its land, but it prevented others from using it in order to keep the population dependent on the Company and so better secure a cheap labour force.

The B.E.C.'s power in Belize lasted until the 1970's, when it was sold to an American company.

The Suppression of Agriculture

s we already know, there was always some agriculture in Belize. Some of the slaves cultivated provisions, either at the order of their masters to feed themselves or to sell. A number of free blacks and free coloured people also worked the land in small "provision grounds". Belize MarketThe Garifuna, too, cultivated crops. In 1824, Punta Gorda was described as a town with 500 people who grew "cotton, rice, the cohune, banana, coconut, pineapple, orange, lemon, and plantain, with other many fruits". The Maya continued to live in the interior and cultivate the land.

But although these four groups practiced subsistence farming in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the land was largely used for logging. The landowners and woodcutters were generally opposed to agriculture, especially when people farmed on their own. In 1805, for example, they passed a resolution forbidding a slave "to hire himself out to himself with a view to pursue Trade".

Yet farming continued. It even increased significantly between 1817 and 1838. After 1818, disbanded soldiers from West Indian regiments and their families arrived in the settlement. Almost 700 people came, significantly increasing the population of only 4,000. Although many of them worked in the mahogany gangs, a large portion cultivated the land in small plots. But, like free coloured and blacks, they did not have the proper titles to their lands. Powerful landowners were often able to force them off their land so they had to work for someone else.
Land Denied

At the time slaves were emancipated in 1838, the British government sent an order to all the West Indian colonies, including Belize. All Crown grants of land would from then on be sold at a cost of 1 pound sterling per acre. This order was given at a time when many newly freed ex-slaves looked forward to getting their own land to farm. But this would not be so.

For almost 50 years, British settlers had taken large areas of land for free. Crown grants were officially issued free for 30 years. But as soon as slaves were freed, the Colonial Office in London added a fee. The effect of giving free grants of land, it said, "was to create indolent habits, to discourage labour for wages, and to leave large tracts of territory in a wild and unimproved state". It worried them that now, large numbers of black men and women would qualify for the free land grants and a scarcity of labour would develop.

Once again it was important to discourage the ex-slaves from working their own land in order to force them to work in the mahogany gangs. As a result of the new order of charging money for land, from 1838 to 1855 no Crown lands were sold and even by 1868 very little land had been sold.

The Garifuna

The early Caribs migrated to the Caribbean islands from South America. They were farmers, trappers and fishermen, and they made pottery and tools out of wood, stone and bone. They moved every few years, using dugout canoes to get from island to island. The Caribs were good warriors, and used many different kinds of weapons like bows and arrows, spears and clubs.

During the 17th century, Africans who had escaped from slavery intermarried with the Caribs who lived in the Windward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean. The new people which resulted are today called the Garifuna.
Joseph Chatoyer

The Garifuna strongly resisted European control. They kept the tradition of the earlier Caribs who fought against the Spanish invaders. The Caribs continued to fight against the British and the French, but the Europeans had guns and were eventually able to overpower them. One of their great leaders was Joseph Chatoyer. The British confined the Garifuna to the islands of St. Vincent and Dominica but they continued to fight until they were finally defeated in 1796. The following year the British forced about 5,000 Garifuna to move to the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras. From there they migrated to the coastal areas of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and southern Belize.

By 1802 there were 150 Garifuna settlers in Stann Creek. They fished and grew ground foods. In 1811 they were already taking their produce to Belize Town to sell. A Magistrates' Meeting in that year directed that all "Caribs" arriving at the Fort (in Belize Town) must get a permit or ticket from the Superintendent, or leave the Settlement within 48 hours. In 1814, it was reported that they tried to become a part of the Public Meeting, but were not allowed. In 1832, many Garifuna left Honduras after a civil war there. On 19 November 1832 they landed in Belize, led by Alejo Beni. To commemorate their arrival, we now celebrate this day as Garifuna Settlement Day, a national holiday.

The Baymen were afraid that the Garifuna would help slaves to escape. The Baymen therefore set out to build up a distrust and fear in the slaves against the Garifuna. They spread propaganda branding them as "devil worshippers" and "baby eaters". This created a prejudice that persisted for a long time.

The British colonialists and woodcutters saw the Garifuna as another source of labour for their mahogany camps. By 1833, many of them were working in the camps. The Public Meeting appointed a policeman in Stann Creek to deal with what they called the "runaway Caribs".
Garifuna Settlement Day

In 1855, the "Laws in Force Act" gave legal title to any person who was in "quiet and undisturbed possession of land" since 1840 - but this did not apply to the Garifuna on their lands. In 1857, the Crown Surveyor issued a notice to the Garifuna of Stann Creek stating that they must apply for a lease or they would lose their land and any buildings on them. They were treated as squatters on Crown lands. Later, the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1872 established "Carib Reserves" and "Maya Reserves". This prevented the Garifuna and Maya from owning land as their private property.

The colonial authorities continued to give preference to the large land owners, usually British, over the Garifuna, Maya and Africans. For example, in 1868, Governor Langden stated that small plantations, though occupied for over 50 years, could be "sold over the heads of the present occupiers to large proprietors".
Immigrants from India

Many of the sugar growers in the Caribbean needed more labour on their plantations and they re-introduced the system of "indentured labour". Under this system a person was encouraged to come to the Caribbean to work for a "master" for a certain number of years. After that he was free to work as he pleased. But too often circumstances forced him to "re-indenture" themselves, and agree to work for a further number of years.

Most of the indentured workers came from India. Under British colonialism thousands of people in India had become unemployed. Many were starving because of droughts and increased food prices. Between 1844 and 1917, 41,600 East Indians were indentured to work in the British colonies in the Caribbean.

The exact number of indentured labourers brought to Belize is not known. However, the numbers were never large. The census of 1891 lists only 291 persons living in the colony who were born in India. East Indians were put to work in the sugar estates in the Toledo and Corozal districts. Their descendants can still be found in areas such as Calcutta in the Corozal District and Forest Home in the Toledo District.

The British were never very respectful to East Indians, but they came from a very advanced civilization. They built magnificent cities and were great traders. Europeans had traded with India since ancient times. East Indians were advanced in mathema