Becoming Belize: A History of an Outpost of Empire Searching for Identity, 1528-1823 9789766402464

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Early Belize
2. Tipu, or Negroman
3. A New Phase of Resistance
4. Early British Settlementin Belize to 1763
5. “English Lutheran Corsairs”and the Miskito Indians
6. Spanish Attacks on Belize to the Treaty of Paris, 1763
7. Post-Treaty Attacks, Despite Recognition
8. The Mosquito Shore Settlers in Belize
9. The Belize Settlement up to the Battle of St George’s Cay
10. Aftermath of the Battle
11. Epilogue
Appendix A. Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras Subscribing to the Articles of Regulations, 1765
Appendix B. Accounts of Loss Sustained by the British Settlers at the Capture of St Georges Key, 1779
Notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Campbell

A HISTORY OF AN OUTPOST OF EMPIRE SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY, 1528–1823

“This work should appeal to scholars in the fields of Central American/Belizean history, Mexican history, Caribbean history, and studies on slavery and slave societies.”—Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University Mavis C. Campbell is Emerita Professor of History, Amherst College. She is the author of several books and articles, including The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society: A Sociopolitical History of the Free Coloreds of Jamaica, 1800–1865; The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal; Nova Scotia and the Fighting Maroons: A Documentary History; and Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone.

University of the West Indies Press Jamaica • Barbados • Trinidad and Tobago

www.uwipress.com

ISBN 978-976-640-246-4

Becoming BELIZE

Belize, formerly British Honduras, had a different beginning from most other British Caribbean colonies and was not dependent on sugar production but on the exploitation of the forests for timber. Unlike most books on Belize, this study explores in some detail the early Spanish attempts to colonize the area called Belize today and identifies many of the problems Spain encountered. Campbell persuasively posits that Belizean history can be pushed much further back from the traditional starting point of either the mid-seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The book provides a compelling thesis on the alliance between the British logwood cutters (the Baymen) and the Miskito Indians who together formed the major counterbalance to Spain’s power. The work also explores how social relations under forestry slavery were marked by less outward resistance and violence than that which obtained under the British sugar/slave economies of the region.

UWI PRESS

UWI PRESS

Becoming Belize

UWI PRESS

UWI PRESS

Becoming

BELIZE A HISTORY OF AN OUTPOST OF EMPIRE SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY, 1528–1823

Mavis C. Campbell

University of the West Indies Press Jamaica  Barbados  Trinidad and Tobago

UWI PRESS University of the West Indies Press 7A Gibraltar Hall Road Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica www.uwipress.com © 2011 by Mavis C. Campbell All rights reserved. Published 2011 A catalogue record of this book is available from the National Library of Jamaica. ISBN: 978-976-640-246-4

Cover illustration: Detail of a map of Central America by H.D. Rogers and A. Keith Johnston, 1857. Cover and book design by Robert Harris. Set in Adobe Garamond 11/14.5 x 27 Printed in the United States of America.

UWI PRESS T O

T H E

P E O P L E

O F

B E L I Z E

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UWI PRESS Contents

Preface / ix Acknowledgements / xiv Maps / ix

Part 1 Spanish Belize, 1528–1708: Attempts at Settlement

1

Early Belize: Spaniards and Maya in a Bloody Encounter / 3

2

Tipu, or Negroman: An “Outpost of Christianity” / 40

3

A New Phase of Resistance: Tipu in the Vanguard / 65

Part 2 British Belize, 1708–1823

4

Early British Settlement in Belize to 1763 / 95

5

“English Lutheran Corsairs” and the Miskito Indians: An Odd Relationship / 128

6

Spanish Attacks on Belize to the Treaty of Paris, 1763: Flight to the Mosquito Shore / 155

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CONTENTS

7

Post-Treaty Attacks, Despite Recognition: 1763–1787 / 180

8

The Mosquito Shore Settlers in Belize: The Establishment of Civil Government / 211

9

The Belize Settlement up to the Battle of St George’s Cay / 245

10

Aftermath of the Battle of St George’s Cay: Slavery in the Timber Industry / 283

11

Epilogue / 315

Appendix A: Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras Subscribing to the Articles of Regulations, 1765 / 327 Appendix B: Accounts of Loss Sustained by the British Settlers at the Capture of St Georges Key, 1779 / 329 Notes / 333 Bibliography / 395 Index

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UWI PRESS Preface

Belize has emerged from a long history of conflicts and uncertainties, not least of which was the normative entitlement to be identified by a given name. This is reflected in this book’s title. Strictly speaking, the name Belize did not apply to this country until 1973. I have therefore made use of formulations such as “the place or country called Belize today”, “present-day Belize” and the like. But because this could become tedious if repeated too often, I have frequently used “Belize” anachronistically in the text. My first interest in this country stemmed from a fascination with the major pre-Columbian civilizations (the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas), on which I taught a course here at Amherst College, but my scholarly interest became focused on the early post-Columbian period of the Maya region occupied by Belize today. I was intrigued by the question of how this section of Yucatan became a British outpost in the first place and how it survived despite Spain’s strong opposition throughout the colonial period. The next obvious question was whether or not Spain had ever settled the area and, if so, when and for how long? This piqued my interest because Central America was of such immense strategic and commercial importance to the Spanish crown, which jealously tried to protect it from intruders. Contrary to the thinking of many, Spain had been quite successful in expelling Britain from areas it considered of paramount importance. For instance, when Spain discovered from the Maya people the value of logwood as a dyewood, it was able to drive the British (who also soon appreciated the wood) from the rude logwood settlements they had established at Cape Catoche, Champoton; the small island of Trist, close to Campeche; and the THE YOUNG NATION OF

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Bay of Campeche itself – the largest and most prominent of these settlements. When well-connected and experienced British Puritans colonized Providence Island in 1630, the Spaniards were alarmed – understandably, because of the island’s strategic importance. Not to be confused with New Providence Island in the Bahamas, Providence Island, situated off the eastern coast of Nicaragua, was within easy reach of major Spanish ports such as Cartagena and Porto Bello and the Mosquito Shore, and in the direct path of those coveted metalladen Spanish vessels plying the route to Havana in transit to Spain. Spanish attacks on well-organized, well-garrisoned, well-fortified and well-armed Providence Island were therefore insistent, and within eleven years (1630–41) they had successfully expelled the British. The Bay of Honduras, which is physically part of Central America, was probably even more vital to Spain. Yet despite Spain’s hostility and its constant attacks on the British settlers there – beginning at the end of the seventeenth century, and becoming obsessively intense as the eighteenth century progressed – the Bay remained British, even if Spain held theoretical suzerainty over it. Why did Spain find it impossible to dislodge this unorganized settlement, which had nothing approaching the strength of Providence Island and indeed no official recognition by the British government for a very long time? The answer to this question comprises the major thesis of part 2 of this book. This second part will demonstrate that it was the Miskito Indians of the Mosquito Shore who saved Belize for Britain. The British – from the settlers of the region to the government in London – exploited and manipulated the Miskito Indians’ implacable hatred for the Spaniards, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the way Cortés played the Tlascalans against Montezuma. The bemused Spaniards lapsed into ineffectuality at the very thought of this odd AngloMiskito alliance, which defeated and frustrated them at every turn. Strategically, militarily and commercially, the Miskito allies on the Shore became Britain’s most important counterbalance to Spain’s power up to 1798. This is the central thesis of this work, and one that has not previously been put forward. It is a thesis that will not sit well with those afflicted with imperial nostalgia who hope to keep the “natives” in their “proper place”. A dismayed anonymous reader of the manuscript, for instance, found it “truly irritating to read” of the Spaniards’ deathly fear of the Miskitos. Also, because of the dismal condition of what is left of the Miskito population today, it is perhaps difficult for some to comprehend this extraordinary situation. But the fact is

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that without the unconditional support of the Miskito Indians, who boasted – truthfully – that the Spaniards had never conquered them as a people, the early, ramshackle British settlement of the Bay of Honduras could not have survived, as this study will show. It would have suffered the same fate as the other British logwood settlements in Spanish America. The saga of this unexpected alliance, based on clear evidence, is not treated within the context of “nativism” – the policy of protecting the interests of native peoples against Europeans. It is, rather, a demonstration of the extent of imperial flexibility (or Realpolitik) in choosing “friends” to maintain hegemonic control. It is also a story of naked imperial exploitation. The primacy of this relationship to early Belizean history, and the fact that it has not been examined in any systematic way before, forced me to spend more time than I had planned on Anglo-Spanish relations over the Miskito question. Basically, however, much of the early life of the British logwood cutters in the Bay of Honduras – the Baymen – has been examined; I was even able to devote some time to biographical sketches of a few, despite the extreme paucity of documentation. This was significant in helping to throw more light on these early agents of the evolution of this anomalous settlement, which was to transform itself finally into the country called Belize today. I have also looked closely at slavery in Belize. Having written widely on slavery and resistance on sugar plantations in other Caribbean societies, I was eager to examine forestry slavery in Belize. What I found was a great deal of quietism among the enslaved people, despite perfect conditions for just about every conceivable form of resistance. In trying to find probable causes of this quietism – unlike anywhere else in the region – I have analysed at some depth the treatment of slaves, the nature and conditions of the system, types of recruitment and the background of the bonded. In the process I have discovered certain singular conditions, based partly on the nature of control, partly on demographics, partly on spatial dimensions and, above all, partly on the consciousness of the slaves, that might have contributed to the quietism. Apart from my long-standing interest in comparative slavery within the Americas, I also taught a course for many years on comparative slave systems from classical antiquity to New World slavery, yet there are certain features of Belizean slavery, as the text will reveal, that remain puzzling to me. Part 1 looks closely into the question posed above of whether Spain ever conquered and colonized the area called Belize today. Although archaeologists

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have long identified a Spanish presence in most of what is present-day Belize, it was curious to me that writers in other disciplines ignore the subject, gloss over it, are incurious about it or dogmatically assert the contrary. But any serious history of Belize must confront this tough question, however difficult finding answers will be. Indeed, no history of Belize should be considered complete without a careful examination of this subject. Did Spain simply stand aside and allow the British to enter and occupy? Spain in fact struggled to conquer and colonize the place, but with only partial success. The nature of the successes and the failed attempts, as well as the factors that contributed to one or the other, should certainly be crucial parts of the narrative of Belize’s history. Part 1 is therefore named “Spanish Belize” and begins with a short overview of the papal donation of the “New World” to Spain, to remind readers of Spain’s rationale for claiming the region. But the primary concern is from 1528 to 1708, from the time Adelantado Francisco Montejo entered Chetumal with his patent from the Spanish monarch (received in 1526) to conquer, colonize and Christianize the “island of Yucatan and Cozumel” to the final dissolution of the Spanish administration at Tipu (present-day Negroman) in 1708. Part 1 is indeed a pioneer endeavour, since no one has previously attempted a history of this country that started with Spanish Belize. Although it was difficult and hazardous, I was convinced that this approach was essential for a better understanding of early Belize’s history. It was hazardous because I was well aware that in the process I would of necessity tread on the scholarly turf of others, and, like most pioneering works, this section is not without shortcomings. The most important of these has its basis in the fact that I did not consult the great Spanish primary sources, particularly those in Madrid and Seville, and apart from my uncomfortable experience at the Merida archives, I did not visit any other in the region. My hope, therefore, is that part 1 will provide a framework for further research and discussion. I feel certain that a more diligent search of Spanish sources in Madrid and Seville, as well as in regional archives not only in Mérida but also in Guatemala and Honduras, for instance, could produce more information on early Belize. This book ends in 1823. Dating for early modern Belize is very problematic. The precise date of British settlement, for instance, will probably always remain cloudy, but I have speculated in the text that it probably began sometime around the mid-1550s – much earlier than is speculated by most others.

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The end date of 1823 is somewhat arbitrary but it is convenient for my analysis of Belizean slavery. I wanted to reflect on the immediate impact of the abolition of slavery in the newly independent Central American states on the slave system in Belize. It also allowed me to examine the settlers’ changing attitude to the Miskito Indians after the Battle of St George’s Cay in 1798. Despite the chosen terminal date, however, occasionally I have gone beyond it to pinpoint some later developments that help to amplify some of my arguments.

UWI PRESS Acknowledgements

work has stretched over a long period, and I am grateful to all those who assisted in the process, particularly to Amherst College for a “large” Faculty Research Award and for the number of small travel grants made available to me over the years. The writing of the manuscript was greatly facilitated by the time I spent at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, as a visiting scholar. This is an ideal place for intellectual discussions with scholars from all over the world. There I arranged meetings with the author of the only comprehensive history of Belize written by a trained historian, Narda Dobson, and we had extensive and deep conversations. Nothing can be more satisfying than the free and open exchange of ideas between scholars in related fields. She graciously read parts of the manuscript and we could therefore discuss the differences between our works that exist on different levels, not least of which is the fact that my work begins with Spanish Belize. She is among those who have asserted a complete lack of Spanish presence, in her book as well as in her thesis, “Social and Administrative Development in British Honduras, 1798–1843” (Oxford, 1958). Dobson is well aware that her book is written almost wholly from the point of view of British Colonial Office records and officials, with not much attention being paid to Spanish and most other sources. As for the role played by the Miskito Indians in protecting Belize, this Oxford-trained British historian was completely oblivious to it. Yet, despite its circumscribed approach, in dealing with British policy in Belize, her book, A History of Belize (published in 1973), has deservedly withstood the test of time, and one hopes it will continue to do so. I am grateful to Professor Nigel Bolland, a sociologist by training, who has published many scholarly works on modern Belize, for reading the first two THE RESEARCH FOR THIS

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chapters of the very first draft of the manuscript. I am indebted to him for raising some questions about early Spanish settlements which sent me scuttling off to consult some of James Lockhart’s authoritative works on early Spanish colonization. This was very helpful, and I take full responsibility for any shortcomings of the final outcome. I have made many friends in Belize during my yearly trips there for the research and writing of this book. The former president of Belize University College, now a statesman and diplomat, Sir Colville Young, was among the first with whom I discussed my project, and he has remained a good friend, always generous in his assistance. A trained linguist with a thorough knowledge of Belizean folklore, he gave me an early sense of the society expressed in cryptic formulae. I am also grateful to him for directing me to several important secondary sources and to a number of Belizeans who had materials or information connected with the history of Belize. To Dr Joseph Palacio I owe a special debt of gratitude. As head of the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of the West Indies, he generously provided comfortable office space during the period when I spent a semester’s sabbatical leave in Belize. With Dr Angel Cal, former president of the University College of Belize and a trained historian himself, I have had lengthy discussions; we shared the hope for a solid base of scholarship for Belizean historiography. To Lita Krohn I am grateful for good friendship and for the variety of ways in which she assisted me with the production of this book; she was always generous with information and materials on Belize. With the late Emory King, president of the Belize Historical Society, I had long and enjoyable discussions; his love of Belize and Belizean history was contagious, and he too was generous in assisting me in numerous ways. Because this book had been so long in the making, some of my debts are accordingly long accrued. To John Searle, with whom I had several lengthy and interesting early discussions on Belizean history, I owe old debts. He was a real facilitator from the first time we met, pointing out some old maps and documents as well as introducing me to different people, including the then priest of St John’s Cathedral, who gave me useful information; the archivist of the Anglican diocese, who supplied me with a list of Belmopan church records; and the late Bishop Desmond Smith, whose sincerity and low-key hospitality will always be remembered, as well as his generosity in lending me his entire series of Belize Studies. The late Philip Goldson, one of the founders

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of Belize’s independence (after whom the Belize City International Airport is named), was among the early friends with whom I discussed my research. He was untiring in his assistance and was excited about the proposed structure of my project. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Mrs Usher, then director of urban development, for her wonderful generosity in giving me a copy of Ms Check-Pennel’s manuscript on Belize’s historic cemeteries. This work has been very useful to me, especially in my attempt to construct biographical sketches of some of the early British settlers. It would be impossible to mention all of my numerous friends in Belize who have inspired my work, but I must recognize just a few more. To Zee Edgell, the Belizean novelist who gave us Beka Lamb, and Al, her academic husband, I am grateful for their friendship and hospitality and those delightful moments we spent together exchanging ideas. To the active and enterprising Godsman Ellis and his distinguished family, I am indebted for their hospitality and support. To the schoolteachers Beverley Swazey, Ethnelda Paulino and all the others, I am grateful for the fruitful and enjoyable discussions we had on the teaching of Belizean history. To Mr and Mrs Luis Espat of Unity Boulevard, Belmopan, it would be difficult for me to express sufficiently my gratitude for their friendship and generosity; their gracious hospitality over the years had always been a highlight of my visits to Belize. I must also thank George Sosa and his large family at the Belmopan Hotel and Conference Centre, where I stayed during most of my research trips to Belize, for making the hotel a home away from home for me. The historian must rely on libraries and archives, and I am indebted to many of these institutions. I began using the Belize Archives at the very start of its existence, when there was hardly a structure to house the documents and it was hot and uncomfortable. I thus became witness to the valiant and determined efforts of Charles Gibson, chief archivist, and his then assistant Margaret Ventura as they worked untiringly to improve the archives. Today, thanks largely to them, Belize has an improved archives with expanding acquisitions. I am grateful to them for their help and their willingness to respond to my constant requests for material in those difficult early days. I must also thank the officials who gave me permission to work at the Registry in Belize City and the keepers of records there. Unfortunately, local documents relating especially to early Belizean history are problematic. Apart from mould, mildew and dry rot, they are fragmented

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and imperfect because of the many vicissitudes the settlement encountered; these included storms and hurricanes, floods, fires, high humidity, termite infestation and sudden dislocations and destruction of records during Spanish attacks. Luckily there are repositories elsewhere with documents on Belize. I consulted Jamaican archives extensively, for example, and I owe them a great deal; among them are the National Archives in Spanish Town, the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston, and the library of the University of the West Indies at Mona. I also consulted the Yucatan Archivo General in Mérida for a short time. The documents there were in a state of disorder – uncatalogued, unindexed, uncalendered – and the few I managed to look at were all from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. This does not mean that earlier ones might not be there; the conditions may well be better today. I am grateful, as usual, for the courtesy and assistance I received from the British institutions, including the British National Archives (the former Public Record Office); the British Library, especially the Manuscript Collections; the University of London Library at the Senate House; the Institute of Commonwealth Studies; and the Royal Commonwealth Society’s collection, now transferred to the University of Cambridge library’s Rare Books Collection. I am indebted to Terry Barringer, who was head of the collection at the Royal Commonwealth Society and then at Cambridge for some time. She was generous in her assistance in finding me documents and pointing out sources and several leads I might otherwise have missed. My thanks also to the staff at the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, especially for giving me access to their wonderful collection of early maps of Central America. I continue to be grateful to the staff of the Frost Library here at Amherst College for their patience and dedication. Susan Sheridan of Acquisitions was particularly helpful in making available to me microfilms, videos and some rare documents from outside this country. Finally I must thank Ms Rhea Cabin, assistant to the chair of the Department of History, Amherst College, who typed the first stages of the manuscript with her usual efficiency. I appreciate greatly her encouragement at those moments when I suffered from “writer’s burnout”.

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Map 1. A section of the 1775 map of the Bay of Honduras by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to His Majesty, showing Tipu, “Key Cosina” and other places. Courtesy of the British National Archives.

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Map 2: A map of modern Belize. Source: D.A.G. Waddell, British Honduras: A Historical and Comtemporary Survey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981).

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Map 3: A diplomatic map of Belize showing land concessions under different treaties from 1783 to 1893. Source: D.A.G. Waddell, British Honduras: A Historical and Comtemporary Survey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981)

Map 4: A sketch of Central America and the Caribbean.

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UWI PRESS PART 1

Spanish Belize, 1528–1708 Attempts at Settlement

UWI PRESS

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 1

Early Belize Spaniards and Maya in a Bloody Encounter

. . . conquest and settlement were one process, conqueror and settler were of the same type, when not actually the same individual. – James Lockhart

today has many singular features. It has a long history of vague and variable boundary definitions and names, being variously called Bay of Honduras, Honduras, British Yucatan, Balise, Belise, Bellese and other derivations. From the mid-nineteenth century it was mainly called British Honduras, until 1973, when it was officially named Belize. Indeed, when one looks at early maps of the region, no identifier for this place can be seen until about the third quarter of the eighteenth century, when it began to appear – not, ironically, so much as a geographical name as an occupational categorization. The first known English map of the region by a trained cartographer (there were amateurs about, making their “draughts”) was by Thomas Jefferys, a well-connected publisher and engraver and official geographer to George III. On his map of 1775, titled “The Bay of Honduras”, the chief marker for most of what is Belize today was designated “The Logwood Cutters”.1 An earlier, rudimentary attempt by Captain Joseph Smith Speer, a contemporary of Jefferys, did not even have this occupational identifier on his map, “A Chart of the Bay of Honduras”.2 But as time passed, especially from the end of the THE COUNTRY WE CALL BELIZE

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eighteenth century, we begin to see a nationality being added to the given occupation, making the new designations “The British Logwood Cutters” or “British Logwood Settlements” in the Bay of Honduras. Despite the geographical vagueness in these titles, they all nevertheless included the critical word logwood, which was the very raison d’être of this British settlement and was to be the critical factor in Anglo-Spanish relations over this territory. Belize’s geographical position makes it somewhat of an anomaly in modern terms. Although it is geographically a part of Central America, its official language is English and in socio-political terms it is part of the anglophone Caribbean. This accounts for the fact that historical scholars of Central America or the Caribbean may write great volumes on either region with hardly a mention of Belize. It thus “deserves more attention from historians than it has yet received”.3 Another fascinating characteristic of Belize that adds to the textured nature of this relatively small country is that in archaeological terms, it is a part of the Mesoamerican culture bloc. Happily, in this area Belize has been and continues to be well served by good scholars, mostly in the field of archaeology. So far, Belize is one of the most stable democracies in Central America, and its electoral performance since independence certainly serves to demonstrate this.4 Situated to the south of Mexico, with Guatemala to its west and south, Belize faces the Caribbean Sea to the east. There a succession of atolls, small islands or cays forms a barrier reef second in length only to Australia’s, and this was to have a critical impact on its history. How did Belize become a British territory? Even a cursory glance at the map of Central America should make one wonder at its identity, ensconced as it is among Spanish-speaking countries. And when this is combined with knowledge of the papal donation to Spain, this British possession seems even more extraordinary. Immediately following Columbus’s first voyage to the “New World”, in keeping with medieval legal canons, Spain sought papal jurisdiction because the voyage was partly articulated as intended to spread the Christian faith to non-Christians. The result was the famous papal bull of 1493 issued by Pope Alexander VI (in three versions: Inter caetera and Eximiae devotionis, both dated 3 May 1493, and a third, also titled Inter caetera, dated 4 May), granting “by the authority of the Omnipotent God” to the Spanish monarchs, their heirs and successors in perpetuity “all of the islands and lands found and yet to be found, discovered and yet to be discovered, toward the

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West and South . . . including the continental lands and islands whether they have already been found, or are yet to be found”.5 The Spanish monarchs were also enjoined, in the spirit of the time, to send out good, god-fearing, learned, skilled and experienced Catholic priests to instruct the natives of the new lands in the Catholic faith. The bull also forbade “any person of whatever dignity, status, rank, or condition, even though it be royal, under the pain of broad excommunication . . . from going either for commercial or any other reasons without [special permission of the Spanish throne] . . . to the islands and continents which have been found and may yet be found”. Thus not only foreigners but even Spaniards were not to venture forth without permission from the Spanish monarch. But the matter did not end there, for the Portuguese protested the bull with Spain. Portugal perceived its claim to the Guinea Coast of Africa and adjoining islands (granted by papal donation some thirty-eight years earlier, in 1455) to have been breached by the demarcation lines of Alexander’s bull. The result was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed by the two Iberian powers in 1494. Both parties agreed to change the papal lines of demarcation from 100 leagues west of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands to a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.6 Thus, inadvertently, Brazil was placed into Portuguese hands. This brief sketch should help us to understand Spain’s claim to the Americas. The Spanish monarchs viewed the papal donation of 1493 as their godgiven patrimony and, as such, sacroscant and non-negotiable. On this donation was based the very essence of Spain’s policy as it attempted to establish a threefold monopoly – political, religious and commercial – in the New World. With both papal and royal sanctions in place, colonization of the Americas by the Spaniards began with determination and Christian certitude. It was indeed like a crusade. Columbus had already established a colony, Navidad, on the north coast of Hispaniola during his first voyage, leaving behind thirty-nine men and three officers to garrison it. The pope was obviously pleased with this initiative, for he mentioned it in his bull. He saw the embryonic settlement as a base from which Columbus could “make a search for other remote and unknown islands and countries”.7 We do not know if the pope was informed of the later destruction of this first attempt at settlement in the Americas, but the fact that he mentioned it at all certainly strengthened Spanish claims, at least as

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BECOMING BELIZE

Spain perceived it, and colonization – or “pacification”, in the euphemistic religio-legal jargon of pope and Crown – continued apace. During the relatively short period between 1492 and the 1550s, Spain had in its possession most of the Caribbean and South and Central America, making it undoubtedly the dominant imperial power of early modern history – and making it also the envy and target of other European powers, particularly Britain. This is at the very heart of our story. Considering that Spain was the proud recipient of the near-divine papal donation of the entire region, the question of whether it ever occupied present-day Belize should not be difficult to resolve. But Spain was unable to defend what the very nationalistic Mexican historian Antonio Calderón Quijano called its “extensive and everlasting”8 gift, which included, it should be remembered, continental America. Because it could not hold on to what it possessed, to paraphrase Pericles, extensive though its empire might have been, it was to prove relatively short-lived when other European powers began successfully to challenge this award. This makes the question of Spanish settlement in Belize one of the most difficult to deal with, perhaps second only to the question, when did the English begin to settle in this place? But this will be dealt with subsequently. There is every need to treat the question of Spanish Belize with great circumspection, because in the popular mind in Belize it has taken on a political and nationalistic dimension. Field study in this country soon revealed that “ordinary” Belizeans emphatically state that no Spaniard ever settled in their country. Pressed for the basis of their assertions, some would provide murky responses while others would confidently cite the Battle of St George’s Cay, when they drove the Spaniards out of the country – thus contradicting themselves. In any event, this 1798 battle in fact witnessed the very last military action of Spain against the British settlement in the Bay of Honduras. Several scholars as well as a host of populist writers have declared that the Spaniards never occupied Belize, and even that “no Spanish force penetrated Belize before the attempts to dislodge the Baymen in the eighteenth century” which culminated in the Battle of St George’s Cay.9 Narda Dobson, for instance, says that the “area later occupied by the British was never settled by the Spaniards”.10 Surprisingly, even Nigel Bolland, who has published widely on Belize, says in one of his works that “the Spaniards never settled within Belize”.11 Just about all the populist accounts (of which Belize has more than

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its share), most of which are romantic at best or at worst inaccurate and distorted, make the same claim either directly or by inference. Captain George Henderson, who may well be called the first historian of Belize and whose work is certainly among the more reliable within this genre, says that the Spanish settlements nearest to early Belize were Bacalar to the north and Omoa and Trujillo to the south.12 Stephen Caiger asserts with confidence that “no Spaniards had ever landed there” nor had they occupied or settled the place. With an imagination more suited to fiction than historical scholarship, Caiger refers to the area called Belize today as “No Man’s Land” – a “desolate uninhabited spot” occupied only by a few shipwrecked Englishmen.13 Frederick Hardyman Parker, Clerk of the Court and Keeper of Records in Belize in the late 1880s, went overboard when he declared that not only the British settlement in the Bay of Honduras (Belize) but also “every other outpost of the British Empire [was] settled in a country which had been a desert and a vacant land”,14 thus relegating to oblivion all the indigenous peoples in the entire Empire. Space does not allow a review of all the populist works, but within this category, Archibald Gibbs is remarkably more tentative in his assertions. Gibbs writes: “British Honduras (British Yucatan it has been called) would never appear to have been occupied by the Spaniards, but left in possession of the Indian tribes of Chols and Mopan.”15 He, at least, in this case correctly acknowledges the Indian presence. It is curious that many Spanish historians of Yucatan – some of whom were most partisan and nationalistic – also did not identify an early Spanish presence in Belize. Quijano, for instance, recognized no such early Spanish settlement apart from that implied in the papal donation, in which he believed unreservedly. Even Eligio Ancona, a much more careful historian than Quijano, after diligent research could find no Spanish presence in the area called Belize today. To Ancona, this part of the Yucatan coast was “totally uninhabited of Spanish people”; he adds that Bacalar was the closest Spanish settlement in that southern part of Yucatan.16 Clearly these assertions are not satisfactory, and a more diligent search is warranted. In order to establish some kind of linear narrative for early Belize, we might as well begin with Columbus – since it all began with his arrival in the New World – to find out if the Admiral “discovered” Belize through the usual act of planting Spanish flags and taking possession of places that did not

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belong to him. Columbus’s well-documented voyages present no great problems. It was during his eventful fourth and last voyage, in 1502, that he came closest to Belize, when he anchored at one of what we now call the Bay Islands – Guanaja, or Bonacca. From there Columbus sailed to the area he named the Bay of Honduras or Cape Honduras, depicting its depths from soundings. Had Columbus taken a westerly direction from Bonacca, he would have sailed along the entire coast of Belize, but he sailed east instead and finally anchored at the cape he named Gracias á Dios, in gratitude for surviving a most horrendous storm. Columbus then sailed along the Mosquito Coast, or Shore, as far south as Panama before turning around to make for home.17 Since Columbus did not anchor at Belize, he could not therefore have taken possession of it, notwithstanding Quijano’s claim that Columbus touched the coast and mainland of “present day Belize” and even gave the name Cayo Cacinas to that important island (of which we shall hear more later) some eight miles off the coast of what is today Belize City. This was decidedly not the case, and even Quijano seems to have some trouble believing himself when he says that he is not trying to prove a “new theory”. He only wished to explain why one might “suppose” that Columbus reached the mainland of Belize.18 Nevertheless, Columbus had important indirect influences on Belize. We have already noted that among the early names given to Belize by Europeans was the Columbus-derived Honduras, as in “British Logwood Settlement in the Bay of Honduras” and “British Honduras”. Furthermore, this study will show how some of the Bay Islands played significant roles in the security of the British settlement in south-eastern Yucatan that we now call Belize. Most important of all, it can be argued that Columbus affected Belize by landing on (and therefore claiming) the Mosquito Shore, whose inhabitants, the Miskito Indians, the Spaniards soon failed to subjugate. These native people were to become a thorn in the side of the Spaniards, as they became invaluable for the very survival of what Nancy Farris unflatteringly called “the miserable little English settlement of dyewood loggers”19 in the Bay of Honduras. Shadowy evidence suggests that a few of Columbus’s companions, including one of the Pinzón brothers, brushed along the coast of Belize sometime in 1506. Their aim, apparently, was to investigate Columbus’s 1502 “discoveries”, and they too reached the Bay of Honduras. But they turned west, unlike Columbus, and sailed towards the Rio Dulce and then northward along the

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entire Belize coast.20 However, as far as we know, these explorers did not actually anchor at any of these places. For a better understanding of the original Spanish presence in early Belize then, the “conquest” of Yucatan should be of primary interest to this inquiry. A brief sketch will show that as far as the documents go, the Spaniards made their first entrada into Yucatan in 1517, but we have some skimpy evidence to show that a few Spaniards accidentally reached this land in 1511. The chief source for this piece of information is one of the members of the 1517 expedition, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who was later to write easily the best eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico – “one of the greatest participant histories ever written”.21 In summary, the Spaniards who came to Yucatan in 1511 did so as a result of a shipwreck en route from Darién to the island of Santo Domingo. The sixteen men and two women who survived were washed ashore, but by 1519 only two were still alive; the others had either been sacrificed or had died while serving as slaves to local caciques.22 Of the two Spaniards who survived, one, Jerónimo de Aguilar, was to become a “useful and faithful interpreter” to Cortés, who was instrumental in reuniting Aguilar with his countrymen.23 But Cortés was not so successful with the other, Gonzalo Guerrero. Guerrero is significant to Belizean history. Indeed, the distinguished English archaeologist Sir J. Eric S. Thompson, one of the earliest scholars of Maya civilization, was moved to say that Guerrero “was the first European resident of Belize, and one who fought for his adopted land”24 – a proposition we shall explore later. Upon receipt of Cortés’s letter, Aguilar could hardly contain himself with joy and went immediately to his master, the cacique, with the ransom money Cortés had sent to buy his freedom (acting on a useful piece of advice given to him by a cacique). Guerrero, on the other hand, had no intention of leaving, even after Aguilar traversed some fifteen miles to try to persuade him to do so. To begin with, Guerrero had met with better luck than his enslaved compatriot. He pointed out that he had been freed in response to a part of Cortés’s letter which said: “I have heard that you are captives in the hands of a Cacique.” Aguilar recounted that Guerrero said he was “married and ha[d] three children, and they look on me as a Cacique here, and a captain in time of war. Go, and God’s blessing be with you. But my face is tattooed and my ears are pierced. What would the Spaniards say if they saw me like this? And

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look how handsome these children of mine are!”25 So the first European resident of Belize had “gone native”. It appears that Guerrero had earned the Maya’s respect – even to the extent of their viewing him as a cacique and a military leader – through his bravery and prowess in warfare, which he had demonstrated while assisting the cacique in defeating local enemies, 26 just as he was to assist the Maya leaders in fighting his own countrymen, as we shall see. Meanwhile, as has been said earlier, the first documented Spanish expedition to Yucatan was in 1517. This was a slave-raiding and fortune-hunting expedition launched from Cuba, with Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba leading a group of down-at-heel men, hungry for plunder, among whom was Bernal Díaz. The candid Díaz tells us how they had hung around the Cuban governor, waiting for him to fulfil his promise “to give us Indians as soon as there were any to spare”. As this did not materialize, about 110 of them decided on this expedition “to seek new lands in which to try our fortunes and find occupation”.27 (This should remind us that a critical part of the complex impulse behind European exploration then was the need to obtain useful occupation for various displaced groups in Europe.28) Upon arrival in Yucatan at the north-eastern point of the peninsula, they named the place Cape Catoche; this was an area where the British later established settlements for the purpose of logwood cutting. In their first contact with the Maya in Yucatan, Cordoba and his group soon discovered that they had met up with a much more sophisticated civilization than they had encountered before, with the friendly Arawaks and the more bellicose Caribs of the Caribbean islands. “This land”, Díaz exclaims, “was as yet undiscovered, and we had received no report of it. From the ships we could see a large town . . . and as we had never seen one as large in Cuba or Hispaniola we named it the Great Cairo.” The Spaniards soon also discovered that the Maya were not afraid of them – “They approached quite fearlessly” – and this was a portent of the later encounter with them in Belize. They “wore cotton shirts made in the shape of jackets, and covered their private parts with narrow cloths which they called masteles. We considered them a more civilized people than the Cubans.”29 Here the Spaniards also came up against a determined and effective resistance not experienced before in the New World. Indeed, they were soundly defeated. More than sixty soldiers were killed, two were taken alive and almost all, including Díaz, were

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wounded, so they had to make a quick retreat. Cordoba, their leader, died from his wounds upon returning to Cuba.30 But they had seen enough to make their return predictable. The honest Díaz observes: “When we saw the gold and the masonry houses we were very pleased to have found such a country.”31 Among the places encountered were the towns of Champoton and Campeche, with their many well-constructed stone buildings, large populations and splendid maize plantations indicating a well-ordered society. As at Catoche, the British were later to carry out logwood cutting at both Champoton and the Bay of Campeche, with the latter becoming the major British logwood settlement by the first decade of the eighteenth century. Within a year the Spaniards had returned to Yucatan, in this case under the leadership of Juan de Grijalva. The promising reports from the first expedition had also attracted some of the most prominent men residing in Cuba, including Francisco de Montejo, who was later to “pacify” Yucatan and most of Belize. The second effort was better organized, better equipped and better prepared in all essentials, even to the extent of using padded cotton armour copied from the very people they were about to plunder. This cross-cultural defensive device was to become a regular accoutrement of the Spaniards in all future battles with “Indians” in the region, to protect not only themselves but their horses as well. They appreciated the advantages of cotton over steel: it was lighter and cooler in the tropical heat and adequate for protection against Indian weaponry. Grijalva’s 1518 expedition also met with tough resistance from the Maya. Although the Spaniards were better prepared, they nevertheless sustained heavy losses, with seven soldiers killed in battle and almost all the others, including Grijalva and Bernal Díaz, wounded.32 The Spaniards were becoming increasingly impressed by the fighting skills of the Maya. It was not until a year later (1519), when Cortés was on his famous march to conquer Mexico, that the Spanish heard about the shipwreck survivors Aguilar and Guerrero, and it was Aguilar who informed them that Guerrero had participated in the battles against Grijalva. Yet this mission could be considered a success for the Spaniards, partly because they were able to revisit all the places they had been to on the first ill-fated expedition, and partly because they “discovered” many new lands, including the island of Cozumel. But the single most important factor that made this entrada a success was the news about the great and pow-

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erful prince Montezuma, who possessed more gold than any other ruler in the region, who governed all Mexico – “a country twice the size of our own [Spain]” – as well as being “king of many neighbouring lands”.33 At last the Spaniards felt in touch again with their raison d’être in the Indies, and echoes of Marco Polo pervaded the mental horizon. Mexico was a greater prize, and Yucatan would have to await its turn. This came when, in 1526, Francisco de Montejo, now a seasoned conquistador (having served, as we have seen, in Grijalva’s expedition to Yucatan and later with Cortés in Mexico, 1519–21), was granted a patent by the Spanish monarch – with the titles of adelantado, governor and captain general – to pacify what the Spaniards then thought was the island of Yucatan. As it turned out, it was neither an island nor an easy conquest; on the contrary, the occupation was a difficult and protracted affair that was to take more than twenty years. This was partly because of determined resistance from the Maya, but also partly because of the structure of their society, consisting as it did of several quasi-independent principalities and therefore not susceptible to a single decisive blow, as with the Aztecs and the Incas. This must have been both frustrating and bemusing to Montejo with his fresh memories of the spectacular overthrow of the Aztec empire in just two years or so. During his encounter with the Maya, the vast Inca empire was also “discovered” and conquered in even less time (1531–32) than it took to defeat the Aztecs. It was not until after much humiliation involving defeats and temporary withdrawals from Yucatan that the Spaniards partially conquered the indomitable Maya, after what has come to be called the Great Maya Revolt of 1546–47. But the Maya were never completely conquered. Their resistance to Spanish rule merely subsided at this stage from sheer war weariness. Like a sleeping volcano, this resistance erupted again at different times and with varying degrees of intensity. Its most powerful expression was in what is now known as the Caste War in the 1840s, which “came within a hair’s breadth of driving their white masters into the sea”, asserted one writer.34 This work is not intended to deal with the history of the conquest of Yucatan, which the reader can find elsewhere.35 Our stated purpose is to enquire in a systematic manner whether or not Spain settled in Belize. To this end we shall deal only with those entradas that involved this country. Montejo and his soldiers travelled through wide swaths of what is Belize today; indeed, they travelled the entire length of the present-day country, from north to south

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and back, on more than one occasion. Equally, the army passed through and battled with the Maya in most of the central and southern areas. But it was at Chetumal that some of the most dramatic military engagements occurred, in the 1520s, 1530s and 1540s. It was also at Chetumal that the Spaniards were to establish their first “town” in Belize. Preconquest Chetumal was a large independent Maya province embracing Bacalar and its environs to the north, or Quintana Roo, with the southern part in Belize today, “covering the whole country roughly as far south as a line from perhaps Guinea Grass to Northern (ancient Zact’an) River”.36 Montejo’s first entrada in the northern section of Yucatan, between 1527 and early 1528, was so disappointing that he decided to turn southward “to search along these coasts for some mountain range or river where he might establish a settlement to better purpose than at any place he had thus far found”.37 He had heard numerous reports of important cities and provinces with bays, lakes and rivers – and gold – in the large regions of Uaymil and Chetumal, where the town of Chetumal was the capital. It was at the site of the town (or city) of Chetumal that Montejo was determined to build his premier Spanish town, aping Cortés as usual, who had established his Spanish city in Mexico on the ruins of the grand Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The site of the ancient city of Chetumal has been identified by archaeologists as close to the mouth of the River Hondo and about ten miles from present-day Corozal Town in northern Belize. Thomas Gann, a pioneer archaeologist of Maya civilization who predated even Thompson, carried out excavations around there in the 1920s. He found numerous items that suggested an important pre-conquest town; among them was a “large aggregation of burial mounds of all sizes, some containing two, some three, stone-lined sepulchral chambers, superimposed one upon the other, from which [he] removed some very beautiful painted pottery, jade, and other jewelry, with implements and weapons”.38 Gann did not name the town, but more recent archaeologists are certain that his discovery is the ancient city of Chetumal. Montejo has set his sights on it for his Christian capital of all south-eastern Yucatan. With his northern failures fresh in mind, Montejo aimed at a different approach for the Chetumal operation. It was a two-pronged affair combining land and sea operations, with Montejo himself skirting the coast and Alonso Dávila, his trusted and loyal lieutenant, taking the majority of the soldiers (the number is unclear) by a parallel route on land. Montejo sailed south from

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Cozumel to the Bay of Chetumal and dropped anchor off the town of Chetumal. The place delighted him; it had “two thousand houses . . . two leagues from the coast” and occupied a strong defensive position, since it was nearly surrounded by water, with the bay or sea on one side and the lake or lagoon on the other. The land behind the town was pleasant, fertile and covered with rich fields of maize. Bee culture was also highly developed; the people kept many apiaries and the honey, which was of excellent quality, was an important article of trade39 – perhaps second only to cacao beans, which are not mentioned in this account. Although it was strategically favourable, pleasant and wealthy by the standards of time and place, Montejo was to learn upon inquiry that Chetumal city and its outskirts had a most independent-minded population that was, indeed, downright warlike. What was more, he was informed that Gonzalo Guerrero, “the bizarre Spanish renegade”,40 was now chief military strategist for the powerful cacique of Chetumal, whose name, Landa tells us, was Nachan Can.41 Chamberlain, on the other hand, never bothers to name him or other rulers but rather bundles all Maya people together as “the natives”. This was to be the first time the Spaniards knowingly confronted Guerrero since Cortés had tried to “free” him in 1519. Montejo tried to win over Guerrero to his side. He knew how useful Guerrero would be with his perfect knowledge of the country and its people, culture and language, as well as its terrain and, certainly most important of all, Mayan methods of warfare. It was precisely Guerrero’s comparative knowledge of warfare that made him so effective against his countrymen. Montejo’s letter to Guerrero, which unfortunately we have only from the Spanish chronicler Oviedo, says: Gonzalo, my brother and special friend, I count it my good fortune that I arrived and have learned of you through the bearer of this letter [through which] I can remind you that you are a Christian, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, to whom I give, and you should give, infinite thanks. You have a great opportunity to serve God and the Emperor, Our Lord, in the pacification and baptism of these people, and more than this, [opportunity] to leave your sins behind you, with the Grace of God, and to honor and benefit yourself. I shall be your very good friend in this, and you will be treated very well. And this I beseech you not to let the devil influence you not to do what I say, so that he will not possess himself of you forever.

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On behalf of His Majesty I promise you to do very well for you and fully to comply with that which I have said. On my part, as a noble gentleman, I give you my word and pledge my faith to make my promises to you good without any reservations whatsoever, favoring and honoring you and making you one of my principal men and one of my most select and loved groups in these parts. Consequently I beseech you to come to this ship, or to the coast without delay, to do what I have said and to help me carry out, through giving me your counsel and opinions, that which seems most expedient.42

Compared to Cortés’s crisp, short, practical and intelligent letter, free from sermonizing, Montejo’s is almost unintelligible, unfocused and certainly not designed to easily win friends and gain converts. Guerrero’s reply, again from the same source, is short and full of ironies and double entendres: “Señor, I kiss your Grace’s hands. As I am a slave I have no freedom [to join you], even though I . . . remember God. You, my lord, and the Spaniards will find in me a very good friend.” This, we are told, was written in charcoal on the back of Montejo’s letter and returned by the same Indian who had delivered it.43 We may recall that in his response to Cortés’s letter, Guerrero was proclaiming his prominent position in the military, even being viewed as a cacique; his marriage; and his “handsome” children. Indeed, Landa informs us that his Indian wife was “a woman of high quality”.44 Thus his reference to himself as a slave represents the classical form of irony, and his advising the adelantado that the Spaniards would find him a very good friend carried the double meaning in its most sarcastic manifestation. Guerrero, “with his talents and position, now plotted the discomfiture of his former compatriots, so successfully that . . . he placed them in such a situation that all the Christians in that land were ruined”.45 This was hyperbole. All the Christians were not ruined, nor was Guerrero the sole planner of the war as Chamberlain made it appear. But it is true that he probably caused the Spaniards more humiliation and frustration than they otherwise might have had to endure, as he was – indirectly and inadvertently – to facilitate later British logwood settlements in Yucatan. There can be no doubt that the overarching war strategy of the Maya leadership against Montejo and Dávila in Chetumal was a shrewd one. The underlying premise was based on the reality of the situation: despite the relatively small numbers of Spaniards, they nevertheless had the edge in open combat because of superior weaponry. This superiority lay more in the materials from

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which the weapons were made than in the design of the weapons themselves. Maya weaponry consisted of wooden swords, lances and spears tipped with fire-hardened stone, fishbone, flint or obsidian, wooden bows and arrows, and slings from which they hurled stones. To be sure, obsidian flint has some impressive features, chiefly the quality of its sharp edges; apparently the material is even now used by some surgeons to perform delicate precision operations. But it is relatively brittle and therefore not as conducive to repeated use as steel. Also unlike steel, it cannot be melted down to be shaped into a variety of sizes and shapes; the dimensions of obsidian are more or less limited by nature. The Maya quilted cotton armor, which the Spaniards copied for both their men and horses, was certainly a most effective piece of defensive equipment. But it was more effective against indigenous arrows, which could not penetrate it, than against the steel from which most Spanish weaponry was derived. In any hand-to-hand combat the Spaniards would always have the advantage over Maya stone-tipped spears and lances, even when wielded with both hands. Earlier Díaz had witnessed this and observed that the Maya weapons did the Spaniards “great damage. But . . . when they felt the sharp edge of our swords and the effect of our crossbows and muskets, they quickly took to their heels, leaving fifteen dead on the field.”46 Coupled with superior weaponry the Spaniards had their awe-inspiring horses, whose swiftness facilitated deadly surprise attacks. In open combat a mounted soldier could carry out a massacre on the clustered formation most Indians used in these encounters. As if this were not enough, the Spaniards also had bloodhounds, savage brutes originally trained for hunting wild beasts in the forests of Europe. Now they were being let loose on human beings for the first time. In this situation, therefore, it seemed prudent that the Maya should avoid as much as possible confrontational warfare with the Spaniards (a lesson never learned by the Aztecs and Mexican Indians who battled Cortés in their tens of thousands on his march to Mexico). It is in this aspect of the Chetumal strategy that one may safely infer Guerrero’s influence, and later we shall compare Montejo’s experience at Campeche to undergird this conclusion. This is not to say, as did Landa, that Guerrero “taught the Indians to fight, showing them how to make barricades and bastions”.47 Bastions, fortifications, barricades and the like were common defensive features of warfare long established throughout Mesoamerica, as Richard Adams has shown. He points out that

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“the Classic and late Formative Maya built more formal fortifications than nearly any other group in Mesoamerica”.48 Guerrero’s most significant contribution to Nachan Can’s war council was clearly the avoidance of open combat with the Spaniards. Thus the strategy was to devise means to keep the two prongs of Montejo’s operation separated – that is, Dávila on land and the adelantado at sea – so that if they were forced to fight the Spaniards, it would be with only one group at a time. But they also took active defensive measures to protect their city. In anticipation of Dávila and his horses, the Maya dug well-concealed pits in the roads to entrap the beasts, just as the Aztecs had done with good effect to Cortés’s horses, even as they were simultaneously trying to make it impossible for him to visit.49 Indeed, they even took the offensive and harried Montejo in his ship anchored in the bay with eight or ten men, and although they did not do much harm it must have been at least a nuisance to him.50 In the meantime, Dávila, on his parallel land route to Chetumal city, had no way of knowing the whereabouts of Montejo. His journey was difficult not only because of thick and tangled mangrove shrubs and impassable swamps but also because he was up against false information from the Maya – part of their war strategy. Indian “guides” lured him and his men as far inland as possible, so the march continued for days. Then, at the strategically appropriate time, the Indians informed Dávila that Montejo and his small party had been lost. Dávila believed the “news” and, knowing that leadership would devolve on him, he quickly retraced his steps northward to Cozumel. And then it was time for the war council to get rid of Montejo also. Of course he had no knowledge of what had transpired with Dávila; the Maya informed the adelantado that Dávila and his men had “met with disaster” and were all dead. This had the desired effect: within a short time he too had left Chetumal, much to their satisfaction. Montejo did not return to the north immediately but continued his exploration of the coast southward before turning eastward to return to Cozumel. It was on this trip that he discovered that Yucatan was not an island. Montejo had now traversed the entire Belize coastline. He had seen the mountain ranges, including the Cockscomb or Maya Mountains, and the rivers, including the Belize River, all of which made him want to return. It was, however, the town and port of Chetumal that remained his first choice for the establishment of a great Spanish city, because “there he had found a

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good river and a region which suited his ends”.51 For this undertaking Montejo knew that he needed a substantial force, well supplied, to take on the skilled Indians at Chetumal, and to this end he returned to New Spain. En route he anchored at Cozumel, where he discovered that Dávila was still alive; their meeting, it is reported, was an occasion for “tears of happiness”.52 They were back in business, and their target remained Chetumal. However, while in New Spain, Montejo was ordered to carry out a western expedition to Tabasco in the spring of 1529. The next entrada to Chetumal had to wait for two more years, until 1531. The Tabasco expedition was successful for the Spaniards; Montejo now had under his control not only Tabasco but also Champoton and Campeche, which had been “discovered” in 1517. At this point Montejo developed a wider view of the conquest and colonization of Yucatan. To effect his overarching colonial policy, he chose Campeche – now renamed Salamanca de Campeche after his birthplace in Spain (he was to do this with just about every place he founded) – as his western base of operation, while Chetumal was to be the north-eastern base and administrative capital of all Yucatan. His favorable impression of Chetumal Bay, with its good supply of rivers, lagoons and above all its splendid harbour, made the location central to his plan. At this time he was also heartened by information he was receiving about the existence of gold at Chetumal.53 To execute the important second attempt to conquer Chetumal, Montejo again selected the experienced and loyal Alonso Dávila to lead an impressive expedition. This consisted of about fifty soldiers, thirteen of whom were horsemen. Among these soldiers was Montejo’s nephew, also named Francisco. The adelantado’s son carried the same first name too, and all three – father, son and nephew – were to participate in the conquest of Yucatan. Montejo’s son eventually founded the city of Mérida in 1542, during the last stage of the conquest. The imprecise reported number (“fifty-odd”) of Dávila’s soldiers should probably be interpreted to mean that Indian soldiers were involved. Spanish sources tend to underplay – or remain completely silent on – the extent to which Indian soldiers were used in their colonial battles in the Americas. This reflects one of Matthew Restall’s “seven myths”: the native soldiers were “invisible” and the glory of conquest depended solely on the valour of a handful of heroic Spaniards defeating barbarian hordes. Restall writes that Montejo, who

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knew the value of Mexican soldiers from his experience with Cortés, brought with him “hundreds of warriors” from Mexico, and by the 1540s some were in the forefront of battle.54 Among these fighters were the trusted and effective Tlascalans who had assisted Cortés so decisively in the defeat of the Aztec empire. In his Relación Dávila mentions an Indian interpreter “well versed in the native tongues of Yucatan and neighboring provinces”,55 and he also availed himself of Indian mapmakers to guide him on his way, but there is no mention of Indian soldiers in his forces. Yet they did assist, some as spear throwers. Farris states that in addition to the “familiar Mexican ancillaries” there were also “Mexican atl-atls, or spear throwers”, with the Spaniards, and many of these Mexican and Tlascalan troops were to settle later in Yucatan “as conquerors”.56 To confirm his expectations of gold in Chetumal, a mining expert was sent along by the adelantado; this expert, Francisco Vázquez, was promised a reward of three hundred pesos should he discover the yellow metal. On the maps produced by the Indians “were marked places where the gold was said to exist”.57 The Maya possessed a rather subtle sense of irony, and one can well imagine the silent chuckling and eye rolling of the mapmakers behind the scenes – Chetumal, and indeed all of Yucatan, possessed no gold whatsoever, much to the immense disappointment of the Spaniards. For this expedition, which began in 1531, Dávila received specific instructions from Montejo to explore the interior thoroughly, to search for gold and to found a town at the site of the ancient city of Chetumal. Perhaps the most successful part of this mission was Dávila’s inland march from Campeche to Chetumal province. His constant quest for gold, however, despite the Indian mapmakers, brought him no results. Indeed, the mining expert Vázquez was soon to give his official report, an accurate and honest report stating that the very nature of the land made it seem unlikely that gold would be found anywhere in the country. This lack of gold in Yucatan was to hamper Montejo’s colonization of the region to a great degree, since potential settlers were more apt to look to more metal-laden lands such as Peru, for instance. It also most certainly facilitated later British settlement in the south-east. Dávila must have thought himself fortunate to have encountered only “friendly” Indians on his march, all of whom were giving him their allegiance without resistance – or was this merely a ploy? As expected, however, his reception from the city of Chetumal was another matter. As he neared Chetumal,

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accompanied by a host of “friendly” caciques, Dávila confidently sent some of them to the city to summon its ruler before me, reassuring him with all the good words at my command, both in name of His Majesty and in that of our governor [Montejo]. I did this because the town of Bacalar, which is along the route where we were to search for gold, is subject to him, and because I knew that if he did not come to peace he would certainly see to it that we would suffer harm.58

The mission of Dávila’s newly acquired friends was a complete failure. The Chetumal cacique sent a most intransigent reply to the Spaniards that, in Dávila’s eyes, challenged Spain’s prestige and honour. The message declared that the people of Chetumal “did not desire peace, but that rather they preferred war and would give us [tribute of] fowls in the form of their lances and maize in the form of their arrows”. We should be mindful again that our only source for this information is Dávila’s Relación; there is no indigenous account to serve as a counterbalance. Dávila’s confidence in sending such an imperious message to the cacique of Chetumal could not have resulted from forgetting his treatment in 1528. In all probability he sought war to avenge the ignominy of the first encounter. True to his kind, Dávila, who was undoubtedly an intrepid soldier, took action immediately, beginning a march in which he took with him “friendly” caciques from the “friendly” districts he had encountered. As he passed through different Maya towns over which the cacique of Chetumal had overlordship, he was surprised to find that they all gave willing allegiance to him, some even offering to help in defeating the Chetumal cacique. Having collected his forces, Dávila crossed over to Chetumal, taking a route that is among the clearest evidence that this ancient Maya city was in Belize as we know it today. He had first tried, unsuccessfully, to find a land route to Chetumal but had perforce to avail himself of the only means of transportation available – canoes. He first crossed Lake Bacalar, then travelled down a river to the Bay of Chetumal; at that point the city was three leagues away. Once again Thompson has come to our aid, identifying the river entering the Bay as the Hondo; he also notes that old Chetumal city was closer to Corozal town today than to present-day Chetumal town, as was previously assumed.59 When Dávila reached Chetumal, well prepared for a major battle, he found an empty city, despite the bellicose earlier reply from the cacique. Later events

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were to show that the inhabitants had abandoned the city in order to organize resistance in the surrounding territories. For his part Dávila was delighted, and apparently unsuspecting. It is said that he was as impressed with the city of Chetumal and its outskirts as was Montejo earlier. His incessant quest for gold might so far have been fruitless, but here at least he could build the Spanish city of Montejo’s dream. After further examination of the place, he also found it most desirable with its many maize fields and “various other products”, but above all he was impressed with its strategic position, which offered “a maximum degree of security”.60 The town Dávila founded at Chetumal was named Villa Real – the first Spanish “town” to be established in Belize. In his Relación he mentions that the encomienda system was duly established – also the first in Belize. The only recompense for the conquistadors and the mainstay of any Spanish settlement, the encomienda system was always instituted immediately. Dávila therefore soon fixed the tributes (maize, honey, wax, fowl and the like) that the people of Chetumal were to deliver to the Spaniards at Villa Real. A church – always one of the first edifices to be erected under Spanish colonial rule – was soon built and the various services the Maya were to perform for the intruders were made clear. Dávila also set up the usual municipal council, or cabildo, to deal with local government, and Francisco Montejo, the nephew of the adelantado, was made one of the councilmen.61 At this point Dávila must have been feeling that things were going quite well. He had occupied Chetumal without any fighting and had founded the Christian town Montejo so passionately desired. He was surrounded, he thought, by friendly caciques throughout the adjoining districts and had established encomiendas in most of them. But for his disappointment over the absence of gold, everything seemed remarkably cozy. After the first few months of peace in the new Spanish town in Belize, however, Dávila was jolted out of complacency when he heard that trouble was afoot. The cacique of Chetumal had rallied his warriors from his base at a place called Chequitaquil, which was considered strategically well chosen because of its relative inaccessibility, being about four leagues away on the coast north of Villa Real and approachable only by water (the place has been identified as “somewhere not far north of the modern city of Chetumal”62). Forewarned, Dávila acted with alacrity, and by means of canoes effected a most successful surprise attack on this fortified establishment at four in the morning. The Maya lords were cleanly beaten; “many” were killed and the

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Spaniards took “more than sixty prisoners”, while they lost only a horse that was killed by a lance, probably obsidian-tipped.63 The cacique, however, managed to escape. And Guerrero? We have no evidence one way or another to know if he was present at this unexpected battle. When they were questioned about him by the Spaniards, the captured Maya fighters declared that Guerrero was dead. This, of course should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt; we have fairly good evidence suggesting that he was still alive, and we shall return to him later. Dávila seemed to be back in control after what can certainly be called a brilliant victory. Moreover, for the first time since he and Montejo began the conquest of Yucatan in 1527, he had found some treasure. In the deserted camp at Chequitaquil he found “a number of gold and turquoise masks, other gold ornaments and semiprecious stones”. Although it did not amount to much – “about 600 pesos”64 – nevertheless it was of tremendous symbolic significance to the Spaniards, as it raised their expectations of more to come. Returning to Villa Real, Dávila and his cabildo confidently wrote to the adelantado at Campeche about his great success, sending him the loot in the process and requesting further instructions. Believing that all those “friendly” territories through which he had passed on the way to Chetumal were still peaceful and allied with him, Dávila sent the booty to Montejo with only six of his company – three crossbowmen and three mounted soldiers – along the same route.65 In the meantime, the unsuspecting Dávila attempted to revisit some of the “friendly” districts to establish tributes and “place the encomienda system in full operation”, only to find a general state of insurrection just about everywhere, with fortifications well in place. He wrote later in his Relación: “I found that the land had risen and that the roads had been blocked [and] this greatly disconcerted me, since I thought [the Indians] were at peace and tranquil, as they had been when I left them.”66 Subsequent events went from bad to worse. Dávila soon received news that the messengers sent to Montejo – all six of them, and the three horses – had been killed, thereby disconnecting him from the adelantado as had happened in 1528, although then nonviolently. Soon all Yucatan was involved in a widespread revolt. In the west the Campeche district was in turmoil, and Montejo’s town, Salamanca de Campeche, was said to have been “heavily attacked”. In the north there was also revolt, and Dávila had to make some quick decisions, the first of which

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was to return to Villa Real. He fought his way back, winning important battles in places identified as being in present-day Belize67 and losing a few; in the last he had to take “honest flight” before returning. The Spaniards who had remained at Villa Real greeted Dávila’s return as a “miracle”, and the new church came in handy for solemn religious services of thanksgiving to God.68 Dávila had to take stock of the situation. The entire province of Chetumal, not just the city, was in revolt, and his company had been reduced to about forty citizen-soldiers,69 ten of whom were wounded; of his thirteen horses, only five remained, one of which was soon to die. Provisions were alarmingly short, partly because the hastily established encomienda system, on which the Spaniards depended for provisions, labour and different services, had ceased to function because of the widespread revolt.70 Outside the encomienda system, the assistance the Spaniards would normally have received from the Indians also came to an end as part of the rebellion. The more the invaders seemed helpless, the greater the defiance of the indigenes, and this was bad for Spanish morale. Oviedo sums it up when he writes: “Since maize and other provisions were used up, and the Christians were so few, the Indians lost fear of them, and began to make war in such a manner that, under extreme necessity, and having no other course, they [the Spaniards] began to make plantings within the town, at the cost of their own Sweat, aided only by the few Indians who remained to serve them.”71 The exasperated tone of this passage speaks volumes about the Spanish antipathy to hard work in the Indies, which is quite wellknown. Clendinnen, for instance, remarks that “any form of work save that of supervision would jeopardise their [the Spaniards] tenuous claims to gentility”.72 What is somewhat startling is that this propensity not to dirty their hands when Indians were around to be commanded took hold so early. The Spaniards were literally besieged at Villa Real. Not only had they been reduced to planting their own crops inside the town, now they were starving. They lived in fear of the hostile Indians all around, who knew perfectly well their desperate situation – after all, they had helped to create it. Dávila had before him the daunting choice of either remaining at Villa Real to perish from starvation or Indian lances, or evacuating in the midst of their enemies, who had already destroyed some of the intruders’ canoes to curtail their movements. In addition to his local problems, Dávila had the extra burden of not knowing the fate of his adelantado. He made two more desperate attempts to send messages to him through some caciques from adjacent districts, but both

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failed miserably. When all hopes of receiving aid or instructions from Montejo had been dashed, he finally decided to withdraw to Spanish Honduras in the autumn of 1532, but only after “resolutely” trying to hold on to Villa Real. The distance of time may make it difficult for some to comprehend the importance of this so-called town to Dávila. He knew how central it could have been to Montejo’s wider vision of Yucatan; therefore evacuation could not have been an easy decision. Before leaving, the Spaniards destroyed the church; the Christian crosses they had erected were taken down, but it is not clear if they were also destroyed. Grant Jones supposes that the church “must have been a simple, thatched structure as it was so quickly dismantled”, but later says he found evidence suggesting that it was a “large and substantially constructed ramada” building.73 The Indians soon realized that the Spaniards were departing, and warriors gathered from the surrounding districts in quick pursuit for an entire day. No engagements took place; obviously the intent was more to intimidate or harass the aliens. The journey the Spaniards made from Chetumal, first to the Rio Dulce and then to the province of Spanish Honduras, gives us the first, most graphic recorded example of the hazards of the Belize coast, which, as noted earlier, were a major determining factor in the historical evolution of present-day Belize. In the first place, Dávila and his men had hoped to travel by land whenever possible, but were prevented by the numerous swamps and lagoons on the coast. At sea, their canoes would become engulfed by the waves and currents, and some would overturn, losing valuable supplies. They soon lost most of their precious weapons, causing them to resort, when close to Honduras, to “a few native bows and arrows, poor substitute for their fine swords, arbalests, and arquebuses”.74 Oviedo describes the treacherous Belize coast in vivid terms, a part of which passage says: Such a manner of coast . . . has never been seen or heard of elsewhere, for it is all inundated by the sea for a great distance . . . . Because of this, it is impossible to move by land. The wind off the land drove them such a distance out to sea that they nearly lost sight of the shore, and at the same time threatened to capsize them. At midday, when the wind or tide turned, they were pushed back to land.75

Indeed, their fate would have been much worse were it not for the captured Indians they had taken with them. These captives were used as guides and rowers, and the Spaniards found them invaluable because of their knowledge

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of the coast and their dexterity in rowing, which Oviedo thought “was something to be marveled at”. They would guide the Spaniards to river mouths – certainly including the Belize River and its tributaries – to find dry land for their nightly camps. When not rowing, the Indians were locked in stocks and carefully watched over by the Spaniards, but this did not prevent “many” from escaping. Thus the Spaniards found themselves raiding Indian villages not only for food but as frequently to replace the runaways. Altogether their experience was most harrowing, but it need not detain us further.76 It took Dávila and his men seven months of untold hardships before they finally reached the province of Honduras, “exhausted, famished, ragged and disarmed” – and probably more besides; we are not given any insight into their mental state. The second entrada into Belize (Chetumal) had ended in a second failure after two years – from 1531 to sometime in March 1533. Up to this time neither Dávila nor Montejo knew how the other had fared, so their meeting was again joyful when Dávila finally rejoined Montejo at Campeche “late in April or early in May 1533”.77 Villa Real was abandoned, and Chetumal remained intact and unpacified by the Spaniards, despite two entradas. But it still remained Montejo’s chief target. Earlier we touched upon the war strategies of Nachan Can, the chief cacique of Chetumal city and the surrounding provinces, and we found the signature of Gonzalo Guerrero evident in the policy of avoiding open combat with the Spaniards, primarily because of their superior advantage in weaponry. What we cannot forget is that credit must be given to any Maya military leader (each with tens of thousands of warriors) who would take such a piece of advice. Avoiding combat with the enemy went against the grain of Maya culture. Like the Aztecs, they were – perhaps to a lesser extent – preoccupied with capturing live Spanish soldiers in battle for the purpose of sacrifice. Also like the Aztecs, the Maya believed that if they captured or killed the leader in any battle, the entire operation would collapse.78 For his part, Montejo was more successful in Campeche than Dávila had been in Chetumal, but the relative position of the two men was remarkably similar. Like Dávila, Montejo had “about forty or fifty soldiers”, nine of whom were mounted, and “a considerable number of his company were ill and unfit for campaigning”.79 As at Chetumal with the brave Nachan Can, Campeche also had an outstanding cacique, Nachi Cocom, who was described as one of the most implacable enemies of the Spaniards anywhere in Yucatan, and both

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places are known to have had skilled fighters. Both places, at about the same time, saw the Spaniards in great need of food and other supplies during the general revolt mentioned above. But whereas Chetumal refrained from open combat with the Spaniards, even when they were most distressed, Campeche, with pardonable self-assurance in view of its demographic superiority, chose open combat and was cleanly defeated by Montejo. True to tradition, the primary goal of the Maya was to capture Montejo alive, probably for sacrifice, and thus rid themselves altogether of Spaniards in Yucatan. If the self-promotional probanza of a foot soldier, one Blas Gonzáles, can be credited, but for his heroic intervention the Maya very nearly succeeded in capturing Montejo alive.80 After the ordeal, a grateful Montejo seized the moment and achieved victory after a very fierce battle. He consolidated his position in the surrounding districts and concluded alliances with different caciques, but certainly not with Nachi Cocom, who escaped to seclusion somewhere. What Montejo could not succeed in doing, his son was to accomplish in 1542, when he moved against Nachi Cocom and defeated him in the field. Cocom was thus forced to acknowledge Spanish sovereignty and Christianity and later became a close friend and confidant of Friar Landa.81 It seems highly probable that if Guerrero had been the military advisor to Nachi Cocom at Campeche (and if Cocom followed his advice, as did Nachan Can at Chetumal), then Montejo’s fate might have been quite different – closer, perhaps, to Dávila’s. Gonzalo Guerrero – the first European resident of Belize who fought for his “adopted land” – is one of those shadowy figures in history of whom we would like to know a great deal more. But just about all we know of him comes from Spanish writers, who, understandably, were indignant about him. They called him names such as “bizarre Spanish renegade”, “vile apostate”, “idolater” and so forth. But Oviedo would take the prize for invective, especially after Guerrero refused the overtures of both Cortés and Montejo to return to the Spaniards. Oviedo first guessed at Guerrero’s Spanish heritage and then cast doubt on it, calling him “[t]his evil person, as he must have been from his origins [born and] brought up among low and vile people, and one who was not well taught nor properly instructed in the elements of our Holy Catholic Faith, or who was by chance [which must be suspected] of a low race and suspect [sic] of not being of the Christian religion”. Yet Oviedo also described him in this same tirade as a nobleman of sorts, when he said that

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Guerrero was “of the Condado de Niebla”.82 This may well be the explanation for the latter’s superbly ironic reply to Montejo that prompted Inga Clendinnen to wonder how “a mariner of ‘low origins’” could display literacy with such subtlety.83 Why Guerrero reconstructed himself into a Maya will probably remain a mystery. What were his motives? Clendinnen is among the few modern historians to have reflected on this shadowy character. She wonders “whether isolation and despair led to collapse, and then a slow rebuilding, or whether knowledge of many ports (he was thought to be a sailor), an ear quick for foreign sounds, a mind curious for foreign ways, allowed an easier transition”.84 Curiously, Clendinnen appears to see his cooperation with the Indians as a kind of mental “collapse”. But one could also speculate that Guerrero might well have become a turncoat for moral reasons. Might he not have perceived Spanish acts against the Indians (he was in Darién, Santo Domingo and possibly Cuba) as exploitative and brutal? They had been seen as a model for other Europeans in the region – and later even for Hitler, as David Stannard reminds us.85 Although Bartolomé de Las Casas, for instance, was by no stretch of the imagination against Spanish presence among the Indians of the New World, he nonetheless was appalled by Spanish brutality against them. Whereas Las Casas picked up his pen to protest, Guerrero donned war dress and weaponry and tattooed and painted himself to protest as he understood it. The fact that history knows more of Las Casas than of Guerrero is testimony to the pen’s being mightier than the sword. Both men were in the Indies at about the same time, and Las Casas aimed some sharp barbs at Montejo, viewing him as yet another “thorough scoundrel elevated to a position of power . . . as governor of the kingdom of Yucatan”. Guerrero died sometime between 1535 and 1536, just about the same time that Las Casas was writing his most scathing criticisms of Spanish excesses against the Indians, which he completed in 1542.86 Even if we do not take the high moral road on behalf of Guerrero – to the extent of juxtaposing him with Las Casas – we might wonder whether he had some implacable hatred or grudge against his countrymen for personal reasons. Perhaps, as Oviedo hinted nastily, he was of another race, which by Spanish definition then would mean Jewish or Arabic (Saracen);87 these two groups, however, were strictly prohibited from entering any part of Spanish America, even if they had converted to Christianity. It is also possible that Guerrero

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was merely an adventurous man who loved warfare as a game, a man with a mercenary disposition and no real moral convictions, but one who saw opportunities for promotion from being a slave to the Maya to one who would be looked upon as a cacique and chief military strategist to one of the most influential Maya lords of the region – a higher position among them than he probably could have achieved among his own people. We may never know the truth, but whoever or whatever Guerrero was, he is now privileged with the position of being the first European settler of Belize who fought for his adopted land against alien occupation. Indeed he fought for more than the country today called Belize. He also fought on behalf of the Indians in Honduras at a time when the senior Montejo was governor of that place. It is said that Guerrero left Chetumal with a select company of Maya fighters in fifty canoes, crossed the Bay of Honduras and fought with the Indians against the Spaniards in Honduras. From the skimpy evidence it appears that he made several such forays, and it was on one of those, in 1535 or 1536, that he is presumed to have lost his life. The inference of his death came when, after one of these battles, the dead body of a white man was found among the casualties; he had long hair, his nose, lips and ears were pierced and he was “dressed, painted, and ceremonially lacerated [tattooed] like an Indian”.88 We know from his description of himself to Aguilar that Guerrero was tattooed. Thus it would seem that this apostate Spaniard died on behalf of Indians outside of his adopted land, Belize, and in this sense it could be said that he possessed a wider pan-Indian sympathy. But this may well be an idealistic view; it is also thought that Guerrero may have died in the service of his employer, Nachan Can, because, it is believed, “Nachan Can had a factory and commercial interests on the Ulua River”,89 and the tattooed body was found in the valley of that river. Yet this does not bring us much closer to the puzzle of Guerrero’s underlying philosophy in opposing his countrymen so tenaciously. In the meantime, Chetumal and its outlying provinces remained unconquered. Even the western areas, such as Campeche and Champoton and their vast surrounding districts, that Montejo had occupied earlier had all risen in revolt, with the result that the Spaniards again withdrew from Yucatan in frustration. Although this might be an exaggeration, it is said that “not a single Spaniard [was] left in all Yucatan”90 between 1534 and early 1535. But they were to refurbish and return, and once again Chetumal was foremost on their agenda. Montejo, with his added appointment of governor of Honduras and

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Higueras, delegated to his capable son and nephew the task of carrying out the entire conquest and pacification. It was the two young Montejos who were responsible for the final – but partial – conquest of the west and the northern coast of Yucatan. During the conquest of these places there emerged a situation of immense importance to the future of Belize. That is, not all the Maya Indians were conquered. A large number ran away to the southeast, deep into the forests. After the bloody battle of T-ho, for instance, where the younger Montejo established the new city of Mérida (1542), many of the Maya fled to the south and southeast and never returned. Some, as usual, continued intermittent guerrilla warfare, and many of those people settled in Peten Itza, as well as in parts of the place we call Belize today. Fresh from their successes, the Montejos could now turn their full attention to what they perceived as the most challenging military undertaking: Chetumal, which remained unfriendly and most threatening. Their overarching strategy was first to take on the surrounding and contiguous provinces before attacking, hopefully, an isolated Chetumal – a place that had already humiliated them twice. The task of belling the cat fell to Gaspar Pacheco, since the faithful and intrepid Dávila had died in about 1538. Pacheco received his commission from the adelantado sometime in 1543; he was to march to Chetumal, conquer the region and establish – or re-establish – a town there. Obviously, Montejo’s disappointment over the evacuation of Villa Real had made him set his sights also on the Golfo Dulce region, for reasons to be dealt with later. Accordingly he also instructed Pacheco to continue south to that region after Chetumal, conquer the area and establish a town somewhere there. In that southern province, Pacheco was given full powers to name officials for government of the town and to establish an encomienda system. We need only look at the map of Central America to see that his mission was meant to cover the entire eastern seaboard and outlying lands embracing modern Belize. It is ironic that Pacheco, perhaps imitating the adelantado, named his son, Melchor, as his principal subordinate in civil and military matters and his nephew, Alonso, as third-in-command; fortunately they did not also have identical first names. The entrada of the Pachecos to Chetumal that began sometime in late 1543 or early 1544 has come down in history – the records are plentiful – as one of the most mindlessly brutal in Yucatan. Even before reaching Chetumal, they

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made themselves thoroughly unpopular by exacting heavy demands for food, supplies of different kinds and large numbers of human burden-bearers, including women. The Belizean Maya at Chetumal, as would be expected, resisted with all their might. As before, they built strong fortifications, abandoned their town and destroyed the crops; many ran off into the bush, from where they conducted guerrilla warfare. The result was general famine for both Indians and Spaniards. The Spaniards were frenzied in their brutality: they killed men, women and children with abandon, garotted, mutilated, drowned and set dogs on people to tear them to pieces. Chamberlain reports that “Maya, both male and female, were killed in numbers with the garrote [sic], or were thrown into the lakes to drown with weights attached to them. Savage dogs of war, although used not for the first time in Yucatan, tore many defenseless natives to pieces. It is said that the Pachecos cut off the hands, ears and noses of many Indians.” Even Chamberlain refers to these acts as “calculated”, “wanton” and “barbarous”91 – a departure from his usual sanitized version of Spain in Yucatan, which rarely alludes in any substantial way to the general cruelties perpetrated there by the conquistadors. It is generally believed that of the Pacheco triad, Alonso, the nephew, was the one most responsible for most of the “barbarities”. The Franciscan priest Father Lorenzo de Bienvenida, dismayed by the campaign, wrote later to the Spanish Crown to complain against the Pachecos, and in this indictment he too identifies Alonso as the chief culprit. “Nero”, says the priest, “was not more cruel than this man [Alonso Pacheco]”.92 Interestingly, Landa too is most critical of what he calls the “Unheard-of cruelties” of the Spaniards at Chetumal, listing most of the excesses quoted above and adding more.93 Yet this same priest, less than twenty years later, was to commit the greatest act of vandalism against Maya culture, in July 1562. Landa admits that he had burned some five thousand Maya “idols” and worse, some twenty-seven hieroglyphic rolls, most of which we now know he obtained from Nachi Cocom – an act of “holocaust of native codices”,94 says Thomas Gann in disgust. Landa considered all Mayan iconography works of the devil that stood in the way of their conversion to Christianity.95 The immediate result of the Pachecos’ reign of terror brought a part of Belize – Chetumal – under Spanish rule. This was no small victory for the Spaniards. The Pachecos (son and nephew, for illness had removed the father, Gaspar, from the expedition), following the adelantado’s instructions, could

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now march farther south to conquer the Golfo Dulce region. However, they encountered strong opposition not only from the Maya but also from the Dominican priests in the area, who stopped them in their tracks. Although the Franciscans had a virtual monopoly on all of Yucatan after 1544, the Dominicans were in southern Belize, the Golfo Dulce districts and Vera Paz, apparently from around the 1530s. Among them was the indomitable Bartolomé de Las Casas, who had listened to the Indians who advised the priests not to bring soldiers with them on their missionizing visits to their villages.96 The Dominicans agreed and adhered very strictly to what could be characterized as the principle of “peaceful penetration” that was to govern their missionary activities. Their primary aim was to convert or pacify through kindness, good Christian example and moral suasion. Later the Franciscans, for the most part, also embraced this principle.97 Happily for the Dominicans, the Spanish Crown was supportive of their policy. Upon the objections of the priests, therefore, the Pachecos and their soldiers were not allowed to penetrate the Golfo Dulce region any further. Nonetheless, they had penetrated most of what is Belize today. Grant Jones has shown that they reached as far south as the province of Dzuluinicob, embracing the Sibum River and as far west as Tipu and its surroundings, where encomiendas were immediately established.98 The Pachecos did not succeed in establishing the town around the Golfo Dulce that Montejo saw as part of his grand administrative design, but we shall see him attempt it again. Chetumal city and its surrounding districts to the south (Belize today), as well as the northern regions (parts of Mexico today), were now grudgingly and nominally in Spanish hands. After the Pacheco carnage (1543–45), the old Chetumal city was no longer the flourishing place that Montejo and Dávila had admired between 1528 and the early 1530s. Every account describes its impact on Chetumal as devastating. Considered a well-populated area before the two-year campaign began, by the end it was described as “depopulated”. From “being the most settled and populous”, says Landa, “it became the most wretched of the whole country”.99 Friar Bienvenida says that prior to 1543 there were many villages of five hundred and a thousand houses, and “now [1548] one which has 100 is large”.100 This can be compared with the adelantado’s earlier computation of two thousand houses in 1528. The depopulation was not just the result of wanton killings by the Pachecos and other exigencies

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of warfare; the evidence suggests that many of the frightened Indians had again taken flight, and several settled in the accustomed havens to the south. Yet the spirit of the Maya was not crushed, despite the “successes” of the Spaniards, who by 1545 thought they had conquered all of Yucatan. These courageous people were determined to drive the Spaniards out of their country once and for all, and the next revolt developed into easily the most bloody uprising the region had yet seen. Named by the Spaniards the “Great Maya Revolt”, it took place in 1546 to 1547; although it engulfed nearly all of Yucatan, our focus will be on the Belize area of Chetumal. Despite the devastation of the place, these Belizean Maya regrouped around Chanlacan just as they had at Chequitaqul upon Dávila’s arrival in 1531. Chanlacan – variously called Chalacam, Chanlacao or Chanlacam – is described by Chamberlain as “a fortress town on an island in Lake Bacalar”,101 but its exact location appears to be unclear to modern archaeologists. Scholes and Thompson agree that it was “on a highly fortified island”, but after speculating somewhat, say it “might even have been on Albion Island, in the Rio Hondo, above Douglas”.102 Grant Jones too is not very clear; first he states that it was “located north of Tipu (perhaps on Progresso Lagoon)”, then a few pages later says it was “probably in Belize”, then repeats that it might have been on or near Progresso Lagoon.103 The confusion notwithstanding, there is agreement that the place was part of northern Belize, even if it is not identifiable on the map today. Interestingly, Scholes and Thompson identify two couples from Belize (date not given) “who gave Chanlacan as their home [who] were undoubtedly refugees who settled in the Belize valley when the town was abandoned in the 1630s”.104 Chanlacan, the very epicentre of the Chetumal resistance, began very auspiciously for the Maya but was to end rather anticlimactically. Like everywhere else in Yucatan where the encomienda system was instituted, Chetumal regarded it as unfair, unjust and oppressive, and this institution would become the first target of attack. Led by the priests and lords or caciques of Chanlacan, the people first refused to serve in any manner whatsoever the encomiendas that Dávila had first instituted. Some of them may have lapsed since his precipitous departure from Villa Real in 1532, but the Pachecos had re-established the system even more thoroughly from around 1544. Not only did the people refuse to provide tributes, supplies and service, they also took the daring step of killing the encomendero of Chanlacan, Martin Rodriguez, and rose up in

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arms.105 Their next step was to attempt to cut off the town of Bacalar in order to prevent the Spaniards there from responding to their open revolt. They succeeded for a while because the Spaniards were already hard-pressed at Valladolid under a Mayan siege, and could not spare any soldiers for Chetumal. As soon as Valladolid was “saved”, the Spaniards promptly turned their attention to what they considered “still the bitterest kind of warfare ahead” at Chetumal. The nephew Montejo, obviously the most intrepid and ruthless of the three, was placed in command. Soon he had recaptured most of the northern districts of Uaymil-Chetumal, and then he appointed Juan de Aguilar as commanding officer of a company of mounted troops to retake Bacalar and the remaining morthern districts. Upon succeeding with Bacalar, the town’s cabildo augmented his troops by giving him command of the garrison to “move against the strong and inaccessible island fortress of Chanlacan, principal center of the revolt in the entire province”.106 Aguilar was also instructed to punish the lords and people of Chanlacan if they refused to make peace, but to deal moderately with them if they chose otherwise. He then proceeded to the “heavily garrisoned” Chanlacan by canoe with his troops (how many is not clear) as well as some “allied native warriors”. From this point the situation appears baffling. Apparently the wife of the cacique of Chanlacan had been captured by Spaniards, and Aguilar had her returned to him unharmed. The cacique, after “negotiation” with the Spaniards, submitted because of this act of goodwill. We are given no name for this cacique and therefore do not know if he was Nachan Can. The result was that, Chamberlain writes, “No fighting had been necessary” and the “surrender of Chanlacan brought a quick end to the revolt in Uaymil-Chetumal, and the natives returned to service of the Spaniards”, whereupon Aguilar returned to Valladolid.107 This was indeed a curious ending, considering the great fighting spirit of the Maya of Chetumal and their past successes with the Spaniards. Could it be that the Pachecos had succeeded in crushing their spirit? We do not know, but an idiom of culture may have been involved in the return of a cacique’s captured wife that is not accessible to the outsider. Nonetheless, it must be noted that the sole source on this event is the probanza of Juan de Aguilar himself 108 and probanzas are by nature invariably notoriously self-serving.109 It certainly would have been a feather in Aguilar’s cap to have subdued such a challenging region without a fight – precisely what the authorities in Spain, as well as the adelantado, would have desired.

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In any event, that Aguilar inflicted no punishment on either the Chetumal cacique or his people for killing a Spanish encomendero and for starting an uprising is unexpected. It is even more so in view of the harsh punishments, including widespread enslavement, meted out to the principal leaders (caciques and priests) elsewhere. Maya priests were prominent in this resistance, as they would be in others to come, since pacification meant loss of their traditional power. The Montejos treated them brutally. Some were executed or burned and some two thousand “enemy Indians, men, women and children” were rounded up and enslaved.110 In any event, Aguilar’s leniency to Chanlacan was a sound strategy; the Spaniards had been humiliated by Chetumal much too often. Indeed, no Spaniard would want to repeat the barbarism of the Pachecos, which had brought down condemnation from different quarters, particularly the clergy, but even from some Spanish settlers involved in Montejo’s colonization process. The Franciscans’ formal charges prompted the Crown to issue a cedula ordering an investigation of the Pachecos’ cruelties,111 but the outcome is not clear. Intriguingly, therefore, even the Pachecos’ “victory” was a source of humiliation for the Spaniards. It is no accident that in his self-promoting probanza Aguilar not only points out that he returned the cacique’s wife but also mentions “gifts”. He says that it was “by means of his fine diligence [resulting in] little harm to the natives, and with the gifts and good treatment that he gave them” that he was successful in reducing them. Aguilar’s strategy was to have far-reaching implications, for the surrender of Chanlacan brought a quick end to the revolt of all Chetumal and the surrounding provinces. If the powerful Chetumal was subjugated then there appeared to be little hope for lesser regions, and even those that stoutly held out were soon defeated by the Spaniards. And once again Spain believed it had all of Yucatan under its control. But the spirit of the Maya was not altogether crushed; they resisted again and again, and they were never completely conquered. Spanish weaponry, aided by bloodhounds and horses, prevailed, but the Spanish were even more effectively served by the vast numbers of native Indians – “invisible warriors”, in Restall’s terms – who fought on their side. They are variously referred to as “additional allied warriors”, “native auxiliaries” or “allied native warriors”, but specific numbers are rarely given. A rare case when numbers are mentioned is when they succeeded in breaking the Maya siege of Valladolid, with “about forty men, of whom the majority were mounted, and

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about 500 Indian auxiliaries”.112 This column was pivotal in breaking the siege, which allowed the Spaniards to turn their attention to Chetumal. Just about every Spanish commander had Indian soldiers, some from Champoton and Campeche, some taken as slaves from encomiendas or domestic service. There were also some Maya informants who are said to have been invaluable to the Spaniards, especially in identifying the caciques and priests who were considered rebel leaders.113 It can be assumed that the Aztecs and Tlascalons now resident in Yucatan also participated in suppressing the rebellion, but at this time the preponderance of ethnic soldiers were Mayan. The Spaniards needed them because Yucatan had been suffering grievously from a shortage of colonists ever since gold-rich Peru became the major attraction for Spanish conquistadors. The prestige of the adelantado grew after his success over the “Great Maya Revolt” of 1546–47. He could now turn his attention to his long-held vision of a wider Yucatan – an administrative zone embracing the broad littoral from the port of Tabasco in the west to Guatemala and Honduras in the east, with the Golfo Dulce region at the centre of the zone. This cohesive administrative unit, which would embrace the Bay of Honduras and just about all of what is Belize today, would speak to the commercial needs of the region, giving Guatemala in particular an outlet for trade on the Caribbean coast. It would equally have been of great strategic importance to Spanish hegemony in Central America, just as by the same token it would most certainly have precluded any British settlement in what is Belize today. However, at this early period the latter was probably not an issue that was considered viable to the Spaniards. As we have seen, Montejo’s first attempt – sending the Pachecos to conquer and establish a Christian town in the area – did not succeed because of stiff resistance from the Maya and the Dominican priests. Nonetheless, they did penetrate a deep, wide area of Belize, including Tipu. Perhaps even more important, the Pachecos were punctilious in establishing encomiendas from Bacalar to Tipu, and it is almost certain that they also instituted the system at Lamanai.114 To demonstrate his seriousness about colonizing the Golfo Dulce area, Montejo placed the entire operation in the hands of his son and nephew, now veteran soldiers and experienced conquistadors. Their principal task was to found a town on or near the Golfo. They were allowed an impressive force of some eighty soldiers, a “large number” of whom were horsemen, and abundant supplies and munitions. What was considered a well-supplied and thoroughly

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prepared expedition left Mérida sometime in 1547; they marched to Bacalar, travelling mainly by canoes to their destination. Here the two cousins were met with fierce opposition from the Indians around the Golfo Dulce. However, after a series of campaigns, they felt they had subjugated a very wide area and could thus establish a “town”, Nueva Sevilla; its exact location is unclear but it was certainly contiguous with south-eastern Belize. The usual Spanishstyle officials were duly appointed, including an alcalde (mayor) who also undertook the role of captain general. As had become routine, many of the Indians took flight into the forests, and again it is certain that some went into the area we presently call Belize, as well as to the Peten region.115 In sending soldiers to establish a town in an area the Dominicans saw as their purlieu, the adelantado raised the wrath of these priests to a crescendo. He had certainly not reckoned with their courage and determination and their experience in opposition. But Montejo was equally convinced that the Golfo Dulce region was within his administration. The presence of the soldiers was most painful to the priests, considering the principle of peaceful reduction arrived at between them and the Indians. What was more, the soldiers had enslaved a good number of the Indians who opposed them during the campaign – under the pretext of a “just war” – and the Dominicans were vehemently against that. It had, however, become the practice of the conquistadors to enslave a number of Indians after each campaign throughout Yucatan; they were mostly sold to the Spanish Caribbean. The priests sent numerous protests to the Crown, which continued to support them; a royal cedula was again issued affirming the rights and authority of the Dominicans in the region. It was sent directly to Montejo, ordering him to evacuate all the lands the soldiers had conquered, including the new town of Nueva Sevilla, nor should he send his men to any place where the friars were operating. The Crown decreed extreme punishments for any breach of royal edicts; death and confiscation of property would result from disobeying them.116 This was particularly galling to Montejo. But even after a most vigorous and protracted protest the Crown was adamant, and finally he had to swallow the bitter pill and evacuate not only Nueva Sevilla but also all the districts around the Golfo Dulce; that was finally completed in 1551. Thus ended Montejo’s long-cherished dream of a grand Spanish town in this region. And grand it was going to be. Although only a few years old (1547–51), Nueva Sevilla had instituted encomiendas, and even haciendas were being established. But

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whether on encomiendas or haciendas, the Indians were providing their labour grudgingly or not at all, and several were forced into slavery.117 At the time of the evacuation, Nueva Sevilla is said to have been the second-largest Spanish town in Yucatan, exceeded only by Mérida. We should perhaps reflect here on the terms town and city used so pervasively in early Spanish America, and often interchangeably. In their early beginnings, some of these places were minuscule. They were more consistent with the Greek or Roman concept of the city-state that influenced western Europe than with the behemoths we call cities today. At its apogee, Renaissance Florence, for instance, had just about forty thousand people. Bacalar, founded by the Pachecos late in 1544, had eight inhabitants, or “citizens”, as Clendinnen calls them.118 Among these citizens were two of the Pachecos.119 Valladolid had about forty-five inhabitants and Campeche about forty, while Bacalar had grown to between fifteen or twenty by 1550.120 Dávila’s city of Villa Real began its existence with an impressive population of about fortyodd soldier-citizens. Nueva Sevilla, therefore, would have had no difficulty taking second place to Mérida, which in 1550 had at least seventy citizens. We have no precise numbers for Nueva Sevilla, but we know that the young Montejos had a force of eighty soldiers and there is no record of casualties among them. These men, as usual, would become citizens, but both Montejos returned to Mérida after satisfying themselves that their mission had been accomplished. Thus Nueva Sevilla would have had about seventy-eight citizens, making it indeed close or even equal to Merida’s “seventy or more”. Whatever the size or name of these “towns”, they were all well garrisoned at this early stage. The Spaniards were well aware of the deep resentment the Maya bore towards them; they needed vigilant defence, since the Maya would not miss any opportunity to rise up against them if they showed any weaknesses. From all appearances the citizens of Nueva Sevilla had great expectations, especially with respect to trade. It was expected to be the emporium of Central America, with commercial networks extending from Tabasco to Honduras. It was a project to which Montejo had given much thought and effort, and it is no wonder that he was so exasperated at the order to evacuate. The southeast region was thus left dangerously exposed, and since nature does not condone vacua, pirates and buccaneers of various nationalities (with the British finally preponderating) and cimarrones soon established occupancy, much to the chagrin of Spain.121

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In terms of Belizean history, Montejo’s administrative failures turned out to be of immense importance to the country’s early formation and development. In the first place, had he succeeded in establishing Chetumal as his north-eastern base of operation, with Villa Real – the first Spanish “town” of Belize – commanding the strategic Chetumal Bay, it is certain that the British would not have been so successful in gaining control of the entire Caribbean coast later. His failure to colonize the Golfo Dulce, which was to be his point d’appui for political and commercial activities in the region, was even more significant. When the scope of this zone is considered, clearly it would certainly have pre-empted British settlement of the entity called Belize today. In sum, therefore, Montejo did not succeed in establishing grand permanent Christian cities in present-day Belize, fundamentally because of Maya resistance, enhanced by the structure of their society, and partly because of opposition from the Dominican clergy, who were firmly backed by the Crown. But this does not mean that Spanish influence or institutions disappeared. Today the large number of Spanish place names testifies to their presence. There are still also a few local government administrations with Spanish titles and structures, and of course there is the firm establishment of the Catholic Church in Belize.122 A most pervasive Spanish institution was the encomienda system, which Grant Jones has shown to have been widespread and well established, particularly around the northern, western and central areas of what is Belize today.123 This feudal system, already moribund in Spain when it was transferred to the New World, gave the conquistadors whole parcels of lands, with the Indians and their towns on them, with the right “to use and profit by them in your estates and commerce”, as a part of Montejo’s encomienda to a conquistador stated.124 In metal-rich countries such as New Spain and Peru, a wealthy encomendero could act out the fantasy of a feudal grandee on his manor without undue expectations of servile offerings, but in a poor country such as Yucatan the encomienda was a necessity – often the only means of survival for the aspiring encomendero. It was, indeed, also the only means of payment to most conquistadors for dangerous services and hardships, not to mention the personal expenditures some incurred during the conquest and pacification process. Thus the first order of business after pacification – especially in Yucatan – was to establish an encomienda system, as Dávila did at Chetumal in 1531.

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The Indians on the encomiendas, that is, “all its lords and caciques and nobles, and all the divisions and subject villages of the said town”, 125 were expected to pay the encomenderos a set tribute in pesos (amount not specified). In addition they were to perform services of just about any description, from domestic chores to construction work; they were to provide foodstuffs such as cacao, maize, honey, beans and other agricultural goods, as well as beeswax and cotton cloth for clothing. Because, as has been noted, the Indians considered the system unjust and unbearable, it was a major object of hatred from which hundreds of Maya would run away, especially during uprisings. Typically they would head southward, ending up in either Peten Itza or Belize. During uprisings the encomenderos on their isolated encomiendas would be the first to be attacked by angry rebels (as we saw at Chanlacan), and this led to their flight as well and becoming absentee “seigneurs”. This weakened the Spanish population in terms of both citizens and soldiers, since continued military service was a condition for encomienda grants. The system in Belize that began with Dávila at Chetumal in 1531 lingered on until sometime in the eighteenth century, when the Spaniards were forced to become preoccupied with the British presence in their midst.126 It was the missionaries who were the most successful in establishing centres of Spanish administration in early Belize. Although the Dominicans had their stronghold in south-western Yucatan, it was the Franciscans who “were to dominate the missionary enterprise in Yucatan, as they had in Mexico”.127 It appears from fragmentary evidence that a few Franciscans had seeped into Yucatan unofficially from New Mexico and Guatemala between 1535 and 1542; from 1544 we begin to have documentation of their official entry into Yucatan.128 The major thrust of these dedicated early priests was to scatter themselves throughout the country, preaching and ministering to the Maya in isolated places and attempting to establish Christian communities in the forests. It is thus a major challenge for the historian to reconstruct a complete picture of these early communities. In many cases one can only guess at some of these establishments because of insufficient evidence or because of their remoteness; some have simply disappeared from the map. Fortunately there is some fairly consistent material on at least one of these early Spanish Christian (that is, Catholic) places, Tipu – “an established colonial town”129 – and its outlying districts in south-western Belize, on which the next chapter will concentrate in more detail.

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 2

Tipu, or Negroman An “Outpost of Christianity”1

the few places of Spanish administration in Belize on which we have a fair amount of information. It is noteworthy that even Thomas Jefferys identified it on his map of 1775. In the 1920s the pioneer archaeologist of Belize, Thomas Gann, described Tipu as “the last outpost of the Spaniards, a large Indian village on the banks of the Mopan River, in British Honduras, now occupied only by a few mahogany-cutters”.2 Since then, thanks to the archaeologists and ethnohistorians, some of whom we have already mentioned, we have a much better sense of the location of Tipu. The original Maya name was probably ti puh (“place of Cattail Rushes”), according to Thompson,3 who after Gann’s exploratory excavations was certainly the first to give serious attention to the Tipu area. It is clear that Jefferys positioned Tipu much too far north on his map, almost on the same latitude as Chetumal Bay. With the exception of Gann, who thought it was on the banks of the Mopan River, most recent scholars have placed it on the banks of the Macal, but even among them there is a slight discrepancy as to the side of the river. For instance, Thompson and Scholes, writing in 1977, say that it was “highly probable that Tipu was on the west bank of the Macal or Eastern Branch of the Belize River, above San Ignacio el Cayo and in the neighborhood of present-day Negroman or Macaw Bank. It almost surely was not on the Mopan or West Branch because Bullet Tree Falls, just above the junction of that river with the Belize River, prevents navigation.”4 But in 1988, Thompson, writing on his own, says, “I think Tipu TIPU IS ONE OF

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must have been on the Eastern Branch (the Macal River) perhaps about where Macaw Bank now stands.”5 Grant Jones places Tipu “in an attractive valley setting on the left branch of the Macal River, directly east of the modern town of Benque Viejo del Carmen”.6 But there appears to be no discrepancy regarding Tipu’s present-day name – Negroman – or its general location, in westcentral Belize close to San Ignacio and relatively close to the Guatemalan border, an area that, according to Elizabeth Graham, has “a history of occupation that stretches back into the Preclassic period (about 300 BC)”.7 Fortunately our enquiry will concentrate on the early modern period, and the main source of this part of the enquiry in its documentary form is drawn from a chronicle that the editor and translator described as “long neglected and unappreciated by English readers”, the History of the Conquest of the Province of the Itza, by Don Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor. This book, first published in Spanish in 1700 or 1701,1 saw its first English translation only in 1983, and this may have been the cause of its neglect by English readers. Villagutierre held the position of official chronicler of the Council of the Indies in Seville, and it was in that capacity that he wrote the above work. It is not surprising, therefore, that he is unabashedly biased in favour of Spain’s “heroic” and “noble” deeds in the New World. Indeed, he wrote the book with “the sincere desire that the execution of glorious deeds by our Spaniards will not be buried in the depths of oblivion”, and was proud that the Spanish Crown had brought so many “barbaric and pagan peoples”8 into the flock of the Roman Church. If ever a work of history could be called bardic, this is it. Thus one should not expect even a semblance of objectivity from Villagutierre, notwithstanding his claim that he is going after “the truth, avoiding praise, bias, exaggeration, or opinionated reflections – the things that most invalidate historical narrative”.9 The work is monumental in the Hegelian sense of the term, partly – and precisely – because it is heavily interposed with opinions and biases, always favouring the Church, priests and Spaniards and invariably condemning the native people with epithets such as “treacherous”, “infidels”, “violent”, “barbarians” and the like. Also it is often repetitive and clumsy, paying no particular attention to sequence and promising to return to a theme but not always doing so, thus making it somewhat disjointed. Yet, despite all these weaknesses plus what the translator refers to as Villagutierre’s “excessive religiosity”,10 the work is invaluable for our concerns – so long as we perforce have to rely almost wholly on Spanish documents for

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this period. As mentioned in the preface, part 1 of this book is a work of synthesis, so one would wish to use the works closest to the relevant primary sources. As a chronicler of the Indies, Villagutierre had complete access to Spain’s rich trove of primary materials on the New World. But, of course, having on hand such copious documentation, though necessary, is not sufficient explanation for the work’s distinctive features. Villagutierre was “a consummate copyist [and] he did not need to invent”, the editor of the work, Frank E. Comparato, tells us, adding that it was tested repeatedly against original sources from the Seville Archives in Spain and found to be faithful.11 To be sure, Villagutierre has the rather bad habit of hardly ever acknowledging his sources, but since he has been subjected to “such intimate scrutiny” regarding their accuracy, the historian may use the work with a degree of vigilant confidence. It is telling that a Yucatecan author supposed Villagutierre to have been from Yucatan because of his apparent knowledge of the place and the rich details he depicted.12 In that sense, therefore, the work should be treated not so much as an “historical narrative” but more as a piece of historical document. The book is useful to the historian prepared to plod through its tangled maze without allowing the “excessive religiosity” and the freely given opinions to obstruct the view – although these too are useful insights into the prevailing contemporary Spanish racial and religious attitudes. The reading of this difficult text, fortunately, is greatly facilitated by the editor’s timely commentaries (some 1,312 footnotes). Although Villagutierre’s work deals with the history of the conquest of the Itza – a people he characterized as “the most powerful, numerous, valiant, formidable, fearful, cruel and inhumane”13 – he nevertheless dealt also with Tipu and other unpacified Indians between Guatemala and Belize. Indeed, it is extraordinary that from him we have such a relatively coherent account of Tipu while modern historians of Yucatan such as Chamberlain and even Clendinnen do not even mention the place. And although Thomas Gann “discovered” it in the 1920s, it was not until the 1970s that Tipu received scholarly attention, inspired by Thompson. Grant Jones says that he “first became aware of Tipu and the importance of the Spanish presence in colonial Belize from the late J. Eric S. Thompson . . . during 1976”.14 Thereafter, through David Pendergast, Elizabeth Graham and others, Tipu became a centre of intense archaeological investigation.

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Outside of the archaeological and ethnohistorical works on this location, this study is the first attempt to construct an historical narrative on Tipu in a systematic manner with Villagutierre as the main source. In trying to put together the pieces of early Belizean history one has to make choices from disparate sources, some uncoordinated, disjointed and downright confusing. Where possible, when discrepancies with other disciplines occur, they will be pointed out, just as amplifications from those disciplines will be made. Scattered facts on Tipu have come out and aspects of the entradas of Fuensalida and Orbita have been repeated time and again, but these stories are necessary in this text in order to place the history of Tipu in the context of early Belizean history in some linear fashion. In dealing with the Itzas’ conquest, Villagutierre had of necessity to concentrate a great deal of his attention on Tipu because of its closeness to Peten Itza, the last outpost of Maya control. The fact that the Montejos made no direct attempts to subjugate or pacify the Itzas is certainly intriguing. Villagutierre says: “No one dared even to pass near their borders, and even the governors of the Yucatan provinces greatly feared them, but they dared not wage war on them because it had been prohibited by the orders and royal decrees of the King.”15 Why? We do not know, unless it was based on some arrangements Cortés made with them on his extraordinary march from Mexico to Honduras in 1524–25.16 However, the “policy” of non-interference did not preclude peaceful entradas by the priestly order. On the contrary, they appear to have been encouraged by the Crown, and as the years passed, Peten Itza was increasingly viewed by the priests as a veritable prize to be brought into the fold of Christianity. And it is within the context of attempted priestly entradas that we are privy to most of the knowledge we have about Tipu. Because of its closeness to Peten Itza, Tipu was used as a kind of mediator and a stage from which to approach the dreaded kingdom of the Itzas. Exactly when the Belizean district of Tipu, described by Villagutierre as an “outpost of Christianity”, was pacified and Christianized is unclear. But as hinted above, from shadowy evidence it appears that the place may have come under the influence of those few Franciscans who ministered in Yucatan in the early 1530s. A piece of evidence for this comes from Friar Bienvenida, who in 1544 found places in Belize “imperfectly” pacified during his remarkable march on foot from the Golfo Dulce to Bacalar, traversing and preaching

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throughout a great part of south, west-central and northern Belize.17 In any event, when Tipu was reconquered and repacified after the Pachecos’ entrada of 1543–45, encomiendas were firmly established there and some form of Christianity may also have been introduced. But Tipu was noted for its lapses – from feigning Christianity to falling back into its traditional religion. Tipu had all the makings of a typical outpost or frontier community. We have repeatedly mentioned the phenomenon of the Maya fleeing from encomiendas and Spanish warfare and brutality deep into the forests, especially to the southern sector of Yucatan, and many settled at Tipu. Indeed, with the onset of the Spaniards, it soon became routine for runaways to settle there; this remote frontier town came to be regarded as a haven for rebellious spirits. Its remoteness was ideal for a refugee situation that was to become a hotbed for resistance; for example, it took the vanguard position in the general rebellion against Spanish rule that began in the 1630s. Some would see this as paradigmatic. In reflecting on the major colonial rebellions in Yucatan, Nelson Reed, for instance, has shown that they all began in frontier villages “where the people were still living under a quasi-tribal organization”18 and where, as in Tipu, Spanish control was not consistently strong. Tipu was described by a Catholic priest as a “shantytown” of Yucatecan refugees who had fled Spanish oppression.19 These refugees were from different regions and of different backgrounds; some were even thought to have been non-Mayans and “pagans”, while some were from the Maya nobility. One such was Don Francisco Cumúx, a descendant of the cacique of Cozumel who, interestingly, had helped Cortés in 1519 identify the whereabouts of Gonzalo Guerrero, the Spanish nemesis, and Jeronimo de Aguilar. Cumúx, who had become a Christian, is said to have fled the Christian convent at Xecchán, or Xecchacán, some fifty miles inland from Cozumel, having been accused of “idolatry”. This was a common accusation by the Spaniards when converted Indians continued to practise aspects of their ancient religion. It seemed natural that Cumúx would have taken the southern route to Tipu. Cumúx had certainly not renounced Christianity – at least the formal aspects of it – for at Tipu he soon became an elder and choirmaster, considered “a post of some authority and prestige”. Even Villagutierre compliments him on his activities in the church at Tipu: a fine singer, very attentive to the priests, and socially, in “his customs and actions he showed his nobility and good blood”; then, with typical bigotry, he ends, “though he was an Indian”.

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He observes that Cumúx, while attending church, “sang the offices as though he were a privileged Indian”,20 which is odd since he has already acknowledged Cumúx’s nobility (this could be a problem of translation, if not a typographical error). Fancourt’s account seems more to the point when he renders the last sentence “as if he were a private Indian” (his emphasis) as a direct quotation from the source (thought to have been Diego Cogolludo).21 On the other hand, given Villagutierre’s religiosity, he might have thought that anyone accused of idolatry, regardless of birth, could not be considered privileged. In ecclesiastical and administrative terms, Tipu and its surrounding districts were under the jurisdiction of Bacalar. Thus the curate, mayor, or alcalde, and other Spanish officials of Bacalar were the same for Tipu. Nonetheless, Tipu was given a great deal of autonomy at all levels, partly because of its remoteness, partly because of its relative wealth and no doubt also because of the endemic shortage of priests, who were required to visit all the Christian outposts in Yucatan. Tipu, however, soon came to be visited not only for its own Christian considerations and as a source of revenue for the curate but also for the purpose of preparing Christian entradas to Peten Itza. As far as is known, no Spaniard had visited Peten Itza in any formal capacity since Cortés passed through in 1524–25 and apparently mesmerized the king, Can Ek, with Christian paraphernalia and teachings, including a sacred Mass. It appears that the king became predisposed to the new religion and asked for more instruction. But since Cortés was on an urgent mission to Honduras and therefore could not tarry any longer, he promised to send them other Spaniards. He had to leave his favourite black horse behind because it was lame, and asked his hosts to take care of the animal “and cure it”, promising to send for it subsequently.22 This did not happen, but we will hear more of this horse, which had consequences for early Belizean history and around which legends were built. Some scholars feel certain that had the Spaniards made good their promise to return, given Can Ek’s positive disposition, early Christianization of Peten Itza would have ensued23 – which is doubtful. In any event, had that happened we certainly would not have the kind of knowledge of Tipu we have today. Nevertheless, some ninety-odd years passed before the first entrada to Peten Itza en route from Tipu took place, in 1618. Why then? It is not clear but, again for reasons that are not clear, in 1614 an Itza emissary did approach the Spanish governor in Mérida with offers of peace, friendship and obedience to

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the Spanish monarch. When it turned out to have been merely a ruse, the enthusiastic celebrations that greeted the offer turned sour; the humiliated governor appealed to the Royal Council of the Indies in Spain for permission to conquer and reduce Peten Itza by force because of their wicked actions. Yet even within this context the council ruled out military action against the Itzas, recommending instead that any move against them be made only by the priests.24 It seems certain that it was this dramatic incident that gave rise to the first recorded entrada to Peten Itza from Tipu. This entrada to Peten Itza began on 25 March 1618 (apparently the Julian, not the Gregorian dating is to be understood here) by way of Tipu. It came about after a meeting of the Franciscan order in Mérida, when two priests, Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan Orbita, “filled with”, in the words of Villagutierre, “charity and the love of God, and seeing the spiritual needs of their neighbors (though infidels), offered to go and preach the holy gospel to the Itzas”. Considered by the author “learned men of outstanding virtue”, both were also fluent in the Maya languages.25 After receiving the nod from the order, their next step was to obtain permission from the bishop, who was delighted with the project and gave them all the help they wanted. He even delegated to them his authority as bishop of Bacalar and its surroundings. He ordered, under pain of excommunication, that the curate of Bacalar and the districts comprising Tipu should in no way impede the priests’ presence in Tipu, where they had to prepare their entry into Itza territory. The curate was also told not to visit Tipu and the neighbouring villages unless invited by the “missionary priests”. While at Tipu, these visiting priests were also to administer the sacraments there as if they were the pastors, and the Indians should give them the baptism, marriage and funeral fees for their support – just as they normally would to the curate, who would now be without these customary fees. This was to create much resentment on the curate’s part. It was just as well that the bishop’s injunctions were so strong, because there was much tension generally in Yucatan and elsewhere between the priests – the regular/secular clergy – and the religious orders, or los religiosos (“the religious”), who were members of one order or another. Specifically, much tension soon developed between the curate of Bacalar and the Franciscan visitors to Tipu. The bishop also gave Fuensalida, the leader of the pair, and Orbita presents to distribute to the Indians – an important instrument in any indoctrination

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process. These included crosses, rosaries, crucifixes, knives, scissors “and other trinkets from Castile”.26 Others also gave gifts to the priests. Surprisingly, despite the poverty and general backwardness of Bacalar, the whole town, Spaniards as well as Indians, entered into the spirit of cooperation initiated by the bishop and gave the priests whatever they could afford. Lay Spaniards such as encomenderos contributed items such as glass beads – a staple commodity of colonization beginning with Columbus and later used by the British27 – while for divine worship and “beautification” of the church, members of the religious community donated chalices, chasubles, missals and vestments, and even the prebendaries (usually very poor individuals who received stipends from the church) gave pictures to decorate the church at Tipu. The Indians, including chiefs and women from Bacalar and from some of the villages through which the priests later passed, gave “clothes like their own, and other kinds of adornments for King Canek and his wife and the other Itza leaders”. As for the governor of Yucatan, the priests received nothing from him, not even the letter of recommendation they sought that would have entitled them in a more formal manner to assistance in the form of provisions and human service as they travelled. The governor, obviously under the influence of traditional fear of the Itzas, explained that he did not want to take the responsibility should anything disastrous happen to the expedition.28 Undeterred, however, the two priests set forth from Mérida on the long and arduous journey, walking barefoot, as was their wont, and stopping at Christian convents until they arrived at Bacalar. At Bacalar they received such generous assistance from the mayor, Andrés Carrillo, that the absence of the governor’s letter of recommendation had no serious impact. Indeed, Mayor Carrillo not only supplied them with a fine boat, Indian rowers and provisions for everyone at his own expense, he actually accompanied them to Tipu, apparently to make sure that the Indians would not desert them. In any case Carrillo was mayor of Tipu also, so he could see this as an official visit. The journey by boat from Bacalar’s lake and then into the Nohukun River (the Great River to Villagutierre; now the Chac River in Belize), which flows from the south-east end of the lake to enter the Rio Hondo”,29 was a pleasant one for the priests. From the mouth of the Hondo they took a south-eastern route to Chetumal Bay that was reminiscent of Dávila’s route in 1531, which had been repeated by the Pachecos and the young Montejos and others in the 1540s. The priests enjoyed their journey on the Great River because of “the

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tranquility and delight caused by pleasant scenes of river banks, islands, great lakes, and forested pine mountains . . . . No less diverting were the Indians in the dugout, spearing and catching fish with harpoons in the rivers and lakes without stopping the boat. The only bothersome thing was the multitude of mosquitoes that were very annoying.”30 From Chetumal Bay, where the priests thought they caught a glimpse of the old city, they took a course that has been nicely explained to us by the archaeologists, using the modern place names. The route followed the north coast of Belize to the mouth of the river Dzuluinicob (the New River today) and then from the New River Lagoon they passed the settlement of Lamanay, or Lamanai (now called Indian Church), another Christian establishment identified by the remains of its colonial church. At this point they disembarked south of the New River Lagoon and continued southward on foot for some six leagues through pine woods, until they reached what is Labouring Creek today; from there they travelled another six leagues to the site of Lucú, on the banks of the Tipu River (the present-day Belize River).31 They now had twelve leagues to travel to Tipu, but it was all upstream and was to take them three days. Such was the force of water in the currents that oars were inadequate for the task; the Indian rowers had to resort to poles, forcing them to be extremely careful, for “any carelessness will cause the canoes to go backwards”. At times the Indians jumped into the water to haul the boat through the currents by hand. (There is some scepticism about this claim, suggesting that the Indians may have been leaning hard on their poles at difficult moments, not actually jumping into the water.)32 The priests had some fascinating things to say about the Belize River. It had “rare properties” and was as wide as any in Spain; its water was good and clear and in volume it exceeded that of the “Tajo” (probably the Tagus). In the twelve leagues from Lucú to Tipu, the river divides into 190 “channels of rushing current”, or rapids. Here again some modern scholars agree with the priests while others are sceptical. Thompson and Scholes, for instance, agree completely with the description of the upstream journey, including the number of rapids,33 while Cunninghame Graham regards the figure of 190 as “too precise for belief”.34 Not only were there 190 rapids, the priests tell us, but it was “remarkable” to them that the Indians had a name for each, and “everyone knows them”. They also noted that “a lot of medicinal herbs” grew on the banks of the Belize River. Among these herbs sarsaparilla was identified; this

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“cure-all” root, purported to heal ailments from serious blood diseases to hair loss, came to be widely used, even in Europe, by the nineteenth century. The river, to the priests, had plenty of gold; and because of this or some other quality, its water, when drunk, cures dropsy and excites great appetite in both the sick and the well, and after drinking, even though one has just eaten heartily, one feels hungry again. The water at noon, when the sun is hottest, is cold, and at night it warms up, so that a vapor rises as though it were a caldron placed on a fire. It has other noteworthy peculiarities too, but not as important.

One may note here that the Belize River has always been suspected of having gold. Even as recently as 1879, a British expedition led by Henry Fowler had as one of its goals the pursuit of “stories relating to the discoveries of gold that had been made at various times up the river . . . nuggets that had been picked up, and especially in the neighborhood of the headwaters of the Belize River”.35 But they were no more successful in their quest than Montejo and his conquistadors in the 1530s. The reception that padres Fuensalida and Orbita and Mayor Carrillo received upon arrival at Tipu suggests a self-contained, well-ordered community with a most generous spirit. The principal officials, “mayors, chiefs and leaders of Tipu”, went out in their canoes some two leagues downstream on the river to receive the guests with food and a local drink called zaca, made of cacao and maize. This is obviously the drink Landa describes as being made of maize and ground cacao, which “is very delicious, and with which they celebrate their festivals”.36 The Maya officials greeted their guests with great joy, and from all appearances it seemed to have been a very festive occasion. The visitors were then accompanied to the town of Tipu, where a larger reception awaited them. Here there were traditional Indian dances and great “rejoicings” before the priests were taken to the church, where they gave thanks to God for their safe arrival at this remote outpost of Christianity. The two priests were then housed in the curate’s residence next to the church, while Mayor Carrillo stayed in the home of an Indian woman, Doña Isabel Pec, a widow whose husband, “Chieftain” Luis Mazún, had died a prisoner in Mérida for “idolatry”37 – a fate that could have befallen Cumúx had he not fled to Tipu. It was on the eve of Whitsunday when the priests arrived at Tipu. Father Orbita particularly seemed to have been in a state of ecstasy as he cleaned and

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decorated the church in preparation for this Christian festival. Said to have been “very clever, careful and painstaking in arranging for . . . divine service”, Orbita was able to put to good use the presents he had received at Mérida to embellish the church. Whitsunday was finally celebrated with great solemnity. It is recorded that the people of Tipu and the surrounding districts were immensely gratified by the celebrations and the presence of the two priests. This is understandable, because priestly visitations were not very regular because of their shortage, made worse not only by the distance but also by the difficulties of travel between Bacalar and Tipu. The festivity on the occasion of Corpus Christi the following week was considered even greater than Whitsunday’s, with a solemn procession, larger celebrations and entertainments of different kinds and much apparent happiness. The priests were very satisfied with what they saw. The Indians, they thought, were very dedicated “to the deeds of good Christians”; they were attending church regularly, sending their children for instruction and assisting the clerics in every way, and they continued to regale the priests with gifts and with much lavishness.38 The entrada to Tipu has given us an excellent insight into this early settlement (called Negroman today) in a part of Belize that was under Spanish jurisdiction. Like later British imperial administrations in the face of demographic constraints, Spain too used a system of indirect rule – a “policy of limited liability and expense”39 – to govern Tipu, and not only Tipu but most of Yucatan, where the Spaniards “left much of the parish administration in the hands of the Maya elite”.40 Of course, this was with the understanding that the overarching final authority would be in the hands of the Spaniards. The daily life of Tipu was thus left pretty much in its own hands. We read of officials with both Spanish and indigenous titles, such as “mayor” and “chieftain”, which suggests some adaptation, but it is clear that the officials were all Indians. These people evinced remarkable self-confidence and a high level of sophistication in dealing with visitors, efficiently entertaining them and providing them with suitable accommodation as if they were well-practised in such social skills. All this was clearly not lost on Mayor Carrillo, who as mayor of Tipu also had seen this visit “as a part of his jurisdiction”. However, after the church celebrations, Carrillo obviously considered himself redundant, took leave of the priests and his hosts and returned to Bacalar, “Having nothing to do there [at Tipu] since the residents were taking care of the priests even more than necessary”.41

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Tipu was considered wealthy, or “very rich”, according to Villagutierre. The people, he says, had “a lot of cocoa, vanilla and other fine things”. It is certain that among these other fine things would have been maize, beans, honey and squashes of different kinds. The cacao bean was among the most prized of Maya commodities because of its multifaceted uses, and it appears that Tipu’s cacao was noted for its excellent quality, considered “wonderful” by the chronicler. The cacao production of Tipu was greatly enhanced by a resident from Campeche – whether he fled to Tipu for religious reasons, like Cumúx, is unclear – described as a “hard working and wealthy man, having planted, ‘by his own hand’ an orchard of 8,000 cacao trees”.42 Tipu’s situation made for its fertile soil. The Macal River, for example, “drains the dramatic granites of the Maya Mountains and the forested limestones of the Vaca Plateau. With such diverse parent material, the resulting alluvium is inherently fertile and apparently served the Maya well in both prehistoric and historic times.”43 In the town of Tipu itself, not including its surrounding districts, “were more than a hundred vecinos, all Indians”. A vecino then was a citizen who was by definition a property holder and a male, probably with a family; nonfreeholders, apparently, were not citizens. But it appears that the propertyholding requirement for a vecino disappeared over the years.44 Tipu’s population must have been very fluid, reflecting the dynamics of people running away to the forests or to other towns as well as people running to Tipu from other regions to settle. Fancourt gives Tipu’s population at the time of the first entrada as “upwards of five hundred, all . . . natives”,45 while Grant Jones computes it as about 340.46 Fancourt’s is closer to Jones's than to Villagutierre’s figure of more than a hundred vecinos, although he does not give a precise date for this computation. Jones’s population figures between 1618 and 1697, although not regular sequentially, are nonetheless helpful in showing the degree of demographic fluctuation at Tipu. The variations range from a low of 30 in 1622 to highs of 1,100 in 1643 and 1,000 in 1655.47 Of course, all these figures should be regarded as mere estimates, given the general difficulty of achieving accuracy with indigenous populations ever since Columbus attempted the first census in the “New World”, at Hispaniola in 1496.48 It is noteworthy, however, that all the vecinos of Tipu were Indians, and here we have a nice piece of corroboration: the findings of three archaeologists of Belize recently discovered that, of the more than 550 cemetery burials they unearthed at Tipu, none was “that of a Spaniard”.49

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Even in ecclesiastical terms – the area of greatest Spanish concern and control – Tipu was allowed much autonomy. The quality of its local leaders in this regard equally facilitated indirect rule of Tipu. The first among them, “their chieftain” or “cacique”, was the able and pious Don Cristóbal Ná, who “was very fond of the fathers”. Cristóbal Ná was to prove himself a most dedicated Christian even when many around him had embraced the new religion only nominally. His dedication was bound to have had an impact on Tipu’s autonomy, since the curates knew they could rely on him to keep alive at least the formal aspects of the Christian services. There were other important personages, such as Don Francisco Cumúx with his enthusiasm for the church, and Ná must have felt it a fortunate circumstance when Cumúx joined him at Tipu. A fine singer himself, Cumúx could join Ná’s well-organized and enthusiastic choir, with its many Indian singers as well as sacristans. After about five months in Tipu and still enjoying the people’s hospitality, the priests nevertheless felt it was time to carry out the true purpose of their visit: to make an entry into Peten Itza. When this was conveyed to the Tipuan leaders, it was treated with the usual circumspection that characterized all dealings with the Itzas. As noted, not only did the Indians of the surrounding districts fear the Itzas but even the Spaniards stood in awe of them. The Maya leaders therefore recommended to the priests the advisability of first sending an emissary to the king before entering unannounced, one might say. The priests gratefully accepted the suggestion, and the Tipuans proposed that the best person to head the mission was Don Francisco Cumúx, because of “the respect the Itzas (who knew his nobility) had for him, and for the sincerity and affection he himself showed toward the religious”. Other “intelligent Indians” were chosen to accompany Cumúx, to give the mission “more authority”. Cumúx “gladly accepted the task, even though it was dangerous”50 – and we shall later learn how dangerous indeed such a mission could be. What was the precise purpose of Cumúx’s delegation? He was mandated to inform the Itza king that two poor Franciscan fathers were in Tipu waiting to see him in order to tell him “certain things for his good and that of his people”; that the priests had come in peace, “without warriors or weapons”, and the king should send his emissaries to verify this; and that the priests wanted to see the king only with his “permission and consent”, which would give them great pleasure because without it they could do nothing. This kind of diplomatic nicety from Spaniards – even if priests – in dealing with “Indians”

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was rare, but it speaks volumes about the way the Peten Itza kingdom was viewed. It is no wonder that in looking for symbols, Maya nationalists throughout the ages would invoke the powerful image of “Canek” as a banner to inspire resistance. The most notable was the 1761 uprising against the Spaniards, in which the Maya leader renamed himself Canek and was duly crowned king – ironically, in a church. It happened again during the Caste War of the 1840s, when Can Ek’s name was invoked for inspiration, and even in recent times heroes in literary works are often named Canek.51 It took Cumúx six days to reach Peten Itza, and Can Ek received him graciously. Soon he was housed and those with him, according to rank. Can Ek finally allowed two of his captains and twenty other Itzas to accompany Cumúx back to Tipu, with a clear message of permission to the two priests to enter Peten Itza “whenever they wished”. After fifteen days altogether, Cumúx was back at Tipu; he could certainly say that his mission had been successfully accomplished, and the two priests were delighted. The Itza Indians (twenty-two in all) who accompanied Cumúx were now in Tipu, where they remained for five days. Again the Tipuans demonstrated their experience with group hospitality and knowledge of protocol in dealing with visitors. The two captains, for instance, were housed “in the home of the chief”, presumably Don Cristóbal Ná, while the others were lodged “in the residences of Tipu leaders according to their rank, as they had done with our Indians on their island”. The two Itza captains carried “short, broad flint knives, the way our men [the Spaniards] do, except that ours are of steel. The handles had varied and beautifully colored feathers, much like the ribbons our ensigns use on their javelins; the shafts were about a hand’s length, double edged, with a point like an extremely fine-tipped dagger.” The others, referred to as “soldiers”, carried bows and arrows “which they always carry when they leave the island”.52 These Itza visitors appear to have had an interesting stay in Tipu. It is said that they admired the lifestyle of the two priests, their conduct and the “teaching they gave the people. Some even went to church to hear Mass and sing in the choir, because the Itzas were always great music lovers”.53 As soon as the Itza visitors left Tipu, the priests began to prepare for their entrada to their island. They had no difficulty procuring the necessary food for the journey, since Tipu was not in short supply of provisions. The loyal Cristóbal Ná sent “more than twenty” Indian leaders in addition to his choir-

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master, singers and sacristans (who assisted with church services) as part of the spiritual mission to Peten Itza. Among the Indian leaders was another important personage, a cacique of Tipu, Don Gaspar Getza, of whom we shall hear more later. It is unclear whether or not Francisco Cumúx was part of the group. On 15 August 1618 the two priests, with Fuensalida acting as the commissary, or leader, of the pair, and Ná and his Indian leaders and church assistants, including the usual Indian baggage-bearers and path-cutters, left Tipu for what was the first recorded entrada to Peten Itza. The journey was to prove eventful. Just two leagues from Tipu “runs a large river”, but fortunately the low waters made wading across possible. This was probably a tributary of the Mopan River, and Don Cristóbal Ná, being “a robust, powerful and corpulent man, took the two priests across on his shoulders” – which leaves the reader wondering whether this portage was done in relays or in one go. But problems began to develop when they came upon a large lake called Yaxhaá. The Indians complained that they required canoes to cross it, and since they had none, they would have to return to Tipu. This exasperated the priests, who remonstrated with the Indians as vigorously as they knew how, but unavailingly. The Tipuans had other complaints: they did not know any alternative routes, as the priests had suggested, and even if they did, it would be much too far and would entail a lot of work. It would take a long time to cut a path, and what was more, their supply of food would be finished before they could complete it. Moreover, it was time to harvest their maize crops at Tipu, so they had to return; while the harvesting was being done a canoe could be built to cross the lake so that the journey to the Itzas could be completed. Despite Fuensalida’s anger and importunities, the Indians could not be persuaded, and they all had to return to Tipu. It is certainly curious that the Tipuans had forgotten about the harvest season for their sacred maize, an occupation that was almost a ritual and had to be done at specific times. It is as if they were using it as a bargaining point: anyone who understood anything would know that maize must be harvested at certain times. It is no wonder that they were so completely and uncharacteristically adamant in arguing with the priests, because, in fact, it was an argument they could not lose. This kind of obstructionist behaviour, which seemed simply irrational to the Spaniards, should be seen as an act of resistance on the part of the Maya. Apparently Lake Yaxhaá was considered part of the outlying district of Tipu, for Don Cristóbal, upon his return, sent Tipuan car-

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penters to cut some of the large cedar trees that grew on the lakeshore to make “a good, strong canoe” while the other Indians harvested their maize. The Tipuans also gathered new supplies of food for the second journey, which finally began at the end of September, some six weeks after the false start in August. But if the priests thought their problems were over, they were wrong. The formerly obliging river two leagues from Tipu, which had been shallow on the first visit, was now dangerously swollen, and the crossing was difficult. We do not know if Don Cristóbal again came to the assistance of the priests. But at least the boat was ready and waiting for them at Lake Yaxhaá, and Fuensalida’s delegation and their effects were duly transported across “the lake’s two leagues in four trips”. The journey then continued on foot for some fifteen leagues through the usual rough and hazardous terrain until they came upon another lake, and it soon became clear that the Tipuans had every intention of again forcing the priests to abandon the trip to the Itzas. In the words of Villagutierre, they were “instigated by the devil, [and] began a plot to disrupt the journey of those ministers of God”. The plot was to lead the priests through unknown and untravelled forests – along the left side of the lake instead of the known route to the right – over steep, rugged mountains and through pristine jungles. After two days of this they told the priests that they could not find the way and were lost. But on this occasion the long-suffering priests were prepared. They patiently told the Tipuans that God would help them to find their way out, and the Indians, realizing that the priests knew of their designs and were determined to complete the journey, eventually found the right way to the Itzas.54 We have mentioned some of these incidents in detail as we know them from our main source, and there is no doubt that they sound as if they come from an eyewitness. It is said that Fuensalida himself wrote an account of this entrada but the original, unfortunately, was apparently lost.55 However, Diego Cogolludo was in Yucatan from 1634 to 1686, which means that he must have met Fuensalida, who was in Yucatan (as we know from his entradas to Tipu) in 1619–20 and in the early 1640s (whether continuously or not is unclear). In any case, Fuensalida may have made his original account available to Cogolludo, who later recorded it in his history of Yucatan. And Villagutierre, the “consummate copyist”, has passed these events on to us. The incidents recounted are important in helping us to understand Tipu’s

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position under Spanish administration, especially up to the time of the conquest of the Itzas. To begin with, the behaviour of the Tipuans accompanying the priests would seem contradictory and confusing – or, to use a more typical Western culture-bound term, irresponsible. It is clear that they were trying to thwart the priests’ visit to the Itzas. Why? Perhaps not so much from the distance in time as from the mysterious nature of Maya cosmology to the outsider – or its “ambiguities and obscurities”56 – we may never have a complete answer. But from a more practical viewpoint, it was part of the structure of resistance to the Spanish foreigners which was never far from Mayan consciousness. In such a situation of stifling power control, the weak often avoid open confrontation and resort to subterfuge or guerrilla strategies. To be sure, Tipu’s geographical position placed it in a most uncomfortable buffer situation, ensconced as it was between the powerful and suspicious Itzas and the intrusive and interfering Spaniards. As has been said, Spanish interest in Tipu was above all based on its position, from where they could launch their entradas to Peten Itza. Furthermore, the Tipuans are said to have been strongly but secretly against conversion of the Itzas to Christianity, regarding it as disadvantageous to them. The reasoning was that should Peten Itza become converted, the Tipuans and their surrounding southern districts would be denied the haven to which they traditionally fled from Spanish oppression. Indeed, running away to Peten was so prevalent that it had become a metaphor for flight: missing Mayans would often be referred to as having “gone to the Peten”.57 Without Peten, then, such runaways would be without a sanctuary and they would not be left alone by the missionaries. But we shall also witness the ironic situation in which, when Peten Itza was finally subjugated in 1697, the runaway trail was reversed and many Itzas fled to Tipu and other places in Belize. Perhaps the Itzas too were not too favourably disposed to seeing the Tipuans being used as mediators to facilitate their conversion; it would undercut their independence, especially in light of their image as a powerful and unconquered kingdom. It should be remembered that in 1614 (if this is indeed the correct date) the Itzas had directly approached the Spaniards in Mérida when they wished to discuss conversion, even if it was a ruse. This may well account for – at least in part – the tremendous caution displayed by the leaders of Tipu, even on the occasion of Cumúx’s mission to Can Ek, which they had considered “dangerous”.

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There are, however, other questions to be addressed. The whole issue is most certainly more complicated than appearances at face value, since we are dealing with a culture that leant heavily on prophetic history – where history was prophecy and prophecy was history, one might say – and where the configuration of time was not linear, as we know it, but cyclical. The oscillations displayed by the Tipuans are reminiscent – albeit on a much smaller scale and a less religious one, since the Maya, unlike the Aztecs, did not apotheosize the Spaniards – of the tortured confusion of the great Montezuma, who, enmeshed in history and prophecy, was practically frozen in indecisiveness and inaction upon the arrival of Cortés. In the unfolding of events in Tipu and Peten Itza, to which Tipu was much more closely linked than appeared at first sight, more “strange” behaviour will be noticed, partly as a result of this prophetic history. The two long-suffering priests finally arrived at Peten Itza sometime in mid-October and were warmly welcomed with a grand celebration. Can Ek himself received them and had them housed next to his residence. The following day the priests asked for and received his permission to walk around the town to preach to the people and to see the “houses and all its cues and sanctuaries, which were numerous”. The Yucatan cues, or prayer houses, first came to the attention of the Spaniards just over one hundred years before, during Córdoba’s expedition in 1517. Bernal Díaz says that the cues “contained many idols of baked clay, some with demons’ faces, some with women’s”, and represents them always as very “ugly” or “hideous”.58 In one of these cues, or temples, at Peten Itza was a monumental statue of a horse “made of lime and stone – quite perfect”, although Cogolludo says (quite probably erroneously) that it was made of wood. This statue, which was named Tziminchac (the god of thunder and lightning), was so revered and venerated that it was placed in the principal cue and was seen as the Itzas’ principal “idol” – or, to use Villagutierre’s picturesque language, it was held in “even more obscene veneration and abominable worship” than the others.59 Earlier we mentioned that Cortés had left his lame horse with the Itzas to be cured; this statue had been erected when the horse died, to appease Cortés should he return to collect it. When the two priests entered the cue with the horse figure, it apparently roused something deep inside Orbita. The account says that Orbita, on seeing the statue, “seemed to be filled with the spirit of the Lord, and in a burst of fervor and zeal for the honor of God, seizing a

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large stone in his hand he climbed onto the statue of the horse and broke it into pieces, scattering them all over the floor . . . [and] Father Orbita was filled with joy, and his face radiated such happiness it was remarkable”.60 It was remarkable too that, despite a spontaneous outburst of anger and outrage from the enormous crowd, no violence took place, and this to our author was “the work of God”. Divine intervention or not, it is certain that Can Ek’s calm in the face of Orbita’s indiscretion subverted the angry violence of the crowd, which had called for death to the priests. This is recorded here because, as we shall see, Orbita’s act was to have wide negative implications for the priestly body in Belize, and elsewhere in the region, right into the next century. This melodramatic smashing of “idols” in the New World began with Cortés at Cozumel in 1519, just under a hundred years before. Did Orbita see the irony of the fact that the man who had so passionately hated idols and set the example in the New World for smashing them should now have his favourite horse so venerated? And in taking the route of destroying idols, Orbita chose Cortés over Saint Augustine, who had enjoined that idols should first be taken out of the hearts of infidels before removing them physically from their temples.61 Can Ek must have been relieved when the priests, finding that the Indians were no longer attentive to their preachings after the smashing of the statue, decided to return to Tipu. It is said that the Itza lord in any case had told the priests that the time was not ripe for conversion of the Itzas. They had a prophecy from their ancient priests which foretold that they were destined to become Christians, but the time had not yet arrived; the priests should therefore return to Tipu and visit them at some other time.62 Fuensalida and Orbita therefore had to return to Tipu, and the trip was not without great dangers. To begin with, it is clear that Can Ek was not the totalitarian ruler the Spaniards thought him. Some of the Itza leaders took objection to the king’s soft treatment of the priests after the smashing of their revered statue. They and their allies subjected the two priests to stones and jeering words and insults, thrown at them as soon as they began to sail away. Worse, when they were well into the lake, two canoes “filled with infidels with their faces and bodies painted black looking like terrible demons, all armed with arrows and drawn bows and making threatening gestures”, overtook them. It appears that it was more the intervention of the Tipuan lord, Don Gaspar Getza, than the appeals of the priests and the accompanying unarmed

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Tipuans that saved them from certain death. An interesting point here is that Getza, in addressing the leader of this warlike Itza contingent, referred to him as “uncle”,63 suggesting, as hinted before, that the relationship between the Itzas and Tipu went far beyond mere religo-cultural and commercial ties and was also consanguineous in nature, as further examples will show. The two exhausted priests finally arrived at Tipu and were received with joy “because it was feared that they had been killed by the Itzas”. After they rested for two days, it was decided that Fuensalida should return to Mérida to report to the authorities there on their encounter with Can Ek (this was in early November 1618). Undaunted by their experience, the priests also wanted to request more assistance from the governor and the bishop of Yucatan in preparation for another entrada to Peten Itza, in apparent disregard of calendrical prophetic history. All this did not sit too well with the curate of Bacalar, who, as curate also of Tipu, saw the priests’ extended stay as denying him his financial wherewithal from the Tipuans. His complaints were transmitted to the bishop in Mérida, who once again favoured the religious. Meanwhile, Father Orbita was left alone in Tipu administering to the people, but the situation soon deteriorated. The Tipuans perceived him as having no support, either civil or clerical, and they began to treat him with contempt. Poor Orbita complained to his companion, Fuensalida, when he returned early in 1619, that the people had lost interest in him. They failed to assist him punctually, as before, “belittling his arguments and instruction”; they treated him with disrespect, neglecting to attend either “church or doctrine classes with proper devotion”. It does seem unexpected that they “belittled” Orbita’s arguments and instructions. Friar Thomas Gage, who served as a Dominican missionary for Spain in Mexico and Guatemala for some twelve years (1625– 37), has given us some valuable insights into the way the Indians responded to Christian theology. When he argued with them on a one-to-one basis and tried to press them for specific answers on some specific aspect of Christianity, even the “wisest Indian” would give the noncommital reply, “Perhaps it may be so.” Gage saw this as “dull”,64 but it could be interpreted as scepticism expressed in a polite form to the powerful Gage. With Orbita, who seemed powerless and helpless, they could be bolder in their scepticism. Tipu wore its Christianization very lightly and from all appearances would rather have been left alone with its ancient religion. With Fuensalida’s return, however, the situation for Orbita changed imme-

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diately. Fuensalida was empowered by letters and orders not only from the bishop and the Franciscan order, as would be expected, but also from the governor of Yucatan, who had been uncooperative before. The governor’s orders obliged all Indians and Spanish officials encountered en route to provide supplies and any other assistance the priests might desire. Villagutierre says that, hearing this, the Tipuans “remained silent” and began to serve the priests with even greater diligence than before; their attendance at church visibly increased, “with clever hypocrisy disguising their inner corruption”. This “inner corruption”, or so it appeared to the Spaniards, was soon dramatically revealed in Tipu. In his daily ministry Father Orbita discovered – horror of horrors – profound and perverse “idolatry” everywhere, practised by everyone, high and low, men and women alike. There they were “secretly adoring the devil and taking part in foul and abominable ceremonies, dances, and superstitions”. The priest found a great quantity of idols in hidden places, particularly close to the house of Don Luis Mazún, who had died in prison in Mérida on charges of idolatry and in whose house, as we have seen, Mayor Carrillo stayed in 1618. “Idols”, as well as garments used by the “diabolic priests”, were also found inside the house. The widow, Doña Isabel Pec, was immediately summoned to account for these idols and garments; to whom did they belong and why were they concealed in her house? To these questions she answered perfectly straightforwardly that her deceased husband had left them there, and they belonged, interestingly, to the Itzas.65 It is revealing that the Tipuans worshipped with gods, icons and garments that actually belonged to the Itzas. It is interesting because of the supposed tension and even hostility between Tipu and Peten. But from every shred of evidence that one can garner there appears to have been a hidden or secret historical continuity between the two communities, despite Spanish intrusion and the overlay of Christianity in Tipu. In other words, Tipu’s Christianity consisted of hardly more than the formal trappings of worship and did not constitute any drastic discontinuity in its religio-cultural past. Peten Itza was Tipu’s cultural and religious fount; it was the custodian of some of the people’s ancient books and prophecies relating to their history, and from the Itzas they would take their cue, as events will demonstrate. Despite Doña Pec’s candour in accounting for the paraphernalia of worship and the iconography of the old religion found in and near her house, the priests nevertheless ordered her to be flogged “to make her disclose the truth”.

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But she had already told the truth and had nothing else to reveal. The easy confessions of Indians in such cases always seem to have infuriated the priests, who stood ready to indict them for their audacity in admitting freely to the truth of their “apostasy”, which was, in fact, a supreme manifestation of a cultural collision.66 However, the flogging of an important personage such as Doña Pec had the desired effect in a society noted for its deference to its nobility and authority figures. Thus the Tipuans soon began to “confess” their “sins” and proceeded to show the priests quantities of “idols”. They were “so many that it was impossible to count them”. These statues and figurines represented to the Indians different needs for which they prayed – to invoke rain, a better corn harvest, good fortune in hunting, fertility and the like – and it would seem incomprehensible to them to attempt life’s journey without these facilitators. Orbita and Fuensalida smashed as many as they could, throwing some into the river but saving those the Tipuans considered most sacred, in order to burn them in public later. It seemed a fortunate coincidence to the two priests that at this time the mayor and curate of Bacalar and Tipu “and some other Spaniards” visited Tipu, apparently with the agenda of protesting the priests’ extended stay there. The curate’s presence was to prove useful to the religious, for in his capacity as vicar of Tipu, he was legally responsible for the punishment of any “idolatry” discovered there. What followed had all the makings of an Inquisition, although this had been illegal in Yucatan since 1570, largely because of Landa’s excesses in 1562. The Tipu leaders and the most culpable were punished by public whipping and the others with “lighter sentences”. But first a huge fire was made in the village plaza, in front of which the sentences for the guilty, who were all present, were read and carried out; the sacred “idols” that had been reserved for this ceremony were then cast into the fire and burned to ashes. A warning was issued to those who were involved. Should they lapse into such “obscene and detestable crime” again, they would be sentenced to death and, like their idols, publicly burned. The priests were satisfied with the whole affair; they felt that the delinquents had been duly terrorized and would thus conform quietly to Catholicism.67 From the short-term point of view, the priests may have been correct in terms of formal outward appearances. Tipu had been pretty much left to itself and the people could freely apostatize without discovery. This rigorous and unprecedented purge, therefore, would certainly have shocked them into

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feigned obedience – for a while. The oldest among them may well have remembered Landa’s brutalities of 1562 at Mani in central Yucatan, from which many fled to the south; some, especially the youngest, may have landed in Tipu, the haven for runaways.68 The memory of those excesses would have been passed down to successive generations in Tipu and could have acted as a temporary deterrence in this case. The presence of the curate in Tipu, although opportune for the trials and punishments, was, however, creating some tension. He voiced his dissatisfaction that the Yucatan bishop had taken away from him the spiritual administration of Tipu, even though it was still incumbent upon him to preside over the recent “necessary” supression of idolatry there. All this must have made the two priests rather uncomfortable. To settle the matter, Father Orbita was dispatched to Mérida to report the situation to the bishop and the governor of Yucatan. The outcome was not unexpected. Orbita returned with letters from the two officials stating that the curate should leave Tipu immediately and not return unless he was expressly invited by the two priests. The curate, with much sorrow, “had to obey” and left for Bacalar.69 Without putting too fine a point on the curate’s disappointment, it was high-sounding hypocrisy when he complained of being denied the spiritual administration of Tipu. What he was being denied was the fees for baptisms, marriages, burials and a host of other perquisites on different holy days and holidays. The candid Thomas Gage has left us a good account of the many remarkably lucrative perquisites he himself received while ministering in Guatemala.70 The bishop and the governor had based their orders prohibiting the curate from administering to Tipu and its districts “on the fact that the religious had pacified the Indians [at Tipu] and had rooted out the evil of idolatry, and also kept the Itzas within communication, since some had already gone to see them” – referring, obviously, to the priests’ entrada the year before. But they did not mention the curate’s fees going to the two priests on this occasion. The two religious, having firmly established their authority in Tipu, resumed their preaching and teaching in this Christian outpost of Belize, and they were immensely satisfied with the seeming cooperation of the people. Their missionizing activities took them into outlying districts such as Lucú, or Luku, and “Zaccuc”, or “Zaczuz”. Lucú we have already encountered among the settlements on the Belize River; Scholes and Thompson have iden-

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tified it today as “somewhere about where the modern settlements of Never Delay or Mount Pleasant now stand”.71 Zaczuz, however, presents more of a problem as to its location in present-day Belize, and Scholes and Thompson have not come to our aid on this occasion. Frank Comparato, to whom the location is also unclear, guesses that it is “probably Zaclún”.72 Grant Jones, however, sees Zaczuz as being among the “well-known Belize River settlements”. It was “a short distance upstream from Lucu”, which would locate it at or near Roaring Creek Village, close to Belmopan. Alternatively, Jones feels that it may have been in the vicinity of Baking Pot, also a part of Belize today. Zaczuz is supposed to have come under Spanish jurisdiction in 1615 and was to become part of a new encomienda that also embraced Tipu.73 The two priests continued their studious preachings at Tipu and other Christian villages of Belize until they felt confident that their flock had sufficiently conformed to the Catholic faith. Then it was time to make their second entrada to Peten Itza. Repeating the steps of the first entrada, the priests again sent an emissary to Can Ek, with the faithful Don Cristóbal Ná as leader (no mention of Cumúx this time). Again the Itza lord gave his permission for a visit. On this occasion the two priests, accompanied by Ná and “some forty” Tipuans, had no difficulty reaching Peten Itza in a “short time”, since the Tipuan guides did not repeat their previous obstructionist tactics. Once again they were greeted by Can Ek and “all the leaders of his court” with great celebrations for days. But after “eight or ten days”, despite the festivities and good treatment and the “many presents” the Tipuans received, they became restive, declaring that they must return to Tipu to harvest the maize crops, but promising the priests that others from Tipu would be sent to be with them. It is thought, however, that it was fear – fear of the Itzas, despite the festivities and show of friendship – that was behind the departure of the Tipuans.74 On their own, the two priests soon encountered great difficulties. Apparently Can Ek not only “showed himself truly converted to Christianity” but was also prepared to devolve his sovereignty to Spain and render obedience to the Spanish monarchy. This was too much for the opposition in the country, which soon subverted the king’s conversion and political arrangements. The final outcome of a complicated story of near-Byzantine proportions was that Can Ek had perforce to dismiss the two priests in the midst of much violence. Both were badly manhandled, but it was Orbita, because of his smash-

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ing of Tziminchac a year before, who got the worse of it. He was beaten and kicked about until he was unconscious and left for dead. Then he and his companion (who was not as badly beaten) were thrown into an old, battered boat with nothing to eat, in the hope that they would die before reaching Tipu. Their lives, however, were spared by the prescience of Don Cristóbal Ná of Tipu, who, understanding the complex nature of Itza society, had sent three Tipuans secretly to Peten to enquire of the priests’ welfare. They too were thrown into the boat, but not before they had secretly gathered some food to sustain them on the way to Tipu. Fuensalida and Orbita reached Tipu after a fearsome and difficult journey. They were disconsolate, and disappointed that they had not effected conversion of the mysterious Itzas, which to them would have been a glorious accomplishment for the Church. Indeed, by the canons of their belief, the priests would have embraced death in service as success, for that would gain them the eternal crown of martyrdom. Since the acknowledged purpose of their stay in Tipu was to convert the Itzas and that had failed, they finally decided to return to Mérida. This secretly pleased the inhabitants of Tipu, despite what Fancourt calls their affectations of “regret” for the decision.75 The decision must also have pleased the curate of Bacalar, who could now resume his fee-generating activities at Tipu, even if his visits were infrequent. The two priests together never attempted other entradas to the Itzas, nor did they return to Tipu, but, as we shall see, Fuensalida did make an unsuccessful attempt to do so in the early 1640s. This was most certainly because of the general Maya resistance against Spanish rule that began in the 1620s, in which Tipu played a central role.

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the two priests, Tipu and surrounding districts were pretty much left to themselves. And, as would be expected, Tipu returned to the practice of its old Maya religion – or idolatry, in Spanish terms. As it turned out, however, apostasy was not the only thing that was happening at Tipu, and indeed in most of the areas we call Belize today. Beginning with the 1620s and throughout most of the rest of the seventeenth century, there developed a spirit of Maya resistance which saw its most active manifestations in the western and southern areas of Belize. Contemporaneously, the whole eastern Caribbean seaboard was experiencing its own dynamic, in this case occasioned by the presence of pirates of different nationalities, with the Dutch and the British in the ascendancy, as they preyed on Spanish shipping and possessions. What became even more bothersome to Spain was that the British appeared to be establishing some sort of settlement – albeit loose and disorganized at this stage – among the islands on the Belize coast, particularly at Cay Casina. This posed enormous commercial and communication difficulties for Spain, thus adding to its proverbial defence problems in the region.1 Within the context of the new southern rebelliousness, we find Tipu soon after the priests’ departure (in November or December 1619) not just quietly returning to its old Maya religion but also becoming more openly defiant and active. The people burned their churches, destroyed their homes, abandoned the townships and fled to the mountainous regions to be joined by others from as far north as Bacalar.2 Why did they resort to such drastic measures? WITH THE DEPARTURE OF

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The Maya had had a primordial resentment of the alien Spaniards occupying their land from the time Montejo entered Yucatan in 1527. This never disappeared but merely remained dormant, awaiting only the propitious moment to reappear. A conjunction of factors such as, for instance, the earlier burning and smashing of the iconography of their religion at Tipu, the flogging of many of their leaders and notables such as Doña Pec, and perhaps most significant, Orbita’s smashing of Tziminchac all conspired to bring about the right moment. But undoubtedly the specific factor that triggered these deepseated feelings of injury and indignation towards the Spaniards emerged from the circumstances surrounding Friar Diego Delgado’s entrada to Peten Itza. At the beginning of 1621, Father Delgado, another Franciscan priest, was given permission by his order in Mérida to attempt conversion – or reconversion – of fugitive Indians, most of whom had fled their pacified villages and were living in mountainous and remote areas in “idolatry”, and often among “pagans”. Ostensibly these were Delgado’s modest targets, but his real intent was to enter Peten Itza by way of Tipu, hoping to succeed where Fuensalida and Orbita had failed just over a year before. With permission from his order, Delgado was also empowered by the acting governor’s orders obliging both Spanish officials and Indians to assist him on the way. He began his journey by way of the Christian convent at Xecchacán, from where Cumúx had fled to Tipu. There he gathered Indian singers and sacristans to assist in celebrating divine services, along with the usual Indian pathfinders, mountain guides, baggage carriers and the like, to guide him through the difficult terrain. The priest and his retinue then travelled south through mountainous districts, preaching and gathering together fugitive Indians who had fled Spanish control. With these new recruits he established a “large” village at the place where Zaclún (or Sacluc or Sacalum), now deserted, had once existed, and named it San Felipe y Santiago Zaclún. Zaclún was an old mission town first founded by Franciscans around 1604, but later abandoned. Its exact position has not been identified, but Thompson considers it to have been somewhere around southern Quintano Roo.3 Its supposed location seems accurate enough;4 it was certainly relatively close to Tipu and with good access to it, in view of the relative ease with which Delgado later reached Tipu from this location. Delgado appointed Indian officials to administer the place, in much the same way as Tipu was administered. All seemed to be going well with Delgado and his flock until a Spanish sol-

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dier, Captain Francisco Mirones, entered the scene (although another version states that Delgado and Mirones were part of the same entrada5). For reasons not entirely clear, Mirones – “Crop Controller” or “judge of the Cochineal territory on the coast” and reputedly a brave and experienced professional soldier – received the governor’s authority to conquer the Itzas by force of arms, without permission from the Crown. This contravened Spain’s long-standing policy against military action towards them. However, although the badly arranged plan of the governor and Mirones was to end in disaster, its outcome had consequences for Belize. Upon learning that Delgado had re-established Zaclún, and perceiving it as “a more favorable point of departure for Itza than the difficult route which the missionaries had taken by way of Tipu”,6 Mirones departed from Mérida and finally arrived at Zaclún with fifty soldiers and “some” Indian “warriors”. He found Father Delgado busily engaged in ministering to the newly congregated Indians. Because the extra recruits Mirones had expected before attacking the Itzas did not arrive on time, he had perforce to remain in Zaclún until the end of 1622. During this time he began to trade with the Indians in a manner perceived even by Villagutierre as oppressive and exploitive; it was deeply resented by the Indians, as was demonstrated later. Distressed by the situation, Father Delgado remonstrated with Mirones, but to no avail. The priest was particularly anxious because even honest trading with newly pacified Indians was discouraged or forbidden: this, it was thought, would deflect their minds from the newly learned teachings of the Church. Unable to control the situation, Delgado decided to leave secretly for Tipu with his Indian guides after complaining to his superiors in Mérida.7 Upon hearing that Delgado had secretly left Zaclún, Mirones sent thirteen of his soldiers (apparently professionals) to try to persuade the priest to return. Should he refuse, they were to accompany him wherever he went – and this was to prove a fatal error. As would be expected, when the soldiers caught up with him, Delgado refused to return to Zaclún, so they accompanied him to Tipu. As with the two entradas of Fuensalida and Orbita in 1618 and 1619, a delegation was first sent to Can Ek to ask his permission for the priest to visit, and this was again granted. As in 1619, this delegation was led by the faithful Don Cristóbal Ná. Around July 1623 Delgado set out from Tipu with not only a large number of Indians – some eighty of them – but even more egre-

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giously, also with the thirteen soldiers under Mirones’ instructions. The Itzas obviously viewed this “force” as provocation, and Delgado and his entire entourage were summarily put to death upon arrival. In what looked very much like ritualistic killings – reminiscent of the ancient Aztecs – the victims’ chests were opened and their throbbing hearts torn out and offered to their “idols”.8 If the eighty Indians were all from Tipu, it is estimated that the town would have been left with a population of just about 260 individuals.9 Scholes and Thompson seem sceptical that eighty Indians were involved; to them that was “surely an exaggeration since the total number of vecinos of that town was around one hundred”.10 Chroniclers – and now modern scholars – question why the Spanish soldiers, who were known for their preparedness, were so easily overcome on this occasion, apparently without a struggle; however, that debate is not a part of our concern. The massacre of Father Delgado and the “good Christian” Cristóbal Ná of Tipu,11 along with thirteen Spanish soldiers, eighty Indians and the two Spanish messengers Mirones sent from Zaclún to find out about Delgado and his mission, was a most serious matter. It sent nervous ripples through Tipu, Zaclún and all the settlements along the Belize River. Indeed, “every Maya of Belize” and the lands to the west were in open revolt, according to Thompson.12 Zaclún was particularly affected; its dissatisfaction with the avaricious conduct of Mirones had increased alarmingly since Delgado’s departure. Moreover, the soldiers he had been expecting, some fifty of them, had joined him from Mérida, and this was considered threatening by the Indians. Emboldened by the actions of the Itzas – from whom, it is clear, like Tipu and other surrounding districts, it took its cue – Zaclún broke out into open rebellion against the Spaniards in 1624. The people took the opportunity when Mirones and his men were at Mass, officiated by one Father Juan Enriquez. The soldiers were without their weapons, which were being guarded by a single soldier, and he was easily overwhelmed. They then seized the weapons, proceeded to the church and killed all the Spaniards, including Mirones, using the same ritualistic technique that was applied by the Itzas. Following this, they resorted to what had now become a pattern: they burned the church and the village and fled to the mountains and forest. Some, of course, ran away to Tipu “to commit idolatry and lead a barbarous life”, according to Fancourt, echoing Villagutierre.13

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After the massacres at Peten and Zaclún, the situation could now be characterized as one of general rebellion and resistance against Spanish rule, from Bacalar down to Tipu and through all the areas of Belize. Included were those Spanish towns where the Indians were considered fully Christianized and “reduced”, such as Campeche and Champoton in the west. These “reduced” Indians attacked and killed “many” Spaniards and carried off, on different occasions, women, children and “domestic Indians”. The Spaniards were caught off guard, since the uprisings were so sudden and destructive, and their reprisals were equally brutal. Ironically, the most effective campaign against the rebels of Zaclún and its environs was led by an Indian captain, Don Fernando Camál, alias Francisco Camul, who went into the mountains himself to find the rebels and had them returned to Mérida; most of them were hanged.14 Whereas the harsh Spanish reprisals soon quelled most of the rebellions, Tipu and its surroundings continued the resistance “until the year 1695”.15 Once again Tipu, with its remote frontier position, was to become the active centre of resistance and a haven for rebellious spirits from elsewhere. They came not only from Zaclún after the massacre of 1624, but also from Bacalar. These rebels first refused obedience to Spanish authority in both its temporal and religious manifestations by breaking Christian images and burning churches and then their own districts before taking off to Tipu. Flight to Tipu and other places in Belize and parts of Peten became so pervasive that the Spaniards were genuinely alarmed. In addition to the harsh military reprisals, they also responded with a series of royal orders, cedulas, circulars and decrees to the viceroys, presidents and governors of Yucatan and Guatemala, enjoining them to endeavour to propagate the Christian faith by all the means in their power, and especially to bring back into the fold those Indians who had apostatized and were in a state of rebellion. An order of 29 March 1639 specifically addressed the situation in southern Yucatan, including the Lacandons, the Manchés and the Chols,16 most of whom inhabited parts of Belize. The 1630s saw the people of Tipu become decidedly more daring in their resistance. They were now resorting to the new technique of insults, innuendos and satire against the Spaniards. In the mountains and forests, for instance, where they practised their old religion, they made hideous statues in the images of Spaniards, and in front of them were “other revolting idols” which they called “gods of the roads”, designed to frighten the Spaniards and thus prevent

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them from entering their lands. These structures, whatever their symbolism, represented further physical obstacles in already difficult terrain that would certainly affect Spanish entry in order to quell the rebellions. Even more humiliating and troubling to the Spanish authorities were the Mayas’ vicious satirical attacks on the priests. This was new. It is thought that the people from Bacalar who fled to Tipu at this time were mostly Maya priests and their followers. Together with Tipuans of the same calling, they mocked the Catholic fathers in their performance of the Mass, celebrating satirical mock Masses at which they ate corn tortillas and drank pozol (made from corn sweetened with honey or sugar). They would say, “What do you think! This is the mass, not what the Father Commissary told us.”17 They were referring to Fuensalida, who had thought that he and Orbita had established such a good relationship with Tipu in 1618–19, at the time of the first entradas to Peten Itza. The daring and widespread verbal attacks on and ridicule of Catholic priests at this time perhaps require some explanation. To begin with, as mentioned before, Maya priests everywhere were always at the forefront in resisting Christianization of the people. This is understandable, considering that their enormous power, prestige, influence and material wherewithal had all been curtailed under Spanish rule. The Montejos were the first to experience priestly wrath, in Chetumal (at Chanlacan) during the “Great Maya Revolt” of 1546–47. But apart from the Maya priests, a conjunction of circumstances seems to have considerably broadened negative attitudes to Catholic priests in general. There can be no doubt that Orbita’s smashing of Tziminchac in 1618 was a pivotal factor. It was so galling not only to the Itzas but also to their culturally tied territories, including Tipu, that it soon became part of a bitter collective memory bank for all and sundry, from the priesthood to the nobility, the military and ordinary folks. Perhaps the first public evidence of this was the ritualistic killing of Father Delgado at Zaclún in 1622; other examples will be identified later. It was explained to Delgado that he was to be killed not only because he had brought such a large number of people and soldiers with him, but also in revenge for the smashing of their prized Tziminchac by Orbita, one of his brethren (apparently this important piece of information emerged later from the trial of the rebels).18 The Catholic priests themselves seem to have generally contributed to the antipathy against them. Whatever the level of Maya resentment against the

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Spaniards might have been, one is prepared to guess that up to this period the Catholic priests had an aura of mystery and had gained some respect, quite probably as much because of their lifestyle of dedication and self-denial as their theology. But from the 1620s onwards these priests began to appear less “sacred” to the Maya because many had lost their early zeal and selflessness, as appears to have happened earlier in Mexico.19 Some of the Catholic priests in the Belize area had become as addicted to avarice as any ordinary encomendero. Indeed, we find some converted Indians advising their unpacified brethren against becoming Christians. The Chols of southern Belize, for instance, were advised to disappear far into the forests, where Spaniards could not find them to oppress them. The Indians considered themselves oppressed on several different levels. The priests, they said, “were very avaricious in order to support themselves”, while the king’s officials “were tyrants who ordered people whipped and chained”. Then there was the usual resentment about the injustices inherent under the encomienda system, which horrified the Indians and from which many fled; some complained that if they returned to their villages they would be subject to “chains, jail, stocks and the whip” if they could not pay the tributes.20 Conceivably too, the new Maya disrespect for Catholic priests may well have been influenced by the buccaneers (of whom more later), whose presence was already prominent in Belize and who were notorious for their brutality towards Spanish men of the cloth and for destroying icons of the Catholic church.21 These were troubling times for the Spaniards. The whole structure of their authority, temporal and spiritual, had come under attack, and not many were willing to undertake the task, under the royal cedulas mentioned above, of re-pacifying the “barbarians” in the face of their hostility, insults and general insubordination. Tipu’s resistance to the Spaniards continued into the 1640s, inducing Father Fuensalida to attempt a return in 1641, more than twenty years after his entradas of 1618 and 1619. Accompanied by a lay friar, Father Juan de Estrada, and a number of Indians, he left Bacalar with the intention of bringing back into the Christian fold the people of Tipu and other villages around the Belize River who had apostatized. Estrada, we are told, had lived in Bacalar for many years, was alcalde and justiciar mayor both there and in Tipu, “and was godfather to many Tipuans, perhaps evidence that Tipu had not been completely isolated after the withdrawal of the friars in 1619”.22 The two priests

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followed the familiar route from Bacalar and then travelled by canoe down the Chac River (or creek) and the Rio Hondo, then up the New River over Pine Ridge and across Labouring Creek to the Belize River. If they needed further proof of the general rebelliousness of the place we today call Belize, they would have received it on this journey. The priests found that the riverine towns and villages on the New and Belize rivers had been abandoned. Deserted too was Lamanai (Indian Church), on the New River in Belize. Lamanai, or Lamanay, is hardly mentioned in early documents, but today it has become a major centre of archaeological research and of specialists in Mesoamerican art.23 It was probably first Christianized about the same time as Tipu, in the 1530s, and appears to have had a similar pattern of apostatizing up to the time of the Pachecos’ violent reductions in 1544. It is thought that Lamanai was thereafter placed under the encomienda system until this most recent period of rebelliousness and flight.24 Not only did Fuensalida and his group find the place deserted but the church and the homes had been burned before the people fled. At Zaczuc a similar pattern prevailed, but there the church bell had been carelessly thrown into the bush, which probably shows the depth of their contempt for the new religion at that time, since it was not unknown for Maya runaways to carry their church bells with them to their new locations.25 Some people from Lamanai had gone to join the people of Tipu “to remove themselves still further from Spanish interference”.26 Fuensalida sent messengers to Tipu announcing the arrival of his party and requesting the cacique to send them canoes to travel to the town. The party waited for the canoes at a cacao orchard on the Belize River called Chantome, “probably in the vicinity of Mount Pleasant”.27 Fuensalida’s messengers, however, were intercepted at Holpatin, one of the small settlements on the New River. That place too was in a state of rebellion against Spanish control and had been burned and abandoned. It appears that Tipu wielded a great deal of influence over many of these communities. At Holpatin, for instance, it was the Tipuans who advised the cacique and a few selected people to keep a watch for the priests, leading them to intercept the messengers with Fuensalida’s letter. Under orders from Tipu, the “seat of the Indian revolt”,28 they at first refused to take the letter there, instead advancing in a most menacing manner on Chantome, where the priests waited. Led by the cacique, the group consisted of two of his sons and six other Indians, who “arrived with their faces

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painted red, their hair long in pagan style (long hair was forbidden by the Spaniards who regarded it as a symbol of heathenism), and carrying bows and arrows”.29 The cacique let it be known to the friars that he would not take them to Tipu; he agreed instead to transport them upstream only as far as abandoned and scorched Zaczuc. The cacique’s ominous delegation was full of symbolism – the painted faces, the long hair, the bows and arrows – that indicated belligerence. Yet another symbolic act with the same intent was the gift of a wild fowl from the cacique to the friars.30 This idiom of Maya culture had to be explained to the priests by the Maya from Bacalar who had accompanied them: it was a bad omen, presaging war, not peace. At Zaczuc the cacique also intimidated the Maya who were with the friars with hints of ritual sacrifices that so frightened them, all but four ran away from the delegation. Fuensalida’s letter was finally delivered to Tipu and the reply was decidedly negative. The painted messengers, about twelve in all, carrying bows and arrows, reported that the people of Tipu did not wish to receive the friars, and requested that they return to Bacalar. As if to sweeten the sharp rely, it is said that the messengers carried with them gifts of “cacao, vanilla, and some slabs of chocolate” for the friars.31 Ignoring all the threats, the friars successfully persuaded the cacique of Zaczuc to take them to his new settlement at Hubelna. Hubelna had been established by the inhabitants of Zaczuc after they abandoned their town. The place must have been chosen for its strategic position, situated as it was close to the banks of a small tributary which flowed out of the mountains into the Belize River. Its description suggests to the archaeologists that Hubelna was “some way up Roaring Creek and in the vicinity of the new capital of Belize, Belmopan”.32 Considering the composition of the population of Hubelna, it should not be surprising that the friars saw manifestations of disrespect and idolatry everywhere. To begin with, although they had entered the settlement with the cacique’s consent, the people did not come out to greet them as they would typically. The friars surmised deeper meaning than mere incivility: it was a gesture of defiance. And worse, there were painted Tipuans all about, very much participating with the town’s inhabitants in “dancing and drunkenly worshiping their idols”, shouting and generally making a great deal of noise in the process. It was a Tipuan, for instance, who was foremost in satirizing the visiting friars. Said to be a Maya priest, he conducted mock Masses, singling out Fuensalida as others had done earlier, and using tortillas for the

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bread and the native drink, pozol, for the wine of the ceremony, declaring his to be the true Mass.33 The friars were truly dismayed by what they saw and heard. They sought to justify their presence by having the letter they had brought with them from the governor and bishop of Mérida read to a large gathering congregated for the occasion. The letter – rather like a minuscule simplified requerimiento34 – called on the Indians to submit to Spanish authority, both civil and ecclesiastical. As a sort of recompense, the governor would pardon them for all the evil they had done during this period of disobedience and rebelliousness; also, their debts to Spaniards would be forgiven for four or five more years and they would be absolved from past payments of tributes and taxes. The priests then proceeded to confirm the fictitious “agreement” reached by the Maya and the governor in Mérida. Fuensalida must have been mortified when, after the reading of the letter, the Indians simply walked away in silent disgust, until only the two friars and a faithful Maya from the Bacalar delegation, Lazaro Pech, remained.35 Pech was undeviating in his loyalty to the friars, particularly Fuensalida, reminiscent of the dedication of Don Cristóbal Ná of Tipu, veteran of the first entradas to Peten Itza. As the Maya people walked out of the meeting in contempt for what they heard, it is clear that their leaders were planning the next move. This came at dawn the following day. The two friars, Fuensalida and Estrada, and the pious Pech were still asleep in their modest house when an ominous group descended on them. The advance was led by a number of young boys blowing conch shells, indicative of war. Behind were the Maya war captains, followed by Indians who appear to have been of the old nobility, armed with short spears, while the rear was brought up by warriors armed with bows and arrows, all painted so that they looked like “demons” or “the very hounds of hell”.36 It must have been frightening for the friars when a group of these “hounds” entered the house, threw all three men to the ground and tied their hands behind their backs. They then resorted to threatening them with insulting language. Some were armed with machetes as they threatened the aging Fuensalida particularly, and some of the words that accompanied these threats were clearly meant as a reply to the Spanish authorities’ message that Fuensalida had read to them. “Let the governor [of Yucatan] come; let the king come; let the Spaniards come. We are ready to fight them. Now go and tell them that.” The crowd ransacked the priests’ few belongings and, finding some ornaments

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of the church and a crucifix that the friars held in great reverence, they smashed them, uttering blasphemous words as they did so.37 Here again we have a piece of clear evidence that Orbita’s indiscretion at Peten Itza in 1618 festered in their historical memories, for the Indians gave it as the reason why they wished to kill Fuensalida – because he “and Fr. Orbita had smashed Tziminchac”, thereby killing their god. Thompson observes that “the fact that the Maya of Tipu and Hubelna recalled the incident reveals how essentially pagan the Maya of the Upper Belize Valley had remained and how close they were to their fellow Maya of the Peten”.38 In truth, it had less to do with paganism than with widespread Maya resistance to Spanish rule, but it certainly revealed their affinity with the Itzas. Finally they untied the three men and drove them away, “with many shouts and whistles as though running a bull out of the bullring, with grimaces, insults, and so on”.39 They were supplied with a canoe but no provisions to journey back to Bacalar, and the hardships they experienced at every stage of the torturous return journey took on mythic proportions. Fuensalida calculated the whole odyssey, from the time they left Bacalar until they returned, to have been forty days; he obviously appreciated the symbolism when he said that it was “a continuous miracle”.40 By 1643 the prospects appeared dismal for the priests. Other acts of resistance in Belize, in places such as Campin – said to be “the present Monkey River”41 – occurred when other Franciscans tried to regain souls and were equally rebuffed. Undoubtedly the activities of the pirates at Bacalar and elsewhere during this time – mostly Dutch (or Hollanders, to the Spanish) – exacerbated an already difficult situation.42 Tipu continued to live up to its reputation as a rebel frontier and a haven for like-minded souls. In early 1643, for instance, it is said that the bishop of Yucatan informed his monarch that “more than 300 families” from Bacalar and surrounding towns had settled in the rebel town of Tipu.43 Yet the Spanish authorities continued to be interested in Tipu, mainly because of its nearness to Peten Itza. So long as that place remained unpacified, the interest in Tipu would persist. Different attempts were therefore made in the 1640s and mid-1650s to return Tipu from its rebellious posture to the Christian fold. The records on these attempts are rather skimpy, though it appears that most of the undertakings were by laymen. Some of these entradas on which we have only a sprinkle of documentation were undertaken by one Captain Francisco Pérez. We do not know very much about Pérez except that he was a government functionary in Mérida, not a

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member of the clergy, and his expeditions were therefore secular. He is also said to have been among those Spaniards who held encomiendas in Belize. Typically, like many other Belizean encomenderos, he did not live on his encomienda but rather in Bacalar. His encomiendas are said to have been mostly in northern Belize, which presumably includes Chanlacan, already identified as near present-day Corozol Bay in northern Belize. In any event, sometime around 1654 Pérez generated some documents requesting “remuneration for services rendered to the crown in his capacity of leader of three expeditions from Bacalar to the forests to the south”44 to search out and reduce Indians in a state of rebellion. One of Pérez’s entradas placed him close to the abandoned site of Chetumal, and close too to his encomiendas, which were probably the main reason for this visit. From all appearances nothing much was accomplished, and in no time he was back in Bacalar. According to Scholes and Thompson, Pérez “probably penetrated only a short distance up New River”45 in northern Belize. Nonetheless, upon submitting his expenditure account to the appropriate authorities in Mérida for reimbursement, he enclosed a report with testimonies from eyewitnesses, and in this he gave an overview of Maya rebelliousness. The Maya of Tipu and other towns, he pointed out, had been in revolt for the past “seventeen or eighteen years” (inaccurate, since they had been in this state since the 1620s), and attempts to return them to the Christian fold, including that of Fuensalida in 1641, had been unavailing. Unless they were re-incorporated they would serve as a bad example to other pacified Indians, and the self-serving Pérez implied that he was the man for the job. He was indeed granted a commission by the governor in Mérida, apparently on 23 October 1654, to proceed with the mission. With some five Spaniards and fifteen Indians, Pérez found some (apparently Christianized) Maya who had fled their villages and returned them to their original habitation. A small group, however, escaped and fled to a place called Holzuz, “at the southeast end of New River Lagoon”46 near Tipu. Pérez tried to apprehend them but “claimed that he risked being captured by pirates who encircled him along the coast while he was looking for the runaways”.47 Even if Pérez was exaggerating, as he was prone to do – “the more the captain emphasized . . . the length and hazards of his journey, the more pecuniary a reward he might expect to get”48 – his exaggeration would have reflected the conditions of the time. As mentioned, pirates of different European national-

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ities practically monopolized the Belizean coast at this point, making all communication and commerce difficult for the Spaniards. Pérez soon fell ill, and his second entrada, like the first, did not achieve much. Nonetheless, on 16 January 1655 he was commissioned for another entrada; with ten Spaniards and sixty friendly Indians he sallied forth again and soon succeeded in rounding up the fugitives who had fled to Holzuz. In addition he also found forty-eight men, women and children from Chanlacan and sixty-two from Tipu. The latter he escorted to Bacalar,49 but whether or not they were finally sent back to Tipu is unclear. Pérez then sent six Indians from his force to Tipu to summon the caciques and principal men to attend him at Holzuz within six days. He waited for twelve days before returning to Bacalar without seeing the Tipuan caciques. He left behind at Holzuc, however, some of his friendly Indians, with orders to escort back to Bacalar any Indian from Tipu who responded to his summons. If Pérez’s report can be credited, in response to his summons “a large group of Tipu Maya” did arrive at Holzuc, only to discover that he had already left; ten of these Tipuans finally arrived at Bacalar. They expressed their disappointment not to have found Pérez at Holzuc, “because they wished to offer obedience, to return to Spanish rule, once more to have relations with the Spaniards, to serve His Majesty, and to enter again the fold of [the] Mother Church”. They further expressed their desire for Pérez to return and settle them in towns, and after settlement they would send for the priest at Bacalar to administer the sacraments to them.50 So delighted was Pérez with all this that he himself conveyed the information to the governor of Yucatan in Mérida, who gave him a formal commission to lead yet another expedition to reduce the Maya at Tipu and surrounding districts. By October 1655 he was on that mission. This was during the rainy season, with the inevitable swamps and swollen rivers making most roads in the regions he had to traverse impassable. The party, however, succeeded in reaching a pueblo of Tipu called Chunukum, on the Belize River, “probably in the neighborhood of Rock Dondo or Never Delay”.51 They could not proceed further because the rivers were flooded and the roads were under water. Pérez therefore sent messengers to the leaders of three “chief towns” – Tipu, Zaczuc and Lucu – summoning them to visit him. In response the chiefs “and other Indians of the Tipu settlement” attended him, some 110 men “and numbers of women and children”. Scholes and Thompson question these figures,

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holding that the numbers do not agree with the matricula, or census, apparently taken about this time, which showed 141 male residents at Tipu.52 The Tipuans promised to build a church at Chunukum where the Bacalar curate could conduct Mass, and that whenever they were summoned to attend service, they would gladly obey. Pérez reported that all the Indians “remained peaceful and pacified” and he returned to Bacalar, obviously feeling very pleased with himself. This uncharacteristic behaviour from Tipuans raises many questions, even if Pérez’s self-serving report exaggerated his successes with them. Scholes and Thompson, for instance, are suspicious of Tipu’s offer to build a church at Chunukum; it was twenty-eight miles in a straight line from Tipu, which would be about forty miles by trail and some fifty miles by river, with numerous small rapids to negotiate. For a family from Tipu, such a journey to attend church would have been hazardous. But it would certainly have been more convenient for the curate from Bacalar to attend there than at remote Tipu. The authors’ suspicion therefore seemed well-founded; they speculate that behind the offer was an intention to keep “priest and government official from poking around Tipu, where some highly unchristian practices might have come to light”.53 It is clear that Tipu’s cooperation with and apparent subservience to Pérez was no more than a ploy to avoid direct confrontation with the Spaniards. Apparently Pérez made a fourth entrada sometime in April 1656, again to Tipu, but perhaps more to visit his encomiendas than to repacify apostatized Indians. In any event, it ended with the same undistinguished results.54 The records suggest that Tipu, although still nominally under Spanish jurisdiction, was left very much on its own – “peaceful and pacified”, according to Pérez, but that may have been wishful thinking. In 1777, for instance, Tipu refused to give permission to a Dominican priest to enter its territory. There is also no evidence that Tipu’s promise to build a church at Chunukum was fulfilled. Nonetheless, later it will be shown that Tipu did not abandon Christianity altogether but continued certain selected Christian practices even though it was technically still in a state of rebellion up to 1695, when the Tipuans themselves, following the Itzas, asked to have Spanish priests sent among them. Before we deal with the above, in order to attempt a more complete picture of early Christian evangelizing in Belize, let us provide a very brief summary of those endeavours in other parts of the territory. This is done with the caveat

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that the available documentation is rather sparse. It was clearly not desirable to church and state in Spain that only secular individuals such as Pérez and a few others appeared willing to return the apostatized Maya to Catholic jurisdiction. Thus other decrees were issued encouraging the religious to continue the good work of repacifying the apostates and to make new converts. Groups such as the Chols, the Manchés and the Lacandon Indians were specifically targeted. Together these groups occupied a wide swath of territory extending roughly from Chiapas through Vera Paz and into the Gulfo Dulce region, embracing parts of south-eastern and western Belize. This was the Dominican region that the elder Montejo had attempted to colonize. But even the valiant Las Casas had to admit failure in trying to “tame” the “wild Lacandon”, who soon came to be considered “unconquerable” and “unconquered” or, in the words of Alfred Tozzer, “unchanged and untrammeled by Spanish contact”.55 Las Casas himself wrote that in 1542 they eventually “resolved to abandon their mission, and so the whole region was left without the light and staff of true doctrine, and the local people returned to the darkness and misery in which they had lived previously”.56 After that, different officials made sporadic attempts up to the end of the sixteenth century, continuing into the seventeenth, to reduce the Chols and the Lacandons, with hardly any success. It was the Dominicans who responded to the new initiative towards these groups. Sometime in 1675, Father José (or Joseph) Delgado, a Dominican friar who resided in Guatemala, became moved by the number of unbaptized Indians he found in the Vera Paz region, who belonged to the “Chol and Manché tribes”.57 Just as he was considering another entrada, coincidentally, some Chol Indians from Belize – “conterminous, if not identical, with the south-eastern part of British Honduras”58 – visited Delgado, who had lived among them the year before. Through Delgado they expressed their people’s wish to the audiencia that missionaries be sent among them to prepare them for the Christian faith. The response was favourable, and the provincial of Guatemala, Father Francisco Gallegos, volunteered to accompany Delgado. Together they set forth, travelling deep into the forest with only two Indian youths acting as guides. After about twenty-three leagues through forest with punishing terrain, they arrived at a kind of settlement. There they gathered as many Indians as they could find and congregated them in a village they named San Lucas, establishing the usual Spanish system of government with the usual officials, including an alcalde. San Lucas Tzalac (or Salac), we are told, was close to the

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Gracias a Dios Rapids on the Sarstoon River in Belize59 and close to Campin; it does not exist today. San Lucas had in fact been a Christian community much earlier, founded by the Dominicans likely in 1603, but those Chol Indians had long since apostatized. A brief backward glance at this Belizean district finds it visited by the distinguished Dominican friar Francisco Morán (who is not mentioned by Villagutierre) sometime in the 1620s, at the beginning of the resistance movement. Because Morán travelled without soldiers and was accompanied only by “two or three Indians” on foot, he was able to traverse a great deal of the country unharmed; the Indians, “finding him kind, loving and courteous to them, used him also kindly”.60 Morán travelled as far as Campin, a town of Mopan Maya already identified as on the Monkey River in Belize. Grant Jones, however, locates this Manché Chol town “near the town of the Sittee (or Soite) River” in Belize, some twenty leagues by land from Sittee but forty leagues by boat. Campin is interesting for having been part of a Belize encomienda held by one Hernando Sanchez de Aguilar.61 Around 1630 Morán was back in the Belize region, again at San Lucas; he was accompanied by his friend the English Dominican Thomas Gage (also not mentioned by Villagutierre). But by this time the rebellion against the Spaniards had become more intense and bitter than it had been during the early 1620s, and perhaps only Friar Morán could have calmed the violent anger they encountered there. Finding discretion the better part of valour, Morán and Gage decided on a quick retreat, but not before Morán promised some of the leaders that he would return – peacefully, as usual. Morán wished Gage to return with him, but Gage was openly reluctant because of the hardships involved and his fear of the “barbarians”. In any event, by this time Gage was contemplating apostasy against Catholicism, and he needed money so he could leave the Spanish territories by stealth. Since he considered the Belize area “poor” and therefore unable to serve his purpose – “to get sufficient means to bring me home to England for the satisfaction of my conscience, which I found still unquiet”62 – he declined the invitation. It appears that during the time Morán and Gage were at San Lucas, some Indians from Peten Itza raided the district, and that may have contributed to the general restiveness and hostility the two priests encountered. Three years later, in 1633, when Morán was back at San Lucas once more, the people were in open rebellion. Following the usual pattern, they burned the churches and

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their houses in the settlements where they were gathered and disappeared into the impenetrable forest. Morán barely escaped with his life.63 Thus the San Lucas Christian community that Delgado and Gallegos thought they had founded actually had a long and chequered history of Catholicism. Now, some forty-odd years since Morán’s last visit, the two priests not only re-established San Lucas but also sought to establish other congregated Christian villages in the wilderness. In this capacity they constantly discovered vestigial “pagan” practices and beliefs among the Christianized Indians. For instance, to assist them on their journey they brought with them some Christian Indians from San Lucas, including the alcalde, who soon came upon what they considered a sacred mountain that housed an important god named Escurruchán, or Xcarruchán. Thompson has identified this mountain as just north of the Sarstoon River in southern Belize, close to Gracias a Dios Falls. The Indians began to display great agitation when they came to the edge “of a large river called Maytol” – now identified as the Sarstoon, and variously rendered in early texts as Zactún, Sactún and even Tui. In great fear, the guides importuned the priests not to attempt to cross the mountain unless they made an offering to it; otherwise they would encounter great dangers. But with Christian certitude the two priests and their nervous guides climbed the hill without mishap. At the top they found a “small swept plaza” with a little fenced area in the centre where a large fire burned permanently, to facilitate the burning of copal and other aromatic substances in veneration – or as a kind of sacrifice to the mountain deity. This deity was, and apparently still is, of great importance to this culture. The “cult” of mountain gods involved gods of rain and earth; Thompson points out that this form of worship has continued among the Mopan Maya of San Antonio, in the Toledo district of Belize, to this day.64 Merely in terms of baptisms, the entradas of Delgado and Gallegos during 1675 and 1676 could be considered successful. By 1676 the friars are said to have baptized no fewer than 2,346 persons in eleven congregated villages; this number was subsequently increased to “more than thirty thousand” when others were baptized “in the hamlets and dwellings in the forests”.65 Fancourt seems correct when he opines that this willing adoption of a new faith should be seen as having “its origin in a craving after novelty, [rather] than in the desire for true enlightenment”,66 and it also reflected a kind of desperate urgency on the part of the priests. Indeed, the Christian religion’s hold on

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these Chols and Manchés was perhaps even more tenuous than what we saw in Tipu. Most of these converted villages were in present-day Belize but not all of them can be identified, even by the keen eyes of Thompson or of Fancourt, who, as Superintendent of British Honduras from 1843 to 1851, made conscious efforts to locate some of these places; he concedes that many of them, such as San Lucas, have “no present existence”.67 In June 1677, about a year or so after Gallegos and Delgado’s mass baptisms at San Lucas, Delgado was sent by the governor of Yucatan on what appears to have been a kind of diplomatic mission. He was to explore the feasibility of a road from the Christianized settlements he and his fellow priests had established among the Chols and Manchés, by way of Mopan to Tipu, and from there to Bacalar and on to Mérida. Delgado’s detailed accounts of his mission (there seem to be four reports) turned out to be, according to Thompson, “an outstanding contribution to the geography of the country [Belize] by recording for us the Maya names for most of the rivers from the Moho to the Belize”.68 Although Delgado revisited many of the Christianized villages, including Campin (Monkey River), which is relatively close to Tipu, he was the priest mentioned above that Tipu refused to admit to its territory. Quite probably Tipu did not wish to have Delgado interfering, much in the same way as it felt towards Fuensalida in 1641. Delgado also broadened our knowledge of the extent of British buccaneering off the Belizean coast at the time. He recounts that he and his Spanish companions and their Indian guides were captured by “English pirates” on different occasions on small islands off the coast. In some cases they were treated rather roughly, in others relatively mildly. In terms of Belizean history, his most significant encounter was with the celebrated buccaneer Captain Bartholomew Sharp. At the time Sharp was the undoubted ruler of the British inhabited islands fronting Belize; he appropriately resided at the buccaneers’ principal headquarters, which was at Cay Casina (St George’s Cay today). Sharp’s authority was clearly demonstrated when Delgado and his companions were captured on another of the small islands, identified by Thompson as the “Southern Lagoon opposite the mouth of the Manatee or, conceivably on one of the long peninsulas jutting into the lagoon”.69 Here, after being duly roughed up, they were taken to the “Chief” at Cay Casina, who would determine their fate. The fact that Sharp enjoyed this kind of authority among a group so notorious for their lawlessness strongly suggests that he had resided

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there long enough to have established control. It is no wonder, therefore, that Thompson refers to him as an “early leader of Belize”.70 Sharp is said to have treated Delgado “in a friendly way”, ordered him to be released and sent him off with “friendly farewells”, marred only by Sharp’s appropriation of Delgado’s Manché Chol boy. The general conversion to Christianity of the Maya at San Lucas and other congregated communities in Belize did not survive for any length of time. An epidemic among the Manchés and Chols in 1678 – just about a year after the priests’ entry – appears to have triggered the first phase of their apostasy. Villages were abandoned and the people scattered all through the forests; cultivation ceased because of the virulence of the disease, which has not been named. It is bound to have been one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who rode forth to the slaughter”71 – malaria, hookworm, smallpox or yellow fever – European diseases for which the Indians of the New World had no resistance. Many, therefore, who took to the forests returned to their traditional religion and medicine. And although Delgado and Gallegos made another entrada to the congregated communities in 1685, further attempts were discontinued, quite possibly because of the general restiveness of the Maya of Belize. San Lucas, however, had not yet been abandoned, and it remained the chief focus of attention for a few more years. Indeed, the Dominicans soon saw this community on the Sarstoon as their base for further entradas against the Chols and Manchus, just as the Franciscans had regarded Tipu in relation to Peten Itza. To support this they sent Friar Augustin Cano with a few assistants to reside there. But by the end of 1688 the people of San Lucas were in open rebellion, and the priests “miraculously escaped with their lives”.72 The rebellion conformed to the usual pattern: the natives burned their houses and the churches, destroyed “everything” and disappeared into the mountain forests. San Lucas rejected the congregated Christian “town”; the Indians did not wish to have the priests there, nor did they demonstrate any particular loyalty or affection for villages founded by priests. Friar Cano also had a brush with “English logwood cutters”, who took him to a small cay close to what is Belize City today – almost certainly Cay Casina.73 Cano was finally released, but we have no information about how he was treated. The fate of the Manché Chol – those who inhabited Belize – appears to have been finally and fatally determined by European diseases. After the epi-

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demic that began among them in 1678, “every San Lucas Tzalac child under 6 and almost all between 6 and 10” perished, and no Manché Chol is to be found anywhere in modern Belize. Their place “has been taken in the southwest of the Toledo District by immigrant Mopan Maya and Kekchi Maya. The latter have expanded enormously in the past three centuries, absorbing many former Manché Chol communities . . . and finally crossing into the Toledo District late in the nineteenth century”.74 Seven years after San Lucas rebelled and threw out its priests, Tipu surfaces again in the documents. It was now openly taking its cue from Peten Itza. This was only eighteen years since Delgado had been refused entrance and thirty-odd years since Perez’s entradas. From past experience it could be assumed that, between the occasional visits of curates, Tipu was happily practising the old Maya religion. Nonetheless, as hinted earlier, some archaeological evidence suggests that Tipu may have adopted certain elements from Christianity that they found congenial. For instance, it has been found that of “230 burials recovered [all] have been in Christian style with no grave goods other than jewelry”.75 In 1695 the Itzas and most of their satellite provinces, including Tipu and its surrounding territories, “voluntarily” approached the Spaniards through Tipuan emissaries to express their desire to be Christianized. It appears that the first Spanish official the Tipuans contacted was Captain Francisco de Hariza, the mayor of Bacalar. Although hardly known to history generally, Hariza is nonetheless important to Belizean history: he was the first Spaniard known to have attacked the English buccaneer/logwood settlement at Cay Casina. Hariza was in the communities outside Bacalar, “near the forest area”, when the Tipuans approached him. They informed him that they wished to be reconciled and returned to their Christian church at Tipu from where “some of them and their ancestors had rebelled” – thus representing those who had fled their villages as long ago as the early 1620s. What is intriguing is their claim that they were also acting on behalf of some Itzas with whom they had “Communication”, and “they and their king, Canek, had a great desire to see the Spaniards”. That they had contact, even if indirectly, with the Itza king suggests that these Tipuans were from the priestly class or the nobility. Hariza, who was very much in touch with the new, wider approach to the Itza situation, was delighted by the news. He acted promptly by sending a Tipuan “who was a Christian, named Mateo Bichab [or Uicab or Vicab?],

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an intelligent man”, with letters and gifts of machetes, earrings and “other things of Spain” on a goodwill mission of peace to Can Ek on behalf of the Yucatan governor.76 If the messenger found Can Ek somewhat agitated and suspicious, it was for good reason. Spanish soldiers had recently penetrated into the outskirts of Peten and had killed, wounded or captured some Itzas who were out hunting in the woods; what was more, one of the wounded was an important cacique. This was indeed a serious matter to Can Ek; it represented the first recorded attack on his territory by the Spaniards. Apparently there were other such encounters as well, and some continued intermittently into the following year.77 The fact is, there was a new policy towards the Itzas, and Don Martin de Ursúa, the governor of Yucatan, was pivotal in executing it. As noted above, for nearly 175 years Spain had a non-military policy towards this kingdom (despite Mirones’s false start), but from the early 1690s there appeared to be great impatience to deal decisively – one way or another – with this last bastion of Maya control. Some historians now argue that the new policy was in large measure determined by the increasing and alarming British presence in Belize, which Spain regarded as most threatening to its hegemony in Central America and which it wished to dislodge. To this end, therefore, a strategic road system was devised – the brainchild of Ursúa – not only to get at the Itzas but also with a view to attacking the “British logwood cutters” from landward. This strategic system was a two-pronged affair, with one road from Yucatan, embracing Mérida and Campeche, to Guatemala and passing through Peten, and the other, to connect with the first, from Guatemala to Peten. By 1695 this latter component of the road was well underway, providng easy access to the soldiers in their attack on the outskirts of Can Ek’s kingdom.78 It is no wonder, therefore, that the king was suspicious of Hariza’s messenger. As it turned out, it was only after the Tipuan Bichab explained the peaceful nature of his mission that Can Ek became “calmed” and then expressed his readiness not only to be converted to Christianity but also to become, with his people, subjects and vassals of Spain. Not surprisingly, Governor Ursúa received the news with “unbounded” joy. He was particularly excited by the number of people and places involved. Apart from Peten Itza and Tipu, “very many more Indians in the wilderness around Tipu were coming in”, all desiring to be Christianized. He immediately decided to send a delegation of three

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Franciscan priests to Can Ek. But just as Ursúa’s emissaries left Mérida, news arrived that an embassy of four from Can Ek to the governor was already well on its way.79 It is noteworthy that this deputation of four from Can Ek first arrived at Tipu and that its leader – or “spokesman and messenger” – was one Al Can (or Chan), also known as Martin Can (his Christianized name) and “the ambassador”. Martin Can was “about” thirty years old and was a nephew of the great Can Ek. Earlier we mentioned that Tipu’s textured relationship with the Itzas was more than religious, cultural and commercial; it was also consanguineous, and Martin Can is a good example of this blood relationship. His father, a native of Tipu, had married Can Ek’s older sister, Cante; obliged to “abandon Christianity”, the father had left Tipu to live under his brotherin-law the king’s jurisdiction in a district called Alain (or Yalain), at the east end of Lake Peten Itza. Scholes and Thompson compare him to “Bertha, wife of pagan Ethelbert of Canterbury, whose Christian religion was guaranteed in her marriage settlement, [while] Can (on the other hand) surely discarded his Christianity upon marriage into heathen ‘royalty’”.80 Even if the elder Can was forced to discard his Christianity, it was probably no great sacrifice, since it can be assumed that it “sat lightly on him”. In any case, both Can and his wife were now dead, according to their son Martin. It was after the younger Can was baptized in great splendor at Mérida that the “name of Don Martin Francisco Can was given to the ambassador”, after his “godfather”, Governor Don Martin de Ursúa. Martin Can’s brother, who also lived at Alain and was part of the deputation, was likewise baptized, given a new name and “further instructed in the mysteries of the faith”.81 Peten Itza’s relationship with its surrounding districts is further emphasized by the fact that its delegation of four was joined by some from a “tribe” called Muzules (or Muzul or Mutzules) “who had never heard of Christianity”. Indeed, when the apostate Tipuans approached Francisco de Hariza to be reunited with the Church, among them were some Muzules who wished to become Christians. In no time, as would be expected, Hariza had seven of the leaders of the “infidel tribe”, all of whom were more than sixty years old, instructed and baptized by a priest. There is much speculation about these indios del monte, or wild Indians. They are said to be of the “same group as those of Tipu” and to speak the Yucatecan language; nevertheless they seem to have existed separately from the Tipuans. They lived around the Siytee

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(present-day Sittee) River, south of the Belize River, and why they were never Christianized is unclear.82 Equally unclear is why the Muzules were part of the Peten delegation. We are told that they were to act as interpreters for the delegation, which in fact they did in Mérida and interacted freely with the governor, but “mainstream” Tipuans, who mostly spoke Yucatecan, could equally have acted as interpreters. To demonstrate their submission to Spanish authority, both Tipu and the Peten authorities had asked for Catholic priests to administer the sacraments. When they approached the Spaniards, Tipu also asked to have the governor confirm its local election of magistrates in 1695. The requests for priests were examined by Ursúa, and in his deliberations he pointed out that since Tipu and its surrounding districts were extensions of the parish and town of Bacalar, and since “the territory of the Itzas was contiguous with the Tipu region, as there was no other parish in between, it [Peten] became an extension of the same curate of Bacalar”. Thus Tipu and Peten were to be under the same administration. It was under this dispensation that eleven priests of the regular clergy, not of the religious orders, were assigned to these “two rural parishes” – seven for the Itzas and four for Tipu – and the governor also confirmed the local elections at Tipu.83 It is not the purpose of this study to enter into the details of the conquest of the Itzas. Suffice it to say here that, for complicated reasons, what had appeared to be all set for a peaceful reduction – since the Itzas had requested it – ended in a brutal military engagement with the Spaniards. Peten Itza was defeated by a force under Ursúa’s command on 13 May 1697, a victory that was followed by a frenzied smashing of the symbols and iconography of their religion and culture, their ancient codices and paintings. It was so all-encompassing that it took all the soldiers “occupied in this breaking, destroying, and burning of idols and statues” from eight thirty in the morning, when Peten was taken, until five thirty in the afternoon to complete this holocaust of Maya culture – to repeat Thomas Gann’s description of the destruction wrought by Landa. Interestingly, despite what Edmonson calls the Spaniards’ “obtuse alacrity”84 in dealing with Can Ek’s “invitation” militarily, it is said that the date on which Peten Itza was conquered was not too far from the prophetic date of the Itzas’ reckoning. When Can Ek, along with Tipu, asked to be Christianized in 1695, the king was acting on their calendrical interpretation

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of history. The Chilám Balam, the Maya sacred book of history, prophecy and folklore, assigned events to appropriate timespans, or katuns. Can Ek explained that the correct katun was approaching and that 1695 should be regarded as preparatory for the fateful katun 8-Ahau. In fact, the conquest date – 13 March 1697 – is said to have been about 136 days before this doleful katun, which, some feel, had “done its psychological work after all” by discouraging the Itzas from putting up any meaningful resistance against the Spaniards.85 For our purposes it is significant that immediately after the conquest of Peten, Ursúa was quick to express appreciation for its strategic importance. To him Peten was “safe from pirates because it had no outlet, except underground”. This supports the argument that Ursúa saw subjection of this Maya kingdom as a major first step in dealing with the annoying British presence, particularly at “Key Casina”, at this time. To this end he was also pleased with the new road system that connected Yucatan and Guatemala and which had facilitated his recent success; it was also to be strategically important for attacking Belize. But it was his garrisoned fort that particularly delighted Ursúa.86 The fort he established in Peten, with some fifty soldiers initially, was completed with alacrity, by the end of May. The foundation of this fort may well have been the base from which the Spaniards were to launch attacks against Belize, over and over again. It is said that some Tipuans assisted the Spaniards “voluntarily” to effect the Itza conquest. Among them was Mateo Vicab, who was apparently the aforementioned Mateo Bichab, the Christian Tipuan whom Captain Hariza sent as a messenger to Can Ek in 1695. Another “prominent” Tipuan, a Captain Andres Cob, walked with some twenty-six other Tipuans “many leagues” to volunteer to serve under General Ursúa’s command.87 Of course there were others who assisted the Spaniards in myriad other ways, mainly as path cutters, baggage carriers, guides and paddlers, but most important of all, many were used for building roads.88 Some of them may have been coerced or corralled from encomiendas or from different villages to serve. It was, however, Martin Can, the half-Tipuan nephew of Can Ek and “ambassador” to Mérida in 1695, who was initially to perform critical services for the Spaniards. He served with distinction in the military, according to Villagutierre: The Indian Martin Can, with a gun they gave him because he asked for it, did marvels: there was no Indian he aimed at that he did not knock down, and it was note-

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worthy that, never having handled such a weapon in his life, he could shoot with such skill that when an Indian who had just leaped into the water away from the others showed his head, he shot him and he never reappeared. And this was done with great celerity and agility.

Can was equally handy at providing useful and sensitive intelligence information leading to strategic places and to the capture and imprisonment of important personages. He was also instrumental, along with his brother, in bringing in Indians from Alain to render obedience to Ursúa. For all this he was enthusiastically praised for his “rare” truthfulness, his “loyalty and fidelity” towards Ursúa. To the chronicler, these traits were “indescribable and unimaginable . . . . It was incredible to see a man distinguish himself to such a degree, and be so different in everything, his nature included, from the multitude of natives comprising that barbaric nation. It could be attributed only to Divine Providence, since he served as an instrument – the most appropriate for the occasion that could be conceived or desired.”89 Whether by “Divine Providence” or not we will never know, but Ursúa’s favorite “native” (used here in Fanon’s sense of the term) soon defected, and with his usual energy and intelligence Martin Can became the leader, or “cause”, of the most effective rebellion against the Spaniards in Peten. Villagutierre had to reconstruct his former trusted and beloved “native”: “Who would have believed it”, he moaned, “considering the loyalty and fidelity he showed at the beginning! But, you can’t trust Indians”. The most careful search was put in place to find Martin Can. Initially six Spanish soldiers and “some” Tipuans were sent out to search for him in Alain and its districts, in addition to other messengers dispatched to adjoining villages to make enquiries. Soon the soldiers reported that despite “the very careful enquiries they had made” to ascertain his whereabouts, it was “impossible” to find out anything. They did notice, however, that Alain was for the most part abandoned and burned. The careful search went on, all to no avail; they continued to complain that there was just no way of getting “any information about Martin Can, or where he was, although Captain Merida did everything possible to find out, sending soldiers and experienced Indians everywhere with orders that if they found this rare example of ingratitude and disloyalty, and he would not surrender peacefully, they should burn his houses, milpas, corn, and everything they could determine”.90 How Martin Can fared is unclear, but one may guess that he ended up at Tipu. In any event, the resistance

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movement for which Martin Can was “the cause” took the typical form of abandoning villages, burning some and fleeing deep into the “bush”. Ursúa soon found his victory rather hollow, since there was hardly anyone around to be governed. Even those who finally returned were “never completely subjugated . . . though nominally subject to Guatemala, [they] are still, in reality, an independent race”, observes Fancourt, writing in the 1850s.91 “Many”, however, who fled Peten never returned. Unfortunately we have no way of ascertaining the precise number, but most of those who fled into the forests – unrepentant, unchristianized, practising their ancient religion and living within their own cultural imperatives – settled in what is Belize today, thereby reversing, as hinted earlier, the traditional runaway pattern. These would certainly constitute some of the refugees from Peten Itza in British Honduras who, according to Thomas Gann, lived “in the fastnesses of the bush . . . undisturbed by either Spanish or British, till the middle of the nineteenth century, when the War of the Castes brought a number of Yucatecan refugees in to escape the Indian massacre”. Gann thinks it quite conceivable that, up to the mid-nineteenth century, most of these refugees from Peten Itza “retained the ancient lore, which their priests must have brought in with them after the conquest of Peten”.92 Some of the places in Belize with Peten refugees include Tipu and surrounding districts, Lamanai and its hinterlands, and areas around the Mopan River Valley. Despite Ursúa’s aggressive attempts at repopulating Peten with Spaniards or even with settlers from the Canary Islands because of the mass flights after conquest, it was a dismal failure.93 This might have been part of his rationale for attempting to amalgamate Tipu and Peten Itza; after all, he viewed these two places as “contiguous”. In 1707 he recommended that the inhabitants of Tipu be relocated to the shores of Lake Peten Itza; this would also facilitate a more effective type of supervision. Ursúa worried about Tipu’s propensity to apostatize but felt that under the watchful eyes of the bishop of Yucatan, both newly reduced peoples could be made to stay in line. Once they were settled in suitable locations in Peten, the secular parts of their lives could also be easily dealt with, and to this end the usual elections of magistrates and other officials of the combined territories were to be confirmed by Spanish authorities from Bacalar. It is clear that the policy to relocate Tipu was not successful, and Ursúa’s departure a year later (in 1708) to take up his new appointment in the Philip-

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pines certainly robbed the plan of its prime mover. But even without that, it is easy to understand that the Tipuans were against it, and many, together with some Itzas, fled into forested areas further into Belize. Some of the Itzas may have joined others who are thought to have helped settle villages such as Benque Viejo and Succotz (or Succoth or Socotz, among other variations) during the first wave of Peten refugees after 1697. Thompson hints at strong Itza influence in these places; the name Succotz is said to be derived from the name of a tree in Peten, “unreported, I believe, in Yucatan”. Thompson also discovered that Itza surnames such as Uk and Cocom were common around Xunantunich and Benque Viejo, and he found at least one person bearing the name Itza at Succotz.94 It is certain that other pockets of Itza descendants existed elsewhere in Belize. Nancy Farris is perfectly correct when she observes that Peten’s conquest did not destroy the “zones of refuge”; the Maya merely moved further into the bush.95 The fact of other Maya waves of refugees into Belize at different times, however, makes the continuity of the Peten diaspora difficult to trace. Most of the above villages also absorbed other Maya refugees escaping Spanish rule, throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, with the most recognizable being from the Caste War. This prompted Thompson to characterize the historical role of Belize as “a refuge for the oppressed”.96 In sum, Tipu lost its strategic importance to Spain after the defeat of Peten in 1697, and its existence as an autonomous community was certainly breached by the attempt to incorporate its inhabitants with those of the newly conquered Peten. Even though the attempt did not succeed, it contributed to instability in Tipu; the fear of Spanish interference inherent in the plan would certainly have sent the inhabitants fleeing into the forests. And the instability in Tipu and its surrounding districts must have increased with the grim fact that the area was coming under attack from individual Spaniards from Yucatan, who began raiding and inveigling away some of the people, allegedly to enslave them. Furthermore, some Englishmen – pirates or logwood cutters – are also said to have been raiding for slaves close to Tipu at this time. Tipu was therefore badly destabilized, and with Ursúa’s departure in 1708 it soon ceased to be an outpost of Spanish jurisdiction. Indeed, external factors were at work that neither the Maya Indians nor the Spaniards could entirely control. The British presence was growing in the area we call Belize today, and this was to become the major challenge for

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Spain. Whatever other plans Spain may have had for the Maya of Spanish Belize dissipated in the face of fear of the British “pirates” who routinely captured not only Indians but also Spaniards, including priests, most of whom were treated with cavalier disrespect in front of the Maya. Even more egregiously, these intruders also destroyed sacred images and symbols of the Catholic Church, thus placing the harried Spaniards squarely between the indigenous “barbarian idolaters” and the lawless English pirates who now seemed bent on settling down to a more regular existence as logwood cutters. This was the new reality for Spain. Henceforward it was going to be about a relationship – or confrontation – between the Spaniards and the British, with the Maya a mere shadow in the background.

Summary It has been demonstrated that the Spaniards tried very diligently to conquer and colonize most of the country called Belize today – understandably, since Spain felt possessed of the region by papal donation. We have argued that pursuit of discovering whether or not this power succeeded is part and parcel of the narrative of Belize’s history. This study has shown that, despite determined and valiant efforts, Spain had only limited success in colonizing Belize, partly because of stout resistance from the Maya people – who did not apotheosize Europeans as returning deities to rule over them, and were therefore deeply resentful of the alien intrusion – and partly because of the nature of their society, consisting as it did of different quasi-independent principalities, and consequently not vulnerable to a single decisive blow to some centralized head, as happened (more or less) with the Aztecs and the Incas. Spain’s lack of success was also due partly to the absence of gold in Yucatan, which robbed it of potential settlers, who typically would have found a place like Peru more attractive for settlement. Certainly, too, the Catholic priests – especially the Dominicans – who objected to military reduction of the Indians hampered Spanish colonizing efforts, although, paradoxically, the priests were the most successful in establishing Spanish institutions and administrative units in what is Belize today.

UWI PRESS PART 2

British Belize, 1708–1823

British Belize: “English Lutheran Corsairs” to Buccaneers Transformed into Logwood Cutters to Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras to Honduras to British Honduras to Belize

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Early British Settlement in Belize to 1763

hinted repeatedly at the British presence in Belize, but here a more systematic treatment will be attempted. On this topic Villagutierre is not forthcoming, which prompted his editor to speculate that he may have intended to treat the subject in his promised second volume,1 which, however, was never produced. Nevertheless, on the few occasions that Villagutierre mentions the topic he is unambiguous in his disgust for the English “enemy pirates” and their “insults, robberies and cruelties”. He excoriates them as “enemies of the Crown of Spain” and expresses distress at the constant anxiety experienced by the Spanish navy because of the risks posed by “pirates” along the Caribbean coast, which was already “full of shoals, reefs, small islands and other obstacles”.2 However, Villagutierre was writing at the end of the seventeenth century, by which time the British pirates seemed well entrenched in the area. When, then, did the British begin to settle in the part of Yucatan we call Belize today? This is an even more stubborn question than that of Spanish settlement of the territory, and we will probably never be able to answer it precisely. We may have to rely on Sir Harry Luke’s proposition that “[a]s a British Colony British Honduras, like Topsy, ‘never was born’ but just ‘grow’d’”.3 This is in contrast to the more regularly established British colonies in the region, which were acquired either by royal patents or by conquest and settlement. The fact that Belize “just grow’d” – and not in the usual normative colonial SO FAR WE HAVE

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fashion but by downright squatting and therefore by stealth – compounds the problem of documentary evidence for any early historical construction of this country. Just about every work on Belize states casually that the British first settled the place in the early, or mid- or late seventeenth century. Bolland has identified some of these arbitrary datings,4 while the title, for instance, of Quijano’s book – Belice, 1663(?)–1821 – mirrors the uncertainty, as it is in line with the general guesses. From scrappy bits of evidence garnered from disparate shreds of disjointed sources, this work will suggest that the British probably began some form of loose communities in Belize in the mid-1500s. We do know that their first important settlement was on Cay Casina (later St George’s Cay),5 contrary to the opinion of other writers on Belize, who have either glossed over the issue or assumed or asserted that it was around the Belize River. When we dealt with early Spanish occupancy of this territory, we bemoaned the absence of indigenous voices to countercheck Spanish accounts, and now we bemoan the absence of early British accounts of their settlements in this part of Yucatan. This was certainly because of the clandestine nature of their initial activities and, perhaps even more significant, because of the dubious nature of the early characters and their conduct. Unlike, for instance, the New England Puritans, “who wrote almost too much about themselves and preserved every laundry list for posterity”,6 the early settlers or “pirates” of Belize were not the sort of people who would be particularly anxious to divulge their identity by leaving records. In some early Spanish-American documents we can find clues about British presence along the coastal regions of Central America and the Spanish Main. From the early 1570s we begin to see an increase in Spanish complaints about surreptitious British presence around these regions,7 indicating how difficult it was to dislodge them, particularly from the Belize coast. Among the many Spanish officials who expressed frustration at being thwarted by coastal impediments when pursuing the English was Governor Guevara of Puerto de Caballos in 1578. Guevara complained to the Spanish Crown that some time around October 1577, two vessels with “English Lutherans” (or corsarios Luteranos) arrived on the island of Guanaja (one of the Bay Islands, now Bonacca) and began looting the place. The Spanish captain who went against them with twenty men was partially successful, only because he surprised them on land at dawn, killing “more than 10” of the British without losing any of his men.8 The response of the British was to repair to their ships and then to their safe

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havens on the islands, where they could supply themselves with food, particularly fish and turtles, and fresh water. Their route was by way of Golfo Dulce, a port that was particularly important for the indigo trade between Guatemala and Spain and increasingly a target of attack by corsairs. It was also a port that might have been Spain’s commercial centre in Central America if, as discussed above, Montejo had had his way. After Nueva Sevilla was finally evacuated in 1561 it is very likely that the “Lutheran Corsairs” began to fill the vacuum almost immediately by occupying the cays and islands fronting Belize. So worried were the Spaniards about the security of the Gulfo Dulce area and the lack of arms and personnel to protect it that in desperation the recommendation was made that Indians from Vera Paz be assembled to defend it; the suggestion was ridiculed.9 The English sacked Gulfo Dulce’s port, and as they emerged into the Caribbean Sea with their plunder, a Spanish ship gave chase and even managed to broadside them three or four times, killing “six or seven”. Nonetheless, the Spaniards were outmanoeuvred; the British in their lighter rowing crafts could nimbly retreat to their strategic havens among the cays and shoals on the Belize coast, “where our ship dared not follow”,10 the Spaniards complained. The ease with which the English could negotiate the hazardous Belizean coastline – “whose tortuous, tricky and then uncharted passages could be navigated with safety only by those who knew them like the palms of their hands”11 – is significant. It would seem to suggest familiarity from practice over a period of time, a familiarity that Dávila certainly did not possess when we observed him at the mercy of this awesome coast in 1532. Since at least 1551 the English had been learning to master the difficult Belizean coastline with their light, manoeuvrable crafts. And from their island havens they could engage in marine predation only to return swiftly when chased by the Spaniards. It is this that urged the suggestion of this work that these Lutheran corsairs may have established some early rendezvous or even inchoate “settlements” on some of the islands or cays. It is certainly interesting to note on Captain Joseph Smith Speer’s map a small island named “Rendezvous Kay”, well to the south of “English Kay”, on the Belize coast. With time, Cay Casina evolved as the principal settlement. The experiences mentioned above of Father Delgado and, later, Cano underscore the importance of this latter island, as well as the prevalence of British adventurers on Belize’s coastal islands.

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Governor Guevara, obviously a conscientious official, complained of the damage the English were capable of. He thus armed a ship, along with “two swift launches”, to search for the intruders who had eluded the Spaniards, having sailed away in a northerly direction. He ran along “this coast and part of the islands of Yucatan”, which included all of Belize’s Caribbean coast. Although he claims to have spent twenty days in this search, not surprisingly, he “could find no trace” of the English corsairs,12 for they would have been securely tucked away on the strategic islands next to Belize. These encounters were typical of many others, and no doubt the Spaniards would have overwhelmed these early English interlopers had they not possessed their island havens. Clearly Spanish hegemony in the New World was being seriously threatened. This threat became intensified after a “Lutheran Englishman with a large ship and a shallop, both well supplied with artillery, and a caravel and a large bark, both handsome vessels”13 – John Hawkins – showed up at Santo Domingo in 1563. This visit reflected Spanish vulnerability in the region that other Europeans were also to exploit. Henceforward there began a long, steady stream of European “visitations” to Spanish America under soubriquets such as pirates, corsairs, privateers, freebooters or buccaneers, with the British gaining the ascendancy. From all appearances, therefore, it seems that the papal donation of the New World to Spain had been breached. The donation, as we have seen, forbade not only all foreigners but even unauthorized Spaniards from entering the region. Thus every foreigner and every Spaniard without a licence from the Spanish Crown found in the area was technically a robber, or at least a trespasser. The problem for Spain, however, was that the other European powers had a different view of the papal donation. Francis I of France, for example, voiced what could be considered representative of European resentment when he reminded Spain, “The sun shines for me as for others. I should very much like to see the clause in Adam’s will that excludes me from a share of the world.”14 Elizabeth I of England, in protesting, laid down certain “principles” that were to become the plank on which British policy in the Caribbean and Central America was based for a very long time. These principles in fact broadened the dispute from mere canonistic considerations to a wider framework of international law that anticipated Hugo Grotius. The queen, in rather a chaotic style, exclaimed

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that she understood not why her, or any prince’s subjects should be debarred from the trade of the Indies, which she could not persuade herself the Spaniards had any just title to by the donation of the bishop of Rome (in whom she acknowledged no prerogative, much less any authority in these cases); nor yet by any other claim, that as they had touched here and there upon the coasts, built cottages, and given name to a river or a cape; which things could not entitle them to a propriety; so that this donation of what is another man’s (which is of no validity in law), and this imaginary propriety, cannot hinder other princes from trading in those countries, and (without breach of the law of nations) from transporting colonies into those parts thereof where the Spaniards do not inhabit; neither from freely navigating.15

In translation, four main principles were being enunciated. First, the pope had no authority to divide up the world – or, in the words of Elizabeth’s chief statesman, Sir William Cecil, “to give and take kingdoms to whomever he pleased”.16 Second, free trade should be practised in the Indies; third, free navigation, like free trade, is a part of the law of nations and should not be breached; and last, the principle of freedom of colonization should operate in areas as yet unoccupied by the Spaniards. This last principle was to be of vital importance for Belize, and it was to be enunciated time and time again in Anglo-Spanish quarrels over this territory. In effect, England was challenging Spain to maintain effective colonization (that is, sovereignty over) the territories of the New World, if it could – that is, if it had the wherewithal so to do. And here was the rub for Spain. Spain could neither colonize nor defend all of what it considered its New World possessions, nor could it control the trading activities even of those places it occupied, not to mention Caiger’s “desolate uninhabited spot”, the “No Man’s Land” of Belize. Caiger notwithstanding, the place called Belize today, as we have seen, was inhabited by the Maya Indians at the time of first contact with the Spaniards. Therefore, their reaction to the British should be considered. As for first contact, we have no clear evidence of this and probably will never know with any degree of certainty, given the clandestine nature of original British settlement. So far we know that the Maya did not believe in any prophetic return of an ancestral lord to rule over them, a belief held by some other native groups, including the Aztecs. Equally, we find no evidence of any belief in the apotheosis of Europeans. Thus the most discernable Maya attitude to the British was based on practical or strategic considerations17 – accommodating or resisting them as circumstances warranted. It has been assumed by some modern

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scholars that the English maintained “friendly relations”18 with the Belize Indians. It is clear, however, that the relationship was much more complex, with variations based on time and place. Our first “historian” of Belize, Captain George Henderson, gives a much more nuanced view of the Anglo-Maya relationship when he places it in the context of different time periods. First he says that before 1763 “the English settlers had established themselves with the friendly approval of the Indians, their immediate neighbours on the east coast of Yucatan”.19 Henderson may well be correct in that this early contact (from the mid-1500s?) may have made “approval” convenient based on mutual self-interest, with both groups seeing the Spaniards as a common enemy. This type of relationship was to become quite common in the region, as will be demonstrated later with the Miskito Indians, for instance. And here we should also mention the strong cooperation between the cimarrones (maroons) and “English Lutheran corsairs” such as Sir Francis Drake and John Oxenham, which was based on similar self-interest and enmity towards Spain.20 Thompson’s point that “Distrust of the Spaniards caused the Maya of central Belize to become friendly with the British logwood cutters”21 is equally incomplete without a time frame. Henderson reflects the variation in time when he later remarks on the hostility of the Indians to the British settlers. He writes: Not many years past, numerous tribes of hostile Indians often left their recesses in the woods for the purpose of plunder. This they often accomplished; and if resistance were offered, not unfrequently committed the most sanguinary murders. The habitations of these people have never been traced. Their dispositions are peculiarly ferocious, and they are always armed with bows and arrows of curious workmanship: the latter are generally thought to be poisoned. They are without cloathing of any kind, and wander over an immense extent of country but little known. The Spaniards have given to these people the general appellation of Bravos.

Henderson ends this account by expressing satisfaction that “these fugitives” had been effectively checked by frequent military expeditions against them. Thus it appears that by the 1820s they were generally viewed as enemies of the settlement.22 There is much that is significant in Henderson’s account. These numerous tribes of hostile Indians would certainly include those from Peten who inhabited Belize and its forest surroundings. Most of these people lived in isolation in the jungles around Belize and Guatemala, fiercely avoiding the

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Spaniards.23 What Henderson calls the “curious workmanship” on their bows and arrows might well be a clue pointing to Itza identity, since the Itzas were famous for their decorated implements of warfare. Their ferocity and nakedness also conform to the characteristics of the isolated bands that roamed the forests outside the bounds of any organized society that Gann has identified. Even on Thomas Jefferys’s map of 1775 these groups are considered significant enough to be identified as a separate category called “Indios Bravos” (wild Indians). In terms of the exact date of the reported Indian hostilities towards the British settlers, Henderson is not too precise in his language: “Not many years past”. However, we can infer that it was either a little before or around the turn of the nineteenth century, since his work was first published in 1809, with a second edition in 1811. This would certainly coincide with the period when British loggers were aggressively expanding the mahogany industry as the base of their economy, over and above the logwood enterprise. The timber industry as a rule dictated settlement patterns. Logwood grew spontaneously in clusters in swampy conditions along riverbanks and coastal areas, and the early British settlements accordingly were located near such areas. Mahogany, on the other hand, is widely dispersed all over the region, forcing the loggers to extend their reach farther inland, thereby disturbing or dislodging the “wild Indians” from their lands. This encroachment was bound to create a hostile response from the Maya, which in turn led to the relentless British military actions against them mentioned by Henderson. They may have been effectively checked, but not completely, because we have evidence of sporadic Indian attacks well into the mid-nineteenth century. From the available records, it appears that these attacks – or fear of them – really began in the 1780s, coinciding with increasing expansion of the mahogany industry. The “demand for mahogany created by the English luxury furniture industry enticed the British woodcutters into the Maya forests . . of central and northwest Belize”.24 And new uses were being made of mahogany in the early nineteenth century; it was increasingly in demand for construction and shipbuilding and, later in the century, for railway carriages. All this intensified the Baymen’s penetration deep into the forests, as it also increased hostile responses from the Maya. A report of an attack around November 1788 states that “a party of Wild Indians” attacked one Hanna Jeffrey’s settlement and murdered a slave

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woman. Another recorded attack took place in 1802; the clerk of the court requested that a detachment of troops be sent “upriver” (the Belize River?) to punish Indians who were “committing depredations upon the Mahogany works”, and apparently the request was granted.25 What is more, during this period the British developed immense anxiety over a potential union between the bonded and the “wild” Indians. In a memorial to Whitehall in 1817, they characterize themselves as “vulnerable and exposed” on every side, surrounded as they were and therefore susceptible to incursions of wild Indians. They then speculate that even a “very small Gang of desperate runaway Slaves who would join and lead these Indians, must instantly overpower us, and the destruction of every British Subject would be inevitable”.26 But they soon console themselves with what they call their good treatment and “humanity” towards their slaves, which ensured against such a calamity. On the contrary, they were grateful for the “readiness” with which their slaves from time to time defended their mahogany works in the interior from the “assaults” of the wild Indians.27 It is certain that without this assistance the Maya attacks would have been more serious for the settlers. Reported Indian attacks continued intermittently and gained some momentum with the onset of the Caste War during 1847 and 1848, especially around the River Hondo, where the mahogany cutters were so alarmed that they asked for troops to defend them.28 All in all, therefore, there does not appear to have been a great deal of interaction between the Maya and the early British settlers in Belize. Who were these early British settlers, and how did they maintain themselves? As hinted above, they belonged to those famous bands known variously as corsairs, pirates, privateers or freebooters – and finally as buccaneers, the term most used from about the second decade of the seventeenth century. In the place called Belize today they were technically squatters on Spanish lands and unrecognized by Britain. As such they were on their own, operating outside legal boundaries. At this stage they survived mainly on marine predation targeting Spanish vessels, interspersed with some hunting on land. In a sense they were part of a larger multinational “brotherhood” headquartered originally on Tortuga. But when Britain captured Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the headquarters shifted to Port Royal on Jamaica, and the British brethren soon became dominant. Their famously brutal and daring activities against Spanish shipping and possessions contributed to the progressively weaker position of Spain, forcing

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it to confront Britain on the issue. One outcome was the Treaty of Godolphin in 1670, which Spain had perforce to sign and which recognized British possession of the newly acquired Jamaica. More sweepingly, it agreed that “the most Serene King of Great Britain and his Heirs and Successors shall have, hold and keep and always possess in full right of Sovereignty, Seigniory, Possession and Propriety, all the Lands, Countries, Islands, Colonies and other Places . . . lying and situate in the West Indies, or in any part of America which the said King of Great Britain and his Subjects now hold and Possess”.29 This rendered the papal donation of 1493 null and void. De jure, therefore, the British settlers at Belize should have been included in this treaty. Spain had no intention whatsoever of respecting this pact, but Britain was obliged under it to control the activities of the buccaneers at Jamaica. This was more easily said than done, because the Jamaican authorities were practically beholden to the buccaneers for security against Spain; it was well-known that, despite this treaty, Spain intended to retake Jamaica. Moreover, the fleet strength and manpower of the buccaneers far surpassed those of any government in the Caribbean. When Henry Morgan, for instance, advanced with his famous – or infamous – fleet of “five boats laden with artillery, and thirty two canoes” with twelve hundred men to sack Panama in 1670, he knew his power. He was also thumbing his nose at both imperial pacts and local colonial governments, for “there was no constituted authority in the West Indies – Spanish, British, Dutch, or French – that was strong enough to oppose him, if it had the will”, as a British writer points out.30 Nevertheless, the heady days of the buccaneers were coming to an end, not because Spain desired it but because it suited British interests. The Jamaican planters, for instance, were anxious to settle down to the lucrative business of sugar production, which required steady, organized and disciplined efforts; they viewed the presence of the buccaneers and their iconoclastic behaviour as detrimental to the sugar economy. Not surprisingly, therefore, stringent laws against buccaneers were passed in Britain and by the Jamaica Assembly. Some were tried in England for piracy and quite a few, being tried more summarily in the Caribbean, were hanged from the yardarms of some of His Majesty’s frigates stationed at Jamaica. This is not to say that it was an easy task to suppress the buccaneers. After being outlawed they became a greater menace for some time, attacking not only Spanish ships but also British vessels. This was, however, to be their ruin, because British efforts against them

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became more determined and sustained. By the 1680s the buccaneers had lost their “glamour” and were regarded as merely pirates and outlaws. The tendency was for many of them, including some from Morgan’s group, to join those already at Belize.31 At Belize, the buccaneers were now faced with the dismal prospect of pursuing some sort of regular work in addition to cattle hunting. Fortunately for them, those who came from Tortuga were familiar with Europe’s growing demand for new dyeing materials. Tropical woods such as the brazil or brazilletto had been sought since the time of the Elizabethan corsairs, but it was logwood, first introduced into Europe around the second half of the sixteenth century, that would result in a flurry of commercial activity – over which wars would be fought. The wood grew on most of the Caribbean islands, especially Tortuga, and that was part of its attraction for buccaneers. Newton points out, for instance, that an English buccaneer named Anthony Hilton enjoyed Tortuga not only for its “laxity and excitement” but also for the logwood cutting and cattle hunting, along “with the prospects of adventure and booty at sea”. Men such as Hilton would soon end up at Belize, only to drift seamlessly into familiar ways.32 They were further rewarded when it became known that the best-quality logwood grew on the Yucatan shores. Thus the Belizean cays that had first afforded the buccaneers a plentiful supply of food and security came to their rescue again; these cays not only produced the best logwood but the trees grew there spontaneously and in abundance. The wood, therefore, was to become the economic base of Belize right up until about the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Logwood and Belize became as intertwined as sugar and the other British Caribbean colonies. It was logwood that finally became the raison d’être for its existence as a British territory. The transition from buccaneering to the tedious work of cutting wood was obviously not easy for most of these free-wheeling individuals, and no one has articulated this better than the celebrated ex-buccaneer William Dampier. He agrees that the logwood trade developed apace after Jamaica became more settled and after peace was “established with Spain”. Then the buccaneers, “who had hitherto lived upon plundering the Spaniards, were put to their shifts; for they had prodigally spent whatever they got, and now wanting Subsistence, were forced either to go to Petit Guavas [or Petit Goave, a port at the western end of modern Haiti], where the Privateering Trade still continued, or into the Bay for Logwood”.33 Dampier is referring to Campeche, but he adds later

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that the areas in Yucatan where the “true” logwood grew were at Campeche, the Bay of Honduras and Cape Catoch. The British were to cut logwood at all these places until the Spaniards finally expelled them; by 1717 only the Bay of Honduras (Belize) remained. Dampier feels that it was the more industrious among the buccaneers who went for the logging trade, but even they did not completely give up their old buccaneering habits. At the Bay of Honduras and elsewhere, they thought it a dry Business to toil at Cutting Wood. They were good Marks-Men, and so took more delight in Hunting; but neither of those Employments affected them so much as Privateering; therefore they often made Sallies out in small Parties among the nearest Indian towns; where they plundered and brought away the Indian Women to serve them at their Huts, and sent their Husbands to be sold at Jamaica [to serve as slaves on the sugar plantations].34

We should note that Dampier is using the term privateering euphemistically; the word should have been piracy. It might seem strange today that logwood was a critical commodity from the sixteenth to about the last quarter of the eighteenth century, almost as oil is today, as our story will demonstrate. And in an age when wars were openly fought for commodities, it should not be surprising that logwood was to be the basis for hostilities between Britain and Spain right up to the end of the eighteenth century. There are different types of logwood but it is the commercial type that is of interest to us. The commercial logwood (Haematoxylon campechianum), commonly called by the Spaniards palo de tinta or palo de Campeche, is a small tropical tree that grows spontaneously in marshy lands. Numerous descriptions of this plant are available in which it is generally characterized as a very hard, heavy brownish red wood, difficult to cut, yet useful for commercial purposes because it is ready to be felled after only ten years’ growth. The wood was used for its dyes, and the process of extracting its rich and durable colours was long known to the ancient Maya. Although the plant was also found around areas such as Cape Catoch and Champoton, it appears to have been most plentiful along the banks of creeks and lagoons in the Gulf of Campeche region, and this was probably why the Spaniards named it after the place. They were apparently the first European nation to attempt (unsuccessfully) the New World technology of making lasting dyes from this wood, but it was

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the Dutch, “soon after 1600”, who first discovered “the secret of fast-dyeing with logwood”.35 The Dutch buccaneer/historian Esquemeling hinted that it took a long time before “we had the skill of the Indians who made a dye or tincture that never fades”.36 The major enduring tinctures for which this wood soon became famous and a focus of European rivalry were different shades of purple, dark red, violet, black and grey, as well as, according to Godolphin, “musk and Murray colours”.37 All these colours were most useful for textiles of domestic use as well as for more ornate ecclesiastical, regal, military and theatrical habiliments. For a while the Spaniards, with their pretensions of ownership of the region, held a monopoly on this commodity, which was becoming increasingly important to other European powers, especially Britain with her burgeoning textile industry. But Spain did not exploit the market situation to its advantage, pursuing instead the narrow monopolistic practice of controlling supply to maintain high prices. Dampier tells us that by the 1660s this wood, cut by Indian slave labour close to Campeche, was sold in Europe for “90, 100, or 110” British pounds per ton but at £5 per ton on the spot. It is no wonder that he initially had serious intentions of remaining in the logwood business; however, he was deterred by the constant Spanish attacks on the British loggers.38 Dampier is quite clearly incorrect when he says that the English did not know the value of logwood before the capture of Jamaica (1655), when corsairs and “privateers” would either burn the wood or set it adrift when they captured Spanish vessels carrying this commodity. To Dampier it was only after one Captain James took a Spanish ship laden with logwood, brought it home to England and sold the wood “at a great rate” that its value was known.39 This might well have been true for a few of these intruders, but the value of logwood was known, especially in England, from the mid-1500s. Elizabethan privateers such as Captain William Parker deliberately sought the wood during their plunderings. When Parker took the town of Campeche in the 1590s, for instance, he is known to have exclaimed, “we found Campeche wood good to dye withall”.40 So appreciated was logwood’s usefulness that dyers in England at this time used fraudulent means to make a quick profit, sacrificing the colour-fastness this wood could produce, as had been long known to the Maya people. The result was that laws were passed prohibiting its use in England; this led to a great deal of smuggling because the use of logwood was already very wide-

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spread and it was seen as “one of the first valuable exports from the New World”.41 It was not until 1662, after numerous complaints from relevant interest groups, that free importation of logwood was once more permitted into England, by which time Britain’s chief trading competitor, the Dutch, had a large share of the market.42 The duty on this commodity was quite high, so it came to be a handy source of revenue not only for the British Treasury but also for the private indulgences of at least one British monarch, Charles II. Belize’s logwood had the dubious distinction of contributing to the support of this monarch’s “favourite” Nell Gwynn (or Gwynne) between 1676 and 1685.43 Using the Calendar of Treasury Papers and other state papers, Wilson has shown that, coinciding with the lifting of the prohibition, there was a duty of £5 sterling per ton, with nearly identical duty added upon re-exportation.44 Since the interests of the Treasury were involved, this was bound to affect official British policy towards Belize. For a long time, however, it was an ambiguous policy – for complex reasons, the major one being British reluctance to offend Spain. But there was absolutely no ambiguity about Britain’s need for and determination to obtain a sufficient and constant supply of logwood from the Bay of Honduras. By the early seventeenth century, logwood – “the fundamental fixing Dye”45 – had become increasingly indispensable to British textiles and, in turn, most important to British commerce and navigation. Professor Newton is perfectly correct when he says that “[w]ith the exception of sugar, no single commodity has played a greater part in Caribbean history than logwood”.46 Contemporary British industrialists were therefore determined to protect the tree “which is soe essentially necessary in dying our manufactures that it would be of the last and worst consequence to be deprived thereof”,47 as one of them explained. But British policymakers were equally determined as much as possible not to antagonize Spain. This led to incoherent and seemingly contradictory policy statements on logwood from Whitehall and from the governors of Jamaica, oscillating between open support for and apparent indifference towards the loggers. A much clearer expression of this balancing act was articulated by Lord Godolphin. Despite the fact that Godolphin had negotiated the famous 1670 treaty mentioned above – in which Spain acknowledged Britain’s sovereign right over the lands it already possessed in America and the West Indies – oddly enough, he had strong doubts about British claims to the logwood dis-

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tricts. Two years after the treaty he declared that, since Spain could rightly claim possession of those parts, the Englishmen cutting the “Campeche Wood” should “restrain” themselves to that act alone, and to do so in an “underhand” manner in remote areas away from Spanish towns such as Mérida and not make any “Inroads or other Depredations” on Spanish territories48 – an echo of Elizabeth I. Godolphin recommended that it should be British policy not to authorize the cutting of logwood in the logwood districts, “yet to Connive at their so doing”; if the British confined themselves to this connivance policy then the Spaniards might be “induced to connive likewise”.49 Such was to be the policy towards all the British logwood-cutting establishments in Central America. But as relations between Spain and Britain became increasingly bitter, coupled with – and to a great extent because of – the well-known high profits the British were making from logwood, Spain found itself in no mood to “connive” and soon began to harass the woodcutters. This could be done with impunity under a quickly improvised royal cedula of June 1672 – just about two years after the Godolphin Treaty – declaring anyone trading in Spanish territories without a licence to be “proceeded against as pirates”.50 British ships even suspected of carrying logwood were summarily confiscated by Spain, and captured British seamen were subjected to extreme and brutal punishments. The Spaniards, who were always short on naval capability, even hired the services of other European powers, including some Portuguese adventurers and Dutch buccaneers, to capture British logwood vessels and “eject English raiders”. The prisoners they captured were treated with great severity and often sent to Spain to serve in the galleys or among the convicts in the dreadful quicksilver (mercury) mines.51 The logwood settlements were also systematically attacked and destroyed by the Spaniards. At this time the British logwood locations in the region, according to Sir Thomas Modyford, governor of Jamaica in the early 1670s, were at “Cape Catoche, Cozumel, Champaton, Port Real, St. Paulo”52 and, of course, Campeche and the Bay of Honduras. By the 1680s, however, Spain had succeeded in destroying all these rude settlements with the exception of those at Campeche and the Bay of Honduras, or Belize. It appears that the cutters would move from one location to another as they came under attack. Thus, by the 1680s Campeche was the principal British logwood location – their “greatest headquarters”53 – in the area, having gained the evacuees of for-

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mer settlements. Campeche therefore became the focus of aggressive and sustained Spanish attacks from the latter part of the seventeenth century to 1717, when the last remnants of the settlers were finally driven out, joining those who had already gone off to Belize since the heightened Spanish attacks began. From 1717 Belize thus became the sole logwood settlement for Britain. An anonymous report sent to Whitehall on “the English Settlement at Bellese in Honduras” rejoiced that the disastrous defeat of Campeche had not deprived Britain of the logwood trade. On the contrary, soon after the “disaster”, and despite Spanish hostility, “Bellese” was to increase the trade “enormously”.54 It was therefore in the territory now called Belize that the “policy of connivance” was to be played out – in a one-sided manner, since Spain would not join the game; only the British policymakers at Whitehall endeavoured to take part. The result was to lead to Spanish attacks on Belize that escalated during the mid-eighteenth century, leading to a series of Anglo-Spanish wars. This logwood policy was also the very crux of the anomalous constitutional position in which Belize was placed. That is, it was not declared a formal British colony – only a British “settlement” – until well into the nineteenth century. In the interim, therefore, the British settlers, or Baymen, had to continue their Hobbesian existence without British protection. But with logwood they held all the aces, and the “mother country” could not ignore them forever. Despite the fact that logwood grows spontaneously, these early loggers did not have an easy life. Again thanks to Dampier, we have reliable information on the life of the logwood cutter, since he himself was a woodcutter for a period. We also have another useful and reliable source in the person of Captain Nathaniel Uring. Uring was a very widely travelled British seaman who was not a buccaneer in the strict sense of the term but operated as a privateer and trader. He started his voyage at the turn of the eighteenth century with commissions from various sources. One was from the powerful nobleman the Duke of Montagu, to take over St Lucia and become governor of that Caribbean island, but he was unsuccessful because the French had the upper hand.55 Thereafter, in addition to his other travels, he made trips as a trader to the logwood cutters in both Campeche and Belize, which he visited twice. Although neither a buccaneer nor a logwood cutter like Dampier, Uring nevertheless was a very keen observer. He also had a comparative framework that Dampier lacked, since the latter’s stay was only at Campeche (although the loggers there were soon to join those in Belize). All in all, these two men have

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certainly helped to advance our understanding of the early social history of Belize. Uring visited the logwood cutters at Campeche in July 1712, well before his first trip to Belize, seven years later. He went as a bona fide privateer equipped with a “letter of Mart”, as he called it, from the governor of Jamaica, with orders to make prize of vessels of the “Enemies”,56 meaning in this case not only Spaniards but also the French, who from this period and increasingly into the century were to become allies of the Spaniards against the British. The period of Uring’s visit is of great importance to us because it was only five years later – in 1717 – that the Spaniards successfully dislodged all the British loggers from Campeche. And since these logwood cutters went to Belize, and indeed had been drifting there ever since the intense Spanish attacks began, the people Uring encountered were soon to become a part of its population. The demographics at Campeche soon caught Uring’s attention. He observes that no more than seven or eight white and twelve black men were present, noting that it was because the Spaniards had “routed the People from thence some Time before, and had taken or destroyed all the Ships that attempted to trade thither”.57 The number of white men residing there in 1712 should be compared with what Dampier encountered in 1675, when he computed between 250 and 270 men, “most English”, living at Campeche.58 Like Uring, Dampier was well aware of the problems the Campeche woodcutters faced from Spanish attacks, which, as has been said, forced him to leave the logging business for buccaneering. Altogether it is estimated that more than 500 Campeche loggers evacuated to Belize,59 making them more numerous than the original inhabitants, who could not have numbered above 200. Apparently the price of logwood had fallen since Dampier’s visit in 1675, when it was £5 sterling per ton at the place where it was cut. In 1712 Uring found it at £4.10 (Jamaican) per ton.60 By 1719 Uring was at the Bay of Honduras as a trader with the British logwood cutters; he remained with the Baymen for “four or five months”. His visit coincides with that critical juncture in the development of the logwood industry when Belize had just (two years before) become the only British logwood settlement. He recounts that during his stay he made careful observations of the country, visited the lagoons and creeks and took particular notice of the logwood trees, the life of the logwood cutters and the logwood industry

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generally. Uring’s account of the logwood cutters in Belize is the first closeup view we have of them as a group; its similarity with Dampier’s description of the woodcutters at Campeche should not be surprising, since both men were dealing with more or less the same people. Upon his arrival Uring conveyed his trade goods “up the River of Bellese”; he notes that as soon as the Baymen had “Notice of any Ship or Vessel’s Arrival at the River’s Mouth they flock down on Board in order to purchase such Things as they want”.61 This “notice” probably consisted of firing guns to alert the logwood cutters, as Dampier relates the custom to be at Campeche.62 We have it directly from another source, the historian John Oldmixon, that this was indeed the practice in Belize, where upon entry of a ship into the Bay, guns were fired to give the loggers notice of its arrival.63 The traders would later meet at what the Baymen called the “barkadares” (or bercadares or embarcadares) – the place where the logs were brought from the many lagoons and creeks along the rivers to be readied for shipment. Many place-names in modern Belize evoke its early logwood history. One writer has pointed out, for example, that Barkadare is particularly common along the Rio Hondo and the New River, indicating a site formerly used to prepare logwood for shipment. “Names of this suffix are usually found at a point corresponding to the head of upstream navigation of the shallow draught sailing ships that were used to transship the finished product to Jamaica” and elsewhere, including New England.64 In the heyday of the logwood industry, the Baymen apparently lived in close proximity to the barkadares. John Atkins, a surgeon in the Royal Navy, visited both Campeche and Belize in the 1720s, and although his stay was short, he has left us important information in addition to corroborating Uring’s accounts. Atkins, like Dampier and Uring, comments on the frequent attempts of the Spaniards to destroy the Belize logwood trade at this time. He found the woodcutters at Belize residing “at a place called Barcaderas, about 40 Miles up a narrow River full of Alligators”.65 Having arrived at Belize a few years after Uring’s visit, Atkins could comment more realistically on the fate of the Campeche evacuees. Initially, he says, some took to open piracy against the Spaniards, but necessity, engendered by the British laws against buccaneering, soon forced them to “fall at last on any Nation”; this made easy the transition “from a Buccanier to a Pyrate; from plundering for others, to do it for themselves”.66 The majority, however, who removed to Belize with their

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arms, appear to have settled down nicely and were able to “support themselves”.67 Their arms would have proven useful, since, as will be seen later, systematic Spanish attacks on Belize began at this time and were to intensify from the middle of the century. The life of the logwood cutters was difficult and brutish. Initially they performed most of the work themselves. This was chiefly during the wet season, when the flat areas of the “Bellese” river turned into a “Morass, with several large Lagunes, which in the Rain-times are almost all over-flowed”,68 observes Uring. It was in these types of conditions that they cut the wood, whether at Belize or Campeche. No one has left a more vivid description of this than Dampier at Campeche. He writes: “During the wet Season the Land where the Logwood grows is so overflowed, that they step from their Beds into the Water perhaps two Foot deep, and continue standing in the wet all Day, till they go to bed again; but nevertheless account it the best Season in the Year for doing a good Day’s Labour in.”69 In the dry season, on the other hand, the loggers searched for what they called their “work”, which was comparable to a miner’s claim. This would be an area with a plentiful supply of logwood trees; there they would build what our two principal eyewitnesses, Dampier and Uring, call their “Huts” and Oldmixon describes as “Huts or rather Tents”.70 In either case, it would suggest that these structures were slightly built, largely because the loggers would be on the move as soon as they had exhausted a “work”. The peculiar nature of the logwood industry dictated the logic of their lifestyle; it is indeed rare to hear of Europeans within a colonial context living in “huts”. And their beds were even more intriguing. All the eyewitnesses talk about their “Pavillions” but it is Uring to whom we are indebted for a full description of these contrivances: They fix several Crutches in the Ground about Four Foot high, and lay Sticks cross, and other Sticks cross them close together; and upon those Sticks they lay a good Quantity of Leaves, and upon them a Piece of old Canvas if they have it; and this is their Bed. There is also at each Corner of the Bed-Place, a tall Pole fixed, to which they fasten their Covering, which is generally made of Ozinbrigs; it is sewed together, and fastened at each Corner to these Poles about Four Foot above the Bed-Place, and is so contriv’d that it falls down on every Side, which tucks close in all round, and serves not only for Curtains, but also keeps the Flies from disturbing them.

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Uring first saw this at “Plantane River” on the Mosquito Shore, adding that it “was the first Contrivance I saw of this sort” called a pavilion. Hardly any white man, including the “Merooners” (or Marooners) – to be dealt with later – lived there without one.71 The main reason for the popularity of the pavilions at Campeche, as Dampier also tells us,72 and at Belize was that they served as protection against the multitudes of mosquitos, sand flies and other insects that would have prevented sleeping at nights. It would have been impossible for the Baymen at Belize to live without them, Uring avers. At the time of Atkins’s visit to Belize, he noticed that some of the Baymen, upon “lying down to rest” in their pavilions, would also have a servant to chase away the “infinite number of Sand-Flies and Muskitos”.73 It appears that the early logwood cutters were not short of food. Their chief protein sources came from the sea and the rivers and creeks, which provided an abundant supply of fish of different types, while the small islands and cays provided in addition various kinds of turtles. Like the Shoremen on the Mosquito Coast, these early Belizeans also hunted, mainly for deer, “iguanos” (iguanas), “picarry” (peccary) and warree. They were particularly fond of the eggs of many of these creatures, including those of iguanas – on which they “feasted, drinking ’em mix’d in Punch” – and of alligators, which Uring tasted but did not consider as “good as a Turtle’s or Guanoe’s”. He also did not like the flesh of the alligators which the settlers ate, considering it “coarse”. Uring was treated very generously by the Baymen when they went hunting, although he “had a very unpleasant Time living among these People, though they paid me a considerable Deference; and when they killed a Deer or Wild Fowl, I was always sure to have part of ’em; but I should have been much more agreeable to ’em if I would have kept ’em Company at their drinking Bouts”.74 The wild fowls they hunted included quams, wild turkeys, macaws and wild ducks, among others. In ground provisions they were well supplied with plantains, bananas and squashes of different kinds, some of which were available from abandoned cultivated grounds of the Indians. It is noteworthy that Atkins mentions servants among the British logwood cutters in Belize in the 1720s. At this time the early British loggers did most of the work themselves, and the few servants they utilized were white men. Dampier, for instance, was hired as a servant at Campeche and paid “at the rate of a Tun of Wood per Month” to do what was considered the hardest work – carrying the wood. The timber was usually felled about three hundred

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to six hundred yards from the creek, in the middle of “unpassable” thickets; it had to be carried to a central place from where the loggers would cut a path or a sort of roadway to convey the wood to the creek. This was arduous work, requiring “sturdy, strong Fellows”. Features of the arrangement resembled the contractual relations of white indentured servants – a system already wellestablished in places such as Barbados and Jamaica. For instance, Dampier was promised that at the end of his contract he would be permitted to “strike in to work with them”75 – to become a partner, in other words. We do not know if these obligations were usually satisfied. In Dampier’s case he did not remain long enough to put his contract to the test, but it appears that in Belize the system had become more formalized by the 1720s. Former buccaneers and runaway white servants from elsewhere, if they were interested in the logwood business, could first become a servant like Dampier; this, according to Atkins, was the “first step” into the trade. In Belize also these servants were paid a ton of logwood per month, and each had a day off after every seven working days. Atkins observes that the frugal ones could save money earned from their free days and, if “thoughtful and sober, they in time become Masters, join Stock, and trade independently”.76 It appears that at this early stage in the history of Belize, slavery did not figure prominently in the logwood industry. Dampier mentions some trafficking in slavery, but it was Indian slavery, and these were mostly men, some of whom were sold to Jamaica in particular. The Indian women in the Baymen’s control were made to serve them at their huts. Atkins mentions that the population of Belize was “about 500 (Merchants and Slaves)” when he visited in the 1720s,77 but unfortunately he did not give a breakdown of the ratio of master to slave, or of the ethnicity of the slaves. Uring, who lived with them for “four or five” months in 1719, makes no mention of slaves or servants. Apart from the Indian slaves, it does appear (from evidence to be dealt with later) that there were a few enslaved Africans, at least by the early 1740s; this practice was to develop rapidly later in the century. Initially, therefore, the logwood cutters themselves did most of the work, which is characterized by Dampier, from his own experience, as tough. As mentioned above, he identifies carrying the wood through tangled jungles as the most difficult of the many tasks associated with the industry; some would “carry Burthens of three to four hundred Weight”.78 In Belize, Uring says,

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When they have cut down the Tree, they Log it, and Chip it, which is cutting off the Bark and Sap, and then lay it in Heaps, cutting away the Underwood, and making Paths to each Heap, then when the Rains come in which overflows the Ground, it serves as so many Creeks or Channels, where they go with small Canows [canoes] or Dories and load ’em, which they bring to a Creek-side and there lade their Canows, and carry it to the Barcadares.79

If the price of logwood soon began to fall,80 overproduction may have been a factor, considering how prolific was the growth of this plant. It “blossoms and bears Seed, which by falling off sows the Ground, from whence it springs up; and the over-flowing the Ground brings the Soil over it, which makes it take Root and grow a great Pace”81 – ready to be cut within ten years, as Uring might have added. The social life of the original Baymen seems dismal indeed. Every account of the logwood cutters at Campeche and Belize characterizes them as a harddrinking, hard-swearing lot living in miserable conditions, and whose only idea of pleasure or recreation was a drunken orgy. Uring sees them as generally a rude drunken Crew, some of which have been Pirates, and most of them Sailors; their chief Delight is in drinking and when they broach a Quarter Cask or a Hogshead of Wine, they seldom stir from it while there is a Drop left: It is the same thing when they open a Hogshead of Bottle Ale or Cyder, keeping at it sometimes a Week together, drinking till they fall asleep; and as soon as they awake, at it again, without stirring off the Place. Rum Punch is their general Drink, which they’ll sometimes sit several Days at also; they do most Work when they have no strong Drink, for while the Liquor is moving they don’t care to leave it.82

There does not appear to have been any shortage of the spirituous drinks on which the Baymen made themselves so thoroughly besotted. Indeed, there was a lively trade with Jamaica from the time the colony began its sugar industry, and traders such as Uring saw to it that the loggers had a constant supply. Typically every trading ship would have on board strong drinks, including rum of high alcoholic content and Madeira and other wines, as well as other spirits. In addition these ships would be loaded with the necessary tools of the logwood industry, such as axes, saws, machetes and hatchets, plus guns, powder and shot, and articles of apparel such as hats, shoes and the rough fabric Uring calls “ozenbrigs” or “ozinbrigs”. Osnaburg, as it is correctly termed, provided general wear for the Baymen; with the exception of their hats and

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shoes, almost all their clothing and their famous pavilions were made from this material. For all these commodities the Baymen would pay with logwood,83 which was treated as a legal tender. How did the early British logwood cutters in Belize govern themselves, considering that they were not officially under British colonial administration until much later? They could easily be depicted as being close to a Hobbesian state of nature, the only thing governing them being the rhythm of the logwood industry and the greatest event in their lives the arrival of a trading vessel with liquor. Uring, for instance, was thoroughly disgusted with their manner of living. “It will be easily believed”, he says, “that I had but little Comfort living among these Crew of ungovernable Wretches, where was little else to be heard but Blasphemy, Cursing and Swearing”.84 It is no wonder that on his second trading trip to Belize, in September 1720, he quickly sold his cargo, obtained his logwood and in no time left the place. It is from Atkins, writing also in the 1720s, that we have a first, small glimpse of what could be considered (only by the most liberal interpretation) as a “system” – albeit inchoate – in Belize. Atkins says they had “a King, chose from among their Body, and his Consort is stiled Queen, agreeing to some Laws by common Consent, as a Guide to them”.85 Nowhere else do we hear of the Baymen of Belize having a “king” at their head; one cannot help wondering whether Atkins confused them with the Miskito Indians, but he did not visit the Mosquito Shore, and in any case the Miskitos do not appear to have given cognizance to the position of “queen”. These titles could have been used humorously; even if so, the “Queen” in all probability would have been a “white” woman, not from among the Indian concubines the Baymen possessed. We have next to no information about white women in Belize at this time or, indeed, right into the next century. Uring supplies us with just a shimmer of a clue about the presence of at least one white woman there. On his visit to the Mosquito Shore, which began in November 1711 – a little less than a year before his trip to Campeche – he met one Luke Haughton, an Englishman who had obviously started out as a buccaneer, in view of his prior extensive travels “to and fro for many years”, including Mexico and Peru, where he was imprisoned by the Spaniards “several times” at both places. He had also been around the Bay of Honduras and the Mosquito Shore, and his skill in “barbecuing” the flesh of animals86 certainly qualifies him as an ex-buccaneer.

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Haughton seems to have settled down somewhat on the Shore, where he had a “family” consisting of two Indian women and an Indian boy – “his Slave”, as was “one of the Women who used to sleep with him and dress his Provisions, which he kept as his Wife; the other Woman was Slave to a White Man who was absent”. There appears to have been a rather thin line between concubine and slave; in addition to Haughton, other white males had similar kinds of arrangements, which were to be replicated in Belize with black and mulatto women, who were soon in the majority with the development of African slavery. Luke Haughton was originally from Jamaica, where he had traded in sugar but soon ran into “Debt, and having an Intreigue with a marry’d Woman, persuaded her to leave her Husband and go with him, which she did to this Place [the Mosquito Shore]: But they disagreeing sometime after, she went away with a Logwood Cutter to the Bay of Honduras [Belize], and his Indian Woman supply’d her Place.”87 Was Haughton’s white woman, who had run off with a logwood cutter to Belize, the “Queen” whom Atkins saw there a few years later? However that was, it is Atkins’s mention of the existence of some “Laws by common Consent, as a Guide to them” that is most exciting and important to the historian. Fragmentary though it may be, this is a significant early eyewitness account that, added to the other accumulated shreds of evidence one has gathered, shows that the Baymen did have some sort of common regulations to govern them long before the 1760s. Atkins’s revelation of “laws” in Belize, however, does not permit us to assume that these boisterous and lawless people – this “Crew of Ungovernable Wretches” – were beginning to live in an orderly fashion, for their life continued to be turbulent for a long time. What we may assume is that those “laws made by common consent to guide them” arose from their buccaneering past. The buccaneers, owing no allegiance to any country in any permanent way, relied solely on their rugged individualistic initiatives, but when necessity forced them to work together – always in a situation of mutual distrust – they invariably designed clear, simple and well-understood rules and regulations to be observed by all. Typically these rules and regulations were made before each raid, and were therefore particularistic in intent and not necessarily meant to govern them as a “society”. Esquemeling tells us that after certain necessary preparations they would “deliberate whither they shall go to seek their desperate fortunes, and likewise agree upon certain articles, which are put in writ-

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ing, which every one is bound to observe”. These “articles” covered a number of issues, including remuneration for special services during the raid, the amount of money each person was expected to contribute to the adventure, and the like; perhaps the most intriguing of their numerous agreements had to do with compensations for injuries incurred during battles. Although time and space will not allow us to exhaust the list here, nevertheless it would be interesting to fathom their standards of value – for human parts, at any rate – when compensation for the loss of an eye was identical to that for loss of a finger.88 Perhaps among them the black eyepatch bestowed value? The drunkenness and swearing and prodigality with money that appalled Uring in Belize were all part and parcel of the lifestyle of the buccaneer. The Baymen merely continued the old patterns of living, as did those in Campeche before they were forced out to reside in Belize. Like Uring in Belize, Dampier was equally disgusted at Campeche. He laments that “the old Standards” – that is, the buccaneering ones – had “so debauched them that they could never settle themselves under any Civil Government, but continued in their Wickedness”;89 he makes no mention of any laws by common consent existing there in the 1670s. This is precisely why Atkins’s discovery of “laws” at Belize in the 1720s is so important. It would imply the development of a kind of social consciousness (or even contract?) over and above the piecemeal lists of “articles” they would put in place for plundering expeditions in former times. It seems reasonable, therefore, to make a historical judgement here: to suggest that in these early “laws” of Atkins’s discovery are to be found the beginnings of the “Regulations for the Better Government of His Majesty’s Subjects in the Bay of Honduras”, which surfaced in 1765 and were erroneously called “Burnaby’s Code”, for reasons to be discussed subsequently. We have firm evidence from the Baymen themselves that help to corroborate Atkins’s discovery of “laws by common consent”. In 1743, for instance, they sent a memorial to the Privy Council in London asking for the appointment of a governor. The memorial states that they had “hitherto lived without any Government and without any Laws but such as have been dictated by mere necessity and established by common consent”; the settlers therefore asked that a civil government be established in Belize under His Majesty’s protection.90 But no government was granted Belize at this time. As it turned out, it was the Mosquito Shore, which was intimately intertwined with Belize, that would soon receive a civil government under a superintendent. The Belize

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settlers were to repeat their request on other occasions, consistent with their evolution into a more responsible society searching for an identity. In one such request, in the 1780s, they point out that “prior to 1738” they had been accustomed to electing annually their own magistrates to officiate at the different rivers and lakes where logwood cutters resided, administering their own “laws”.91 Another reference to early laws and regulations appeared in 1755, and this is certainly more significant because it came from official sources. In the document the Baymen are reminded by emissaries of the then governor of Jamaica, Admiral Knowles, that they should observe the old “Laws and Regulations” that had been operating in their settlement.92 The document, called “Regulations for the Better Government of His Majesty’s Subjects in the Bay of Honduras”, as its title implies, is neither a codified system of laws nor a written constitution with a general statement of principles. Rather, it contains a number of rough-and-ready rules and “laws” that had emerged from the Public Meetings by which the Baymen attempted to govern themselves. Exactly when these regulations began to evolve in a more regular fashion we may never know precisely, but we can presume that the process began before Atkins’s visit in the 1720s. The process most probably was adjusted at the time of the influx of loggers from Campeche, just as it was to be in 1787, when a civil government – a formal one this time – was established in response to another influx of settlers, in this case from the Mosquito Shore. These early adjustments to demographic increase would have been in keeping with the inhabitants’ practical approach to governance from the old buccaneering days, which was always aimed at meeting specific, immediate needs as they arose – in their own words, “such as have been dictated by mere necessity”. These rules and regulations were established through uncompromisingly democratic processes in which all the inhabitants participated in every decision arrived at. It is for this reason that Belize’s early system of government has even been hailed as a kind of Athenian democracy. But there is no need to invoke classical antiquity for antecedents in this case; these people were merely acting out their buccaneering practices, which went against contemporary British principles of government. The buccaneer Baymen were, in fact, precursors of British democracy, a fact not well-known and one that should be emphasized. It is certainly not without irony that the very first British executive appointed to serve in Belize (and succeeding ones) complained

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repeatedly about the “democratic” government found there and urged that it be abolished.93 To be sure, the Baymen’s government was a result of their rugged individualism and their general distrust of any boundary constraints of society. Many of them were former sailors, soldiers or indentured servants – all from rigidly hierarchical systems under which they felt oppressed and from which many fled, determined not to be so constrained again. Their resolve was thus to preserve their hard-won freedom and not to take orders from anyone. Thus their democratic tendencies were based not on any overarching philosophical principles of human freedom but on their own practical experiences. Their first democratically elected “leader”, Captain Bartholomew Sharp, for example, could speak eloquently – and perhaps painfully – of his experiences on his famous South Seas expedition. Here his leadership could be wrested from him by the group, as it could be reinstated, through the exigencies of the ballot. On one occasion, when Sharp was demoted and had to give over his command to his successor, the “brethren” “immediately made articles [with the new leader] and signed them”.94 As they evolved into a more settled group, however, this “direct democracy” could not last. History is not static; it is process. With the expansion of the timber industry, when large profits were being made, a nouveau riche class came into being. The first casualty was their simple democracy, yielding place inexorably to governance by a white oligarchy based on descent and property qualifications, in line with all the other British Caribbean colonial territories. From the regulations we can garner a great deal about early Belizean social history, despite the document’s obvious imperfections, foremost of which are intermittent sequential gaps. These are because the original series of “laws” was destroyed, and what is extant is a later compilation by the Baymen from different sources. It is most disturbing to the historian that the magistrates were free in their redaction and could “correct” what they considered to be inaccurate in some of the original sources.95 Nevertheless, this document is the first significant and fairly consistent piece of primary source material that we have from the Baymen of Belize, and within this context, therefore, its importance can hardly be overemphasized. The document, crude though it may be, gives us the first written account of some of their “ancient” – as they were wont to term them – laws. We have, for instance, the first indication of how these early settlers viewed

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themselves generally. Indeed, they had no clear sense of the boundaries of their territory and even its nomenclature. At the first extant recorded meeting, on 9 April 1765, in an elaborate preamble they referred to themselves as “We the Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras”,96 giving us the first clue as to how they identified themselves up to that point. We also have an understanding of the titles they applied to these meetings, contained in the document from 1765 to 1808. Initially they refer to them as “General” or just “Meeting of the Inhabitants”, changing at times to “Meeting of the Magistrates and Inhabitants” and later to “Public Meetings”. There is hardly any consistency in this document; the terms change again and repeat the earlier forms, continuing the mix until the end of the document in 1808. The tendency for modern writers is to refer to them consistently as “Public Meetings”, as will be done in this study. There is no indication of where the first recorded meeting in the document was held. Fortunately we know that on the very next day, “the Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras” held their meeting at “Key Casina”.97 This indicates the importance of this place as the first significant area of settlement for the British, the place where Captain Sharp governed just over eight decades before. The regulations also tell us when these inhabitants gave the Spanish-derived “Cayo Casina” the English name “Saint George’s Key” – after the patron saint of England – again reflecting the importance of this small island to these early British settlers. We are introduced to the new English name at a special series of meetings “from the 6th of May, 1766, to the 15th, inclusive”, more than a year after the previous recorded gathering, in April 1765.98 We cannot, therefore, be precise about the exact date of the name change; all that can be said at this point is that the renaming from Cayo Casina to St George’s Key took place between 10 April 1765 and 15 May 1766. From this period the document consistently calls the place Saint or St George’s Key throughout; the fact should therefore be noted that this small island had a clear and consistent name identifier long before the rest of the territory called Belize today. The centrality of St George’s Cay, or Key, to the early settlement of Belize is well-established. It was the place that saw the most concentrated beginning of the Belize logwood industry, the basis of the economy for a long time, when the buccaneers turned from plundering to the “dry Business to toil at Cutting Wood”, in Dampier’s words. Of course, they toiled at it because logging was very profitable. And with regular industry and commerce leading in time to the

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accumulation of property, it should not be surprising that even former buccaneers would desire a more orderly state of society, with some semblance of government. Hence it was at St George’s Cay that the country today called Belize saw its first form of central government in any formal sense, albeit rudimentary in nature. While the Baymen were long accustomed to electing local magistrates to administer their laws, that was clearly an ad hoc arrangement. The government at St George’s Cay – a democratic one at that, as exemplified by the Public Meetings – was a centralized one aimed at governing the entire settlement, whatever its extent. It was through this legislative body that the Baymen passed their simple laws to govern themselves “by common consent”, in line with the old buccaneering practice and without any imperial participation. St George’s Cay was also the first permanent place where the Baymen held what they called their quarterly courts of justice “to try and determine any disputes which may arise among the inhabitants of the Bay”.99 These were held under a number of elected magistrates, who comprised a headless government without any executive position whatever – Atkins’s “king” notwithstanding. This buccaneer-inspired system of government underscores the group’s antipathy towards hierarchism. It upheld the primacy of the “people’s voice” or “the voices of the Inhabitants of the Bay”, who were all responsible for the yearly election of their magistrates. All this was to have doleful implications for later executives appointed by the imperial government in London to govern Belize. The inhabitants did, however, make one concession to some sort of overarching authority to enforce the laws they passed. The eighth resolution of the first meeting stipulates that “the commanding officer for the time being, of any of His Majesty’s ships of war which may be sent hither, shall have full power . . . to enforce and put into execution” the laws and regulations they enacted. But even here they make every attempt to emphasize that this was to be done only “by and with the consent of the Inhabitants of the Bay”.100 Specifically this clause was dictated as much by necessity as most of the others, because it coincided with the new British government’s decision to send a warship stationed at Jamaica to cruise along the Belizean coast at intervals.101 It is clear that this arrangement did not sit too well with the inhabitants, for in 1807 they abolished clause 8 from the regulations on the grounds that “other existing Laws [were] better calculated to answer the end intended”.102 Offenders of the Baymen’s laws who were fined – initially almost always

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in logwood – were required to deliver the stipulated tons “of merchantable unchipt logwood” to “Key Casina” (St George’s Cay). After trial by jury, executions for capital offences such as murder were first carried out at St George’s Cay, and mention has been made of a place called Gallows Point where this took place.103 It was also at St George’s Cay, with its very good harbour, that the early commercial activities took place, since it was, of course, the chief place of residence of the British woodcutters and merchants. It was their “Capital”, whether as “Lutheran Corsairs” or buccaneers like Captain Bartholomew Sharp or as logwood cutters reconstituted into “Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras”. Up until the early 1780s the Baymen saw St George’s Cay as their “principal settlement . . . far above all other Situations on that Coast”,104 and by the early nineteenth century they were referring to it with nostalgia as their former “metropolis”. As would be expected, St George’s Cay also has the oldest cemetery in Belize, which unfortunately is now in a hopeless state of decay. Happily for scholarship, the efforts of some researchers have brought to light inscriptions on the tombstones of some of the old settlers that will facilitate reconstruction of their biographies.105 Many of the inscriptions found were for people who attended the first recorded meeting of the British settlers; their names, eightyfive in all, are listed in the regulations. It is noteworthy that two of the signatories are women: Mary Wel and Mary Allen; four of the names are unfinished: “—err”, “—le”, “—nder” and “—dby Pinder”, so their genders cannot be ascertained. If the names were not made imperfect accidentally, could they have been of characters who dared not reveal their true identities? Most of the names are of Anglo-Saxon derivation, with a good number of Scottish and Irish representatives, though there is one – George Ceau – who might have been of French extraction. The presence of the two women, Mary Allen and Mary Wel, is indeed fascinating. They were obviously equal participants at this meeting, where all “subscribed . . . by and with the consent of the whole, agree, from and after the date hereof, to bind ourselves to the strict performance of the Articles and Regulations”106 – twelve altogether, with clear penalties for non-observance. Who were these women? Logwood cutters in their own right? Widows? Of course, they too could have been former buccaneers. There were indeed female buccaneers and pirates who disguised themselves in men’s clothing, and they are said to have been every inch as daring and courageous and dashing as the

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best of their male counterparts. Two of the best-known to us in the New World were Anne Bonny and Mary Read, immortalized by Daniel Defoe. Both these women were tried for piracy at Jamaica in November 1720; they escaped hanging when it was disclosed not only that they were women but also that both were pregnant. They were reprieved because British law forbade taking the life of an unborn child. Mary died in prison and Anne finally ended up in Charleston, South Carolina, respectably married; she died in her own bed at the age of eighty-four.107 Neither could have lived at the Bay under a pseudonym as one of these Marys, and search as one might, no more listings of Mary Allen and Mary Wel can be found in this important document, or anywhere else. Only one other woman is listed in the entire document as attending a Public Meeting, and that was on 12 June 1784. The woman was Annie Galomel, and she too does not appear again, perhaps an indicator of the non-democratic sentiments based on class, race and gender that began to evolve among the settlers at this period. To be sure, many of the men’s names also do not reappear in the document after the first reported meeting. It is clear that some were mere transients and might have attended merely from curiosity, but we can assume that even at this time some were beginning to cut mahogany further in the interior. This was to create, increasingly, a recurring problem of absenteeism at meetings, which remained a chronic Belizean concern as long as the economy was based on exploitation of the forests. It is no wonder that by the 1780s the Public Meetings were preoccupied with meting out penalties for non-attendance by most of the public officials.108 The regulations demonstrate to us the primacy of logwood in the Baymen’s early existence. Here this commodity, in addition to its commercial value, like cacao among the ancient Maya, was also a measure of value – a legal tender acceptable for settling obligations even to the “state”. Four of the twelve clauses (numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6) passed or revised at the first meeting explicitly established penalties for different breaches of the “laws” that were to be paid in logwood. Clause 6, for instance, was about delinquent payment of taxes; such a person would “forfeit ten tons of merchantable unchipt logwood”. And even when logwood was not explicitly mentioned, it was in effect involved when it was stipulated that offenders’ property should be seized “wheresoever it is to be found, of any kind whatsoever” (clauses 7 and 8),109 since the main component of property at this time was logwood.

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Perceptions of property were to change dramatically by the 1790s, when the slave as property was becoming the most important index of wealth for the Baymen. Earlier we mentioned that the system of slavery did not figure prominently among these woodcutters, who did pretty much all the work themselves with the assistance of a few white servants and some Indian slaves, plus concubines as domestics. Nothing demonstrates this better than the almost complete absence of slavery in the first twelve clauses of the regulations, while “laws” for servants were predominant. Clauses 3, 4 and 5 stipulated standards for hiring servants, including the nature of contractual arrangements and the like. Clause 5 is somewhat vague; in essence the article says that any person who “detained” a servant, even if “only for a single trip”, without a written agreement would be fined ten tons of “merchantable unchipt logwood”.110 Was this a veiled reference to piracy? Dampier has already told us that these people, even when they had settled down to logwood cutting, would still take great delight in buccaneering activities. It is the third clause that is significant within the context of the evolving social history of Belize. It says that “any person whatsoever, who shall enveigle [sic], or cause to run away, any sailor or other person belonging to any ship or vessel lying in the Bay of Honduras, or shall harbour, entertain, employ, or conceal any sailor or any other person whatsoever, run away from his proper ship or vessel” would be liable to a fine of twenty tons of the same type of logwood as above111 – the highest stipulated fee for offences within these twelve clauses. It is noteworthy how much the wording of this clause matches legislation governing sugar plantations when dealing with runaway slaves. Just as the harshest laws and punishments were reserved for runaways and/or Maroons and their facilitators elsewhere in the Caribbean,112 here we find that those who facilitated the running away of sailors or seamen were obliged to pay the highest fees. Like the slaves on the plantations, who were indispensable to the system, the sailor/servant was also a critical resource for the Baymen up to this point in their history. The skills of the seamen were useful for piratical and other activities, for a ton of logwood per month they assisted in the woodcutting industry, and they also helped in hunting. But perhaps even more important for the evolving settlement, they could soon help to swell the declining white population as owners of logwood works themselves, to counteract the rising number of enslaved people. Indeed, the word slave is mentioned only in the last clause of the regula-

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tions, and rather casually. It is in connection with penalties for creditors who seize debtors’ property – “be it either crafts, slaves, logwood, mahogany, or any effects whatsoever”113 – without due process. From the late 1780s, however, we begin to see more laws at Public Meetings relating to slaves, reflecting the phenomenon that by the early 1790s the number of slaves exceeded that of the whites. The population figures for this time are varied and unreliable and should therefore be seen as mere estimates. One source, dated 2 May 1790, gives it as “about” 500 settlers and “about” 3,500, slaves with no mention of free people of colour. Of these slaves, about 1,000 “know the use of arms and would do anything under their Masters to defend the Settlement”.114 On 20 October of the same year, another rough estimate saw 300 whites, 92 free people of colour and 1,698 slaves, exclusive of women and children; 1,200 slaves were cited as capable of bearing arms.115 Yet another, of 22 October 1790, was an official “Return of the Inhabitants” that gave the population as 260 whites, 377 free people of colour and 2,024 slaves.116 These figures are useful only in indicating the dramatic increase of the slave population and the wide disparity in numbers between owners and slaves – slaves who even in 1790 were described as experienced in the use of arms and loyal to the settlement. Eight years later this comment was to prove prophetic, as we shall see. In what the Baymen considered their greatest victory against the Spaniards – the Battle of St George’s Cay – the slaves were a decisive factor in its success. From the mid-1780s the practice of using logwood to settle breaches of the “laws” gradually ceased and a monetized payment – almost always in Jamaican currency – was instituted. At the Public Meeting of 12 June 1784 the inhabitants resolved that all future business “be kept and transacted in Jamaica currency, and all former debts contracted in Bay currency shall be reduced to Jamaica currency”,117 demonstrating the intimate relationship between Belize and Jamaica. The meaning of “Bay currency” is not clear and its value has not been ascertained. The available information shows that the early Baymen always conducted their business in logwood, whether as payment to traders such as Uring or as wages for white servants such as Dampier. They simply continued the old practice, even to the extent of designating it at times “logwood currency”,118 or in this case, “Bay currency”. All this was part of their search for identity – here a search for some conformity with expected standards of social behaviour. It is interesting to note that the very first clause of the regulations takes on

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a highly moralistic tone, essaying to legislate against swearing and cursing. The article says It is hereby agreed by and with the consent of the said inhabitants, that whoever shall be found guilty of profane cursing and swearing, in disobedience of God’s commands, and the derogation of his honour, shall, on proof on oath by one evidence, or more, . . . forfeit and pay for every such offence the sum of two shillings and six pence, Jamaica currency, or the same value in merchantable unchipt logwood to be delivered at Key Casina.119

Since profane swearing and cursing were common among the logwood cutters, the fact that they legislated against such negative social expression tells us something about their cultural heritage. It would be too simplistic to deem it either ironic or hypocritical. Somehow they knew, however deeply subliminal this awareness may have been, that the brutish, unbridled existence they pursued was a sort of furlough from some norm determined by their national origin. And even if they had no intention whatsoever of obeying the new regulation – which they had not, for they continued to swear and curse – it does not affect the argument. As with the notion of virtue – there to be assumed even if we have it not – they saw nothing wrong in striving for perfectibility, even if achievement was illusory, at least in the short run. When they did eventually develop a more orderly society with the new experience of individual wealth – wealth accumulated through hard work and intended for reinvestment, not to be squandered on liquor, as in the old days – a new ethic was indeed taking hold of the Baymen. To a degree their society conformed to the eighteenth-century notion – to be developed into an art in nineteenth-century England – of equating steady industry and the development of commerce with “civilization”, or even virtue and godliness. This is eloquently, if succinctly, summarized on the tombstone of one of the early settlers in Belize’s oldest cemetery (at St George’s Cay), which runs, “In Reverent Memory of George Hume, Mahogany Cutter and Bayman but God Fearing”.120 Our study will seek to understand how early Baymen such as George Hume were able to hold on to their “miserable” little logwood settlement with hardly any imperial support for such a long time, especially in the face of Spain’s determination to dislodge them, just as it had done with all others in the region.

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 5

“English Lutheran Corsairs” and the Miskito Indians An Odd Relationship

The Miskito Indians are extremely attached to the British, and, as I look upon them to be useful Friends and very dangerous Enemies, I cultivate a good understanding with them as much as possible. – Colonel George Arthur

we discovered that the early British settlers of Belize did not in fact have a great deal of interaction with the local Maya Indians. This, however, was counterbalanced by the very close and fruitful relations the British established with the Miskito (or Mosquito or Miskitu) Indians off the Cape of Honduras. The extent to which these Indians were faithful to the British is certainly extraordinary, and some even see it as mysterious or grounded in mythical conceptions.1 The origin of the relationship is unclear, but there is no lack of imprecise statements declaring, without any evidence, that it began a “very long time” ago or “at an early period”, some asserting that it was at the time of Henry VIII.2 It is in the seventeenth century that we can begin to identify concrete examples of this very singular relationship, which prompted Rhodes professor of history Newton to observe that “never, perhaps, has so lasting a friendship existed between Englishmen and a native race as that which . . . subsisted between Englishmen and the Indian tribes of the Mosquito Coast”.3 To the Spaniards it was a friendship so galling that it ruined the career of many a Spanish colonial official sent out to break the IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER

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alliance and drive the British out. It was also, together with the question of Belize, the basis of Anglo-Spanish wars in the region, as this study will show. This work will demonstrate that without the Mosquito Shore and its inhabitants, the Miskito Indians, the British settlement at Belize, ensconced as it was among hostile Spanish states, would not have survived. It would certainly have suffered the same fate as the other British logwood settlements in the region. Thus the evolution of this settlement is indissolubly linked with the Miskitos and the Mosquito Shore, and no history of Belize could be considered complete without an understanding of this connection. The Mosquito Shore cannot therefore be seen as merely a “digression”4 in Belize’s history. To understand this alliance we must begin with the British settlement of Providence Island in 1630, which was to have far-reaching implications for the development of Belize, both directly and indirectly. Providence Island, situated about a hundred miles off the Mosquito Coast, was granted by British royal charter to the Earl of Warwick, John Pym and a few other outstanding Puritans experienced in the colonizing process. The settlement was intended to be a Christian establishment similar to New England, but by 1641, only eleven years after its inception, Spain had succeeded in driving out the British.5 This had a demographic impact on the struggling settlements at both the Bay and the Mosquito Shore; some evacuees went to Belize, while the bulk went to the Shore. Most of them, in fact, lived a dual existence, with residences and businesses at both places. The single most important impact of Providence Island on the settlement of Belize was an indirect one. In 1633 Captain Sussex Camock (or Cammock) was sent by the governor of that island to Cape Gracias a Dios on the Shore to trade and to establish a British settlement there. Apart from his strict and lengthy Puritan instructions “to make it your first and principal care to carry God along with you in all places”, Camock was told to develop a good trading relationship with the Miskito Indians that should be reciprocal to the fledgling commerce of Providence Island. To this end the governor enjoined Camock to “endear” himself “with the Indians and their commanders and we conjure you to be friendly and cause no jealousy”.6 This injunction was faithfully adhered to, with excellent results for Britain in Central America. Along with his mandate to trade with and be nice to the Miskitos, Camock was also to search for a fit place on the Shore to establish a permanent colony

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for trade and plantations. This colony would be the first formal British footing on the Spanish mainland (the Belize settlement was not formally recognized by Britain at this time and was therefore an anomaly), thus satisfying Britain’s economic and political ambitions of breaking Spain’s monopoly in Central America. The idea of a British presence there had become a preoccupation bordering on the obsessive for many British policymakers from the end of the sixteenth into the seventeenth century. Allied to this was a notion – or rather, a somewhat vague perception – encountered over and again in British officials: that the Indians throughout the region, even those from Peru, would form one large confederation with the British to defeat the hated Spaniards. Sir Walter Raleigh was a great believer in this potential alliance; his voyages to Guiana, which finally ended in disaster for him, were part of this impulse.7 Camock soon arrived at the Cape with trade goods and some settlers. Among them was one Edward Williams, obviously a buccaneer who had already spent time with the Indians on the Shore and was clearly anxious to return there to a more unbuttoned lifestyle. The Puritan ideals of Providence Island had been too stifling for him and he had already been expelled “for drunkenness, impiety, and disorderliness”.8 It is also conjectured that two Dutchmen, soon to become famous – or infamous – as buccaneers, Abraham (or Albertus) and William Blauvelt, may have accompanied Camock on his first expedition. Even if they were not on this first trip, they soon became active traders on the Shore and in the Bay. Abraham gave his name to at least two ports in the region: Bluefields (the Anglicized form of Blauvelt) in Nicaragua and, later, a bay at Jamaica, where he is thought to have operated as a buccaneer after 1655. Here we begin to see the makings of what Robert Naylor calls the Bay Triangle – the Mosquito Shore, the Bay of Honduras and Jamaica9 – representing the intimate trading, commercial and, later, constitutional relationship among these territories. Even before Camock’s visit there were already some informal British settlements on the Mosquito Shore. Camock established his settlements mainly at Black River and around Cape Gracias a Dios, and soon others were dotted throughout the Shore. The Miskito Indians welcomed the British, giving them valuable lands and rendering services freely. A specialist in Central America has proclaimed the British occupation of the Mosquito Shore as “the most important event for Central American history”.10 It is precisely because it was

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formally done – not by stealth, as with Belize – that we have so much more documentation on the Shore. This in turn gives us a better understanding of the Belize settlement, since both places were so intimately connected. The Mosquito Shore is a territory that to this day has a vague and variable boundary definition. To some this vast region extends from Cape Honduras, east to Cape Gracias a Dios and then south along the coast of modern Nicaragua to Greytown, on the San Juan River. The British established settlements in the latter area, with the name Greytown remaining as mute evidence. It is certain that throughout the colonial period the Miskito Indians felt possessed of the coast and its hinterland adjacent to Trujillo, extending east, then south as far as Costa Rica. Whatever its extent, the Shore’s geographical features remain constant. It is a coastline of low, sandy shores with the usual profusion of mangroves and marshes peculiar to these parts. Like Belize, this coastline is dotted with innumerable creeks, cays, lagoons, islets, sandbanks and the like, fatal to vessels unaware of the hazards. Also as in Belize, these impediments served as an effective defence mechanism for the Miskitos, who were dexterous at navigating this difficult coast. Early English adventurers and now the new settlers relied heavily on the Miskitos’ expertise in navigating their vessels. Indeed, no buccaneers would venture forth from the Shore – and later from Jamaica and elsewhere – on their marauding activities without some Miskitos on board as guides, and performing other functions besides. No one knew this better than the buccaneer/historian Esquemeling, who tells us that the Miskitos were “useful to the pirates in victualling their ships . . . . For one of these Indians is alone able to victual a vessel of one hundred men.”11 The Miskitos were also superb fighting men on both land and sea, as we shall see. The Mosquito region has been described by many visitors and British officials from as early as the 1630s and into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; to the more romantic it was among the finest tracts of land in the world. Its climate is always characterized as “remarkably healthy”, much cooler and more temperate than that of the West Indian islands.12 The British in Jamaica, for example, would later repair to this place for their health, and the original British settlers had a “fresh, hale Countenance”, according to Robert Hodgson, who lived on the Shore for a long period during the eighteenth century.13 In 1638 Captain Samuel Axe, who had accompanied Camock to the Shore and was later left in charge of the enterprise, complimented the climate as

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“temperate; it agrees with English bodies and is very healthful”. He was also impressed by the plentiful supply of victuals and other commodities.14 All the works already quoted, and others, say that the country had an abundance of natural, uncultivated produce because of its rich, fertile and varied soil. Bryan Edwards, for instance, exclaims, “Every variety of animal and vegetable nature, for use or beauty, for food or luxury, has been most liberally bestowed on this country.”15 Among the produce growing spontaneously were cacao and indigo (both said to be of superior quality and in great demand then in Europe), cotton, silk-grass and great quantities of hardwood timber, including mahogany, pines, cedar and mahoe. The palm trees of different varieties were extremely important to the indigenous population. Both the nuts and the berries are edible by humans as well as animals and poultry. The large quantities of oils they yield were used medicinally and for culinary purposes, the leaves of the plants are still used as thatch for roofing buildings, and the trunks of some species were used to make intoxicating drinks. Among the many medicinal plants and roots that grew there naturally, at least one, sarsaparilla, became well-known in Europe and was exported there in large quantities. This plant, used for its root, is said to have been first brought to Europe by the Spaniards “about” 1530, and it was a famous cureall for just about any ailment for a very long time. The English settlers on the Shore were quick to cash in on the commercial value of this commodity. Bryan Edwards observes that by 1769 they had exported some 200,000 pounds to Europe,16 reflecting a substantial increase over Hodgson’s estimate of 120,000 pounds in 1757.17 Other medicinal plants used and exported by the English settlers included ginger root, aloe and balsams of different kinds. With its many rivers, creeks, lagoons and the like, as well as the surrounding ocean, the Shore, like the Bay, teemed with various fish and crustaceans, as well as the green turtle, which became a famous delicacy of the region, especially among the planters of Jamaica. Another species of turtle yielded the tortoiseshell that soon took the fancy of Europe and became another chief item of export. Bryan Edwards estimates that by 1769 some 10,000 pounds of this commodity had been exported to Britain, again by the English settlers. As in Belize, numerous animals were hunted for their flesh, but it appears that the Shore possessed even greater varieties and numbers of these creatures, including large edible birds of various kinds.18 It seems impossible to overstate the attractiveness of the Shore and its trade

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potential to the early settlers. It had been similarly appreciated by peripatetic buccaneers such as Esquemeling, who observes that the “pirates” valued the Mosquito Shore, where they were well received and could feast themselves “very plentifully, without fear of enemies”.19 Some of the later literature on the Shore may well have been promotional in intent, because the majority of these writers advocate for its further development by Britain. Nevertheless, most of the Europeans who lived there amidst nature’s fecundity displayed a strong disposition to shed their “civilization” and return to that idyllic Arcadia that was never too far from their consciousness at this period. Despite the importance of the Mosquito Shore territory to the British, economically, commercially, socially, politically and increasingly strategically, it was its people – the Miskito Indians – who were to prove the single most significant asset to Britain in its policy towards Central America. Who, then, were these “Indian tribes of the Moskito Coast” that Professor Newton praises for their friendship and loyalty to the British? Fortunately we have a wealth of information on them, much of it in manuscript form (some of which we have already cited) and thus not as accessible as secondary sources. Some of these primary materials are documents generated by the Miskitos themselves, but for the most part they derive from British and Spanish officials, as well as travellers’ accounts. There are, of course, inevitable biases depending on the nationality of the writer, but these can easily be identified and contradictions will be pointed out. It must be made perfectly clear, however, that this is neither an ethnographic nor an ethnohistorical study. We will deal with the Miskitos only so far as they interrelated with Britain and Spain during the period under study. “Miskito Indians” would seem to be a generic name, according to Newton, that embraced various Indian tribes along the Mosquito Shore. The name “Miskito” is of doubtful etymology but does not appear to have anything to do with the insect; it might be a British corruption of a native word. With the entry of Europeans into the region and the introduction of Africans, there developed among them new biological groups arising from the mixing of the three peoples. The larger group, arising from the mixing of blacks and Indians on the Shore, is reminiscent in its origins of the Black Caribs, or Garifunas, of Belize today, where the mixing took place on the Caribbean island of St Vincent. On the Mosquito Shore this ethnogenetic group was called Zambo (or Sambo) Miskitos. Exactly when this admixture took place is not clear; the-

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ories abound without any supporting documentary evidence whatsoever. The most popular theory claims that the mixing was occasioned by the shipwreck of a Dutch or Portuguese slaver from Africa bound for the Spanish Main, and that by one means or another (no details specified) the shipwrecked Africans found themselves on the Mosquito Shore. The nature of their reception by the host group has not been made clear by most of these theories, nor have we any precision as to the date of this occurrence, variously given as 1638, 1641, 1667 or “a long time ago”. Robert Hodgson, with his long residence on the Shore, personally questioned the Miskitos about their background, and his account should therefore be seen as a rare early specimen of oral history. He was particularly attentive to the “Elders” in the society, who, like African griots, were the keepers and narrators of their history. They too had heard that the biological change in their midst was the result of a shipwreck in which the Africans from two Dutch ships had been “cast away some years ago” south of Nicaragua, from where the blacks travelled to the Mosquito region and “after several Battles they had Wives and Ground given them”.20 This was the story handed down to them orally, and although still vague, nevertheless this version broaches the question of initial reception by the Miskitos. That the Africans were given wives and lands after several battles most probably means they were successful, or at least evenly matched. However, the notion of shipwrecks has become a metaphor in the history of the region. As soon as a drop of African blood is detected among some “pure” Indian group, a shipwreck is posited. In fact, the only constant in this shipwreck theory is that it was a single incident, as with the Garifunas, even though various nationalities (Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish) are suggested in the case of the Miskitos. Even if we accept the shipwreck theory (which is doubtful), there can be no doubt that the African mixture with the Miskitos could have come about in other ways. For instance, it could have been the result of their interaction with cimarrones, especially from around the Darién region in Panama. Earlier we mentioned the alliance between cimarrones and English corsairs against the Spaniards, but both groups were also allied with the San Blas Indians of Panama, who, like the Miskito Indians, boasted proudly that they had never been subjugated by the Spaniards. Both the cimarrones and the San Blas Indians were vigorously wooed by the British, who even compensated the latter for “procuring intelligence”21 about the Spaniards. Both groups had an

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implacable hatred for Spain, the one having escaped from the indignity of Spanish slavery, the other in the hills determined not to be defeated and also thrown into slavery. Members of both these groups could be found among the hills and swamps of the Darién area from the 1560s, and it is certain that liaisons took place between cimarron men and Indian women, since men in maroon societies were always short of women in the early stages of their existence.22 The term zambo or zambigo was almost certainly first used in Panama to designate the miscegenated progeny of cimarron and Indian. The evidence for this is from a Spanish document dating from at least 1580. On “January 13, [1580?] [sic]” we find a “Zambigo” and a “cimarron” being questioned by a Spanish official in Panama as to the whereabouts of some Englishmen; they had escaped from Spanish control with the assistance of cimarrones under the leadership of the African Anton Mandingo. A note to this document tells us that a zambigo was the offspring of a cimarron and an indigenous Indian.23 In Panama, especially around the Darién region, there existed a constellation of peoples, vastly different in race, ethnicity, culture and class but bonded together against the Spaniards. The British, from the “Lutheran corsairs” to the later buccaneers, would mobilize this rainbow of allies in their marauding activities against Spanish possessions, and they would often be taken to the Mosquito Shore. All these groups – mulattos (offspring of blacks and whites), mestizos (offspring of Indians and whites) and zambos/sambos/zambigos (offspring of Indians and blacks) – would add to the hybrid mix on the Shore. This facilitated the goal of Governor Thomas Modyford of Jamaica, who in the 1660s urged obtaining help from all the Indians and blacks of the area; “if well handled”, he felt they would be of considerable assistance to British policy “in the middle of the Spanish dominion in America”.24 This echoed the widely held view of British officials that Indians (and other ethnics, if available) should be co-opted as partners in the service of the British Empire. The African presence among the Miskitos would also have been augmented when in 1641 blacks, with their owners, settled on the Shore after the British were driven out of Providence Island by the Spaniards. Even before the evacuation, Miskito fishermen had been in close contact with Providence Island, and some might have cohabited with slave women there; as well, some slaves may have absconded with them to the Shore. Furthermore, enterprising runaways from all over the region, especially those dextrous in the use of canoes,

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may well have found their way to a receptive Mosquito Shore. Whatever the nature and origin of the mixed group, the Zambo-Miskitos soon became as numerous as the pure Indians on the Shore, and this certainly could not have obtained from just one shipwreck. Interestingly, consensus contemporary opinion was that there was “no distinction either in their Rights or Customs”,25 and the mixed group became culturally and linguistically amalgamated with those of pure Indian extraction under the generic name Miskito Indians or Mosquito Nation. Often, though, the mixed group would be specifically separated out and referred to as Sambo- or Zambo-Miskitos, especially in Spanish primary sources – quite probably because they were perceived as a more dynamic component of the population and therefore most vexing to the Spaniards. There is also some hazy evidence suggesting that the descendants of a few Aztecs who had fled the destructive energies of Cortés in the 1520s, as well as a few Maya who had run away from Spanish colonization, may have been living with the Miskitos as kindred rebellious spirits.26 If this is indeed correct, these groups, although numerically insignificant, would certainly have brought to the Miskitos a highly motivated contingency with a powerful common factor – hatred for the Spaniards. Captain Speer, who resided in the region for a long time, mentions that the Miskitos kept up a tradition of enforcing and maintaining a “continual Detestation and Enmity” against the Spaniards. At their public councils and assemblies the “Old Indians” would recite examples of the barbarous cruelties perpetrated by Spaniards on their neighbours and other inhabitants of the continent.27 Hodgson found this extraordinary attitude towards the Spaniards difficult to understand, as the Miskitos did not keep records. But since they recited it at their council meetings, as Speer suggests, they certainly did not need records to maintain what Hodgson calls the “hereditary Rancour, which is so strong that their Countenance visibly alters, whenever the Spaniards are mentioned, and they always choose to dye, rather than yield themselves Prisoners to them”.28 As we know it, then, by the time Captain Camock arrived on the Mosquito Shore in 1633, the Miskito population was to all intents and purposes a linguistic and cultural bloc, united on the fulcrum of hatred towards the Spaniards with the corollary of an aggressive friendly predisposition towards the English. As a group, the Miskitos are described by numerous writers, with-

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out exception – writers as dissimilar in background, temperament and training as Sir Hans Sloane, the physician who later founded the British Museum, and Joseph Esquemeling, buccaneer – as faithful, true to their promises and loyal in friendship. “[T]here is nothing”, writes Sloane, “more hateful to them than breach of Promise or telling an Untruth, their Words being inviolable”.29 And Esquemeling, with his immediate and personal experience with them, said “if you once deceive them, you must no longer expect their assistance; . . . they will never go again [that is, on buccaneering expeditions] when once you have broke your word with them”.30 Physically, the Miskitos were characterized as tall, well-built, athletic or “long-visaged”, lusty and strong, with some inevitable phenotypical differences. Thus the “pure” Indians among them were described as “Dutch copper” in colour, with long, straight black hair, while the Zambo-Miskitos were of varying shades between Indian and African, with woolly or curly black hair. They were all described as great hunters and fishermen – skills which served them well in warfare, to which they seemed inured – and dextrous at piloting vessels through the waters of their difficult coastlines, which the British pirates and settlers found invaluable. Equally they were all characterized as having a strong aversion to steady, routinized work, yet they were superb soldiers, capable of enduring the greatest hardships during battles. Although the Miskitos were culturally and linguistically amalgamated, they did not have a unitary state. Robert Hodgson points out that they were governed under what resembled a federal structure, with three distinct units, or “guards”, each with a different geographical base and each enjoying a semiindependent existence except in matters of warfare. The first unit, consisting mainly of the original Indians, inhabited the southern extremity of the territory to around Bragman’s (or Brancman) Bluff, and the leader there was called a “governor”. The next unit extended from Bragman’s Bluff to Black River; the inhabitants were mostly Zambos and their leader was designated “king”, while the third unit, to the west, consisted of both pure Indians and Zambos with a “general” as their leader. The presence of a “king” among them, however, seems to have been a British invention, with the usual imperial intent of concentrating power to facilitate exploitation and control.31 We are told that the power of the three principal leaders, the “governor”, “general” and “king”, was initially nearly equal, at least in local matters; however, the king increasingly exercised wider functions, particularly in relation-

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ships with Britain, Spain, Jamaica and Belize. Each leader governed with a council “of such old Men as have Influence among these of their Countrymen who live round about them”. Although they may have appeared noisy and garrulous in their deliberations, on matters of serious consequence to their country – primarily warfare – they usually acted with unanimity. But on other matters they were so thoroughly egalitarian and independent that even the king’s orders were hardly obeyed; the young men were above serving him, “and will tell him they are as free as himself; so that if he had not a few slaves of other Indians, he would be obliged to do all his own work”.32 Much of this information comes from eighteenth-century accounts, and it is clear that the power of the office of king grew rapidly as time passed, becoming less democratic and more autocratic. Henderson, who visited the Mosquito Shore in 1804, for instance, describes quite a different scenario from that quoted above. He sees the king as “completely despotic. Whenever he dispatches a messenger, his commands are always accompanied by his cane: this token establishes the credibility of the bearer, and a sudden compliance with the purport of his errand. In this way decrees are enforced, the punishment due to offence remitted, or the severest sentence annexed to it carried into instant execution.”33 Thirty-five years later, when Thomas Young visited the country, he observed similar autocratic tendencies, expressed by this date with more impressive symbolic tokens. The king’s authority was now demonstrated not by a cane but by a token of silver metal that had been presented to the late king, his deceased brother, by the English; a gold-headed stick; a sword; or “something known to belong to the King”. Such tokens were never disavowed by the Miskitos.34 The identity of the British settlers who lived in such harmony with the Miskito Indians should be examined. This is not merely a matter of curiosity but is central to the history of Belize. A good number of the people lived a dual life, with households and business establishments, primarily woodcutting, also in Belize; they resided there part of the time while some Belizeans also lived on the Shore some of the time. Furthermore, we will see these Shore settlers evacuated to Belize in 1787, becoming in the process the greater part of its population, just as the Campeche refugees by 1717 had surpassed the numbers of original Baymen. Long before Camock’s official settlement of 1633, British people, as has been suggested, were already living on the Shore. Some were buccaneers, others had antecedents dating back to the Elizabethan

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“Lutheran corsairs”, and others had trickled in from elsewhere, including Providence Island and Tortuga. From all accounts, the bulk of the original British settlers would have been the first to succumb to the profusion of nature described above, living very much like the local indigenes. By the 1750s Hodgson saw them as seasoned in their adopted lifestyle: “those white men who have lived sometime according to Nature, and have arrived at the Use of their Limbs by going without Cloths, do not come behind them [the Miskitos] even in their own way”.35 Most of Camock’s settlers began life as traders, but some may have joined those who were living in an “uncontrolled state of nature”. This kind of settler on the Shore earned a new soubriquet: “merooners”. It was the term used even in Colonial Office documents to designate these undisciplined, anarchical, piratical English settlers who were soon to be a source of great embarrassment to British officials. Exactly when the term was first used is obscure, but it is probable that they saw themselves – or were seen by others – in the same light as the cimarrones or maroons with whom many of them worked closely. The British merooners, like their black counterparts, were also runaways, in this case from the boundaries of white “civilization”, and English historians and administrators alike have not been too kind to them. Richard Pares, for instance, sees some as “mere misfits who chose to vegetate among the swamps surrounded by half-caste families”36 (it should be noted that the same kinds of things were said of the early settlers in Belize, well before the Shoremen joined them). Apparently the population of these British settlers in 1753 consisted more of half-castes – designated as “coloureds” or mulattos – than whites. One computation gives it as 106 whites and 240 “coloureds”,37 with the relatively few white women among them characterized as of doubtful character. These figures, however, can hardly be considered reliable, because the settlers were constantly moving from place to place. Another source, for instance, gives the number as 3,706 persons by 1759,38 without stipulating ethnicity or gender. By 1787, however, we shall see a clearer picture. But not all the British settlers on the Shore were typical “merooners” in every sense of the term. Some, especially from around Black River, were engaged in gainful occupations such as sugar plantation, indigo cultivation, gathering sarsaparilla and silk-grass, mahogany cutting and, later, logwood cultivation, while others involved themselves in the tortoiseshell trade; all these products were finding ready markets in Europe. Significantly, the provisions

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that they cultivated, such as plantains, yams and other garden commodities, helped to supply food for the logwood cutters in Belize. Many also soon engaged in slave raiding among the “Wild Indians”, in cooperation with the Miskitos; the latter were deeply involved in raiding and enslaving Indians who were contiguous to their territory but, apparently, of different ethnicity. Many of these Indian slaves were sold in Jamaica.39 Thus these settlers were trading not only with Britain but also with Jamaica and Belize, and a few of them became very wealthy, the most outstanding of whom was William Pitt. William Pitt (or Pitts, Pit or Pits) is said to have emigrated from Bermuda to the Mosquito Shore as a very young man.40 Exactly when we do not know, but apparently he had relatives residing there from the 1620s, and they would thus have been among those who preceded Camock’s settlement of 1633. The nature of William Pitt’s early activities in these parts we do not know, but we can be certain he would not have wished to record his true biography. In any event, Pitt was to become easily the most wealthy, powerful and influential Englishman on the Shore. He is considered to have founded the settlement at Black River, so it is no wonder that the Spaniards referred to it as “Guillermo Piche’s Town”41 – the Spaniards being notoriously bad at rendering English names. The area around the river was rich in natural supplies of important export crops such as sarsaparilla, red pitch pine (useful for masts of sailing vessels), cacao and a good assortment of exportable hardwood. Logwood became a major source of Pitt’s income from Belize, where he had a business establishment. He thus typifies the type of dual lifestyle – living and working both on the Shore and in Belize – that we mentioned above. By the 1740s Pitt was already the most powerful man in the area, with his own personal fleet of ships; for security considerations he was more inclined to reside on the Shore while his employees and assistants would be cutting wood in Belize. But the logwood they cut would be stored on the Shore for safety, to protect against the Spanish attacks on Belize that continued to increase during most of the eighteenth century. During such attacks the Belize settlers would invariably evacuate with their effects and repair to the Mosquito Shore, where they would be welcomed by the Miskitos. This happened over and over again, and the importance of this safe haven for the Baymen cannot be overemphasized, as it speaks to the very preservation of Belize as an outpost of the British Empire. The wealthy Pitt and his assistants could protect their property from such periodic disruptions and, worse, Spanish confiscations,

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by keeping the wood safely “behind the shoals and bars at Black River [rather] than at Belize”.42 British presence on the Mosquito Shore also permanently affected the Miskitos’ capabilities in warfare, because the British sold them firearms. Soon their skilled use of firearms was to become legendary, much to the chagrin of the Spaniards. “They are so skilful”, a Spanish official lamented, “that only the Veteran troops of Europe can equal them”.43 These arms readied the Miskitos for the offensive. Prior to this they would remain in their own territory, always in a state of preparedness to resist any Spanish attacks on them. Their traditional weapons consisted of lances, bows and arrows – the arrows usually poisoned with the juice of the manzanilla tree – and spears, which they were famous for their dexterity in throwing.44 The English settlers also introduced a potent intoxicant, rum, to the Miskitos, to which they soon became addicted; there is no doubt that the British settlers and the Miskitos soon developed a mutually dependent relationship. “Because of their rum and firearms”, says Floyd, the Miskitos found the English to be “exciting people, and none were so exciting as the buccaneers . . . who taught the SamboMiskitos an almost unforgettable lesson in pillaging and opened up to them the attractively weak Spanish frontier”.45 The buccaneers were effusive in their repeated praise for the Miskitos. Esquemeling applauds the skills of the friendly Indians who went “to sea with them [the pirates], and remain[ed] with them whole years, without returning home”. After their hazardous encounters at sea the buccaneers would return to the Shore, where they “rejoiced and gave thanks to Almighty God, for having delivered us out of so many dangers, and brought us to this place of refuge, where we found people who showed us most cordial friendship, and provided us with all necessaries”.46 The encomia from the celebrated Dampier are no less enthusiastic. He had a similar appreciation for the fidelity and skills of the Miskitos, who were superb seamen and expert at fishing; in addition he mentions their “extraordinary good eyes, [they] will descry a sail at sea farther than we. For these things they are esteemed and coveted by all privateers”. Like Esquemeling, he too opines that one or two of them on a ship could maintain a hundred men. The result was that the Miskitos received “a great deal of respect” and attention from the English, “both on board their ships and on shore, either in Jamaica or elsewhere. We always humour them, letting them go anywhere as they will,

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and return to their country in any vessel bound that way, if they please.” From experience Dampier also learned not to counter or deceive these people who were so useful to them: “For should we cross them, though they should see shoals of fish or turtle or the like, they will purposely strike their harpoons and turtle-irons aside or so glance them as to kill nothing.” Like everyone else who came in contact with the Miskitos, Dampier mentions their great attachment to the British, to whom they were most loyal and devoted47 – a devotion, as this study will show, that was demonstrated repeatedly. And the British authorities in London relied equally on the Miskitos as their trusted allies, especially during Anglo-Spanish warfare in the region. Camock’s 1633 injunction to be friendly to them and to treat them well and cause no jealousy was to be repeated over and again in much stronger terms by British officials throughout the eighteenth century. During the intervening time the Miskitos had certainly become even more useful to the British with respect to the security of Belize. The Spaniards, for their part, were appalled by the Anglo-Miskito friendship, just as they had been by Anglo-cimarron alliances earlier. It was bad enough that these “infidel” Indians were proclaiming their independence and boasting of never having been conquered by the Spaniards, but to find them also in alliance with the “English Lutherans” was most galling to Spanish pride. The two-pronged issue of British “illegal” presence in Belize and on the Mosquito Shore plus the Miskito Indians’ open defiance of Spanish power soon became the overriding preoccupation of Spain’s foreign and colonial policy. The intensity and passion with which Spain regarded these issues may seem extraordinary to the modern mind unacquainted with the period and the region. By the mid- eighteenth century, Bourbon Spain was determined to subdue the Miskitos – or to “extirpate” or “exterminate” them entirely – thereby destroying the hateful alliance. The first move towards this end was made even earlier, when in 1709 the Spaniards attacked the Miskito Indians on the Shore with a not inconsiderable naval force. The underlying assumption was that the Indian component of the alliance would be easier to defeat. But the Spaniards were wrong, and soon they were to reverse their approach. The wily Miskitos employed a kind of marine guerrilla strategy in dealing with the attack. With their knowledge of the difficult Shore, they concealed themselves in their homemade canoes at the mouth of one of the rivers; when the Spanish vessels were all well out on

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the open sea, they used the canoes to cut them off from the shore. The result of the battle was that the Spaniards were slaughtered, literally to a man – that is, they saved one battered Spaniard for the sole purpose of sending him back to his people to give the gruesome account of what had taken place in this first, and last, attack on the Miskitos.48 As far as we know, it was the last because the Spaniards never attacked the Shore again, save for during a short period in 1782. Then, as we shall see, they attacked the British settlers at Black River, precisely because the Miskitos, having had a rare altercation with a British officer, had refused to fight. Indeed, Spanish fear of the Miskitos became so great that soon the British were using this fear to good effect. As will be demonstrated repeatedly, British officials or local merooners and traders such as Pitt would often thwart Spanish plans to attack Belize or the Shore merely by threatening them with the Miskitos. The British government defended its presence on the Shore to the Spaniards by reminding them that, but for the British, the Miskitos and the merooners together would have ravished the region. A typical self-serving defence was that people such as William Pitt and other resident Englishmen served “to hinder the Miskito Indians from commiting Outrages and Cruelties against them [the Spaniards], but likewise the English Merooners there from being guilty of such irregularities”.49 As the eighteenth century progressed, so did the confidence and the daring successes of the Anglo-Miskitos, and so in turn did Spanish complaints against their “outrages”. Together the Miskitos and the British settlers would raid the weakly defended Spanish territories along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, where they would conduct the usual depredations, including slave raids. Between 1710 and 1722 it is estimated that some two thousand Indians were captured from Costa Rica alone and sold to merchants from Jamaica, who were always at hand on the Shore.50 When it is remembered that the Indians were a critical source of wealth for the Spaniards – serving as they did on encomiendas and performing every conceivable type of personal service, as well as contributing through tributes and other dues to church and state – then Spanish anger at this traffic in Indian slaves is understandable. Their complaints at both the diplomatic and local levels were accordingly consistent and numerous. A typical example of this occurred in 1734, when the Spanish ambassador in London complained to his English counterpart that the English in Jamaica had instigated the Miskito incursions for the purpose of obtaining

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such slaves; they had even captured “an entire Indian nation from the province of Campeche”.51 Guatemalan officials had similar complaints against the British and their Zambo-Miskito allies who roamed along their entire Pacific coastline. It soon became clear to the “miserable inhabitants” and the local officials that the only way to deal with the problem was to “exterminate” the Miskitos entirely. One Guatemalan official predicted that unless that was done, their increasing numbers and territorial expansion would soon render them “inextinguishable”.52 The idea of exterminating the Miskitos assumed new importance when even the Spanish monarchs began to give it utterance. In August 1739, Philip V ordered that immediate operations be undertaken “to dislodge and exterminate these Indians [the Miskitos] and the English and other foreigners who sustain them”.53 As if to add insult to injury – from Spain’s standpoint – one source says that at this time “King Edward” of the Miskitos proposed a treaty of peace and commerce with the Spaniards. The Spanish officials were furious. The Council of the Indies was outraged by the “audacity of the Mosquitos in making a King and pretending that Your Majesty would recognize him as such in a treaty of peace and commerce”. The council was certain that such “unspeakable and insolent effrontery was not born in them alone . . . [they were] allied and addicted” to the English, creating a grave problem that demanded an “immediate and radical remedy”. Another official saw the proposed treaty as “ridiculous and despicable”, urging Spain to put a stop to “the outrages and insults” committed by the Miskitos with the connivance of the English.54 The Anglo-Miskito alliance not only exasperated and infuriated the Spanish but frustrated them as well. They found it punishing to their pride that a bunch of lawless Englishmen and the pagan Miskitos could so exercise them. And, undoubtedly, these officials clearly understood the wider implications of this odd alliance. After admitting that the British settlers on the Shore were outlaws and not representative of the British government, they nevertheless still asked a crucial question: “How many islands of America does the [Spanish] crown now lack because in the beginning their occupation was only by outlaws and pirates”?55 The question was unanswerable, considering the number of territories the British already owned in the Caribbean and now extending into Central America. Indeed, the new directives from Jamaica in 1738 certainly give validity to the rhetorical question. Officials from that island –

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wrested from Spain with the support of pirates and outlaws and initially a haven for similar types – were now strongly arguing for the establishment of a British military presence on the Mosquito Shore. This was intended largely to facilitate the security of Belize, and of course both places had first been settled by the same kinds of British outlaws. The chief proponent of a military establishment on the Shore was Governor Edward Trelawny of Jamaica. Relations with Spain had deteriorated to such an extent that Trelawny saw war as unavoidable; he therefore wished to capitalize on the strategic importance of the Shore. Trelawny held passionate expansionist views of the British Empire, and it was his greatest wish to break up the Spanish empire in the region. Like his seventeenth-century predecessors such as Thomas Modyford, Trelawny saw the Indians of the region as potential assistants to the British in this great enterprise. After describing his grandiose scheme of taking over all of Central America from the Spaniards, he admitted that it would be too expensive to transport British arms and personnel to such great distances. But he knew the answer to the problem: the British settlers must cooperate with the Indians, “upon which my whole scheme of conquest depends”. This would involve all the Indians of the “New World”, wherever they might reside, but fortunately for the immediate problem, the Miskitos were present as the central and valued ally. Trelawny was of the opinion that it would be most beneficial for “His Majesty’s Service to make a Settlement on the Mosquito Shore, as it might be done with little expense, the Mosquito Indians being already under our Government”. He then assessed the Miskitos’ military strength – as just about every governor of Jamaica was to do in future military engagements with Spain, even after the end of the eighteenth century. He computed them as a fighting force of a thousand men, in addition to “about 100 Englishmen and some women amongst them (mostly such who could live no where else)”. Trelawny’s sights were always steadily on Belize, emphasizing the centrality of the Mosquito Shore for the safety and security of the struggling settlement. The Shore, to him, was also “a place of refreshment for those that cut logwood in the Bay by the help of our friends, the Mosquito Indians”.56 For this important service, Trelawny selected Robert Hodgson, then a young lieutenant serving in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Foot at Jamaica, to establish some form of military presence on the Shore. Hodgson was recommended by Trelawny as a man of determination and discretion, “sympathetic

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to the needs of the Indians, and yet Courageous”.57 He was expected to bring some semblance of government to the dispersed British settlers – traders and merooners living close to nature – but that part of his mission was to remain unaccomplished at this time, for the merooners were in no mood for any form of orderly government. Reminiscent of Camock’s instructions in the 1630s, more than a hundred years later, Hodgson was enjoined to treat the Miskitos well. In the 1630s the British had stressed trade; to be sure, trade was still very important, but Miskito usefulness had become multidimensional: military service, with its concomitant security, was now a major component of the relationship. Trelawny then sent Hodgson to take over the Shore as a kind of military base. He was first to pledge British protection to the Miskitos, assuring their king, Edward, that his prerogatives would not be usurped, and then to organize the Miskitos for military campaigns in the current war with Spain (the War of Jenkins’ Ear, 1739–48). In all this Hodgson was to be most circumspect in his dealings with the faithful Miskitos; he was to “bend and sway” to their humours, to influence them as best he could to his desires, but at the same time he should have “no humour, no whim, no conceit, no favourable fancy, to which everything must be bent”.58 Hodgson proceeded to Sandy Bay, where King Edward resided, but the king was “not much observed”, mainly because of his youth. He also met the designated rulers of the other “guards” as well as officials addressed as captains. Hodgson explained to them that the Jamaican governor had sent him to take possession of the country in the name of the King of Great Britain, whom they had long acknowledged; he then enquired if they had any objections. After consultations lasting about two weeks – merely pro forma, it would seem – all the officials returned to say that they had no objections; on the contrary, they were very glad that he had come for that purpose. Hodgson therefore “immediately” set up the English standard and formalized the arrangement into a treaty of friendship and military alliance under five articles. This extraordinary document is reproduced here verbatim: The Declaration of Edward King of the Mosquito Indians in the Presence of God under the British Standard set up at Senock Dawkra on Sunday the 16th of March 1739/40. 1st That he resigneth all his Country on each Side of Cape Gratia di Dios, and as far back as any Mosquito Indians or others that are depending upon him do inhabit

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to the Crown of Great Britain to be settled by Englishmen in such manner as shall be thought proper. 2d That he and his People do hereby become Subjects of Great Britain and desire the same Protection and to be instructed in the same Knowledge and to be governed by the same Laws as the English who shall settle amongst them. 3d That they desire the Assistance of Great Britain to recover the Countries of their Fathers from their Enemies the Spaniards, and they are now ready to undertake any Expedition that may be thought good for that End themselves. 4th That they receive and choose Captain Robert Hodgson their Commander in Chief as appointed by the Governour of Jamaica and will obey all Orders and follow all Instructions which he shall from Time to Time communicate to them from the Governour of Jamaica or the King of Great Britain. 5th That they will help all Indian Nations who are now in Subjection to the Spaniards to throw of [sic] the Spanish Yoke, and to recover their Ancient Liberty, and will join any Force which Great Britain shall think fit to send to the West Indies for that Purpose. Present Captain Robert Hodgson Thomas Whitehead Richard Allen Thomas Dale Samuel Williams English Men

Witness Edward King his Mark X Will: Briton Governour his Mark X Captain Ephraim Captain Hewson Captain Starboard Mosquito Men

and all the Mosquito Nation both Samboes and Indians59

This document should be viewed contextually. There is some hazy historical precedent for this “takeover” by Trelawny through his agent Hodgson. British sources have mentioned time and again that during some long-ago period in history, the Miskito Indians entered into a sort of friendship and understanding with the British, hinting at times that the territory was under some form of British suzerainty. Exactly when this occurred no one seems to know, in spite of the number of times the Colonial Office in London and other British officials tried to find out. Captain Speer was among the curious. He is of the opinion that the Miskitos established and maintained an “inviolable Friendship and Attachment to the English” from around 1515, during the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47), and apparently the relationship became formalized during Charles II’s reign (1660–85). During this time a Miskito

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king was prevailed upon to visit England and he gave the British monarch “a free possession of the Mosquito Coast” and encouraged the English to settle there.60 Speer’s account is given without any citations. Even if we doubt this story and see it as “a prejudice instilled into them by the English”61 as a part of British propaganda to facilitate colonialism, the fact is that the Miskitos came to believe it as a sacred part of their history. And it is history’s duty to take into consideration not only what was but also what was thought to be, particularly in terms of implications. Certainly it was in British interests to inscribe this piece of “history” on Miskitos’ consciousness as a way to cement the alliance with them and to emphasize their hatred for the Spaniards. Whatever it was, we may never know for certain, but we do have some corroborative evidence, at least for the main features of Speer’s account. The evidence comes from the Duke of Albemarle, governor of Jamaica in 1687–88, and from his illustrious physician Hans Sloane (not yet knighted), who accompanied him to Jamaica. Albemarle reported to Whitehall that “Some Indians knowne by the name of Muskota Indians (whose Country is called Cape Gratias de Dios . . .), have been here wth me, and have told me they became Subjects to King Charles the first [not the second, as Speer says; Charles I reigned 1625–49] of ever blessed memory, that they never were under subjection to the Spaniards or any other but the English”, desiring that the British king would again give them his speedy protection, as they might fall to the French or Dutch.62 The duke was nonplussed and did not know what to do, but fortunately Sloane was at hand to record more fully what was obviously a strange story to him as well. He mentions a King Jeremy of the Mosquito Coast who “pretended to be a King there”, who came to wait on the duke upon his arrival on Jamaica. Albemarle did not know what to make of this “king” and his request for British protection and support to wage war on the Spaniards and “pirats [sic]”, so he did nothing. Albemarle was afraid that it might be “a trick of some people to set up a Government for Bucaniers or Pirats”.63 In making his request, King Jeremy and his entourage presented a memorial to the duke, reiterating their formal connection to England under the reign of Charles I. They represented that this connection had been made through the Earl of Warwick, to whom Charles had granted letters of marque and reprisals to possess himself of territories in the Spanish New World. It was

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from Providence Island that Warwick had made contacts with the Miskitos, and he actually persuaded the Miskito king’s son to accompany him to England, to be there educated. The prince spent three years in England, during which time his father, the king, died. During this period the Miskitos had also had regular intercourse of “Friendship and Commerce” with Providence Island, even picking up some elements of Christianity.64 Indeed, the friendly relationship between Providence Island and the Miskitos is fully documented by Newton. He mentions their regular visits to the island, especially “at certain periods of the year for fishing”, and Providence Island’s governor, Philip Bell, was directed not to interfere with their fishing. John Pym, the company treasurer, was not averse to having some of them residing on the island, but, good Puritan that he was, he recommended that they be “drawn to work by reward and they must be entertained by kind usage and be at liberty to return at pleasure”. As would be expected, missionary work among the Miskitos was contemplated, for Pym was concerned that they would introduce bad practices to the island – “idolatrous worship”,65 for instance. Sloane mentions that the intercourse with Providence Island made the Miskitos “sensible of the Grandeur of His Majesty of Great Britain, and how necessary his Protection was to them”. Therefore, upon the return of the Miskito prince from England, his people persuaded him to “resign up his Authority and Power over them, and (with them) [they] unanimously declare themselves the Subjects of his said Majesty of Great Britain, in which Opinion they have ever since persisted, and do own no other Supreme Command over them”.66 This is the first piece of evidence we have on a formal Anglo-Miskito connection in the 1630s, with the ubiquitous Earl of Warwick playing a significant role. If the connection went back as far as the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47) of England, as Speer and others contend, this author has found no record to support it. In declaring themselves subjects of Great Britain in 1687 or 1688, according to the above account, the Miskitos were in fact merely reaffirming what they thought they had already done in the early 1630s. That would conveniently place the Shore officially among the territories that the 1670 treaty with Spain allowed Britain to “have, hold and keep and always possess in full right of Sovereignty”. Nevertheless, from 1688 – as far as we know from the documents – we can see a structural relationship with Britain, conducted through the

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governors of Jamaica. From that time the Mosquito Shore was seen as a dependency of Jamaica, and its kings were crowned on that island. The first to be so crowned was King Jeremy’s son, whether as Jeremy II or III is not clear. Edward Long says that in 1687 Albemarle gave the Miskito king (no name mentioned) a commission under the broad seal of Jamaica as a kind of token of investment, although it is mentioned by neither Albemarle nor Sloane. Thereafter, upon the monarch’s death the heir would repair to Jamaica “with a few principal men, to certify his claim; and he is then invested with a commission to be king of the Mosquitos” by the Jamaican governor. Otherwise the heir would not be acknowledged by his people as king, “so dependent do they hold themselves on the British government”. When these inaugurations took place, it was deemed useful that the governor “bestow some presents on the new sovereign, and a few trifles on his attendants; to which his majesty always makes some return”. As would be expected, Long approves this practice as “extremely politic on our side, and serves to promote a mutual exchange of civility and good offices; which may strengthen their partial attachment towards the English”.67 From this period forward the coronation of Miskito kings was conducted in Jamaica by the governor in office (with one exception, in 1777) up until 1816, when the ceremony first took place in Belize, under the superintendency of Colonel George Arthur. It was held in the then new Anglican Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Belize City, and this custom continued in Belize until the last coronation, in 1845.68 Trelawny’s peaceful “takeover” of the Shore, with the consent of the king and other Miskito officials, was thus in line with tradition – at least the tradition since 1688. That it was considered necessary to reaffirm the relationship in 1739 was certainly because of the new British rupture with Spain and the aggressive rhetoric of Spanish officials, including the monarch, indicating their uncompromising intention to completely exterminate the Miskito Indians and drive out the English from the Shore and the Bay. In truth, the Miskitos had become indispensable to the British scheme of things, and no one understood this better than Edward Trelawny and Edward Long, who saw them as protectors of Britain’s interests in Central America. “These valuable allies” had been protecting the British settlers at both places without any formal government up to this point. And when the nervous Shore settlers complained of feeling fearful and insecure and requested a company of soldiers to safeguard

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them, Hodgson reminded them that the Miskitos would remain firm in their protective capacity.69 Nonetheless, Trelawny was not satisfied with having just a military establishment at the Shore. He wanted a civil government there too, if for nothing more than to give some sort of recognition and even legitimacy to the Miskitos’ cession of the territory to Britain. He recommended this in 1743 – the same year, as we have seen, that Belize asked for a similar form of government. Whitehall may have considered both requests together and decided in favour of the Shore over the Bay, for six years later Trelawny’s request was granted. In 1749 Britain established a civil government on the Mosquito Shore, which represented the first official British government on the mainland of Central America. As would be expected, Trelawny recommended his protégé Robert Hodgson for the top civil position. Hodgson was accordingly appointed by the secretary of state, the Duke of Bedford, as the first superintendent of the Mosquito Shore. Bedford instructed Hodgson “to regulate and Superintend the Settlement upon the Mosquito Shore, which has been subsisting several Years under the Protection of Our Friends and Allies the Mosquito Indians”. This latter phrase was at the very heart of the choice of the Shore for a civil government. The Miskitos were already protecting the place, and therefore by association protecting the Bay also. The constitutional relationship with Jamaica – as with Belize later – was well delineated in Bedford’s dispatch, in which he told Hodgson “to repair forthwith to Jamaica, and put yourself under the Direction of the Governor of that Island, who is empowered to give you farther Instructions, and directed to pay you a Salary of Five hundred pounds a Year for that Service . . . and as soon as you shall have received the orders he may think proper to give you, you will proceed without Loss of time, to the Mosquito Shore”. Hodgson was also instructed to report regularly to the governor of Jamaica and to follow all his instructions.70 Belize, for its part, would have to wait nearly forty years for a similar constitutional arrangement. As with Camock’s mission in the 1630s and Hodgson’s earlier military establishment on the Shore, he was instructed to strive to be on the best of terms with the Miskitos. He was to “cultivate such an Union and Friendship with the Indians in those parts, as may induce them to prefer His Ma[jes]ty’s Alliance and Protection to that of any other Power whatever, which must at all Events be an Advantage to this Nation, but especially in Case of any future

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Rupture with the Crown of Spain”. But this was preaching to the converted. Miskito loyalty to the British was solid, firm and unconditional. Nonetheless, in such a critical relationship the British officials were not prepared to retain loyalty through soothing words alone; the new superintendent carried with his instructions the douceur of presents, to the extent of £300 per annum to be distributed to the Miskito people by their leaders.71 The act of giving presents to subject peoples – albeit invariably niggardly – was to become an important instrument of British colonial policy throughout the region and elsewhere.72 It was tantamount to building an empire for a bargain price. In establishing a civil government on the Mosquito Shore, the British officials in London, inspired by British merchants connected with trading in the region, had Belize prominently in mind. Roatan (Rattan to the British), one of the Bay Islands, had been captured from Spain in 1641 in retaliation for the loss of Providence Island. British policymakers at this time tended to see the island as linked with the Mosquito Shore in terms of both the defence of and commerce with Belize. Roatan’s strategic importance lay in its “capacious and secure” harbour and its geographical position, situated as it was within relatively easy access to the Bay Triangle – Jamaica, Belize and the Mosquito Shore. The energetic Trelawny, therefore, also wanted to establish a British settlement at Roatan, even if it consisted of “all our vagabonds” from the Shore and the Bay. Accordingly, William Pitt – described by Trelawny as the “one with the greatest Authority among them” – was appointed “Lord Chief Justice and Supreme Magistrate” of Roatan as early as 1742. Trelawny thought that “Pitt’s Dignity [and] approved Merit has rais’d him [to the post] he having universally the best Character without dispute or rivalship, of any in these parts; & stands almost alone, civiliz’d among Savages, like the late Czar. He is much the Richest too, & Dominion being founded they say in Property, I therefore appointed him my Chief.” To Trelawny the purpose of this new establishment was to facilitate “the Logwood Cutters lodged at the River Bellese in the Bay of Honduras” (another of the many awkward appellations for the country today called Belize). The commercial component of British interest in the region was also unambiguously declared. It was to open “a Trade with the Spaniards on the Continent for the sale of British Manufacturers”,73 thus openly giving the official nod to contraband trade with an enemy country that had its own restrictive mercantile policies. Indeed, Belize was to become a centre of contraband trade and

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smuggling – “that bugbear of eighteenth century mercantilism”.74 Jamaican merchants increasingly shipped to the Baymen the best of British-manufactured luxury goods, such as fine wines, cutlery and linen, cambric and other items from British textile industry, and the Baymen in turn traded these commodities to contiguous Spanish territories. There was, however, no enthusiasm on the part of the Baymen or the Shoremen – vagabonds or otherwise – to leave their places to settle at Roatan. The Baymen particularly felt that it would be ruinous for their logwood trade. As it was, the Shore with its loyal Miskitos was to prove sufficient for the defence of Belize, just as Belize itself would prove – perhaps even more than Roatan might – effective in conducting profitable illicit trade with its Spanish neighbours. Even if the Spaniards breathed a sigh of relief over Britain’s failure to establish a formal government at Roatan (although it did maintain a military presence there), that was a minuscule problem compared to Belize and the Shore. The presence of a formal British government on the Shore was most vexing to Spain. Just about every conceivable strategy (too numerous to be mentioned here) was considered – some were bizarre, others simply unrealistic – to destroy the British and their Miskito “Friends and Allies”, but most of the schemes barely went beyond articulation. It is estimated that by 1785 the various measures, defensive and otherwise, against the Anglo-Miskito alliance had already cost the Spaniards “more than £700,000 sterling”.75 From the mid-eighteenth century the career of many a Spanish official was ruined over this issue, for instance, that of Juan de Vera, governor of Honduras and commander-inchief for the region extending from Yucatan to Cape Gracias a Dios. Juan de Vera was ordered specifically to stop illicit trade in the region, to force the English to abandon their settlements and “to attack violently the Mosquito Indians in their communities and ranches, and to devastate and punish them until they are reduced to a secure obedience to the [Spanish] crown”.76 Vera’s appointment was in 1745, and after two years of bungling and delays, he was dead – “Combating illicit trade and fretting over the Mosquito Indians gave him an apoplexy” – even though he had “abandoned himself to the advice of the enemy”.77 “The enemy” was William Pitt, the chief friend and confidant of the Miskitos. The Spaniards routinely referred to Pitt as “Governor of the Zambos”, “Governor of the Gulf of Belize and the Mainland of Honduras”, “General of that Coast” or “Governor of Honduras and Yucatan”, among other honorific titles.78 The irony of the situation was that

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Pitt was so powerful he could easily play fast and loose with the very Spanish officials who had been sent to destroy the likes of him. After all, Pitt had his own fleet, its flagship appropriately named Mosquito, and was a veritable avatar of the contraband trade in the entire region, supported by his trusted Miskitos. It is therefore not surprising that the advice he gave the newly arrived Vera was enough to cost the Spanish official his life. The Spaniards soon became deeply frustrated when they found they could not “exterminate” the Miskitos, a people who had become so frightening that even their name created crippling fear. It appears that part of this paralysing fear of the Miskito warriors was based on the perception that their rules of engagement in warfare would not necessarily have been congruent with today’s Geneva Convention. And worse, in alliance with the English the Indians seemed indestructible. Together they acted, according to a Spanish official, “as if they were lords of the coast in the Bay of Honduras and from Cape Gracias a Dios to Escudo de Veragua”.79 In the face of this dismal situation, the distraught Spaniards realized they had miscalculated by attempting to defeat the British through the Miskitos. Accordingly, therefore, they would reverse the strategy by giving concerted attention to attacking Belize – the “British Settlement in the Bay of Honduras” – before attacking the Shore.

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Spanish Attacks on Belize to the Treaty of Paris, 1763 Flight to the Mosquito Shore

To remedy these evils [Anglo-Miskito activities], President Vázquez was again ordered to reduce the Mosquitos and to dislodge the English. But Vázquez was not anxious to initiate such a dangerous enterprise, which he said demanded more time and care, and suggested that an attack on Belize would be easier. The Marquis de la Ensenada called Vázquez’s suggestion impetuous and unwarranted . . . . He repeated the order for Vázquez to “personally direct the enterprize of dislodging the English, and the Zambos Mosquito Indians from the coast of Honduras” . . . . But the admiral of the armada did not obey his orders. – William Sorsby

IT IS THOUGHT THAT SPANISH policymakers were for a long time loath to deal with the Bay settlement, viewing an attack as a negative reflection on Spain’s navy. It was beneath Spanish dignity to countenance this shabby little settlement of “pirates”, and one without an official British administration at that. In fact, the Spaniards firmly believed that this logwood settlement would soon be dislodged, like all the others mentioned above. However, the establishment of a British government on the Mosquito Shore gave a new dynamic to the situation. By itself, this was only half the problem; it was the alliance between the British and the Miskito Indians that became the major factor rousing Spain to act.

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The Spanish soon came to understand the intimate relationship between the Shore and the Bay, in which the strength of the Shoremen bolstered the security of the Baymen. Unable to conquer, “extirpate” or “exterminate” – language, we might note, more commonly associated with vermin – the Miskitos on the Shore, they turned their attention to the disorganized settlement in Belize, which they thought was fair game. In simple arithmetical terms, its destruction would have meant one less territory in the region occupied by the British. But this was eighteenth-century “policy”. What happened before this time? Records of Spanish attacks on Belize before the eighteenth century are sparse because, as far as we know, hardly any took place. It was only at the very end of the seventeenth century that we have evidence of these; the attacks were directed, appropriately enough, at Cay Casina, the first major settlement of the British buccaneers/logwood cutters. Specifically they occurred in 1695 and 1696 and were initiated by local officials, among whom was Governor Ursúa of Yucatan, who has already been mentioned in connection with the subjugation of Peten-Itza. Indeed, as said earlier, some commentators think that Ursúa’s precipitous destruction of Peten-Itza was inspired by his determination to purge the British from all Yucatan. With Peten out of the way, more forces could be freed up for dislodging the British woodcutters. Ursúa’s strategic roadway that connected Yucatan, Guatemala and the Bay of Honduras, which had been so serviceable in bringing down Peten-Itza and was also used to dislodge the British from Campeche, could now to be used to attack Belize. Captain Francisco de Hariza, the mayor of Bacalar and a subordinate of Ursúa’s, was irritated by the British presence at Cay Casina. This was so wellknown that even Villagutierre, who was among those reluctant to confront the British presence on the Belize coast, could not ignore it. He mentions that nothing gave Hariza “greater unrest or caused more concern amidst the many preoccupations of his office than the expulsion of enemy pirates at the site of Cocinas [Cay Casina] where they had infested the waters, causing him no little labor but which he accomplished during that time”.1 The phrase “causing him no little labor” seems to suggest that Hariza made either several attacks or a protracted one against the enemy pirates, but it is not clear what is meant by his “accomplishment”. It could be that the captain went after the British but they merely retired to one of their safe havens among the Belizean triple-

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layered cays, and Hariza, unable to pursue them or even to catch a glimpse of them after the chase, concluded that he was rid of them – a claim that Governor Guevara of Puerto de Caballos would not have dared make in the 1570s. The non-accomplishment of Hariza’s mission must have been realized, because Ursúa sent out more troops the following year (1696), in this case under a different commander, to drive the British from Cay Casina and other places. This commander, Captain Joseph Aguilar, carried out attacks early in the next century as well, apparently from 1702 to 1703. It is said that he was in charge of “approximately one hundred” troops on one occasion and was known to have carried out “a number of ambitious land-based military missions from Peten-Itza”,2 making him the first to use the base Ursúa had constructed at Peten as well as the new roadway. Obviously he too did not achieve his objectives. Ursúa, for his part, had vowed to dislodge all the British logwood cutters from all of Yucatan. It was at this time that Campeche particularly – then the major British logwood establishment – came under sustained and systematic attack, even after Ursúa’s departure in 1708. Before his departure, his supervised campaign against the British loggers in Belize found Captain Aguilar attacking not only Cay Casina but also the English logwood cutters “who had settled at Zacatan”, one of the coastal “towns” between the Belize and Hondo rivers. It is intriguing to note that “some of the inhabitants of Tipu cooperated with the Spaniards” in this attack.3 Earlier we suggested that there is no uniform answer to the question of the Maya relationship with the British, notwithstanding the tendency of many writers to view it as either completely amicable or always hostile. If some Tipuans did join the Spaniards against the English on this occasion, it may well have been in response to English slave raids along the coast and in the riverine villages4 close to Tipu; the Tipuans could not be certain that they would be safe from such raids. Tipu’s actions would thus fit the pattern of the Maya’s practical and strategic attitude to Europeans. It is hardly likely that they joined the Spaniards to attack the British on any regular basis, especially since Spaniards had also been raiding Tipu, presumably for slaves, since the fall of Peten in 1697. It can be assumed that Tipu saw neither the British nor the Spaniards as permanent “friends” – or enemies, for that matter. They seemed prepared to cooperate with or resist any Europeans according to the specificities of their interests. The details of Aguilar’s attacks on Belize are rather bare but it is obvious

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that nothing extraordinary happened, echoing those of 1695. It should be noted that the 1709 Spanish attack on the Miskitos of the Shore was part of this same impulse, but the spectacular success of the Indians strengthened the Anglo-Miskito alliance and heartened the Baymen. It appears that the urge to attack the logwood cutters at the Bay slackened for a while after Ursúa’s departure. In any event, the attacks on Cay Casina (St George’s Cay) were not repeated until 1779. Ursúa’s successors probably held off because they were aware of the growing British presence elsewhere, especially around the Belize, New and Hondo rivers. Thus the attacks were to be directed at these areas. In making this first systematic study of Spanish attacks on Belize, we are well aware of the imperfections and incompleteness of the available materials, but this is a part of the problematics of Belizean historiography, particularly in its early stage. For instance, after Aguilar’s attacks in 1702–3 there is no clear evidence of any more until 1718, just a year after Campeche was rid of the British loggers. Apparently as soon as it was evident that the Spaniards were going to succeed at Campeche – from around 1716 – the governors of Mexico and Yucatan made plans to dislodge all the British from the Bay as well. To this end they reinforced the military fortifications at Peten. This was to facilitate the strategy which Aguilar had started of attacking the settlement inland from the rear, and not from the coast, whose natural impediments were appreciated. In addition, the surprise element the Spanish desired could not be achieved by attacking from the coast, infested as it was by British “pirates”. The revamped Peten fortifications were considered to be in good shape for military action by 1718.5 (Henry Fowler, on his journey across British Honduras in 1879, came upon “an ancient ruined stone building” near a place called “Take-in-Second” and speculated that it could have been the barrack erected by the Spaniards in 1718.)6 From their rendezvous, the Spaniards’ object was to advance by the Belize River and then attack the Baymen by surprise and annihilate them completely or drive them away permanently, as they had just done at Campeche. The strategy of attacking Belize from the rear, however, was not successful. From the scanty account we have of this 1718 affair, it appears that the Spanish force dallied much too long before launching the attack. During this time their plans were made known to the British logwood cutters, whose response was to become part of a pattern followed right up to 1779. That is, they quickly sought the aid of their trusted “friends and allies” – as Bedford termed them

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– the Miskitos, whose king characteristically responded promptly. Apparently this was enough to frustrate the Spaniards. It is said that they sent a reconnoitring team of a few craft down the Belize River “but none . . . returned to make their reports”, suggesting that they fell into the hands of the settlers in cooperation with the Miskitos. In addition, the governor of Massachusetts, General Shute, is said to have dispatched the warship HMS King George to assist the Belizeans;7 whether this was requested by the Belizeans or a voluntary act of Massachusetts is not clear. The Spaniards did manage to penetrate into parts of western Belize and build a fortified outpost at a place still called Spanish Lookout in modern Belize. The attackers then quickly retreated, perhaps because they knew Miskitos were present among the Baymen. It became a Spanish practice to attack, destroy and then evacuate – a practice that, as we shall see, they later elevated to “policy”. (In conducting fieldwork around this area in Belize, the author discovered that folklore gives a different origin to the name Spanish Lookout. This version maintains that the place was established and named by the Baymen themselves as a site from which to look out for Spaniards coming to attack them. It may well be that the Baymen simply began to utilize the site for their own surveillance/defensive purposes after it was abandoned by the Spaniards.) Spanish determination to drive the British from Belize continued throughout the 1720s and 1730s. At the articulation level, the numerous threats were unambiguous about their ambition to drive all British logwood cutters from the Bay of Honduras, some threatening to send them to serve in the Mexican mines.8 However, the exact dates of consequent attacks during these two decades are not clear. Indeed, the accounts are most confusing. One source mentions an attack on Belize from Campeche in 1724 without giving any further details,9 another says that the Yucatan governor was instructed by Madrid in 1725 to stamp out “the major British installment at Belize”, and there is shadowy evidence suggesting an unsuccessful attack in 1726, probably as a response.10 The 1730s saw Spanish resentment towards the British loggers become even more intense. Spain complained that the British were cutting increasingly vast quantities of logwood (and making great profits), and worse, they were establishing themselves too firmly in the Bay by building more places of habitation. The Spaniards were even more determined to dislodge them. An attack of 1732 is mentioned in some detail by Bancroft. Using Spanish

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sources, he says that Antonio de Figueroa y Silva was “ordered to expel the English from Yucatan” as early as 1725 and was appointed governor of the province for that very purpose. Apparently Figueroa’s initial attempts were unsuccessful, largely because his plans were made known to the Baymen, who with their usual allies, a “large force” of Miskito Indians, made a pre-emptive attack on some contiguous Spanish territories. This delayed the targeted attack at the Bay, and it was not until 1732 that Figueroa began his expedition, with “over seven hundred men” by land and an unspecified number by sea. His plan of action was to make a feint attack in front by sea and then, with a land force (from Peten), to fall upon the rear of the Belize settlement. If the report is accurate, the ruse succeeded and “within three hours” the Baymen were completely defeated. The Spaniards destroyed just about everything, including fortifications, the logging camps at the mouth of the Belize River, and similar settlements along other rivers; they also seized and destroyed vessels and other possessions of the Baymen.11 As usual, the Spaniards had insufficient personnel and supplies; they soon evacuated the settlement and the Baymen returned. Robert Hodgson, on the other hand, whose work has an air of authenticity, having lived on the Shore most of his adult life, mentions 1730 as the year of a massive Spanish attack on Belize. Hodgson claims that the British settlers “were routed by the Spaniards” and, as was the pattern, the Baymen scurried off to the Mosquito Shore to be welcomed by the Miskitos. The Baymen viewed the Shore, Hodgson points out, as the “nearest Retreat for themselves and Effects both on Account of the Friendship of the Indians, and of the Barrs of the Rivers, which are hazardous to pass without being well acquainted with them”.12 This recurring behaviour of the logwood cutters when under attack – to evacuate their settlement and resort to the Mosquito Shore – was wellknown to Hodgson with his logwood and other business establishments at both the Shore and the Bay. The importance of the Shore to the British is further demonstrated when it is noted that the settlers on Providence Island were also expected to fly to the Shore if overwhelmed by the Spaniards,13 but, as noted, this colony lasted only from 1630 to 1641. In the same account Hodgson also mentions that “several” of the Baymen, dissatisfied with their “turbulent Life” in Belize, decided at this time to settle on the Shore. To what extent was Britain aware of these early sporadic Spanish military attacks on the Bay, a territory it did not formally own? In any event, Jamaican

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merchants and planters were expressing their strong concern about the matter to the British monarch. They pointed out that the loss of Campeche earlier and now the attacks on Belize were hampering their shipping in the area, and this had resulted in the loss of jobs and therefore a decrease in the number of seafaring men.14 The point is that at this period Britain was more interested in trade than in acquiring new territories. So long as British subjects were allowed to cut logwood in the Bay and to trade in the wood without molestation from Spain, Britain would be satisfied. The stakes were now higher for Britain, with only one logwood settlement (Belize) under its control. The British Board of Trade had been practically in charge of the Bay for a long time. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Campeche evacuation coincided with – even if it was not a consequence of – the Board’s strong assertion that the British logwood cutters had every right to their settlements and trade.15 Spain, however, refused even this minimalist approach, contending that the British had no right to be in the Bay – or anywhere in the New World for that matter – because of the Spanish Crown’s indisputable and exclusive right to the region occasioned by the papal donation. In making this territorial claim, Spain pointed out that the frequent expulsions of logwood cutters from the Bay that had never been opposed by the British monarch were proof of Britain’s tacit recognition of Spain’s sovereignty over the area,16 thereby making that practice, as hinted above, a matter of policy. The Spanish plan to attack Belize first and then the Shore developed its most aggressive expression in the mid-1740s and continued well into the 1760s. Initially this was largely the idea of Spanish officials operating in the region, who understood only too well the significance of the British in alliance with the Miskitos and the fear they generated. The extent of this fear was difficult for new policymakers in Spain to comprehend – as exemplified by the exasperated tone of the Marquis de Ensenada to Vázquez in the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter – just as it is difficult for some to understand today. Ensenada, the Spanish minister of the Indies from 1743 to 1754, was soon to grasp the situation most thoroughly. A forceful, committed and energetic man, he became the prime mover of Spain’s Central American policy. Indeed, Spain needed just such a person to conduct the war, and in Ensenada it had a most powerful hegemonic advocate. As it turned out, it was he who articulated most clearly (even if he did not initiate it) the strategy of what he termed “divide and conquer”, by attacking first Belize, then the Mosquito Shore, including

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the Bay Islands, whose strong British presence made them strategically important to both Belize and the Shore. He is said to have been “an Anglo-phobe who believed the only way to get the English off Spanish soil was to drive them off”,17 and the War of Jenkins’s Ear (1739–1748) gave him the pretext for doing so. There can be no doubt that under Ensenada’s direction the attacks on Belize became more concerted and more coordinated. There were two main components to the overarching plan. One was to build forts at strategic points all along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America. To this end, a strong fort on the small Bay Island of Omoa was considered vital, strategically situated as it was between Belize and the Mosquito Shore (Britain was then occupying Roatan); this would permit Spanish vessels to patrol both the Caribbean and Honduras coasts. A fortified Omoa would operate as a coastguard base from which to drive away the Anglo-Miskitos and return the Spaniards permanently to the coast. Ensenada forcefully recommended building this fort. He felt certain there was no better way of destroying altogether the hateful English and their “Zambos Mosquitos” allies than from a fortified Omoa; to give authority to the plan, he pointed out that it had the blessing of the Spanish monarch. The other component of Ensenada’s plan – directly attacking Belize first, before the Shore – was expected to begin even while construction of Omoa’s fort was underway.18 Ensenada accordingly sent out secret orders to the governors of the region for execution of the plan to attack Belize, which was to begin on 23 August 1745. The expected offensive seems particularly impressive. On this occasion the expedition was to be launched from several directions, not either from the coast or landward from Peten, as on previous occasions, but simultaneously from both, involving in the process Campeche, Bacalar, Peten and Omoa. As it turned out, however, some Spanish zealots attacked a few settlements in Belize in May 1745, some three months ahead of the date stipulated for the concerted action. This was the first recorded attack on the New River settlements in northern Belize. The settlers were therefore taken by surprise and duly alarmed when the Spaniards raided them with “six crafts and upwards of sixty men”. The intruders burned and destroyed everything in their wake and took “several slaves” and provisions; so confident were they that they threatened to do the same to the settlements around the Belize River.19 The Baymen responded to this threat by appealing to the British commandant at

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Roatan, Major Caulfield, for assistance. This soon came, in the form of arms and a warship, giving the settlers a semblance of security for a time. But the Spaniards, heartened by Ensenada’s forceful leadership, were on the offensive, and perhaps for the first time the Baymen felt really seriously threatened. This fear is expressed in their plea to Caulfield for military assistance: they mention their reduced population, “not exceeding above Fifty white Men” and “about a hundred and twenty Negroes”. This is intriguing early evidence of slaves in Belize that gives a precise number. Atkin’s count in the 1720s of “about 500” merchants and slaves did not supply such precision, so there is no way of knowing whether the slave population had increased or decreased. And it is unclear whether these petitioners are referring only to people around the New River area or to all the settlements. In any case, it is noteworthy that at this early stage the Baymen were relying heavily on their slaves for protection. They could not foresee how many of the enslaved would “prove true” in an engagement with the Spaniards, but they regarded their small number as “most suitable to defend ourselves and Interests”. However, they ask to be assisted with some small arms and, if at all possible, also “four or five Crafts with about fifty or sixty Men” – they could then defeat the enemy. Since the Spaniards were expected at any moment, “we are obliged to Fortifie ourselves on shore with our slaves to hold our Liberties as long as we can in hopes of some speedy Assistance”.20 It seems more than ironic – indeed, innocently arrogant – that these ex-buccaneer slave-masters are openly articulating the need to protect their liberty with the aid of people whose liberty they have appropriated. It is equally extraordinary that in this case, as well as in other such situations, culminating in the decisive Battle of St George’s Cay some fifty-odd years later, the slaves were there to oblige, as this study will show. Meanwhile, what was imperial Britain’s response to the increased and coordinated Spanish attacks? The fact is, Britain’s ambiguous position towards “the logwood cutters in the Bay of Honduras” – still a place without any real name – made any direct action on the Baymen’s behalf problematic. It was the arrival of Ensenada that in 1743 caused the Baymen to petition Jamaica and London for a regular government, with some attendant force for their protection. The reply was an Order in Council sent to Trelawny at Jamaica in June 1744. Trelawny was instructed “to send some discreet person to Belese to take an Account of the Situation and Condition of the Place, as well with respect to the Number of Inhabitants as to their Trade and Manner of Life”, and to make

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a report of the findings. And, as mentioned above, although the question of a government for Belize was discussed in Council, no action was taken. In compliance with the order, Trelawny instructed Caulfield to send his engineer to Belize to make a report; despite the official’s illness, Caulfield was able to present the report by 2 August 1745. It recommended that a man-ofwar be kept at Belize to protect the Baymen. It should be accompanied by three perigees manned with twenty-five men each, to be always in a state of readiness to pursue Spanish craft up the rivers and into the shallow creeks. The opinion of the report was that this kind of contingency would be much more serviceable than construction of forts and batteries. It also mentioned the anxious and harassed state of the settlers because of the Spanish attacks, which had even prompted some to remove to Roatan (which was well fortified at this time) for refuge.21 In their petition to Caulfield, the inhabitants mentioned that the British Order in Council to Trelawny had become known to the Spaniards, and this had placed them in greater danger. Indeed, it angered the Spanish exceedingly; they felt threatened by the order and feared that it was merely a prelude to formal government in Belize as on the Shore. Ensenada’s attacks on the settlement increased. Even the bellicose Trelawny of Jamaica seemed on the defensive, since numerous rumours were afoot warning of imminent massive Spanish invasions of Belize. Early in 1747, for instance, he received news that such a force was on its way and he was truly alarmed, convinced that Spain was determined to appropriate Belize “and totally shut us out of that [logwood] trade, which if they should do, it would be a great loss to the nation”.22 The issue was serious enough for Trelawny to convene a council meeting. It is revealing that the main outcome was a recommendation to send presents to the Miskitos so that they would help protect the settlers on Roatan as well. The presents were to be sent to the influential Mr Pitt – who, although now much advanced in age, was still wielding his usual overweening authority – to be distributed to the Miskitos.23 Trelawny’s fear was not unfounded, for sometime in 1747 a large Spanish fleet attacked Belize, as they had promised in 1745 during the New River attack. The result was that “the whole of the settlers” fled again to Roatan “from whence they dare venture only at certain times to cut a little wood”.24 This is among the very few instances when we find the Baymen fleeing to Roatan and not to the Shore. But the level of fear in the region was so general

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and intense that it had also reached the Shore, and should the Spaniards attack that place, the Miskitos would be on the spot to respond. Also, as noted above, Roatan was well defended at this time. Moreover, the Miskitos were making themselves very busy on other fronts. The activities connected with defence planning and the “flurry” and exaggerated rumours are said to have had “an unsettling effect at Black River”.25 It was too much for the Miskitos, who according to Floyd were “eager to give . . . a demonstration of their courage and skill with firearms and lances”. The result, fuelled by a convenient rumour that the Spaniards were about to attack the Shore as well, was one of the most daring Anglo-Miskito invasions, that of San Fernando de Matina in 1747. This was a fort on the Atlantic side of Costa Rica that had been erected as a part of Ensenada’s coastal defence system, just recently constructed to deter the very people who were now attacking it. The composition of the expeditionary force is most telling. It consisted of “about 100 men”, equally divided between Miskitos and Englishmen. Together they captured the fort, stripped it of its weapons and set the place afire – a most ignominious defeat for the Spaniards.26 Despite this humiliating setback, Ensenada stood his course to “destroy and dispeople the English settlements”27 of Belize. And he had made some gains. The settlers in the north, at New River, were nervous and anxious after their heavy losses, while most of the people at the Belize River had been evacuated to Roatan. In a few months another concerted attack was launched, with forces from Campeche, Peten and as far away as Havana, Cuba. It was led by one Felipe Lopez, who attacked Belize twice in the same year. Lopez is said to have had a degree of success in these attacks, taking “some” Baymen prisoner, although they soon made good their escape.28 Fortunately for Belize, the end of the war in 1748 dampened the heat of hostilities – but not for Ensenada. He “persisted for six years longer in his efforts to eject the English from Belize”,29 even after he ceased to have full support from the authorities in Madrid. In the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which ended the war, Spain demanded that Britain surrender Roatan and renounce its rights to the Bay of Honduras and the Mosquito Shore. Britain agreed to cede Roatan but resolutely refused to waive its “rights” to Belize and the Shore.30 The War of Jenkins’ Ear therefore solved none of the outstanding disagreements between Britain and Spain in Central America. Spain continued to assert that the logwood cutters in the

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Bay had no right to be there, nor should the British be on the Shore in alliance with “rebel” Miskitos, who were rightfully the subjects of the Spanish Crown. Britain, for its part, became more and more assertive in its claim to Belize, quoting on occasion Elizabeth I’s principle of effective colonization and increasingly citing the 1670 treaty as acknowledging its legitimate presence there. Britain also continued to protest Spain’s seizures of its vessels. And as for the Mosquito Shore, the British argued, the Spaniards would do well to remember that the Miskitos had never been conquered by the Spanish and therefore had never been under their jurisdiction.31 Britain’s surrender of Roatan was regretted by many, including Edward Long, who saw the island as “a most effectual protection to our logwood cutters [in Belize], as well as the sure foundation of a firm and permanent friendship with the Mosquitos” – in line with Trelawny, who had nominated Pitt to govern the place. Long was exasperated by what he considered his country’s pusillanimous attitude to Spain. “Surely, he maintains, “it betrays a miserable servility of complaisance, a disgraceful imbecility in our politics, that we do not occupy those jewels [Roatan and other Bay Islands] which their pretended owners are neither able nor willing to make any use of.”32 The action was also vigorously criticized by British settlers on the Shore, who were quick to see its ramifications for both the Shore and Belize. Robert Hodgson, for instance, pointed out that with Roatan as a Spanish base, ships belonging to Belize and the Shore, or those trading with them, could be more easily intercepted by the Spaniards.33 And indeed, by the early 1750s Spanish cruisers were successfully seizing important vessels bound for Belize with “Baymen’s effects”, and the Shore was accordingly fearful of similar treatment. Hodgson’s prediction proved correct when, under Ensenada’s direction, Roatan was fortified and attempts were made to settle it. For a time the island was used even more than Omoa as a base for harassing the Baymen and constantly intercepting their vessels, and the Spaniards were openly declaring their intentions to capture all British ships, not only those engaged in the logwood trade.34 The early 1750s were bad years for the Baymen. Many of their ships were captured by the Spaniards and they were attacked again, forcing them to leave their settlements and repair to their usual haven, the Mosquito Shore.35 But again as was the pattern, the Spaniards left and the Baymen simply returned. In the midst of all these difficulties, in 1752 the Spanish king issued a proclamation granting freedom to all slaves running away from British colonies in

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Central America and the Caribbean “to my Dominions under pretense of embracing our Holy Catholic Religion”.36 This made it convenient for surrounding Spanish territories to lure slaves away from the British and to hold on to them under the pretext of religion. As this study will show, the proclamation was to be the single most effective Spanish weapon against the British settlers, who complained against it incessantly; it continued in effect right up to emancipation in the 1830s. Spanish attacks on and seizures of British vessels became widespread, and the Baymen made numerous representations about them to Whitehall through the Jamaican governors. The resulting diplomatic remonstrances from British officials in London and Madrid yielded a countercharge against Britain from Spanish officials: England had no right to cut logwood in Belize, thus Spain was obliged to continue its vigilance of the guarda costas. Spain’s commercial intent with respect to logwood confiscated from the Baymen was clear. A Spanish official encapsulates this: It is said in England, that they cannot do without logwood. We know it . . . [and] are ready to dispose of it in the same way that we do of the wines and fruits of this country . . . . But as it is unlawful to take wine out of a cellar at Malagar by force . . . so it is for the same reason just as unlawful to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy [Bay of Honduras]; for, we will take care that your nation shall not want as much of it as she can have occasion for.37

In essence, Spain continued to look backwards to the old monopoly days, when it alone controlled the wood and sold it at exorbitant prices to Britain and other European countries. The situation continued to be uncertain for Belize and the Shore. Hodgson’s prediction that seizures of their merchant vessels from Spanish Roatan would increasingly affect the Mosquito settlers was to become a vexing reality for the Shoremen. Admiralty records show that in 1750 alone – two years after the peace – there were eleven seizures, the majority of which were made on or near the Mosquito Shore. Among the seized ships was the suitably named Mosquito, flagship of the fleet that belonged to the “Governor of the Zambos”, William Pitt. In submitting Pitt’s complaints to Whitehall, Governor Trelawny pointed out that Mosquito had been seized when travelling from one part of His Majesty’s dominion [Jamaica] to another [the Mosquito Shore], and therefore could not be considered a prize ship. Ensenada, however,

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declared it a legal prize and would reconsider his decision only in the face of new evidence. Even Trelawny was afraid to meddle in such a “delicate” matter without instructions from Whitehall, and the outcome is unclear.38 All these complaints were taken seriously, and representations were made to Benjamin Keene, the British ambassador in Madrid. Keene knew next to nothing about the Mosquito Shore or the Bay of Honduras; he was, in fact, among those British officials who, like their Spanish counterparts, confused the latter with Campeche. And worse, Keene was privately convinced that wherever these places were located, the British had no rights to the logwood; “as for the Mosquito Shore, he said with perfect truth that he had never heard of our [British] right to it”.39 It should be remembered that the person Keene had to square off with was Ensenada. Yet despite Keene’s handicaps, when relations between Britain and Spain improved for a while, he seized the opportunity and contributed to the final downfall of Ensenada, “the virtual dictator of Spanish policy” in Central America.40 Keene’s initial response to the orders from his superiors in London to condemn Spanish outrages against British ships was rather tepid. He mechanically advised the Spanish officials of serious consequences if they did not abstain from seizing British vessels; no one paid any attention. By 1752, however, the situation had become more delicate, involving balancing very bellicose forces juxtaposed against moderation. On the one hand there were rumours everywhere of another Spanish fleet of considerable proportion preparing to attack Belize, while seizures of British vessels had developed into a veritable epidemic. Among these vessels were three more of Pitt’s ships, and Superintendent Hodgson’s requests to Jamaica for warships to attack these Spanish “corsairs” – as the British settlers called them in an ironic turnabout – were denied. The denial was based on the grounds that such a move could provoke a wider conflict, indicating the ascendent temperate mode.41 Because of complicated European balance-of-power concerns, Britain did not wish a rupture with Spain at this time. Indeed, a conjunction of forces was working to create peace between Britain and Spain during this period. The new Spanish king, Ferdinand VI (1746–59), who had been largely responsible for the recent peace treaty, desired neutrality, conciliation and non-intervention with Britain.42 To this end he appointed a known anglophile, Ricardo Wall (of Irish ancestry), to head his ministry of foreign affairs. But of course Ensenada was still minister of the Indies – for the time

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being. On the local level too the situation was dramatically changed. A new governor of Jamaica, Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, succeeded the expansive, anti-Spanish Trelawny, with his ardent desire to destroy the Spanish empire in the region with the assistance of the “Indian tribes”. Knowles was of a different humour. He did not think much of Trelawny’s highly prized Mosquito Shore, calling it a “pigmy” settlement that did not earn the expenses of its government, and thought even less of Trelawny’s protégé Robert Hodgson.43 It should not be surprising, therefore, that it was Knowles who refused Hodgson’s request for warships to attack Spaniards engaged in seizing British ships in the area. Governor Knowles’s contempt for Hodgson was patent, and soon he was blaming Hodgson for all the ills of Belize and the Shore. His successor, George Haldane, inherited Knowles’s hostility and even threatened to remove Hodgson from office.44 In the meantime, Ensenada, apparently without the conciliatory King Ferdinand’s knowledge or consent, ordered again that Belize be attacked and all the British settlers driven out. The process entailed an elaborate “plot” that was intercepted by the Shore’s powerful Pitt. The plot went into logistical details about how Belize should be attacked first, before the Shore, because of the strength of the Anglo-Miskitos coupled with the impracticability of attacking the Shore by land and the “rather madness than bravery” of doing so by sea. The British assumed that it was Ensenada who had devised this most elaborate plan to conquer the place from within – too elaborate to be considered here, especially since it was thwarted.45 It was fortunate for the Bay settlers that Pitt intercepted this plot, as its discovery was to contribute to Ensenada’s fall from power, even though it is debatable whether he was actually responsible for it. Even the erstwhile lukewarm Keene, to whom details of the plot were sent, had to rouse himself to action, for the Spanish Crown also considered that Ensenada had overreached himself in this case. The supersedence of his authority gave Ambassador Keene, and others opposed to Ensenada in both London and Madrid, an opportunity to act effectively against him. The moderate Spanish monarch, in response to the complaints about Spanish seizure of British ships, ordered the governor of Havana to pay to the English the “full value of a dozen ships and cargoes” that had been seized.46 This order was made in 1753, just about the time when Ensenada’s massive invasion of Belize was to be launched, thus creating the convergence of two contradictory policies mentioned above.

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On 7 July 1754 Keene and others made their successful move to overthrow Ensenada. Keene’s part in this intrigue was considered so substantial that he received a long-coveted knighthood immediately, “as a mark of [His Majesty’s] Royal approbation of [his] services”,47 and Madrid was no less pleased. Wall’s undiplomatic letter to Keene exclaims, “The thing is done, my Dear Keene, by the grace of God, the King, Queen . . . . This newse will not displease our friends in England.”48 Ensenada was replaced by the conciliatory Fray Julian de Arriaga, who continued the king’s peaceful policies until the monarch’s death in 1759, when it was dramatically reversed under his successor, Charles III. But the Rubicon had already been crossed. The Ensenada-directed invasion was underway, and it seems to have developed its own momentum through the active cooperation of local Spaniards. Thus, within a week of Ensenada’s overthrow, Belize was attacked. Just a few days before the attack, Pitt, who was no doubt always kept ahead of the game by intelligence from his trusted Zambo-Miskito allies as well as from Jamaica, advised the Baymen of an imminent massive Spanish attack by land and by sea. The Baymen responded promptly with what had become a reflexive action: they took what belongings they could and fled to the secure haven of the Shore. Finding the Spanish fleet nowhere in sight when they arrived, the Baymen accused Pitt of having concocted the warning as a ruse to draw them from their settlement in order to gain an advantage in selling his own logwood harvest to London. Furious and confused, about a hundred of them decided to return to Belize. They almost came headlong into the large Spanish invasion fleet, forcing them to flee back to the Shore in alarm. Because of the size of the fleet, they felt certain they were about to lose the Bay this time49 – and they were still unaware of the contingency land force en route from Peten. The attack was two-pronged, from both sea and land. The fleet comprised some ninety ships “large and small”, while the land force consisted of about 1,500 men from the Peten station. Pitt reported to Knowles that the enemies cut a pathway at Peten – he calls it “Poten” – from where a number of soldiers marched to the houses of some of the Bay settlers, “where it was thought impossible for them to be reached”. The Baymen were obviously caught offguard by this surprise attack, but they responded and even killed “some, but being overpower’d by Numbers was Obliged to retreat”. They recouped and returned later, only to find that the Spaniards had already left, as was their

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custom. Nevertheless the Baymen, some “500 Whites and Slaves”, repaired to the safety of the Shore.50 The massiveness of the combined land and sea force, launched simultaneously from Campeche, Bacalar and Havana in the north, Omoa in the south, and overland from Peten in the west, was seriously intended to expel the Baymen forever. Save for the Mosquito Shore and the Spanish habit of attacking and evacuating, on this occasion the Spaniards might well have succeeded in expelling the Baymen permanently. The result of this “war” was contradictory at first, possibly because of the swiftness of the Spanish “victory”. It is clear that the Spaniards penetrated as far as what is known today as Labouring Creek, a tributary of the Belize River some eighty miles from Belize City, but there are different versions of the affair. A popular one says that the Spaniards were “completely routed” by a party of 210 Baymen and their slaves, “principally slaves, who willingly and cheerfully followed the courageous example of their masters”. This, however, is clearly a romantic view of the matter that is now part of the folklore of Belize, perpetuated by the Honduras Almanack.51 Even Ambassador Keene, who was instructed to remonstrate strongly on behalf of the logwood cutters of Belize, was not certain of the outcome of the attack. Keene complained that he had received conflicting reports, some allotting success to the Spaniards, others to the logwood cutters. Governor Knowles of Jamaica finally informed Keene that the Baymen had indeed been expelled again and that the situation could have been critical for the British settlers were it not for their safe retreat on the Mosquito Shore.52 Robert Hodgson writes that it was “wholly owing to this Shelter [the Mosquito Shore] that [the Baymen] were not totally crushed, and with them our whole Logwood Trade”. In pointing out the importance of the Shore for the safety and preservation of Belize, Hodgson asked the rhetorical question “how should an entire new sett of these Gentry spring up” if they could not “easily come hither in their Boats”, only to return to the Bay after the Spaniards had departed.53 The answer would be – as with all the other British logwood settlements in Spanish America – no longer existing. The Spaniards departed as usual but not before doing all the damage they could to the settlements at the Belize River. They did not seem impressed with what they saw: only a few miserable huts, and the logwood, although considered “a large quantity”, was already cut and under water, making it impossible to remove or to be destroyed by fire. However, they did burn the huts and

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whatever else they could find. The invaders are said to have remarked that the settlement “was only fit for the English, who can always have a supply of Provisions which they [the Spaniards] can not”.54 If this statement is correct, it reflects the general shortages that Spanish colonists in the region were experiencing, largely because of Spain’s mercantilist policy. The Spaniards, however, did more on this occasion. They also started the construction of a fortification or fort at the Belize River and, oddly enough, they even began piling up armaments to go along with it. This worried Knowles at Jamaica, who felt that a Spanish fort at Belize, with armaments at that, if allowed to remain would mean an end to the British logwood trade.55 He imparted his concern to Keene, who brought diplomatic pressure to bear on Spain, in both Madrid and London, while Knowles was made to deal with the local Spanish governors. He reminded them that the Spanish Crown had ordered them to cease disturbing the English settlers, and even hinted that warfare might be the consequence if the practice continued. He demanded of the governor of Guatemala specifically that the Spanish fort at Belize be demolished, that the British settlers on the Shore be allowed to return, and that some “300 Britishers” who had been detained at Omoa and Campeche be released immediately. The governor agreed to the immediate release of the prisoners but informed Knowles that he had no jurisdiction to act on the matters of demolition of the fort at Belize or the return of the Baymen from the Shore.56 The Baymen finally returned to Belize in early 1755, where they would simply build “new Hutts, and fall to work again as usual”, in Hodgson’s words.57 In reporting the news to Whitehall, Knowles indicated that the resettlement had been done without any opposition from the Spaniards, who had entirely forsaken the place. In the meantime, in response to the Baymen’s requests for protection, Knowles had sent an engineer, one Mr Jones, to begin construction of a fortification. Jones chose “a very convenient place about nine miles up the River Belese to erect a Fort”, most certainly the origin of what has come to be called the Haulover in today’s Belize. That the Baymen also petitioned Knowles for some soldiers at this time might well prove the hazy rumour that the Miskitos did not rally on their behalf during the attack. They requested forty soldiers under two officers, as well as a battery of eight or ten guns at the New River’s mouth. Belize had also been attacked, Knowles pointed out, from the “River Dulce” and from Omao. Because of the peaceful official policy of the Spanish monarch,

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Knowles hesitated before responding to the Baymen’s request. In the end, however, he made a most creative compromise. He ordered twenty men from the Mosquito Shore to proceed to Belize to guard the fort that was being constructed by Jones. But they were to “be apparel’d like Baymen in Frocks and Trowsers” in order not to arouse the anger of the Spaniards.59 Thus even in this regard the reluctant Knowles utilized the Mosquito Shore – that “pigmy settlement”, as he derisively called it – in the service of Belize. The Baymen were most appreciative of Knowles’s response and demonstrated this by sending him grateful addresses.60 The directives to the two officers the Baymen had requested were issued by Superintendent Hodgson of the Shore. For the post of “commandant” at Belize, Hodgson chose Lieutenant Lawrie, another prominent British resident on the Shore, who was later to become its superintendent. Hodgson instructed Lawrie to “repair forthwith . . . for the River Belese, in the Bay of Honduras, with the Detachment from my Company under your Command”. Upon disembarking, Lawrie was to be posted wherever “the Chief of the People there shall think best for Their Security”. Lawrie was reminded that the Shoremen soldiers were to dress like Baymen “in order to give as little Umbrage as possible to the Spaniards, should such Umbrage be taken”. In this regard he was also given the discretion to reply to communications from any Spanish governors who might question him on his presence in Belize, “as may be expected”. He was to enforce the “regulations” of the inhabitants of the Bay – so conducive to “Unanimity, Commerce and Benefit of the whole” – which represented the Baymen’s rudimentary system of governance identified by Atkins during the 1720s. On the Baymen’s progress and all other matters, Lawrie was to advise Hodgson at every opportunity.61 Hodgson’s second emissary to the Bay was his son Robert Junior, who was to embark on the same vessel with Lawrie. Hodgson Junior, whose work we have referred to repeatedly, probably knew more about those parts than any of his contemporaries. He was given a multifaceted mandate by his father but more in the capacity of a civilian, although he, like Lawrie, was a lieutenant in rank. There is no doubt that Hodgson was much more explicit in his instructions to his son than he was with Lawrie, probably to give Lawrie, the commandant, a shield of credible denial if interrogated by the Spaniards or if his instructions were intercepted by them. Thus in his son’s “Letter of Instructions” he rather cleverly appears to be reviewing Lawrie’s yet adding important

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recommendations not mentioned in the commandant’s orders. He tells him, for instance, that Lawrie is to inspect the fortification built at the Haulover of the Old River and choose a site for a new one on the New River, a task that is not mentioned in Lawrie’s instructions. This was definitely in response to the Baymen’s request. Such activities were certainly not conducive to the new spirit of peace and reconciliation, especially when the Spanish monarch was at this very time issuing even more orders to Spanish officials in the region to return all captured British logwood ships and to discontinue the attacks on the Belize settlements. Governor Knowles was to make the most of these orders when remonstrating with local Spanish officials, who were more inclined to think in line with the dismissed Ensenada. Hodgson Junior is also told that Lawrie is to enquire not only about the state of the settlers but also into their “Laws and Regulations and how they observe them”. So far as the Spaniards were concerned, the British in Belize were merely temporary logwood cutters and were not supposed to have institutionalized laws as if they were a state with a government; it is for that reason that Hodgson is so careful with his language in Lawrie’s instructions. Father also informs son that Lawrie is to find out whether the Baymen can meet their obligations to “Subsist Forty Soldiers”, the number they requested but which is not mentioned in Lawrie’s instructions. The son is specifically instructed to “inform them [the Baymen] that unless they include an Allowance of Rum it will be impossible . . . for the Soldiers to provide themselves with other Necessaries out of the King’s pay in a Place where everything is so extravagantly dear”. Hodgson Junior is also told to visit Labouring Creek on the Belize River (the site of the latest Spanish attack) and Indian Creek on the New River (where the settlers were attacked in 1745) and report on the possibility of further Spanish attacks from the land side, with suggestions of how they might be repelled in the future. Furthermore, he is instructed to bring back samples of the various woods of the country and to map, if possible, “the courses of the two rivers” – the Belize and New rivers. Superintendent Hodgson became much more forceful when he tried to tell the Baymen how to behave. With the resonance of a threat, Hodgson Junior is told that he should make it clear to the Baymen “that unless they resolve to merit the Protection they have received, and to be considered a People who may, if they please, be of much greater Importance than at present, by Unanimity among themselves, and fall upon some method to center all their Log-

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wood in England, it seems to me not natural to expect the present Attention to them should continue”.62 Both the tone and the content of Hodgson’s instructions to his son clearly show the extent to which Belize up to this time had been dependent on the Mosquito Shore. Sorsby understands this thoroughly when he says: “The logwood settlements at Belize remained dependent upon the Mosquito Shore, which offered the protective security of the Mosquito Indians, the only fresh provisions closer than Jamaica, and a secure asylum against the threat of invasion and the rainy season. Furthermore it was the headquarters of the sole British official in the Bay of Honduras.”63 And here we find this sole British official giving the Baymen a scolding and even threatening to abandon them if they did not fall into line. When they are told to fall “upon some method to center all [emphasis added] their Logwood in England”, it is implied criticism of the Baymen’s practice of selling some of this commodity to New England and – more galling – to the Dutch. The days of amicable trading relations with the Dutch, which had existed from the Elizabethan period up to the mid-seventeenth century, were over. Criticisms of the Dutch for “stealing” English trade, especially in logwood, saw their most hostile expression during the eighteenth century – from merchants, from writers such as Edward Long64 and even from buccaneer Sharp during the last two decades of the seventeenth century.65 We have no evidence to show whether Hodgson’s threatening posture towards the Bay was sanctioned by Knowles in Jamaica or by Whitehall. But in view of discussions in London on the Belize question from the late 1750s up until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, it might not have caused any great official concern, even if unauthorized. The lessening of tension between Spain and Britain after Ensenada’s overthrow did not last for very long. In a sense the semi-euphoria of this period was unrealistic, since the outstanding issues between the two powers remained intact. The 1754 Spanish attack on Belize, like the 1748 Treaty of Aix-laChapelle, left a whole complex of issues in limbo, and all concerned soon realized that a settlement would have to be made at the diplomatic level. This was to become a long, drawn-out poker game, all the details of which, unfortunately, cannot detain us, interesting as they are. But only when going through these protracted diplomatic exchanges can one appreciate the depth of Spain’s bitterness and frustration over the English settlements at Belize and the Mosquito Shore. With few exceptions66 this has not been sufficiently brought out in English texts on Belize.

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Spain continued to assert its rights to regional ownership by papal donation, and therefore the illegal British logwood cutters had to be driven out at any cost. Britain wanted status quo and maintained its right to be in these parts, reiterating the Elizabethan principle of effective colonization. That is, since Spain had not previously occupied or fortified the Bay or the Shore, they had been uninhabited lands (never mind the indigenous peoples). And the British woodcutters had operated in the Bay long before the 1670 treaty in which their rights were recognized and confirmed. Therefore the logwood cutters of Belize were there – as they had been saying for a very long time – by right, by tolerance and by indulgence (“soit par droit, soit par tolerance, soit par indulgence”).67 Britain, of course, also continued to complain about Spanish seizures of its vessels around the Belize and Mosquito coasts. Ambassador Keene was required to exert forceful pressure on Spain regarding these matters. He viewed the issue of seizures as a relatively straightforward question but remained uncomfortable with British claims to the logwood settlements in Belize – which until his death he continued to confuse with Campeche and the Shore. It is no wonder that he complained that these issues had “been the uneasiness of my life”.68 He was to die just a few years later, prompting the English historian Richard Pares to say, “Poor Keene can truly be said to have died of these disputes”69 – just as Spanish official Juan de Vera, some ten years previously, is said to have had his life cut short, particularly by the Anglo-Miskito alliance in the region. Keene’s death in 1757 occurred at a critical juncture not only with respect to the discussions over the fate of Belize and the Mosquito Shore but also in terms of European politics. It was at the cusp of British ascendency as the major sea power in Europe. It was also just a year after the outbreak of war between England and France – the Seven Years’ War – which went badly for Britain initially but ended victoriously, giving that nation dominance in Europe. This state of affairs revealed Spain’s military and economic weaknesses most starkly, and naturally it would affect Belize and the Shore. The situation was complicated by the accession of Charles III to the Spanish throne in 1759. Unlike his predecessor but like Ensenada, Charles was known for his anglophobic views, and he too was uncompromising in his demands for expulsion of all the British settlers from the Bay and the Shore.70 And as for the AngloMiskito alliance, that thoroughly exercised the king. From time to time the Spaniards had put forward bizarre remedies for ending the alliance; it soon

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came to the notice of British officials that Charles III had actually proposed burning all the logwood trees in that part of the world in order to get rid of the British there.71 Obsessed with the matter, the king identified three major items of dispute with Britain: alleged injustices related to prize courts in England; Britain’s refusal to permit Biscayans to fish in Newfoundland; and the British logwood cutters at Belize. Of these three matters, the king is said to have looked upon that of “Honduras as the only essential” one.72 From 1759 onwards, therefore, Spanish demands on the British regarding the logwood settlement in Honduras became more insistent and rancorous, forcing William Pitt (the Elder) to complain of the “uncommon vehemence and warmth” with which Spain was pressing the issue.73 Pitt yearned for the earlier period of amity with Spain, particularly because at this time Britain was not faring too well in the war with France, and he was determined to appease Spain at almost any cost. He hoped for a peace treaty or “a more intimate union with the Crown of Spain”, and Keene was urged repeatedly to effect this, even on his deathbed. Indeed, Pitt was even prepared to give up Gibraltar to Spain in return for its not entering the war on the side of the French.74 Pitt knew only too well what had strengthened Spain’s new resolve. Bourbon France was inciting and encouraging its Bourbon cousin Charles III, who had inherited “traditions of hostility to England from his French father”, with additional personal and political reasons to resent the British.75 The family compacts signed by the crowns of France and Spain at various times threatened Britain, which had no comparable dynastic cards to play in the competition with the French, who were also flirting with Spain to join their side in the war. This worried Pitt, who felt that without French interference he could deal with Spain. But “France, there’s the enemy!” and “Spain is France and France is Spain”76 soon became his main preoccupations. Ever since the mid-1750s France had been egging Spain on not to retreat from the “impudent” English who were flourishing in the logwood business “more successfully and securely than ever”77 – a red flag to the Spanish bull. France’s part in the long, drawn-out negotiations over Belize and the Shore became much more active after Charles III’s accession. Emboldened by this encouragement, Spain began to increase its demands markedly: the British must demolish all military establishments both in Belize and on the Shore, and all British settlers must evacuate those places. The extraordinary fact is that the British government, including powerful figures such as Pitt and the

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Duke of Newcastle, supported evacuation of Belize and the Shore, only stipulating that the British should continue to cut logwood.78 Thus Belize, the Mosquito Shore and even Gibraltar were to be sacrificed in the vain expectation that Spain would join Britain as an ally against France in the war. However, as soon as Britain began to gain the advantage in the war, Pitt made a complete volte-face. He advised Lord Bristol, Britain’s new ambassador to Madrid, that discussion of evacuation of the British settlements in the Bay of Honduras was totally at an end; the ambassador should not “on any Occasion whatever, touch upon this Subject, or appear to be, in the least, informed that such a Thought had ever existed”.79 The crisis was over, and now, with studied amnesia, Britain began a more “normal” diplomatic discussion with Spain over Belize and the Mosquito Shore. The issue turned on two points: how to ensure the British right to cut logwood in Honduras while at the same time safeguarding Spanish sovereignty over the territory. Britain agreed to demolish all fortifications and any other military establishments in Belize but demanded a guarantee from Spain of the Baymen’s protection thereafter. Spain wanted Britain to take the first step – demolition – before it did the rest. This was too vague for Britain, which could not accept a situation in which it would weaken its position without knowing what was contained in the Spanish promises. Spain thought it “inadmissible with the Catholic King’s decorum” that England should wish to compel Spain to reveal beforehand the nature of its promised assurances. By January 1761 an impasse had been reached. The Bourbons seemed to have the edge when in August of that year the two crowns signed another hateful (to Britain) family compact. In the following year Spain joined the war against Britain.80 Although Pitt finally saw the inevitability of war with Spain, in a gesture of compromise he nevertheless continued to offer to evacuate Honduras if the British right to cut logwood could be guaranteed. But it was too late for Pitt, who had to resign. A state of war was declared between Spain (joining its French ally) and England in January 1762. This war was in fact a fortunate circumstance for the British – and disastrous for Spain. A British contingent under the Duke of Albemarle, which included his regular force as well as some trusted Zambo-Miskitos from the Shore, took Havana, the “Queen City” of the Spanish Indies, Spain’s most cherished and most fortified city in the Caribbean. It was a place that the British – Elizabethan corsairs, buccaneers and pirates of all sorts, plus imperial

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governors such as Edward Trelawny of Jamaica81 – had long viewed with a predator’s eye, and now it was in their hands. It was a place from where, according to Minister Pitt, “all the riches and treasure of the Indies lay at our feet”. And so it seems, for it is said that with Havana came also “three million pounds of treasure”.82 In other parts of the world, Spain also lost Manila, within two months of losing Havana. As a corollary to these defeats, Spain also lost the diplomatic initiative and had perforce to sign the Treaty of Paris in 1763,83 which for the first time gave formal recognition to the British right to cut logwood in the Bay of Honduras. This could not have been easy for Spain, especially when we remember that this was an age when wars were constructed around trade; “Thus rights of fishing, woodcutting and navigation were very essential and more prized by statesmen than expansive tracts of land.”84 Not long before this treaty was negotiated, a Spanish diplomat was adamantly demanding that Britain “refuse to acknowledge as her subjects any who were found cutting in Honduras, and refused to continue negotiations unless this were agreed to”.85 And now Spain had to concede formally to these same British settlers the rights to the logwood industry; in return, Britain was to demolish all fortifications in Honduras that were considered defensive in nature. Thus disarmed, Spain undertook to “protect” the Baymen in the settlement. The nature of this protection and the new legal relationship of the Belize settlement with Spain will be the subject of our investigation in subsequent chapters.

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 7

Post-Treaty Attacks, Despite Recognition 1763–1787

1 7 6 3 T R E A T Y O F P A R I S is undoubtedly an important benchmark in Belizean history. Despite the treaty’s limitations, the Belize settlement was beginning a new legal relationship with Spain. The seventeenth article gave recognition – albeit grudgingly and merely in terms of dominium utile – to the British settlers in the Bay of Honduras to continue in their occupation of “Cutting, Loading, and Carrying away Logwood”. In return Britain was to demolish all fortifications they had erected in the Bay “and other Places of the Territory of Spain in that Part of the World”. Nor could they establish any formal system of government in these places. Spain, for its part, guaranteed the Baymen’s protection, making sure they would not be “disturbed, or molested under any Pretence whatsoever” while working and living in their “Houses and Magazines which are necessary for Them, for their Families, and for their Effects”.1 The most that can be said of this treaty is that it merely gave an uncertain usufructuary “right” to the Baymen to continue what they had been doing all along and what their ancestors had done for a long time before that. But now there were serious limitations on their security, since all their fortifications were to be demolished and they were being left to the mercy of Spanish “protection”. The treaty was designed on the one hand to flatter Spain’s futile patrimonial claim to the Bay of Honduras, just as it was designed on the other THE

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hand to satisfy Britain’s parsimonious attitude to Belize, which could be characterized as endeavouring to have one’s cake and eat it too. It was a minimalist “policy”, driven by Britain’s mercantile desire to ensure that its trade in logwood be protected at any cost, even if detrimental to the settlers. The treaty compromised the position of the Baymen, as it confused the Mosquito Shore situation, and by no stretch of the imagination could it be interpreted as having resolved Anglo-Spanish disputes in Central America. For instance, were the fortifications on the Mosquito Shore to be demolished also? It soon became clear that Spain regarded this to be the case, although the Shore is not even mentioned in the treaty. Indeed Spain saw demolition of fortifications as cession2 – or at least evacuation – of territory, and there was to be no peace for the Bay and the Shore. However, despite the flaws of the treaty, its importance for our purposes lies in the fact that it achieved at least two very significant results: for the first time Spain had to give public, official recognition to the Baymen’s right to cut logwood in the Bay of Honduras (Belize), and even if unintended initially, it marks the moment that British protection for the Baymen began to take shape – albeit slowly, sporadically and downright grudgingly at times. In any event, it certainly would not be correct to assume that because of this treaty Spain’s hostility to Belize came to an end. Indeed, if anything it increased, out of sheer frustration and resentment at having to give the British settlers official recognition. Attacks on their settlements, therefore, began almost immediately after the surcease. Three months later, word reached Black River that the Spaniards were about to attack Belize with warships from Havana and elsewhere. The new superintendent of the Shore, James (or Joseph) Otway, who had “close family ties”3 to Benjamin Franklin, was quick to send an envoy, Joseph Smith Speer, to Omoa with a copy of the treaty. Speer, now a lieutenant, was to demand satisfaction and reparation for captures of British vessels made by the Spaniards since the treaty was signed. The Spanish commander showed him only contempt, treating “His British Majesty’s Authority and Name with Great Insolence”, and actually detained Speer for five months.4 But this was not all. Just about the time that Speer was released, intelligence reached the area that a massive Spanish invasion was afoot, in this case to attack the Mosquito Shore. This, however, was aborted by the mere threat of the Miskito Indians. James Otway, always on the alert, had sent another envoy

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to inform the Spaniard in charge of the invasion force that the Miskito warriors were flooding into Black River, and that it would prove impossible for him to restrain them against “acts of cruelty” to the Spaniards. We are told that, on hearing this intelligence, the greater part of the undisciplined Spanish force “dispersed in terror”.5 As mentioned earlier, this was a favourite tactic of the Shoremen and Baymen when in a tight military situation. In the meantime, it appears that Britain also interpreted the vaguely worded treaty to mean that the fortifications at both Belize and the Shore should be demolished. To this end, therefore, Governor William Henry Lyttelton of Jamaica, under instructions from Whitehall, ordered Robert Hodgson, Junior, in his capacity as lieutenant of His Majesty’s Forty-ninth Regiment, to “repair to the Bay of Honduras and other Parts of the Spanish Coasts frequented by the Logwood Cutters, where you are [emphasis added] pursuant to the Treaty to demolish all the Fortifications erected by His Majesty’s Subjects, and to bring away any Troops, Artillery etc.”.6 Lyttelton sent the warship Rose to transport the soldiers, stores and artillery to Jamaica. It must be noted that the Mosquito Shore is not specifically mentioned in Lyttelton’s instructions, just as it is also not mentioned in the treaty. This placed the governor in a quandary; he tries to parley his way out of naming the Shore by constantly repeating part of article 17 – “and other Places of the Territory of Spain in that Part of the World” – as if to protect himself. Later in the dispatch Lyttelton seems to think he has made his earlier wording “where you are” clearer when he says, “from any Place where you shall be when you receive this Letter”. Apparently Hodgson was on the Shore when the letter arrived, but equally he could have been elsewhere, since he was known for his wide travels in the region. In any case, the geographical vagueness of Hodgson’s instructions gave him an opportunity to hedge on the question of dismantling the fortifications on the Shore, to which he was adamantly opposed. Hodgson Junior was obviously a most self-assured young man who was totally unintimidated by his superiors, and just as his father had irritated Sir Charles Knowles earlier, the son displayed this same capacity towards Lyttelton. In his reply to the governor he makes two major points. With studied but hardly concealed sarcasm he reminds Lyttelton that his letter did not quite order him to divest the Shore of its “military protection [although], Sir, You go so very near to the doing so”. The meaning of Lyttelton’s order should therefore be made clear to him;

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he cannot be expected to act on it without further clarification. The second point in Hodgson’s reply is based on history and tradition. He reminds the governor that the Mosquito Shore is not and never has been part of the territory of Spain, because the Miskito Indians have never been conquered by that power. On the contrary, it is a British possession, and the thinking on the Shore is that the instruction was issued under a misapprehension.7 Hodgson returned the ship to Jamaica empty, shrewdly reminding Lyttelton that any mistake on his part could lead to a disastrous Anglo-Spanish rupture. The rattled Lyttelton was neither impressed nor amused by Hodgson’s prevarication, and a preemptory order was sent to the presumptuous young man to dispatch the troops and stores to Jamaica at once.8 In truth, Lyttelton himself was not certain about the questions Hodgson was raising, and he had in the meantime hurried off a letter to Whitehall for further instructions. The governor even wanted to know if the office of superintendent of the Shore should be retained in the light of article 17 of the treaty. After much toing and froing among officials at Whitehall, it was the Board of Trade that finally gave a resoundingly positive answer, one that vindicated Hodgson. Certainly the superintendency must be retained, as this was “expedient for His Majesty’s Service and the National Interest [in a place] where a considerable number of His Majesty’s Subjects are established, and who we think cannot consistent with propriety be left without some person authorized to preside over them”. And most important of all, the Board again stressed the strategic and security value of the Shore and the Miskito Indians. A superintendent commissioned by His Majesty would “enable him to retain and secure the Affections and Interests of the Indians”, and altogether he would be able to maintain the public peace either from the “inveterate hatred” of the Indians for the Spaniards or from the “too irregular and Disorderly disposition of the Inhabitants”9 – that is, the British merooners. The Board thus echoed the classic argument brought forward by British officials when justifying their presence on the Shore to the Spaniards. True to its name, the Board also requested the superintendent of the Shore to transmit to it, through the governor of Jamaica, an “accurate” account of the Shore’s settlement, population and volume of trade and suggestions about future commercial advantages the place might have. But before all this information reached the Shore, Hodgson had perforce to obey Lyttelton’s strong orders to dismantle the blockhouse and return the

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soldiers, which was done in February 1764. Just two weeks later, Hodgson recounts in his “Relations”, that the good news arrived from the Board of Trade that the Shore must indeed remain a British possession and was to be maintained and encouraged. The news was greeted with relief and extreme joy, but as it turned out the troops were not returned from Jamaica, despite numerous petitions from the inhabitants. The Spaniards saw the withdrawal of the British troops as a signal for them to take possession of the Mosquito Shore, since to them destruction of fortifications signified cession. To fill what they considered their new official role, a Spanish officer soon arrived to take possession of the country, but the hapless official had been preceded by the Board’s letter, and his reception could not have made him feel welcome. This is not to suggest that he would have been well received even without the letter; the Miskitos were prepared to resist in any case, with vigour and determination. The “indescribable scene” of armed Miskito warriors that greeted Lieutenant General Luis Diez Navarro from Guatemala has been recounted elsewhere.10 Suffice it to say here that Diez was just barely spared from the wrath of the Miskitos by the timely intervention of the Shore’s premier resident and “father of the settlement”, William Pitt. Pitt offered Diez the protection of his residence until it was safe for him to depart the Shore – serving, it should be noted, as a nice canon of British policy in the process. Pitt’s action was a practical demonstration of the cynically oftmentioned protective capability of the British to save the Spaniards from the excesses of both Miskitos and merooners on the Shore. Indeed, Pitt’s timely “rescue” of Diez may well have been carefully orchestrated. The second part of Lyttelton’s instruction to Hodgson, directing him to the “Bay of Honduras” (Belize) to destroy all fortifications there, apparently held no conflict for him. Hodgson accordingly sailed to Belize and issued a proclamation informing the “Logwood Cutters” of His Majesty’s orders to destroy their fortifications and dispatch their troops to Jamaica.11 However, the fort, constructed in 1755, had already been destroyed by the ravages of termites and humidity, and as for the troops – the detachment sent that same year by Governor Knowles of Jamaica, disguised as Baymen in “Frocks and Trowsers” – not one was to be found. Quite probably they had either joined the Baymen as civilians or trickled back to the Shore. Spain, in the meantime, continued to chafe under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Despite the Baymen’s rights to Spain’s “protection” and to cut log-

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wood in Belize unmolested, as usual that power had no intention whatsoever of leaving them either protected or unmolested. Indeed, Spain’s policy in the region remained intact. It was twofold but connected: basically one goal was to get rid of all the British settlers in Belize and the Mosquito Shore and the other was to thwart the insidious Anglo-Miskito alliance by totally destroying the Miskitos – to have them “exterminated by blood and fire”, as a president of Guatemala threatened in 1766. And just about every scheme short of open hostilities – including the suggestion of removing all Miskito women from the coast – was contemplated by Spain to effect its ends against these Indians, but all to no avail.12 The Bay was soon to experience the true nature and value of Spain’s protection. “The unfortunate Baymen”, says Burdon in reference to the treaty, “found themselves delivered up, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of their bitterest enemies! The immediate result was prompt”.13 To begin with, shortly after the treaty was signed, Spain began to strengthen its military position in Central America. A great force was established in Mexico, and with this type of muscle behind him, the governor of Yucatan was ready to make his move. Capitalizing on the lack of delineated boundaries in the treaty, the governor complained to a prominent woodcutter/magistrate in Belize, one Joseph Maud (of whom more later), that the woodcutters were exceeding their boundaries. Specifically he complained that they had extended their logwood cutting too far north and were now well along the Hondo River. The British cutters were therefore ordered away and told to confine themselves to the banks of the River Belize – “an old, deserted settlement” – and only to the south bank of the New River. The order, issued in December 1763, was accompanied by a show of force. Troops were immediately sent to Spanish Lookout, at the mouth of the Hondo, and the garrison was instructed to prevent passage of British vessels up the river. The order proved effective, for five to six hundred settlers were forced to withdraw. Some moved south, to the south bank of the New River or to the Belize River;14 apparently their numbers included slaves. This sudden dislocation caused much suffering for the Baymen, especially those who went to parts of the Belize River banks where the logwood had already been depleted. They looked to the British government for relief by complaining through the Jamaican governor, pointing out their desperate situation: they were unable to cut enough wood to supply even their most basic needs, and what was more, the dislocation had been enormously costly, for

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which they were seeking reparation from the Spaniards. But the Spanish commandant, no doubt pleased by the withdrawal and the Baymen’s unhappiness, pressed the issue further by ordering them to withdraw from the New River as well. The Baymen’s numerous distressed petitions point out that they are short of provisions “by reason of being driven from their occupations; are incapable of paying for them; and that the vessels lately arrived, seeing no prospect of immediate payment, refused to sell them provisions. These are the miseries your Petitioners experience from the inhumanity of the Spaniards.”15 Lyttelton responded by instructing Admiral Sir William Burnaby, commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s squadron at Jamaica, to remonstrate with the Yucatan governor on the matter. But the admiral received no satisfaction.16 To complicate matters further, there appear to have been conflicting instructions from Spain to the Yucatan governor. In one instance, under British diplomatic pressure, the Spanish king gave positive orders to the governor to abide by article 17 of the Treaty of Paris, adding that no one was to impede the English in the cutting of logwood in the stipulated places.17 The problem was that the so-called stipulated places were rather vague. The king’s order was made known to the British minister in London in July 1764, but two months later the president of the Council of the Indies issued another directive. He ordered the Yucatan governor to “observe exactly the letter of the Treaty and to take care the English go nowhere but where they are entitled to go, as they are subjects likely to encroach [emphasis in the original]”.18 Undoubtedly an impasse would have been reached had not the British government on this occasion shown real resolution. This time the directive came not from the Board of Trade, as hitherto; to signify the importance of the matter, it came directly from one of His Majesty’s principal ministers of state, Lord Halifax, through Lyttleton at Jamaica. This was easily the strongest support the Baymen had yet received from Whitehall. Halifax informed Lyttelton that His Majesty was determined to take effectual measures for “Reestablishment and protection of His Subjects, the Logwood Cutters, in the free enjoyment of the Rights and Privileges secured to them by the late Treaty of Peace”. Lyttelton should further advise the Baymen of His Majesty’s determination to protect their rights to the activities from which they had been “unjustifiably driven”. To give muscle to his words, Halifax also instructed Lyttelton to inform Admiral Burnaby that he was to proceed immediately, with a force of some four hundred soldiers and four warships, to the coast of Yucatan to

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ensure that the Baymen were reinstated in the logwood-cutting business on the Hondo.19 This had the desired effect. Halifax’s strong position, backed up with physical force and his pointedly repeated use of the word protection for His Majesty’s subjects, was most effective. It served as an embarrassing reminder to Spain of its obligation under the recent treaty to protect the subjects of Great Britain. The Spanish king was checkmated; he could hardly do otherwise than instruct the governor of Yucatan to allow the British settlers to re-establish themselves in the logwood areas. But the British government was not successful in getting from Spain the reparations claimed by the Baymen because of their sudden removal, in addition to other individual claims amounting to more than £27,000. Charles III would not budge on the subject of compensation, despite British diplomatic pressure in London and Madrid. The chief Spanish diplomat on the case complained repeatedly to his British counterpart of his monarch’s adamant position. The king “would never hear of it”, he told the Earl of Rochford, the British ambassador to Spain. “You do not know what a master I have to deal with.”20 And we shall see this same position repeated later. The Yucatan governor’s arbitrary dislodging of the woodcutters from the Hondo and New rivers with such a show of force, whether prompted by petty local concerns21 or directed by Madrid, was to have far-reaching implications for Belize. In the first place, Admiral Burnaby’s force of four hundred soldiers had been sent openly by Britain, not in a disguised fashion as with the troops sent earlier by Knowles. Even more threatening to the Spaniards – from a more permanent standpoint – was that Britain also issued a standing order to the commanders-in-chief stationed at Jamaica that a ship be sent to Belize every month or six weeks to examine the condition of the logwood cutters there. Thus British protection of the Bay was beginning to evolve into a more regular manner, even if the order was not always carried out.22 Burnaby sailed for the Bay of Honduras on 24 February 1765, accompanied by Lieutenant James Cook (not to be confused with the famous navigator of the same name).23 To ensure that the Yucatan governor received the Spanish order to re-establish the woodcutters in the pre-treaty areas to continue in their logwood business, Burnaby sent Cook to deliver the dispatches directly to him. Cook has left us an account of his voyage that contains some very useful information.24 With the communication being delivered by hand, the gov-

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ernor could no longer act under the pretext of ignorance of the orders from the Spanish court. Burnaby may have been overly sanguine when, a month after his arrival in Belize, he wrote that everything was now in order and that the inhabitants were “perfectly satisfied”,25 and he could therefore return to Jamaica. Soon, however, he was of a different mind. He reported that despite the “Regulations for their Government” that he had “proposed” and “which they highly approved of”, he was now informed that they had returned to the state of anarchy and confusion that had prevailed before his visit. They would, for instance, comply with the regulations only when the rulings were favourable to them, but would refuse to submit if they were unfavourable. Some of them had even left the settlement – probably for the Shore – while many were asking the British government to appoint someone “to superintend their Trade and enforce Obedience to their Laws”.26 It is easy to infer, as we did earlier, Burnaby’s influence on clause 8 of the regulations, which gives “full power” to any of His Majesty’s commanding officers in the region to enforce and execute the settlement’s laws in all cases, including non-compliance with sentences passed. But in fact this was little observed, as Admiral Parry’s experience below will demonstrate. Among the citizens who wished to have “a regular system of civil government” established at the Bay was the prominent merchant and magistrate whom Cook mentioned, Joseph Maud. Maud wrote to Lyttelton at Jamaica in October 1765 to express his views on the matter. The regulations, he opines, are all “very good and proper”, but for want of a genuine enforcement system they have been rendered ineffective. Maud also mentions the non-compliance with judgements unfavourable to the Baymen. Thus he asks Lyttelton to see to the establishment of a regular civil government at the settlement.27 It does not seem surprising therefore that Burnaby, in his dispatch to Stephens, recommended Joseph Maud as the “suitable person” to be appointed to superintend the Bay. Apparently the Baymen agreed; if Whitehall allowed such an appointment at £500 per year, as was the case on the Shore, then “they would make it up to £1,000”. Although Burnaby submitted the proposal to the secretary of state and the lords of the Admiralty, nothing came of it, despite a favourable ruling from His Majesty’s advocate general. After an involved and erudite legal analysis, the latter concluded that “some sort of territorial right had been acquired by great Britain at the Bay [Belize]

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by the Seventeenth Article of the Treaty of Paris sufficient to enable her to maintain and exercise civil jurisdiction over her subjects there”.28 Yet in 1774, eight years later, when the governor of Jamaica, Sir Basil Keith, requested a regular government for Belize, the reply was negative. “Where”, the minister maintained, “there is no territorial right no jurisdiction can be exercised”.29 All this undergirded Britain’s excessive sensitivity to Spain’s revanchism, which stood in the way of a clear decision on this evolving outpost of the British Empire. So long as the civil government on the Mosquito Shore served Belize equally well, Whitehall did not view a government at the Bay as a pressing issue. Things had to wait until some thirteen years later, when conditions would change dramatically. In the meantime, from the accounts of various admirals who were attempting to keep an eye on the Belize settlement, in line with imperial instructions, we gather that there was a high degree of anarchy there. By November 1767, for instance, Admiral Parry, who had “caused an exact survey of the Bay to be taken”, had received a number of complaints from the magistrates. First and foremost, they continued to suffer from the lawlessness of the inhabitants and lamented their lack of proper authority to punish delinquents. Although Parry tried to establish some semblance of order, nothing changed. Indeed, he soon experienced sharp criticism – as was to happen to just about every British official who attempted to restrain these fractious Baymen. For instance, a Captain Botham under Parry’s jurisdiction issued a rather imperious order to the magistrates, commanding them to summon all the inhabitants to “repair to St. George’s Key without loss of Time” to see to it that “all differences and disputes” among them be settled in the “Courts which will be held agreeable to the laws and regulations made for the good Government of His Britannick Majesty’s Subjects in the said Bay of Honduras, for which this shall be your order. Given under my hand”. The Baymen were furious. What authority did Parry have over them, they who had “shook off all sorts of Subordination”?30 In June 1768 Parry reported to his superiors that Botham’s efforts had been to no avail – understandably, as the secretary of state, like the Baymen, was also wondering about the nature of the authority Parry thought he had over them.31 Parry had soon had enough of the Baymen, and he was also probably frustrated by the lack of imperial support. In December of the same year he unleashed the most unbridled criticisms of the settlers yet recorded. He advised

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Whitehall to keep a frigate at the Bay to “prevent as much as possible Murders, Frauds and Confusion which are notoriously practised among the Baymen and which cannot be checked by Military Force”. He regarded them as a “most notorious lawless sett of Miscreants who are artful and cunning and who after having practised every ill fly from different parts thither to avoid justice where they pursue their licentious conduct with impunity”.32 This diatribe represents the first collective view we have of the Baymen since Urwin’s in the 1720s. As the society evolved, however, they tried to distance themselves from this type of unflattering characterization, endeavouring to construct a more “respectable” identity. For the moment, however, the Baymen were preoccupied with some very serious concerns about the Spaniards’ attitude. They continued to press, unsuccessfully, for reparations stemming from their distressful removal from their logwood locations on the Hondo and New rivers in 1764. Some submitted separate individual claims that were apparently not included in the aggregate sum mentioned above. Joseph Maud’s submission is particularly instructive: To my trouble and expenses to bring away my family and effects £100 To sundry presents to the Commandant of Bacalar and the soldiers at the “LookOuts” for suffering me to bring away my effects after the time limited by the Governor of Yucatan was elasped £113.9.10½ To bribe a Corporal of Bacalar . . . sent out as a spy of our strength £ 11.0.0 To loss of time of my negroes and flatts, 13 months £758.17.4 Two negro slaves named Dick and Granby run from our logwood works at the Rio Hondo to the Spaniards at Bacalar, and there seem secreted by them £100.0.033

The concern, though not a new one, that the Baymen became most passionate about was the inveigling away of their slaves by the Spaniards. The practice had greatly increased by the 1760s, largely because of the economic distress of the period. Logwood, which was still the mainstay of the Bay’s economy, was experiencing an irreversible slump on the world market, and the transition to mahogany had not yet been fully realized.34 The settlers’ economic crisis made it difficult for them to buy the necessary provisions to feed the enslaved, and at such times the Spaniards were always on hand to exploit the situation by endeavouring to lure them away from their owners. The Baymen sent numerous memorials and petitions to the British government asking

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for redress. A memorial from Allan Auld, a prominent merchant trading in Belize, complains on behalf of himself and others, stating that despite the recent treaty, the “Spanish Governor and his commandants in those parts continue to show the same inamicable disposition toward the British settlers” as the previous governor had done, and that the Spaniards were exerting their utmost skill and attention in seducing their slaves. Spanish boats were constantly plying the mouth of the Hondo River to accommodate the runaways, who would then be taken to the commandant at Bacalar. From there they were conducted to Mérida, and “under the false and purloining pretence of religion, they are forever detained without any satisfaction whatever being made to His Majesty’s subjects” for their losses. Auld mentions that at the time of writing “these last dispatches” twentythree armed slaves had escaped from the New River to the Spaniards, and more were expected to follow them – a situation that has been described as a “slave revolt”.35 The nervous settlers were in a difficult situation: “business of every kind was at a dead stand” and they were forced to protect their houses “from being plundered and themselves from being slain”. They felt neglected and unprotected from Spanish aggression and “neglected by the British government at home”. Some Baymen had left the settlement, others were contemplating doing the same, and the prediction was that if the Spaniards were not restrained from inveigling away their slaves, the logwood trade would again fall into their hands.36 The “Principal Inhabitants” of His Majesty’s settlements on the Mosquito Shore also sent a “humble” petition to George III, complaining of Spanish hostility since the treaty and the dismantling of their fortifications. But their greatest concern is the loss of “several” of their slaves who ran away to the Spaniards, “made free, and protected by them”. So detrimental was this situation to the inhabitants that its continuance, combined with “our unprotected state, will greatly hurt this your Majesty’s colony which is of the greatest consequence to the British Logwood trade, being the only place of retreat for the Logwood-cutters in the Bay of Honduras whenever they have been drove from thence by the Spaniards . . . and most of the Logwood cutters having families and plantations at this place”, representing the dual life of the Shoremen and the Baymen we mentioned above. The petition also mentions that they export sarsaparilla, tortoise shells and mahogany. Among the signatures, William Pitt’s was first on the list.37

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The British government considered the matter most urgent, and remonstrated with Spain in both London and Madrid. But the Spanish minister of state made only feeble promises to the effect that the Spanish governors in the region would be ordered to desist from inveigling away British slaves. In fact, however, the practice continued and even increased. Spain knew that this was its most effective card against the British, and high-ranking Spanish officials, including Minister Grimaldi, openly contended that Britain’s stealing of Spain’s logwood at the Bay “was a good deal worse than the seduction of a few slaves”.38 The American War of Independence gave Spain an opportunity to declare war on Britain and thus to conduct open hostilities against the Bay, the Shore and other British possessions. Certainly it was a dangerous gamble for Spain to be supporting “rebels” seeking independence, for what if its own colonies in the region acted in kind? Spain could not have been unaware of this possibility but, as in the Seven Years’ War, it was again egged on by France. The two states signed another alliance, or family compact, against Britain in April 1779, and by June war had been declared. Spain issued an intriguing “manifesto” that contains some of the same accusations against Britain that are in the compact; both documents show the extent to which Belize and the Miskitos on the Shore continued to dominate Spanish policy. The manifesto purports to identify the most recent and most grievous complaints against the British since the Paris Treaty of 1763. Those concerned with Belize and the Shore include charges that the British did not destroy the fortifications in Belize and were even more firmly established there; that they furnished arms to the Miskitos and incited them to revolt; that they prevented the Miskitos “by a variety of artifices, from placing themselves under the government of Spain, to whose dominions those peoples and territories belong”; that English settlers established themselves on the Shore for no other reason than to usurp Spanish territory and engage in illegal trade – a “proof” of this usurpation was James Lawrie’s appointment as captain general to this post. The manifesto does not contain a significant clause found in the compact that pledges to revoke the privileges conceded to the English to cut logwood “on the coast of Campeche [sic]”39 – as usual confusing the Bay of Honduras with Campeche. Armed with these charges against Britain, Spain sent out explicit orders to officials in Spanish America that the most vigorous hostilities should be perpetrated against Britain. Specifically, the officials should take every avail-

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able step “to dislodge the English from those coasts and . . . destroy the Zambos Mosquitos who are allied with them”.40 There is ample evidence to suggest that Spain’s declaration caught Britain by surprise. Up to April 1779 the British minister, Lord Germain, was expressing confidence in the “Harmony” that existed between the courts of Britain and Spain.41 This was the very same month in which the Bourbon powers of Spain and France concluded their family pact directed against Britain. When British officials finally received intelligence of Spain’s declaration of war, they took it seriously indeed. One of these officials characterized the news as “the most awful the country had ever experienced, and comparable with the Armada [of 1588]”.42 Germain had to act swiftly. On June 17 he authorized attacks on Spanish territories on continental America, including New Orleans, and on Central America, including the Panama and Darién areas. But it was the Mosquito Shore that became the central component of British war strategy. Here Germain gave his most specific instructions. It is a fascinating irony that the very people who had preoccupied, irritated and humiliated Spain so much – the Miskito Indians – were the force that Britain relied on so profoundly in all its wars in the region. In a letter to Governor Dalling of Jamaica, Germain reminds him of his high hopes for future operations in middle America with the use of the “friendly Mosquito Indians” and the “freebooters”, or merooners. He writes: The Accounts you have transmitted . . . of the Fidelity and Attachment of the Musquito Indians to His Majesty, leave no room to doubt of their Assistance in any Enterprize against the Spanish Territories adjoining to their Country; the first step therefore that appears necessary to be taken is to supply them with Arms and Ammunition, and encourage them to make Inroads into the Spanish Settlements in the Neighbourhood. The Hopes of Plunder may perhaps incite many Free-Booters from the Islands and Continent of America to join the Indians in these Incursions.43

This critical force consisted of the Miskitos, since the “Free-Booters”, who joined in for the sake of plunder, could not be seen as the most reliable of allies. This speaks volumes for British dependence on the loyalty of the Zambo-Miskitos. Like Edward Trelawny, Edward Long, the uncompromising imperial historian, certainly appreciated the importance of the Miskitos to Britain in that region.

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[It] is to them alone that we owe the having any settlement on this part of the continent. They have always been, and still are, in the place of a standing army; which, without receiving pay, or being in any shape burthensome to Great Britain, maintains the English in firm and secure possession, protects their trade, and forms an impenetrable barrier against the Spaniards, whom they keep under constant awe.44

Governor John Dalling of Jamaica, like other governors of the period, also articulated the importance of the Miskitos as Britain’s unpaid “standing army” in the region. Upon receiving Germain’s instruction, he too acted with celerity and great creative energy. Among his first acts, he sent off lengthy letters to James Lawrie, superintendent of the Mosquito Shore, giving him general instructions on how the war should be conducted; every aspect takes into consideration full involvement of the Miskitos. Lawrie is to observe the principle of suddenness and surprise in his offensive and should aim at the most vulnerable of Spanish possessions and, if at all possible, also the most valuable. The governor also requests the fullest information on Lawrie’s potential fighting force, for instance, the number of whites and enslaved people capable of bearing arms, the number of arms possessed by the Miskitos, and the need to supply more, as well as presents. To ensure surprise attacks, Lawrie is to give the Spanish “the appearance of unconcerted Indian expeditions, as far as the Object you have in mind will permit”. Dalling regrets that he cannot afford to send any reinforcements from Jamaica, since the island is also under Spanish threat, but “Arms, Ammunition and Presents for the free Booters and Indians” are being sent by His Majesty’s ministers in London. Echoing the usual expectation of pan-Indian participation in British imperial wars in the region, Dalling also “recommend[s] . . . in the strongest terms” to Lawrie that he should “endeavor to cultivate and extend a friendly intercourse with other Indian Nations, and by every sort of encouragement to draw over to our Interest those who are situated near the Spanish Settlements”. He should be liberal in his promises to them, with the certainty of having them fulfilled, especially with respect to the distribution of booty after successful battles.45 Finally, Dalling informs Lawrie that he has already sent Captain Commandant William Dalrymple of the Loyal Irish Corps to Belize. Dalrymple’s visit was a kind of secret intelligence-gathering mission. He writes to Dalling in an unsigned letter dated 3 September 1779. We infer that this letter is Dalrymple’s because of the connection between his reply and an

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earlier dispatch from Dalling to Lawrie, in which he mentions representations made by some “sensible men from the Bay of Honduras” on the feasibility of attacking the Castle of St Philip at Bacalar, “with the assistance of some of your settlers and Indians”. This would have the double effect of making Belize more secure and materially distressing the Spanish enemy. In his reply Dalrymple says: “In compliance with your Excellency’s desire, I have had a long, serious and private Conversation with Captain Hoare and Doctor Jackson from the Bay of Honduras” – obviously among the “sensible men” of Dalling’s description. Dalrymple then goes on to give a very useful account of the English settlers on St George’s Cay – the first of its kind – before touching on the subject of attacking Bacalar. These British settlers with their wives, children and domestics lived, Dalrymple’s letter informs us, on “St. George’s Key”, where there was an “Exceeding good Harbour at present Defenceless”; just twelve cannon carrying shot of twelve and eighteen pounds would be sufficient to defend them “against any Force”, because the natural position was very strong. St George’s Cay was their residence but they also had plantations extending along the banks of several rivers – including the Hondo and New rivers, Rowley’s Bight, the Northern River, “Balize” River, the Chaboon (Sibun) River and Manatee Lagoon – for a hundred miles and upwards; “The Banks of the Balize in particular are settled above Two Hundred Miles.” The settlers “occasionally” visited their plantations, where they employed slaves to raise provisions and cut logwood. The English population “on the Bay may amount to Five Hundred, Two Hundred of which are able to bear arms: – Their Slaves of different ages and Sexes to Three Thousand. – Of these, there may be Five Hundred to be depended upon. – The Indians [the Maya] who live near the English are so inconsiderable that it is Unnecessary to take any Notice of them.” By this date, as has been noted, much hostility had developed between the Baymen and the Maya because the loggers were penetrating the interior in pursuit of mahogany. This dislodged the Maya from their space; their tendency was to push further into the forests, away from the intruders. In aggregate terms, Dalrymple’s arms-bearing force would consist of the Baymen and their slaves (two hundred and five hundred respectively), and from the Shore he counts “our Fast Friends the Mosquito Indians” as amounting to some “1500 Fighting Men . . . who would chearfully go on the Expedition” – making the Miskito fighting force more than twice as large as that of

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the settlers. Dalrymple recommended a most ambitious attack on Bacalar, with St George’s Cay as the starting point. Cannon, one hundred regular soldiers, Baymen and their slaves, stores and so forth were to be dispatched from this cay, embarking in proper vessels and proceeding up New River. They would land “a little higher than Ten Pound Key”, from where the troops could easily march to St Philip’s Castle at Bacalar in a day and most probably execute a surprise attack. In any event, even without the element of surprise, the place could be easily defeated, being garrisoned by only a hundred men. Dalrymple’s account of Fort St Philip echoes Lieutenant Cook’s in 1765. Cook does not mention the actual size of the garrison but he shows contempt for the fort’s security, “garrisoned by a company of foot, and some few militia of the town, but so very undisciplined, and ill-cloathed, they have scarce the appearance of Falstaff’s company of soldiers”.46 Dalrymple also articulates the oft-repeated British theme of pan-Indian cooperation. The consequence of defeating Bacalar, he argues, would be “an immediate and Extensive Intercourse with the Indians” – some 100,000 of them “kept in a most uneasy state of Servitude not to say Slavery”. Under the British they would gain their liberty and exemption from all tributes. Should this attack succeed, Mérida itself would be next, and with success there too, the whole “Isthmus of Yucatan” would fall to Britain. There would be enormous economic benefits in terms of trade, especially in logwood; “that great object of British Politicks would be Effectually secured to us”. Strategic benefits would also accrue; should Spain attempt a recapture it would require a formidable invasion, thereby diverting her forces from the war.47 Whatever the British plans might be, events at Belize overtook them completely. Because of what some called Lord Germain’s complacency48 – being initially unaware of Spanish intentions – Spanish colonial officials had knowledge of the war a month or so before their British counterparts, and accordingly seized the initiative. On 5 August 1779, for instance, the governor of Yucatan was ordered to “eject the English from the Mosquito Coast”. The governor, perhaps perceiving discretion as the better part of valour, did not proceed to the dreaded Mosquito Shore but instead attacked St George’s Cay on 15 September, just when Dalrymple was choosing that place as his theatre of operations. As noted earlier, it is indeed strange that only now, some eightyodd years later, did the Spaniards again attack this island – the Baymen’s “capital” – which they first attacked in 1695.

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The inhabitants of St George’s Cay were taken by surprise and the Spaniards completely destroyed the place, taking some 450 prisoners. An account from an eyewitness who fled to the Shore describes the Spaniards as a shabby crew, indifferently dressed, who showed up very early on 15 September. The populace first became aware of the Spanish presence on their cay at about six thirty in the morning. It was then that they also became aware for the first time of the war between Britain and Spain. The Spanish contingent “had but little the appearance of soldiers many of them being Indians and the whole of them indifferently furnished with Cloaths, Accoutrements etc. . . . The armed Spaniards or Indians being mostly in frocks and trowzers [sic] and some without the latter.”49 It should not be surprising that the leader of this shabby group fell upon the “goods and valuables” of the cay and confiscated them. Like the early attacks, this one also originated with the commandant at Bacalar, who supervised the operation with a fleet numbering some nineteen vessels. The captured British settlers – men, women and children – were treated badly. Some 140 of them, plus about 250 slaves, were fettered and confined in the holds of the Spanish vessels. They were first taken to Bacalar and from there marched overland about 100 leagues to Mérida, some dying on the way from exhaustion and hunger. A few of the men managed to escape on the overland journey; some of them went to their usual place of safety, the Mosquito Shore, and others to Roatan. They were joined by Baymen who had been away from St George’s Cay at the time of the attack. From Mérida the prisoners were sent first to Campeche and then to Havana, where they remained “in dungeons” until their release in the spring of 1782. Those who had survived were conveniently dropped off at nearby Jamaica before returning to the Bay50 – but not before a few had escaped from Havana.51 Thus, despite the fact that St George’s Cay was retaken almost immediately, the greater part of the British settlement in the Bay of Honduras was more or less abandoned for about five years, because most of the returning settlers did not reach the Bay until 1784 and later. Dalrymple heard of the St George’s Cay disaster while he was on the Mosquito Shore collecting his “formidable” force for the attack on Bacalar. It is understandable that he felt a strong impulse to act immediately. He soon raised some sixty Miskitos and a “few” whites, including some of the Baymen who had escaped from the Spaniards, and set sail to recapture St George’s

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Cay. On the day he sailed he met Commodore John Luttrell, commanding three English frigates of war, who informed him that the Cay had already been retaken by His Majesty’s schooner Racehorse. Upon hearing that the Spanish fleet was stationed at Omoa, Dalrymple suggested on the spot an attack on this wealthy and well-fortified Spanish post, which Ensenada had seen as critical to Spain’s security in the region. Luttrell agreed “enthusiastically”, and their combined force of Miskitos, Shoremen and Baymen, though negligible compared to that of the Spaniards in their fortress with its eighteen-foot-thick walls, nevertheless succeeded in taking the castle. The siege and capture of Omoa was indeed an extraordinary feat. The consensus is that Dalrymple’s use of the Miskitos was extremely well calculated. As soon as he had disembarked and was approaching the fort he gave them very visible positions, using the Indians for a number of tasks that included rendering enemy lookouts inoperable – or, to put it more bluntly, silencing the guards permanently. The Spaniards were paralysed with fear. It is said that “the Zambos Mosquitos had been so much in evidence during the siege and on the escalade that Spanish defenders thought the attack had been the work of the Indians with a few English advisers and naval support”. If the Miskitos had not been so conspicuously present, the Spaniards might well have fought back successfully from their well-fortified fortress. Dalrymple then used a strategy that so many British officials had employed before and were to repeat in the future: he ordered the Spanish commanders to surrender immediately, otherwise their garrisons would become prisoners of the Miskitos. The result was that the “largest Spanish fort in the kingdom of Guatemala and three register ships and cargoes worth three million pesos were in English hands”.52 However, Omoa was soon recaptured by the Spaniards, largely because Dalling, urged on by Germain, had bigger plans – which eventuated in the well-known and ill-fated San Juan expedition in 1780.53 Between 1779 and the mid-1780s, Belize therefore was, for all intents and practical purposes, non-existent, which again demonstrates the centrality of St George’s Cay as the major settlement up to this point. Upon taking the island, the Spaniards destroyed everything, including “plantations” and logwood works. In addition they also destroyed the Baymen’s outpost establishments along the various riverbanks in mainland Belize where they also had logwood works and provision grounds. The losses sustained from this general destruction and dislocation were enormous. Once again, as they had in 1763

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when dislodged from their logwood businesses, the Baymen made representations to Spain through Jamaica and Whitehall for indemnification. Indeed, they began even while still at Jamaica, where in 1782 they drew up “A List of the several Accounts of Loss, sustained by the British Settlers at the Capture of St. George’s Kay by the Spaniards the 15th Day of September 1779, Agreeable to the proceeding Accounts Examined . . . and Settled, by the Committee of the Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras Chosen and Appointed for that purpose at Kingston in the Island of Jamaica, the 13th day of September 1782 – Jamaica currency”. They then list the names, ninety-six in all, with the stipulated losses for each amounting altogether to £109,840.4.6.54 Receiving no response to their reparation claims, the Belizeans later sent another petition to Whitehall. This time they asked for the original sum of £109,840.4.6 but now with interest added from 15 September 1779 to 11 December 1783 at six percent, amounting to £27,947.9.2; the new claim totalled £137,787.13.8. This second petition carried with it a sarcastic ring, reminding the British minister, Lord Sydney, that by the terms of the Treaty of Paris the Baymen were under the special “protection” of Spain yet they were “surprised, Captivated and Robbed by His Catholic Majesty’s Officers . . . in the Bay of Honduras” of all their possessions.55 But, like their compensation demands after 1763, this was to prove equally unsuccessful. The Spanish monarch, Charles III, would have viewed such compensation as tantamount to making restitution to a burglar who had broken into his residence. Despite the treaties – from 1670 to the more recent one of 1763 – Spain remained steadfast in claiming proprietorship to the region. The result was that this power adopted a kind of hit-and-run, evasive policy in the area that could be characterized as guerrilla diplomacy, right up to the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Thus the Baymen were knocking their heads against the proverbial brick wall. They made numerous representations presenting their case through their “agent” in London, Robert White,56 among others, but despite White’s steady stream of shrill memorials, they received no attention. As the years passed, the British diplomatic protests to Spain on this issue became rather lukewarm, and it appears that the Baymen began to concentrate their efforts on the British government to indemnify them instead. This too was to prove to no avail. A terse note from Whitehall, dated 11 July 1789, informs the “agent” that His Majesty’s ministers do not think it “fit” to bring the matter of the Baymen’s compensation to the notice of Parliament, where-

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upon White expresses his grief that there is no redress for the poor “Sufferers” of 1779.57 The sum at this time was computed at £140,662.19.6¼. From all appearances the Baymen continued to complain and make representations – unsuccessfully – up to 1796, just before the final major Spanish military attack on Belize. At that time the Belizean magistrates observed that they had “never received any recompence for their losses in 1779 valued at £150,000 sterling”58 – not Jamaican currency, as with the other claims. The evacuation of Belize between 1779 and 1784 should certainly have strengthened Spain’s hand towards defeating the Miskito Indians on the Shore. Spain was further heartened by the British defeat at San Juan in 1780. Thus the jubilant Spaniards turned their attention to the Shore’s Black River, which they succeeded in capturing – but only under special circumstances and not for long, as we shall see below. The Black River attack was aimed particularly at what the commandant, M. Gálvez, called the “arrogant and insane schemes” of the British and the Miskitos. Gálvez was known for his uncompromising hatred of the Miskitos, and his rhetoric against them was even more heated at this time. In alliance with the British, the Miskitos had engaged in the most barefaced outrages against the Spaniards during this period of war. Yet despite grandiose schemes throughout most of the 1780s to destroy these “disobedient vassals” of Spain, to reduce “those Barbarians . . . to a state of extinction or prostration” so that they could never again rebel against Spain or give asylum to foreign enemies of the Crown, nothing was done against them. The fact is that no Spaniard was anxious to go against the Miskitos. And when Gálvez died suddenly, still preoccupied with the Anglo-Miskito situation, his successor, like Vázquez in the early 1750s, is said to have refused to attack the Shore, preferring instead to be transferred to another post.59 Spain soon discovered that entry into the American War of Independence against Britain would avail it nothing – much like its entry into the Seven Years’ War – so far as Central America was concerned. In fact, the situation in the region could well be considered to have solidified for the British, since American Loyalists were being encouraged to migrate to the Mosquito Shore and some had actually been recruited for the 1780 San Juan expedition. Even before the American war ended, Robert White was envisaging the Shore as a substitute for the Thirteen Colonies should they be lost to the British Empire. He therefore argued for full British occupation and development of the Shore

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with all its amenities, physical, economic and strategic. To him, “what is of the most enormous magnitude are the Miskito indians, who have for so many generations attached themselves to the Crown of Great Britain and its subjects. . . . They have never failed in their fidelity.”60 When it became clear that Britain was losing the war, Loyalist migration to the Shore was increasingly supported by prominent Americans such as Benjamin Franklin, with his connection to James Otway. The result was that quite a “large migration” of Loyalists (numbers not specified) was sent from South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida to the Shore.61 Spain could not view calmly the same views of some government newspapers in Jamaica, for instance when an editorial envisaged the Mosquito Shore as replacing England’s loss of the “13 colonies”. Possession of the place, the editorial opined, would extend England’s commerce, especially at a time when the Bourbons seemed determined to overpower Britain.62 Governor Archibald Campbell of Jamaica was also most supportive of the measure, pledging to assist Loyalist volunteers on the Shore, who would reinforce the troops stationed there and assist in enlisting the Miskitos for military action. He sent detailed instructions to Superintendent Lawrie suggesting the establishment of a stronger civil administration there, including the institution of a legislative council.63 Support for Loyalist settlement on the Shore came also from top officials at Whitehall. Lord Sydney, for example, showed a particular interest, and in his zeal he even authorized convicts to be sent there to assist the Loyalists in establishing themselves. British convicts were also recommended for Belize, but the Baymen objected violently and the authorization was withdrawn. As for the Shore, “a large number of convicts” was sent there.64 It must be noted that all these groups would soon end up in Belize. Spain realized that an impasse had been reached and there was nothing to it but to return to the diplomatic table; talks began with Britain even before the war ended. Just as Albemarle’s “feat” of capturing Havana in 1762 had strengthened Britain’s hand before the Paris Treaty in 1763, Rodney’s great naval victory at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782 also strengthened Britain’s hand at these talks. The outcome was the Treaty of Versailles, ratified on 3 September 1783 – again, ironically, without any mention of the Mosquito Shore, which had been a major factor in Spain’s entering the war. The Versailles Treaty addressed some of the issues affecting Belize but hardly any of those relating to the Shore. The important issue of boundaries

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for Belize, for instance, was now addressed for the first time. Spain had obviously discovered that the vagueness of language in the treaty of 1763 favoured the woodcutters, who were extending their timber activities without limitations. In this treaty, therefore, Spain insisted on well-delineated boundaries. Article 6 stipulates in part that Great Britain and Spain agree to prevent, as much as possible all the Causes of Complaint and Misunderstanding heretofore occasioned by the Cutting of Wood for Dying [sic], or Logwood; and several English Settlements having been formed and extended, under that Pretence, upon the Spanish [emphasis added] Continent; it is expressly agreed that His Britannick Majesty’s Subjects shall have the Right of cutting loading and carrying away Logwood, in the District lying between the Rivers Wallis or Bellize, and Rio Hondo.

In minute detail the treaty attempted to delineate the boundary lines without much knowledge of the geography of the place. All English settlers outside of these boundary lines were to retire to within the areas described, “in the Space of Eighteen Months” after ratification. As in 1763, fortifications erected at Belize were to be destroyed, no government should be established, and the settlers’ fishing rights were limited, “for their Subsistence” only, to the coasts of their stipulated districts or islands situated opposite these districts. They were not to “establish Themselves, in any manner, on the said Islands” – including St George’s Cay. It is no wonder that many felt Britain should have achieved a better outcome from the negotiations.65 The Baymen naturally resented this treaty, as it did not address most of the outstanding issues. There was no mention of compensation for their losses of 1763 and 1779; equally, nothing was said of their demands to Whitehall urging that they be allowed to cut not only logwood but also mahogany. Moreover, they resented the new limitations to their activities, which they understandably found restricting as they were already cutting wood, including mahogany, well beyond the new limits. Understandably too, they considered it inconceivable that they were expressly prohibited from settling any of the islands, thereby expelling them “from their only [emphasis added] principal Settlement on St. Georges Quay which for health Conveniency and Security, was to them far above all other Situations on the Coast”. They reminded Whitehall that the Spaniards had continued to attack them, to entice their slaves away and to rob them at pleasure of their fishing and turtling vessels. Again, as in 1743, 1747 and after 1763, they asked that an official system of

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government be established for Belize. Also as in 1763, they initiated another series of memorials and petitions to the British government, pointing out and asking for redress of the above grievances. The prolific Robert White was on hand to rewrite some of them and present them all to Whitehall.66 Spain and Britain’s diplomatic attention soon focused once more on the Shore, because Spain had again interpreted the recent treaty to mean evacuation of British settlers from there. So adamant was the Spanish king on this issue that he was quite prepared, almost fatalistically, to risk another war with Britain on the question; the Shoremen, for their part, were clamouring for colonial status under Britain. The diplomatic battle was fought between the Spanish ambassador to London, Don Bernardo del Campo, and Lord Carmarthen, the British secretary of state. “Whether by blood and fire or otherwise, we must see that not a single Englishman remain on the Spanish Continent . . . because even the doleful extreme of a war to obtain completely this object should be in truth the lesser evil than tolerating them there” was the view of Campo inspired by his monarch. He told Carmarthen that his king would rather risk “ten wars” than yield the point.67 The passionate diplomatic wranglings that ensued for the next three years over the Mosquito Shore – a place that is hardly recognizable today – must seem incomprehensible to the modern mind. Yet this issue thoroughly exercised the diplomacy of both Spain and Britain, with the French always in the background as Spain’s eminence grise. From around November 1784 – as if history were determined to repeat itself – we find another William Pitt of England, in this case the younger, as first minister, grappling with Belize and the Shore as his father had done. And here also we find him, with the approval of his cabinet, agreeing to negotiate evacuation of the Mosquito Shore, a place the British had relied on so considerably at least since the early 1630s. Why? The answer to this perplexing question is to be found in expediency, having more to do with European balance-of-power proclivities than with concern for Britain’s most consistently loyal and faithful allies in the region, the Miskito Indians. During the Seven Years’ War we saw how the fortunes of European warfare dictated outcomes for Belize and the Shore. Now we find the younger Pitt perceiving the Bourbons as even more threatening than during the days of his father. Matters became worse when, early in 1786, British statesmen watched anxiously as the Bourbon cousins, already locked in their traditional family pact, prepared to

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enter into a Franco-Dutch alliance as well. Britain felt encircled and feared that these alliances could decisively turn the tables against it. Pitt and his cabinet “were suddenly given the alternative of quickly resolving the Mosquito issue or of watching England’s European neighbours form an alliance directed against her”; Britain feared being transformed into a second-rate power. It was the situation in Europe, therefore, that again determined the question of the Shore. The Mosquito Convention was signed in London on 14 July 1786 and ratified in September of the same year; it included Britain’s incredible agreement to evacuate the Mosquito Shore. Spain was elated with the outcome. Not long before the chief Spanish diplomat on the case had pessimistically declared, “If we see the Mosquito Coast without a single Englishman, it will be truly God’s benediction.”68 Divine blessing or not, all British subjects now had to leave the Shore by March 1787 (later extended to 30 June). We must bear in mind that from the first decade of the eighteenth century the Spaniards had viewed this place as invincible, and that under Ensenada in the mid-1740s to early 1750s it had become the full-fledged Spanish policy to conquer Belize first, as the weaker of the two territories, before tackling the Shore. Now Spain has accomplished by diplomacy what it could not do militarily. For the first time since Columbus – and the papal donation of 1493 – Spain’s sovereignty over the Shore was being acknowledged. It would also appear that to this power, despite what the different treaties sanctioned, the evacuation of the Mosquito Shore was to be a prelude to what would happen in Belize. Spain had always felt quite capable of dealing with Belize on its own; witness the number of times the logwood cutters were driven away, only to find a safe haven on the Shore under the protection of their Miskito friends. Henceforward this refuge would be denied them, since the place and its people would be under Spanish “protection”. Belize was to Spain a mere ruderal of a settlement that had survived only because of its relationship with the Shore. In other words, no Mosquito Shore, no Belize. Spain was not averse to addressing most of the concerns of the Baymen under the Mosquito Convention – only, however, obsessively insisting on its sovereignty over Belize, which could not be compromised. Thus the Convention concedes that Belize’s boundaries are to be extended beyond those stipulated in the Versailles Treaty. This was “to prove . . . to the King of Great Britain, the Sincerity of his [Charles III’s] Sentiments of Friendship towards

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His said Majesty and the British Nation”.69 The “more extensive Limits”, when translated from the convoluted line-drawing language, meant that the woodcutters could now officially extend their activities southwards to the River Sibun and could therefore accommodate the evacuees from the Shore more comfortably. A peculiar feature of all these treaties is that the territory today called Belize is never given any clear name identification. In fact, the only place ever clearly named is Cay Casina, or St George’s Cay, in article 4 of the Mosquito Convention. In at least one of his numerous petitions to Whitehall, Robert White raises the question of an identifiable name for the settlement before ratification of the Versailles Treaty. He complains that “no District or Country where the Logwood-Cutters are” is mentioned and “humbly Submit[s] how necessary it may be to insert the Name of the Place which it is humbly Conceived must be on the Coast of Yucatan in the Bay of Honduras”70 – no less awkward or vague than the terms used in the different treaties. Article 3 of the Convention gives the Baymen “the Liberty of cutting all other Wood, without even excepting Mahogany”. The fact is, though, that the Baymen had already been cutting mahogany wood, and it is thought that by the early 1770s mahogany had surpassed logwood as the major article of export.71 Did the Spaniards know that the Baymen were so deeply involved in exporting mahogany? We may never know, but George Dyer, a wellconnected and influential merchant trading in Belize, later to be appointed the first official agent of the settlement, agreed that “from about 1771 mahogany almost entirely supplanted logwood as the principal article of export”. To get around this “illegal” act the Baymen would disguise the mahogany with an overlay of logwood.72 Now no more disguise would be necessary. To further demonstrate His Catholic Majesty’s “Disposition to oblige the King of Great Britain”, the settlers were also allowed to gather all the Fruits, or Produce of the Earth, purely natural and uncultivated, which may, besides being carried away in their natural State, become an Object of Utility or of Commerce, whether for Food or for Manufactures: But it is expressly agreed, that this Stipulation is never to be used as a Pretext for establishing in that Country any Plantation of Sugar, Coffee, Cacao, or other like Articles, or any Fabrick or Manufacture, by Means of Mills or other Machines whatsoever (this Restriction however does not regard the Use of Saw Mills, for cutting or otherwise preparing the Wood) since all the Lands in Question being indisputably acknowledged to belong of Right

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to the Crown of Spain, no Settlement of that Kind, or the Population which would follow, could be allowed.

Article 4 is somewhat ironic in that it “permits” the Baymen to occupy the small island known as “Casina, St. George’s Key or Cayo Casina” – their “principal” settlement. The article extends this “generosity” because of the dangerous coast opposite the cay. But here again, no fortifications or works of defence could be erected, nor should troops be posted there or any artillery be kept on the island. In order to verify these “indispensable Conditions”, a Spanish officer or commissary and a British counterpart, both duly authorized, should visit the island twice a year to examine the “real Situation of Things”. At the ratification two months later, an appendix was made to include the entire territory of Belize for such examinations, not just St George’s Cay. Other articles dealt with the Baymen’s right to certain ports for their merchant ships, but of course no ship of war would be permitted at Belize. Their fishing rights were extended only to the new lands granted under the Convention. Again they were not to form any “extensive settlements” or establish any system of government, military or civil, other than such regulations as both Britain and Spain “may hereafter judge proper to establish, for maintaining Peace and good Order amongst their respective Subjects”. Article 8 says in part that, should the British run short of logwood or mahogany, the Spanish government will allow its neighbouring territories containing those woods to supply them to the English “at a fair and reasonable price”; the Spaniards never forgot the early days when they had a monopoly of the logwood trade. One of the most interesting terms of the Convention is contained in article 14, which deals specifically with the Miskitos. It clearly reflects the deep anxiety felt by Minister Pitt and his cabinet during the negotiations leading up to the Convention; they were worried about the outrage it would create among the British public should the Miskito Indians, Britain’s faithful allies, be completely abandoned to the Spaniards. One of the officials connected with the difficult negotiations expressed his nervousness about abandoning their “traditional alliance with the Mosquito Indians”. He thought it would raise such a clamour as to be fatal to the minister who consented to it. So agonized were the British diplomats over this issue that they even tried to discredit the Miskitos. They searched diligently for evidence suggesting that the Miskitos had

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tried to align themselves with the Spaniards during the recent war, which would prove that they had been insincere in all their professions of friendship to the British. The top diplomat, Carmarthen himself, opined that such a piece of evidence would be “of great service in the course of this business”. The search, of course, was unsuccessful73 and the British could not hold up the negotiations any longer. The article therefore stipulates that “His Catholic Majesty, prompted solely by Motives of Humanity, promises to the King of England, that he will not exercise any Act of Severity against the Mosquitos, inhabiting in Part the Countries which are to be evacuated, . . . on Account of the Connections which may have subsisted between the said Indians and the English”. In return, Britain would “strictly prohibit its Subjects from furnishing Arms, or Warlike Stores, to the Indians in general, situated upon the Frontiers of the Spanish Possessions”. A most important point about the Convention is that it represents the first time that the Mosquito Shore was specified as a territory under an international treaty and the Miskito Indians were recognized as a people. The Convention gave the Shore its own official identity, even to the extent of its being referred to as the Mosquito Convention. However, it was an identity that the Miskitos had always claimed. The irony is that this identity, official or not, could well have been more profoundly denied them when Britain fobbed them off onto their traditional enemies, who had been openly declaring their intention to exterminate them. Spain’s promise not to “exercise any Act of Severity against the Mosquitos” was sheer farce, for even as the Convention was being signed the Spaniards were actively planning to be rid of the Indians completely. We shall see how successful they were. As it turned out, again the Spaniards had miscalculated in thinking that evacuation of the English settlers from the Shore would prefigure doom for the Miskitos. It is a fallacy also held by some modern historians that the British protected the Miskitos. Nothing is more fanciful than Luke’s assertion that “for nearly 200 years England had an honourable record as the protector of the Mosquito Indians”.74 Indeed it was the Miskitos, as we have shown throughout this study, who protected the English. Like Sorsby, Troy Floyd also understands this relationship. He points out that the Englishmen at the Shore and the Bay were hopelessly outnumbered by surrounding hostile Spaniards but their security depended not on numbers; “rather they relied upon the Sambo-Miskito alliance, on swift flight in schooners steered through

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the shoal waters by pilots familiar with reefs and cays, and ultimately on British naval supremacy in the Caribbean”.75 However, even Floyd has not grasped the situation completely. British naval supremacy did not solidify until after the Seven Years’ War, but never once did Britain go to the rescue of the Miskitos. We have already noted how, long before this “supremacy”, the Miskitos single-handedly forestalled a Spanish attack against them in 1709, and the nature of the defeat was so deadly that it served as a constant deterrent against other attacks. Subsequently we shall see the Miskitos, again on their own, once more driving the Spaniards from the Shore. A brief backward glance will show, as hinted above, that when in 1780 the Spaniards succeeded in occupying Black River for the first time (and only for five months), it was precisely because the Miskitos refused to fight. This rare refusal was directly related to the bad treatment they said they had received from the imperious Colonel John Polson during the ill-fated San Juan expedition. They again refused to fight when the British attempted to retake Black River from the Spaniards. The English settlers, some four hundred of them, were commanded by one Philip Bode; after a short exchange of gunfire the settlers “fled in all directions – into the woods”. This shocked the energetic and patriotic Governor Dalling at Jamaica, who was appalled by the Shoremen’s “cowardice”; they had abandoned their principles, and by “their pusillanimous behaviour they hardly merit our compassion”. An eyewitness noted that even the slaves of the settlers were ashamed of them.76 According to two Shoremen who were captured during this battle, some of the Spanish forces displayed the same kind of cowardice as the Shoremen who fled. They refused to proceed “to the Town of Black River, being afraid of the Misquito Indians, of whom they entertain the most dreadful ideas”.77 It worried British officials that Black River was for the first time in the hands of the Spaniards. Hard on this defeat came the French threat, and it was only after Rodney’s victory of 1782 that the Jamaican governor could turn his attention to the Shore. General Archibald Campbell, who succeeded Dalling (who had been recalled in disgrace after the San Juan debacle) was particularly troubled by the “distressed and precarious situation of those settlers” who had fled to Cape Gracias a Dios. Not only did this give him “infinite anxiety” but, even more important, the loss of the Shore would “end the traditional alliance with the Indians”, as it would also end a great deal of trade. His remedy was to ask Rodney to patrol the coast and to send an expeditionary

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force to retake Black River, now renamed by the Spaniards “Conceptión de Honduras”. The commander of the operation to retake Black River went to Edward Marcus Despard, soon to be the first superintendent of Belize. Despard knew the region well and understood, unlike Polson, the importance of the Miskitos in warfare, even if their fighting habits did not always conform to traditional British military discipline. He commanded a mixed force consisting of about five hundred blacks and Shoremen – in what proportion is unclear, but these blacks were mostly “free” – and some eighty American Loyalists, but the Miskitos, with six hundred warriors, were in the majority. Despard arranged to have a force of Miskitos, commanded by the Zambo-Miskito “general” John Smith, first attack Fort Dalling at Black River, which was garrisoned by only thirty-three soldiers. They were all massacred, with the exception of one who was spared to report the disaster to the Spanish commander at the main port – reminiscent of what had occurred in 1709. “Fear and horror swept over the Spanish garrison, which extended by report across Central America and chilled ardor for additional campaigns.” With his trump card in hand, Despard and his fleet showed up with the Miskitos much in evidence and finessed a surrender from the Spaniards without firing another shot. He first asked the commandant to surrender peacefully, and when he refused and vowed to fight to the finish, Despard sent another message. He warned – in the tradition of British officials in the region, the latest being Dalrymple at Omoa – that he could not control the blacks and the angry Miskito warriors much longer and would not be responsible for their actions if surrender did not take place immediately. This had the usual desired effect because the commandant knew only too well that it was no idle threat. “Once more”, says Floyd, “the old Anglo-Sambo alliance was to prove its worth”. The officer surrendered with some 742 soldiers, and twenty-seven officers were taken prisoners.79 The British settlers who had fled the town were jubilant; they could now return to their habitations. Despard, as we shall see, became an immediate hero, not only to the Bay and the Shore but also to Jamaica and Whitehall. Nonetheless, Conner has given Despard’s victory at Black River an interpretation that is not clear: “There is no Statue to Despard in Belize today, but without his victory at Black River in 1782 the country would never have come into existence. The territory would have been incorporated into Guatemala.”80

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But even if this reasoning can be sustained, it was the Miskitos – as Conner himself acknowledges – who made the success possible, just as their non-participation in the earlier Spanish attack and Philip Bode’s response gave victory to the Spaniards. In any event, it would have been just a matter of time before the Miskitos chased the Spaniards from their Shore – as they were to do again. To be sure, Despard, who had the Miskitos’ confidence, must be credited for using them effectively to gain victory at an important moment. But this victory in fact helps bolster the thesis of this work that, without the Miskitos, Belize would not have survived as a British territory, at least up to 1798. Despard knew about not only the fighting skills of the Miskitos but also the fear they generated in the Spaniards. Indeed, soon he was boasting that the Miskitos in alliance with the San Blas Indians would be able “to resist all the power of Spain”.81 What did the Miskito Indians think of the Convention in which Britain agreed to evacuate the Shore? There is no known written record of this but everything suggests that they were deeply disappointed,82 although unbelievably remaining unflinchingly loyal to perfidious Albion. The Miskito leaders merely bided their time waiting for a propitious moment when they could – and did – chase the Spaniards from the Shore again, without any help from the British. In taking possession of the Shore under the Convention’s agreement, the Spanish governor, fully conversant with the failed attempts to exterminate the Miskitos, chose instead discretion and conciliation as the official policy towards them. He was determined to adopt the safer method of diplomacy and indoctrination through Catholic missions and “education”. In addition, cajolery, gifts and every type of flattery were utilized. It is said that he even asked the advice of certain Englishmen in the region on how best to gain the friendship and loyalty of the Miskitos, who were so attached to the British. Among them he consulted two former superintendents, Lawrie and Hodgson Junior, but the details of their advice have not been made public.83 The Spaniards concentrated all their efforts on individual Miskito leaders. Perhaps any other European power might have succeeded with them, since there appears to have been a great deal of rivalry and disunity among their leaders at this particular time. But their distrust of the Spaniards was too ingrained for this power to gain their loyalty. Meanwhile, the situation at the Bay was becoming very complex indeed. The large influx from the Shore was creating a new dynamic, even in a settlement so accustomed to accommodating newcomers.

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 8

The Mosquito Shore Settlers in Belize The Establishment of Civil Government

Shore settlers to Belize, surprisingly, went relatively smoothly – that is, in terms of the actual physical removal. For there would be problems ahead, not only those inherent in any large-scale dislocation but also some that resulted from policies of the host country. The official report has it that the process was completed within the year – by July 1787 – as stipulated in the Convention.1 Some settlers arrived at the Bay as early as February and others throughout March to July; a few trickled in later and a few, indeed, stayed behind. Spanish policy decreed that anyone who took an oath of loyalty to Spain could remain, and among those who remained was Robert Hodgson, Junior.2 Altogether the evacuees were computed at 2,650. Of these 2,214 (537 whites and free people of colour and 1,677 slaves) went to Belize; they included the American Loyalists. The rest went variously to Jamaica (100 in all), the United States (some 120, possibly including some of the Loyalists), the Bahamas (69), Grand Cayman (59) and Britain (8); a handful went elsewhere, while 46 slaves deserted during the evacuation.3 One source counts the American Loyalists as numbering 66, with 143 slaves.4 How many Baymen were there to become hosts to the newcomers, and how did they receive them? It is rather difficult to arrive at precise figures because of the fluctuating nature of early Belizean demographics. Dalrymple’s 1779 computation gives the population as 3,500 altogether (500 whites and THE EVACUATION OF THE

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3,000 slaves, with no mention of free people of colour). Eight years later, reports repeatedly indicate that the newcomers outnumbered the Baymen by four or five to one.5 When asked for the Baymen’s population before the influx of new settlers, the first superintendent of Belize said he had “no exact account” of their numbers, but according to the “best judgement I am able to form” there were “about” seven hundred of all types, meaning slaves, whites and free people of colour.6 This does not seem a realistic assessment, yet this figure has been repeated by other sources. In truth, apart from the absence of any scientific census-taking, the demographic imprecision of the Belize settlement was also the result of the constant shifting of the population. This was caused by a conjunction of factors, including the fact that many were mere transients with no clear commitment to settling down for any length of time. Others were engaged in occupations which removed them from the settlement for long periods at a time, rendering them unavailable for most computations. Among these were fishermen and turtlers; the latter particularly were wont to be away for months on end. Others were seamen, some of whom may still have been engaged in part-time marine predation. Furthermore, that the Baymen were now engaged in the mahogany industry meant that their settlement patterns became even more dispersed, thus adding to the problems of census taking. In any event, even if the figures are underrepresented, it is clear that the Baymen were heavily outnumbered, as they had been when they received the settlers from Campeche. Now they had to absorb nearly three thousand persons into their community. With such inflated numbers it became necessary that some form of official government be instituted, at least of the kind that had existed on the Shore before evacuation. The problem, though, was that the treaties of both Paris and Versailles had forbidden establishment of any system of government in Belize. However, the Convention of 1786 had hinted at some kind of structure under article 7, as quoted in the previous chapter. Even before the Convention was signed, Britain – under pressure from the Bay, from merchants in London involved in the timber business at Belize and from their “agent” in London – had appointed the settlement’s first superintendent, Colonel Marcus Edward Despard, in 1784, some thirty-five years after a similar appointment was first made for the Shore. Despard, however, did not take up his position until 1786. It must be made clear that the appointment was full of ambiguities. Even

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the name of the place Despard was supposed to govern was imprecise. He was appointed “Superintendent of His Majesty’s Affairs, within the District which, by the late Treaty of Peace, has been allotted to the Logwood-Cutters upon the Coast of Honduras”, with a salary of £500 a year.7 He was on his own: he had neither a council nor any other body to advise him, and no official staff to assist him, not even a secretary (although he soon appointed one, James Bannantine, who was to become his biographer). Indeed Despard was not even provided a house, not to mention an official residence, nor was he supplied with any means of transportation – which would mean a canoe or a boat, since riverine transportation was then almost the only mode of travel in Belize. It was, therefore, a more minimalist government than that which had operated on the Shore, where the superintendent had an official council. The most that can be said of the Belize situation is that it adds to the “haphazard complexity” and the rich collection of “constitutional situations and devices . . . to be found in the British Empire”.8 It must also be pointed out that Despard’s title did not include the position of commander-in-chief, because this British official had been sent to govern not only a territory without an identifiable name but also one over which Spain claimed absolute sovereignty, and by the terms of the treaties, the settlement could not have either a government or a defence system. Colonel Edward Marcus Despard was a most complex character for whom no simple biographic sketch could do justice. However, this work deals only with his career in the region and is not intended to be a full-fledged study. To begin with, he has the dubious distinction of being the only superintendent of Belize to be publicly executed for high treason.9 Despard was born “in 1750 or 1751” – or, more precisely, on March 6, 1751 – of a “very ancient and respectable family in the Queen’s County, Ireland”. He was the youngest of six brothers, all of whom served in the army or navy except the eldest, who took care of the family estate. At the time of his appointment, Despard was well acquainted with the region, having served at Jamaica with the Fiftieth Regiment, where he received his lieutenancy in 1772.10 Indeed, Oman observes, “There can have been few British officers who did such a continuous term of service in the Caribbean Sea as Edward Despard for between 1772 and 1790 he seems to have been in England only for one visit.”11 One of Despard’s most memorable engagements, fighting side by side with the young Horatio Nelson, was in what Oman calls the “absolutely insane

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San Juan raid”12 by the British in 1780. Although appointed by Governor Dalling as chief engineer of the expedition, Despard nevertheless distinguished himself as a valiant soldier, and he and Nelson received great acclaim for their courage. This gained him the respect not only of Nelson, who later intervened on his behalf during his trial, but also of the Jamaican authorities, who already held him in high regard for his work as an engineer assisting in the construction of public works on the island.13 Despard’s outstanding military service gained him a captaincy in the Seventy-ninth Regiment, but it was his 1781 appointment that became precursor to his superintendency of Belize. In that year Dalling appointed Despard to the responsible and sensitive post of commander-in-chief of the island of Roatan, with the rank of lieutenant colonel and field engineer. This was his first gubernatorial appointment, and although his tenure was short, he overwhelmingly gained the confidence of the British settlers there, some of whom were from Belize and the Shore. This was demonstrated when he was asked to be commandant of the Black River operation in 1782, described above. At the time Despard was actually visiting the Shore on leave of absence from Jamaica “on his private affairs”. He was promptly presented with an address from Superintendent Lawrie and the British settlers, requesting him to become their commandant against the Spaniards. This was because the Shoremen – including the Miskitos – were at irrevocable odds with the designated commandant, Robert Hodgson, Junior, who had managed to offend just about everyone on the Shore. Their confidence was well rewarded by Despard’s successful reconquest of Black River, in which, as we have seen, he made critical strategic and operational use of the Miskitos. After this victory Despard could do no wrong – never mind the dubious legality of his action, which was unsanctioned by either Jamaica or Whitehall.14 His success at a very difficult juncture for the British appears to have absolved him from any imperial charges of impropriety. On the contrary, he received the highest approbation from authorities in the Bay triangle and was promptly promoted to the rank of colonel by Governor Campbell at Jamaica. Even Whitehall was jubilant. Lord Sydney, secretary of state for the Home Department, wrote to Campbell, “His Majesty has received the highest satisfaction at the account you have given of the success . . . under the conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Despard, by the total defeat of the enemy, and effectually releasing His Majesty’s subjects who resided in those settlements, from the

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distresses to which they have been lately exposed, and re-establishing them in the peaceable possession of their estates and property”. Sydney further states that he has the king’s command to signify “in the most honourable manner, his royal approbation of the judicious conduct and gallant services of Lieutenant-Colonel Despard”.15 In presenting petitions and memorials from the settlers clamouring for Despard to be made superintendent of the Bay, Governor Campbell told Whitehall that Despard’s merits were “so well known to me that I have much satisfaction in supporting the Recommendation of these Settlers to Your Lordship in his behalf”.16 This brief background on Despard’s activities in the region should help us understand why the Baymen and the Shoremen, now amalgamated in Belize, pressed so hard for him to be made their first superintendent. They saw him not only as a man of courage from a military perspective but also as one most loyal to their cause; he was, indeed, viewed as “one of them”. They also remembered that they had seen Despard in a civil position before, as governor/ commandant at Roatan, albeit for a short time. In that capacity they had experienced in him “that thirst of knowledge, attention to their true interests, and mildness of government, which has, in a very particular manner, endeared him to all who were so fortunate as to be under his command, and from these considerations, they humbly conceive him to be of all men the fittest to preside over them”.17 Yet from the very beginning of his administration, Despard developed serious problems with the Bay inhabitants. They soon began to accuse him of the very opposite of that which had made them desire him as their leader. An early and central bone of contention was what the Baymen saw as Despard’s subservience to the Spaniards and his high-handed and autocratic behaviour towards them. Most of the Spanish commissaries deputed to inspect the settlement under the 1786 Convention, for instance, were soon applying their own interpretation of the term plantation. The result was that when they came upon the settlers’ provision grounds, where they grew noncommercial crops for subsistence – potatoes, Indian corn, beans, cassava and other “garden stuff” – some officials would summarily destroy the crops in what appeared a rather mindless manner, and apparently without any strong objection from Despard. To be sure he did write to Whitehall and Jamaica about this practice, but he seems more critical of the Baymen than of the Spaniards. He admits that some of the officers behaved “extremely strict” in the execution of their duties and explains that the destruction of crops burdens

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mostly the poorer settlers, who have no slaves to cut wood and are therefore unable to buy provisions, which are very expensive at the Bay. His remedy is to send to Jamaica for more provisions for them, and he even suggests that some of the new Shore settlers be sent away to the Bahamas – all without a word of censure regarding the actions of the Spanish commissaries. His condemnation is reserved for the Baymen, particularly the magistrates, blaming their “repeated and flagrant acts of infraction of almost every part” of the treaty of 1783 and the Convention of 1786.18 The Baymen, accustomed as they were to a free hand in cutting wood, were certainly not being unduly careful about the recent boundary stipulations. Indeed, Despard reports in his 4 April dispatch quoted above that “within two days” of his publishing the Convention with Lord Sydney’s accompanying letter, the settlers had violated its terms by cutting wood outside the boundary limits. And this had not been done by stealth; later they openly acknowledged cutting wood beyond the limits and boasted that it was a fact well-known to His Majesty’s ministers in London, since the settlers themselves had supplied the information through their connections in that city. When Despard allowed the Spanish officers to seize their wood, often in large quantities and often with Despard himself in attendance, the Baymen were outraged. It brought out all their old independent tendencies, which increased as the Spaniards made more and more demands on their livelihood. Some of these officials did not confine themselves to the destruction of “plantations” but would also burn down huts, confiscate cattle and food, interfere with fishing and turtling activities and, above all, inveigle away slaves.19 Despard’s response to what the Baymen viewed as oppressive and unwarrantable behaviour on the part of the Spanish officials exacerbated the situation. He actually requested Spanish troops, in cooperation with the commissionaries, to dispossess Baymen who were cutting wood “illegally”. In some cases the troops even remained on the scene for a while, so it is no wonder that the Baymen saw this as tantamount to a Spanish military occupation. Despard even threatened them with charges of treason and forfeiture of His Majesty’s protection should they continue to cut wood outside the limits.20 Indeed Despard’s actions do not appear particularly sensitive to the Baymen’s concerns. As we have seen, he was no stranger to the region and had intimate knowledge of the sensitive relationship between the British settlers and the Spaniards with whom he himself had battled. For him to request

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Spanish troops from Bacalar to dispossess Baymen cutting wood outside official limits would seem, therefore, an egregious error. Yet it seems necessary to gain an understanding of Despard’s situation. To begin with, he was under tremendous pressure from many different directions. Most of the Spanish officials had a secret agenda: to thwart the Baymen in every possible way so that eventually they would leave the region altogether, which explains the unreasonable demands being made of them. To complicate matters still further, Despard soon found that some of these officials were trying to undermine his authority as superintendent of a place they considered Spanish territory. One of the ways in which the Spaniards subverted Despard was to allocate extra plots of land to settlers “without my sanction, as his Majesty’s Representative in this Country”, he reported.21 It can certainly be assumed that “fees” were exchanged in these transactions. In fact, it was by this means that the Baymen could so easily engage in cutting even mahogany long before it was sanctioned by Spain. Some Spanish officials were said to exact seven dollars per stump for every tree cut outside the limits; this “fee” would encourage them to relax their duties and turn a blind eye to the “trespasses”.22 This had been the case since the very early days and was how the British had extended their logwood-cutting business up the Hondo River. Joseph Maud explained to Lieutenant Cook that, going up the Rio Hondo, the Baymen would keep the guards at the Spanish river lookouts “on good terms” by giving them “presents”, and soon they would be told where to find “a good spot of logwood”. Maud, as noted above, would routinely compute these “bribes”, as he readily called them, into his cost statements. Often the bribes would consist of intoxicants, making the Spanish guard so “very drunk”, Maud reported, “that . . . had he discovered a mine as rich as Potosi, he would have made no scruple of informing him of it”.23 Perhaps the single most important factor that influenced Despard’s behaviour was the specific nature of his directives from Whitehall as to his relations with Spain. From the time of his appointment and throughout the period of Lord Sydney’s stint in office, the superintendent was repeatedly instructed that the Baymen must be made to understand that His Majesty would in no way tolerate infractions of the recent treaties and Convention, and Despard himself was expected to oversee the stipulations “most rigidly”. Should the settlers act “in contradiction to the spirit and intention” of the Convention, the punishment to be meted out would be to “forfeit every claim to His Royal

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Protection and Support” – which demonstrates, as noted earlier, the grudging nature of this protection. Repeatedly too, Despard was told that he himself must observe a “good understanding with Spain”.24 The Baymen were quite openly cutting mahogany outside the stipulated limits, and Despard, the engineer and soldier with his trained habits of obedience, expected that orders should be carried out. He quite sincerely saw himself as merely being faithful to his instructions, at times using language to the Baymen that was redolent of imperial command. Another vexing question for the Baymen centred on a land-distribution policy to facilitate the newcomers from the Shore; this concern gives us some insight into how they viewed the recently arrived settlers. The new lands “granted” to Britain by Spain under the Convention extended southward from the Belize River to the Sibun River “up to its source”, which was not then known but discovered later. In attempting to arrive at the most equitable and impartial means of distribution, Despard employed a lottery system through which the new settlers could obtain their plots of land without reference to race, colour or class; the new settlement was to be called Convention Town, for obvious reasons. To this end, Despard appointed a trained surveyor, David Lamb – the first official land surveyor of Belize. Lamb was no stranger to Despard, having worked with him at Jamaica and served as his assistant engineer on the San Juan expedition in 1780. Lamb’s first assignment was to lay out town lots measuring 100 feet by 50 feet on the “new” lands at the southern point of the Belize River. This was made known to the new settlers by what Despard peculiarly called an “Advertisement”;25 he declared that he would not dignify these directives with the usual term proclamation. Responding to his advertisement, “upwards of 100 heads of families” from the Shore soon signed on and received their lots, as well as mahogany plots with which they were obviously very pleased. It appears that most of these new landowners were of the middling sort, with just a few from the poorer classes, altogether consisting of whites, free blacks and mulattos (people of colour). In a petition, eightytwo of them thanked Despard for the lands. They were grateful to him for his particular attention in securing them lots for houses and for his “impartial” manner of distribution. They were convinced that under Despard’s “just and impartial Superintendence, we shall in a short time be able to get the better of our losses and misfortunes in being obliged to quit a Country in which we were comfortably settled”.26

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But not all of the evacuees were satisfied. Some were characterized as very poor – quite possibly most of the regular merooners, unaccustomed as they were to an orderly manner of living. Former superintendent of the Shore James Lawrie, who himself was evacuated, saw much distress among them generally, stating that “five sixth of them were indigent”.27 How he arrived at this fraction is unclear, but it should be valued as the estimate of an eyewitness who was in a very good position to know their situation. These were the ones who would most need the extra provisions to tide them over that Lawrie had requested. Some remained unsettled and even asked to be sent back to the Mosquito Shore, where they could continue to live in harmony with the Miskito Indians; others, probably alarmed by the attitude of the old Bay settlers, wanted to return to the “Old Country”. A few remained dissatisfied at least up to 1793, when fourteen of them complained of not being able to support themselves by cutting wood or growing provisions, nor did they “wish to be half British Subjects as we are at present”.28 But eventually most of the newcomers seemed to settle down quite nicely. The attitude of the old Bay settlers to Despard’s mode of distributing the new lands was immediately hostile, rancorous and determined. In the first place they resented the fact that he did not allocate any of the new lands to the original settlers. From this point on Despard had no peace from the old Baymen who saw themselves as the “Principal Inhabitants”. Intriguingly, a relatively small number of the new settlers soon became co-opted by the Bay oligarchy. It was a matter of class convergence, for these few settlers were among the wealthiest from the Shore, and some wielded much influence. The Bay oligarchy was proud of their new addition, seeing those who “incorporated themselves with the Old Bay Settlers” to be “possessed either of Character; sense or property”.29 Prominent among them – the leaders – were Aaron Young, James and William Usher, and to a lesser extent James D. Yarborough, who was soon to give his name to a burial ground in Belize City. Of this Shore elite, Aaron Young, a self-confident, disputatious former chief justice and allegedly the richest among them, would play a substantial part in the postevacuation politics of Belize. The oligarchy also attacked Despard’s land-distribution policy on constitutional grounds: that he had no authority to distribute the new lands to Shore settlers without consulting the inhabitants of the Bay, who had always been considered the best judges of their own affairs. The inhabitants were tradi-

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tionally governed by their own “Laws and Regulations [and] the interference of any Individual in the internal regulations is therefore subversive of the Establishment and an Infringement of the people’s rights”.30 Perceiving a crisis situation, the magistrates convened a special Public Meeting to discuss the matter further. The result was the formation of a “committee of 13” that was soon incorporated with the Committee of Correspondence. The stated goal of the committee was to restate the old rules and regulations and make revisions and amendments where necessary, for they were determined to maintain their position by which the “Inhabitants of this country and they alone, have power to make laws for its Government”.31 The newly formed committee was to become the centre of power in early Belize; two members of the Shore elite, Aaron Young and James Usher, “were duly elected” by ballot,32 while the rest were all prominent old Baymen. By the following day the committee of thirteen had submitted the famous twenty-two resolutions that revised the old “Laws and Regulations” and ascertained boundaries of works (mahogany plots) and the number of lots for domestic houses that each settler was entitled to. In fact the resolutions touched on practically every aspect of the settlement. These were then “democratically” presented to the inhabitants for their consideration at a Public Meeting, and after a few minor amendments they were all approved.33 The point was to demonstrate to all concerned – particularly Despard – that it was the inhabitants who governed there. Despard might well have felt himself redundant had he not been so certain that the inhabitants’ behaviour was “an absolute infraction of the Treaties” and the Convention and that he was merely following Whitehall’s instructions. Enclosing the resolutions to Sydney, he mentions that in order to “force obedience” to them the inhabitants sent around the clerk of the court with a copy to be signed by everyone, but with particular emphasis on the newcomers. Despard says that they “intimidated many people so far as to make them subscribe [to] these Laws, by threats that no person who should refuse to do so should have any benefits in the community; that they should have no redress for injuries; and that no person should either sell them necessaries or purchase any article from them and have even gone so far as to threaten to banish them from the Country”. It is no wonder, therefore, that some people from the Shore complained of being “half-British subjects”. Despard then repeats his complaints about Baymen cutting wood outside the stipulated lim-

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its, supporting the Spanish officials in their objections to such infractions and their resulting seizure of “a very large quantity of Mahogany” from these uncooperative settlers.34 For the time being, Despard could take comfort from the fact that Sydney supported him; he could thus defend his allocating of the extended lands to the evacuees on the grounds that he had the authority from his superiors. Yet there is no evidence that any official, from Whitehall or Jamaica, had suggested to him the lottery system of land distribution. Sydney’s instructions became clear and unambiguous only after Despard’s actions, although Despard may have been advised to use the system in his general instructions when he was appointed. When Sydney gave approval to Despard’s land policy, he did not mention the word lottery. He had insisted that the new settlers who had been obliged to relinquish their possessions “ought first to be attended to” in the disposal of the new lands, as consideration for the settlements they had lost in the process of removal: they “are to be accommodated with Lands in the additional Districts, in preference to all other Persons whatsoever”. The next group for consideration was meant to be the American Loyalists and their families;35 it should be remembered that Sydney had vigorously encouraged their removal to the Shore. How did the Shore settlers respond to the resolutions of the committee of thirteen, many of which were hostile to them? Apart from the few who had been co-opted by the Principal Inhabitants, they found them most disturbing. So they sent petitions to Despard, who was seen as their sole protector in the settlement. “[F]eeling themselves overburthened with oppression, and left in a most distressing situation”, they deputed three from their group – Robert English, Samuel Harrison and Abraham (?) Bull – to represent the nature of their grievances. They first declare their loyalty to His Majesty’s orders and express their concern not to contravene the articles of the Convention; by the same token they had expected to be put in possession of the extended territory, receiving town lots as well as tracts of land on which to cut mahogany and logwood – “the only means by which we may be enabled to support ourselves and families”. But as soon as this was made known, a combination hath been formed against us by the former English Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras and some few people from the Mosquito Shore, who raising themselves into a kind of Legislative body, form laws and regulations, and make Magistrates to enforce these laws and endeavour to cause every Individual of the

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Community to sign those Laws, by which they disavow all power or authority of the King in this Country, and acknowledge none but what these Magistrates are invested with.

The Shore settlers then voice concern about a critical social dimension of the new laws and regulations: they see them as “partial and in favor of one sett of people, and palpably calculated to enslave another, we openly gave such opinion of them and absolutely refused to sign them”. Thus they were threatened by the Principal Inhabitants that they would be regarded as being divested of the rights and privileges of British subjects and were outside the protection of the magistrates; therefore “whatever injury may be done us we could not expect redress”. They repeat the other threats made against them – included in Despard’s letter to Sydney above – making it even more explicit here that they have been told they “must either conform or leave the country”. These newcomers, alarmed by these “unjust oppressive and Tyrannical” measures against them, ask for relief and protection from His Majesty’s government in this country, or “if it shall be his pleasure to remove us to some other place where we may be at liberty to earn our bread and support our families”. The situation seems so dangerous to them that they hope they will not be driven “to take up arms in our defense, which we assure you we shall not do but in the last extremity”.36 It appears that among the whites from the Shore, the American Loyalists, especially the poorest ones, were the victims of even more difficult treatment. Despard writes that some “poor and distressed Loyalists” have been prevented from getting “places of abode” by the arbitrary and partial behaviour of the magistrates.37 Indeed, the last of the twenty-two resolutions can be seen as particularly aimed at them; it unanimously resolved “that no foreigner, who is not deemed a denizen, shall in future, directly or indirectly, hold any mahogany or logwood works in this Settlement”.38 And, of course, those from the Shore who did not put their signatures to the resolutions could be divested of their British citizenship and become such “foreigners”, according to the logic of the committee. As the above petition shows, even the hundred families who had thought they now possessed new lots soon found that the old Bay settlers were claiming every spot, including the extended lands where mahogany was to be found “under various pretences”. “Some of us have looked but found every place claimed, some of us have cut wood, our Negroes have been turned away and

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ordered to cut no more, some of the Mahogany we have cut hath been attached as the property of old Baymen.”39 This aggressive approach was based on the reasoning that, because these old Baymen had been cutting and therefore claiming mahogany walks long before the convention of 1786, they considered themselves completely outside any new arrangements made by Despard. They were therefore determined to maintain their walks and to continue cutting mahogany anywhere they wanted. Threats were being made against “such as dared to possess lotts under my authority”, Despard complains in exasperation, having “flattered myself that I had secured habitations for most of the poor people from the Mosquito Shore”.40 Even his designated surveyor, David Lamb, who was laying out lots in the new territory, was chased away by a handful of old Baymen who declared that they owned the lands. And worse, they also declared that they held several lots with the “Consent and Permission” of the Spanish commissary, and they were determined to defend their lots with “the last drop of their blood”.41 It is significant that a few free people of colour, eight in all, sent a separate petition to Despard to register their complaints against the same “laws”. This is important because it attests to the fact that they were progressively more discriminated against than any of the other groups from the Shore. These eight men – Richard Tonoston, John Allun, John Neal, Thomas Whitehead, Charles Jeffrey, George Crawford, David Davies and Joshua Jones – had also signed the first Shore petition thanking Despard for the lots they thought they now possessed. It is clear that they were also part of the second petition, complaining of the old Baymen’s actions against them; since it was written by the three deputized men, their names and numbers are not identified. The eight “colour’d persons” complain that the “many circumstances” they are currently undergoing make them feel that it will be impossible for them “to procure a livelihood in this country”, particularly as they are not allowed the privileges of British subjects. As a group they are being treated “with the utmost disrespect” and have been threatened with deprivation of the privileges of their new country if they do not sign the resolutions made by the special committee. They think all this contrary to the proposals of Superintendent Despard and “to any British constitution whatever”, and therefore hope for redress from Despard for these difficulties, as well as other grievances they will verbally express to him.42 Among the latter grievances were those experienced on the day-to-day personal level – those always calculated to humiliate the

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recipients. Despard reports to Sydney that apart from the general hardships, the people of colour are suffering from the “partiality” of the laws; they “were also so grossly abused by persons in the Character of Magistrates as even to have common walking sticks forcibly taken out of their hands and thrown into the river when they were walking peaceably along the Streets”. Despard’s redress was to warn the magistrates of the likely consequences of their actions should the free people decide to take matters into their own hands; the magistrates should remember that they were outnumbered nearly three to one.43 Whether or not these warnings had the desired results is unclear, but what is certain is that there was no cessation of hostile laws against the free coloureds – laws designed to deny them economic livelihood and even their nationality. The case of Joshua Jones, a free coloured man and one of the signatories of the above petitions, demonstrates the extent of the elites’ recalcitrance regarding Despard’s land policy, as well as the bifurcated nature of Belize’s society at this time. Jones can be seen as part of a new proletariat class consisting of free people of colour and the poorer classes of whites, the bulk of whom came from the Shore. Under Despard’s land policy, which facilitated this class, Jones had drawn lot number 69. However, he was soon informed that Mr Aaron Young, of the committee of thirteen and now a magistrate also, would not allow him to take possession of the plot because Young considered himself the owner of it. Young’s strategy matched what others of his ilk were doing. They would hastily build some structures on land adjacent to their or their friends’ old walks, thus making spurious claims to a number of the lots newly drawn up by Lamb. In this particular case, Young erected “a little hutt which he used as a kitchen” on lot 69. Surveyor Lamb did not know how to deal with the impasse; he appealed to Despard, who, along with Jones and Lamb, proceeded to the lot to put Jones in possession of it in “His Majesty’s name”. But Mr Young was there and “came up to oppose this, threatening violently the vengeance of the Magistrates, to whom he would apply for redress”. Despard found Young’s action even more “unwarrantable” because he had come to this country from the Shore just since “February last”, about the time when the imperial instructions were being published with the message that the Convention was to be strictly observed. Despard might not have known this, but men such as Young possessed residences and/or business establishments at both the Shore and the

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Bay, and could easily throw their weight around in both places. Young certainly wielded influence here; Despard noted that several others of his class had followed his example, appropriating adjoining lots and building “houses” on them. Unfortunately Despard resorted to what he probably thought his only recourse under the circumstances: he allowed the Spanish commissary to dispossess Young and his cohorts “by a military force”. This force remained in the vicinity for some time until things seemed quiet enough. The lot was turned over to Despard and Jones was put back in possession; his first act was to pull down Young’s “hutt”. Despard left the scene, thinking the problem solved, but the destruction of Young’s hut was to be the pretext for Jones’s arrest. A “Body of Magistrates and others armed with Guns, pistols and Cutlasses, took Jones into Custody and carried him to their Court house which they then converted into a Jail, and there put him in Irons, a strong body of these Gentlemen keeping guard all night.” In response to this, in a demonstration of the bipolarity of their society, the free people of colour are said to have immediately threatened to “rescue” Jones even “at the risque of their own lives”. They were seen preparing arms to that effect, but nothing happened during the night because they were persuaded against it, apparently by Despard. Despard then proceeded to the courthouse, accompanied by Lamb and Bannantine, lately from Jamaica and newly appointed secretary to Despard. At the courthouse they found some “20 to 30 armed men (among whom were Messr. O’Brien, Bartlett, Davis, James Usher, Sullivan, Young, Meighan, Feeling, Graham, and Dondale[?]”. All of these “gentlemen” – with the exception of the last, whose name is not recognized – represented the elites of the settlement. All belonged to the famous committee of thirteen, two were from the Shore (Usher and Young) and most of them were also magistrates. They permitted Despard to enter the courthouse but denied Lamb and Bannantine – to them, the Superintendent’s myrmidons – the same courtesy, “holding fixed Bayonets to their Breasts”44 to enforce the refusal. Inside the courthouse, a group of magistrates questioned Despard’s authority for his land-distribution policy, to which he replied that it was by the powers vested in him as His Majesty’s superintendent, and that Joshua Jones, as the legal owner of lot 69, had every right to destroy Young’s hut. By the same powers Despard then pronounced Jones free, apparently placing his hand on

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the prisoner’s shoulder. This was too much for the magistrates. One of them immediately “retouched” Jones, declaring him a prisoner by virtue of the power vested in him as a magistrate and as a representative of “the people of Honduras”. What ensued was a bizarre situation in which it is alleged that Despard seized an arm of the prisoner “in the act of dragging him to the door” while a magistrate took hold of the other arm, preventing Despard from carrying him off. Jones’s affidavit, enclosed in Despard’s “Narrative of Publick Transactions”, says that at this point “some others pulled him down”, whereupon Despard left the scene. In addition to Despard’s report of the whole affair, a group of magistrates consisting of the most prominent old Baymen – Thomas Potts, Richard Hoare, William O’Brien, James Bartlett, Edward Davis and, of course, newcomers Aaron Young and Luke Feeling, who might also have been from the Shore – sent a detailed account to their agent in London. Although their version does not differ much in essence, it does differ in the description of Despard’s behaviour, which they characterize as intemperate, passionate and unguarded (later affidavits on his behalf see it as just the opposite). Before Despard left the courthouse he is alleged to have issued the ominous threat that the magistrates’ act would place them outside His Majesty’s protection and that they would be tried in the Court of King’s Bench in London and their properties would be forfeited. If Despard did make these threats, the magistrates may have felt inclined to place him in the worst possible light while at the same time portraying themselves as reasonable and conciliatory. Soon after Despard’s departure, for instance, they released Jones with a security bail of £500 “for his future good behaviour”. Yet their explanation (without mentioning the £500 bail) was that the release was to “evince to the World our wish to act on just principles and to open the door of accommodation”. To further demonstrate this assumed spirit of conciliation, five of them were deputized to write “a polite letter” to Despard asking for an interview, which was granted for the following morning. According to both accounts, the meeting ended in another deadlock. Despard thought it his “duty to insist as an indispensable preliminary Step” that the committee revoke the twenty-two resolutions, and others subsequently passed, before he could “reach any terms” with them. The deputation’s report expresses Despard’s demand as being before he would “enter into any conference” with them, notwithstanding their very “conciliatory” argu-

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ments. In any event, the magistrates announce that they had precise instructions “from their Constituents” that “by no means” could they submit to Despard’s request.45 Undoubtedly important issues reflecting many aspects of Belize’s society were involved in what might appear to be just a petty local matter. For one, the impasse demonstrates the anomalous position of government in Belize. In our discussion of the Baymen’s rudimentary “Regulations” in chapter 3, we suggested that the old, buccaneer-inspired independent spirit would prove detrimental – if not dysfunctional – for any future executive appointed by the imperial government. Even in the regular British Caribbean colonies, colonial governors always complained about the difficult nature of their executive authority. Appointed to represent His or Her Majesty’s interests, they were constantly badgered by local colonists who insisted on their rights yet expected their problems, however petty, to be addressed by the executive. In Belize the problem was compounded because this was by no means a conventional colonial situation. Here were British subjects, not even technically colonists, who were unrelenting in their perceived notion of the supremacy of an “ancient” system – not sanctioned by imperial authority – by which they were accustomed to being governed. Now, for the first time, they were encountering opposition to their system of government from an imperial appointee. Or, as they remarked in disbelief, “having never before now met with any obstruction in this necessary mode of Government they had flattered themselves that he [Despard] approved thereof ”.46 To be sure, Despard was between a rock and a hard place. He did not and probably could not approve of the way the Principal Inhabitants wished to conduct business – as usual. He was thus the first superintendent to pronounce against their “democratick” system, as just about every other superintendent, well into the nineteenth century, was to do. Like his successors, Despard asked his superiors for “compulsory” powers to control the “democratick form of government” at the settlement. Repeatedly he complains that the fractious spirit will continue if the present form of government is not superseded. “So long as the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are in the hands of the people . . . it cannot be supposed that anything beyond self interest will govern.”47 No subsequent superintendent would disagree with this view. Superintendent George Arthur, for instance, perhaps the most outstanding executive to hold this position, looked long (from 1814 to 1822) and hard at the consti-

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tutional situation; like Despard, he also found it untenable and complained often. On one occasion he says that the “Office is and ever has been so very undefined as to deprieve the Representative of the Crown of the Authority necessary for the administration of Public Business”.48 The Belize superintendency was further complicated by the peculiar relationship with Spain, which technically “owned” the colony. Despard was particularly hampered by this because he was the first British official to deal with this foreign affairs dimension immediately after the Convention was signed, when Spain was at its most aggressive in asserting sovereignty over the settlement. Not only was he expected to juggle the needs of imperial expectations and the pressing demands of every section of the highly fractionalized society he had inherited (and exacerbated), he was also expected to satisfy the stipulations of the Convention with Spanish officials looking over his shoulder, often making impossible demands that could jeopardize imperial prerogative or arouse hostile indignation in the fractious settlers. Complaining of this to Sydney, Despard says, I am cramped by having on the one hand, the Spanish officers insisting upon the Treaties between the Crowns being strictly observed, and on the other, a great part of the Inhabitants who have shewn themselves too apt to make infractions. And indeed, my Lord, I am sorry to say, that such is my situation in this Country, that every step I take in the execution of my office interferes with the Interests of some individual, and such must be the situation of every Superintendent in this Country, that he must either overlook the daily infractions of the treaty by the British Subjects and thus be exposed to the continual insults of the Spanish officers or not give satisfaction to the Settlers.49

Furthermore, as the first superintendent of Belize Despard was in a pioneering and experimental situation; as he says in the same dispatch, “The office of Superintendent is not much known in practice.” Worse still, he had no clear instructions either from Whitehall or from Jamaica “to direct me how far my authority extends”. Despard also found himself in a humiliating situation in which the Bay elites, his political enemies, were privy to important information about him or his administration long before he himself was apprised. He complained bitterly about the need to have “immediate communication with your Lordship [Sydney]”. It was even more embarrassing to discover that the Principal Inhab-

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itants had their own agents in London, the most effective being George Dyer (later to become the first formally appointed agent for Belize). Dyer, a former resident of the Bay with business on the Shore, was now a merchant trading in timber in London; unlike Robert White, who was little regarded, he was highly respected in that city. There he had direct access to the highest officials, from the Pitts to Lords Sydney and Grenville, among others, and he was skilled in using this kind of contact to accomplish his ends. Thus Dyer always knew about sensitive information contained in dispatches intended for Despard and, especially if it was critical of him, he would immediately relay it to Despard’s political enemies in Belize – well before it reached the superintendent, leaving him “perfectly in the dark”.50 This was the humiliating situation for Despard even with regard to Whitehall’s dispatch that suspended him from the superintendency. The evolving society of the country today called Belize was in a state of crisis at this time, and there is no doubt that the influx of Mosquito Shore settlers contributed to it. They introduced into Belize serious social tensions along race and class lines, perhaps for the first time – at least in the degree of intensity. This created extra problems for Despard. The group characterized as poor or “indigent” from the Shore consisted of some whites, but the greater proportion appears to have been free people of colour. For the most part the women in this latter group were concubines and or domestic servants to white households. The mode of living on the Shore before evacuation, as in Belize, had tolerated this form of concubinage, which began with Indian women before the African component superseded them. The practice was so universal among white males of all classes that in the course of time the mixed population became “considerable”, which is reflected in Despard’s warning to the whites that they were outnumbered three to one. Only a handful of the people of colour could be considered wealthy and they were mostly from the Shore. Among them were the offspring of some of the most influential and wealthy white Shoremen, such as Pitt with his known seraglio of women of different ethnicities, and former superintendents Lawrie and Hodgson Junior; unlike most slave societies, here the children carried the names of their white fathers. The oligarchy claimed that the superintendent’s support came only from people of the lowest rank, people without character or substance, free people of colour. In attempting to counteract this characterization Despard says it is not “founded upon fact”. He knows them to be a “remarkably quiet and inof-

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fensive set of people – well attached to His Majesty’s Government”. And he knows this from experience, having, as military commandant on the Shore and on the island of Roatan (“Rattan”, as he calls it), commanded “most of them when they behaved with the greatest regularity and propriety”; they have continued to behave well in their new country, and some of these men fought with him at the reconquest of Black River in 1782. (Not all of them fought as freemen in this battle, for we find Despard issuing a deed of manumission in 1788 to a slave he owns “in consideration of the good Services done by him to His Majesty’s Government on the Mosquito Shore, particularly in 1782 when Black River was in the possession of a Spanish Force”.)51 In reflecting generally on the economic condition of the free people of colour, Despard admits, “many of them, it is true are poor”. But on the other hand “there are numbers of them possessed of very considerable properties in Slaves” and who are no more a burden on society than any of the original inhabitants. He observes that the fact that the magistrates forced Joshua Jones to pay “the excessive Bail of £500” shows that they must have thought him “a man of some property”.52 It is certainly ironic that it was a coloured man, James Pitt Lawrie, “who, with 126 slaves, was the largest slave-owner in the settlement at the end of the eighteenth century”.53 Pitt Lawrie was obviously a scion of both William Pitt, the long-time nabob of the Shore, and former superintendent Lawrie, who even if not as wealthy as Pitt wielded great influence in his former position. The privileged Pitt Lawrie served in the Belize militia, but it is clear that this class – wealthy coloured people from the Shore – was not active in politics. Other slave-holding coloureds included Jonathan Card and Stephen Winter, who possessed more than thirty slaves each, making them among the top twenty slave-owners in Belize – all of them from the Shore. It is interesting that none of these names appear on the coloured people’s petition to Despard, but Steven Winter’s name – or rather his mark – appears on the racially mixed group’s petition complaining of the behaviour of the old Bay settlers and the newly co-opted Shore elites. Those with fewer slaves, such as John Neal (twenty-three), George Crawford (fifteen) and Joshua Jones – he of the disputed lot – with seventeen, all signed the coloured men’s petition. It appears that the wealthier ones isolated themselves from mainstream society while the poorer and middling groups during this period were more politically active in their new “country”. As for the Principal Inhabitants, this was a period of great agitation. They

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perceived their world as being threatened by Despard’s democratic approach to land distribution, and they were not prepared to stand by idly and watch it happen. Apart from actively thwarting Despard and his surveyor in its execution, they were also unrelenting and prolific in their verbal and written denouncements of the superintendent. They made their opposition known in no uncertain terms through a cacophony of memorials to the imperial government in London and the Jamaican governors, through voluminous petitions and letters to their agents in London – Robert White and the more effective and well-connected Dyer – or through private letters to friends in London and like-minded colonists in Jamaica. In sum, they view Despard’s lottery policy with “astonishment and abhorrence”, as being done with no regard for those who have already cleared grounds and built “houses” and without “any distinction of Age, Sex, Character, Respectability, Property or Colour”. They call him a “leveller” who listens only to “a Rabble of Mestees, Mulattoes, Turtlers etc. but not one Man of Credit, Character or Property to follow him . . . . These Vagabonds” who are the beneficiaries of the lottery policy are most attached to Despard, supporting him in everything and viewing him as the only authority in the settlement.54 An old Bay “law”, repeated by the committee of thirteen in their second resolution, states that no person should be allowed to occupy “more than one lot”, yet the complainants soon broke their own law by possessing multiple lots. William O’Brien and James Bartlett, two of the most prominent of the old guard, were among those who tried to prevent David Lamb from laying out the lots for the Shore evacuees. O’Brien and Bartlett boasted to Lamb of owning “several” lots where Despard’s Convention Town was to have been built. They had cleared lands there more than three years ago and had obviously built some structures, perhaps similar to Aaron Young’s; they were, they said, prepared to defend their lots with the last drop of their blood. These men were also among those who claimed to own lots by permission from Spanish officials. O’Brien spurned Despard’s authority and could not understand how the Superintendent would wish to place a person like him, with extensive property, on a “footing with fellows of the lowest class”.55 At this time O’Brien already possessed six lots and was looking for more, while James Bartlett, with three lots, was also casting his net around for more. Both declared that, if necessary, they would sell only to “their friends”. They were responding to a new

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resolution which sought in every way to protect their class: it said that those who had cleared lots prior to Despard’s plans but “do not or cannot occupy” them would be free to “give away or sell” such lots to anyone “they shall think fit”.56 The same type of land-grabbing by the elites was also taking place on St George’s Cay, and soon Despard had to concede defeat for his entire land policy. He observed that just “a few” landowners – some ten or twelve – had appropriated for themselves all the mahogany sites, with some owning eight, nine or ten lots each.57 Herein lies the origin of the inequities of land ownership in Belize today. The Principal Inhabitants were determined to affect the economic wherewithal of the people of colour in other ways. One of the resolutions states that no person without four able male slaves may “be entitled to a mahogany work” without the consent of “a majority of the magistrates in open court”. The magistrates at this time consisted of a now well-established oligarchy, old Baymen such as Richard Hoare, Thomas Potts, Edward Davis and the two newcomers Aaron Young and James Usher. These men, especially Potts and Hoare, were ubiquitous, sitting on just about every important committee in Belize right up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and their influence was immense. This resolution makes quite clear that it does not affect any of the old settlers who already possess “works in Honduras”, for the “usage” of the country has given them such an entitlement. With the exception of the few slave-owning coloureds mentioned above, relatively few of these people could afford four able-bodied male slaves, and even those who could would have to receive permission from a majority of the magistrates; as things were constituted, this would not bode well for them. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the subterfuge was exposed; a Public Meeting held on 29 October 1805 openly identified the coloured population as the target of this resolution. The meeting resolved that “no free person of color be permitted to locate a logwood work” without four able male slaves, “under the penalty of one hundred pounds”. It should be noted that this same meeting placed a tax of £25 (Jamaican currency) on all manumissions as of 1 January 1806, and “no manumission after that period shall be recorded until the money is paid into the public Treasury”.58 The actions of the white oligarchy at this time certainly seemed calculated to deny free blacks and mulattos any recognition in Belize. In addition to these and other severe restrictions on their ability to own or utilize property, it must

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also be remembered that those from the Shore were among those “not deemed a denizen” and technically not entitled “to any mahogany or logwood works in this Settlement”. Despard reports that people of colour, “by the unanimous Consent of the whole Magistrates”, were now “totally excluded from possessing any Mahogany or Logwood Works in this Settlement unless they be what they call naturalized”. He mentions that by this “law” about eighty people of colour from the Shore were “entirely excluded from any means of gaining a Subsistence unless they will become the Servants of these Legislators, which really seems to be the principal intention of this partial rule”.59 The noose around the necks of the non-whites was tightening progressively; there was to be no escape for them. In the ongoing attempt to deny them their very identity they were soon being referred to as “a set of men of Colour calling themselves the people of the Mosquito Shore”. This confusing denial of their origin comes directly from James Usher and Aaron Young; these “two leading Magistrates”, former Shoremen themselves, wished to deport most of them back to the Shore even as they seemd to be denying that they were from there. Young and Usher appealed to Despard to allow them to apply to Colonel Grimarest, one of the Spanish commissaries, to have “200 of the lower Class of these people” from the Mosquito Shore return to Black River “and live under the Spanish Government”. Despard reports that when he queried these men “to know by what authority they made such application, or the names of the particular persons who wished to return to Black River, they were not able to point out to me the name of a single person who had such wishes”. He made short shrift of the two former Shoremen and their request, finding the application “injurious to his Majesty’s Interest and . . . insulting to myself”. In dismissing them, Despard said with studied irony that their request indeed demonstrated their concern for the coloured people – their awareness that the laws they were passing had rendered it impossible for them to subsist in the settlement.60 There is no doubt that the presence of the elites from the Mosquito Shore was the moving force in shaping this socially divisive situation. The old Bay oligarchy – Principal Inhabitants such as O’Brien, Hoare, Potts, Bartlett and a few others – appears to have found it conducive to their new way of thinking. These were evolving men, with the kind of social background they would rather forget. They needed a new identity, and the Shore elite certainly served as the model. The Shoremen could lead in this respect because they were

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accustomed to the structures and hierarchies of their own system of civil government. They were therefore genuinely outraged by Despard’s lottery system, which “reduced in one instant to the same footing” the lowest free blacks and mulattos and the indentured servants, or “the lower class of White Men”, with such illustrious citizens as the Honourable Colonel James Lawrie, former superintendent of the Shore and president of the council, and former chief judge Aaron Young.61 In fact, the Shore had official sanction for class and racial hierarchies. In 1775, for instance, when John Fergusson was appointed its acting superintendent, his letter of instruction from the governor of Jamaica, Sir Basil Keith, specifically says, “You are to take care that no Indentured Servant, Indian, Mulatto, Negro or any one of mixed blood, shall sit in the Council, or have any Vote for electing the Members to serve therein, nor shall hold or enjoy any Commission whatsoever, either Civil or Military, or be Jurors; and that every member of the said Council shall be a Freeholder, or an Independent Man of Property.”62 There is no record to show that earlier superintendents of the Shore received such instructions – certainly not the first one, Robert Hodgson, Senior, in 1749. Nor did the first superintendent of Belize receive such an instruction, but as we shall see, Sydney was soon to encourage a version of it. For his part, Keith was simply reflecting the situation at Jamaica. The crisis situation in the “Honduras settlement” became almost unbearable for Despard. By the end of 1787 – little more than a year since his arrival as superintendent – he complains that affairs are in such disorder that it is “totally out of my Power to execute” His Majesty’s instructions. The Baymen were practically in a state of anarchy, observing few laws – even those of their own making, and particularly those relating to land-holding63 – but despite Despard’s several dispatches to Sydney he received no response for nearly a year. Meanwhile the blitz of memoranda and petitions to London against Despard was gaining momentum; by this time the Bay elites were calling for his dismissal if the settlement was to be preserved. And then Sydney’s reply to Despard finally arrived. Many historians have castigated colonial officials at Whitehall during this period as unimaginative and lacking in vision, but none more so perhaps than Sydney, who is described as “too uncertain in outlook, too hesitant, and too indolent ever to further the cause of struggling colonies”.64 His much anticipated reply did nothing to curb the tumult in this struggling settlement. Syd-

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ney’s dispatch acknowledges the plethora of complaints lodged against the superintendent, mainly for his “improper Exercise of the Authority” invested in him by His Majesty. Regarding the Joshua Jones case, he has received specific complaints from “the People who stile themselves Magistrates”, but from Despard’s account of these people’s behaviour he is persuaded that they “conducted themselves in a very unwarrantable and indecent manner”. The imprisonment of Jones when he was acting in obedience to the superintendent’s order as well as many other proceedings cannot pass unnoticed; His Majesty’s displeasure at their conduct must be signified to them. He expects that “they will demean themselves in a different manner if they value a continuation of His Royal Protection” – an oft-repeated threat also used by Despard, as noted above – reflecting the tenuous nature of the settlement’s relationship to the mother country up to this point. Sydney then tries to address Despard’s questions about the nature of his authority as superintendent. In reference to the old regulations by which the Bay traditionally governed itself, the secretary says that it is “natural” that the self-styled magistrates may have been “led into Error from misunderstanding the extent of the Authority which has been placed in you”. Although he confesses that he is “at a loss to know” what effect the old regulations and those recently drawn up (by the committee of thirteen) will have on the internal management of the community, nevertheless these regulations should not interfere with the “Property or Interests of any Description of the Settlers . . . without the previous consent of His Majesty’s Superintendent”, whose duty it is to protect all His Majesty’s subjects on all occasions. Though downright confusing, Despard seized upon the last few words, which said his consent was required before laws could be passed. Those words became a cause célèbre for the Baymen, accustomed as they were to being governed by the voice of the inhabitants through their elected magistracy. Sydney again approves Despard’s policy of giving the new lands to the Shore settlers as consistent with his instructions “whether it accorded or not with the Regulations of the Magistracy”, but makes no mention of Despard’s lengthy dispatches complaining that his authority is being thwarted by the Bay elites. Nonetheless, as one desperate for power, Despard found ammunition in the last sentence. Sydney, however, mildly censures Despard’s egalitarian method of distributing the land.

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I will do you the Justice to believe, that in the distribution of those Lands you were actuated by the best Motives, though at the same time it could have been wished, that you had made some Distinction in the Extent of Lots so to be disposed of between affluent Settlers and Persons of a different description, particularly people of Colour or Free Negroes, who, from the natural Prejudices of the Inhabitants of the Colonies, are not, however valuable in point of Character, considered upon an equal footing with People of a Different Complexion.

Here he reflects Keith’s instructions to the Shore superintendent and also British imperial policy regarding all subject peoples. But Sydney is at least clear in the case of Joshua Jones. Because of the nature of his treatment, Jones “must at all costs continue to possess” his lot. Then, with much prevaricating and temporizing, in the next few sentences he enjoins Despard to find employment for the new settlers of the poorer classes and the free blacks and mulattos, “to prevent their becoming a Public Burthen”. Sydney’s final paragraphs constitute a piece of advice for Despard. He would willingly commend all the superintendent’s proceedings, but though convinced that he “acted upon the best principles and may be justified in every step you have taken, yet I am inclined to think that by good Management and a more conciliatory demeanour on your part, you might have prevented those Disputes which have unhappily prevailed in the Settlement from arising to such a height”. He therefore recommends that Despard call together some of the most “respectable of the Inhabitants” to advise him, especially with respect to helping the free people of colour find some employment from which they can obtain “subsistence”.65 Sydney’s recommendation here fits in – albeit in disguised fashion – with what the poorer classes of whites and coloureds from the Shore predicted in their petitions and was echoed by Despard: it was the oligarchy’s aim to make “slaves” of these classes through their “laws” and to render them dependent on the elites for subsistence. By the early years of the nineteenth century the predictions had come true, especially for the free blacks and mulattos. Many of them “became the employees of rich cutters and traders or drifted away from logging to become subsistence farmers or fishermen. Much the same is true of the poorer whites, who were small tradesmen, turtlers, or fishermen, or were the employees of their more powerful neighbors.”66 But at least these poor whites were employed; there was much unemployment among most of the people of colour, for whom, as we shall see, even Dyer showed some concern.

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Another letter to Despard, unsigned and marked “Private”, is most certainly from under-secretary Evan Nepean. It more or less voices Sydney’s themes in a less formal manner, but what is interesting is that this letter mentions how exceedingly “perplexed” Lord Sydney has been in dealing with the whole business.67 Sydney’s perplexity informs the confusion of his dispatch, particularly where he appears to be recommending a new government for the territory in line with Despard’s desires. He is convinced that some “established system of Police” (meaning constitution) is necessary for internal regulation of the settlement, and now that Despard has furnished him with the necessary information, “the Subject shall immediately become an object of consideration”. But the “system of police” will have to be submitted to the Spanish government for its consideration, “which, you will observe, by the late Treaty, must necessarily take place previous to its being established”. There is no evidence to suggest that Sydney ever sent such a system or constitution to Despard, nor is it clear what Sydney means when he says that Despard has furnished him with “the necessary information” on the subject. Perhaps the superintendent’s subsequent actions will throw some light on this question. Despard was obviously delighted with Sydney’s letter, seeing it as having empowered him. Soon he had the sections of the dispatch critical of the Baymen – especially the magistrates, who are so contemptuously referred to – posted everywhere, on houses and huts and upon posts, but he omitted the parts that rebuke him, albeit gently. Despard’s “triumph”, as the elites saw it, sent them into a state of disbelief that his “arbitrary and oppressive measures” should be approved by Whitehall, as they say in one of their numerous memorials and petitions. It galled them to think that the “faithful narrative of twelve men [a memorial from some of the magistrates and members of the committee of thirteen] chosen by the voice of the whole community should in the minds of Lord Sydney and Mr Nepean be entirely disregarded and done away by Colonel Despard’s representation”. They actually hint, reluctantly, that they might “seek a country and Government which will afford protection” to them, since “Englishmen can never brook the Despotic Government of an Individual”, and they vow never to forfeit their rights.68 The elites were in an “oppressed and debased” state where “Prejudice against us prevailed”. They express their exasperation that although they represent men of “Character, Fortune and Respectability” they are the ones being censured by Whitehall, while the others – the “Herd who followed Colonel Despard”,

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consisting of not “one man of consequence or respectability . . . or one man who possesses or can obtain a credit for one Shilling in London” – are being favoured with special consideration. They even complain of being victims of insubordination from the free people of colour: “These people, elated by this unnatural and most Impolitic preference declared publicly, that the Regulations or Laws of the Settlement were entirely Nugatory, for that all Men were now equal and that Colonel Despard alone, was in his own person, so invested with all Authority and Power as to be the Source and Origin of Law to the Settlement.”69 Thus the division in society seemed irreconcilable, and the Principal Inhabitants increased their calls for Despard’s removal from office. Perhaps the acute scarcity of food at this time was just about the only thing this deeply polarized community had in common. Everyone was complaining, from the superintendent – who had been without “flower [flour] and bread” for nearly three weeks – to the poorest settler.70 The general shortage was exacerbated not only by a great hurricane in 1787 but also by the unrealistic restrictions the Convention placed on the settlers’ ability to fish and to cultivate the land. The destruction of provision grounds by some of the Spanish commissaries worsened the situation. The newly appointed Don Juan Bautisa Gaul was perhaps even more inconsiderate and high-handed than his predecessors. Gaul started out in early 1789 with a veritable campaign of destruction of the loggers’ vegetable gardens, first around the Sibun River. And he went further, also seizing slaves, cattle and a miscellany of articles he considered useful. On some of these visits Despard himself accompanied the commissary and witnessed the “hell bent” destruction. He responded merely by appealing to Gaul or writing to the Yucatan governor, “earnestly imploring him not to cut them [the gardens] down”. It is true that Despard characteristically showed great concern for the poorer classes, who suffered most from the destruction of provision grounds. Some of them, including the American Loyalists, wanted to be relocated to the Mosquito Shore, and Despard did contemplate sending off the most indigent to the Bahamas. Nonetheless he continued to blame the settlers, particularly the magistrates, for the Spaniards’ wanton actions, because of their “repeated and flagrant acts of infraction” in cutting wood outside legal limits and infringing other parts of the treaties.71 Despard’s grovelling attitude towards the Spaniards profoundly irritated the old Baymen. Richard Hoare, for instance, rightly contended that the provision grounds should not have become an issue at all, since it was understood

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by the Convention that they had to survive while cutting wood. Indeed, article 3 objected only to “any Plantation of Sugar, Coffee, Cacao or other like Articles” for commercial purposes. Hoare implied that Despard had an ulterior motive in keeping the issue alive, as the woodcutters had no plantations of any of the proscribed commodities. In frustration he expresses the prevailing view of his class when he says, “the manner we have lived with the Spaniards since the last settlement [the Convention] is too degrading for an Englishman to suffer”.72 The destruction of the provision grounds is even more difficult to comprehend when it is remembered that it was done at a time of great scarcity. And the settlers had been flooding the authorities in London and the Jamaican governor with petitions and memorials against the Convention from the moment it was signed in 1786, asking for, inter alia, more land for domestic gardens for their subsistence. They were asking for this even after the source of the Sibun had been discovered, with the good news that it exceeded the extent of the newly ceded lands by some 170 miles.73 Sydney’s response to the Spanish destruction of crops and the Baymen’s request for more land for provisions was not helpful. Rather, he stuck closely to Despard’s interpretation of the affair. Displaying much deference to Spain, he timidly replies, “I wish that it may be in my power to obtain from the Court of Spain the Indulgencies which the Settlers solicit, to enable them to acquire Supplies of Provisions and Refreshments for their Support.” He will try, but only so long as “the Settlers observe a Conduct that will merit it”, which cannot be if the treaties are infringed, and from Despard’s letters he has noticed that that is the case.74 The settlement had reached an impasse. The Baymen blamed Despard for everything: for his autocratic behaviour, for complicity with the Spaniards, for the destruction of their gardens and for “the cause of our Distress”. They renewed their insistent calls for Despard’s removal from office for the sake of “peace and tranquility”. The Principal Inhabitants declare that they find themselves in the position of slaves. They possess nothing they can call their own; their industry is greatly checked; they are in a state of despondency, and nothing can be expected until Despard is removed: “The whole community prays for the removal of Despard; the prosperity of the Settlement and the good of the Nation requires it.” George Dyer, to whom most of these complaints were sent, led the charge in London. He is said to have been the first to recommend Despard’s removal to high-ranking officials at Whitehall, arguing that most

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of the Principal Inhabitants would leave should he remain and that this would spell doom for the settlement. Dyer was equally busy with the London business community. A “Meeting of Merchants trading to Honduras Bay at the London Tavern” unanimously resolved “that . . . no harmony can possible [sic] subsist or any wholesome Regulations be carried into Effect in Honduras Bay under the Superintendency of Edward Marcus Despard”. This too Dyer would duly present to Whitehall.75 Just when it appeared that the settlement had reached its lowest point, Despard, without any known authorization from London or Jamaica, abolished the Baymen’s “ancient” form of government. In fact he was conveniently responding to Commissary Gaul, who had the temerity to demand it because he had “been assured that in these Establishments, there is a Body of nine Magistrates, who assemble from time to time in the Town, at the mouth of the Wallix [Belize River] to hear and determine the cases of Justice that occur, and this is a transgression . . . against the 7th Article of the Convention . . . in the year 1786”. Gaul therefore hoped that Despard would “immediately annul and extinguish the before-mentioned Body, with the solemnity, and in the form which may best serve to prevent a repetition”. He then sought to wash his hands of the matter, telling Despard that “from this instant, the whole responsibility rests with you, and consequently I have discharged myself of my obligation, in making this demand”.76 Was this what Sydney had in mind when he said that Despard had supplied him with information on a new constitution for the settlement? We do not know, but four days after Gaul’s letter Despard obliged him by sending instructions to the magistrates for the abolition of the courts and the office of the magistracy. On 10 June Despard’s new constitution, or “Plan of Police”, was put to the inhabitants of the settlement – whether at a Public Meeting or through a referendum is not clear – and it received the overwhelming support of 130, with twenty-four of the Principal Inhabitants against it. The details of this new constitution77 will not detain us but suffice it to say that Despard had finally relieved himself completely of the bothersome Baymen’s “democratick” government of which he had complained so incessantly. He gave himself autocratic power over the entire settlement, including the title of commander-in-chief in time of war, which was, as noted above, not a part of his original job description. With this new constitution Despard became – or would have become –

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what Oman calls “the petty despot of Belize”.78 He boasted of the large majority of inhabitants who had voted for his new constitution, a majority that consisted of his new friends, mostly from the Mosquito Shore; they included almost all of the poorer and middling classes of whites, and some of the free people of colour may also have participated in the vote. As for the Principal Inhabitants, some of them were up in arms against the new system, but a few supported it. These included John Garbutt, Henry Jones(?), Lawrence Meighan, William Beaty and Mathias Gale, none of whom had been actively engaged in politics. The attractions of an appointment to office may have prevailed with those old Baymen, since Despard nominated them to his new magistracy, or as he called them, “Conservators of the Peace”. Among his staunchest supporters from the Shore were Marshall Bennett and James Dundridge, in addition to his friend and former surveyor David Lamb. Surprisingly, Aaron Young’s name is listed among the “Conservators”, but nothing more is heard of him in this connection. Thomas Potts became the principal opponent of the plan. It was he who canvassed the twenty-four who objected and sent them to Despard with their rationale for opposing it. But Despard made short shrift of them, stating that their objections could not be considered, given the large majority in favour.79 Fortunately for the interests of the oligarchy, a new secretary of state, Lord Grenville – a man of much “greater attainments” than Sydney80 – was appointed at Whitehall. Grenville was a serious-minded official “who, unlike his predecessor, was one of those who read his American dispatches”. 81 As Grenville plodded his way through the maze of letters, petitions and memoranda that had piled up unread in his new office, he became convinced that all was not well in the Bay of Honduras. For the first time since his appointment as superintendent, Despard’s activities began to be closely and critically scrutinized by Whitehall. Grenville was particularly mindful of the petitions from the merchants trading at Honduras, led by Dyer. Their arguments that the acute economic distress of the Principal Inhabitants was prompting some to contemplate leaving the settlement, though reluctantly, seem critical. For Grenville this went against the grain of things. When he bore in mind, in his masterly and wellreasoned dispatches, that the raison d’être of the settlement – or, in his words, “the only object” – had been the commerce connected with the logging industry involving woods natural to that region, then surely the settlers should enjoy

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every available facility towards that end. This had been understood by both Spain and Britain under the different treaties. Therefore, to give sanction to the destruction of the settlers’ “plantations” was “an act highly exceptionable”. Even supposing that Despard agreed with Gaul that the “plantations [were] contrary to the spirit of the Convention”, it was Gaul’s duty to proceed in a more regular manner. He should have first submitted a report to his superiors in Yucatan, who would then send it to the Spanish court, from where it would finally reach His Majesty’s government, which would then instruct Despard as to the course of action he should take. Grenville was convinced that the right to cultivate gardens for providing subsistence should not have been contested at all – a point that old Baymen such as Hoare had been making. By giving concurrence and sanction to the destruction of “plantations”, Despard had “brought considerable loss upon the Settlement contrary to what now appears to be the intention of even the Spanish Government”.82 It should not be surprising that this was the first of the outstanding issues that the new secretary tackled, considering its importance to the very survival of the settlement as a British commercial concern. Soon the court of Spain sent a letter to Grenville “granting permission to the Woodcutters inhabiting the Honduras District to cultivate such Ground Provisions and Vegetables as may be necessary for their Use”.83 These gardens were to be limited to the cultivation of “Indian Corn, Potatoes, Roots and other Vegetables for Family consumption”, but not the commercial produce objected to in the Convention. Spain also insisted that the settler should not “enlarge or alienate his spot of ground” without approval of the Spanish government. All this was in order to acknowledge “the Dominion which His Catholic Majesty retains over the Land”. This was pushed even further when the Yucatan governor added that as soon as a piece of land was measured, the “owner” – or rather the usufructuary – had to pay 5 shillings (Jamaican) to the Spanish official for each lot. For a family the lot was to be one-ninth of an acre, which the settlers considered grossly inadequate, claiming that at least a third of an acre would be more reasonable. However, with “presents” the officials might well relax the rules. Permission to cultivate extended vegetable gardens had an immediate impact, especially on the poorer settlers, including the American Loyalists who had been determined to leave. In less than a year they and others felt willing to remain, since cultivation of their provision grounds would be sufficient to support them.84

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In terms of its far-reaching implications, Grenville viewed Despard’s abolition of the settlers’ old rules and regulations and his institution of a new constitution more profoundly serious. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Evan Nepean, a true and loyal friend of Despard, had already rushed off a letter marked “Private and Secret” to the superintendent, warning him that Grenville “expressed great surprize” at the “impropriety” of this act. Nepean strongly advised Despard not to take any further actions. His stated motive in sending this letter was to prevent Despard, if possible, from exposing himself to further difficulties there.85 But the damage had already been done, and Despard’s fate was sealed. The argument Grenville made about Gaul’s irregular behaviour over destruction of the provision grounds applied “with still greater force” with respect to the constitution. In short, on 10 November 1789 Grenville declared Despard’s new constitution irregular, of no force and therefore null and void, since the superintendent had no legal authority to act in such a manner. Despard was therefore suspended immediately: “I feel that I should not discharge my duty, if I did not recommend to His Majesty to suspend you from your office of Superintendent.” The secretary goes on to say that it is not to be understood that this Step is to be conclusive upon your future situation; but I must say, that my present opinion is by no means favorable to the measures which you have pursued and that unless much more satisfactory reasons can be assigned for them, than any which now suggest themselves to me, it will be impossible for me to recommend to His Majesty, that you should be restored to your office.86

Despard’s suspension had been officially made known on 10 October, when Grenville appointed an interim superintendent to Honduras. And of course Despard’s nemesis Dyer was privy to the news, which was instantly relayed to his friends on the Bay even before the official dispatch arrived. Despard was given the option of either returning to Britain immediately or remaining at the settlement to await the outcome of the inquiry to be instituted. However, the language of Grenville’s dispatch cannot have given him much hope for restoration to his office. The elites of the Bay were jubilant. In one of their myriad petitions against Despard’s constitution they had flatly stated, in demonstration of their traditional independence, “We have tasted the sweets of liberty and hitherto have

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never forfeited our right and title to that valuable blessing . . . . Is it just that His Majesty’s Superintendent possessing no judicial authority whatever shall abrogate these laws and substitute his will and fist in their stead?”87 The question had been answered, and they felt completely vindicated in their criticisms of Despard and their incessant demands for his recall. In all this “Agent” Dyer stood tall. He was the Baymen’s hero, and it is not surprising that he was soon made their official representative in London. The Bay elites felt empowered by Despard’s dismissal, which had consequences for every other superintendent under this odd system. As soon as subsequent superintendents crossed them they were quick to declare openly – or in scarcely veiled terms – that they had the power to have them removed at will. There may also have been a wider dimension to this settler/colonist victory. Some would argue that the loss of the Thirteen Colonies made colonial administrators in London more willing to accede to the demands of colonists, since it was perhaps too much imperial interference that had driven the United States to seek independence.88

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 9

The Belize Settlement up to the Battle of St George’s Cay

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Hunter in an interim capacity. Grenville’s instructions to him, in two lengthy dispatches of 16 October 1789, would seem to represent a return to the old “connivance” policy first articulated by Lord Godolphin in 1670. Hunter is to act as the settlement’s superintendent until Despard is restored or someone else is appointed. He should first visit Jamaica to receive his formal commission from the governor, the Duke of Effingham, and is to keep both London and Jamaica regularly informed about matters in the Bay. Hunter’s first duty upon arrival at Belize is to declare Despard’s constitution illegal and therefore null and void, and simultaneously to restore the system by which the Baymen traditionally govern themselves. But he should also “learn” the settlers’ sentiments as to the form of government they would like to see established there. Hunter is warned, however, that he should do nothing to inconvenience Spain regarding the spirit of the treaties of 1783 and 1786. He should thus restrain the woodcutters to keep within the stipulated limits and make sure they confine themselves to cultivating only vegetable gardens for their own subsistence, not plantations for commercial purposes. Even Grenville had to make the required genuflection to Spain. Nevertheless, in the second letter of the same date, the secretary of state is much more forthright. Grenville reminds Hunter that he must never lose sight of the object of the settlement: to be a primary producer of commercial timber. Therefore “you will afford every degree of protection and assistance in your DESPARD WAS REPLACED BY

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power to the Settlers of all classes and denominations in the prosecution of their lawful business”. The distressed condition of the lower classes, both whites and free people of colour, resonated with Grenville, who understood their commercial significance to the settlement. He expresses grave concern that some of them wish to be relocated to the Bahamas, and Hunter is told to use his utmost endeavours to retain them – which did happen, as noted above, after the extension of the provision grounds. Hunter is also instructed to make a full report on the actual state of the settlement, especially since the Convention, and on the causes of the disputes, and he is expected to propose measures for reform under the direction of Effingham at Jamaica. Such an investigation must be considered “a very material part of your Commission”, because it would enable the British government to make future arrangements for the settlement.1 In his instruction to the British official in Madrid, one Mr Merry, advising him on the diplomatic approach he should take to the Bay settlement, Grenville is again forthright in stressing the Bay’s commercial importance to Britain. Merry must therefore represent the settlers’ interests as paramount; they should possess “full and compleat” benefits and freedom to cut wood within the limits, and nothing should deny them full possession of everything necessary to fulfil this. In this regard Grenville was outraged that a Despardappointed commissary accompanying Gaul on the inspection had assisted in “the destruction of several plantations of provisions”. He therefore hoped that Spain would be scrupulous in dealing with Gaul, who had exceeded his authority in this case as well as in demanding abolition of the settlement’s rules and regulations. Surely, he maintained, the Baymen’s former system did not interfere with the territorial sovereignty of Spain; indeed, no such settlement could exist without some regulations to guide the community.2 Hunter first proceeded to Jamaica and from there set sail on 2 April 1790. He arrived in Belize on the tenth. On the twelfth, having met with with Despard, who seemed vague about when he would return to England, Hunter executed his most important assignment. He abolished Despard’s constitution and declared the “ancient System of Regulation” restored and “Standing on the same ground as it did before the steps taken by Colonel Despard in May last”. Thus ended Despard’s constitution, which had lasted for nearly a year, from May 1789 to April 1790. In order to prevent a lacuna in the administration, Hunter ruled that the magistrates who had been serving prior to

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Despard’s abolition of the office should resume their positions, “agreable to the antient and Established usage of this Settlement”. He then opened a poll after the manner formerly practised in Honduras – for twenty-one days – for the yearly election of the nine magistrates. In his “Notice to the British Settlers in Honduras”, Hunter promised full participation for all in his administration, “as it is highly necessary for the future peace and welfare of this Settlement, that I should be made acquainted in the fullest and freest manner with the general interests of the Country, and the Inhabitants thereof, and that the said Inhabitants should be made acquainted with the extent of the Power and instructions committed to me by His Majesty”. To this end Hunter arranged for a Public Meeting to be held at the tavern of one Mrs Hodge on 4 May, the day immediately after the polls closed. He expected a full meeting of the magistrates and the inhabitants. “as the importance of the business requires”. 3 It is obvious that Hunter had done his homework very thoroughly. His carefully worded notice referring to their “ancient and established” system plumbed the depths of the Baymen’s emotional attachment to a way of governing themselves they had established on their own, without any imperial interference. This certainly contrasted with Despard, who barely managed to conceal his contempt for their “democratick” system. The Principal Inhabitants seemed satisfied with Hunter’s approach, and within a month James Bartlett, the staunch representative of this class, was writing to the indefatigable George Dyer in London to reflect on the new situation. In his usual gossipy style he exults that Hunter is a “diplomat and a flatterer”. The new superintendent hardly lets him alone, always arguing, until now he and some other magistrates have developed “a respectful Friendship” with him, and he has argued them out of some old “prejudices”. In short, Bartlett confesses that “he [Hunter] has become my Master and will be obeyed” as positively as if he were the head of a battalion. Bartlett then explains to Dyer why he has not been writing more often. It is because he has been kept so busy by Hunter, who, along with the magistrates Potts, Usher and Yarborough, has already initiated discussions about the possibility of a new “Plan of Police” or constitution for the settlement.4 Whitehall too was breathing a sigh of relief. Part of an unsigned letter from this source says that it was a “matter of very great satisfaction . . . that His Majesty’s affairs were now in hands of discretion [Hunter’s]”.5 Hunter soon discovered that Despard had not left the settlement. As men-

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tioned earlier, Grenville had given him the option of returning to Britain immediately or awaiting the findings of an enquiry at the Bay, and Hunter thought he understood Despard to have said he was “determined” to return. Perhaps the latter was being intentionally ambiguous, for the suspended superintendent had other things on his mind. When the polls opened for the election of magistrates, Hunter could hardly believe what transpired. Despard declared himself a candidate for the magistracy, arguing that he had been importuned to do so by “a number of respectable inhabitants” of the Bay. Hunter admitted that he did not know what had induced Despard to want to be “a Magistrate for Honduras”. He was extremely astonished and seriously concerned that Despard’s action would only serve to continue the old dissensions and to create new ones, but he could only hope that nothing bad would come of it.6 Whatever his motives, Despard conducted the most spirited election campaign the settlement had yet seen. Bartlett tells Dyer that as soon as Despard declared his candidacy, he took off from the mouth of the Belize as far up the river as residents were to be found. He included everyone, but his main constituency consisted of the poorer classes of whites and free people of colour from the Shore, as well as turtlers, steersmen, fishermen and the like. What startled Bartlett and his colleagues most was the discovery that Despard was even canvassing turtlers on the Sapadillo Keys, within the Spanish limits. Despard was not running on his own. Nine candidates for the magistracy were to be elected, and accordingly he had a slate of nine, including himself. While he was canvassing up the Belize River, the others were doing likewise along the New and Sibun rivers. Bartlett was dismayed by the novelty of the situation – by “the heat and bustle of this new and altogether unprecedented canvass”, according to the official Bay report – which forced some of the old magistrates to follow in “the steps of their opponents”.7 Bartlett, for instance, says that he and Thomas Potts, being “roused at this unexpected contest”, also sent canvassers up the rivers to represent them, but it was too late. They had been “out-generalled” by Despard and his friends. Among the people who were canvassed by Despard and who canvassed for him were free people of colour. This became a major issue among the old oligarchy. Persons of such description, they declared, were not eligible to vote, but a contrary claim objected, saying that it had been the usage of Honduras that “all Men of all Colours” were eligible to vote for magistrates; affidavits

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from long-standing residents were even offered as proof. As a member of the oligarchy, Bartlett disagreed with this view but admitted that nothing could be done about it, and the canvassing continued. The latter position may well have been valid. But the old democratic buccaneering principles, by which all participated in making decisions, had collapsed with the emergence of the nouveau riche class of old Baymen now working in tandem with the new elites from the Shore. The upshot was that Despard indeed “out-generalled” the old magistrates, winning a clear, decisive victory at the polls. He and his friends won all nine seats, with Despard receiving the largest number of votes ever cast in the settlement up to that date. The newly elected magistrates for Honduras, with their respective votes, were Colonel Despard (203), Mathias Gale (197), David Lamb (187), Lawrence Meighan (187), Thomas Graham (181), Robert Kaye (181), Marshall Bennett (177), John Garbutt (177) and Henry Jones (163). Not one of the old magistrates was successful, despite the belated efforts of a few. Among the incumbents who contested unsuccessfully, James Bartlett and Richard F. O’Brien (possibly the brother of William O’Brien) received the highest votes, with 102 each; the remainder were Thomas Potts (99), James Usher (91), James Yarborough (12) and Aaron Young, who received a measly five votes.8 It is not to be expected that the old power-holders would accept the results of this election without protest. Indeed they accused Despard of fraudulent voting practices, for instance, that “many of the ignorant people” had voted two or three times and that “many” did not know “to what they had affixed their Marks and not a few supposed it was for purposes very different from the election of Magistrates”. They examined Despard’s 203 voters very closely and discovered that “some” were from the cays and reefs, comprising not only “ignorant” turtlers but also “runaway seamen from H. M. Ships and trading vessels” and “men of colour possessing no species of property or fixed residence and even convicts”. In the opinion of this tiny oligarchy, not more than 110 voters were to be found in the settlement; they claimed that heretofore no magistrate had polled more than fifty or sixty votes, and fewer than twenty had returned some of the nine magistrates. The old Baymen, it must be pointed out, usually knew their handful of voters, many of whom were their minions, beholden to them for employment or other favours. In view of what they considered irregularities, the old magistrates

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demanded a formal “scrutiny” of the newly elected magistrates to ensure that they were qualified according to the “ancient customs of Honduras”, and they too would “be the Judges”. But the newly elected magistrates, led by Gale and Garbutt, protested, arguing with Despard’s concurrence that their aim was to bring “harmony and solidarity” to all in the settlement. And this argument won the day, according to the official report.9 Bartlett’s chatty letter to Dyer gives us some good insights into the makings of this decision; he says that Hunter “disapproved . . . and reprobated the idea of a Scrutiny which he said would bring the Country into further Trouble and continue the Misunderstanding which had so long existed”. Bartlett depicts Hunter as adamant on the point, and they had perforce to drop the issue because they did not want to forfeit “his Friendship and Confidence”. This goes a long way towards answering the question of what made a “good” or “effective” superintendent for Belize. Since the office was inherently impossible, success turned almost wholly on the interpersonal skills of the holder. From the very first of Bartlett’s letters it becomes clear that Hunter possessed these skills, and now that he had gained the trust of the old magistrates, he could force them to be reasonable – or “argue” them out of old “prejudices”, in Bartlett’s words – just as Colonel Arthur was to do later during the first seven years of his administration. It would be misleading to suggest that those who ran for office in this famous election were bifurcated along simple class lines. For instance, four of Despard’s colleagues – Gale, Garbutt, Jones and Meighan – were old Baymen; only two, Bennett and Graham, were from the Mosquito Shore. Graham must have been, in the words of the old Bay elites, “possessed either of character, sense or property”, for he had been co-opted by them from the very beginning. Thus he was immediately appointed to the influential committee of thirteen with the likes of Aaron Young and James Usher. Bennett, on the other hand, who was to become an outstanding player in Belizean nineteenth-century government and politics, was not yet a part of this select group. The remaining two of Despard’s friends were David Lamb, his surveyor, and Robert Kaye. Kaye’s identity is unknown; his election was contested, apparently successfully, by the old magistrates, who maintained that he was ineligible to be a magistrate at Honduras because he was a servant for a “neighbouring Spanish Settlement” and thus was viewed as a Spaniard. We hear nothing more of Kaye from either the “Regulations” or other sources.

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What happened in this election was really an inter-elite shuffle. The Inhabitants’ report gives it that they were surprised that some who had been the “most strenuous opposers” of Despard had become “all at once his warm friends and zealous adherents”. Members of the old guard such as Gale, Garbutt, Meighan and Jones may have looked ahead and realized that the Shore settlers, with their superior numbers, would soon be in the ascendency, and Graham, a co-opted member of the Bay elite, may have understood this also. Bennett was the one who benefited most from political cooperation with Despard. Obviously ambitious but lacking the means or stature, he was unlikely to have achieved the magistracy at this time without using Despard’s “coat-tails”. He seized the opportunity and eventually became a pivotal member of the new Bay elite, which by the mid-nineteenth century consisted almost entirely of former Shoremen. In the end, however, the old magistrates did succeed in rendering Despard’s election to the magistracy null and void. They ruled on respectable constitutional and legal grounds that Despard, being “His Majesty’s Representative” – suspended but not removed – could not be eligible for the office of magistrate in Honduras. Hunter’s sigh of relief must have been audible for some distance when Despard accepted the decision and embarked for Britain on 3 June 1790, one month after the election.10 Back in Britain, Despard experienced only humiliation from Grenville and the colonial authorities. He made numerous attempts to see the Minister for “even half an hour”11 while his legal and financial situations were becoming ever more desperate. Yet it was two long years after his suspension that he was finally made aware of his fate. In October 1791 the new secretary of state, Henry Dundas, reminded Despard that Grenville had made known his impression of the superintendent’s conduct at the time of his suspension. That impression had been changed neither by Despard’s “Narrative” nor other documents from the Bay; therefore “I have only now to inform you that His Majesty does not conceive it will be for the advantage of His Majesty’s Service to reinstate you in your appointment of Superintendent of Honduras.”12 There is no doubt that Despard was treated shabbily by Whitehall, as even Oman would admit,13 and if this affected his future actions we may never know. But with the same impetuosity and righteous indignation that sent him canvassing for the magistracy in Belize, he entered into the spirit of the French Revolution, hurling himself into the “dwindling band of enthusiasts whom the

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historians call the ‘English Jacobins’ ”.14 And then he sought to save Britain from “aristocratic jobbers”, with the result that he was finally tried and hanged for treason (but that, of course, is not the focus of our study). Meanwhile, Belize was receiving reports that Spain was making ominous moves and an attack on the settlement was imminent. This was to affect Hunter’s stay; he had hoped to return to Britain by mid-June 1790, when he reckoned his mission would be accomplished.15 A semblance of calm had been restored to the settlement with restoration of the Baymen’s “ancient system” (a system which was to continue more or less intact for the next fifty years, until in 1840 the magistracy system was abolished and an executive council was established instead). And Hunter would soon receive a number of bulky reports on the settlement that he had ordered from Despard and the magistrates, as Grenville had requested.16 Continued fear of a Spanish attack from the beginning of 1790 alerted the Baymen to take action. The Spanish surprise attack on St George’s Cay in 1779 had informed not only their anxiety but also Whitehall’s. The Baymen were therefore quick to ask for assistance from Britain now that they could no longer look to the Miskitos on the Shore for assistance or a safe haven for escape. Collectively they requested a warship with ammunition, and Richard Hoare also sent a separate request directly to Grenville, who already knew that the matter was serious.17 The Minister accordingly informed Hunter that a sloop-of-war with a supply of arms was being directed to the “Coast of Honduras” to protect the settlers in the event of a war, since he did not wish to have a repetition of 1779. But Hunter should make sure not to start any hostilities, nor should he give any offence to Spain. By October 1790 Grenville was calling the situation with Spain a crisis, and he wished Hunter to involve himself in some espionage. He was to endeavour to possess himself of “the motions and designs of the Spaniards” with respect not only to the Bay but also to the other British possessions in the region. The Spaniards, as we shall see, were also engaged in active espionage, especially among the slave population. Grenville was well aware that, without the Miskitos, a successful war with Spain would require involvement of all the people in the settlement. But, as noted earlier, he had confidence in Hunter. A memorandum on the “Present State of Honduras” gives the population of the Bay as “about” five hundred settlers, including free coloured people, three hundred of whom were bearing ams. About thirty-five hundred of the population were

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slaves, a thousand of whom knew “the use of arms”;18 it is in this document, as noted earlier, that the enslaved peoples’ loyalty to the settlement is mentioned. The Spanish threat to the Bay was considered so serious that the magistrates had taken the precautionary measure of having their “Records and Public Papers” deposited for safety on board His Majesty’s ship Serpent19 – again reflecting their unhappy memories of 1779, when they had lost most of their valuable documents. Happily for the Baymen, by November the immediate crisis had been resolved through diplomacy in the metropoles. Whitehall told Hunter to put a stop to his defensive measures, even if he had begun “to form your motley crew” of volunteers.20 But the respite was not to last very long. In fact it is now thought that the Spaniards were merely playing for time. At any rate, Hunter could now think of returning to Britain. However, Effingham at Jamaica took the extraordinary position that Belize did not really need a superintendent, and there was therefore to be no replacement after Hunter. Effingham had made the recommendation – on the basis of expense – as early as April, when he had given Hunter his instructions, and he repeated it again upon Hunter’s departure. He would not send anyone to the Bay as superintendent “unless some unforseen event makes it necessary”. Perhaps, the governor said, one or two visits a year by a sloop-of-war from Jamaica would suffice to protect the settlement21 – a recommendation from Whitehall that was supposed to have been implemented since 1765. Before his departure Hunter left the magistrates a set of instructions that they were expected to follow. He reminded them that by His Majesty’s “express orders” they were once again in full enjoyment of their “ancient regulations” as they had existed before Despard had them abolished. Those regulations must be their guide in the administration of justice and the maintenance of order in the settlement. The settlers must also observe strict compliance with the treaties with Spain (particularly those of 1783 and 1786). As for the Spanish commissaries, if they visited with letters or dispatches addressed to the superintendent, those papers must be sent to William Dunlop, the agent general of Jamaica, who would forward them to the Jamaican governor for his consideration. Should the Spanish officer wish to appoint a British counterpart to visit the settlement, he must be informed that in the absence of a superintendent no one had the power to appoint such a commissioner; application should be made to the governor of Jamaica by the captain general of Yucatan before a proper person could be appointed.22

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The Belize settlement was thus back to the old days before Despard. But not quite status quo ante, because now there was a formal mechanism in place through which they could contact the Jamaican governor. This is not to say that the Baymen had not been in the habit of contacting Jamaican governors and other officials before. They would do this on their own initiative through petitions and the like, using, for the most part, their friends on the island. In fact, the relationship between Belize and Jamaica had a long and consistent history dating back to the time when Jamaica became British in 1655. Thereafter the buccaneers plied their trade freely within the Bay Triangle, long before Britain took much notice of the Bay, whose location and nomenclature continued to challenge even the officials at Whitehall. The Jamaica-Belize relationship had become so regularized that as soon as the Baymen perceived that they had some difficult problem they would automatically appeal to an important official or influential private person there for assistance. These contacts came to be referred to as “our Friends and Corespondents in Jamaica”. Now they could formally appeal to the governor through the agent general. Nonetheless, by September 1791 the magistrates were urgently requesting Jamaican authorities to appoint an official to represent them, but again they were refused by Whitehall.23 The issue was not further pursued at the time because the whole settlement soon became engrossed in what they considered an alarming situation, and one that would further induce them to make more requests for a superintendent. Around the beginning of November 1791, a large French ship arrived on the coast of Belize with more than two hundred male slaves from rebellious Saint-Dominique (Haiti today).24 The magistrates and the rest of the inhabitants were alarmed and took “measures” to prevent its landing, but before the measures could be “put in force” the vessel landed on English Cay, about eight leagues from the main settlement around the Belize River. This created major problems for the struggling settlement. To begin with, it was soon discovered that the Haitians had been left with provisions to last them only three days, and “not a drop of water”. Apart from the victualling problem, the security risk as they perceived it was enormous. The Caribbean was a region where slavery was pervasive, and in its midst was occurring a most bloody revolution led by slaves, some of whom had now landed on their shore. The fear engendered by the Haitian Revolution can be understood today only by perusal of documents from throughout the region and spilling over into the southern

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United States. The language the Baymen used to describe the ship’s “infectious cargo” had the same degree of hysteria that the Jamaican Assembly, for instance, was employing about the same subject at about the same time.25 Numerous Public Meetings of the inhabitants and magistrates were held to express the citizens’ “consternation” and to decide on measures to be taken. When they considered “the dreadful disasters that have been occasioned by such atrocious villains, we dread the consequence of their being permitted” in this settlement. They saw the cargo of slaves as of “the most infamous and villainous description, being of the very worst of those concerned in the late dreadful insurrection in the Island of Hispaniola”. The meetings were well attended; the first one, on 14 November, reported twenty-two present, and the numbers increased with each one until they reached fifty-six on 19 November. After passing the usual resolutions, the inhabitants would withdraw after each meeting and the magistrates, acting as an executive body, would then proceed to implement them.26 The absence of water and the insufficient food for the abandoned slaves placed the settlers in a quandary. They were themselves already short of provisions (perhaps the earlier destruction of their provision grounds by the Spanish commissaries was still having a negative impact). The magistrates nonetheless appealed to the inhabitants for voluntary contributions of beef, pork, fish, bread, flour, rice, corn or any other types of food they could find. Realizing, however, that not much could be expected from that source, they took the bold step of appealing to the Spanish officials at Bacalar for provisions. It could not have been an easy decision, but sheer necessity forced them in that direction; help could come from there much faster than from Jamaica, now that they could no longer depend on the Shore. In writing to Bacalar they most diplomatically complimented His Catholic Majesty, who had ever shewn his “readiness . . . to promote the cause of Humanity and the welfare of all true Christians”. This was probably intended as a double entendre, since the Spaniards were actively enticing away their slaves and keeping them on the pretext that they had embraced Catholicism. It appears that the Baymen were not simply asking for charity: the bearer of the letter had money (the amount is not stated) to pay for corn, the commodity that was most likely to be available at Bacalar.27 In the meantime, the Public Meetings decided that the Haitian slaves should be sent to Jamaica. But before this could be accomplished, three wood-

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cutters, Messers Fillet, Ford and McKendall, committed an act that the inhabitants considered most egregious. They visited English Cay and carried off thirty-two of the most able-bodied of the Haitians to set them to work cutting mahogany on a creek at Manatee Lagoon. The outraged inhabitants soon caught up with the “delinquents”, had them arrested and returned the slaves to English Cay. The men were seen as having compromised the safety of the settlement, and it was resolved at a Public Meeting that they were in defiance of and “in a state of open Rebellion against the Settlement’s Laws and Regulations and against His Majesty’s Subjects”. This was the charge on which they were formally tried by the magistrates and found guilty, but the punishment is unclear.28 The final outcome saw the slaves sent to Jamaica in two vessels hired at the “lowest terms possible” around December 17, making it just about a month since they had been abandoned. Altogether this small, struggling settlement had managed to spend £1,000 (sterling) on the affair, for which the citizens craved indemnification from Jamaica.29 With no superintendent in place, the magistrates followed Hunter’s instructions and communicated with the Jamaican agent general, William Dunlop, on sending the Haitians to Jamaica. The Baymen were relieved that the ugly business was now with Dunlop, who would place it in the hands of Governor Effingham. Effingham found the affair “singular and without precedent” and immediately called an emergency meeting of his council. After much deliberation it was decided that the slaves should be sent back to Haiti, but Effingham did not consider himself authorized to defray the heavy expenses incurred by the Bay, although he was mindful of their particular hardships. He therefore decided to approach the French government in Hispaniola. But this was unrealistic; at the beginning of 1792 Haiti was in the throes of revolution, with hardly an effective French government in place. Effingham must have sensed that, as he also wrote to his superiors at Whitehall advising them to apply to the French court for redress. The outcome is not clear, although in 1817 we find it mentioned by the inhabitants that they were never paid for the “enormous expenses”30 they accrued over the affair. The affair of the Haitian slaves throws a great deal of light on the Bay settlement at this time. There is no doubt that the Baymen, led by Thomas Potts and a few other magistrates, handled what could have been a dangerous situation most adroitly. A normally boisterous and difficult group, the inhabitants

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came together in Public Meetings, deliberated reasonably, and in a very timely manner made the decisions they considered necessary for the safety of the whole community. Even though they were enduring hardships of their own, they were collectively able to provide food for the starving slaves, to have huts built to shelter them and water carried from afar to quench their thirst, to collect voluntary donations to the tune of £1,000 – in money and bills of exchange, as they told one of their “Friends and Correspondents” on Jamaica – and to have the slaves rightly sent to Jamaica rather than directly to Haiti. The magistrates’ recommendation to the captain of the transport vessels is quite remarkable. The communication is signed by Thomas Potts and Edward Hughes, but Potts was certainly the chief architect. They tell the captain that their “friends and Correspondents in Jamaica” are already well apprised of the whole affair, and should the Jamaican authorities refuse the Haitians, they must contact those friends for advice – but they hope the governor will assist in such a critical and disastrous situation. Understanding that security and logistical problems are involved, they advise the captain and his crew that for their safety they should keep closely together and not get separated on board. Nevertheless they are to feed the “unfortunate People” regularly and should be careful to manifest good conduct towards them.31 The Baymen’s correspondence on the case to different sources in London and Jamaica is also quite revealing. Apart from informing Dunlop, which protocol dictated, they were in communication with their friends and correspondents in Jamaica from the very moment the French ship landed on their coast. The chief representative of these friends was then the Honourable Charles Hall, custos of St Andrews, to whom the Baymen explain how they collected and spent the money. They tell Hall that their greatest obstacle was the lack of public funds (they hardly had a treasury at the time), and they reflect on the abject and miserable condition of the Haitians, who were for the most part half-starved, naked and sickly. Indeed, their weak condition may well have been a fortunate circumstance for the settlement; not wanting to return to Haiti, they could have revolted. Hall is also asked for assistance in defraying their expenses. In closing, the inhabitants pointedly remind the custos that the matter is one of public and general concern to all slaveholders in the region.32 They also wrote to the commander-in-chief at Jamaica, Rear Admiral Affleck, properly through their magistrates and not as “inhabitants”, as they

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had with Hall, who held no official position with the settlement. As has been said, Whitehall’s 1765 order that the commander at Jamaica should visit the Bay regularly every month or six weeks had not been faithfully followed. The magistrates therefore represent to the Admiral that the lack of a regular warship on their shores, in combination with the absence of a superintendent, made them vulnerable to the kind of foreign interference that has just taken place. They warn that this could happen again if they continue to be left without protection, and what is more, they do not think they will be able to manage a similar situation again.33 The Baymen’s call for a more regular system of government become insistent from this time up to the mid-1790s. They needed protection not only from foreign interference but also from the general lawlessness in the settlement that followed Hunter’s departure. They bemoan the fact that the authority of the magistrates is so weak that they are unable to maintain law and order. Given these conditions, therefore, they repeat their demands for a superintendent, a position, they feel, that would not only help to protect them but also “give more respectability to His Majesty’s Subjects settled here”, as they say to Admiral Affleck in the above letter. Later, ironically, the magistrates even complain to Dunlop of the illegal and ruinous behaviour of the lawless settlers, who are cutting most of their mahogany outside the treaty limits.34 But Whitehall would not budge on the issue of a superintendent at the Bay. Dundas stuck to Effingham’s position that a superintendent at Belize – “the Honduras District” – was unnecessary. He did, however, send out an officer from Jamaica to meet the Spanish commissary to examine the boundaries of the Convention and ascertain if they were being observed.35 The officer appointed was a Captain Lawford of HMS Hound. Lawford was instructed to suggest to his Spanish counterpart that a small extension on the Spanish side of the rivers (the Belize and the Hondo?) would be prudent, as it would be the best way of putting a stop to future infractions of the treaties by the Baymen. At the same time, however, he was to express disapproval of their infractions to the settlers, warning them that they would be answerable only to Spain if they continued to cut outside the limits and the British government would not intercede on their behalf. Apparently the official from Bacalar who acted as commissary granted an extension for the garden patches, provided “nothing is cultivated for sale”.36 But, as would be expected, the Baymen continued to cut timber outside the limits as soon as the Spanish official returned

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to Bacalar, and Lawford’s complaints were unavailing. They continued the “shameful infractions” and ignored Lawford’s warnings; as for the garden grounds, they were “extended to anything the people chuse to desire”.37 Soon we hear no more of the ineffectual Lawford, whose experience is reminiscent of Admiral Parry’s after 1765. In any event, the Baymen did not see Lawford as substitute for a superintendent, for which they continued to press the case. Perhaps Hunter’s success had given them a better model for the office than the experience with Despard had provided. To this end, therefore, they even tried to endorse one of their own, Richard Hoare, as superintendent. Hoare, like Thomas Potts, his friend and business partner, belonged to the old Bay settlers, although, unlike Potts, his signature is not on the “Regulations” from the first recorded meeting of the inhabitants on 9 April 1765. He makes his first appearance only at the meeting of 12 June 1784, which he chaired.38 But it is almost certain that he attended others that are not on record because of the gaps mentioned earlier. Thereafter he soon became an influential and “sensible” magistrate, as Governor Dalling characterized him, and was second only to Potts in terms of service on different committees and attendance at meetings. Hoare is usually addressed in the documents as “Major” but it is unclear how he achieved this title. He may have received it from Dalrymple on the occasion of the Omoa expedition of 1779, for we also find James Bartlett being referred to as “Second Lieutenant of the First Company of Bay Fuziliers in the Expedition to and Reduction of . . . Omoa”. In that particular document, he and “other Officers and Soldiers” of the Bay are “asking [Dalrymple] for their share of the booty” from the expedition. Apparently they were not successful, and Dalling was not pleased. He deplored Dalrymple’s action “in not giving the Baymen their share of the booty after taking them on his unauthorized expedition”.39 It appears that Bartlett did not continue to use his title, but Hoare is almost always referred to as Major Hoare in the documents. Hoare was considered a rich man by the standards of the settlement, and this may have helped induce him to apply for the position of superintendent. This made him the second Bayman to be considered for the superintendency, the first being Joseph Maud, who had been unsuccessfully recommended for the position by Admiral Burnaby in 1765. Part of Hoare’s wealth can be identified because he was among the ninety-six from St George’s Cay who sus-

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tained losses from the Spanish attack in 1779. He was among the top three or four in wealth in terms of claims: on his own he claimed £4,099.13.4; he and his friend and partner, Thomas Potts, together claimed £1,955.14.4; and as part of a triple partnership (Hoare, Potts and Gleen) he claimed £1,123.15.40 This, however, was probably only a part of Hoare’s wealth. Casual mention is often made, even at this time, of boats belonging to him and Potts.41 In applying for the post some six or seven months after Hunter’s departure, Hoare tells Secretary Dundas that a superintendent at Honduras is “absolutely necessary” because the place needs protection from the activities of Spain, which he feels are becoming progressively more serious. He is not specific about the exact nature of the “activities” but hints that he has in his possession security information on the Spanish West Indies, some of which he has already passed on to Governor Campbell at Jamaica, who is his “patron”. Hoare ends with a request for an audience with Dundas. He has already applied to Campbell to recommend him for the superintendency and Campbell has given an “honourable testimony” on his behalf to Lord Grenville. He also has letters, “vouchers” and a memorial from “the respectable characters” of the Bay to prove his merits and can also supply “fresh testimony” of his merits if required. (A part of Hoare’s second letter to Dundas which contains the phrase “The information you was pleased to communicate to me”42 may not have helped his candidacy.) The Bay’s appeal for a superintendent was not sanctioned at this time, but events were unfolding that would soon make it imperative, even according to Effingham’s stipulations. Despite the recent uneasy peace between Britain and Spain, there is no doubt that Spanish activities against the Baymen of a more covert nature had increased considerably, as Hoare appears to be saying. The Spaniards by now thoroughly understood that the best way to damage the settlers was to attack them at their weakest point, and that was through their slaves. Therefore the act of inveigling away slaves to Spanish territories, although not new, became increasingly more aggressive as the 1790s progressed. They allegedly employed new means such as planting agents or spies who would infiltrate the slave quarters. These agents were primarily concerned with decoying slaves in different ways; they were also expected to recruit certain slaves to target others in the slave community and to create as much unrest and dissatisfaction as possible to facilitate their escape. These agents were thus heavily involved in gathering intelligence about the settlement, and the case of one Spanish spy, Peter Gon-

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zales, was the subject of much attention in the Bay during most of Hunter’s administration. According to numerous depositions taken under oath from “intelligent and sensible” slaves such as a man named James, and from some Baymen, Gonzales had been seen either alone or with other Spaniards walking at night among the houses of slaves and “mixing” with some of them. James himself had been accosted by Gonzales, who questioned him after having first “tendered” him a “a large bag containing Dollars”. James said that Gonzales wanted to know about the strength of the settlement, such as how many men were around the mouth of the Belize River, how many were on guard at New Town, how many small arms or great guns the people possessed, and the like. He told the Spaniard he did not know the answer to any of the questions, but Gonzales promised that he would carry James off to Bacalar, where he would receive his freedom and a further sum of money to make him “easy and happy for life”. Gonzales was, in fact, the interpreter for the Spanish commissary, Captain Llobett (or Llobert), who was often with him during his nocturnal prowlings. James attested to this and it was corroborated by Cudjoe, another “sensible and Intelligent” slave whom Gonzales had introduced to the commissary; Cudjoe testified that he was astonished to find this high official so “friendly” and “familiar” with him.43 Most of their story was corroborated by some Baymen who had also encountered Spaniards among the slaves at nighttime and questioned them, and a guard reported that he had “refused to allow Gonzales to pass into a native district [slave quarters] at night”.44 It must be stressed that by the early 1790s slaves were “by far the most valuable property the settlers possessed”, as two Baymen, Benjamin Garnett and Charles Armstrong, asserted to Secretary Dundas. This represents a dramatic shift from the early beginnings of the Bay, where even up to the 1760s slavery, although in existence, was not a prominent custom among the settlers. But now their most valuable asset was being threatened by the Spaniards’ intensified activities. Garnett and Armstrong, for instance, complained to Dundas on more than one occasion about the “revolt” – as they termed it – of their slaves. They and “several others” of the Bay made the first complaint sometime in 1792; a year later they told Dundas in a second memorial that they had suffered an additional loss of twenty-four slaves, who first “revolted” and then were enticed by the Spaniards to Bacalar with promises of freedom. The men felt that the settlement was in a “precarious and alarming” situation: the

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Spaniards were being so aggressive, yet by the terms of the Convention the Baymen could neither arm themselves properly nor establish fortifications in the settlement. The petitioners implored Dundas to remonstrate with Spain to secure compensation for their slaves already in Spanish possession, and to make sure that they were protected against future such acts – “otherwise they would be inevitably ruined”.45 Thomas Potts, who was very active at this point in his career, made easily the most passionate and revealing statement on slavery at Belize (to be dealt with later). In it he certainly agrees with Garnett and Armstrong about the ongoing abductions, feeling that slave desertion to the Spaniards, “which increases daily and that of late to such an alarming degree”, threatened ruination of the settlement’s trade. He reports another recent loss: a gang of twelve slaves from an adjoining property had also deserted to the Spaniards, by whom they were, as usual, “joyfully received”. He states that the general dread and apprehension among the inhabitants is genuine. They perceive nothing less than “total ruin of their property” unless there can be an end to this “Intolerable Grievance”.46 Undoubtedly Spain’s policy of granting freedom to slaves who fled to its territories affected Belize more than any other British holding, precisely because of the settlement’s position, ensconced as it was among Spanish territories. Spain intended this result and was therefore more aggressive in effectuating the policy in the Bay, which in turn dictated the treatment of slaves in Belize and made for a singular relationship between slaves and their owners. Understanding perfectly the pull effect that the Spanish policy had on their slaves, the Baymen were forced to treat them reasonably well. And what was more, the slaves – this peculiar species of property with cognitive abilities – also thoroughly understood the situation, which added to the distinctive dynamic between master and slave in the Belize system. This dynamic is well delineated by the missive from five of the magistrates to Dunlop in Jamaica in 1791, making their case that under no condition can they keep the Haitian slaves, as they would serve as a dreadful example to their “people”. Led by Thomas Potts, they inform Dunlop that their slaves are in general very differently treated from those of the Islands. Our contiguity to the Spanish Settlements and the temptations often held out by their Inhabitants are the cause of frequent elopements. We endeavour therefore to secure the Attachment of our Slaves, on which alone we can rely by a more indulgent and kind treatment than

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might perhaps be prudent or adviseable in the Islands to admit of . . . . A great many of our slaves have arms and during the alarm of a War with Spain in 1790 they were all embodied by the desire of Colonel Peter Hunter and trained for near six months to Military Exercises . . .

They have, in fact, always fought in the settlers’ wars. The magistrates end, rather clumsily, with a rhetorical question: “What then had we not to fear from the introduction of Slaves of so dangerous a description as it was now endeavoured to obtrude upon us?”47 The perilous situation of the Baymen that created their singular relationship with their slaves was compounded by the nature of land tenure in Belize, which was usufructuary in nature under Spanish sovereignty. The Baymen did not hold lands in fee simple, so therefore their single most important index of wealth was the number of slaves they possessed, as Garnett and Armstrong rightly state. This was far more important in Belize than for the British sugar planters, for instance, who enjoyed freehold tenure of their lands and could thus base measurement of their wealth on both slaves and real estate. In this sense, the Baymen needed their slaves as part and parcel of their very identity. Tension in the settlement continued to revolve around the passioninducing domestic issue of slave abduction, but the focus soon changed. In 1796 the Napoleonic wars gave Spain a pretext to declare war on Britain, and, as usual, the Belize settlement was expected to be attacked. Although psychologically prepared on this occasion, in material terms the Baymen were totally ill-equipped. Their problems were enormous: they were in a turbulent and anarchical state, without a superintendent since 1791, and the magistrates were weak, ineffective and unheeded, as they themselves admitted. The Belizeans were completely without means to defend themselves, having neither arms nor fortifications nor, indeed, public funds to avail themselves of those amenities. They were also still desperately short of provisions, complaining of a shortage of lands for provision grounds and requesting further territorial extensions, despite Lawford’s contention that they would expand at will. With the memory of 1779 never far from their consciousness, they appealed directly to the lieutenant governor of Jamaica, Earl Balcarres, for assistance. That they did not do this through Agent General Dunlop, as Hunter had stipulated, indicates their perception of the seriousness of the situation. They pointed out to Balcarres that they had no superintendent; in the event of war could he therefore send an officer “of ability and discernment” to command them?

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They also reminded him that they had never received any recompence for their losses – now computed at £150,000 (sterling) – after the 1779 debacle.48 Balcarres was already preoccupied with the “Trelawny Town Maroon War” (1795–96) and therefore could hardly spare any forces immediately. However, he was very mindful of the seriousness of the situation at the Bay; he too had received reliable information that the Spaniards were about to attack the settlement. He therefore saw the necessity for a superintendent there and, without first consulting Whitehall and perhaps heeding the magistrates’ request, promptly appointed Thomas Barrow49 to the post and promoted him to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Since this was a crisis situation, it was considered absolutely necessary according to Effingham’s conditions; imperial approval was later given to all Balcarres’ actions regarding the Bay.50 In his general instructions to Barrow, dated 7 December 1796, Balcarres advises him first to settle all disputes among the settlers. Then, diplomatically, he tells Barrow that his first and most essential object is “to preserve a thorough good understanding with the Spaniards”. In the event of a dispute with the Spanish commissary, he should make his case known in a written statement to be dealt with eventually by the two courts in Europe. In his private instructions, however, Balcarres drops the diplomatic niceties and the conciliatory tone to Spain and is more candid in his intent. He reminds Barrow that as superintendent he will play the dual role of both civil administrator and commander-in-chief of those of His Majesty’s subjects who are now or will be armed for defence of the “Settlers of the Bay of Honduras” in case of a rupture with Spain. Certainly the most important news for the settlement was that help was on the way; it was from London on HMS Merlin, which was loaded with arms and ammunition. Balcarres himself sent a cargo of provisions from Jamaica,51 although he complained repeatedly about lack of cooperation from Admiral Hyde Parker, who refused to furnish him with transports.52 Barrow arrived in Belize on 31 December 1796, only to find that the Spaniards had already commenced hostilities and had captured some of the settlement’s vessels. The Baymen had assembled around the main settlements on the Belize River and some were even considered armed. What was more, they had succeeded in capturing a Spanish officer, who told them that Spain had declared war on the Bay on October 7. Barrow could thus immediately and openly act in the capacity of commander-in-chief. As an experienced soldier who had seen service in the American War of Independence and other

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engagements, he faced the situation in a professional manner. He at once began the task of training and drilling a few regulars plus a number of volunteers consisting of whites, slaves, free blacks and mulattos – the kind of “motley crew” that Hunter had attempted to train in 1790. No amount of training, however, could hide the desperate situation all around. Morale was still low, and in June 1797 even Barrow was forced to state that the situation amounted to “absolute anarchy”, partly because of the shortage of food, clothing, tools, arms and ammunition – in fact a shortage of just about everything. Despite Balcarres’ shipment of provisions, Barrow predicted imminent and inevitable famine without relief. The situation was exacerbated by an unusually severe drought, and owners were finding it difficult to feed their slaves. It was feared that, as a consequence, more slaves would desert to the Spaniards, and the settlers themselves could well “separate” to other places. Indeed, since the renewal of the Spanish threat, some had expressed a desire to take their families to Jamaica, while others wished to return to the Mosquito Shore. But evacuation was not the preferred option for either Jamaica or Whitehall; it was considered too cumbersome and difficult, but most of all too expensive. Evacuation was considered to be only the very last resort in the event that the settlers were unable to defend themselves.53 In response to all the negative conditions in the settlement, on 1 June 1797 the inhabitants held perhaps the most momentous meeting of their turbulent history. At this well-attended assembly (116 were present) they debated the life-and-death question of whether to continue the defensive operations to retain possession of the settlement or to evacuate altogether. After a lengthy debate, fifty-one voted for evacuation, including Thomas Potts, and sixty-five against it, making for a majority of fourteen who wished to stay and fight it out, despite the existing dire conditions.54 The historical importance of this meeting and its outcome should not go unnoticed. Traditionally, as we have seen, the Baymen when under threat of attack from the Spaniards would simply repair to the Mosquito Shore, to be welcomed by the Miskitos, their faithful allies, without necessarily convening a meeting. The Spanish capture of St George’s Cay in 1779 was the sole exception to this custom simply because they were completely taken by surprise. Now their safe haven and their most trusted allies were out of bounds, having been under Spanish control since the Convention of 1786. Yet, shamelessly, Whitehall was privately preparing to solicit the aid of the Miskitos again should the war tend against “Our Set-

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tlement at Honduras”. The Duke of Portland expressed this view to Balcarres in a secret dispatch,55 and there is no reason to believe that the Baymen knew of Whitehall’s intention. Therefore it was indeed an act of courage on their part to decide to go it alone, and the outcome was to change permanently their perception of themselves and their relationship with the Miskitos. In all this, Thomas Paslow, late of the Mosquito Shore and a man who was to figure prominently in later Belizean history, stood out with his uncompromising position against evacuation. Paslow thought that those who wanted to evacuate and were not inclined to defend the settlement should be at liberty to do so, for “the man who will not defend his Country is not entitled to reap the benefit thereof”. He actually proposed that those who opted for evacuation and did not leave after due process should be considered as forfeiting their allegiance to the territory. Paslow was undoubtedly a man with his eye on history. In making his views known at Public Meetings, he insisted repeatedly that they be entered into the public record so that “the World might know his sentiments at this dangerous crisis”.56 He did indeed gain a place in Belizean history, for he matched his words with action as the crisis drew nearer, and with his slaves he performed yeoman’s service for the settlement. The Baymen, in the meantime, were heartened by the news that provisions had arrived from Jamaica, and it was not a moment too soon. Barrow had reported that famine had already “made its approaches” because the uncommonly severe drought had destroyed the provision grounds, and that the situation was “deplorable beyond description”. The effect of the drought was compounded by the fact that since the decision not to evacuate, most of the settlers and their slaves had been busily engaged in defensive preparations – construction of forts, barracks, fortifications and the like – and some of those slaves were reported to be “almost naked” and half-starved. The provision grounds were therefore neglected, which added to the threat of approaching famine. The news that troops were about to leave Jamaica for the Bay also buoyed up the settlers, and with the imposition of martial law they were stimulated “to exertions hardly credible”. The usually undisciplined settlers settled down to their duties and all behaved “in a state of perfect Order and Subordination”.57 But this tranquil state did not last for very long. By October 1797 the Baymen were complaining about the extreme hardships brought on by the arduous military preparations. They represented themselves as ruined and destitute, having spent all their savings, and their productive capacity was at

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a standstill.58 Furthermore, more than half of the troops from Jamaica had either died or were sick,59 and Balcarres was still complaining about Admiral Hyde Parker’s lack of cooperation. For reasons that are unclear, the Spaniards took an awfully long time posturing in preparation for war, and intended or not, the suspense had a wearying effect on the settlers. Barrow was sympathetic to their plight and gave permission to those who wished to return to their works with their slaves; Balcarres later promised to fill the gap with troops from the newly formed Sixth West India Black Regiment. In all this, however, the Baymen were not without confidence in the face of imminent battle. The extraordinary fact is that their confidence was based largely on their slaves, whose performance during this preparatory period was indeed heroic. They relied heavily on these people, who had already been armed for nearly twelve months, and they made no secret of this reliance, claiming repeatedly that their slaves “to a Man” would be ready to repair to duty in any emergency.60 Their claims were not unfounded, and this was also to affect their attitude to the Miskitos. They established lookout boats to the north and south of the settlement that were constantly on intelligence duty; most were manned by free blacks and mulattos;61 at the end of the war Barrow asserted that “[t]he enemy was so well watched by scout-boats and canoes, that not a single movement could be made by him without our knowledge”.62 The long-awaited Spanish attack finally began on 3 September 1798. Although it ended on 10 September, the Spaniards lingered around Chappel (or Cappel) and Caulker (or Corker) cays until the sixteenth. We will not focus on the details of the battle, since the successful outcome for the settlers and their slaves is well-known. The best testimony of this is the yearly anniversary celebration on 10 September, which is observed in today’s Belize with more fanfare than any other national holiday, including even the Christmas festivities. The Battle of St George’s Cay certainly deserves to be celebrated, if for nothing more than the overwhelming odds against the settlers. In the first place, the commanding officer of the Spanish force, field marshall Arthur O’Neil (he was of Irish extraction, as so many Spanish officials were during the colonial period), the governor and captain general of Yucatan, “Confident of success . . . took the command” of his impressive force “in person”.63 It consisted of thirty-one vessels, the largest of which had been sent from

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Campeche, plus others from Havana and Bacalar; some two thousand land troops; and five hundred seamen, mainly from Havana and Campeche.64 The “force” of the Baymen, on the other hand, was downright laughable. It consisted of a few sloops and schooners but mostly improvised “gun boats”, constructed from logwood rafts and manned by slaves, numbering altogether, according to Barrow, 354 men “on float”.65 Apart from this there was HMS Merlin, commanded by the able captain John Ralph Moss. For the Spaniards this major military attack was meant to end once and for all British presence in the region and therefore to be rid of any potential for an Anglo-Miskito alliance. Yet in making this momentous effort they repeated the same mistake they had been making since the days of the Elizabethan seamen: the use of heavy and unwieldy ships. The Spaniards first attempted to secure a passage to the Belize River using “six of their heaviest vessels”; this was decisively repulsed by Moss, who ordered three of his small vessels to thwart their efforts. Not only were they successful in getting the Spaniards to withdraw “at dark” but they also prevented them from making a further attempt which they had planned. On 4 September the Spaniards had marked out what they considered a safe passage through a narrow, crooked channel with access to the Belize River and “town”, by driving in stakes carrying beacons to facilitate their entrance. That was their feeble response to the treacherous Belize coastline, which time and again had played a critical role in Belize’s history, just as it was to do in this eventful battle. Moss, of course, ordered the stakes and beacons pulled out and destroyed, thus frustrating the enemy. He was fully aware of the importance of this Spanish strategy. Had the enemy succeeded in gaining passage to the Belize River, he would have been hemmed in and overwhelmed by the Spaniards’ great force, and therefore “could by no means act”. The Spaniards made another attempt through another narrow channel and again were easily repulsed, apparently suffering heavy losses in the process. In one of his communications Barrow comments on the immense quantity of ammunition expended by the Spaniards to no purpose, while the Baymen and their slaves fired comparatively little “but with a steadiness which surpassed my most sanguine hopes”.66 Thwarted from accessing the Belize River and the settlement, the Spaniards seemed set to advance on St George’s Cay. There was every reason to believe that the Spanish aim, reminiscent of 1779, was to take and perhaps hold the

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island. Thus, a month before the attack, the Baymen destroyed all the property on St George’s Cay, promising compensation to the owners if the enemy failed. This action poignantly reflects their 1779 experience, when so many lost property for which they were never compensated. On this occasion it appears that the compensation, although relatively small, was paid. The value of houses and property burned or destroyed was estimated to be £2,650 (Jamaican), shared among seventeen owners,67 which clearly shows the extent to which St George’s Cay never regained its former wealth and population. In attempting to take possession of the island again, the Spaniards may have had in mind memories of its former wealth. (It is ironic how 1779 loomed so large in the collective memory of both parties in the contest.) But Moss was to frustrate them again. Knowing their intentions towards St George’s Cay and determined to gain the place before them, he left his anchorage at the Belize River on the evening of the fifth and arrived at the island about noon on the sixth, considerably before the enemy. It was a veritable race to this common destination; that the Spaniards did not arrive first, in spite of their head start, was wholly because their vessels were too unwieldy for this sort of coastline. Deterred from taking the commodious harbour of St George’s Cay, the Spaniards concluded that they would have to fight for it. After a few skirmishes beginning on 6 September, the major and final battle was fought on the tenth. The Spaniards anchored within close range of Moss’s Merlin and his “fleet”, then bore down with their full force “in a very handsome and cool manner”. Realizing that they were attacking, Moss signalled his men to engage. All accounts concur that his little fleet obeyed the signal “with a cool and determined firmness” that, according to Moss, “would have done credit to veterans”. According to Barrow the battle lasted about two and a half hours, but “near two hours” in Moss’s short report. Whichever is correct, it was a short battle for such a decisive victory for the settlement, given the overwhelming odds against them. An unsigned eyewitness’s account of the battle says the contest was short because “the Dons, unable to stand our fire, cut their cables and retreated in the utmost confusion”.68 All the official reports agree that they rowed away and towed off in great confusion, and although Moss ordered his vessels to give chase, he soon called them back; nightfall was approaching, which would have rendered navigation too dangerous given the nature of the coast.

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Although the Spaniards stole away, for reasons that are not clear they lingered about Chappel and Caulker cays, inducing the settlement to think they intended to repeat the attack; however, they did not and finally departed on the sixteenth. Perhaps the losses they had sustained were too great to make another attack feasible, added to which there is mention of many desertions from the Spanish troops.69 All the reports mention that the enemy suffered greatly from well-directed firing from the gunboats. “We have every reason to believe”, writes Barrow in his 23 September letter to Balcarres, “that the enemy suffered much in the action of the 10th, as well in killed and wounded, as in the hulls and rigging of the vessels engaged”. The extraordinary thing is that the settlers lost nothing: “we had not a single man hurt, and . . . no injury was done to any of our vessels, deserving of notice” – and this is the consensus of every report. A feature of this battle that must be emphasized for the purposes of this study is the heroic part played by the slaves. Hardly known except in a general way, curiously, it has never been systematically dealt with before. Some merely gloss over it and some misrepresent the facts, while several, including Narda Dobson, give no recognition at all, the evidence notwithstanding.70 But if this aspect of Belize’s history is ignored, any real attempt at understanding the nature of the society today would be greatly compromised. The slaves’ prominent participation is probably unprecedented in the history of slavery – at least in the New World. With the exception of “a very few white men, of little or no experience”, all the improvised gunboats were manned by slaves.71 The idea of reconstructing canoes, dories, pitpans and the like into gunboats came from Moss, and Barrow was pleased with the technical assistance he received from the captain in fitting them out. These were to constitute the core of Moss’s “fleet”, along with a few other vessels. Thomas Paslow caught on to the idea very early, and with his usual energy was among the first to employ his slaves in the construction of gunboats. As one who always took the wider view, Paslow maintained that before and during the establishment of martial law, the slaves were employed “as much for the General good as those of any other Man Whatever”, and in this attitude we can detect the germ of a broader-based communal thinking that was to develop later. It gives us pause because Paslow’s statement differs fundamentally from those of his compatriots, who saw the slaves during the war much as instruments working mindlessly on their masters’ behalf because of the slaves’ “attachment” to

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them. Paslow noted how “assiduously” they applied themselves before the war in the construction of the gunboats and in manning them, and they received approbation even at this time from Barrow and Captain Moss.72 And Paslow was not alone in pointing out the slaves’ efforts in the preparatory stages of the war. In commenting on the dire shortage of food and provisions of all kinds, Barrow noted that the slaves applied themselves during the necessary military constructions while practically naked, and he worried that they would “desert to the Spaniards”.73 It is indeed incredible that more did not desert at this time, especially when it is remembered that the Spaniards always saw such situations of extreme hardship as opportunities for recruiting them with tempting promises. The slaves were at the very frontline of the battle. At the decisive engagement on the tenth, for instance, when Moss gave the signal to fire, the enemy was actually “within reach of our gun-boats”, and the response, as said earlier, soon sent the enemy into confusion. One private report says that Moss “gives credit to the spirit and conduct of our little fleet”, which was manned by slaves. Another reports on the response of the “fleet” when the Spaniards were retreating in confusion: “You will be astonished to hear that our Negro men [who manned the fleets] gave a hearty cheer and . . . in an undaunted manner rowed their boats and used every exertion to board the enemy.” They would have continued the chase, but “Captain Moss who directed everything” called them off because nightfall was approaching.74 The slaves’ performance was not lost on the Spaniards either. Because of this experience, later we shall see the newly independent Central American states reflecting on them as daring and courageous fighters and hoping to enlist some as soldiers in their armies. Equally, most of the official reports are not reticent in their praise of these bondmen. Even the laconic Moss seems almost garrulous in this regard. “The spirit of the Negro Slaves that manned our small crafts was wonderful”, he writes, maintaining that many of the enemy’s ships “would have fallen into our hands” if they had “deep water to follow them in”.75 It is strange that in his official report to Balcarres, Superintendent Barrow does not give recognition to the part played by slaves. Perhaps it is because he commanded the military component of the defence, which had little or nothing to do with the victory, Bryan Edwards notwithstanding. Barrow recounts his and his soldiers’ disappointment when they attempted to assist at the critical juncture on the tenth but “were too late to have any share in the action”.76 Nonetheless even

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Balcarres, in informing Whitehall of the battle, praises not only Moss but also the wonderful exertions of the settlers and the slaves “who manned the boats”.77 The inhabitants were even more effusive in praising the bondmen, not only at this juncture but also long thereafter. At a Public Meeting a fortnight after the battle, they complained about the complete depletion of their private resources occasioned by the war and seriously wondered if the settlement had a future, also describing in poignant terms the great hardships endured by their slaves at every stage of the “late Repulse of the Enemy”. The slaves had been exposed to the brunt of nightly Guards of heavy labour in throwing up Works, and every other Species of exertion the nature of the service requires, under the illusive Name of Colonial Troops they are destitute of every little Necessary and Comfort which their own Labour and the Kindness of their Masters formerly procured for them and when afflicted with sickness from being exposed on Duty in a Wet Country to heavy Rains and Nightly Damps left to Languish without Assistance. It being a Melancholy truth that . . . their Owners find the utmost difficulty in procuring a bare subsistence for their wives and Children, without those comforts they have been accustomed to, and which a Sickly and Convalescent State render absolutely necessary. Under the circumstances it were the height of Presumption to expect or rely on their future Attachment in which however everything valuable depends.

The inhabitants thus appealed for assistance or to be “speedily removed to some place of greater security while they have any property left”. They were anxious about losing the “attachment” of the slaves; they could “languish and dye away” as a result of their dire situation and the intense hostility of the Spaniards.78 Later we shall examine further the nature of this extraordinary relationship. Despite, however, the open and universal praise for the slaves’ contribution to the outcome of the war, we have no record of any manumissions for them, single or collective – not even from Paslow. Indeed, if a sole Spanish source can be credited within this context, in 1813 fifteen slaves escaped from “their master, Mr. Paslo, an Englishman, because of ill-treatment and starvation”.79 They fled to the Spaniards around the Hondo, where, it can be expected, they were well received. In most other slave societies in the region, such as Jamaica or Suriname, some slave soldiers gained their freedom in return for fighting

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in European wars or for outstanding service in the Maroon wars.80 Nonetheless, too much should not be read into manumission qua manumission; in Belize the slaves’ participation in the Battle of St George’s Cay was to make a lasting impression on the wider society, which was not the case elsewhere. The development of a rabidly class/race-based society that we saw evolving in Belize after 1787 halted somewhat after this battle; the Principal Inhabitants became more inclined to see the society as a whole, embracing all the participants, as hinted at in Paslow’s statement. This did not, however, translate into a more equitable society. The small oligarchy continued in its monopoly of political and economic power – especially in terms of land-holding. It may seem difficult to understand Spain’s motive in attacking the Bay again, considering that the treaties of Paris and Versailles and the Convention were already in place. But despite these treaties – including Godolphin’s of 1670 – Spain never became reconciled to British presence in Central America. Its intention to expel the British, dating from the days of the “Lutheran corsairs”, had never abated; only a propitious moment was needed. In regional terms, the 1791–96 interregnum in the Bay after Hunter’s superintendency and the near anarchy that prevailed there, making it easier to inveigle away slaves, may have strongly disposed the Spaniards to think that the appropriate time had come. They may also have seen the Maroon rebellion in Jamaica, which was straining Britain’s military and financial resources, as favourable to them. Jamaica would thus not be in a position to assist the Bay in the event of a Spanish attack – which indeed was the case until late 1796, when the Maroon affair ended. Furthermore, Britain had just lost thousands of pounds, lives and much prestige after its ill-fated invasion of Haiti, which resulted in a humiliating evacuation that buoyed up its enemies and weakened its influence in Europe.81 And, of course, the 1779 capture of St George’s Cay had certainly given Spain expectation of victory over the entire settlement this time. Ultimately, however, the single most important factor that contributed to Spanish confidence at this time was the realization that the Baymen could no longer call on their trusted Miskito allies on the Shore, or even use them as a threat, as hitherto. The Spaniards were convinced that at last they were about to rid themselves completely of any future Anglo-Miskito alliance in the region. Their maximum force was therefore calculated for maximum result. And with this constellation of favourable factors in place, if they saw victory as a foregone conclusion they should certainly be excused.

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There is little doubt that the Spaniards had expected to establish a permanent settlement at St George’s Cay after the battle. It was because they believed this that the Baymen destroyed their property there beforehand. And now they felt they had proof: some captured Spanish prisoners told their captors that the Spaniards had some three thousand men at Bacalar who were awaiting the “successful” landing at St George’s Cay, after which vessels would be free to return for them to settle there. The Baymen were convinced that the Spaniards’ initial war strategy was to use the captured cay to build fortifications in order to “harass us at leisure”.82 This would be a departure from their usual practice of attack, destroy and vacate. Spanish confidence in certain victory was also demonstrated by the contents of letters the victors found on some captives. Captain Moss, for instance, says, “so certain were the Spaniards of success, that the letters found in a canoe taken were actually directed to Belize and St. George’s Key” (obviously asking for supplies).83 One eyewitness letter also noted the presence of intercepted letters from prisoners “directed to the Officers, at Honduras, requesting some articles of British manufacture that they stood in need of”.84 Bryan Edwards also mentions that the Spaniards anticipated “certain triumph”. Evidence for this, he says, came from a captured canoe in which letters were found directed “to Spanish officers who were supposed to be quietly in garrison in the settlement”.85 Some historians see the Battle of St George’s Cay as having changed Belize’s constitutional relationship with Britain. One such claims that “Up to September 10th 1798 the territory was occupied by British wood-cutters solely by right of Treaty – and that under sufferance. But from that date the colony has been deemed held by right of conquest, and all Treaties with Spain became nugatory.”86 Similarly, the Baymen initially interpreted their victory as embodying the principle of right of possession inherent in conquest. Regardless, however, of what they thought – or, indeed, what the technical interpretation of their success could, should or even ought to have been – to Britain, Belize’s constitutional situation did not change. It remained a settlement with no precise name, and the British settlers still enjoyed only usufructuary rights, while sovereignty remained with Spain. The territory did not in fact receive colonial status until 1862 – sixty-four years later. There was to be no uniform, linear constitutional development for Belize; indeed, the very opposite was the case. Throughout the ensuing years after 1798, both Britain and the Baymen were inconsistent about the constitutional status of the settlement. (But

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the constitutional history of Belize is not the focus of this work; it has been dealt with elsewhere.87) Nonetheless, some very important changes were made after the Battle of St George’s Cay. To begin with, for the first time superintendents were regularly appointed; no more were there long interregnums such as the one that had occurred after Hunter. This change to regular appointments was an important one for the settlers, who had clamoured for it since the 1740s. These same independent-minded Baymen, who were to prove a thorn in the flesh of virtually all their superintendents, had insisted, as noted above, that they need such an officer to protect them from improper foreign intrusions and to look after their interests. But when they also add that the dignity of the office would contribute to the “respectability of the Settlement”, thereby giving weight to their representations, Dundas’s response is sarcastic. In endorsing Effingham’s rationale that the position is unnecessary, he says disparagingly that the Spanish governors in the vicinity, when considering “the Settlement as under the more immediate protection of the Governor of Jamaica would give it more weight than any possible power that could be delegated to a Superintendent residing constantly at Honduras”.88 After 1798, however, Effingham’s doctrine was superseded and the superintendent’s position became a regular appointment. Intriguingly, Dundas’s view on the subject was to prove correct; later we shall see a local Spanish governor treating the authority of a superintendent with barely concealed contempt. Another significant change after the battle was that the fortifications, forts and barracks that were erected during the war remained in place, and troops were regularly sent from Jamaica to be stationed at the Bay. Certainly this was in contravention of the treaties with Spain, but it is a good example of the variability of British policies regarding the settlement. The presence of military structures and troops was so obvious that by 1807 Superintendent Hamilton was referring to the settlement as completely a “Garrison Town”.89 Furthermore, after the battle Belize began to show signs that it was coming of age – or “becoming”, in keeping with the title of the work; in some respects it was beginning to behave like a regular colony. Thus in 1805 the Principal Inhabitants appointed for the first time an official agent to represent their interests in London. As noted, Robert White had represented them unofficially, but he was dismissed in 1789. The oligarchy deemed it necessary “that a person of Respectability in London and possessed of the Situation, Trade

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and Interests of the British Settlers in Honduras should be appointed as agent for the Settlement”. Predictably, they chose their highly respected friend George Dyer. In a most elaborate and arcanely worded document, Dyer is described as “the most proper and eligible person” to be “the true and lawful Agent for the British Settlement in the Bay of Honduras”, to act on behalf of the “welfare, interest and safety” of the settlement. Dyer was appointed by the magistrates, who were then Benjamin Garnett, William Gibson, Marshall Bennett, Thomas Davis and Thomas Graham. A special search committee, appointed by the inhabitants at a Public Meeting, had first been instituted, consisting of Elisha Tyler, Andrew Cunningham and James Hyde. George Tompson, notary public, clerk of the court and keeper of the public records, witnessed the signatures on the pompous document.90 It must be noted that all of these men, with the exception of Thomas Davis, were former Shoremen, who now constituted the majority of the Principal Inhabitants. Only a few years before (1793), Andrew Cunningham and others had been petitioning Whitehall to be returned to the Shore because they did not wish to be half-British subjects in the Bay. Cunningham, for instance, was now serving regularly as a magistrate and was constantly sitting on different committees. It is curious that no mention is made of a salary for Dyer upon his appointment. Burdon sheds some light on this when he reports on a Public Meeting that was held some months before the actual appointment, which recommended Dyer in appreciation for his past services “but without present remuneration owing to the exhausted state of the Public Funds”. Years later, when the public funds were in better shape, a Public Meeting resolved to give Dyer a “grant” of £300 annually and £200 “for his expenses in the past”, apparently in Jamaican currency.91 Another great change, and doubtless one of great importance to the Baymen, was that after the battle the official Spanish inspections of the settlement ceased. As far as can be determined from the records, the very last of these inspections was in 1793, when Captain Lawford, accompanied by the Bacalar official acting as commissary, inspected the boundaries on 14 April. This, according to Humphreys, seems to have been “the last formal inspection”, although there is evidence of the presence of a Spanish commissioner in the settlement in 1794, and probably in early 1796 also.92 But the absence of official inspection did not prevent various governors of Yucatan from complaining,

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well into the nineteenth century, that the settlers were cutting mahogany far beyond the treaty limits. The termination of official inspections must have been a great relief to the Baymen, who viewed it as onerous and demeaning, as evidenced by their complaints during Despard’s administration. A consequence of ending the “inquisitional system”, as Humphreys describes it,93 was expansion of the settlement. Certainly the settlers had always been extending their territory by cutting wood outside the stipulated limits, and by every means at their disposal – such as stealth and bribery. But now, with no one looking over their shoulders, they could extend at will. In the north, around the Hondo River, they re-established works they had vacated for security reasons before and during the past war; they also extended to the south, approaching the Sarstoon River, where the border is today. Their expansionist activities were even greater to the west, around the Guatemalan border; by the 1820s some Baymen, such as Marshall Bennett, the leading entrepreneur at the time, had mahogany establishments close to the Peten region. Indeed, in the early 1830s, when Bennett had become a resident of Guatemala, he extended his mahogany activities well into that territory’s Golfo Dulce district, often making deals with Spanish officials. Perhaps his most substantial penetration was on the Mosquito Shore, where he wielded much political influence.94 So ubiquitous were the Baymen in cutting wood “everywhere” that by 1807 it became difficult for the exasperated Superintendent Hamilton to know where to find them when needed: some “may be up the River Sibun, to a thirds [sic] who is gone to Mannatie [Manatee] and to a fourth who may be, God only knows where! For you are cutting so far beyond our limits, that he only can tell where to find you.”95 But apart from the commercial dimension, expansion of the settlement after 1798 was necessary – for cultivation of more provision grounds to assist in feeding the troops now stationed among them. Despite these new developments, however, Spain, like Britain, acknowledged no change as a result of the 1798 battle. To this power its relationship with the settlement was status quo ante; the stipulations of the treaties remained intact. Thus it is not correct to say that after the battle “the Spaniards made no further attempt to control the territory”.96 The Spaniards objected to just about everything they considered new changes on the Bay, well into the nineteenth century. They protested against the forts and fortifications and even against the title of commander-in-chief for superintendents after 1798, so it is

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also incorrect to say, “Spain has not murmured against them [the fortifications and troops]”.97 One such murmur was in 1803, after Barrow’s reappointment as superintendent of the settlement. In making his formal acquaintance with the Yucatan governor, Colonel Barrow pointedly introduced himself as superintendent and commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s forces, whose mandate was to look after the interests of His Majesty’s subjects in the settlement. No longer was the superintendent given various special and private instructions and commissions, with only the most private ones referring to his role as commanderin-chief. Upon his first appointment Balcarres had furtively advised that Barrow “attach a weight [to his private instructions] . . . in order to sink them should he fall in with an Enemy on his passage”.98 Now Barrow’s openness did not sit well with Don Benito Perez, the governor general of Yucatan. Nor was Perez happy about the forts and fortifications built in the settlement. He was surprised to hear that the superintendent was to take command of His Majesty’s forces at the Bay when by the treaties that was forbidden: the king, his “master”, had granted the British permission only to cut, load and carry away logwood.99 But nothing ever came of this. The Spanish also continued to protest against boundary infractions, including fishing activities outside the limits. Indeed, they continued to make, right up to the 1840s and beyond, what James Stephen of the Colonial Office called “the barren assertion of a right” to the settlement.100 However, why the Spaniards did not insist on sending commissaries to inspect the settlement jointly with their British counterparts is not entirely clear. It could be that the military establishment at Belize did in fact serve as a deterrent to a formal Spanish presence. This was decidedly the settlers’ view. When in 1807 Superintendent Hamilton complained of their ubiquitous illegal cutting of wood, they boasted that they now held the settlement by “the force of Arms, by the right of military conquest and . . . it has now become a regular military establishment”.101 With their usual active intelligence-gathering about the settlement, the Spaniards would have been well aware of the woodcutters’ “garrison town” mentality and, unless they were prepared for another war, would probably not wish to press the issue too far, especially since Spain was preoccupied with affairs in Europe. In any event, we shall see that the Spaniards did continue some unofficial inspections of the settlement. Belize therefore did not become entirely free from Spanish hostility after

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1798. It is true that the battle represented the last Spanish military attack – just over a hundred years after its first military attack, on St George’s Cay in 1695. Just a year after the battle and up until the first few years of the nineteenth century, the settlement remained tense and anxious because of alarms about impending Spanish threats. One of the first of these alarms came in 1799, and it was considered serious enough to occasion active defensive preparations directed by both Jamaica and Whitehall.102 A few years later, another expected attack sparked off the usual anxiety in the settlement. On this occasion the settlers were convinced that the Spaniards might well have repeated their 1779 success, were it not for “the Intelligence and aid offered them [the Baymen] from Jamaica by order of His Majesty’s Ministers”.103 And the tension continued. In December 1800, a report that the Spaniards were cutting a road to the south, apparently to Peten (of which more later), appears to have brought back memories of Governor Ursúa’s strategic southern roadway that facilitated attacks on Belize. Public Meetings were held to discuss war preparations, and their first recommendation was that gun flats be again constructed and that lookout craft for espionage purposes, which had served them so well in the past war, be made available. The new superintendent, Sir Richard Bassett, was asked to make available £100 (Jamaican) for this “Secret Service”.104 The ineffective and eccentric Basset was soon recalled, and it was most certainly this tense situation that brought about Barrow’s return to the settlement in January 1803. Thus it can be safely said that without the vigilance of authorities at Jamaica and Whitehall, in cooperation with the Baymen, the Spaniards might well have attacked the Bay again at this time. Colonel Barrow was reappointed superintendent to the Bay in 1803, and the inhabitants were relieved and excited. It “diffused a general joy and satisfaction”, restoring to them the “tranquility and confidence” that had existed during his former administration; they “unanimously” voted him a £500 (Jamaican) addition to his salary in appreciation of his appointment. They also expressed gratitude that the Fifth West India Regiment would now remain at the Bay, at least until a proper understanding with Spain could be achieved. It is noteworthy that they also hoped that “the utmost good fellowship will prevail and exist between every class” and pledged that their best endeavours would be directed towards this end105 – representing part of the nascent “nationalism” that the Battle of St George’s Cay had generated.106

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New concerns about another Anglo-Spanish rupture that could lead to war in the settlement surfaced a few months after Barrow’s arrival. He described the situation as “delicate and critical” and once again found himself making defensive preparations – by improving the forts and fortifications, against which the vigilant Yucatan governor protested vigorously.107 Nothing, however, came of the threat, although the tension remained. It is almost certain that the presence in the settlement of Barrow – the successful commander-inchief at the Battle of St George’s Cay, now back with an unambiguous military mandate – deterred the Spaniards from military action. But it is clear that he was being closely watched by the Yucatan officials. With their effective intelligence, the Spaniards may also have discovered that Whitehall, in secret communications with both Governor Nugent at Jamaica and Barrow, was advising them to contact the Miskito chiefs for assistance should the Spaniards attack the Bay, and was promising also to send arms to the Indians. And the Miskitos were ready and willing, despite the fact that the British had abandoned them to the “protection” of the Spaniards. Thus, even at this time, “the best possible counter-balance [to Spain] still rested with their Mosquito allies”, Naylor observes.108 The Spaniards were thus forced to employ other means to harass the Baymen. Various subterfuges and indirect actions were used, the most effective and damaging, as the Spaniards already knew, being the inveigling away of their slaves. To this end there developed what could be called a food strategy for dealing with the settlement. The Spaniards seem to have aimed at systematically destroying the Bay’s food supplies, thus making the slaves more likely to run off to Spanish territories. In his very first official representation to Whitehall on behalf of Belize, Agent Dyer, obviously undeterred by not yet being paid, highlighted the want of food supplies at the Bay. He saw it as a very grave issue, and the Baymen were convinced that it had come about largely because of certain Spanish activities. Spaniards were to be found (unofficially) in several parts of the Bay after the battle, making inspections of provision grounds and unaccompanied by their British counterparts, as the Convention stipulated. Dyer pointed out that some of the Baymen’s vegetable patches were at a “considerable distance” from their homesteads, and that the Spaniards saw this as an opportunity to conduct their food strategy. He reported that “the people” (slaves) engaged in cultivating the “essential” provision grounds were

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liable to be “captured by Spaniards” (such disasters occurred frequently), who would then destroy all the cultivated crops. Those captured would almost certainly be sent off to Spanish territories. Dyer also mentioned that the Spaniards had curtailed the Baymen’s fishing grounds, even more so than the unrealistic restrictions of the Convention. Perhaps for the first time the Baymen were suffering from a shortage of turtles – “this wholesome and cheap article of food” – because they were being prevented from fishing, especially in the northern waters. And all these extra restrictions and the destruction of gardens were occurring simultaneously with an increased population, enlarged by the presence of the troops. Dyer also pointed out that many Indians and free people of colour, evacuees from the Shore, were having a particularly difficult time, not being able to find “sufficient employment” in the settlement. In his practical approach to the settlement’s problems, Dyer utilized his wide influence and connections in London. He requested the merchants there who traded in “Honduras” to revisit the terms of the 1786 Convention regarding the planting of crops, and they strongly recommended an increase in the types of crops to be cultivated. Cotton was particularly mentioned as suitable for the soil, although under the treaties the Baymen were prohibited from cultivating this crop.109 This might have influenced Barrow, who also recommended an extension of crops for the settlement, naming sugar, for instance, as well suited for the soil. But sugar was also one of the staples banned by the Convention, so he agreed that there should be negotiations with Spain to extend the settlers’ cultivation to commercial crops such as cotton, coffee, ginger and indigo, even if they continued with the ban on sugar production. Barrow also suggested that the settlers be given unlimited extension of fishing – which had probably been going on anyway, for the Yucatan governor continued to complain that they were fishing beyond the limits.110 It is significant that part of the terms of agreement after the Battle of St George’s Cay was Field Marshall O’Neil’s renewed promise to Barrow to return all the slaves who had fled from Belize into his territory, and in turn the Baymen would return Spanish deserters. A similar contract with O’Neil had already been in existence since 1796, and apparently the mutual agreement worked to a degree – at least so far as Bacalar was concerned. But, as Barrow complained, although one door may have been closed, “this evil” of slaves being enticed away became “more frequent and extensive”, not to the north

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but southward to Omoa and Trujillo. There the fugitives were “still received [by the Spaniards], protected and considered as free persons”, even though, according to Barrow, the Belize magistrates were returning Spanish deserters without even requesting a refund for expenses. The superintendent gave it that many settlers were nearly ruined by “the elopement of their people”.111

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 10

Aftermath of the Battle Slavery in the Timber Industry

ALTHOUGH THE BATTLE O f

St George’s Cay generated certain important changes at the Bay, constitutionally it remained for a long time an ambiguous British “settlement” with theoretical Spanish sovereignty. Nonetheless, this study regards the battle as a defining moment for the country today called Belize. This is to be understood more on the abstract, nationalistic or psychological level than from the standpoint of constitutionality. The battle gave the Baymen a badly needed plank from which they could fashion a new identity, or at least a positive one, since the leading figures of the society – the Principal Inhabitants – still chafed at the thought of their buccaneering past, which many tried either to forget or to reconstruct. James Bartlett, for instance, was particularly sensitive about this. When he represented his class against Despard, he was convinced that what he considered Despard’s disrespect and contempt for them was due to the fact that they were “confounded with the Banditti who cut Logwood here at the risque of their own lives near a Century ago”.1 On occasion they even managed to be slyly deprecatory about their past, such as when they thanked Governor Knowles at Jamaica for the two engineers he had sent them, along with the military assistance mentioned above. In their response they tell Knowles that the two men possess dispositions and tempers “capable of Conciliating Minds more jarring and Savage than even the Bay peoples were formerly represented to be”.2 Henceforth the old guard would rarely mention their unsavoury past. Now they could proudly invoke the Battle of St George’s Cay as their historical 283

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identifier or reference point, comparable to them with the defining battles of many established countries – such as Hastings or Waterloo, for instance. During our period, in just about every contemplated change or dispute with the superintendent or the imperial Parliament in London after the battle, they would invoke their heroic and gallant deeds of 1798, which had saved the country for the British Empire with hardly any external assistance. What is more, the Baymen did not cease applauding their slaves for the valiant part they had played in the battle’s outcome and therefore in preserving the settlement. Their constant iteration of this soon became a cherished tradition and a marker for what they called the “harmony” in their society, which was first mentioned in their welcome to Barrow in 1803. And the documents are replete with other examples. When, for instance, a change of the Bay’s status to that of a colony was briefly and secretly broached soon after the battle, the Baymen displayed a new sense of confidence and communal outlook in their response. Governor Nugent of Jamaica had made the suggestion – albeit a vague and ill-defined one – to Barrow upon his reappointment. Nothing, of course, came of it, as Britain still did not wish to offend Spain, but it is the Baymen’s response that is telling. They first welcome the idea that Nugent holds expectations of “Honduras’s becoming a colony”. Then they express strong views on what they would expect for such a colony. They would urge His Majesty’s ministers to observe justice and propriety in the distribution of lands and other things connected with colonial status. They hope that due regard would be paid to the merits and services of the present settlers, “who with our slaves, with only the countenance of the Merlin sloops of war, repelled a very formidable attack on the Settlement in September 1798”. And this, they point out, continues to be the principal defence for a settlement that is still under every restriction and disadvantage that Spanish jealousy can devise. They view with “mortification and regret” that their settlement, which is capable of so much improvement, should be subject to a set of “torpid” Spaniards who never will make any use of it, while they – British subjects who can – are restricted to only cutting wood. They argue confidently that colonial status would end all the restrictions, and with extended cultivation for commercial purposes it would improve their strength; the settlement would become of even greater importance to Britain.3 A few years later, when the Baymen were locked in a constitutional dispute with Superintendent Hamilton, they reminded him of the real nature of the

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settlement since the battle. If it is true that they now hold it by force and the right of military conquest, then it was due to the combination of settlers, free people of colour and slaves who bore the principal share “in preserving it to their King and Country [and this] ought not to be forgot”. It was the exertions of these groups also that procured them the high distinction of thanks from their sovereign and placed “their Loyalty beyond all questions”. They will be ready again on any similar occasion to assist in repelling the rage of the common enemy.4 Later, in the 1820s, the Baymen refuted Superintendent Arthur’s criticisms that some of them treated their slaves harshly. In their defence they refer to the “extraordinary fidelity” of the bondmen and promptly cite the Battle of St George’s Cay as proof. They carefully point out that at the time of the Spanish attack they were “almost destitute” of protection, the white population was “inconsiderable” and the few troops stationed at the Bay were inadequate to resist the attack. With nowhere to “fly” (evoking memories of the Mosquito Shore), it was the slaves who saved the day. “With patience they bore the fatigues of military duty, and with a gallantry unparalleled they beat off an enemy, double their number.”5 It is certainly not typical of slave masters anywhere, from classical antiquity to the New World systems, to be so free and open in praising their slaves and acknowledging the protection they receive from them. But the Baymen had every reason to be grateful for the “gallantry unparalleled” of their slaves, especially when we are reminded of the numerical disparity between the groups. In the 1740s we see them acknowledging their own inconsiderable numbers and claiming that their “liberties” are in the hands of their slaves. Now the disparity was much greater, with “about” three thousand slaves to five hundred settlers, including the free people of colour.6 As for the slaves, what were they thinking or saying after the battle? Unfortunately we have no precise way of knowing this, because historically the views of the underclass are not usually the ones that surface in society. Also, unlike the United States, with its rich corpus of slave narratives, Belize has no comparable body of literature from which local insights may be drawn. Nevertheless, the American narratives certainly inform our general understanding of slaves as human beings operating under an odious system. Slaves everywhere have given the lie to the legal fiction that human beings can be treated as property. The Belizean slaves, as human beings, would have shared the emotions

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of pride and satisfaction over the successful outcome of the battle, knowing of their considerable contribution to it. It is telling that the 1798 battle is celebrated today by an independent Belize where the Creole (Afro-Belizean) segment of the population is the largest (until recently, when the mestizos began to outnumber them) and the whites constitute a statistically insignificant 0.8 per cent. This would seem to suggest a common historical memory that the blacks have accepted as a part of their own story, just as Afro-Americans today are highlighting their contributions to their country in warfare and other situations even during the period of slavery. This attitude, especially among the older generation of Afro-Belizeans, became apparent to the author when conducting field studies for this work. Whether or not this collective memory would have remained alive up to the present without constant reminders from the Principal Inhabitants is not clear. What is clear is that this was not the usual behaviour of slave-owners or colonial authorities, who usually underplay the participation of slaves or “other” ethnic groups in their wars; we saw this earlier with the Spaniards in the region, when they repeatedly downplayed such participation by the Aztecs and the Maya. Through the early and pervasive articulation by Belizean powerholders of the slaves’ contribution to the success of this defining battle, the settlement could be considered as on its way to becoming a community where all were perceived as participants. When, for instance, the Baymen felt threatened by another group of rebellious slaves – from Barbados in this case – they were again genuinely alarmed that what they considered their community might be thrown into disequilibrium if people with discordant ideas were allowed in the settlement. “We are”, they remind Whitehall, “a numerous Body composed of Whites, Free People of Color and Thousand of Slaves, formed into a Community without a Head” – for with the limited constitutional authority of the superintendent, he could not be considered a true head. It speaks volumes that a group of slave-owners characterize themselves and their slaves as a community within the headless state they have created – and can change at will should they wish it. They go further, arguing that the community spirit of all is imperative, especially when it is remembered how unprotected and insecure they are. They thus ask “for the Removal of these dangerous Characters”, whose “pernicious principles once disseminated amongst” their slaves would contaminate them, with disastrous results for the settlement.7 The Baymen were successful. Whitehall

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decided to send the Barbados “convicts” to Sierra Leone8 – a British colony that had already accommodated many from the New World.9 The Baymen indeed felt threatened from different directions, and this, as we have argued earlier, helped to shape the singular relationship between masters and slaves in Belize. In addition to the constant fear of Spanish attacks, their contiguity to Spanish territories rendered them especially vulnerable to Spain’s policy of manumission to British slaves entering Spanish states. It would thus have been reasonable for Belize slave-owners to feel constant anxiety about mass slave desertions in order to gain freedom. Furthermore, the settlers lived in constant fear of other internal enemies, the “Wild Indians” by whom they felt surrounded. Nothing could have increased their angst more than the mere thought of an alliance between Indians – wild or otherwise – and slaves. This was, however, no more than a reflection of the universal fear – felt by slave masters everywhere, from antiquity to the modern period – of their slaves.10 Certainly it is amazing that slaves in Belize did not make some common cause with the Indians in the “wilds” against the settlers, who could have been perceived a common enemy. But no such coalition ever took place. On the contrary, the Baymen, as we have seen, praised their slaves for fighting off the assaults of Indians “in the interior” who attacked their mahogany works. For their part, the Baymen invariably took the credit for such loyalty to them. It was due, they congratulated themselves, to their “humanity” and the good treatment their slaves received, which according to them was not to be found anywhere else. In fact this treatment had nothing to do with owners’ humanity but was dictated by the circumstance of their claustrophobic position. They were therefore perfectly correct in rejecting “dangerous” outside elements such as the Haitians and Barbadians with their “pernicious ideas” of freedom. By the logic of New World slave systems, the Barbadian rebels did hold pernicious ideas. It was dangerous to all slaveholders of the region that the captured ringleaders of the rebellion “stoutly maintained . . . that the island [Barbados] belonged to them, and not to white men”.11 When we examine more closely the circumstances of slavery in Belize, it is indeed extraordinary that hardly any resistance took place there. Here was a system in which the slaves had become the overwhelming majority from around the 1780s. This was not new to slave systems in the region, but all the others had the overarching apparatus of imperial power to protect the white

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oligarchies. The visiting warship from Jamaica that was to provide some protection to the Bay beginning in 1765 was so uncertain and irregular that it could hardly give the Baymen any real sense of security. Belize had no official standing army except during periods of crisis, and the settlers had only a rudimentary form of government – and headless at that – which despite their boast of their “ancient system” could hardly maintain law and order. The result was that at any given time (except under martial law) the settlement was a pretty disorderly place. For the most part Belize was without effective forts, barracks or fortifications; those constructed during the battle soon fell into desuetude from want of proper maintenance, even during Barrow’s second administration (1803–5), when the settlement was in a state of constant alert over expected Spanish attacks.12 Indeed, most of the superintendents voiced complaints to Whitehall about the lack of repairs to the forts and barracks; foremost among them was Colonel Arthur. He worried constantly about the neglected state of the military establishments erected during the battle. In vivid terms he points out that any foreign privateer could “sail in the Harbour and batter the town of Belize about our Ears without the slightest of retaliation as we have not one Gun mounted from which we could fire Two Shots”.13 But not even an Arthur, with his great prestige at Whitehall, could succeed in changing Britain’s traditional genuflection to Spain’s sensitivities regarding the settlement.14 The Bay’s weakness was further demonstrated by its lack of a regular civil police force or even a proper jail system, all of which contributed to the lack of protection of the slave-owners; the slaves, for their part, were well aware of these weaknesses. Furthermore, the lack of unity among the Baymen, with their constant squabbling and bickering, could be seen as a favourable condition to be exploited by an underclass.15 The spatial dimension of slavery in Belize might well be considered the single most important factor that should have contributed to successful slave resistance against the system. The terrain consisted of vast, wide-ranging and remote jungles, much more ideal for effective marronage than island entities and therefore reminiscent of the situation in Suriname or, closer to home, in Guatemala.16 But Belize also had another geographical feature that is most conducive to resistance. The coastline, with its famous creeks, cays, islets and the like, provided ample scope for fugitives to secrete themselves very effectively, as the buccaneers had done, although it is true that this marine type of

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marronage would be restricted mostly to those skilled at manning canoes or boats. Certainly the timber industry (especially mahogany) seems peculiarly suited to slave resistance of one kind or another. Unlike sugar plantations, with their confined barracks-like living conditions where slaves could be constantly under the masters’ scrutiny, the mahogany industry offered a great amount of open space and “freedom”. The mahogany business often made it necessary for the owner to be “immured in the depth of trackless forests surrounded by his armed slaves, and far away from all his other friends”.17 Here he “sleeps in the midst of them in an open hut: he is surrounded by them in the most lonely recesses of the woods, and yet no harm ensues”.18 These well-armed slaves were equipped with axes – a necessary tool of the timber industry – and each also carried a knife, a machete, often a sword and always a gun. As Henderson observed, “possibly a more expert body of marksmen could not be found”.19 Yet, according to Bridges, the “master feels no fear” about being embedded with them for weeks on end.20 The slaves’ weapons could easily have been turned against their masters, which induced the discerning Superintendent Arthur to recommend (unsuccessfully) to the magistrates that they adopt measures to “restrain the unbounded use of firearms among the Negroes and to prevent the unlimited sale of Ammunition” to them.21 There is also the phenomenon of the “huntsman” – graphically described elsewhere22 – who was selected from the work gang of between twenty and fifty to search for mahogany trees deep in the thick forest. “[G]enerally selected from the most intelligent of his fellows”,23 he worked alone. Using his keen trained eyes to search for the “hidden treasure”, it was his job to find enough wood to employ the work gang for the whole season. Besides all the hazards germane to the jungle, the huntsman was almost always subject to human temptations as well. That is, another Bayman might send an agent (possibly a trusted slave) to stalk an especially experienced and successful huntsman; as soon as he found his “treasure” he might be offered an attractive bribe for the find and his master need not be privy to this. Thus, according to Henderson, “it becomes a contest with his conscience, whether he shall disclose the matter to his master, or sell it to his master’s neighbour”. However, they seldom succumbed, it would appear.24 The huntsman’s status can be compared only to that of the sugar boiler in slave sugar operations. Both were highly skilled and highly favoured, but in

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the case of the huntsman, apart from his skill he had also to prove his integrity, loyalty and reliability for the owner to trust him with this kind of responsibility. The question of why the huntsmen did not run away, singly or with the rest of the armed work gang – with or without bribe money – to contiguous Spanish territories where, by Spain’s edicts, they would have been happily embraced in freedom is a provoking one. In the forest, any given gang would have had only one master to overwhelm. On the other hand, they could have joined forces with the aggressive “Wild Indians” scattered throughout the forests, enjoying a maroon-like existence and intermittently harassing the slave masters. Of course we do not know if this ever happened, but if it had, either as a single instance or on a large or sustained scale, the expected hysterical reaction of the settlers would certainly have been recorded in the documents. Belize, in fact, had all the conditions conducive to well-established organized maroon societies on the scale of those at Jamaica or Suriname, to largescale slave rebellions such as that at Jamaica (1831–32) or those at Cuba in the 1840s, or to another successful slave rebellion such as Haiti’s (1791–1804). Any one of the numerous favourable factors would have been adequate for effective resistance, and when taken together they are overwhelming. Therefore, if one is not prepared to gloss over this extraordinary situation or to view it in terms of some prepackaged racial or political ideologies – denying slaves in the process their cognitive capacities – then one must probe the question of slavery in Belize with some meaningful analysis. To be sure there must have been runaways who fled voluntarily, but it is clear from claims made by the owners that the bulk who deserted were inveigled away by Spain’s widely publicized edicts giving freedom to those escaping to Spanish territories. And Spanish policy was not passive in pursuing this. Numerous creative devices were employed in its service, including active spying, visiting slave quarters at night, recruiting, canvassing, offering money as an incentive, attempting to stir up dissension in slave quarters, and – most important and most pervasive – placing boats at strategic points along the rivers, particularly the Hondo, to whisk away slaves. The evidence for this is overwhelming.25 Even the shadowy figures of runaways around the Peten area (to be discussed later) were mostly the result of Spanish policy. There were also isolated instances of slaves killing a master or mistress, but recorded cases are few. And what is quite astonishing is that when these few cases occurred,

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not only was the punishment relatively mild but there is an absence of the usual vituperative racial stereotyping that would accompany slave masters’ accounts of such incidents anywhere else in the Caribbean. The case of Sambo is instructive. Sambo was alleged to have killed his mistress by setting fire to her dwelling house. The Baymen considered his case especially egregious because his “kind” mistress had “reared Sambo from his infancy with the tenderness of a parent, rather than that of a proprietor”. Yet during the trial and the reporting of the case, the language used was remarkably mild – no less normative than what might be used in any “free”, ethnically homogeneous society – as was the punishment. Typically too, Sambo’s case was tried by a jury. This was in contrast with other slave systems in the region, where trial by jury was not countenanced. Elsa Goveia, who has studied the slave laws of the Caribbean, cites the Barbados legislature, for instance; it dismissed the jury system for slaves, who from “the Baseness of their Condition” did not deserve “to be tried by the legal trial of twelve men of their peers . . . as the Subjects of England are”.26 The words of the magistrate in defending the guilty verdict in the Sambo case were more or less typical of the Bay. He felt that a “wretch who committed so wanton, so wicked, so atrocious a crime should receive the sentence so justly awarded” – that is, death on the gallows.27 It can also be assumed that some types of passive resistance did occur, but in terms of slave rebellions in Belize, there is hardly anything to write home about. It is clear that Bolland would disagree with the above analysis. He appears impressed by the resistance of slaves in Belize, where “cases of the destruction of masters’ property and even the taking of the masters’ lives are quite frequently recorded”, although he does not cite evidence. He further states that the “most important evidence from the historical records concerning the slaves’ reactions to their situation, however, lies in the four slave revolts and the countless and continual desertions of slaves from the settlement”.28 In fact, these “four slave revolts” were no more than minor local uprisings by any standard of measurement, and as for the “countless and continual desertions”, these will be examined later. The slaves are said to have “rebelled at least three times between 1765 and 1773”. This was a period of much economic distress during which scarcity of provisions would affect the masters’ ability to feed their slaves, who were therefore more prone to run away or to be enticed by the Spaniards’ promises of freedom and a better life. Although the Baymen “had little ability to control their slaves”,29 we have

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no record whatsoever of a general slave rebellion in Belize. There was a local uprising in 1765, of the slaves belonging to Thomas Cooke, “late of Jamaica” – which meant that the slaves were also probably from Jamaica and typically would be more rebellion-prone. They killed their master and a carpenter, robbed the house and fled to the woods. Later they killed three men on a schooner on the New River and sunk the vessel, thereby temporarily preventing further communications on the river. The settlers were in their ususal state of panic but felt handicapped: “For want of power to compel people to take arms against them, we have not been able to raise a party”, complains Joseph Maud, the prominent magistrate we discussed above. Nevertheless, nothing more is heard of this incident, and even the number of slaves involved is unclear. In his report, Maud says rather vaguely that there were “not above ten or twelve men able to carry arms amongst them all”. However, they were destroying one another “by their own Cabals”, three already having been killed, and Maud was expecting more to follow.30 Maud was obviously being self-serving in taking it upon himself to report the incident to the governor of Jamaica, for it was around this time that he was trying to edge his way into the position of superintendent. In his report of the uprising, Maud took the opportunity to appeal for a more regular system of government at the Bay, pointing out particularly the weakness of the magistrates’ authority and therefore the need to “appoint . . . some power to punish evildoers amongst ourselves”.31 The second of Bolland’s “revolts” was in fact the group-runaway situation of twenty-three armed slaves who took off to the New River to be received by the Spaniards, discussed above. This was not a slave revolt. But given the dire economic conditions in combination with the almost total breakdown of law and order that we hear of from Admirals Burnaby and Parry and Captain Botham, the wonder is why the slaves did not exploit the situation when the masters’ world was in such a state of chaos. The third uprising, characterized as “the biggest slave revolt of all”32 in Belize, broke out in 1773, again in a situation of continuing economic hardship and a dysfunctional society. It appears to have started sometime in May, when Captain Davey, a subordinate of Admiral Rodney, then the commandant stationed at Jamaica, heard that two white men had been killed by slaves on the Belize River. Davey was attending a meeting at St George’s Cay chaired by Richard Hoare, who relayed the news to him and asked for his assistance. In

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his letter to Rodney, dated 29 May, Davey reports having sent “an officer and a party of sailors to assist in quelling the negro rebellion”. By 21 June the rebels had taken five settlements and murdered six whites; Davey gives their numbers as “about fifty armed with sixteen Musquets Cutlasses, etc.”. But on the following day fourteen of the rebels gave themselves up, leaving thirty-six at large, and Davey sent out three parties, each numbering forty of his men, to “destroy” them. As would be expected, some tried to flee to the Spaniards. Nineteen made the attempt and eleven succeeded, despite the parties pursuing them. These eleven were well received at the Spanish post on the Hondo River, and the commandant at Bacalar refused to return them to the Baymen. What happened to the remaining eight rebels is unclear, but in November Davey reported the “rebellion” entirely suppressed. He reports being struck by what he calls the “bad situation” at the Bay. The Baymen are without “Arms or Ammunition . . . and what is much worse their fears will not make them unite and there is not the least subordination – they are continually quarrelling and fighting”; in addition he provides news of a recent murder and of a man being badly wounded.33 Finally, what is characterized as the “last slave revolt in Belize”34 occurred some forty-six years later. It happened between 1819 and 1820 on the Belize and Sibun rivers during Arthur’s superintendency. This was a time when the Baymen felt particularly vulnerable to the “hordes of Wild Indians” who were constantly attacking their mahogany works. Thus any restiveness on the part of the slaves, however minor, would generate much fear and a strong disposition to exaggerate. Roused by the magistrates’ nervous report that well-armed rebel slaves had “committed the most outrageous Depredations on many of the neighboring Properties and Plantations”, Arthur immediately went into action. He declared martial law, sent troops into the interior, instituted rewards for apprehension of the ringleaders, offered a free and general pardon to all runaways in a series of proclamations, and traversed the Belize River himself.35 The last of his five proclamations, dated 22 May 1820, ends martial law and declares victory against the rebels; some have surrendered “voluntarily”, there is no more “Combination amongst” them, and the few remaining have so totally dispersed that the tremendous apprehensions of the settlers have disappeared.36 The Baymen were enthusiastic in their gratitude and “unqualified thanks” to Arthur, even before the last remnants of the rebels disappeared. They applauded “the prompt and decisive measures [he] adopted

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. . . not only in sending Troops into the Interior . . . but also personally going up the Belize when in a bad state of health, and undergoing great fatigue and privations, subduing the bad spirit existing among the slaves and tranquilizing the minds of the population”.37 Although the whole affair is somewhat confusing, nonetheless it was not a slave revolt as such. There appear to have been two or three local incidents between March 1818 and May 1820 that predictably brought disquietude to the minds of the Baymen. The first involved “certain runaways” who “established themselves” around the Belize and Sibun rivers. These were the object of Arthur’s first proclamation, which offered pardon to those who would deliver themselves up and rewards to anyone who informed against free persons harbouring the runaways.38 A year later, this unspecified number of runaways was still around the rivers, and these were the ones the magistrates portrayed as committing outrageous acts against the settlement.39 The last of these incidents took place at two mahogany camps or settlements on the Belize River, one belonging to Grace Anderson and the other to Edward Meighan. Some local discontent beginning in the former camp soon spilled over into Meighan’s camp. Will, who was Anderson’s property, and Sharper, who belonged to Meighan, were the two leaders. Will rebelled because he had been demoted by his mistress, and he soon gained seven supporters from among Meighan’s eleven slaves. Sharper, with only one follower, probably joined Will out of friendship. Thus these two “Captains and Leaders of these Rebels”, each with a £100 reward on his head, were leading eight people. Of these it is said that “some” escaped successfully to Spanish territory.40 This, then, was the extent of the so-called revolt that demonstrated the rebelliousness of Belize’s slaves41 – one that took place some forty-six years after the previous one in 1773. Like the others, it was not an organized affair but only a local matter concerning a handful of slaves with specific complaints. Even Arthur, who was truly alarmed by the hysteria of the magistrates, could not find any “formidable” number of rebels. In a departure from his usual clear style, which always demonstrates mastery of the English language, he writes in a convoluted fashion that he cannot “ascertain that the number now remaining of the principal body in the Belize River exceeds 20; and . . . even these are separated, and, of course no longer formidable”.42 In fact there are no clear figures from any of these incidents, apart from the eight followers identified under the leadership of Will and Sharper. And their crimes, listed

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in Arthur’s dispatch above, consisted of destruction of some cattle and the robbery of Meighan’s house. Altogether, therefore, “the entire affair was a tempest in a teapot”.43 Yet this affair led to a dramatic volte-face by the Baymen in their attitude to Arthur, from one of veneration to complete vilification. Up to this moment Arthur’s superintendency had been the most successful and the most highly praised by the Baymen. This is not to overlook Barrow, who occupied a special position with them because he had presided over the Battle of St George’s Cay. But in terms of governance, Barrow was more inclined to follow the Baymen’s wishes while Arthur led them by the power of persuasion, a feat which unfortunately cannot be dealt with in this study. But suffice it to say here that this was no easy achievement for such a very proactive superintendent, considering that the Baymen were fully cognizant of and indeed boasted about their power to remove these officials.44 The harmony ended abruptly because of some of the very measures Arthur adopted in quelling the disturbances. In one of his proclamations Arthur expresses surprise at what he considers the bad conduct of the rebel slaves and sees in it a departure from their “former good Character”; thus he requires “all the Runaway slaves” to meet with him personally at Amity Hall to express their grievances. He pledges that he will act with “the Strictest Justice and Impartiality” and will fully investigate any complaints they might have against their owners.45 From these runaways and from his own findings while traversing the Belize River, Arthur was able to give an early report to Whitehall. He found that those who had first deserted and then excited others to join them complained of unnecessary harshness from their owners, but they had not committed any excesses apart from the destruction of some cattle and one or two robberies46 – despite the magistrates’ hysterical claims. These claims piqued Arthur’s interest in the whole issue of slavery in Belize. In his usual meticulous and diligent manner, he soon found some most egregious cases of mistreatment of slaves over the past four or so years. A few of them he had already reported to Whitehall, but new cases were appearing. It must be stressed that the most inhumane cases affected female slaves in domestic households; a few of the well-documented acts of cruelty were committed by white males, but most were perpetrated by mulatto women who were concubines in these households. What was most galling to Arthur was the administration of justice in these cases: invariably the defendants would be acquitted despite evidence that no one disputed. In his lengthy

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letters to Bathurst he reports with disbelief some gruesome atrocities, describing in vivid detail the condition of some of the battered and injured females.47 Arthur also came upon another aspect of slavery in Belize that was a kind of closet secret up until this time. To his horror he discovered that Indians from the Shore and elsewhere (and their descendants) were being illegally held in slavery. He was quick to grant them their freedom, which had dramatic repercussions, which will be dealt with later. There is no doubt that in his reports on the illegally enslaved Indians (it turned out that just a few had legitimate claims) and on the gratuitous brutalities inflicted on some female slaves, Arthur’s language indicts the entire system of slavery in Belize. It is true that he initially says it is “the lower classes of Settlers” who display the most “extreme inhumanity” towards their slaves. But he soon involves the whole system, saying, for instance, that the severity of the “cruelty now practiced with impunity” is “increasing” and that the disposition to inhumanity is “now unfolding itself more and more”,48 although for the most part he was dealing with specific cases of domestic violence against individual female slaves. This kind of criticism of Belize’s slavery was new. It went to the very core of the identity of the Baymen, who prided themselves on the “humane” treatment of their slaves. Arthur had trodden on their Achilles heel, and this was the cause of the immediate and undying animosity that the Baymen developed towards him. It was galling to them that Arthur, who had initially applauded them repeatedly for treating their slaves humanely, was now criticizing them for wanton cruelty to them. They recalled (and regretted) how they had lavished more praise on him than on any other superintendent – in their own words, on whom “princely homage was constantly rendered” – yet he had now portrayed them as “little better than barbarians”. This challenged the new identity they had been so sedulously trying to cultivate after the battle. Henceforth Arthur was to be reconstructed, from a man whom, they admitted, they had “almost deified”49 into one they completely demonized. The Baymen, however, would do well to remember that it was their own hysterical exaggeration of small localized incidents that had brought about the unintended consequence of Arthur’s probings. In any event, our study of these small-scale, unorganized and localized incidents certainly does not answer the pressing question of why slaves in Belize did not challenge the system, despite the uniquely favourable conditions for resistance of just about every kind. Was the type of slave in Belize different

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from, for instance, those at Jamaica, Suriname, Haiti or other places in the Caribbean? We have already said that slavery was not a major factor in Belize even when the “Regulations” were collated in 1765. Yet we also noted that some twenty years earlier the settlers had considered themselves a minority of 50 compared to “about” 120 slaves on whom they depended for their liberty. Whatever the accuracy of these figures, the slave population in Belize did not begin to expand on a regular basis until roughly the 1770s, and thereafter it developed at an extraordinary pace. We do not have clear evidence of the origin of the earlier slaves, but it appears that, especially from the 1780s, the claustrophobic Baymen were making great efforts to ensure that only the type of slaves considered “safe” entered the settlement. In opposing Whitehall’s directives to send the Barbadian rebels to them, the Baymen explain that at no time in the history of the settlement have they ever been inattentive to the type of slaves they accept. On the contrary, “the most energetic precautions” have been enforced “at all times” so as not to admit undesirables; this vigilance, they point out, arises from “positive necessity”, due to their vulnerable circumstances. The Baymen then cite what they consider long-established “laws” regulating the masters of vessels entering the Bay. Several of the early records of these laws may have been destroyed, but there is evidence of some from 1786 demanding that shipmasters, upon arrival at Belize, report to the clerk of court the number of passengers and slaves they have brought and from whence they came, “giving bond with sufficient security”.50 This kind of control increasingly became an obsessive necessity, especially after the Haitian slaves were dumped on their shore. The incident spawned a number of rigorous regulations, all attempting to prevent rebellious slaves from appearing in their midst. Thus a Public Meeting of 7 March 1792 passed a resolution stating that no Haitian slave should ever be admitted to the settlement “under any condition whatever”. Another a year later stipulated that slaves entering the Bay should come only from other British colonies or directly from “the Coast of Africa”, and none should be admitted from any French Islands.51 The beginning of the nineteenth century found the Baymen still in a state of anxiety. They were concerned about the “Wild” Indians in the interior who were “committing depredations” on their mahogany works, and the usual fear of a joint Indian–slave rebellion resurfaced.52 They were also “under considerable alarm in consequence of the many dangerous characters . . . under sen-

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tence of transportation” and were worried that these undesirables might be sent to the Bay. Among them were probably some Maroons from Jamaica deported in 1796 and the Black Caribs (now Garifuna) deported from St Vincent to Roatan in 1797; the Baymen were particularly nervous about the latter. To them the “Charibs”, as they called them, were a “most Dangerous People”, and attempts were made to deport some who were found in the settlement around August 1802; it was feared that their rebelliousness would “contaminate” the local black population.53 Fuelled by the same anxiety, a Public Meeting of 1802 decreed that “no slave of any description whatsoever” except those directly from Africa would be permitted into the settlement, in order to keep out all “slaves of improper descriptions”. The penalty for breach of this “law” was £500 for each person illegally imported, and the only exception would be for slaves accompanying their owners into the territory – and such owners had to show proof that the slaves had been their property for at least five years. Finally, such slaves were to be personally examined by a majority of the magistrates, who might approve or reject them “under a certificate and seal”.54 To what extent these regulations were obeyed is unclear. In any event, the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807–8 made it next to impossible for the settlers to obtain newly arrived Africans. The emphasis thereafter was to refine, amend and expand the restrictions stipulated in the 1802 “law”. Thus slaves entering the settlement with their owners from other British colonies could not have come from a jail or workhouse and could not have been sentenced to transportation for some heinous crime or for participating in a rebellion, nor could they “have ever been in the Island of Hispaniola”. Indeed, owners introducing slaves into the settlement had to present certificates signed by the “Police Magistrate and Parish Clerk” from the British colony of origin, attesting that the slaves were not of the type forbidden by the settlement. Even the masters of vessels carrying these slaves were to “Make oath” that they had not “by any subterfuge eluded or attempted to elude the spirit and intention of the Regulations of the Settlement against the Introduction of Slaves or other persons of a dangerous description”, under pain of £500 for each slave improperly imported.55 The Baymen, therefore, had left nothing to chance in their attempts to allow only the most carefully hand-picked slaves to enter their domain. They must be peaceful, hard-working, docile and not prone to rebellion. It is doubtful that they succeeded in obtaining any new Africans. Henderson, for instance, mentions “no direct importation [from Africa] having

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ever taken place” – but many were Creoles from various West Indian Islands.56 In fact, had the Baymen been successful, the settlement might well have seen some real resistance, since newly arrived Africans were more likely to rebel or to become maroon leaders. Nonetheless, even if the slave owners in Belize took meticulous care to recruit the most docile of slaves – and even if they succeeded – this by itself should not have been sufficient safeguard against rebelliousness. There is no prima facie evidence to suggest that even the most docile slave would remain quiet under any and all conditions. On the spectrum from total docility to total rebelliousness, hardly any slave would always occupy either end. Slaves, as human beings, responded differently to the situations created for them. These responses would depend on a variety of factors, including overall living conditions; the amount of available space; the quality and quantity of food and clothing; the workload and the conditions associated with it; the incidence and types of punishment; the consistency of periods of recess, especially at Christmas time; and, of course, the intensity of the ideology of racial superiority among the masters. Altogether, by any of these variables, the slaves in Belize were in a relatively favourable situation. There is no doubt that the treatment meted out to them and their general pattern of life were far better than anywhere else in the Caribbean region. Not only has the evidence overwhelmingly shown that Belizean slaves were generally better fed and better clothed and had better working conditions, there are also some singular features of their servitude that should be noted here. That every account – from eyewitnesses and officials such as superintendents – mentions that slaves in Belize had a lighter workload than anywhere else in the region is not even by itself singular, being a relative assessment. What is singular is the fact that they worked five days a week, unlike anywhere else in the entire hemisphere. Saturdays and Sundays were their “free” days, and should they work on Saturdays for their owners or by hiring themselves out, they were routinely paid an “established” rate, usually three shillings and four pence or half a dollar (Jamaican) per day. Typically Sundays were always free. Apart from their ample ration of food, consisting of salted pork, rice and flour (imported) and produce from their provision or “garden grounds”, every male worker was supplied with the “luxury” goods of pipes, tobacco and rum. And it must be stressed that these practices were not arbitrarily carried out according to the whims of one or two “kind” or “good” masters; they were

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systemic and predictive. As Arthur observed, the slaves were “Entitled” to them by common “usage”.57 This was a system unique to the region, one in which there were no slave-drivers or overseers with whips cracking from “sun up to sun down”. Nor were there workhouses or punishment devices such as wheels, stocks and treadmills; indeed, even jails were absent. Nor do we have any evidence of grisly mutilations or of slaves being slowly burned alive or “gibbeted”; absent too were the severed heads of rebellious slaves impaled on poles and placed at strategic points as a gruesome warning to other slaves. In fact, any random study of slavery elsewhere in the region would produce a clearly contrasting picture.58 But should better conditions under slavery prevent resistance? It is here that the slaves’ consciousness of choices must be considered. Many scholars, from Hegel to more recent ones,59 have commented on the way slaves watch closely and study the world of their slave masters – their strengths, weaknesses, peccadilloes and the like – and this fund of information serves to inform their decisions about the system. They will accordingly evaluate the whole picture and decide between adjustment or accommodation to it (at least for the time being) and resistance. Any decision reached is not to be understood as permanent, since it will depend on the master’s predictive behaviour. Should this behaviour change arbitrarily for the worse, the slaves’ accommodation strategy is likely to change to violence or resistance of one kind or another.60 It is a mistake to think that even slaves do not have some agency in their own destiny. In Belize the slave-owners thoroughly understood their peculiarly vulnerable position vis-à-vis their slaves, who also thoroughly understood it, and what is more, each group was not unaware that the other shared this knowledge. And this dictated the overall relatively good treatment of slaves in the logging business in Belize. There was a kind of tacit arrangement between these bondmen and their owners that made for this singularity of relationship. It is no wonder that the Baymen often refer to it in mythical terms. “There appeared”, they reflect, “a sacred tie between the Slave and the Master, which bound the one to the other”,61 and it would be simplistic to call this mere selfdeception or sheer ingenuousness. That would not explain the extraordinary situation in which a single master and his well-armed slaves would routinely work alone in the thick of the jungle, sleeping together in open huts, for weeks on end. Nor would it explain the incredible situation (which we will discuss

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later) of slaves working on their master’s mahogany works without any supervision whatsoever from a “free” person. Furthermore, it would not explain the huntsman, alone and unsupervised in the deep of the jungle, searching diligently for mahogany for his master, facing untold physical hazards and resisting temptations to deceive his master. He had many other options: he could easily have gone over to the Spaniards, with or without the bribe, alone or with a gang, knowing he would be well received, or he could well have made common cause with the “Wild” Indians. In the Baymen’s words, “Could they not, with the arms which the confidence of their Masters had placed in their hands, have retired and with ease have joined the enemy [the Spaniards]? They could have done this, and laughed to scorn every attempt to prevent them, for . . . the Settlement had not force sufficient to arrest their progress.” If one is not to share the asinine conclusion of these slave masters that this demonstrated “the marked preference of these faithful Slaves to their state of bondage than to the freedom offered by the Spaniards”,62 the answer must lie elsewhere. In their more realistic mode, the Baymen knew only too well that treating their slaves well was a “positive necessity” based on their situational weakness. But what is fascinating is that as the system continued, the relationship spawned a trust between masters and slaves that developed exponentially, culminating in what they called the slaves’ “glorious act” at the Battle of St George’s Cay. The Belize male slaves, then, clearly felt that they had earned the inordinate trust the masters placed in them. And this must have given them what one might call a kind of moral authority and even a sense of empowerment. They were always weighing their choices, and, as we shall see, they knew that they could have taken advantage over and over again of their masters’ weak situation through open rebellion or mass desertions. But they consciously decided against it, on the grounds that neither was in their interest. However, when they embraced the status quo policy, it was on the condition that the masters continue with the expected treatment. Within this system of tacit reciprocity, the slaves knew they were accumulating a valuable trust fund, and the more they accumulated, the better the situation would be for them, as it would conduce to the general well-being of the whole society of masters and slaves – the image the master wished to portray. The play thus became mutually beneficial to both parties, so long as each observed its rules and obligations. Therefore, when the slaves fought with such distinguished courage at the

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Battle of St George’s Cay, they were satisfying their obligation, just as they were, in the process, building on their trust fund and increasing their moral authority. In making the slaves’ well-documented contribution to the war a central part of the settlement’s identity (which would continue in modern Belize), the masters, too, were holding up their end of the obligation. Again we remind ourselves that they did not manumit even those frontline slaves on the gun-flats who made the decisive contribution to the success of the battle, but equally we have no record suggesting that the slaves even murmured about not being freed. How can this be explained? Only through the prism of tacit reciprocity of mutual benefits – the symbiotic relationship that was in play. Nothing demonstrated this more than Arthur’s attempts, mentioned above, to free the Indians illegally held as slaves. The blacks, who comprised the majority of enslaved persons, perceived this as a change in play and as unfair to them. Immediately after the news had trickled down to them, the erstwhile “docile” slaves became passionate and loud in their disapproval. They were not afraid to articulate the injustice of the new situation openly, and often with threats to take matters into their own hands. Arthur’s successor, Superintendent Codd, reports that “self-redress” is frequently to be heard from the slaves by the “attentive listener”. They “plainly intimated that they were as free in their native country as any Indian and would if these persons get freedom try for theirs”. To the Baymen the situation had quite suddenly become ominous. The settlement was in a justifiable state of terror that could explode “without”, as Codd says, “the most delicate management”.63 For the first time the Belizean bondmen were seriously threatening the entire system and were prepared to draw fully on their trust fund – the bargaining power they felt they had earned over the years. (It is indeed ironic that Arthur, with his known concern for the welfare of the slaves, was to become, through his act of freeing some Indian slaves, identified with a breach of the pre-existing system.) To the slaves of African extraction, the slave masters had breached their end of the traditional tacit relationship with this unpredictable act, shattering their confidence in the system, and soon they were losing respect for the masters. They were “surprised” that “in a moment” some from among them who had been their “fellow slaves” for many years had been “placed out of the power of their owners”. To demonstrate their outrage, they responded not with violent revolts but in other ways. Several chose to remain in service but with a changed attitude – at least for the first two or so years

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(1823–25), when there appears to have been an increase in various forms of passive resistance. Some among them became openly recalcitrant, showing “almost a total absence of respect . . . to their Masters” and performing their work in a careless and indifferent manner. Others openly withheld their labour, loudly and frequently uttering the word “equality”. Still others (unfortunately we do not have precise numbers) simply walked away from the works. It certainly would not have been difficult to leave the works, since, as we hinted above, there was little supervision – or in some cases none at all – from masters or surrogates such as overseers or whip drivers, as with other slave systems in the region. Codd writes that when their passions were roused they deserted at an “alarming and increasing” rate. These early desertions were mostly of groups and spontaneous, with no inducements from the Spaniards – at least initially. An early group, consisting of what Codd calls thirty-nine of “the best” male slaves, went off together without any apparent cause such as severe punishment or bad treatment. This left the Bay in no doubt that it arose “from the effects” of freeing the Indian slaves. Some of these men, as well as others absconding at this time, were trekking to the Peten area. Earlier we mentioned the shadowy presence of a few runaway blacks around Peten – the place to which the dissatisfied had been running (as we saw with the Maya) ever since the Spaniards entered Yucatan. Exactly when blacks began to congregate at Peten is unclear, but Codd describes the area as well-known to the Spaniards, who have established a roadway there – perhaps the roadway built after the battle that made the Baymen nervous. It appears to Codd that the area is also well-known to the blacks, who built a “town” there “during the war”, and the Spanish road was meant to facilitate it. He therefore recommends that the British should also establish a road to this settlement. The population of blacks there is unknown but it appears to have been a rather fluid place, with people coming and going, and not a maroon society in any true sense of the term. In the meantime, the Bay authorities had to act in the face of the slaves’ vocal and “dreadful threats” of a general rebellion or mass desertion. A meeting of the magistrates indicates that the “comforts of slaves have been increased”, apparently in response to the unrest. For his part, Codd can find nothing to improve in their conditions, since they are well fed and clothed, liberally provided for and “at all times admitted into a participation of [their] industry”64 – meaning that on their free days they could earn wages or extra cash from

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selling the results of their own productive efforts, whether from their provision grounds, from hunting or from their finely carved wood items. It is important to note that many of them used their earnings to manumit either themselves or their families. Before Arthur left the Bay, meanwhile, he had sent the vexing Indian affair to Jamaica and Whitehall for a solution, but it remained in limbo for a protracted period before a final decision was made.65 For the time being the blacks had made their point and the authorities were responding in a favourable manner by showing extra concern for their comfort and, more important, by halting the freeing of the Indian slaves – the core of their dissatisfaction. From very early on Codd shows that he understands the arithmetic of the settlement, pointing out that although the slave population amounts to “2,500 or 2,600”, only about eighty-nine claim Indian descent. Therefore it would be easier to bring eighty-nine people who are not even sure about their descent “to a sense of duty by mild but firm measures than it would be to check the revolt or desertions of nearly 1,500 Africans”. The authorities were attempting to play a game that balanced between the carrot and the stick; despite their genuflection to the blacks, they also planned to send soldiers to “intimidate” those who had deserted to Peten.66 But in fact, apart from a few indifferent black troops, the settlement was in no position either to intimidate the runaways or to defend itself in the event of a general slave rebellion, and the blacks were well aware of this. In April 1824, at the height of the tense situation, the newly independent Central American states pointedly reaffirmed and ratified Spain’s decrees that gave liberty to all British slaves who entered their territories. The Guatemalan authorities were particularly aggressive, asserting that slaves in Belize should consider themselves free since Belize was part of their country, where all slavery had been abolished since their independence in 1821. This certainly pushed the Baymen into an even more alarmed state, and soon they were reporting an “unprecedented increase” in slave desertions – much farther afield, into different Spanish territories, and far beyond what had been occurring in response to the freeing of the Indians. The Baymen complained that the settlement was in danger of imminent depopulation, stressing that their chief index of wealth was property in their slaves, on whom their very existence depended. Codd reminds Whitehall of the veritable non-existence of boundaries between Belize and contiguous Spanish territories; the slaves can cross over with ease and there is “no means of stopping them”, and they have no

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fear of consequences, “being gladly welcomed on arrival”. Indeed, since the borders were undefined, the slaves only had to cross an “imaginary line” or a river to “proclaim freedom”.67 It was therefore with “feelings of great alarm” that the Belize magistrates “imperatively” appealed to Codd to deal with the appalling desertions of their slaves to the new governments all around them. They are convinced that the desertions cannot be proceeding from any “discontented feelings” towards their owners, but rather from inducements held out by Spaniards from the various adjacent towns. To the magistrates these inducements are the “wild and revolutionary votes of equality” from the new states – the same “spirit” that brought “desolation” to “Saint Domingo” (Haiti). Even as they approached the superintendent, news arrived that nineteen slaves had just left their owners up the Belize River and had taken the road to Peten, while thirteen more had gone to Omoa. Noting that the Spaniards have established a Catholic priest at the “Town of Peten” to bring the runaways conveniently into the embrace of the Church, the magistrates declare “the candid truth that instant ruin stares us in the face” should this sort of thing be allowed to continue. As a remedy they request Codd to send emissaries to the Spanish territories, including Guatemala, Omoa, Peten, Trujillo, Camaguay, Mérida and Bacalar, to demand the return of their “properties”, since the letters that were sent to them have yielded nothing. As they did in the letters, they offer to pay for all transportation and any other accrued costs, in addition to a flat sum for each slave returned. Finally, the magistrates seek to threaten the new states with the power and might of Britain. Codd is requested to have the emissaries inform them that if they do not return the runaways, other measures will be considered, such “as shall convince them we are the subjects of a powerful Kingdom”.68 Codd immediately sent two sets of emissaries, William Gentle and Samuel August to Trujillo and Marshall Bennett to Guatemala, to demand the return of the deserters. At this time Bennett was one of the largest slaveholders in the settlement – and certainly the largest among the holders of public office – with 271 slaves, consisting of 171 men, 48 women and 52 children. As mentioned above, on some properties the slaves worked without any supervision whatsoever, and Bennett was among those with this kind of situation. A private report gives the number of Bennett’s slaves as two hundred (seventy-one less than the official census of office holders) and “there were no desertions”,69

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apparently even during this period. Codd represents Bennett to the Guatemalan president as a judge of the “high and Supreme Court” and senior magistrate of the settlement who has the full confidence of the superintendent. He then points out that slave desertions had been “seldom” before the new states’ 1824 decree and he hopes that all the runaways will be delivered to Bennett. This will help to maintain that good and peaceful understanding which must be in everyone’s best interest to establish “with so powerful a Kingdom as Great Britain” – a more diplomatic form of threat than that of the magistrates above.70 Before Bennett could complete his diplomatic mission, Codd and the magistrates came to perceive the situation as so alarming that they sent George Westby to Guatemala to urge him to proceed immediately to Britain, with a dispatch from Codd to Bathurst. The sense of urgency arose from what the authorities considered the slaves’ widespread secret threats to effect a general rebellion or mass desertion throughout the settlement. Furthermore, Codd tells Bathurst that he has “private information” that the new Spanish states have employed “Secret Agents” to entice black males from Belize to their territories. This was not an entirely new strategy, as this study has demonstrated; the novelty was that they were now recruiting this “hardy, daring race of men” as troops, knowing them “from experience” to be good soldiers. Earlier we mentioned that the fighting prowess of these Belize men in the 1798 battle did not escape the Spaniards’ notice, and now they aim to act upon this experience. As soon as the men desert, the “Agents” are to “kindly receive them and immediately enroll them as soldiers”; already “about 100” have been enlisted, with every prospect of more to come. But the plan does not stop there. The newly recruited soldiers are to be made to marry Spanish women and settle down with families, thereby becoming “endeared” to their new countries. In the event of hostilities with the British, these new Spanish men will be enthusiastic patriots fighting the Bay, whose weaknesses they know only too well, and its destruction will become “their salvation” also. However, it appears that the slaves had their own plans, which will be examined later. Codd also explains to Bathurst his “great apprehension” over the security of the settlement in this unprecedented state of unrest. Their only protection consists of the militia – “almost wholly” black; many have wives or companions and children from the female part of the slave population and are “allied to the Males”. In addition there are the soldiers of the Second West India

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Regiment, who are all black; many of them are old and almost all have similar relationships among the slave population. In both groups Codd has not seen any enthusiasm to apprehend or return runaways, nor does he think they will “act with effect” in the event of the threatened general slave rebellion. In these circumstances, therefore, he urges Bathurst to send them protection in the form of a white regiment to be stationed at the Bay; he will also send to Jamaica for white troops should the situation become even “more alarming”. Bennett agreed to proceed to Britain with the dispatch, “although at the risk of prodigious loss to himself from his whole property being left in an unprotected state”.71 But, as noted, Bennett’s slaves were well accustomed to working “voluntarily” without any “free” supervision and without any desertions. It is not clear whether Bennett did proceed to Britain, but in any event his mission to Guatemala was a total failure. He tells Codd that the “animosity” of the authorities towards him was blatant; he was called a “Subaltern Agent” and in their estimation “unworthy of being credited”, and he mentions the “virulence” of the language used against him, apparently in their legislature. Bennett was also snubbed by John O’Reilly, the British chargé d’affaires in Guatemala. O’Reilly had already been working on the runaway situation through orthodox diplomatic channels when “a Mr. Bennett . . . who keeps a shop in Belize” came crashing into the negotiations, which made matters very awkward for him. To demonstrate their non-recognition of Codd’s emissary, it was to O’Reilly that the president gave a version of the official response to Bennett’s mission; it is equally scathing to Codd, even if couched in more diplomatic language. The president of the Guatemalan Republic does not consider General Codd authorized to appoint commissioners to independent states, and therefore they did not recognize Mr Bennett in an official character, more especially as they have an envoy in London instructed to treat with the British government on the subject of the runaways. This reinforces Dundas’s contention that local Spanish governors would give more attention to a Jamaican governor than to any superintendent residing at the Bay. One cannot resist mentioning here that, despite the scant courtesy shown to Bennett, around this time he too deserted – that is, ran away – to settle in Guatemala, where he remained until his death in 1839. Thus he personally became part of the final outcome of the runaway situation: Guatemala completely refused to return any of the runaways, as this would have been contrary to its constitu-

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tion, which offered a “sacred asylum” to all wishing to abide there and liberty to all slaves “that may put themselves under the Protection of our Philanthropic Laws”.72 A year before this verdict, when the complaints about desertions were still shrill, Codd received the unexpected good news that eleven of the runaways had returned from Peten. The authorities were delighted. It had “a wonderful good effect here and appears to me the harbinger of returning tranquility”. It was certain that they would not be punished by the Bay authorities. A month later it became official policy, when Whitehall advised Codd not to “permit any punishment to be inflicted” upon the returnees – which was to include those requested by the chargé d’affaires and the emissaries, should they be successful.73 Although Codd interpreted the eleven deserters’ return as a “harbinger of returning tranquility”, it can be seen in other ways. This group may have deserted merely as a tactic to enforce change, or the return may have been intended to show the authorities that they were making a conscious choice. Many of the Peten deserters who did not choose to return did, however, make “frequent” secret visits to the Bay to communicate with their brethren in bondage. The purpose was to garner as much information as possible on the activities of the settlement, such as whether the Baymen were making attempts to visit Peten to demand their return. When on at least one occasion there was such a rumour, the deserters readied themselves for action, immediately leaving the “town” and lying in ambush on the road the Baymen would have to take – with every intention of destroying them. This was no idle threat; they were well-equipped with arms and ammunition the Spaniards had given them – apparently even to those not formally drafted as troops.74 And of course the runaways would also have taken with them their guns, knives, machetes and the like. The desertions continued intermittently, even after the return of the eleven, and for some time the slaves continued their threats of either “simultaneous” rebellion or mass desertion from the settlement. The owners also continued to complain of “ruin” in the face of the “alarming” extent of desertions and the “annihilation of their most valuable property”. However, Codd’s prediction of “returning tranquility” to the Bay was soon to prove correct. Within a year the desertions began to decline, and by 1827 there were hardly any more hysterical reports of ruin from the settlers; likewise there was no general rebellion, nor did any mass desertions take place. On the

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eve of Emancipation (in 1833), the superintendent was able to describe the settlement as being in a state of “perfect quiet and tranquility”.75 Much of the angst of the Baymen had been generated by fear, exacerbated by their vulnerable position, which made them exaggerate the number of deserters. It is noteworthy, for instance, that the authorities were rarely precise about these numbers. In Codd’s very first report on the subject, in early 1823, he notes that thirty-nine have deserted to Peten. Two years later we hear of other small numbers leaving, in addition to the hundred already enlisted as Spanish troops. But in the same dispatch Codd rather vaguely says that the total number of deserters “as near as can be ascertained with those already mentioned is about 120”.76 It is not clear whether “those already mentioned” include the hundred enlisted and the thirty-nine first mentioned – and what about the eleven returnees? The vagueness may have been intentional, as the early dispatches to Whitehall were sent in an atmosphere of crisis and hysteria, when the Bay authorities were desperately asking for white troops. But no more requests for white troops were made to Whitehall, and Codd’s promise to send to Jamaica for similar troops if the situation worsened became unnecessary, because things soon quietened down. Thus even at this time, despite the favourable conditions, there is no evidence of “countless and continual desertions of slaves from the settlement” at this or at any other time, as has been asserted. This statement would be refuted even by the settlers, who were known for their nervousness when even a handful of slaves deserted. The incidents of desertion from around 1823 to 1826, occasioned by two specific incidents – Arthur’s freeing of the Indian slaves and the activities of the newly independent Spanish states, especially after 1824 – certainly took the settlers by surprise. They complained repeatedly that before this period desertions had been “seldom” and now had become “unparalleled”, and that they had been “inconsiderable” before 1824.77 Indeed, the census returns show that the slave population did not decline but remained steady at about three thousand right up to Emancipation.78 Certainly the emancipation acts of the Central American states, especially Guatemala’s, which dovetailed so conveniently with the unrest over the freed Indian slaves, could have spelt disaster for the Bay. The door was opened wide for newly disgruntled slaves to enter all the adjoining Spanish states. What is more, facilitators with attractive inducements were beckoning them over. This was not new, but the inducements had become much more substantial and

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meaningful: opportunities to serve in the army, to marry Spanish women, to build families with stakes in the new countries. These were the flagship offers, but there may also have been a sub rosa agenda for agricultural development as well. Codd noted in his dispatch of 18 February 1825 that these new states needed population, not only for troops but also for exploitation of their fine agricultural lands. Did they have a Belizean model in mind? This would seem to be the case, in view of their extra efforts to lure Belize males to their newly independent countries. Therefore it should not be surprising that the Bay magistrates complained repeatedly that not one deserter had been returned to them, despite their repeated representations through emissaries such as Bennett to local governors and to Madrid through the Colonial Office and Foreign Office in London. In one communication they protest that the Spaniards “now come over and secretly persuade” the slaves to desert; this is being done even by the commandant of an adjacent town. They are convinced that Guatemala’s policy is to “effect by stratagem what they cannot do by force”, by aiming at their most “vital point”. The settlers cannot imagine that Britain will allow them “to fall a sacrifice to the jealousy of our neighbouring States”, especially now, in their extended growth and opulence. During this period (the 1820s) the Bay was experiencing an unprecedented economic buoyancy; the irony is that it was almost wholly due to the good trading relations that had developed between Britain and the new Spanish states, with Belize acting as the conduit. Chargé d’affaires O’Reilly was well aware of this economic dimension, and it helped to inform his conclusion that the Guatemalan officials would never budge on the runaway affair. They knew they held the ace on an issue that was clearly embarrassing to Britain, the “avowed” champion of freedom, with similar laws regarding runaways. O’Reilly discovered that behind the thinking of Guatemalan authorities of every description was their “jealousy” of Britain’s possession of Belize. If enough slaves absconded from there, surely the British would not reintroduce slavery; the settlement would then become useless to Britain and would be abandoned. Perhaps in anticipation, a new map of Guatemala that included Belize was being circulated.79 Yet despite the assiduous overtures from the Spaniards and the ease with which they could cross the borders, the slaves did not desert in droves. How did they view the situation? Earlier we hinted that they may have had their own plans to weigh against those of the Spaniards, of which they were well

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aware. This was precisely what they were doing, and they had, in fact, decided that desertion was not their best option. It is said that the bondmen on the various mahogany works were making their thoughts known openly, without any “secrecy”. In their discussions they pondered very seriously the Spanish plan to lure them away with all those inducements, and finally decided against it. They thought it would be “folly” to do so when the situation of the Baymen was so perilous, scattered as they were all over the country pursuing the “vocation” of mahogany cutting. They could easily be destroyed by the slaves in the event of a general rebellion, for what kind of resistance could the whites offer in their weak position? It is interesting how these slaves, like their masters, had the arithmetic of the settlement constantly in mind when making decisions. Above we saw Codd arguing how much easier it would be to control the few freed Indians than to “check” the revolt or desertion of thousands of Africans. The slaves did not think that desertion was worth the sacrifice of leaving their families and friends, or the sufferings and other “privations”.80 Put simply, they were saying that they were pretty much in control and could take care of themselves. It is almost paradoxical that they saw their strength vis-à-vis their masters’ as a reason not to resist or challenge the system – except for specific breaches of the tacit relationship between them and their owners – in exchange for an unknown situation with the Spaniards. Whatever might be thought of this kind of reasoning, the fact is that the Belize slaves were clearly making conscious choices about their destiny, and they did not see mass desertions as an option. It is noteworthy that the Reverend Newport, the British chaplain of Belize’s Anglican church, also saw these bondmen as thinking human beings very much in control of their choices. He came to Belize in 1824, at the height of the restiveness, and took it upon himself to “interview” several of the male slaves. He was impressed by their physical health and by the way they “conversed with [him] freely” when speaking about their situation. They expressed “happiness” about their condition because of the “privileges” allowed them; they were perfectly aware of the latitude they were permitted, as they were also well aware that there were no impediments to their deserting. The road to Peten, which they knew well, was completely open; they knew of other porous boundaries with Spanish territories; and above all they knew of the Spaniards’ flattering plans for them. Apparently they all held favourable opinions of their owners and did not mention rebellious intent should the good

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treatment cease. Newport saw in these men a “remarkable precocity of talents” and that they were well disposed to exert their thinking powers and exhibited “a manliness” in most cases “that would do honor to many in my native land”. The chaplain seemed to understand perfectly the Spaniards’ dual-purpose plan for the slaves – as soldiers and to exploit the lands, replicating the Belize model. As men “of good, hardy formation, muscular strength and habitual industry” they would be a perfect “acquisition” for a new state, and the Spaniards would have known this from the experience of the battle in 1798.81 The Belize situation seems even more extraordinary when it is remembered that at the time the slaves became disgruntled there were widespread slave rebellions throughout the entire Carribean. These started during the first decade of the 1800s to the early 1830s, culminating in the most disastrous one for the slave masters, that at Jamaica in 1831–32, which had a direct impact on the British Emancipation Act of 1833.82 The regional rebellions were actuated by the wider social, political and religious movements of the day. The French Revolution influenced Haiti’s, which ended in independence for the rebels and inspired slaves everywhere in the region. The debates over abolition leading to the British act of 1807–8, and the later long, drawn-out discussions over emancipation gave British bondmen the idea that the king had freed them but the masters were withholding liberty from them. Surprisingly, even the Belize slaves were under that impression; the magistrates report that the “belief” that “Our Sovereign” has declared them free has “gained ground here as well as in other British Establishments”.83 But this did not seem to have the same impact on them as it did on those of the other British colonies, where all the leaders of the revolts, without exception, demanded immediate freedom as their right. Barbados, which had been considered “remarkably docile”84 up to this moment, was in the vanguard of the slave rebellions, its leaders stoutly demanding their freedom and claiming that the island belonged to them and not to the whites. This claim of proprietorship of their various territories was general, as were the leaders’ claims that ill-treatment was not the cause of the rebellions – indeed, they were all very well treated.85 But in Belize, where opportunities for a successful slave rebellion or wellorganized maroon societies had always existed – now with the added advantage of welcoming doors to freedom in the newly independent Central American states – they still chose to maintain the status quo, much to the extreme joy of the frightened settlers. Status quo meant security for them. Codd demon-

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strates this with clarity when he regrets the disturbances and laments the settlement’s weakness, “protected” as it is only by a few indifferent black soldiers and a similar militia. He points out that he has always looked upon the “internal Security of the Settlement [as dependent] upon the mutual good understanding which has existed between the Master and the Slave . . . . I have considered myself perfectly secure, but this tye having been unfortunately broken . . . it is against the views of the Slaves we have now to guard.”86 But since the slaves had decided against mass desertion or a general rebellion and apparently even the threatening language had ceased, the Bay authorities could certainly begin to feel “perfectly secure” again. The Baymen soon recovered from easily the most serious threat they had encountered from the slaves. In 1826 they proudly proclaimed in the first edition of their revered official mouthpiece that “no insurrection has ever been known here”87 – and they were perfectly correct. They renewed the post-battle custom of praising the slaves for the substantial part they had played in its success and therefore in the preservation of the settlement. Undoubtedly these Baymen, subliminally or not, had a good understanding of the importance of recognition in maintaining that tacit understanding – keeping the binding “tye” together, in Codd’s words. It cannot be overstated that slave masters rarely gave recognition to slaves’ abilities and contributions, and to many bondmen this was a painful part of slavery, as so many narratives have revealed. They uniformly expressed frustration when their abilities – however outstanding – were ignored. A slave in the American South captured this feeling of frustration eloquently: “I hated the injustices and restraints against my own initiative more than it is possible for words to express. To me that was the great curse of slavery.”88 Thus when the Baymen publicly and repeatedly praised the slaves for their critical participation in their battles, and particularly that of St George’s Cay, it was good strategy. It helped to preserve the system by keeping the subordinates satisfied. But they went further in openly giving voice to the all-embracing nature of the settlement’s participation, involving all groups in the society working together for its common good. This laid the foundation for a shared sense of homeland or nationhood and softened the bifurcation along class and race lines that had become dominant during the mid-1780s. When today independent Belize celebrates yearly the Battle of St George’s Cay, it is a recurring story that serves to unite the people. Nonetheless, such public demonstrations

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of public unity often serve to maintain and reinforce inequities, dulling the edge of complaints and encouraging complacency. Without a doubt, the Battle of St George’s Cay has acquired tremendous “predominance in the history of the country”, and it is not “unjustified”89 when viewed in terms of the new sense of identity it conferred.

UWI PRESS CHAPTER 11

Epilogue

Along with the new sense of identity and self-confidence that the Baymen gained after the historic Battle of St George’s Cay in 1798, a significant shift in their relationship with the Miskitos also began to take shape. This book has demonstrated that the very preservation of Belize as a British entity depended on the loyal and effective Miskito Indians as unpaid imperial mercenaries; to them “alone we owe the having any settlement on this part of the continent”, to revisit Edward Long. We argued that without this relationship Spain almost certainly would have succeeded in driving the British logwood cutters from their original chaotic settlement at the Bay of Honduras, just as it had done with others of the same kind. But when in 1798 the Baymen made their momentous decision to remain in the Bay and fight it out with the Spaniards, they were, in a sense – and perhaps inadvertently at first – weaning themselves from their dependency on the Miskitos. That they and their slaves could defeat the most formidable force Spain had yet sent against them, without assistance from their traditional allies the Miskitos (now nominally under Spanish jurisdiction), buttressed their self-confidence. The victory immediately became a fulcrum upon which the new relationship was based. The first significant shift in the relationship became evident during the Miskitos’ preparation to oust the Spaniards from their own country. The Miskito king and other Miskito officials, who had been waiting for the propitious moment to act, saw the settlers’ success as creating such a moment. It demonstrated to them Spain’s weakness. If even their erstwhile inexperienced friends, who had always run to them from Spain’s attacks for safety and assis315

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tance, could defeat the great Spanish force so decisively, then surely the time had arrived for the Miskitos to take action. The great irony is that before they made their move, some of their prominent military leaders visited Belize, and it is certain that they discussed war strategy. Early in 1800 two “Indian Chiefs, (admiral St John and Colonel Wyatt)”,1 from the Shore visited the Bay. A Public Meeting resolved that they be taken under the charge of the magistrates and “handsomely provided for at the public expense”. In July of the same year it is recorded that £150 is be voted for the king “then in the Settlement”, obviously for the intended attack on the Spaniards.2 This was a reversal of their previous relationship: Miskito officials were now consulting the Bay before a battle. In any event, the Indians acted alone when two months later, in September 1800, they expelled the Spaniards from the Shore. Britain, although it did not assist, was delighted.3 There is no doubt that Belize entered the nineteenth century with a definite, positive identity and confidence – Naylor calls it “cocky”4 – that resulted in more dramatic shifts in its attitude to the Shore. It appears that as the nineteenth century developed, the Baymen began to see the Miskitos as dispensable. This was largely due to Spain’s progressively weakening situation, brought about by affairs in Europe in addition to the dramatic unravelling of its American empire. Thus further Spanish attacks on the Bay began to seem more and more unlikely. When their slaves refused the overtures of the Central American states, this firmly demonstrated to the settlers that they had a selfcontained system in which exploitation of the forest and internal defence of the settlement could be attended to without the Miskitos’ help – so long as Spain remained weak. But even before these events unfolded, the Baymen were acting in a manner that appeared calculated to place the Shore in a subordinate position. We find, for instance, some of them actively interfering with the internal affairs of the Shore, even to the extent of becoming king-makers. Thus, after the death of the very pro-British King George, when it was discovered that the contender for the succession was the pro-Spanish Prince Stephen, his plan was deftly thwarted by some prominent Belizeans. They successfully persuaded the able pro-British Miskito General Robinson to act in “regency” until the king’s son, George Frederick, was of age. Robinson governed the Shore in close alliance with the Bay for some seventeen years (from 1800 to 1817). The young prince was sent to Jamaica to be educated, where he would receive the “correct”

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British indoctrination. Belizean influence in the whole affair is patent when it is noted that George Frederick was first taken from the Shore to the Bay before going to Jamaica, because the Baymen were anxious to remove him from the potential contamination of Prince Stephen’s pro-Spanish views.5 Other significant changes were being made in the Bay–Miskito relationship. One related to “presents” – that useful instrument of British colonial policy. In early 1803, Barrow, working in tandem with the Belize oligarchy, recommended that superintendents be empowered to send annual presents to the Miskito chiefs. These were to be distinct from the special presents Whitehall might send from time to time. In offering annual presents to the Miskitos, the Bay elites were aiming to arrest any further Spanish influence on them. To make their influence even more solid, it was also recommended that the superintendent of the Bay make commissions to the different chiefs by which means their “friendship and attachment might be kept alive to the British Interests”.6 This then was the first structural change, and it was a powerful signal indicating that henceforth the relationship would be more like that of patron and client. Perhaps no other single factor demonstrates more the shift in this relationship than the new venue for coronation of the Miskito kings. The change began with George Frederick, who became the first Miskito king to be crowned at Belize. It was a splendid public demonstration of pomp and circumstance, the classic “symbolic gesture of domination that serves to manifest and reinforce a hierarchical order”.7 This was a departure from the practice of crowning these monarchs at Jamaica, which had been followed since at least 1688 (with one exception, when in 1777 it was done on the Shore). The first coronation in Belize took place during Arthur’s superintendency, in January 1816, and the practice continued until the last one, in 1845. It was Arthur who suggested the new venue to the Jamaican governor, the Duke of Manchester, who readily agreed. The ceremony took place in the newly built Anglican cathedral, which still stands today in Belize City. Humphreys says that when the Spaniards protested this coronation, as well as the construction of some forts at the Bay, it “would appear to represent the last attempt of Spain to maintain her rights” – but this is not entirely correct.8 A deeply religious man, Arthur saw to it that the new king was given some instruction in Christianity. In keeping with the mores of the age, he coupled the Christian instructions with lessons on industry and frugality. By this time

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the custom of annual presents from the Bay to the Miskitos, instituted under Barrow’s administration, was well in place. In offering these gifts, Arthur lectured the king and his retinue on the virtues of thriftiness; he expected the presents to be used frugally, as this would lessen the settlement’s expenditures.9 The new king remained a faithful friend of the British throughout his reign, but it is doubtful that he ever embraced Christianity.10 King Frederick had personal relationships with many of the Baymen, foremost of whom was Marshall Bennett, who influenced him in important matters, especially where Belize’s interests were concerned.11 Economically too, the Baymen adjusted their trading relationship with the Shore, completely dominating it to suit their own interests. They successfully resisted, for instance, suggestions that the Shore should produce timber for export, particularly mahogany, in equal amounts to that of the Bay. Accordingly they opposed Miskito kings who would cavalierly make large land grants to just about any adventurer – especially if British – who might land on their shore.12 However, the Baymen’s new trading activities in the early nineteenth century were, as noted earlier, almost wholly with the newly independent Central American states, which were now rid of Spain’s restrictive mercantilist policy. Britain soon gained pre-eminence in this thriving trade, and Belize was ready both psychologically and economically to take advantage of the arrangements. It acted as a conduit or entrepôt rather than as a dealer in contraband, as it had formerly, for the commerce of British manufactured goods to Central American markets. In return, British cargo ships would take home their commodities, mostly natural dyes made from various sources to satisfy the textile industry’s voracious demands. This entrepôt role transformed the settlement into a dynamic and enterprising entity, and its self-confidence grew exponentially, beyond recognition.13 The Baymen bragged often about their economy, as we have seen above, and they also dwelt on their contribution to Britain’s economy at this time. Their “Friend” and contact person on Jamaica, G.W. Bridges, was duly informed of their new economic buoyancy. In his Annals, Bridges estimates that in 1826 the Bay employed sixteen thousand tons of British shipping, while its exports to Britain were valued at just under half a million pounds sterling annually; their imports, on the other hand, exceeded the exports. Bridges gives credit for the economic vitality of the Bay to its new relations with Central America, which have possibilities for even greater expansion; he has much

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praise for the initiative of the “active” and “enterprising” settlers.14 The Baymen had certainly added economic prosperity to the new identity that began to take shape after their victory at St George’s Cay. From a “murky past”, as they expressed it, they had passed through “a long and neglected Infancy” and were now “gradually rising to Security, importance and comparative Opulence”, and at a time when other British colonies in the region were declining.15 But as the Baymen grew in “security, importance and . . . opulence”, their attitude to the Miskitos – their former “Friends and Allies” – became increasingly negative and the distance between them widened. It appears that by the early 1820s the Miskitos were being either ignored or progressively disparaged by the Baymen. Then when the crisis over the freed Indians suddenly erupted, for the first time the settlers were justifiably frightened of their slaves; they were powerless, and could not even contemplate calling on the Miskitos for internal security. But since things soon returned to the tacit state of reciprocity – or “perfect quiet and tranquility”, in Cockburn’s words – because the slaves chose not to disturb the system, the relieved and grateful settlers returned to acknowledging the slaves’ central role in the successful battle that saved the settlement. It is telling, for instance, that in the first edition of the Honduras Almanack the Baymen gave prominence to this issue. This journal’s importance to them cannot be overstated. It represented a great part of their new identity, serving as their first official mouthpiece and proudly published by them at the Bay, not, as hitherto, at Jamaica or London. The date of this first issue, 1826, is significant, as it coincides with the time the settlement was just returning to quietude. The Almanack declares 10 September 1798 as “a day ever memorable in the annals of Honduras”, when “British prowess” triumphed over the Spaniards. But “justice and conscious pride commands it to be related, that the greater portion of the force that acted against the Spanish fleet on this occasion, were the slave population of the settlement, to whose courage and fidelity, the result of the action is to be chiefly attributed”.16 We should note the Baymen’s new use of language here; it avoids the usual self-serving themes of their “humanity” and “kindness” to the enslaved people who are “attached” to them, instead openly acknowledging positive virtues such as their “courage and fidelity”, as they did above in their praise of the slaves’ unparalleled gallantry.

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Yet in this special first edition of their revered mouthpiece, while the Baymen handsomely praise the slaves, the Miskitos – who saved the settlement for Britain from the first decade of the eighteenth century up to 1798 – are not even mentioned. In later issues, when the Almanack mentions them at all it is usually in the most casual manner. For instance, when describing the 1718 Spanish attack on the Bay, the 1828 edition merely states that “the settlers had time to procure assistance from the Mosquito King”, without mentioning the nature of the Indians’ participation.17 Henceforth (from around 1830) we find the Miskitos being characterized in the worst possible way. The 1830 edition describes the Miskito men residing in Belize, with their “long, greasy, black hair, and countenances remarkable for vacuity of intelligence”, as approaching the “savage”; a “lower or more degraded mortality can hardly be supposed to exist, even in that species of animals which forms the connecting link of our races to the brute creation”.18 These Miskitos were the ones “sojourning” in Belize, but the merchants and other Baymen treated those on the Shore, on their own soil, as hardly more than ciphers. By the 1840s the Belizeans residing on the Shore were treating the Miskitos with little-concealed contempt. They are represented as paying “no regard for Mosquito authority and payment for the right to fell trees had ceased”. The king was not even allowed the traditional boat that had always been at his disposal. Indeed, they even lost the honorific title “king” and were soon designated “chiefs”.19 As mentioned above, no more Miskito kings were crowned after 1845. Once again the international situation was to determine the fate of the Miskitos. It was in 1804 that Britain had last anxiously called on its “Friends and Brother Warriors” for help in the face of perceived Spanish threats.20 With the loss of Spain’s power, however, the threat soon disappeared and the Shore accordingly lost its strategic importance to Britain. But around the 1840s, with the expanded use of mahogany – not only for fine furniture but now also for construction, shipbuilding and later railway carriages – Belize loggers and merchants began to show renewed interest in the Shore for this commodity, and Britain was once again viewing its strategic importance to Belize. However, this was soon squelched by American hegemonic manifestations, which reappeared aggressively, especially after the American war with Mexico in the 1840s, dressed in the ideology of manifest destiny. This created much tension with Britain that culminated in a series of treaties between these two powers that finally brought the Shore under the sovereignty of Nicaragua in 1894. As

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for the Miskitos, they seemed to have lost their old fighting spirit and are now a forlorn group, marginalized and living at a subsistence level in a state of torpor – and, of course, forgotten by Britain.21 Within the Bay settlement, the newly self-confident elites who had boasted after the battle that their “Colony” had “assumed a new aspect and Character”22 were also trying to marginalize the free people of colour, by denying them all political and economic participation. Already we have seen how their abilities to own mahogany works and to employ labour were greatly circumscribed, despite Despard’s appeals on their behalf. Now the white oligarchy began to restrict whatever small political gains these people might have made under Despard’s protection and encouragement. It appears that his influence had buoyed up some (there are no available figures) to attend Public Meetings, even after his departure. But this was viewed askance by the whites, who began to raise questions about eligibility for membership at these meetings. The result was that for the first time in the settlement’s history – as far as we know – property qualifications were instituted. And it did not end there. The Baymen also established differentials between British whites and others. Thus, after 1808, to qualify to attend Public Meetings and to vote in the election of magistrates, a white British subject should have resided in Honduras for one year and must possess “visible property” worth not less than £100 (Jamaican). A coloured British subject, on the other hand, must have five years’ residence and “visible property” of not less than £200 to attend and vote. Within a short time a Public Meeting ruled that only “resident white British born” subjects with property of not less than £500 could become magistrates. In this same spirit of exclusivity they also passed a law prohibiting Jews from becoming residents or citizens of the settlement, but that was soon annulled by the superintendent.23 The differential in qualifications to attend and vote at Public Meetings continued to widen, until by 1820 the white British-born person must possess £500 (Jamaican) while the coloured person required £1,000 to do so. Soon free mulattos and blacks could not sit on juries, could not be magistrates or judges and could not be officers even in the militia; in fact, they could not hold any public office whatsoever. It is noteworthy that they could and did serve as commissioned officers in the local militia before the Battle of St George’s Cay, but now that Spanish military threats seemed unlikely, like the Miskitos, their services could be dispensed with, thus bringing their situation

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in line with their counterparts in the British Caribbean. Even the newly built Anglican cathedral was not spared: a Public Meeting resolved that “the pews on the East end of the Church should be solely appropriated to white and married persons and that no kept mistress be entitled to sit in any pew at that end of the Church,24 thus keeping all mulatto concubines out of the preferred end of the house of worship. Nonetheless, despite the discriminatory laws in Belize, social relations never developed into the rigid hierarchical systems that operated elsewhere in the British Caribbean. Neither was there a legitimized racism comparable to that in the southern United States, for instance. This was demonstrated when thousands of Confederates, lured by the British flag and its cultural practices, language and protection, sought exile in British Honduras, as Belize was by this time known. Soon they began to commit acts of violence against non-whites as they would have done with impunity in the South, only to discover to their dismay that “The concept of racial superiority . . . was not given the legitimacy it held in the Old South. Nor were the violent acts committed by Confederates against those they considered socially inferior tolerated by the British Hondurians.” This was the primary reason why the majority finally left Belize. The response of the Belize press to these violent acts is instructive. They were widely reported and condemned, and some hinted to the Southerners that they should leave if they could not control their lawless passions.25 If the polarization that emerged so prominently in the 1780s had continued, the Confederates might well have found a more congenial social atmosphere in Belize. The Baymen were also fortunate that they did not need the Miskitos for exploitation of the forests, especially because their predisposition did not seem geared towards quotidian ways. The power-holders could whittle away with impunity at the economic and political rights of the free people of colour because they were not viewed as a “natural” part of the collective of merchants and loggers, just as the sugar-based slave societies of the larger region did not see them as part of the community of merchants and planters. In their buffer position, the Belizean free people of colour could well have been a revolutionary threat to society, but they displayed no disposition whatsoever to challenge the discriminatory laws against them (not to mention the slave system). Their only response came from a few mulattos who sent petitions singly to Whitehall asking for individual rights, unlike those at Jamaica, for instance, who

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although not revolutionaries themselves, at least petitioned on behalf of the whole group.26 The blacks, on the other hand, could not have been so easily cast off by the Bay elites, since they were much too valuable on just about every important level. Exploitation of their labour under bondage (and after Emancipation) was a vital mainstay of the oligarchy’s economy. Indeed, the settlers needed their slaves for much more than the obvious economic purposes. Ownership of slaves conferred power and influence – the more they owned, the more distinction it bestowed – which was not unlike the situation of other slave-owners in the region. But because the Belizean elites, as former buccaneers, had no social standing backed by local Great Houses or stately homes back in Britain or names with the cachet of a Codington in Barbados or a Beckford or Long at Jamaica, they needed their slaves for identity and status symbols even more desperately. Their dependence on their slaves is even better appreciated when one recalls that their only signifier of wealth in Belize was the slave, since they were mere usufructuraries on the land, while other Caribbean slave-owners held their land in fee simple and therefore counted their wealth in both land and slaves. In practical terms, apart from being the backbone of the economy, slaves in Belize also participated in the major construction projects – private and public buildings, wharves, bridges, canoes – even the Anglican church in today’s Belize City. Their contribution to the building of this Christian temple was so substantial that its dean called it “the slaves’ memorial”. Dean Lewis considered “the labour of the slaves as they ‘backed’ the bricks to the site from the Court House wharf the greatest of all gifts”.27 Their outstanding role in the internal defence of the settlement is certainly not typical of slave systems anywhere else. It is almost unprecedented in slave societies – unless one was considering the Mamelukes in ancient Egypt – to find slaves acting as a critical part of the masters’ defence system. It is no wonder that the Spaniards were jealous of the Belize model. As early as the 1740s we see a handful of whites (fifty in all), when attacked by the Spaniards, acknowledging that their liberty is in the hands of their slaves (120 altogether), at a time, it must be remembered, when they had no protection whatsoever from Britain. But of course the Baymen also had their trusted “allies and Friends” the Miskitos, particularly for their external defence. (In their fast-moving schooners, steering through treacherous waters from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, they kept

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the Spaniards at bay with their daring offensive operations; or as unpaid mercenaries fighting in British military engagements outside the settlement, or when British officials would invariably use them strategically to induce successful outcomes or invoke their name as a deterrent to Spanish attacks.) Even after the 1740s, when the population gap had widened much further in favour of the slaves, they continued as the chief component of internal defence of the settlement, right up to and including the decisive Battle of St George’s Cay. As soon as a Spanish attack was even suspected, the slaves would be called to arms, drilled and trained. They were subject to all the attendant harrowing experiences, especially during periods of great scarcity, such as that before the battle, when the starving slaves were in arms for nearly twelve months. Certainly the owners’ confidence in these slaves was extraordinary. There appeared no nervousness on their part about being overwhelmingly outnumbered by armed slaves all around them. On the contrary, it was largely their confidence in the slaves (earned over a long time in the timber forests) that led them to confront the formidable Spanish force even when all the odds were against them. It is telling that on the eve of the battle they confidently boasted that they could rely on the slaves “to a Man” to defend the settlement – and the bondmen did not disappoint them. Undoubtedly, even though it must be acknowledged that the Belize slave system had certain singular features, it was still slavery where human beings were legally held as property. The fundamental indictment of slavery is based not on workloads or even the harshness of the system, but on the moral horror of treating human beings as property. As such, slavery is slavery; in that sense it is beside the point to mention good treatment, because slavery does not admit of amelioration. The cruel irony is that treating their slaves well (even if based on necessity) redounded to the financial benefit of the Belize settlers when slavery ended. The British Emancipation Act of 1833–34 instituted a compensation system – not for the slaves but for the owners – based on the productivity of the slaves and the system. And because the Belizean slaves were hardy, healthy, strong and productive (having been well-treated), their masters were paid the highest per capita rate for their slaves – higher than anywhere else in the British Caribbean.28 One cannot help reflecting on these enslaved people of Belize, so conscious of their own strength vis-à-vis their masters’ weakness that they arrived at the counter-intuitive decision that it would be “folly” to rebel against

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325

the system. Now their masters could exercise total control over them inherent in the power of ownership. When the British Caribbean slave-masters were making their case for the best compensation deals in London – as in a marketplace or a modern agora – they flaunted their good treatment of their property (the slaves), displaying lists of the plentiful provisions they were allowed, including the “luxury” items. But above all they could quote the high price a healthy, skilled male slave would traditionally fetch – it was as if they had been fattening their flock for maximum profit. Today Belize has emerged as a society that is still in a state of “repose”, as it was described in the 1860s by one of its leading newspapers (see note 25). This was a heavily coded word designed to give the appearance of equanimity while covering up the undertow of inequality within the society. Perhaps this “repose” has ultimately hampered the development of hidden potentialities and the ability to bring about changes to make for a more equitable society.

UWI PRESS

UWI PRESS APPENDIX A

Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras Subscribing to the Articles of Regulations, 1765

The list of the names (eighty-five in all) of “The Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras” subscribing to the “Articles of Regulations” signed 9 April 1765.

John Lawrie John Maud James Farrell D. Fitz Gibbon Basil Jones John Douglas Christopher Sinnett Thomas Coake John Carey John Gordon Charles Golding John Furnall William Ryder Thomas Remington Thomas Yoemans William Eardly William Car Edward Kirk

Thomas Bates William Galaspy Michael Elsters William Tucker Robert Montgommery Rorolf Henrikson Rodolphus Green Alexander Douglas William Cox John Swain Thomas Catts Henry Jones Ralph Wildridge John Smith John Potts John Cathcart Maurice O’Brien . . . . err 327

UWI PRESS 328

APPENDIX A

John Mc. Targett William Weston William Thox Owen Thom Ebenezer Tyler Thomas Barra John Howa Bryan Cumberland John Gardner Thomas Evans Mary Wel . . . . le . . . . nder . . . . dby Pinder William O’Brien Nicholas Green Bartholomew Alex. Pitt Richard Armstrong John Oliver Michael Patterson Joseph Gaddes William Oxford Michael Roberts John Hamilton Samuel Griffiths

Nathaniel Parent Ralph Wild William Dal William Dunn George Ceau John Per Thomas Roblie Mary Allen William Rumbol William Shade Nehemiah Gale Charles Keeling Alexander Lindsay George Jeffreys John Cook James Smith Francis Hickey William Wyatt James Grant Andrew Slumen Benjamin Bascome Thomas Potts Richd. Fran. O’Brien John Garbutt

Source: Arthur Papers. It should be noted there are other copies with some spelling variations, but the number of names appears to be constant. See, for example, John Alder Burdon, Archives of British Honduras, vol. 1 (London: Sifton Praed, 1931–35), 106.

UWI PRESS APPENDIX B

Accounts of Loss Sustained by the British Settlers at the Capture of St Georges Key, 1779

“A List of the Several Accounts of Loss, sustained by the British settlers at the Capture of St. Georges Key by the Spaniards the 15th Day of September 1779 . . . at Kingston in the Island of Jamaica the 13th day of September 1782 – Jamaica currency.”

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

James Stibbing Robert Terrey Sarrah Woodberry Margaret Cause Jacob Berrien Robert Fox James Farrall Junr. John Foulton Hugh Wilson John Midwinter William Ryder James Sullivan Peter Wright Samuel Pray John Simons Nicholas Dawson William Tyson

£ 694 1,691 1,183 230 519 2,710 100 952 1,817 600 2,744 3,445 345 102 184 410 115

S – 2 5 – 17 15 – 1 8 – 17 3 10 – 15 8 –

D – 6 – – 3 – – 8 4 – 6 4 – – – 4 – 329

UWI PRESS 330

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

APPENDIX B

Ann Corey William White Thomas Haskison Elizabeth Jackson & Susa: Bridgas Clement Moneypenny Thomas Remington Margt Tucker John Garbutt Pamela Simmons George Bishop Garbutt & Hickey John Leight Sam.l Wright Roger Gale Benjamin Cahoon Thomas Connery Nehemiah Gale James Grant George Cherry Mess.rs Wm & Francis Obrien Wm Obrien & Honorah Datson Moses Easton Thomas Potts Richard Hoare Hoare & Potts Hoare Potts & Gleen James Ferrall Sen.r John Gardner Mary Donolly Estate James Smith Dec.d Estate Joseph Gaddes Dec.d Estate of Richard Lerring Dec.d Leith & Valentine John Lockt Nesmith Robert Hodgson

£ 36 666 25 472 98 1,679 565 543 243 65 1,220 167 3,312 1,573 153 108 781 3,613 1,757 2,062 2,192 194 2,785 4,099 1,955 1,123 5,051 904 75 1,316 1,042 2,851 4,825 195 494

S – 6 – 17 6 3 – 5 – – 16 – 19 – – – 6 – 10 10 5 10 13 13 14 15 16 15 18 10 – – 8 – –

D – 8 – – – 9 – – – – 3 – – – – – 8 – – – – – 4 4 4 – 8 – 9 – – – 4 – –

UWI PRESS APPENDIX B

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

Capt. John McCowin James Valentine Jonathan Rann Elizabeth Kellsy Benie Lockier & Woodward of Bristol Capt. John Gillas Thomas Philps Thomas Catto Francis Hickey James McAulay McAulay & Ogilvy James & Daniel McAulay Patrick Ogilvy Estate Jonathan Card Decd Wm Cooney Walter Davison James Middleton John Middleton Ebinezer Tyler John Gordon John W. Taggart Edward Felix Hill Ann Corey Richard Armstrong Mess.rs John Lawrie & Co. Colvill Cairns Joseph Taylor John Stephins Stephin Archbold John Dean Mess.rs Alexander & Bartlett James Bartlett John Alexander John Fennel John Briggs

£ 218 367 1,215 80 218 1,250 68 1,665 1,029 1,974 7,588 2,042 521 5,309 1,420 3,837 200 3,210 627 1,050 210 310 155 2,491 585 263 184 200 150 1,682 2,369 491 209 260 460

S 15 6 – – 7 11 8 8 – 17 2 11 – 6 13 16 – – 10 – – – – 19 4 6 17 – – 10 5 3 – – –

331

D 4 8(?) – – – – – – – – 11 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

UWI PRESS 332

APPENDIX B

88. Wm Tucker 89. Patrick Burke 90. Lawrance Dawson 91. John Coulson 92. Marry Brackin [sic] Mary (?) 93. Thomas Bates 94. Estate capt. John Gordon Decd 95. Grace Livingston 96. John Lever Total Amount Source: CO 123/2.

£ 600 640 380 96 159 213 302 160 259 £109,840

S – – – – – 13 4 5 – 4

D – – – – – – – 5 – 6

UWI PRESS Notes

Chapter 1 1. A copy (or perhaps the original) of this map, in vintage form, is to be found at the Public Record Office (PRO, now the British National Archives), London, under CO 12 3/14, “Promiscuous Papers: 1775–1800”. The map is titled “The Bay of Honduras by Thos. Jefferys, Geographer to His Majesty, February 29, 1775”. A very good copy is also to be found at the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Jefferys’s map was among the responses to British statesmen such as the elder Pitt and members of the Board of Trade, who complained about the lack of accurate surveys and maps of Central America at a time when the impulse was to have a keener interest in the region. 2. A copy of Captain Speer’s map, printed for the author and sold by S. Hooper, 25 Ludgate Hill, London, 1771, can also be found at the John Carter Brown Library. There are some far-fetched and improbable theories surrounding the name “Belize”, but this is dealt with elsewhere. See Mavis C. Campbell, “Naming and History: Aspects of the Historiography of Belize”, Journal of Caribbean History 43, no. 1 (2009): 72–114. 3. A statement made in the 1950s but is still relevant today. See Stephen L. Caiger, British Honduras: Past and Present (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1951), 17. 4. Whether or not this will last remains to be seen. From its independence in 1981 up to 1998, Belize had four general elections with no party’s being given a second term. The country has two main political parties, the Peoples’ United Party (PUP) and the United Democratic Party (UDP). There is thus no monopoly of power by any one party or leader. The people’s voting record must be one of the best in the democratic world – 90 per cent in some cases – and the elections are considered fair, requiring no international observers, for instance. The general election of March 2003 made history by returning the incumbent party (the PUP) to power. 5. For a good rendering of the original Latin text and translation, see Frances Gardiner 333

UWI PRESS 334

6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

NOTES

TO PAGES

5–9

Davenport, ed., European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917), 56–78. Ibid., 84–100. Ibid., 62. A translation of “amplísima y perpetua”; José Antonio Calderón Quijano, Belice 1663(?)–1821: Historia de los establecimientos británicos del Rio Valis hasta la independencia de Hispanoamérica (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 1944), 51. J. Eric S. Thompson, the renowned scholar of Mayan civilization whose works are widely used in this study, made this statement in The Maya of Belize: Historical Chapters Since Columbus (Benque, Belize: Cubola Productions, 1988), 6. Narda Dobson, A History of Belize (London: Longman Caribbean, 1973), 44. O. Nigel Bolland, The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from Conquest to Crown Colony (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 20. George Henderson, An Account of the British Settlement of Honduras, 2nd ed. (London: R. Baldwin, 1811), 4. Caiger, British Honduras, 36. See the Parker Papers, formerly at the Royal Commonwealth Society, London, and now housed at the Smuts Library in Asian and Commonwealth Studies (Special Collections), University of Cambridge. These non-indexed, uncatalogued papers are not paginated. Archibald Robertson Gibbs, British Honduras: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Colony from Its Settlement, 1670 (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1883), 23. Eligio Ancona, Historia de Yucatan desde la época más remota hasta huestro días, 2nd ed. (Barcelona: Jaime Jepús Roviralta, 1889), 368. See, among others, A.P. Newton, The European Nations in the West Indies, 1493– 1688 (London: A. and C. Black, 1933), 1–16, and Gibbs, British Honduras, 7–8. Calderón Quijano, Belice, 34–37. Nancy M. Farris, Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 37. Narda Dobson, History of Belize, 42, says: “Pinzon and DeSolis reached the Gulf of Honduras and sailed west to the Rio Dulce and thence north along the coast of Belize”, while Gibbs, British Honduras, 8, says: “Yucatan was properly first discovered by Dias y Pinzon in 1509”. Charles St John Fancourt, in The History of Yucatan from Its Discovery to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (London: John Murray, 1854), 2–3, would seem to agree with Dobson. Citing Herrera, a contemporary Spanish chronicler, he mentions Juan Díaz de Solis and Vincente Yanez Pinzón as the two Spaniards who sailed along the Belize coast in 1506. Gibbs has definitely confused the two names.

UWI PRESS NOTES

TO PAGES

9–15

335

21. Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniards in Yucatan, 1517–1570 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 5. 22. Bernal Díaz, The Conquest of New Spain, ed. J.M. Cohen (London: Penguin, 1963), 15–43. 23. Ibid., 60–66. 24. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 9. 25. Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, 60–61. 26. Diego de Landa, Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, trans. William Gates (New York: Dover, 1978), 4. 27. Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, 16. 28. For a good understanding of this issue, see Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century, vol. 1 (New York: Academic Press, 1974), 46–49. 29. Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, 17–18. 30. Ibid., 24–25. 31. Ibid., 19. 32. For Grijalva’s expedition, see ibid., 27–43. 33. Ibid., 35, and Landa, Yucatan, 6. 34. For an engaging account of this war, see Nelson Reed, The Caste War of Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964); the quotation is taken from Howard Cline’s foreword to the book, vii. 35. This section is drawn heavily from Robert S. Chamberlain’s book The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 1517–1550 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1948). It is a very comprehensive work, almost always uncritically pro-Spanish in orientation but very useful for its extensive use of Spanish primary sources. These include chroniclers such as López de Cogolludo and Fernández de Oviedo, among others. Even more important is his wide use of probanzas, relaciónes and the like from participants of most of the Yucatan entradas. 36. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 7; see also Grant D. Jones, Maya Resistance to Spanish Rule (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989), 280–83. Jones, 283, would seem to be in agreement with Thompson’s location of Chetumal. 37. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 60. 38. Thomas Gann, Ancient Cities and Modern Tribes: Exploration and Adventure in Maya Lands (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926), 57. 39. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 60–61. 40. Ibid., 61. Chamberlain displays as much righteous indignation against Guerrero as did the Spaniards themselves. 41. Landa, Yucatan, 4. 42. Cited by Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 61n41. The last two sentences of Montejo’s letter reflect his intimate knowledge of Aguilar’s usefulness

UWI PRESS 336

43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

NOTES

TO PAGES

15–21

to Cortés on his way to Mexico and after the conquest, not only as a translator of language but also as an interpreter of Maya culture. Indeed, with his prominent position of military strategist for an important cacique, Guerrero would have been arguably of much greater value to Montejo than Aguilar was to Cortés. Montejo, of course, had met Aguilar en route to Mexico with Cortés, and Chamberlain says that from Aguilar Montejo “learned many things about Yucatan, information which must have played its part in directing him toward the conquest of Yucatan and its people”, 62. Guerrero’s rebuff of Montejo’s overtures must have been a great disappointment to him. Ibid., 63n42. Landa, Yucatan, 4. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 63, apparently quoting Oviedo. Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, 19. Landa, Yucatan, 4. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 63, makes the same false claim that it was the “expert direction” of Guerrero that taught the Chetumal Maya to build fortifications and other devices of warfare. Richard E.W. Adams, Prehistoric Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 161. Ross Hassig, Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 103. Hassig tells us that the tactic of digging holes during warfare (foxholes hidden by straw to conceal soldiers) was widely used as a feint among the Aztecs long before the conquest. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 63. Ibid., 65, citing Oviedo. Ibid. Ibid., 66 and 99. Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 50. Chapter 3 is titled “Invisible Warriors: The Myth of the White Conquistador”. This very welcome and insightful book was published after the first draft of this study was completed, but so germane is it to some of the issues discussed herein that it is cited when and where possible. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 100. Farris, Maya Society, 21 and 22. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 100–101. Relación of Alonso Dávila, taken from ibid., 101–2. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 8. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 103. Ibid., 103 and 106. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 9; Jones, Maya Resistance, 282–83, says it was probably “at Punta Consejo in Belize near the mouth of the Rio Hondo”.

UWI PRESS NOTES

63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81.

TO PAGES

22–26

337

Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 104; Jones, Maya Resistance, 33. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 103–4. Ibid., 105. Ibid. Ibid., 105–14. Among these were Maçanahau, or Mazanahau, located, according to Jones, “between Bacalar and the mouth of the Rio Hondo”, and Chable, which was apparently close to both Bacalar and Chetumal; Maya Resistance, 31 and 278–79. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 116. The term is used here as a reminder that there was no clear delineation between these two categories in early Spanish America. See James Lockhart, The Men of Cajamarca: A Social and Biographical Study of the First Conquerors of Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), 18–20. “The whole soldier-civilian contrast so familiar to the twentieth century was invalid in sixteenth-century Spanish America. If there were few true military men, there were hardly any ‘civilian’”, 18. Lockhart further reminds us that these early soldier-citizens were not normally paid; like “a joint enterprise, they expected a share of all profits, whether treasure, encomiendas or honors”. Hence the speed with which encomiendas were established, especially in Yucatan, which had hardly any treasure; ibid., 20. Quoted by Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 116. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 40. Jones, Maya Resistance, 39 and 281. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 125. Quoted in ibid., 121–22. For the details of this journey see ibid., 121–27. Ibid., 126–27. Ross Hassig says that “in battle the ruler was a legitimate target, since his death could shorten the battle and the war”; Aztec Warfare, 103. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 128. Against them the Spaniards said the Maya had “more than 20,000 warriors”, which even Chamberlain thinks “tremendously exaggerated” – the kind of thing that Matthew Restall discusses in Seven Myths, chapter 1 and passim. For the probanza of Blas Gonzáles, see ibid., 129–30. It is said that Gonzáles also saved the life of Montejo’s son later, at Chichen Itza; ibid., 139–41. Ibid., 220–22. Landa describes Nachi Cocom, who was by then known as Don Juan Cocom, as “a man of great reputation and very learned in matters and affairs of the country, very wise and well informed”; Yucatan, 19. It is one of the great ironies of history that it was from Cocom that Landa obtained a great part of the information for his book on Yucatan. It was from Cocom that he became privy to some of the most sacred and secret books of Maya history and cosmology – the very books he was to burn later, when “[i]n an instant an archaeological treasure of inestimable

UWI PRESS 338

82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88.

89.

90. 91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

NOTES

TO PAGES

27–31

value lay smoldering in the embers of Landa’s terrible deeds”, as Charles Gallenkamp expresses it in Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization (New York: Penguin, 1976), 26. There are many such condemnations of Landa’s act. For more on Nachi Cocom see also Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 38–39 and 91. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 63n42; see also Jones, Maya Resistance, 27, for a slightly different translation of part of Oviedo’s description. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 22. Ibid., 17–18. David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 153. Stannard observes that Hitler “from time to time expressed admiration for the ‘efficiency’ of the American genocide campaign against the Indians, viewing it as a forerunner for his own plans and programs”. Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Nigel Griffin (London: Penguin, 1992), 71. The first edition was not published until 1553. For a very accessible modern discussion of these views see Jon Bauman, The Sovereigns and the Admiral (Lufkin, Tex.: Epigram Press, 1991), 130–31 and passim. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 172. See also Robert S. Chamberlain, The Conquest and Colonization of Honduras, 1502–1550 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1953), 53–54 and 57; Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 17–18; and John S. Henderson, The World of the Ancient Maya (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 31. Jones, Maya Resistance, quoting Ralph L. Roys, 298n7; Henderson, Ancient Maya, 31, would seem to support this when he says that Guerrero “died in 1536 in Honduras in command of a flotilla of war canoes, defending the commercial interests of Chetumal against the Spaniards”. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 29; Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 166–67. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 232–34. Bienvenida to the Crown, Mérida, 10 February 1548, in ibid., 235–36. Landa saw children being thrust with spears “because they could not go as fast as their mothers. If some of those who had been put in chains fell sick or could not keep up with the rest, they would cut off their heads among the rest rather than stop to unfasten them”; Landa, Yucatan, 25. Gann, Ancient Cities, 57. For a good analysis of this, see William Gates’s introduction to Landa, Yucatan, iii–xv. See, for example, Las Casas, Destruction of the Indies, 75. For an account of missionaries in Yucatan, see Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 45–56. Jones, Maya Resistance, 22, 95, etc; see also Elizabeth Graham, David Pendergast

UWI PRESS NOTES

99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

109.

110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

TO PAGES

31–37

339

and Grant Jones, “On the Fringes of Conquest: Maya-Spanish Contact in Colonial Belize”, Science 246 (8 December 1989): 1255. Landa, Yucatan, 25. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 235–36. Ibid., 244; for the entire Yucatan uprising, see 237–52. France V. Scholes and Eric Thompson, “The Francisco Pérez Probanza of 1654–1656 and the Matricula of Tipu (Belize)”, in Anthropology and History in Yucatan, Grant D. Jones, ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), 46–47. Jones, Maya Resistance, 17, 44, 46 and 283–85. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 47. Perhaps this is the best piece of positive evidence that Chanlacam (or Chanlacan) was in Belize. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 244. Ibid., 248. Chamberlain obtained most of the material for this section from the probanza of Juan de Aguilar. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 248–49, and Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 44. Jones, Maya Resistance, 46. Jones quotes a passage from the probanza that shows much self-satisfaction. Aguilar mentions that the wife was “in prison”, being taken in “other entradas” (possibly the Pachecos’?), and having returned her to the cacique, “he reduced them pacified to the service of his majesty. And to this day they are quiet and pay their tributes peacefully to their encomenderos, without making trouble.” For reasons that are not clear, the probanza is dated 1566 – some nineteen years later – so he would have earned the phrase “to this day”. Restall, Seven Myths, 12–14, reminds us of the etymology of the Spanish term “probanza de mérito (proof of merit)”, which came into full flowering during the conquest period. “This genre was the report that conquerors sent to the crown upon completion of their activities”, but the “other purpose was to petition for rewards in the form of offices, titles, and pensions”. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 249–50. The changes and the cedula of 1 June 1549 are cited ibid., 236. Ibid., 243–44. Ibid, 243–50. Jones, Maya Resistance, 46. Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 257–58. Ibid., 254–61. Ibid., 263–67. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 31. Jones, Maya Resistance, 44. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 43; Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 343.

UWI PRESS 340

NOTES

TO PAGES

37–38

121. Up to nearly a century later the Golfo Dulce region remained vulnerable for Spain because of its exposure and lack of defences. At this time the Spaniards feared the Hollanders (the Dutch), who attacked Trujillo repeatedly, as the British were to do even more intensively later. But another group also took up occupancy around the Golfo Dulce region – the cimarrones. These were black runaways (known as maroons in English) from the terrible indigo estancias “who for too much hard usage have fled away from Guatemala and other parts from their masters unto these woods, and there live and bring up their children and increase daily, so that all the power of Guatemala, nay, all the country about (having often attempted it), is not able to bring them under subjection”; Thomas Gage, The English-American: A New Survey of the West Indies, ed. Eric S. Thompson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 195. Gage wrote these words as an eyewitness when he was a Dominican priest in Guatemala in the 1620s. But this English Catholic friar soon apostatized and returned to England, where his book was first published in 1648. 122. Some Spanish place names in Belize today include San Ignacio, Benque Viejo, San Antonio and El Cayo, among many others. In terms of Spanish institutions, the leader or head of some western Belizean districts such as Benque Viejo, Arenal, San Antonio, Succotz and others still carries the Spanish title and functions of the alcalde. This title was probably first introduced by Dávila at Villa Real in 1531, and we know that Montejo established the office at Nueva Sevilla in 1547. Thereafter, different waves of Spaniards and mestizos entering Belize – the largest being after the Caste War of the 1840s – would continue the practice. In 1879 a British colonial official described the alcaldes as having “special powers conferred on them by local statute, but they administer a much simpler though perhaps a rougher kind of justice than is provided by law, which appears none the less effective, for it is seldom any complaint or appeal reaches headquarters”. See Henry Fowler, A Narrative of a Journey Across the Unexplored Portion of British Honduras (Belize: Government Press, 1879), 5. In the 1950s a British visitor to the region saw the alcalde title as a retention from earlier Spanish practice, but it appears to have been syncretized at times with British symbols. Thus he describes a Belize alcalde as carrying “staves of office stringed in the old Royal Spanish fashion but with silver tops engraved with a representation of the youthful crowned Queen Victoria seated on a Gothic throne”; Harry Luke, Caribbean Circuit (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1950), 55. The alcalde system remains in certain areas of independent Belize, although there are signs that its influence may be waning. See, for example, Mark David Campbell, “Beyond the Succotz Tree: Ethnolinguistic Identity in a Maya Village and School in Belize” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1996), 4 and passim. As for the Catholic church, it “continues to attract the largest number of people in the country with a share of 57.7% of the total population”, although this represents a decline from 62 per cent in 1980; in

UWI PRESS NOTES

123. 124.

125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

TO PAGES

38–42

341

aggregate terms the Catholic figures increased from 88,587 in 1980 to 106, 596 in 1991. See the 1991 Population Census (Belize: Government Printery), 9. Jones, Maya Resistance, 44–50 and passim. Encomienda grants were very formal documents. Here Montejo refers to himself as “Adelantado and Governor and Captain-General for his Majesty in the jurisdiction of Yucatan and Cozumel and Higueras and Honduras, and of their lands and provinces” in granting the encomienda to one Antonio de Vergara, 7 May 1544; quoted from an original in the Archivo Colonial de Guatemala in Lesley Byrd Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 203–4 (translated in appendix 1). Ibid., 203. Jones, Maya Resistance, 64; Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 238 and 340–44. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 45. Ibid., 51–53; Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 311–15. Jones, Maya Resistance, 49.

Chapter 2 1. Juan de Villagutierre, History of the Conquest of the Province of the Itza (California: Labyrinthos Press, 1983), 66. There is a slight discrepancy in the date of the first Spanish publication; the translator says it was published three years after the fall of Peten, which would make it 1700, while the editor says the work was published in 1701; viii, xii. 2. Gann, Ancient Cities, 63–64. 3. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 15. 4. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 45. 5. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 15. 6. Jones, Maya Resistance, 285–86. 7. Elizabeth Graham, “Archaeological Insights into Colonial Period Maya Life at Tipu, Belize”, in Columbian Consequences, vol. 3, The Spanish Borderlands in Pan-American Perspective, ed. David Hurst Thomas (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 319. 8. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, part 1. 9. Ibid., 2. 10. Ibid., viii, the translator being Robert D. Wood, S.M. 11. Ibid., xii. 12. Ibid., xi.

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13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31.

NOTES

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Ibid., 19. Jones, Maya Resistance, xi–xii. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 62. Grant Jones, The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), xix, 39, also says that “the Spaniards’ fear of the Itzas” prevented them from attacking the Peten earlier, adding that remoteness and terrain also contributed. We still do not know why the Crown prohibited it, but that is not the focus of our study. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 51–52. Reed, Caste War, 48. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 63n270. Ibid., 67–68. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 198. Ibid., 70–76, and Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 38–41. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 41n172. The main source of this conjecture, quoted by the editor, is Philip A. Means, History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas (Cambridge: Peabody Museum Papers, 1917), 206. Fancourt sees the ruse as proof that the Itzas were “eminently deceitful”; see History of Yucatan, 193. Grant Jones appears to question the date of 1614 but is not too precise when he says: “That this visit did occur, probably in 1616 or 1617, is quite certain”; Maya Resistance, 133–34. See also Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 62 and n262, where the editor quotes Edmonson, who feels that the confusion was over a prophecy about the Itzas’ returning to their former capital, Mayapan, in 1611. When this did not happen, a faction of nobles felt obliged to ask for conquest and Christianization, hence the mission of 1614. Upon their return this faction was severely punished. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 63–64. Most of what follows is drawn from chapters 1 and 2. Ibid., 64–65, and Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 194–95, who sees the gift as a means “to propitiate the Itzacx”. So important were glass beads to the expansion of the British Empire that they were manufactured in London for this sole purpose. As early as the 1580s Sir Humphrey Gilbert was proposing “to set poor [English] children to work to make such trifles” with the view of exchanging remote Indian kingdoms for glass beads. See Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603 (London: Penguin, 2000), 279. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 64. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 43; also Jones, Maya Resistance, 278–79. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 195–96, and Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 65. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 43–45; also Thompson, Maya of Belize, 14.

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32. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 65–66 and n279, where the editor quotes Means for this opinion. 33. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 45. 34. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 66n281. 35. Fowler, Narrative, 5. 36. Landa, Yucatan, 34. 37. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 66–67. 38. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 197, and Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 67. 39. Margery Perham, The Colonial Reckoning (London: Collins, 1961), 57. 40. Farris, Maya Society, 9. 41. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 67. 42. Grant Jones, “Agriculture and Trade in the Colonial Period Southern Maya Lowlands”, in Maya Subsistence: Studies in Memory of Dennis E. Puleston, ed. Kent V. Flannery (New York: Academic Press, 1982), 284. 43. Graham, “Archaeological Insights”, 320. 44. Terry Rugeley, “Tihosuco, 1800–1847”, Saastun 1 (April 1997): 31. 45. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 197. 46. Jones, Maya Resistance, 116. 47. Ibid. 48. William M. Denevan, ed., The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), xvii. 49. Graham, Pendergast and Jones, “Fringes of Conquest”, 1255. 50. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 67–68. 51. Reed, Caste War, 43–44. 52. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 199, and Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 68. Fancourt’s description of the Itzas (although he cites Villagutierre) has slight variations. 53. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 68–69. For the eventful journey, see 69–72. 54. Ibid., 69–70. 55. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 7. 56. These words are from Dennis Tedlock. True, he was here referring to the Popul Vuh, which he translated, but they could apply equally to other aspects of Maya cosmology. See Dennis Tedlock, trans., Popul Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 13. 57. Farris, Maya Society, 76. 58. Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, 19, 61 and passim. 59. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 72–73. 60. Ibid., 73. 61. Fuensalida admitted that he and Orbita knew of Saint Augustine’s doctrine but thought Orbita had acted with higher guidance, for “who could resist the spirit of the Lord?”; ibid., 78.

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62. Ibid., 75; also Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 202–3. 63. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 76–77. But Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 204, says that the Tipu cacique, Gaspar, “chanced to be on friendly terms with the leader of the pursuing party”, without mentioning any blood relationship. 64. Thomas Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels in the New World [1648], ed. J. Eric S. Thompson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 237. 65. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 80. 66. Ibid., 80–81; Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 73, also reports the free and easy confessions of Indians to “ownership of the idols, which they worshiped”. Nancy Farris points out that in the Mayan view of things, acceptance of Christianity did not mean exclusion of their own religion, or “any radical break with the past”. They expected a coexistence with the “new religious cults by a conquering group [which was] a Mesoamerican tradition”; Maya Society, 24. 67. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 79–81. 68. Ibid., 81n334; Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 76. 69. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 81. 70. Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 257–59. 71. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 45. 72. See Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 81n336 and 88n353. 73. Jones, Maya Resistance, 287–88. 74. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 207, and Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 83. 75. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 211.

Chapter 3 1. See, for example, Kenneth R. Andrews, The Spanish Caribbean: Trade and Plunder 1530–1630 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 81–107, among others. 2. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 211–12; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 86. 3. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 16. 4. Comparato also agrees with Thompson’s location of Zaclún. See Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 88n353. 5. Jones, Maya Resistance, 159–75 for this version. 6. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 213; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 88–90. 7. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 214; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 90–91. 8. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 92; Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 216; Thompson, Maya of Belize, 15. 9. Jones, Maya Resistance, 116. 10. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 49.

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11. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 92. 12. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 16. 13. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 219–21. Villagutierre says: “to live again in idolatry and barbarism”; Province of the Itza, 95. 14. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 221; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 95. 15. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 87. 16. Ibid., 96–97. 17. Ibid., 86. 18. Ibid., 92n366. 19. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, 51. 20. Even Villagutierre seems not unsympathetic to some of the Indians’ complaints; see Province of the Itza, 107. There can hardly be more scathing criticisms of these priests than Gage’s, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 43–45 and passim. 21. The evidence for this is overwhelming. See, for example, C.H. Haring, The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century (London: Methuen, 1910), 73–74. 22. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 50. 23. See, for instance, Mary Ellen Miller, The Art of Mesoamerica from Olmec to Aztec (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001), 59. Miller notes the “dramatic new architectural expressions” found at Lamanai and other places in Belize existed from “about 100 BC”. We owe a great deal to David Pendergast for his vanguard archaeological work at Lamanai; among his earliest writings on the subject is “Lamanai, Belize: Summary of Excavation Results, 1974–1980”, Journal of Field Archaeology 8 (1981): 29–53. 24. Jones, Maya Resistance, 286. 25. Ibid., 217. 26. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 16. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. See Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 46, for Holpatin’s position. 29. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 16. 30. Jones, Maya Resistance, 217. 31. Ibid., 218. 32. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 50. 33. Jones, Maya Resistance, 219; Thompson, Maya of Belize, 17. 34. The requerimiento, a Spanish document that came into being sometime around 1514, is not easy to explain. Simply put, it pretends to advise the indigenous peoples of Spanish America to submit to the authority of the Spanish church and state. In its nine paragraphs, each more ominous than the one before, it warns the “natives” that if they do not submit, harm will come to them – and it will be their fault because of their disobedience. The rationale for this document was Spain’s attempt to wrap itself in a cloak of legalism in case other Christian states (Portugal, for instance) should

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35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

NOTES

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74–77

challenge the legality of its colonization in the Americas. Catholic priests were therefore to read the requerimiento to the natives before taking them over. As far as we know it was never translated into any indigenous language. For a text in English see Chamberlain, Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 23–25. For a more analytical and critical treatment of this amazing document, see James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 140–52; Stannard, American Holocaust, especially 65–66 and 257–58; Restall, Seven Myths, for another, even more recent analysis pointing out some of its supreme absurdities. Restall quotes Lewis Hanke (among others) reminding us that the document “was read to trees and empty huts . . . . Captains muttered its theological phrases into their beards on the edge of sleeping Indian settlements, or even a league away before starting the formal attack . . . . Ship captains would sometimes have the document read from the deck as they approached an island.” Restall has provided a rich collection of sources critical of this document; Seven Myths, 94, also 87, 98, 105, etc. Jones, Maya Resistance, 219; Thompson, Maya of Belize, 19. The quotation is from Thompson, Maya of Belize, 19; Jones says “they looked like painted demons”, Maya Resistance, 220. Jones, Maya Resistance, 220–21. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 19. Ibid.; Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 51. Jones, Maya Resistance, 223. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 36. See Jones, Maya Resistance, 222–30, for the Franciscans’ withdrawal from Bacalar and for some of the activities of “pirates” at Bacalar, especially the Dutch pirate Diego el Mulatto, who terrorized Spanish possessions in the 1630s and 1640s. His sacking of Bacalar in 1642 was a critical factor in bringing about the collapse of this town. See also Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 222–23. Thomas Gage had first-hand knowledge of the fear El Mulatto generated in the Spanish, when a Spanish ship on which he was travelling in 1637 was captured by the pirate; see Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 314–17. Jones, Maya Resistance, 226. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 51, from which most of this account is drawn. Ibid., 53. Ibid. But Grant Jones thinks Holzuz was more likely “near the mouth of the Belize River”; Maya Resistance, 233. Jones, Maya Resistance, 231–32. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 53. Ibid., 54; Jones, Maya Resistance, 231–34, has variations in some details of the Pérez story. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 54–55.

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51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81.

TO PAGES

77–86

347

Ibid. Ibid., 55. Ibid., 55–56. Ibid., 56. Alfred M. Tozzer, A Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacandones (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 2–3. Las Casas, Destruction of the Indies, 79. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 99. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 235. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 43. Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 208. Jones, Maya Resistance, 83, 224–25 and 323n24. Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 255. Frank Comparato’s note in Villagutierre’s Province of the Itza, 100n393. He also mentions the previous Itza raid. Ibid., 101–2 and n393, nn396–397; Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 235–38; Thompson, Maya of Belize, 45–46. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 106. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 241. Ibid., 236. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 41. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 47. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 122; Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 242. Editor’s note in Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 253n3. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 46–47. Marie Elaine Danforth et al., “Health and Nutrition in the Colonial Population at Tipu” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Anthropologists, Washington, DC, 1985). A copy can be found at the Department of Archaeology, Belmopan, Belize. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 274–75; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 210. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 211. Villagutierre makes much of this roadway throughout most of his Province of the Itza; see, for example, 126–28, 185–87, 206–9 and passim. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 246, says that Ursua opened up the road “at his own expense”. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 211, 214–16. Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 57. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 278; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 223–24. It should be mentioned that Martin Can was accused of being an imposter, of being only an

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82.

83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

NOTES

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87–96

ordinary Indian from Tipu and not a nephew of Can Ek. But this was soon proved false, as Ursúa discovered even before he had the truth from Can Ek himself; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 266, 282–84, 322. Ibid., 215. For more on the Muzules, see Thompson, Maya of Belize, 23; Scholes and Thompson, “Probanza”, 57 and 67; Jones, Maya Resistance, 267; Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 210n839. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 212 and 225. Munro S. Edmonson, The Ancient Future of the Itza: The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), xix. Frank Comparato quotes different scholars on Maya calendrical prophecy in Villagutierre’s Province of the Itza, 297n1057; see 295–98 for the battle and the destruction. Ibid., 318, 330 and 331. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 329–30. Ibid., 227, 281 and passim. Indians everywhere were involved in the construction of Ursúa’s new road system. The Spaniards were particularly pleased with the Alain Indians, who “were so experienced in that terrain [that] within a few days they opened the road through the area, skirting the lake, so the road cut from Yucatan to the lake was joined to that which went on to Guatemala, making it possible to travel from the former province to the latter without crossing the water, as has been done ever since”, 301. Ibid., 296 and 321–27. For this frustrating search, see Ibid., 380–88. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, 328. Gann, Ancient Cities, 66. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 318. Frank Comparato’s note in ibid., 385n1267; Thompson, Maya of Belize, 23. Farris, Maya Society, 18–19. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 5.

Chapter 4 1. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 19n78; at the end of his book Villagutierre calls it “the first part of my history”, 400–401. 2. Ibid., 19, 215, 264 and passim. 3. Luke, Caribbean Circuit, 50. 4. Bolland, Formation, 25; he admits that Belize’s origin is “obscure” but does not supply a date. 5. See Mavis C. Campbell, “St George’s Cay: Genesis of the British Settlement of

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6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

TO PAGES

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349

Belize – Anglo-Spanish Rivalry”, Journal of Caribbean History 37, no. 2 (2003): 171– 203, for an understanding of this island’s importance to the early beginnings of Belize. Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973), xvi. The Spaniards had become suspicious of a lurking British presence in the region at least as early as 1527, when an Englishman – thought to be John Rut – showed up off the coast of Hispaniola. The Spanish documents do not mention the name of the English captain who arrived at the port of Santo Domingo on 26 November 1527 “with ten or twelve seamen” in a large ship belonging to the king of England. It had originally been sent out to explore the possibility of a northern route to the Orient, but Rut(?) explained that his ship was the sole survivor of the expedition. At first he was well-treated by some of the Spanish colonists, but suspicions about the Englishman’s real intent developed, causing him to depart precipitously. For this fascinating incident, which angered the Spanish king because the colonists had not “taken”, “detained” and questioned the intruder, see I.A. Wright, ed., Spanish Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Caribbean, 1527–1568 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1928), 1–26 and documents 1–3. A more thorough reading of the early Hakluyt documents (which are many, and some are duplicates, in both Spanish and English) may shed more light on the earliest British settlement in Belize. For some scholarly accounts of the Rut incident, see Haring, Buccaneers, 34–36, and A.P. Newton, The European Nations in the West Indies, 1493–1688 (London: A & C Black, 1933), 49–50. I.A. Wright, ed., Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Spanish Main, 1569– 1580 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1932), 208–10. Ibid., 209, document 65. Ibid. Luke, Caribbean Circuit, 50. Wright, Documents Concerning English Voyages, 210. Wright, Spanish Documents, document 5. Quoted by Eric Williams in Capitalism and Slavery (New York: Capricorn Books, 1966), 3–4; see also Haring, Buccaneers, 30. Among those who have quoted this famous statement, see Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, vol. 1 (London: Frank Cass, 1970), 338–39. Long’s work, in three volumes, was first published in 1774. Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, 4. From the first European encounter with them in 1517, we find the Maya treating the Spaniards in a most matter-of-fact manner, even endeavouring to entrap them in an ambush. Díaz says that the Maya of Yucatan approached them “quite fearlessly” and later “spent some time examining the ships” of the Spaniards. See Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, 18; Farris, Maya Society, 66; Reed, Caste War, 279 and 277–78.

UWI PRESS 350

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18. Farris, Maya Society, 66. 19. Henderson, An Account, 3–4. 20. For original accounts of this long-lasting cooperation, see Wright, Documents Concerning English Voyages. Just about every document in this volume is consumed with Spain’s preoccupation with this very serious threat to its hegemony. Document 39, for instance, announces that the “English corsairs allied with the cimarrones have crossed the Pacific”, 115. There they “fell upon the Pearl Islands . . . where they did great damages” (royal official to the Crown, Nombre de Dios, 17 April 1577). The document ends by stating that the cimarrones were “as Lutheran now as the English” – a point that is repeated many times in these documents. See also Andrews, Spanish Caribbean, for a good account with excellent insights into Anglo-cimarrone relationships, especially with respect to Drake, Oxenham and Barker. Andrews points out, for instance, that Drake’s successes during his first expeditions in the 1570s (which began very badly) were the result of “his alliance with the cimarrones”. His unsuccessful early raids depleted his force from seventy-three strong to just about thirty, and when he finally crossed the Isthmus it was with thirty cimarrones and seventeen Englishmen – “a feat the English could not have performed alone”; see 139–40 and passim for more on these cooperative ventures. Another modern scholar, Kris E. Lane, has also dealt with this subject in Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750 (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), particularly chapter 2. 21. Thompson, Maya of Belize, 21. 22. Henderson, An Account, 26–27. Burdon records an extraordinary situation in which, in 1821, a prisoner in Belize was accused of murdering an Indian woman, and his defence was that retaliation against Indians had been encouraged there because “of the many murders and other depredations committed” by them against the settlement. It was, to the accused, “sanctioned by custom and usage”, and he did not think it had been annulled. His plea was rejected by the court and the prisoner was found guilty of manslaughter, but apparently got off lightly. See John Alder Burdon, Archives of British Honduras, vol. 3 (London: Sifton Praed, 1935), Supreme Court, 5 January 1821. This can be compared to an even more egregious case of more recent date. In 1967 a number of Colombian cowboys killed sixteen Indians, including women and children; when tried four years later, they were genuinely amazed that it was illegal to kill Indians. They were on a hunting spree and “Indian-hunting had been common practice” in their country. See Mavis C. Campbell, “Aristotle and Black Slavery: A Study in Race Prejudice”, Race: The Journal of the Institute of Race Relations 15, no. 3 (January 1974): 286n16 and 298. 23. Reed, Caste War, 159–60 and passim. 24. O. Nigel Bolland, “The Maya and the Colonization of Belize in the Nineteenth Century”, in Anthropology and History in Yucatan, ed. Grant Jones (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), 72.

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25. CO 123/10, “A Narrative of the Publick Transactions from 1784 to 1790 by Edward Marcus Despard, Esq.”, 8 March 1791, mentions the 1788 attack; Burdon, Archives, vol. 2, Clerk of Court to Adjutant and Secretary, 23 September 1802, 58. 26. CO 123/26, Magistrates to Bathurst, 26 February 1817, enclosure in Arthur to Bathurst, of the same date. 27. Ibid. 28. On 4 March 1848, for instance, Superintendent Fancourt requested thirty soldiers to “be sent to the Rio Hondo to protect the mahogany cutters against any attack by the insurgent Indians of Yucatan”; Burdon, Archives, vol. 3, 103. 29. Davenport, European Treaties, 106; also R.A. Humphreys, The Diplomatic History of British Honduras, 1638–1901 (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 1. 30. Clennell Wilkinson, introduction to William Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, vol. 2 (London: Argonaut Press, 1931), xxxiv. 31. Ibid., xxxii. 32. A.P. Newton, The Colonizing Activities of the English Puritans (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1914), 107–8. Newton was a renowned specialist of this period, on which he has published widely. See also his European Nations, 174. 33. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 163. 34. Ibid. 35. Newton, European Nations, 145. 36. Joseph [or John] Esquemeling, The History of the Buccaneers of America [1678] (Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey, 1853), 84. There are different editions of this work with different paginations. 37. CO 137/48, Godolphin to Earl of Arlington, 10 May 1672; like Esquemeling and the Spaniards, Godolphin called it “Campeche wood”. 38. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 159. It was after Dampier witnessed many of the loggers “routed or taken” by the Spaniards that he decided to join the buccaneers; 164. 39. Ibid., 159. 40. Dobson, History of Belize, 47. For Parker’s voyages, see Hakluyt Society, English Privateering Voyages to the West Indies, 1588–1595 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 219–35 and 308–15. James Langton was also plundering for logwood about this time, 253. It appears that Parker (possibly under a different name) and Langton worked together at intervals. 41. Newton, Colonizing Activities, 107–8; European Nations, 144. 42. For a good account of the logwood trade see Arthur M. Wilson, “The Logwood Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, in Essays in the History of Modern Europe, ed. Donald C. McKay (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 2. 43. Ibid.; visitors to the Strand in London will find the Nell Gwynne Tavern, with a plaque describing her as the “notorious mistress of Charles II”.

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44. Ibid., 2–3. 45. This was the confident expression of Robert Hodgson, an experienced dealer in the logwood trade. See CO 137/57, Hodgson to Aldworth, 21 April 1751. 46. Newton, European Nations, 144. 47. Quoted by Wilson, “Logwood Trade”, 2. 48. CO 137/48, Godolphin to Arlington, 10 May 1672. 49. Ibid. 50. CO 324/38, Board of Trade Report on trade “in the Province of Yucatan” on the cutting of logwood, Whitehall, 25 September 1717; also Wilson, “Logwood Trade”, 4. 51. Newton, European Nations, 289. 52. CO 324/38, Modyford to Arlington, enclosed in Board of Trade Report of 1717. 53. Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739–1763 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), 102. 54. CO 137/48, “Remarks upon the English Settlement at Bellese in Honduras”, n.d. 55. Nathaniel Uring, dedication to the Duke of Montagu in A History of the Voyages and Travels of Capt. Nathaniel Uring with New Draughts of the Bay of Honduras and the Caribee Islands . . . (London: Wilkins and Peele, 1726), iii–vii. 56. Ibid., 243–44. 57. Ibid., 246. 58. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 140 and 163. 59. Pares, War and Trade, 102. 60. Uring, Voyages, 246. The Jamaican pound at the time was roughly fourteen shillings, compared to the English pound of twenty shillings. 61. Ibid., 357. 62. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 162–65, 180–83 and passim. 63. John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America, vol. 2 (1741; reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969), 420. 64. Alan K. Craig, “Logwood as a Factor in the Settlement of British Honduras”, Caribbean Studies 9, no. 1 (1969): 61. 65. John Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil & the West Indies (London: Frank Cass, 1970), 227; Atkins made his travels in the 1720s but the work was first published in 1735. Oldmixon, British Empire, 420, mentions a place “30 Miles up the River”. 66. Atkins, Voyage, 226. 67. Ibid., 226–27. 68. Uring, Voyages, 354. 69. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 180. 70. Oldmixon, British Empire, 420–21. 71. Uring, Voyages, 181–82. 72. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 180. 73. Atkins, Voyage, 227.

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74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

104.

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103–123

353

Uring, Voyages, 356–57. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 181–82. Atkins, Voyage, 228. Ibid., 227. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 180–81. Uring, Voyages, 354–55. Ibid., 355. Ibid. Ibid., 355–56. Ibid., 357. Ibid., 358. Atkins, Voyage, 228. Uring, Voyages, 209–21. Ibid., 209–10. See Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, 51–52, for these regulations and articles. Dampier, Voyages and Discoveries, 164. CO 137/48, Order in Council to Trelawny, 14 June 1744, with enclosures. CO 123/4, Memorial of Inhabitants, 4 May 1786. CO 137/48, Hodgson to Lawrie and Hodgson, 14 May 1755. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 20 December 1786, appealing to Britain to suppress the magistrates’ “democratick form of government”. Despard was the first superintendent of Belize, and most of his successors expressed similar views. See Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, 253; George Wycherley, Buccaneers of the Pacific (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928), 168–75. “Regulations”, 135–36; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 100–101. “Regulations”, 9 April 1765, 7. “Regulations”, “General Meeting of the Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras, held at Key Casina, this Tenth day of April, 1765”, 19. “Regulations”, “At a Court held at Saint George’s Key . . . from the 6th of May to the 15th, inclusive”, 21. “Regulations”, 12–13. Ibid., 13–14. CO 137/61, Lord Halifax to Lyttelton, 8 September 1764. See “Regulations”, Public Meetings of 30 June 1807 and 28 June 1808, 131 and 134. CO 123/18, Meeting of Inhabitants, 6 March 1809. Those present proudly review the early importance of St George’s Cay, where they could punish criminals “either by Death or Transportation for Life”; their “usual place of Execution holds its name of Gallow’s Point”. CO 123/3, Memorial of His Majesty’s Subjects complaining about the Treaty of Versailles, to be dealt with subsequently, 29 September 1783.

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105. See John Purcell Usher, Memorial Inscriptions and Epitaphs, Belize, British Honduras (Belize: Stationer’s Hall[?], 1907), and Mary Check-Pennell, “Historic Cemeteries of Belize City, Belize, Central America” (unpublished manuscript, 1989). CheckPennell was an American Peace Corps volunteer who undertook to research and write on this topic, complementing Usher’s work. 106. “Regulations”, 8. 107. For a good recent account of these women see David Cordingly, Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women (New York: Random House, 2001), 84–85. He portrays these two women to be as daring as any of their male counterparts, and at times decidedly more courageous. 108. For numerous such penalties see, for instance, “Regulations”, Public Meeting of 29 October 1799, where it was “Resolved that the Magistrates be invested with a power to fine jurors for non-attendance at transient or summary courts”, 73; also see 67 and 80, among many other such fines. 109. Ibid., 11–13. 110. Ibid., 10–11. 111. Ibid., 9–10. 112. See, for instance, Mavis C. Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1988), 26–27 and passim; Elsa Goveia, The West Indian Slave Laws of the 18th Century (St Lawrence, Barbados: Caribbean Universities Press, 1970), 22–23 and passim. 113. “Regulations”, 16. 114. CO 123/9, unsigned and undated “Memorandum on Present State of Honduras”, in Richard Hoare to Grenville, 7 May 1790. 115. CO 123/9, Grenville to Hunter, 20 October 1790. 116. CO 123/9, “General Return of the Inhabitants in the Bay of Honduras . . .”, 22 October 1790. 117. “Regulations”, 29. 118. Ibid., 23. 119. Ibid., 8. 120. Gann, Ancient Cities, 24.

Chapter 5 1. See CO 123/1, “An Account of the Musketo Shore, by Joseph Smith Speer”, n.d. Most of this account was reproduced and much expanded upon publication of his map in 1771. Speer, who says he served for upwards of twenty years in the region, states that the Miskitos viewed the English “as a chosen people of God . . . or the First and Good Principle”. For his second account, see “The West-India Pilot” under

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6. 7.

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“Printed Maps of Central America” at the John Carter Brown Library. Many other writers have mentioned the strong belief among the Miskitos that a “grey-eyed” people – the English – would be their protectors, apparently from the Spaniards. See, for example, Henderson, An Account, 212; Pares, War and Trade, 98–99. In some cases the “grey-eyed people” concept was used in connection with all New World Indians, who, the British thought, would join with them against the Spaniards. See, for example, CO 123/2, Robert White to Lord Germaine, 9 December 1776. CO 123/1, Speer, “Account of the Musketo Shore”, n.p. Newton, Colonizing Activities, 143. Dobson, History of Belize, 84–85; after a mere paragraph on the Mosquito Shore, Dobson almost apologetically says that “[t]his digression” was only to explain the 1786 Convention (to be dealt with later). Newton, Colonizing Activities, passim. This has an excellent account of Providence Island and up until recently was the only well-documented history of this island, although its focus is much broader. A more recent work, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Providence Island, 1630–1641: The Other Puritan Colony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), is certainly much more focused. It gives a good account of the island’s short life as a British colony. Newton, Colonizing Activities, 142–43. Ibid., 140–43; Walter Ralegh [Raleigh], The Discoverie of the Large and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, ed. V.T. Harlow (London: Argonaut Press, 1928). See also Neil L. Whitehead, ed., The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997). Whitehead has transcribed and annotated this work with an introduction, but there is a slight variation in the titles. Whitehead’s addition of “Rich” to the title appears to be correct, since he includes a facsimile of the original, published in 1596. In what he calls his “Epistle Dedicatorie”, Raleigh makes his case for the establishment of a British Empire in South America, starting with Guiana, a country that “hath more quantity of Gold by manifolde, then the best partes of the Indies, or Peru”. See 4–5 in Harlow’s version and 122, section A4, in Whitehead’s. On different occasions Raleigh also mentions the potential for pan-Indian cooperation in the service of his view of the British Empire against the Spaniards; see, for example, 184 in Whitehead’s version (which is easier to read because it is divided into numbered sections). Here Raleigh is entreating Elizabeth I to support expeditions to Spanish America; he was certain that the Indians would “rather submit themselves to her obedience than to the Spaniards”, section 79. Kupperman, Providence Island, 95–97. Robert A. Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism: The Mosquito Shore and the Bay of Honduras, 1600–1914 (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989). This work is very useful on trade relations in the region.

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10. Troy S. Floyd, The Anglo-Spanish Struggle for Mosquita (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967), 18. 11. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, 166. 12. All the manuscript sources mentioned give voice to the healthiness of the place and are repeated by secondary sources such as Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 1, 318. He describes the Shore as “one of the finest and healthiest tracts in the world, and free from those distempers which in some of the West-Indies are so fatal to Europeans”. 13. CO 123/1, Robert Hodgson, “The first Account of the State of that Part of America called the Mosquito Shore, in the Year 1757 confined to what is actually possessed by the Subjects of Great Britain only”, London, 30 August 1759. Among the myriads of reports on the Shore, there is no doubt that Hodgson’s is the most copious and probably the most reliable and the most quoted. This manuscript is always assumed to be the work of the junior Hodgson rather than by his father of the same name, who from 1749 to 1754 was the first superintendent of the Shore. Hodgson Junior, who later also became superintendent, knew the region very well, having lived there for most of his life. Known for his extensive travels of the whole area, he also extolled the climate as very healthy. This manuscript is not paginated. It should be noted that there is another short manuscript (two pages) by a Robert Hodgson under CO 123/1. It is unclear whether it is by the son or the father, but it does not add much to the first manuscript. See Robert Hodgson, “A View of the Mosquito Shore”, London, 12 October 1766. 14. Newton, Colonizing Activities, 274–75. 15. Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies, vol. 5 (New York: Ams Press, 1966), 208. Edwards’s very first work, in two volumes, was published in 1793; the 1966 edition has been used for this study. 16. Ibid., 211. Exports of mahogany came to “800,000 superficial feet . . . and 10,000 lbs. of tortoise shell”. 17. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. 18. These game animals and birds are too numerous to be listed here, but see, among others, Thomas Strangeways, Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, including the Territory of Poyais (Edinburgh: Blackwood and Caddell, 1822), passim, but particularly 59–144; and CO 123/1, “First Account”. 19. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, 170. 20. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. 21. For a reliable account of British interaction with the San Blas Indians and the cimarrones around the Gulf of Darién, see Newton, Colonizing Activities, 135–40; CO 148/48, Trelawny to Board of Trade, 9 August 1747, for some compensations to the San Blas Indians: “For presents to Darien Indians £353.6.8 / For presents to San Blas Indians £122.4.7”. 22. Campbell, Maroons of Jamaica, chapter 1.

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23. See Wright, Documents Concerning English Voyages, “Pedro Gonzales interrogating the Zambigo, January 13 [1580?]”. It’s interesting to note that in this interrogation Gonzales wants to find out “if they ever heard the English say that they had come by their queen’s order”, eliciting a quick reply from the zambigo that they had not, that the English had come surreptitiously. The reply seems rather staged, as the zambigo goes on to say that the English told the cimarrones that only now did they intend to ask for the queen’s “assistance and authority, representing to her the wealth to be had and the favour and friendliness with which the Cimarrones support their project to ruin the settlements on the Main . . . and make themselves masters of the whole country”. Such a strategic reply may have been meant to intimidate the Spaniards, placing them squarely between the aggressive Queen Elizabeth I and the cimarrones – as it was to be later with the Miskitos and British policymakers of our period. 24. Modyford to Albemarle, 1 March 1666, quoted by James McLeish, “British Activities in Yucatan and on the Moskito Shore in the Eighteenth Century” (MA thesis, University of London, 1926), 53. 25. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. If differences based on ethnic origin did develop, it was much later. 26. Ibid. Hodgson was among the first to mention this and the suggestion has been replicated in other sources. Edward Long conducted some original research on the subject and found some fine pottery among the Miskitos, suggesting to him the presence of a more developed civilization among them – Aztec or Maya, for example. He made copious notes about this in his fine but legible handwriting, apparently intended for a revised edition of his monumental three-volume History of Jamaica, but this was never done. Luckily his papers remained with the Long family, ending up at the British Museum (now the British Library) in the Manuscript Department, classified as “Add. MSS, Long Papers” 12404, 12408, etc., but they may have been re-catalogued at the British Library. 27. CO 123/1, Speer, “Account of the Musketo Shore”. 28. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. 29. Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica . . . (London: British Museum, 1707), lxxvii [77]. 30. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, 461. 31. See Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 62. 32. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. 33. Henderson, An Account, 220–21. To his book Henderson appended “Journal of a Voyage to the Mosquito Shore”, with a special section, “Sketches of the Manners and Customs of the Mosquito Indians”. 34. Thomas Young, Narrative of a Residence on the Mosquito Shore During the Years 1839, 1840 and 1841 . . . (London: Smith, Elder, 1842), 12–13.

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35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

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CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. Pares, War and Trade, 101. Ibid., 101n3. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 56. British sources tend to downplay this trafficking but the evidence is overwhelming. See, for example, William S. Sorsby, “The British Superintendency of the Mosquito Shore, 1749–1787” (PhD thesis, University of London, 1969), 29–30 and passim. Sorsby too found that “English documents make almost no mention of Mosquito incursions or of contraband trade, probably because of the extra-legal nature of these activities”, 240n5. Sorsby’s work is extremely useful because he has delved deeply into Spanish primary sources, giving us a more balanced view of the period. See also Pares, War and Trade, 98–100. Even Pares, that most mature and honest English historian, hardly mentions the deep involvement of the British settlers, Miskitos and Jamaican merchants in this slave trade. But he does mention that the Council of Jamaica discovered that the Miskitos “had reduced a small tribe of their neighbours from 300 people to 47” by slave raiding. This was not an isolated case, and although an embarrassment to British officials in Jamaica and at Whitehall, the practice continued, for, as Sorsby says, many Shoremen “depended on Indian depredations for their living”, 29. For more of these slave-raiding and trading activities, see also Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 43–46, 59–68 and passim. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 56. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 26n63, mentions that Pitt was the grandson of a former governor of Bermuda. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 56–59. Pares, War and Trade, 101. Quoted by Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 90. Sloane, Voyage to the Islands, lxxvii [77], says the Miskitos could dart small fish about the size of a salmon trout, just as they could “nimbly avoid those that are darted from their Enemy”. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 22. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, 66. William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (Warwick, NY: 1500 Books, 2007), 7–11. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. Every account mentions the Miskitos’ brutality to the Spaniards. Edward Long, however, points out that such “actions are not the effect of an innate cruelty (for their disposition is normally generous and humane), but of their policy; and are intended to perpetuate the national odium against the common enemy, and to secure possession of that freedom which will probably never be destroyed by any other means than their total extirpation: the Spaniards had always had this in view; but their efforts were attended only with loss and defeat”; History of Jamaica, vol. 1, 317.

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49. See CO 123/1, Trelawny to Lords of Trade, 17 July 1751; Pares, War and Trade, 542, among many others. 50. Sorsby, “British Superintendency, 11. 51. Ibid., 11–12; Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 43–45, chapter 5 and passim. 52. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 12. 53. Ibid., 15. Succeeding Spanish monarchs made similar threats. See CO 123/1, Trelawny to Lords of Trade, expressing “great surprise” that His Catholic Majesty had given “particular Orders to exterminate the Indians”. 54. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 13. 55. Ibid. 56. For Trelawny’s numerous communications on this subject, see, among others, CO 137/56, Trelawny to Duke of Newcastle, 20 January 1739/40; Trelawny to Andrew Stone [a close friend and personal secretary to Newcastle], 2 February 1739/40. In the latter Trelawny repeats what he recommended to the duke as part of what one might call his Western design – that the British settlers of the region should be encouraged to support the Indians in a general revolt “from one part to another until it should be general over the Indies and drive the Spaniards entirely out or cut them off”. He seems happy to have heard of an Indian revolt against the Spaniards in Peru, and would wish approval from Whitehall to carry out his “design”. Newcastle seems to have ignored Trelawny’s grand design (at least publicly), for his reply mentions nothing about it; Newcastle to Trelawny, 26 March 1740. See also CO 123/1, Vernon to Privy Council, with excerpts from Trelawny’s letter of 20 July 1743 to Newcastle, encouraging some sort of civil government on the Shore. 57. CO 137/56, Trelawny to Newcastle, 20 January 1739/40; also CO 123/1, Vernon to Privy Council, 19 July 1741. 58. CO 137/56, Trelawny to Hodgson, 20 January 1739/40. 59. CO 123/1, Cession of the Mosquito Shore to Great Britain, 16 March 1739/40. Writing to a personal friend, Trelawny expressed great “joy” about the matter and immediately encouraged Hodgson to seize a Spanish mine “with a good number of Mosquito Men”. He did not know what would come of it “but there cannot come much harm, and it’s better to play at small game than absolutely to stand out”; CO 137/56, Trelawny to [?], 26 July 1740. 60. CO 123/1, Speer, “Account of the Musketo Shore”, was among the first to mention this ancient friendship compact between the Miskitos and the British. 61. Pares, War and Trade, 98. 62. CO 1/64, “Colonial Papers, 1687–1688”, Duke of Albemarle to “Lords Committee”, February 1687/8. 63. Sloane, Voyage to the Islands, lxxvi [76]. It should be noted that Floyd has quite a different story, stating, for instance, that it was Albemarle who “invited the chief at the Cabo” to Jamaica and also “crowned” him there, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 62–63.

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64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

73.

74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

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149–158

Unfortunately Floyd is quoting from a fictitious work signed “M.W.”. Sloane, Voyage to the Islands, lxxvi–lxxvii [76–77]. Newton, Colonizing Activities, 144–45. Newton gives credit to the Providence Island governor, Bell, and to Camock for “the close friendship that bound them [the Miskitos] to England throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”. Sloane, Voyage to the Islands, lxxvii–lxxix [77–79]. Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 1, 316. For a full account of these coronations see Luke, Caribbean Circuit, chapter 5. CO 137/59, Pitt to Trelawny, 17 July 1749, and Hodgson to Aldworth, 3 February 1749. CO 123/1, a group of merchants to the “Lords of the Committee . . . of the Privy Council”, acknowledging Trelawny’s letter of 20 July 1743, and CO 123/1, Duke of Bedford to Captain Hodgson, 5 October 1749. CO 123/1, Bedford to Trelawny, 5 October 1749. A good account of the consistency of this policy can be found in M.N. Menezes, British Policy Towards the Amerindians in British Guiana, 1803–1873 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). CO 123/1, Trelawny to Lords of Trade, 17 July 1751, and CO 137/57, Trelawny to Sloane, 16 October 1742; also CO 123/1, Trelawny to Lords of the Committee . . . , 20 July 1743. A.H. McLintock, “The Establishment of Constitutional Government in Newfoundland, 1783–1832: A Study of Retarded Colonization” (PhD thesis, University of London, 1938), 49. See Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 310. The sum might well be an understatement, because it is said to represent “an unspecified period of time”. Ibid., 43–45. Ibid. Ibid., 32n86. Ibid., 39, Vicuña to Ensenada, 28 August 1745.

Chapter 6 1. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 215; it should be noted that among Hariza’s “many preoccupations” was his deep involvement in Ursúa’s impending war with the Itzas. 2. Jones, Maya Resistance, 270–71 and 334n7. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid., 271. 5. See McLeish, “British Activities”, 77. 6. Fowler, A Narrative, 6.

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7. McLeish, “British Activities”, 77–78; Gibbs, British Honduras, 30–31; Burdon, Archives of British Honduras, vol. 1, 13–14; Honduras Almanack (1828), 17–18, and in some subsequent volumes. 8. This was no idle threat. For an account of some of the brutal treatments meted out to captured British loggers, see, among others, McLeish, “British Activities”, 35–37 and passim. 9. For the suggestion of a 1724 attack see Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggle, 74. Two years later, in 1726, Spain erected its defensive fort, San Felipe, at Bacalar as part of the unfolding offensive policy against Belize. 10. Villagutierre, Province of the Itza, 400n1310; see Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 66, for suggestions of other Spanish attacks on Belize in the 1720s. 11. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 2 (San Francisco: A.L. Bancroft, 1883), 624–28. 12. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. Gibbs, British Honduras, 33–34, quotes a Guatemalan gazette that makes much of a 1730 Spanish attack on Belize that routed the settlement. 13. Kupperman, Providence Island, 208. 14. CO 137/19, “The Humble Address and Representation of the council of Jamaica to the Kings [sic] Most Excellent Majesty”, 27 November 1731, and another of the same date from the Jamaica Assembly on the same matter. 15. CO 324/38, Memorial of Lords of Trade to George I, 25 September 1717. 16. See, for example, Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 11. 17. For a good account of Spanish policy in the region under Ensenada, see Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 81–86. 18. Ibid. 19. CO 137/48, Letter from Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras to Major Caulfield, 8 June 1745. 20. Ibid. 21. CO 137/48, Trelawny to Board of Trade, 24 November 1745, with Caulfield to Trelawny, 2 August 1745, enclosed, and Monson(?) to Duke of Newcastle, with letter enclosed from Trelawny giving an account of the state of “Bellise in the Bay of Honduras”. 22. CO 137/48, Trelawny to Lords of Trade and Plantations, 9 August 1747, with encl. 23. Ibid., with Council meeting minutes of 20 July 1747 enclosed. 24. CO 137/48, Trelawny to Duke of Newcastle, 9 August 1747. 25. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 83. 26. Ibid., 83–84; also Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 47–48, for this Anglo-Miskito attack. 27. Pares, War and Trade, 545. 28. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 85.

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29. Ibid. 30. CO 137/57, Bedford to Trelawny, 25 November 1748 and 30 June 1749; Trelawny to Bedford, 8 April 1749. If the evacuation of Roatan took place at all, apparently it was very slow, for as late as 1751 we find a Spanish official complaining that some British families are still there and that he wishes “to have them retire”. See CO 137/59, Heredia to Don John Caulfield, enclosed in Heredia to Trelawny, 30 April 1751; Pares, War and Trade, 540–41. 31. Among the numerous claims and counterclaims, see CO 123/1, Trelawny to Board of Trade, 17 July 1751; CO 137/59, Trelawny to Duke of Bedford, 15 November 1750; and Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 64–68. 32. Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 1, 333–36. 33. CO 137/57, Robert Hodgson to Aldworth, 21 April 1751, and CO 137/59, Hodgson to the Earl of Halifax, 22 February 1752. 34. The Shore’s influential Pitt also voiced strong complaints about the evacuation of Roatan and its effect on their shipping. See CO 137/59, Pitt to Trelawny, 17 July 1749; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 75; and McLeish, “British Activities”, 94–95. 35. McLeish, “British Activities”, 94–95. 36. CO 137/59, Sir Charles Knowles to the Earl of Holderness, 6 November 1752. Enclosing the proclamation, Knowles explained with asperity that Spain, through this “indirect method”, was trying to lure slaves away from the British under the “false pretense of religion”. He mentioned how “alarmed” the British merchants, loggers and planters of the region were, and that they hoped the British monarch would induce his Spanish counterpart to revoke the proclamation “immediately”, otherwise they would be ruined. British slave-owners feared that their slaves would seize ships to gain their liberty. Spain’s hypocrisy in this and other similar proclamations is demonstrated when it is noted that Spanish colonies engaged in slavery with or without royal consent, and royal edicts have been documented that allow Spanish colonists to participate in the slave system. One such was issued in 1789, granting permission to colonists or foreigners living in Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, the province of Caracas and elsewhere to deal in African slavery, without which those colonies “cannot prosper or flourish nor be productive to the Royal Dominion”; see CO 123/8, Royal Edict of His Catholic Majesty, 28 February 1789. Also, during the building of Omoa’s major fort, the Spanish king facilitated involvement of slaves in the construction; see Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 109. 37. McLeish, “British Activities”, 95. It should be noted that the Spanish official confuses the Bay of Campeche with the Bay of Honduras, as British officials were also doing; see Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 72–74. 38. CO 137/59, Trelawny to Duke of Bedford, 5 July 1750. 39. Pares, War and Trade, 548; see also Richard Lodge, ed., The Private Correspondence of Sir Benjamin Keene, K.B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), xvi and

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43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

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passim. This volume does not contain all of Keene’s correspondence, especially that between 1749 and 1757; see xv, n1. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 85. CO 137/60, Hodgson to Knowles, 19 December 1752, and Knowles to Hodgson, 24 January 1753. Vera Lee Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations in America in the Closing Years of the Colonial Era”, Hispanic American Historical Review 5, no. 3 (August 1922), 334. This is a very valuable and erudite account of this relationship. CO 137/60, Knowles to Lord Holderness, 10 January 1753 and 26 March 1753; see also Pares, War and Trade, 545–46. CO 123/3, Extract of a Letter from George Haldane, Governor of Jamaica, to the Board of Trade, 20 July 1759. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 81–83; Pares, War and Trade, 549. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 79. Sir Thomas Robinson to Keene, 15 August 1754, in Lodge, Private Correspondence, 38–39; John Roberts, Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, to Keene, 41. Ibid., 38; see also Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 85–86; Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 102. Some scholars, however, have given a different interpretation to Ensenada’s fall, arguing that there was no evidence Ensenada was behind the plot to invade the Bay but it was used as a convenient pretext to dethrone him. “His real crime was his French sympathies”, and his disgrace had been planned between London and Madrid; see Pares, War and Trade, 549. A more recent author, Alan J. Kuethe, Cuba, 1753–1815: Crown, Military, and Society (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), 14, says Ensenada fell because he “had exceeded his authority by secretly opening negotiations for a French alliance”, without mentioning Belize or the Mosquito Shore. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 84; McLeish, “British Activities”, 98. CO 137/60, Pitt to Knowles, 1 August 1754; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 80. Honduras Almanack (1826), 4–5. This is the first of the series, but the story has not been repeated consistently, for reasons that are not clear. The 1830 issue mentions it under “Chronology”, 61. The Honduras Almanack was an official “government” publication and therefore cannot be considered a reliable source for historical purposes. McLeish, “British Activities”, 99–100. This appears to be one of the rare occasions when the Miskitos refused to rally on behalf of the Baymen, for reasons that are not clear. It is thought that this was the major reason they were so routed. See CO 137/60, Knowles to Sir Thomas Robinson, 22 October 1754, with enclosures; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 84, where it seems that the Miskitos’ bone of contention was with Superintendent Hodgson. See also CO 123/1, Extract of a letter from Robinson to Knowles, 8 July 1754. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”.

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54. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 85. 55. CO 137/60, Knowles to Robinson, 13 January 1755. 56. Ibid. and Knowles to Spanish governors of the region (Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba and Campeche, among others), 17 December 1754. In the process some Spanish officials appear to have accused Knowles of disrespect towards them and their monarch. 57. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”. 58. CO 137/60, Knowles to Robinson, 13 April 1755. 59. Ibid. 60. See CO 137/60, Knowles to Robinson, 13 April 1755, with enclosures from Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras to Knowles plus another Address to Knowles from some Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras. 61. CO 137/60, Hodgson to Lawrie, 14 May 1755. 62. Ibid., Letter of Instruction from Captain Robert Hodgson to Lieut. Hodgson. 63. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 89. 64. Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 1, 328–30. With his inimitable straight-talking style, Long says, “The Dutch, who love to monopolize, and endeavour to filch away the trade of all around them, have been hitherto the principal gainers by our settlement here [the Bay and the Shore], and carried on the chief part of the trade, to the great injury of Great Britain. There is nothing wonderful in this; for, with respect to these possessions, our mother-state has for the most part been asleep”, and much more. Robert Hodgson, Junior, certainly agrees with Long. He deplores the fact that a great part of the profits of trade at the Shore “goes to Holland”, blaming it on the “want of proper Regulations”; CO 123/1, Hodgson, “First Account”; also Newton, Colonizing Activities, 138 and 325. Newton accurately stresses the original AngloDutch cooperation, especially over “Spain’s exclusive pretension”, which began to disappear because of trade rivalries. 65. For more criticisms of Dutch trading practices, see CO 137/48, an unsigned and undated document but obviously from the 1740s because of its placement, which mentions Dutch trading activities, especially in logwood, that are to the prejudice of the British. The document mentions that hardly any branch of industry and trade deserves more attention than the logwood business. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 92–93, says that “[t]he enterprising Dutch had acquired a near monopoly in the logwood trade; one English merchant estimated that of the 17,000 tons of logwood cut yearly, 15,000 went to Holland”. Criticisms are also found in the journal of Captain Bartholomew Sharp, 52, of which several copies exist, with slight variations and different pagination. They are to be found in manuscript form at the British Library under “Sloane mss, 46A/47”, but these classifications may have been superseded with the reorganization of the Manuscript Department. 66. One of these is Sorsby’s “British Superintendency”, as well as McLeish, British Activities, to a lesser extent.

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67. This was enunciated in 1713, when the rights under the 1670 treaty were reconfirmed. See Pares, War and Trade, 42. 68. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 75, quoting Keene to Holderness, 21 March 1752, from a Spanish document, SP 94/141, f. 135. 69. Pares, War and Trade, 563, and Lodge, Private Correspondence, 518. Keene died on 15 December 1757. 70. Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 333–36. 71. A British official observed, “which scheme, though a wild one, proves how prepossessed they [the Spaniards] are of our people’s carrying on an illicit trade under the pretence of cutting logwood”, ibid., 364n72. 72. Pares, War and Trade, 564–65; McLeish, “British Activities”, 105–6. 73. McLeish, “British Activities”, 105–6; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 117–23 and passim; Pares, War and Trade, 563–98. 74. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 106. Before Keene’s death, Pitt and other British officials urgently instructed him on the matter. See, for instance, Duke of Newcastle to Keene, 12 July 1753 (Private), in Lodge, Private Correspondence, 33–34; Newcastle to Keene, 27 January 1755 (Very Private), 41–42. Keene spent his very last days on the subject of “the logwood cutters in Campeachy Bay”, as he still mistakenly called the Bay of Honduras. 75. Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 334. 76. Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492–1969 (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 93. Williams rightly sees Pitt the Elder as “[t]he symbol of this period of Caribbean history”, as Pitt the Younger was to be later. The elder Pitt described France as a “vulture hovering over the British Empire, and hungrily watching the prey that she is only waiting for the right moment to pounce upon” – as he ought to know, since Britain’s attitude to the French empire was no different. Witness, for instance, how his son and Henry Dundas pounced upon Haiti during its rebellion in the 1790s, when it was thought this economic “jewel” was being lost to France; see C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), especially 132– 42, and McLeish, “British Activities”, 110. 77. McLeish, “British Activities”, 103–4. 78. Pitt to Keane, 23 August 1757, and Keene to Pitt, 26 September 1757. Pitt was impressing upon Keene the necessity “to make a great effort to gain the Spanish alliance by holding out the prospect that Gibraltar might be exchanged for a recovered Minorca, and by promising the abandonment of the British settlement in Honduras Bay and the Mosquito Shore”, but of course it was too late, and Keene knew this. Had these offers been made earlier, he thought, they might have worked. This was the last despatch Keene was to write, for he died just a few months later. See Lodge, Private Correspondence, 514–15. For more on these long, drawn-out discus-

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79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85.

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sions, see McLeish, “British Activities”, 103–4; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 101–8; and Pares, War and Trade, especially chapter 12. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 110, quoting Pitt to Bristol, 1 August 1758 (from a Spanish source, SP 94/158). Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 334; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 120. See, for example, CO 137/56, Trelawny to Duke of Newcastle, 20 January 1739/40, urging the duke to let him go for “The Havanah” with some six thousand soldiers. He viewed this number as sufficient despite Havana’s twelve thousand, who were not “efficient”. Williams, Columbus to Castro, 93–94; McLeish, “British Activities”, 111–12. For a good analysis of the protracted diplomatic discussions leading up to the Treaty of Paris, see Pares, War and Trade, 554–611. McLeish, “British Activities”, 106. Ibid., 106. To Pitt, such an uncompromising position “precludes all discussion, proposes to adjust nothing and imperiously demands everything”; for the chief minister it was a case in which “England must do everything and Spain will do nothing”.

Chapter 7 1. “The Definitive Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Between His Britannick Majesty the Most Christian King, and the King of Spain”, London, 10 February 1763. 2. CO 123/1, James Marriott, His Majesty’s Advocate General, to John Ponnall, Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, 21 April 1766. 3. Sorsby says that Otway’s wife’s brother was Franklin’s son-in-law; “British Superintendency, 129n15. 4. Ibid., 129–30. 5. Ibid., 135. 6. CO 123/3, Lyttelton to Hodgson, 19 August 1763. 7. CO 123/3, Hodgson to Lyttelton, 13 September 1763. 8. CO 123/3, Lyttelton to Hodgson, 2 November 1763; CO 123/1, “Relations of what passed on the Mosquito Shore at . . . the time of the execution of the seventeenth Article of Peace” by Robert Hodgson, 23 December 1766. By this time Hodgson was in London, where he was relating the whole matter of Lyttelton’s orders, probably to his many friends in high places there. 9. CO 123/1, Lyttelton to Earl of Egremont, 30 August 1763; Lords of Trade to Earl of Halifax, n.d., enclosed in Halifax to Lyttelton, 9 December 1763; Halifax to Otway, 9 December 1763. 10. CO 123/1, Hodgson, “Relations”; Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 354–55; and Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 132–37, with some slight variations.

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11. CO 123/3, Hodgson to Lyttelton, 6 August 1764. 12. See Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 142–50, for a good account of Spain’s agony and the fear generated by the Miskitos in alliance with the British. 13. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 17. 14. CO 137/61, Governor of Yucatan to Joseph Maud, 29 December 1763; Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 359–64; McLeish, “British Activities”, 118–19; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 88–91. 15. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 91–92; McLeish, “British Activities”, 120–21. 16. Admiral Burnaby, who had been knighted in 1754 and was by 1763 rear admiral of the Red (the merchant navy), became commander-in-chief of a squadron ordered to the West Indies. His name has become enshrined in Belizean history because it was during his stint on the Bay that the Baymen drew up their famous Regulations mentioned above, but certainly Burnaby did not “introduce” these so-called laws to the Baymen, as is so often erroneously thought. For instance, Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 100, refers to the document as “Burnaby’s Laws”, yet earlier on he rightly argues against this designation, 31–32. Most important is the evidence from the preamble of the Regulations that it was “drawn out from the Original Manuscripts by Wm. Hunt Esqr., Clerk of the Court and Keeper of Records in Honduras”. 17. CO 123/3, Rochford to Halifax, 14 September 1764; McLeish, “British Activities”, 119. 18. Ibid. and Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 96–97. 19. CO 123/3, Halifax to Lyttelton, 24 and 28 September 1764. 20. Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 366n81; McLeish, “British Activities”, 124. 21. See n24 below. 22. Later we shall see that this order was indeed not regularly carried out. Perhaps it was unavoidable; Burnaby himself immediately cast doubt on its implementation, citing the lack of charts or any reliable survey of the Bay region. “It is impossible to send a vessel every six weeks to the Bay as suggested. From October till April the navigation is so dangerous that he himself in the Active and two other vessels were twice very nearly lost in attempting the passage”; Burnaby to Stephens, 21 September 1765 (Adm. 1/238); also Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 108. 23. Among the many who have made this mistake, see the first issue of the Honduras Almanack (1826), 6, which commits two errors, stating that Burnaby prepared “a code of civil laws for the government of the inhabitants, and in which he was assisted by the celebrated Captain Cook, whose name has become immortalized by his voyages of circumnavigation”. Unfortunately this journal has spread its contagion of error throughout Belizean historiography, since many have used it as authentic historical documentation. McLeish was probably among the first to be influenced by the Almanack; he says that Burnaby was “accompanied by the navigator, James Cook” in “British Activities”, 121–23.

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24. This document, Remarks On a Passage From the River Balise, in the Bay of Honduras to Merida . . . , was published in London in 1769. Earlier we hinted that the energetic dislodgement of the Baymen from the Hondo may have been due more to some petty local affair than to the exercise of Spanish foreign policy. Cook mentions that the severe actions taken against them were due to the fact that the commandant at Bacalar had not received the “little presents” which his colleagues had received from some British merchants. And “this Mr. Maud told me was one of the principal reasons of the late disturbances in the Bay; the commandant of Bacalar being offended at this generosity of the English, hurting his priviledge so much, as to make him persuade the late governor of the province, that it had never been customary for the English to cut wood in the Rio Hondo, and in doing which they had gone beyond the limits of the treaty of Paris”, 5–6. Incredible as this may seem, it could well be true. Later we shall encounter Maud’s expertise in dispensing “little presents”, which he quite openly calls bribes. Scholars such as Nancy Farris have mentioned the venality of many of the Spanish officials, especially at the lookouts, or vigias; see Maya Society, 37. 25. Burnaby to Stephens, 26 March 1765, in Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 366– 67; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 99, both taken from Adm. 1/238. 26. Burnaby to Stephens, 16 December 1765, in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 109. 27. CO 137/62, Maud to Lyttelton, 7 October 1765. 28. CO 123/1, James Marriott to John Ponnal, 21 April 1766; also Brown, “AngloSpanish Relations”, 368. 29. CO 137/69, Dartmouth to Keith, 4 June 1774. 30. CO 137/63, Parry to Stephens, 27 March 1768. 31. CO 137/63, Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State, to Lords of the Admiralty, 12 October 1768. Hillsborough, after receiving an extract from Parry’s letter, would be pleased to be acquainted with “whether the commanders of His Majesty’s ships upon the Jamaica station have any or what Order of Instruction, in respect to the exercise of any civil power or authority amongst the Logwood-Cutters in the Bay of Honduras, and what directions they have at any time received from Your Lordships respecting the said Logwood Cutters in general”. 32. Parry to Stephens, 12 December 1768, from Adm. 1/238; also Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 116. 33. Petition of Honduras Settlers to George III, 16 May 1766; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 111; McLeish, “British Activities”, 124. 34. Many have written that the precipitous drop in logwood prices in the mid-1760s was due to the discovery of synthetic chemical dyes, “but that was a later development. The real reason was that Spanish logwood from elsewhere in the Yucatan had flooded the world market”; Clifford D. Conner, Colonel Despard: The Life and Times of an Anglo-Irish Rebel (Conshohocken, Penn.: Combined Publishers, 2000), 320n2. See also Appendix D, 292–94, for an account of some sharp declines in the prices of

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35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49.

TO PAGES

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logwood, from £25 a ton in 1749 to £11 in 1756; by 1770 it had fallen to “about £5 or £6 a ton”. There is a crying need for an economic history of Belize. Bolland, Formation, 73–74. “Memorial of Allan Auld of London, Merchant, and trading in the Bay of Honduras for self and on behalf of his correspondents, settlers there” to Lord Hillsborough, 22 July 1768; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 115; Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 367n84; McLeish, “British Activities”, 125–26, all citing the Spanish primary source under S.P. or S.P.F Spain, 180. See also Anon., “A Full Answer to the King of Spain’s last Manifesto, Respecting the Bay of Honduras and the Mosquito Shore” (London, 1779), 14–26, for Auld’s and other like-minded memorials from the Bay; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 246n131, has guessed that this anonymous manuscript was written by Robert White. CO 123/1, “The Humble petition of the Principal Inhabitants of your Majesty’s settlements on the Mosquito Shore” to George III, 31 May 1766. McLeish, British Activities, 125, citing a Spanish source, S.P.F. Gray to Weymouth, 20 March 1769. Anon., “Full Answer”, 2–20, a reply to “Manifesto of the Motives upon which his most Catholic Majesty has Founded his conduct with Regard to England . . . . (Madrid, 1779), in S.P. 94/254; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 245–47. Anon., “Full Answer”, passim; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 248, citing real orden to the president of Guatemala, 18 May 1779, Guat. 869. CO 137/74, Germain to Dalling, 2 April 1779. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 249n137. CO 137/74, Germain to Dalling, 17 June 1779; CO 137/75, Dalling to Germain, 28 August 1779, with enclosures. Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 1, 320. Jamaica Archives (Spanish Town) 1B/5/74, Dalling to Lawrie, 6 September 1779. Lieutenant Cook, Remarks on a Passage from the River Balise, in the Bay of Honduras, to Merida: The Capital of the Province of Jucatan in the Spanish West Indies, ed. Muriel Haas (1769; reprint, New Orleans: Midameres Press, 1935), 12–13. Jamaica Archives 1B/5/74, Dalrymple (unsigned and unaddressed but obviously to Dalling), 3 September 1779; also CO 137/75. Among those who criticized Germain, see McLeish, “British Activities”, 132. CO 137/75, “An Account of the Spaniards landing at and taking of St. George’s Key by the subscriber (Edward Felix Hill) who was then on the place and an inhabitant”, 1 October 1779, sworn to and signed by P. Bode at Black River; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 128–29. On 4 October Lawrie informed Dalling that the boat sent with news of the outbreak of hostilities had “arrived too late to warn the Baymen”. Around this time (September 1779) the Spaniards also overwhelmed a British post on the Mississippi River.

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50. CO 123/2, Memorial from Principal Inhabitants of the Mosquito Shore including the Settlers late drawn from the Bay of Honduras, to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council, 12 August 1781, presented by Robert White, among many others. 51. One Patrick O’gilvie or O’gilvy, described as a “respectable” Bayman in both “fortune and character”, was among those who escaped while confined in Havana. He then went to Roatan, which was soon also attacked by the Spaniards. By one means or another he finally reached the Bay, as stated in a petition on his behalf; CO 123/2, White to the Earl of Shelburne, 29 June 1782. 52. CO 137/75, Dalrymple to Germain, 21 October 1779; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 254–55, who uses Spanish sources including testimonies from the Spanish commander of the fort and other officials, as well as British sources; Floyd, AngloSpanish Struggle, 139–40. 53. “Omoa had little value for the British, except possibly, for its bargaining power in a final settlement”, says Floyd, Anglo- Spanish Struggle, 140; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 255, sees Omoa as “an awkward appendage” to the British at this time, when the sight was set on an expansive military operation planned for Nicaragua; McLeish, “British Activities”, 134, shares this view. Clifford Conner, however, has a different interpretation; he says it was “the small force Dalrymple left behind to defend” the castle that made the Spaniards recapture it; Colonel Despard, 36. It is not surprising that Conner arrives at this conclusion, because he wrongly thought it was Dalling who sent Dalrymple to attack Omoa, 35. But Omoa was not on Dalling’s mind – he had bigger plans. 54. CO 123/2, 13 September 1782. 55. CO 123/3, White to Sydney, enclosed in White to Evan Nepean, 16 January 1784, among many others. 56. White was officially appointed by the principal inhabitants of the Mosquito Shore as their agent “to transact our Business in London” and to represent all their concerns to officials at Jamaica and Whitehall, since their “repeated Remonstrances” with them had “not been taken Notice of”; CO 123/2, White to Thomas Townsend, 26 July 1773. After the 1779 Spanish attack on St George’s Cay, White took it upon himself to represent the Bay also, and we find him first applauded and later dismissively attacked by the Baymen. White was unrelenting in his numerous memoranda and petitions, and entire volumes in the CO 123 series contain only his communications to Whitehall. Most of them are finely written in longhand on both sides of enormous sheets of paper. For the most part they were ignored by the colonial authorities, and White complained of this bitterly and incessantly. His letter to Lord Sydney of 23 February 1785, for instance, whines about not receiving replies, resulting in his “distress and inability” to perform his duty as agent to the Shore and the Bay. This became too much for Sydney: he told White that his letter was “written in a

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style that does not exactly become the Public Character in which you are desirous of being considered”. Sydney’s emphasis reflects the fact that White was not an agent for the Bay as he was for the Shore by this time, though not acknowledged by imperial authorities. Sydney then tries to educate White on the proper way to conduct business. “The regular channel for all representations from the Mosquito Shore upon the Public Service, is certainly through the Superintendent to His Majesty’s Governor of Jamaica (to whom he is subordinate) that they may be transmitted to me to be laid before His Majesty, and from circumstances that have happened, I may feel myself called upon to inforce the adoption of that System.” The emphasis here shows that the agency system that had now become an essential part of more established Caribbean colonial governments, such as Jamaica, was really a convention over which, de jure, Whitehall had the final authority. Since the Bay had no formal government at this time and White was claiming to represent it, Sydney couches his next paragraph in more general terms. Should he (Sydney) be disposed to comply with any desire the settlers “may have of Employing an Agent in London” to facilitate the transaction of their public business, such “Indulgence will be granted only upon condition that they fix upon a Person who may be disposed to conduct himself with decency and temper, and in whom I may, if I should see occasion, place a proper confidence for the communication to them, of any measures that may be adopted by His Majesty or His Ministers with respect to that Settlement”; CO 123/3, Sydney to White, 15 March 1785. This did not stop the irrepressible White from sending to Whitehall lengthy memoranda and petitions on behalf of the Shore and the Bay. His immediate reply to Sydney’s scolding regrets that he offended the Minister but soon goes on and on about not receiving replies; ibid., White to Sydney, 24 March 1785. CO 123/7, Grenville to White, 11 July 1789, and White to Grenville, 13 July 1789. CO 137/98, Magistrates to Balcarres, 18 July 1796. See Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 280–301, for a good account of Spanish angst over the daring Anglo-Miskitos acts during this period. CO 123/2, White to Germain, 9 December 1776 and 10 April 1782. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 297. Kingston Royal Gazette, 12 October 1784. CO 123/14, Campbell to Lawrie, 4 June 1784, under “Promiscuous Papers: 1775– 1800”. CO 137/84, Sydney to Campbell, 19 March 1784; Sydney to Clarke, 5 October 1784; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 146–53. For an English copy of this treaty, see “The Definitive Treaty of Peace and Friendship, between His Britannick Majesty and the King of Spain, 3 September 1783” (London, 1783). Among those who felt that Britain did not play its hand well was Sir Charles Oman, The Unfortunate Colonel Despard and Other Studies (London:

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66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72. 73.

74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83.

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Edward Arnold, 1922), 6, where he says, “Great Britain was forced to accept the terms imposed on her by France, Spain and the Americans”. Most of these petitions and memorials are to be found in CO 123/2 and 123/3; most are also reproduced in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 133–41. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 302–20; McLeish, British Activities, 217–25. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 311. “Convention Between His Britannick Majesty and the King of Spain”, signed in London, 14 July 1786. CO 123/2, White to Townsend, 31 January 1783. An economic history of Belize would show more clearly the transition from logwood to mahogany as the basis of the economy. For what these figures are worth, it is mentioned that by 1783 the timber trade of the settlement consisted of “Logwood . . . 7,000 tons / Mahogany . . . 70,000 tons”. Thus the “illegal” trade in mahogany was ten times greater than the “legal” trade in logwood; CO 123/2, White to Townsend, 10 February 1783. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 183, quoting George Dyer to “Your Lordship”, 12 February 1790. See Carmarthen to Liston, 11 February 1785; ibid., 3 March 1785; and Liston to Carmarthen, 20 April 1785, from Foreign Office primary sources quoted by Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 311–14. Harry Luke, Caribbean Circuit (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1950), 60. Vera Lee Brown is more restrained; she says rather that Spain’s repeated efforts to incorporate the Shore in its Spanish-American system “had been successfully resisted, largely through the assistance of the British”; “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 351. But there is no evidence to show any British assistance to these Indians with whom, as Brown rightly says, its connection “had been close”. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 57–58. CO 137/77 and 137/78, Dalling to Germain, 31 May 1780, and Kemble to Dalling, 14 June 1780. CO 137/81, Thomson to Despard, 26 September 1780. Campbell to Rodney, 4 and 24 June 1782, quoted by Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 281. Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 160–61; CO 123/14, Lawrie to Campbell, 31 August 1782; ibid., Despard to Campbell, 2 September 1782; Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 284–85. Conner, Colonel Despard, 78. CO 123/3, Memorial from Despard to [?], 10 November 1784. CO 123/5, Lawrie to Sydney, Black River, 1 June 1787, and Lawrie to Dyer, 5 and 31 May 1787, expressing the Miskito king’s distress about the evacuation. Robert Hodgson, Junior, finally defected to the Spaniards, who made him governor

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of the Bluefields settlement on the Shore, where he claimed to have much influence over the Miskitos. See Floyd, Anglo-Spanish Struggles, 166–68; Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 69–70 and 242n25, 26 and 27; McLeish, “British Activities”, 225.

Chapter 8 1. CO 123/6, “General Return of Embarkations from the Mosquito Shore”, 1787; CO 123/5, Superintendent Lawrie to Sydney, 1 June 1787. 2. CO 123/6, “General Return”. Hodgson, by now governor of Bluefields, is entered with “family of about” one hundred – perhaps including slaves? A “Tenostons family, by Col. Hodgson’s persuasion” of eighteen also remained, among a few others. 3. CO 123/6, “General Return”. 4. Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 321n89. 5. CO 137/86, Despard to Clarke, 1 December 1786; CO 123/5, Despard to Lord Sydney, 23 February 1787. In the first communication Despard represents the ratio as 1:4 but as 1:5 in the second. 6. CO 123/10, “A Narrative of the Publick Transactions from 1784 to 1790 by Edward Marcus Despard, Esq.”, 8 March 1791. This was part of Despard’s monumental defence against the Baymen’s attacks; it runs to more than three hundred pages, with an appendix of seventy-five pages, refuting point by point Robert White’s accusations. The appendix is contained in a separate volume, CO 123/11. 7. James Bannantine, Memoirs of Colonel Despard (London: Temple Street, St George’s Field, 1799), 19. There are slight variations to Despard’s clumsy title; CO 137/84, Sydney to Despard, 1 December 1784, says “upon the coast of Yucatan”, and the communication from Sydney to Governor Clarke of Jamaica of the same date says “he was to be Superintendent of the Bay Settlement”, although the latter could be a paraphrase, since it is taken from Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 149–50. 8. Scholars of British colonial constitutions have always been puzzled by the Belize system. See, for instance, Martin Wight, The Development of the Legislative Council, 1606–1945 (London: Faber and Faber, 1946), frontispiece facing the title page, with a quotation from Mr Amery’s speech to the Colonial Office Conference in 1927, and 5. In Appendix 2, 163, Wight refers to the constitutional development of British Honduras as “altogether anomalous”. See also Wight’s British Colonial Constitutions, 1947 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952) for more comparative studies of these constitutions. More recently, Cyril Hamshere, The British in the Caribbean (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 72, refers to the development of British Honduras as “this oddity of the British Commonwealth”. 9. For a long time the only biographies we had of Despard were Bannantine’s – a very short account (cited above) – and Oman’s Unfortunate Colonel; more recently we

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10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

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have Conner’s Colonel Despard. All are more or less agreed on Despard’s family background. Bannantine, Memoirs, 7, says he was born “1750 or 1751”, while Oman, Unfortunate Colonel, 2, says he was born in 1751. Conner is more precise when he gives Despard’s birthdate as 6 March 1751, perhaps because, as a member of the family himself, he was privy to family papers; Colonel Despard, 24. Conner, Colonel Despard, 21, points out that Despard’s family tradition of military service was of long standing, tracing the etymology of the name Despard to its French origin in feudal times. The French d’Espard is derived from espard, an archaic French word for sword; the d’ before the name suggests an aristocratic background. Oman, Unfortunate Colonel, 3; Conner, Colonel Despard, 28, also mentions that Despard “briefly returned to the British Isles” sometime in 1778 till “early 1779”. But Conner contests Oman’s statement that this was Despard’s only visit home between 1772 and 1790, claiming that he “was also in England for a short time in 1784”; 307n12. Oman’s stress on Despard’s longevity of service in the tropics is not innocent. He is attempting to build a case that this could lead to mental imbalance, in the process comparing Despard to Roger Casement, the British Consul General in Rio de Janeiro who in more modern times was also executed for high treason: “Both were Irishmen of good family; both entered the King’s service early, and won rank and distinction therein. Both were trusted with high and responsible posts – and both held those posts in the Tropics. Does twenty years in authority spent in Jamaica and British Honduras, or in the Cameroons and Brazil, lead to megalomania, or merely to relaxation of the moral fibre, with men of a certain type?”; 2. Oman, Unfortunate Colonel, 3, and 3–5 for the San Juan expedition. See also Tom Pocock, The Young Nelson in the Americas (London: William Collins Sons, 1980) for a very accessible popular account, as well as his Horatio Nelson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 25–50. CO 137/84, Campbell to Lord North, 23 January 1784; Bannantine, Memoirs, 9. Jamaica was threatened at this time by combined French and Spanish forces, hence the need for the defensive constructions for which Despard showed much talent. This assignment cut short his appointment to Roatan, mentioned below. Bannantine sees Despard’s unauthorized act as laudable and patriotic. Oman, who holds no brief for Despard and can hardly conceal his contempt for him, sees it as evidence of Despard’s “want of a sense of discipline which was to be his ruin”; Unfortunate Colonel, 5. Bannantine, Memoirs, 13–14. CO 137/84, Campbell to Lord North, 23 January 1784, with enclosures. Bannantine, Memoirs, 18–19; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 140–42. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, Honduras, 20 December 1786, with enclosures; Despard to Sydney, 4 April 1787, among many others. The primary-source documentation on Despard is voluminous.

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19. For these numerous complaints see CO 123/5–7. 20. Ibid. 21. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, “Haulover Wallix River” [another designation for Belize], 24 August 1787. A week before, in his letter of 17 August, Despard describes his location as “Haulover River Bellize”. 22. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, Honduras, 15 June 1790. 23. Cook, Remarks on a Passage, 3–5. 24. See, for instance, CO 137/84, Sydney to Despard, 1 December 1784; CO 137/86, Sydney to Despard, 31 July 1786. 25. CO 123/5, Advertisement no. 4, 9 July 1787; Despard to Sydney, 17 August 1787; Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787, with enclosures. 26. CO 123/5, petition to Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, his Majesty’s Superintendent at Honduras, 16 August 1787, with eighty-two signatories. 27. CO 123/5, Lawrie to Sydney, 12 December 1787; this memorial asking for provisions for the indigent was sent to George Dyer to be presented to Sydney. 28. CO 137/92, Petition of the late Settlers on the Mosquito Shore to William Pitt, Secretary of State, 13 August 1793; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 203; CO 123/5, Extract of a letter dated 15 August 1787, enclosed in Dyer to Nepean, 18 October 1787. 29. CO 123/5, Extract from one of a series of letters from Honduras, all critical of Despard, 15 August 1787. 30. CO 123/5, Meeting of Inhabitants at House of James Sullivan at “Belise River’s Mouth”, 1787, n.d. 31. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 17 August 1787; “Regulations”, Meeting of Inhabitants, Court House, Belise River’s Mouth, 24 July 1787. 32. CO 123/5, Extract of letter from Honduras, 15 August 1787; “Regulations”, Meeting at Court House, Belise River’s Mouth, 24 July 1787. 33. “Regulations”, Meeting at the Court House, Belise Point, 25 July 1787. 34. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, Haulover River Bellize, 17 August 1787. 35. CO 123/5, Sydney to Despard, 27 June 1787. 36. CO 123/5, A number of the late Inhabitants of the Mosquito Shore to Despard, 20 August 1787. 37. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787. 38. “Regulations”, meeting of 25 July 1787. 39. CO 123/5, A number of the late Inhabitants to Despard, n36. 40. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787. 41. CO 123/5, David Lamb to Despard, 16 July 1787; Despard to Sydney, 24 August and 20 October 1787, with enclosures. 42. CO 123/5, petition of “colour’d persons” to Despard, enclosed in Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787. 43. Ibid.

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44. The case of Joshua Jones has been repeated ad infinitum in the records; see, among them, CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787; CO 123/10, Despard’s “Narrative of Publick Transactions”, is the most comprehensive with its many enclosures. For the Baymen’s account see n45 below. The narration that follows is taken from all these sources. 45. CO 123/5, The Baymen’s report on Despard’s actions in the Joshua Jones case, 27 August 1787. 46. Ibid. 47. See, for instance, CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 20 December 1786, and Despard to Sydney, 17 August 1787, among others. 48. CO 123/28, Arthur to Bathurst, 31 July 1819. In an attempt to circumvent the Baymen’s “ancient system” Arthur issued more proclamations than just about any other superintendent of the period. 49. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 17 August 1787. 50. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787. 51. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 167. The deed is dated 4 February 1788. 52. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787; also CO 123/10, Despard’s “Narrative”. 53. Bolland, Formation of a Colonial Society, 45. 54. Among these see CO 123/5, which has a large number of memorials and letters complaining about Despard, some undated; they relentlessly continue until Despard’s departure in 1790. 55. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, with enclosures, 20 October 1787. 56. All twenty-two resolutions can be found in “Regulations”, 25 July 1787, 43–53. 57. CO 123/6, Despard to Sydney, 31 October 1787. 58. “Regulations”, At a Public Meeting, held 29 October 1805. 59. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 24 August 1787. 60. Ibid. 61. CO 123/5, Extract of one of the unsigned letters from Honduras, 15 August 1787, and a memorial from the Baymen with their grievances sent to Dyer in London, 27 August 1787, among others. 62. Keith to Fergusson, 2 August 1775, in “Defence”, 83. Another version is in CO 123/13, Abstract of Instruction from Sir Basil Keith to John Fergusson, August and December 1775. 63. CO 123/6, Despard to Sydney, 31 October 1787. 64. A.H. McLintock, “The Establishment of Constitutional Government in Newfoundland, 1783–1832: A Study of Retarded Colonization” (PhD thesis, University of London, 1938), 119–21. 65. CO 123/6, Sydney to Despard, 6 February 1788. 66. Bolland, Formation, 46.

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TO PAGES

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377

67. CO 123/6, Sydney to Despard, 6 February 1788, with unsigned letter dated 8 February 1788 and marked “Private” enclosed. 68. CO 123/6, James Bartlett to the merchants trading in London, 19 April 1788. Most of the petitions addressed to the merchants were presented to Whitehall by Dyer, and they proved to be most effective in bringing about the dismissal of Despard in 1789; see, for instance, CO 123/7, Dyer to Nepean, 24 September 1789. 69. CO 123/6, White to Evan Nepean, 21 February 1788; see also CO 123/7 for a plethora of White’s memorials on this issue. 70. CO 123/7, Despard to Sydney, 20 November 1788. 71. CO 123/7, private letter from one Mr Gale to “Dear John” in London, 26 May 1789, describing some of Gaul’s destruction; committee of Honduras settlers to Merchants in London, delivered by Dyer, 20 August 1789; CO 123/8, Despard to Gaul, 27 February 1789; Despard to Sydney, 10 July 1789 and 20 May 1789; Despard to Clarke, 27 May 1789. 72. CO 123/8, Hoare to White, 9 August 1789. The ulterior motive implied by Hoare was that Despard wanted to create a crisis in order to move swiftly towards a change of government at the settlement. But Conner has a different interpretation. He says that when the magistrates suggested that Despard’s cordiality to the Spanish officials was evidence of “criminal collusion – implying that he was acting as an agent of the Spanish monarchy”, Despard replied that their buccaneer origins were still evident in “that barbarous enmity instilled into them”, preventing them from seeing “the difference between common civility and a criminal partiality”; Colonel Despard, 126. 73. CO 123/5, Despard to Sydney, 17 August 1787, with Advertisement 5 enclosed. The river’s source was discovered through the cooperative efforts of an Englishman, Captain Harrison, and a Spaniard, Captain Valentin(?), who “set out upon that business the 8th of last month [July]”. 74. CO 123/6, Sydney to Despard, 6 February 1788. 75. These numerous complaints are to be found in CO 123/6–8, among which are CO 123/8, 1 October 1789, for the specific quotation; see also CO 123/7, Dyer to Nepean, 19 August 1789; Dyer to Committee of Merchants in London, 28 August 1789; also the lengthy petitions from Robert White to either Nepean or Sydney. Many of the latter refer repeatedly to the Joshua Jones case, for example, White to Nepean, 21 February 1788. Even a few Baymen in Jamaica were protesting: CO 123/6, “Resolutions of the Baymen at Kingston, Jamaica”, 18 August 1788; exactly what they were doing at Jamaica is not clear. 76. CO 123/8, Senor Don Juan Bautista Gaul to His Majesty’s Superintendent, 26 May 1789. 77. CO 123/8, Despard’s Plan of Police, 10 June 1789, and approval of the plan, 15 June 1789.

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78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

NOTES

TO PAGES

241–252

Oman, Unfortunate Colonel, 2. CO 123/8, Despard to Sydney, 10 July 1789; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 175. McLintock, “Establishment of Constitutional Government”, 121. Oman, Unfortunate Colonel, 8. CO 123/8, Whitehall to Despard (not signed, but certainly from Grenville), 2 October 1789. CO 123/7, Grenville to Despard, 13 August 1789; Merry to Duke of Leeds, 11 June 1789. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, 18 May 1790 and 15 June 1790. CO 123/8, Nepean to Despard, 2 October 1789 (Private and Secret). CO 123/8, Grenville to Despard, 10 November 1789. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 174. McLintock, “Establishment of Constitutional Government”, 121.

Chapter 9 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

CO 123/8, Grenville to Hunter, 16 October 1789, two letters of the same date. CO 123/8, Grenville to Merry, British chargé d’affaires in Spain, 25 December 1789. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, Honduras, 13 April 1790, with enclosures. CO 123/9, James Bartlett to Dyer, 12 May 1790. CO 123/9, Whitehall (unsigned) to Hunter, 15 May 1790. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, 18 May 1790. CO 123/13, Inhabitants to Hunter, 12 March 1791. This section is drawn from both this long memorandum, signed by magistrates Potts, Bartlett, Douglas and O’Brien, and Bartlett’s lengthy informal letter to Dyer, CO 123/9, Bartlett to Dyer, 12 March 1790, unless stated otherwise. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, 3 and 18 May 1790. CO 123/13, Inhabitants to Hunter, 12 March 1791. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, 15 June 1790. See, for example, CO 123/13, Despard to Grenville, 13 January 1791; Despard to Nepean, 20 February and 16 July 1791, among others. For more of his extraordinary treatment, . Conner, Colonel Despard, 142–45. CO 123/13, Dundas to Despard, 4 October 1791. Oman, Unfortunate Colonel, 2. Ibid., 9; Conner, Colonel Despard, 16–20, forcefully refutes Oman’s notion of a “dwindling” band of Jacobins; he sees Despard’s activities as transitional, or as part of the beginning of the new English and Irish radical movements. He cites the celebrated E.P. Thompson, who states unequivocally that the “story of nineteenthcentury Radicalism commences with these two men” – that is, Despard and Sir

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15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

TO PAGES

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379

Francis Burdett. See also chapters 9 to 11 for an enlightened account of Despard’s part in the revolutionary movement of the time. CO 123/9, Hunter to Grenville, 18 May 1790. CO 123/10–11, “A Narrative of the Publick Transactions from 1784 to 1790 by Edward Marcus Despard, Esq.”, 8 March 1791. The reports from the settlement are found mainly in CO 123/12, “A Narrative of Public Transactions at Honduras Bay from 1786 to June 1790 by the Magistrates” (n.d.). These turned out to be altogether tedious, repetitive, petty in parts and replete with charges and countercharges, but they should not be disregarded as they serve as primary materials for Belize’s history. CO 123/9, Inhabitants and Merchants trading in Honduras to Grenville, 6 May 1790; Hoare to Grenville, 2 May 1790. To demonstrate the seriousness and delicacy of the matter, Grenville again sent two dispatches to Hunter; CO 123/9, both dated 15 May 1790; one promises arms, ammunition and the like if the difficulties with Spain are not resolved; the other, marked “Secret”, says that arms and ammunition are actually being sent to the Bay on HM Serpent but are not to be landed except on strong grounds that an attack is imminent; see also Memorandum of the Present State of Honduras (obviously sent to Grenville by Hunter), enclosed, n.d.; also Grenville to Hunter, 20 October 1790. CO 123/9, Grenville to Hunter, 6 November 1790; Nepean to Hunter, 6 November 1790 (Private). Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 189, citing “Magistrates’ Meeting” of 21 August 1790. CO 137/88, Effingham to Grenville, 17 April 1790; CO 137/89, Effingham to Grenville, 12 June 1791. CO 123/13, Hunter to Magistrates and their successors, 24 March 1791. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 195. CO 123/13, Bartlett to Dyer, 26 November 1791, and Potts to Dyer, 27 November 1791. These two men in their letters and other reports on special committees supply the bulk of the information on this matter, which is to be found in the British National Archives in London. From the “Regulations” we have nothing of this case that caused so much consternation at the Bay, possibly because of damage to the documents; for instance, the first entry after October 1791 is for March 1792. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, is also skimpy on this affair, mentioning only two documents, 195–97. See, for example, Mavis C. Campbell, The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1976), 32–34. CO 123/13, Petition to Magistrates from Inhabitants, 14 November 1791, and minutes of other meetings, enclosed in Bartlett to Dyer, 26 November 1791. CO 123/13, Bartlett to Dyer, 26 November 1791; Potts to Dyer, 27 November 1791; Magistrates’ Meeting, 21 November 1791.

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28. Ibid. 29. CO 123/13, Magistrates to Dunlop, 6 December 1791; CO 137/90, Williamson to Dundas, 12 February 1792; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 196–97. 30. CO 123/26, Public Memorial to Bathurst, 26 February 1817. 31. CO 123/13, Thomas Potts and Edward Hughes to Captain Peter Wade, 17 December 1791. 32. CO 123/13, Inhabitants of the Bay to the Honourable Charles Hall, Custos of St Andrews, 20 December 1791. 33. CO 123/13, Magistrates to Rear Admiral Affleck, commander-in-chief stationed at Jamaica, 6 December 1791. 34. CO 137/90, Magistrates to Dunlop, 16 June 1792. 35. CO 137/90, Dundas to Williamson, 12 July and 6 September 1792. 36. CO 137/92, Advertisement by Captain Lawford, 2 April 1793, and Captain Lawford to Williamson, 14 April 1793. 37. CO 137/92, Lawford to Williamson, 5 September 1793; see also Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 202–5. 38. “Regulations”, Meeting of the Inhabitants at the mouth of the River Belise, by appointment, 12 June 1784. 39. CO 137/75, Dalling to Germain, 28 and 29 December 1779, enclosing memorials; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 131. 40. See CO 123/2, “A list of the Several Accounts . . .”, 13 September 1782, and Appendix B. 41. See, for example, Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 129. 42. CO 123/14, Hoare to Dundas, 28 November and 9 December 1791. 43. A great deal of documentation is to be found on these “spy” cases which created consternation in the settlement; see CO 123/13, which contains lengthy depositions from various slaves, including James and Cudjoe, from around 1790 to early 1791. McLeish, “British Activities”, 51, says that Gonzales’s “guilt was clearly established by declarations of several slaves . . . as well as by the report of one of the guards”. 44. CO 123/13, J. Lawrie and Thomas Jackson to Hunter, 20 September 1790; Phineas Parker and Robert Sharp to Hunter, 22 December 1790. 45. CO 123/13, Memorial of Benjamin Garnett and Charles Armstrong to Dundas, 11 June 1793. At this time both men were in London, hoping for an audience with Dundas. 46. CO 123/13, “Abstract of a Letter from Thomas Potts, St George’s Key”, 28 May 1792, possibly to Dyer to be presented to Whitehall. 47. CO 123/13, Magistrates to Dunlop, 6 December 1791. 48. CO 137/98, Magistrates to Balcarres, 18 July 1796; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 221. 49. Barrow had had a long career in the U.S. War of Independence, including service at the defence of Savannah, and was a brigade major in the army under Earl Cornwallis.

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381

50. CO 137/98, Duke of Portland to Balcarres, 20 February 1797, approving the appointment and expressing confidence in Balcarres’ judgement on the settlement. 51. CO 137/98, Balcarres to Barrow, 7 December 1796, with three separate sets of instructions. 52. Most of these are found under CO 137/99, for example, Balcarres to Portland, 5 February 1798. 53. CO 137/98, Barrow to Balcarres, 10 June 1797; Balcarres to Barrow, 8 December 1796. 54. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 231–32: Public Meeting of the Inhabitants, 1 June 1797. The attendance record lists 106, which may have been an error. This meeting is not in the “Regulations”. 55. CO 137/99, Portland to Balcarres, 11 July 1798 (Secret). 56. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 232. 57. CO 137/98, Barrow to Balcarres, 16 June 1797. 58. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 239. 59. CO 137/99, Barrow to Balcarres, 2 and 12 October 1797. 60. CO 137/99, Inhabitants to Barrow, 9 October 1797; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 238–39. 61. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 242, reporting a Public Meeting, 19 January 1798. 62. See CO 137/101, Barrow to Balcarres, 23 September 1798, for a narration of the entire battle. 63. Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, vol. 4, 102–3; Edwards was writing his monumental work at the time of the battle. 64. CO 137/101, Barrow to Balcarres, 23 September 1798, and Balcarres to Portland, 7 November 1798. 65. CO 137/101, Barrow to Balcarres, 23 September 1798. 66. Ibid., and Moss to Barrow, 27 September 1798. 67. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 250. 68. Ibid., 253; the letter is dated 20 September 1798. To some historians it is “hard to find an explanation for the sudden panic . . . of the Spanish; the suggestion that they had run short of water and supplies cannot explain their sudden flight”; Dobson, History of Belize, 78. Dobson’s perplexity is perfectly understandable, given the force of the Spaniards. Edwards hints at incompetence when he says, “though the means which they employed were far from contemptible, those means were illseconded by the spirit and skill of the persons who employed them”; History, Civil and Commercial, vol. 4, 102. 69. Extract from the Royal Gazette of Jamaica, dated 3 November 1798, quoted in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 252–53. 70. Among some of these, see Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, vol. 4, 105–6. After recounting the battle, obviously with access to Moss’s report, Edwards merely says: “Even the slaves were eager to take their share in the dangers of the day.” Then

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71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89.

NOTES

TO PAGES

270–275

he quickly goes on to praise his countrymen for the victory. He sees it as an “achievement . . . performed by a small party of British soldiers and sailors, [which] though not important from its magnitude or consequences, deserves notice as a splendid proof of courage, and as a striking contrast to the abortive attempt of the Spaniards upon Honduras”, ignoring the fact that no British soldier participated in the victory, much to Barrow’s chagrin. In spite of full knowledge of the reports by Moss and Barrow, plus other relevant documents, not once does Dobson mention the participation of the slaves in the battle; History of Belize, 75–78. Extract of account dated 20 September 1798, quoted in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 253–54. “Recorded by desire of Paslow” at a Public Meeting, 28 August 1798. CO 137/98, Barrow to Balcarres, 10 and 16 June 1797. Extract of letter dated 25 September 1798 in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 254–55. Moss to Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, 27 September 1798; ibid., 261–63. CO 137/101, Barrow to Balcarres, 23 September 1798. Balcarres to Portland, 7 November 1798, in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 256. Public Meeting, 24 September 1798; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 263–64; CO 137/100, Balcarres to Portland, 29 October 1798, in which Barrow indicates that some Baymen want to leave but all concerned, including Balcarres and Admiral Hyde Parker, are against it. It should be remembered that this was a bad time for Britain, already preoccupied with General Maitland’s precipitous evacuation from Toussaint’s Haiti. Cited by Bolland, Formation, 78. Campbell, Maroons of Jamaica, 82–83. References to Suriname occur in CO 140/85, “Votes of the Assembly of Jamaica”, 18 July 1795 and 23 April 1796, among others. See also Hamshere, British in the Caribbean, 115, in which mention is made of slaves being granted freedom for “reducing” Frenchmen during Anglo-French warfare. See James, Black Jacobins, 129–223, for the diplomatic tussle between Toussaint and the British commander, General Maitland. Extract of 25 September 1798 letter in Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 254–55. CO 137/101, Moss to Hyde Parker, 27 September 1798; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 263. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 256. Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, vol. 4, 102–3. McLeish, British Activities, 153–54. Unfortunately McLeish again obtained this piece of inaccuracy from the Baymen’s propaganda mouthpiece The Honduras Almanack; see, for example, the 1828 issue, 108–9. Humphreys, Diplomatic History, passim, but particularly chapter 2; Dobson, History of Belize, 79–81, for a very good, succinct account. CO 123/13, Magistrates to Rear Admiral Affleck, 6 December 1791; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 200. CO 123/17, Hamilton to Coote, 26 November 1807.

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TO PAGES

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383

90. CO 123/16, Appointment of Agent by Principal Inhabitants, “Belise River’s Mouth” in Honduras, 25 April 1805. A part of the document read: “Now know ye that we the undersigned Magistrates and Members of the Committee representing and acting for the Inhabitants of this Settlement in pursuance of the powers as aforesaid, have made, named, constituted and appointed and by this Instrument of Writing do make, name, constitute and appoint George Dyer Esq. of London to be the true and lawful Agent for the British Settlement in the Bay of Honduras.” 91. Public Meeting, 28 February 1805, and Public Meeting, 24 February 1807; Burdon, Archives, vol. 2. It is doubtful whether Dyer continued to receive his “grant” of £300, since the Baymen were notorious for not living up to such promises. At two Magistrates’ Meetings, 11 and 19 March 1808, the “Public Treasurer was ordered to send a Turtle to George Dyer, Esq., Agent for Honduras, by each Vessel of the April and July Convoys bound to London”; ibid., 115. Was this in lieu of the grant? 92. Humphreys, Diplomatic History, 8–9. Dobson also mentions 1796 as the possible date of the last Spanish inspection, adding that “the payment of a grain of corn as a token of Spanish authority” seems also to have ceased in 1796; History of Belize, 81. 93. Humphreys, Diplomatic History, 8. 94. For a substantial account on Bennett, the “entrepreneurial opportunist” in Central America, see Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 103–17. 95. CO 123/17, Hamilton to Magistrates, 23 September 1807. 96. Bolland, Formation, 10. 97. McLeish, British Activities, 153. 98. CO 137/98, Balcarres to Barrow, 8 December 1796 (private). 99. CO 123/15, Barrow to Perez, 27 January 1803, and Perez to Barrow 15 February 1803; Barrow to Hobart, 29 July 1803. 100. CO 323/61, Stephen to Glenelg, 3 August 1846; CO 123/18, Perez to Hamilton, 3 March 1808, complaining that the Bay fishermen were fishing beyond the limits, among others. 101. CO 123/17, Hamilton to Magistrates, 23 September 1807, with enclosures. 102. CO 137/101, Balcarres to Portland, 13 April 1799. 103. CO 123/15, Memorial of Magistrates trading in Honduras to Lord Hawkesbury, n.d. 104. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 284–85. For Bassett’s short administration (1800–1801), see CO 123/15, especially “Miscellaneous”. 105. CO 123/15, Downing Street to Barrow, 5 October 1802; Barrow to Lord Hobart, 25 January and 31 March 1803; Address of the Inhabitants to General George Nugent, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, 19 March 1803. 106. See also Campbell, “St George’s Cay”, 171–203, where this thesis is also developed. 107. CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 13 and 23 June and 29 July 1803, with enclosures, including several letters from the Yucatan governor protesting the barracks and for-

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280–285

tifications Barrow was constructing. See also Hobart to Barrow, 3 November 1803, congratulating Barrow and the settlers for their “zeal and Public Spirit” in their defensive measures against the enemy. He promised to send some gunboats, arms and ammunition. 108. CO 123/15, Nugent to Barrow, 19 April 1800; Downing Street to Barrow, 3 November 1803; CO 123/16, Barrow to the Chiefs of the Mosquito Nation, 2 February 1804; Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 74–75. 109. CO 123/16, Dyer presenting Memorial from Inhabitants to Castlereagh, 15 August 1805; see also Burdon, Archives, vol. 2, Public Meeting of 24 February 1807, asking the superintendent to take action against the “number of Spaniards lurking about . . . particularly those at Mullins River”. 110. CO 123/15, “A short sketch of the Present State of Honduras” by Barrow, 31 March 1803. 111. CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 31 March 1803; Captain General of Yucatan to Barrow, 5 February 1803; Barrow to Captain General of Yucatan, 26 March 1803.

Chapter 10 1. CO 123/6, Bartlett to Committee and Merchants in London, 19 April 1788. Despard, as we have seen, did in fact refer unfavourably to their buccaneering past. 2. CO 137/60, Address from some Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras to Governor Knowles, 13 April 1755. 3. CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 31 March 1803; CO 123/16, Extract of a letter from James Hyde to George Dyer, 12 June 1804. In 1810 Agent Dyer made a formal request to the Colonial Department for colonial status. He urged that “in future the civil proceedings of the Bay Settlement . . . ought to be brought under the immediate cognizance of H.M. Principal Secretary of State for the Colonial Department” – and not by way of Jamaica; see CO 123/19, Dyer to Jenkinson, 18 April 1810. But Whitehall continued to deny the Bay colonial status: “The Settlement of Honduras being a Settlement under Treaty within the Territory and Jurisdiction of a Foreign Power is not to be Considered in the nature of a Colony”, extract of a letter from Castlereagh to Smyth read to the Magistrates, 7 September 1810. 4. C. O. 123/17, Magistrates to Hamilton, 27 September 1807. 5. “The Defence of the Settlers of Honduras Against the Unjust and Unfounded Representations of Colonel George Arthur” (printed by order of the House of Commons), 16 June 1823, 11–12. 6. Barrow’s computation thirteen years later conforms more or less to the 1790 numbers where the slave population is concerned:

UWI PRESS NOTES

Whites men women children Total

120 50 55 225

Free People of Colour men women children Total

180 275 320 775

Slaves men women children Total

7. 8.

9.

10.

TO PAGES

286–287

385

1,700 675 584 2,959

Barrow rightly notes that the total count was “under the real numbers”, but the importance is to show the increasing gap between whites and slaves and free people of colour. CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 23 and 29 June 1803. CO 123/26, Public Memorial to Bathurst, 26 February 1817, enclosed in Arthur to Bathurst of the same date. CO 123/27, Arthur to Bathurst, 22 September 1818, acknowledging the long-awaited dispatch (dated 31 March 1817) from Bathurst instructing him to send the rebels to Sierra Leone. These Barbadians soon became well assimilated in Sierra Leone, although a few did ask to be returned to Barbados early in the 1840s. For more on their fascinating lives see Christopher Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 136, and Nemata Blyden, West Indians in West Africa, 1808–1880: The African Diaspora in Reverse (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2000), 35–37. For more on this diaspora in reverse see Mavis C. Campbell, Nova Scotia and the Fighting Maroons: A Documentary History (Williamsburg: College of William and Mary Press, 1990); the Maroons, refusing to stay in Nova Scotia, were finally sent to Sierra Leone in August 1800. Fyfe mentions that one of the Barbadians, Simon Priddy, soon “settled down with a Maroon wife”. The Maroons’ odyssey to Sierra Leone can be found in Mavis C. Campbell, Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons, from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1993); they landed in Freetown, Sierra Leone, around December 1801, after a most eventful journey. The examples are numerous, but Keith R. Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 BC–70 BC (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 127,

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11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

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TO PAGES

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encapsulates this universal phenomenon when he says: “Slaveowners’ fears of their slaves, though doubtless often latent, were a natural product of slaveownership, reflecting the potential for violent resistance by slaves that lay at the core of Roman society, as of any other slave society”. See also Milton Meltzer, Slavery from the Rise of Western Civilization to the Renaissance (New York: Cowles, 1971), 189–95. “Every slave we own is an enemy we harbour” was a Roman proverb, despite the fact that slave rebellions in antiquity were “not frequent”. However, the fear is “rooted in the relationship between master and slave”; 189. Williams, Columbus to Castro, 321. See, for example, CO 123/16, Barrow to Nugent, 10 June 1804, complaining that the military constructions were “unserviceable”. CO 123/23, Arthur to Bathurst, 2 December 1814; CO 123/24, Arthur to Bathurst, 11 March 1815; CO 123/25, Arthur to Bathurst, 24 April 1816. Indeed, these complaints continued throughout his administration, right up until 1822. The Judge Advocate would consider it “impolitic” to improve the defence of Belize because “the jealousy of the Spaniards may be alarmed at our constructing new ones [barracks, etc.], whereas they would feel an uneasiness at our maintaining those already erected” – notation on CO 123/23, Arthur to Bathurst, 2 December 1814. Perhaps the best example of this was during the inter-elite rivalries in pre-revolutionary Saint-Domingue (Haiti), when the slaves seized the moment and launched their famous revolution (1791–1804). See Gage, Thomas Gage’s Travels, 192–97, for a good eyewitness account of the large cimarrones (maroon) establishments that the Spaniards could not dislodge. The maroons exploited the weak defence system of Guatemala to the utmost. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 256–57, would agree that the island entity, especially one as small as Barbados, had spatial limitations for successful marronage. George Wilson Bridges, The Annals of Jamaica, vol. 2 (1828; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970), 505; the emphasis is in the original. “Defence of the Settlers”, 13. Henderson, An Account, 96. Bridges, Annals of Jamaica, vol. 2, 505. CO 123/29, Arthur to Bathurst, 7 October 1820. One of the earliest and most picturesque accounts of this extraordinary personage can be found in Henderson, An Account, 57–60. The Honduras Almanack (1827), 6–9, copies this passage almost verbatim, but with certain interesting omissions. Henderson, An Account, 57; Honduras Almanack (1827), 6. Henderson, An Account, 58. This is not mentioned in the Almanack’s version. This journal, as has been said, was primarily a propaganda medium for the oligarchy, and the tendency was to sanitize any fact or practice they would consider unfavourable to their image. For instance, Henderson goes on to say, in his inimitable way, “a

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26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

TO PAGES

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liberal equivalent for this breach of fidelity being always punctually discharged”. Thus the fear of retaliation if discovered may well have deterred the master’s neighbour more than anything else. McLeish, “British Activities”, 124–27, has a good account of the Spanish-inspiredrunaway situation; see also Brown, “Anglo-Spanish Relations”, 367, 372–74. For a more systematic account of Spanish-induced desertions see Anon., “A Full Answer”, 12–30. The Spaniards also aggressively practised slave abduction on the Mosquito Shore; see Sorsby, “British Superintendency”, 140–42. Trial by jury for slaves in the region was unknown. “In many cases”, says Goveia, “they [slaves] were placed under the summary jurisdiction of judges, acting without a jury, for the trial even of capital crimes”; West Indian Slave Laws, 34–35. CO 123/17, Hamilton to Coote, 26 November 1807; Magistrates to Hamilton, 6 October 1807. A random sample of just about any other Caribbean society would reveal brutal and bloody reprisals against slaves, who were often tried just for planning to kill a master; see, for example, Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 256–62; David Barry Gaspar, Bondmen and Slaves (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), especially 21–42, among others. Bolland, Formation, 72–73. Ibid., 73. Ibid. and CO 137/62, Joseph Maud to Lyttelton, 7 October 1765. Ibid; see also Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, 109. Bolland, Formation, 74. Ibid., 74–75; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, Davey to Rodney, 21 June 1773, using Admiralty material, Adm. 1/239, 121–24. Bolland, Formation, 76. CO 123/28, Arthur to Bathurst, 1 April 1819. Arthur mentions that the slaves have been in an “uneasy state” since the past Christmas, which is causing “much alarm” in the settlement. CO 123/33, Arthur’s proclamations. All the proclamations are to be found in Arthur’s private papers, which this author is editing for publication. Burdon, Archives, vol. 1, Public Meeting, 10 July 1820. CO 123/33, Proclamation of 12 March 1818. Ibid., Proclamation of 19 March 1819. “Defence of the Settlers”, 10–11; CO 123/33, Proclamation, 3 May 1820. Bolland, Formation, 76. CO 123/29, Arthur to Bathurst, 16 May 1820. Wallace R. Johnson, A History of Christianity in Belize, 1776–1838 (New York: University Press of America, 1985), 83. After the Baymen’s success in removing Despard, their first superintendent, their next “victim” was Sir Richard Bassett (1800–1801), who was followed by Hamilton.

UWI PRESS 388

45. 46. 47.

48.

49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

NOTES

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Both had irreconcilable disagreements with the magistrates and both were removed by Whitehall upon the Baymen’s representations through Dyer, their agent. They were more subtle with Bassett’s removal (CO 123/15, Bassett to Magistrates, 19 October 1802); with Hamilton they were much more bold. See especially CO 123/17, Magistrates to Hamilton, 16 October 1807, in which they pointedly republish the communications suspending Despard from office. Hamilton then wrote to the Jamaican governor to complain that “the leading Men have got an Idea that they can get His Majesty’s Superintendent removed whenever they think proper and one of the Magistrates, Mr. John Young, has even had the assurance to say so to my Secretary”, CO 123/18, Hamilton to Coote, 24 March 1808. Agent Dyer was sedulously recommending to the secretary in London Hamilton’s “immediate” removal, and in September 1809 he was succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel Nugent Smyth, who had a fair stint with them (1809–14), although he became entangled in a constitutional squabble with the magistrates. Symth was not “removed” as such, but perhaps fearing such an outcome, he resigned precipitously and was succeeded by Arthur. Up to the time of Arthur’s administration, therefore, only Barrow had served a regular course and remained in good stead with the Baymen. Hunter could also be considered very successful with them, but his was a temporary appointment. CO 123/33, Proclamation of 30 April 1820. CO 123/29, Arthur to Bathurst, 16 May 1820. CO 123/29, Arthur to Bathurst, 7 October 1820; CO 123/30, Arthur to Bathurst, 28 September 1821; CO 123/31, Arthur to Bathurst, 5 and 10 January 1822. Bolland, Formation, 82–83, suggests that the cruelty of the mulatto concubines may have “been prompted by jealousy when they felt they might be replaced in the favor of the master by a young slave girl; on other occasion, these free colored mistresses, feeling insecure in their status, may have treated the domestic slaves harshly in order to emphasize their social distance from them”. CO 123/29, Arthur to Bathurst, 7 October 1820, citing his letters of 16 May and 21 October 1816 and 11 May 1819 on the subject. See also “Defence of the Settlers”, 2–7 and passim. “Defence of the Settlers”, 2–7 and passim. CO 123/26, Magistrates to Bathurst, 26 February 1817; “Regulations”, Meeting of Committee chosen by the Inhabitants, 27 July 1786 and 7 October 1786. CO 123/26, Magistrates to Bathurst, 26 February 1817. The clerk of the court actually asked for a detachment of troops to be sent against the Indians, 23 September 1802, but the outcome is not clear; Burdon, Archives, vol. 2, 58. CO 123/26, Magistrates to Bathurst, 26 February 1817; Burdon, Archives, vol. 2, 9 August 1802. This is the first record of the “Charibs” in Belize, where a magistrates’ meeting decided that their admission “rests with the Superintendent”. It appears

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58.

59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

TO PAGES

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there was a veritable vendetta against them at this time, and in 1811 they were warned that if they could not produce a “Permit or Ticket” from the superintendent they would have “to quit the Settlement in 48 Hours”; Magistrates’ Meeting, 11 July 1811 and 4 March 1812. See also CO 137/99, Balcarres to Portland, 1 April 1798, expressing fear before the Battle of St George’s Cay that the Spaniards might be working with them. (There is a crying need for a systematic history of this group in Belize.) However, it is certain that the hostile attitude towards them disappeared in time, for they were soon being employed as mahogany cutters, among other jobs in the logging industry. “Regulations”, Public Meeting, 5 July 1802. CO 123/26, Magistrates to Bathurst, 26 February 1817. Henderson, An Account, 71–72. We have already discussed the spatial “freedom” of these bondmen of the mahogany business; as for their material well-being, this has been commented on by many. See, among others, Henderson, An Account, 63–73; CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 31 March 1803; CO 123/17, Hamilton to Coote, 22 October 1806; CO 123/24, Arthur to Bathurst, 26 July 1816, and CO 123/25, Arthur to Bathurst, 7 November 1816, among many. Henderson and Superintendents Barrow, Hamilton and Arthur had all been to Jamaica and other places in the Caribbean; therefore they saw the Belize system from a comparative perspective. For a mere sampling, see Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, especially 256–62; Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels, especially 21–42; James, Black Jacobins, passim; Michael Craton and James Walvin, A Jamaican Plantation: The History of Worthy Park, 1670–1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), passim. See, for instance, Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), especially 97–101. A good example of a single slave (but also a leader of others) consciously making such a decision is to be found in Campbell, Maroons of Jamaica, 80–81. During the height of the Maroons’ successes (1730–38), Sam had friends among them and ample opportunity to join them. When asked by one of them why he did not join their group, Sam’s reply reflected his consciousness of his choice: “Master uses us goodee yet, but when he uses us ugly we’ll come.” The plural pronoun should not go unnoticed. “Defence of the Settlers”, 12. Ibid. CO 123/34, Codd to Horton, 23 February 1823 (Private). Ibid.; Codd to Bathurst, 8 March 1823; Meeting of Magistrates and others, 24 February 1823; CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 18 February and 13 March 1825. CO 123/31, Arthur to Bathurst, 22 January 1822 and 28 February 1822. Arthur left Honduras on 4 April 1822, originally on leave, but then he was promoted to lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen’s Land. The whole Indian slavery issue, which had

UWI PRESS 390

66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

80. 81.

NOTES

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stirred up so much emotion, petered out. The grateful slave masters demanded indemnification, and in 1830 Whitehall approved “the payment of £7,890.3s sterling [about £13,477 Jamaican] . . . to the owners of certain slaves seized by Colonel Arthur” – the very opposite of what Arthur had wished. See Burdon, Archives, vol. 2, 322. CO 123/34, Codd to Bathurst, 8 March 1823. CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 6 February 1825, with enclosures. Ibid. CO 123/35, Report from Captain McLean to naval Commandant at Jamaica, 6 March 1824. McLean was sent to Honduras to enquire into the conditions of slavery there, and although his general portrayal of the system seems romantic, it has been corroborated that several works had no supervision. See, among others, CO 123/38, Return of Public Functionaries Owning Slaves, in Codd to Bathurst, 13 May 1827. CO 123/36, Codd to Don Jose Ma, Trujillo, 31 January 1825; Codd to the Supreme Executive Power, Guatemala, February 1825 (n.d.). CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 18 February 1825, with enclosures. There is a wealth of documentation on the runaway issue. See, among others, CO 123/37, Codd to Horton (Private), 17 July 1826, with enclosures including President of Guatemala to Codd, 30 May 1826, and Bennett to Codd, 14 June 1826; CO 123/37, F.O. Planta to Horton, with enclosures, 21 December 1826. For Bennett’s desertion, see CO 123/40, McDonald to Murray, 14 December 1829, stating that Bennett had now been “settled” in Guatemala for the past three years. The new superintendent, McDonald, obviously held no brief for Bennett, characterizing him as part of a “vile and factious party for years past”; the open animosity between Bennett’s clique and the superintendent may have helped determine his relocation. CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 6 June 1825; Horton to Codd (Private), 14 July 1825. CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 18 February 1825. CO 123/44, Cockburn to Lefevre, 17July 1833. CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 18 February 1825. CO 123/36, Codd to Supreme Executive, Guatemala, February 1825 (n.d.); CO 123/38, James Hyde to Cooke, 29 August 1827, among others. CO 123/44, Cockburn to Lefevre, 17 July 1833. The consistency of population figures from the 1780s is due partly to the fairly generous manumission system, by which slaves could purchase their own and their family’s freedom with their earnings. CO 123/37, Magistrates to Henry Cooke, 4 March 1826; Cooke to Horton, 29 April 1826; John O’Reilly to John Bidwell, 8 August 1826; CO 123/39, O’Reilly to Canning, 12 February 1826, among others. CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 18 February 1825. CO 123/36, Newport to “Sir” [Horton?], 12 January 1825; see also Johnson, History of Christianity, 108–16.

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82. See Williams, Columbus to Castro, 320–27, for these rebellions throughout the Caribbean; Orlando Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1967), 273; Campbell, Dynamics of Change, 170–71, for the premier Colonial Office official, Sir Henry Taylor, acknowledging that the Jamaica 1831–32 rebellion was the “death-blow to slavery”. 83. CO 123/36, Magistrates to Codd, 20 January 1825. 84. Patterson, Sociology of Slavery, 273. 85. Williams, Columbus to Castro, 321–23; and n82 above. 86. CO 123/36, Codd to Bathurst, 18 February 1825. 87. Honduras Almanack (1826), 11. 88. Leslie Howard Owens, This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 76; see also Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, ed. Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970), 70–71 and passim. Northup expresses the satisfaction he felt when a kind master appreciated his work, which greatly improved his performance: “It was a source of great pleasure to surprise Master Ford with a greater day’s work than was required, while, under subsequent masters, there was no prompter to extra effort but the overseer’s lash.” Also Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Signet Classics: New York, 1968), 61–62 and passim, among many others. 89. Dobson, History of Belize, 78; she looks at the battle merely from a constitutional point of view.

Chapter 11 1. Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 72n35; Naylor is unsure about the name Admiral St John, seeing it as probably a geographical designation meaning the southern district of the Shore “down toward the San Juan/St. John River”. 2. Public Meetings of 22 January and 10 July 1800, voting the money for the king; Burdon, Archives, vol. 1. 3. Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 72, says that the Spaniards relocated to Trujillo (Trujillo). 4. Ibid. 5. It was actually thought that King George might have been murdered by Stephen at the instigation of the Spaniards. CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 19 and 31 March 1803; CO 123/16, Barrow to Nugent, 10 June 1804; Luke, Caribbean Circuit, 63–64; Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 74n11. 6. CO 123/15, Barrow to Hobart, 19 and 31 March 1803; Nugent to Barrow, 19 April

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9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

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1800; Downing Street to Barrow, 3 November 1803; CO 123/16, Barrow to Hobart, 29 January 1804; Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 73–75. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 45. Humphreys, Diplomatic History. Spain continued to maintain its rights for a long time. See, for example, Pye to Magistrates, 24 July 1822, which transmits complaints from Yucatan’s captain general that the settlers were encroaching beyond the limits, Burdon, Archives, vol. 2, 265. Earlier we quoted James Stephen at the Colonial Office on Spain’s continued claims. CO 123/25, Arthur to Bathurst, 19 January 1816; George Frederick to Arthur, 13 January 1816. It is noteworthy that the new king’s father, George, on his way from Britain to the Shore in 1775, met the renowned Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, who during the passage “took all the pains that I could to instruct the Indian prince in the doctrines of Christianity”. Equiano’s efforts, however, were subverted by ridicule from the prince’s retinue when they thought he was becoming too interested. Olaudah Equiano, Equiano’s Travels: His Autobiography, ed. Paul Edwards (London: Heinenmann Educational, 1967), 139–42. Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 77–78, has a good account of this. One of the most extraordinary of these adventurers was the eccentric Scottish general Gregor McGregor, with his famous Poyais scheme (on which there is a wealth of material); the Bay oligarchy, led by Marshall Bennett, forced the monarch to annul McGregor’s large land grant. See, among others, Colonel G.A. Low, The Belise Merchants Unmasked or a Review of Their Late Proceedings Against Poyais (London: Effingham Wilson, 1824). Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 84–94. Naylor is a specialist in this trade; see also “British Commercial Relations with Central America, 1812–1851” (PhD diss., Tulane University, 1958). Bridges, Annals of Jamaica, vol. 2, 497–502; he received his information from two members of the Bay elite who visited him at Jamaica. CO 123/26, Memorial to Bathurst, 26 February 1817; “Defence of the Settlers”, 2 and passim. Honduras Almanack (1826), 10–11. Honduras Almanack (1828), 17. Honduras Almanack (1830), 10. For more on the humiliating conditions inflicted on the Miskitos, see Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, 170 and chapters 14 and 15. CO 123/16, Barrow to Miskito Chiefs, 2 February 1804; Reply of Miskito Chiefs, 17 March 1804. For the complicated series of events that led to Britain’s severing of all ties with the

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24.

25.

26.

27. 28.

TO PAGES

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Miskitos and the Shore, see Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism, chapters 11–17; also Humphreys, Diplomatic History, 47–91, for how the story affected Belize particularly. Petition of Magistrates and Inhabitants to the Prince Regent, 10 August 1818; Burdon, Archives, vol. 2. See Public Meetings, 29 October 1808, 28 February 1809 and 29 October 1811 for these and other restrictions on people of colour. It was the Public Meetings of 26 January and 22 February 1814 that resolved against Jews in the settlement, which was annulled by Superintendent Smyth. Jews constituted only a very small minority at this or any other time in Belize’s history. For a sketch on Jews in Belize, see Mary Check-Pennell, “Historic Cemeteries of Belize City, Belize, Central America” (unpublished manuscript, 1989); she found little evidence of a Jewish community “save for a small burial ground” called either “Jews Burial Ground” or “Hebrew Burial Ground, 164–80, with photographs of some gravestones. Public Meeting of 4 March 1816. It is clear that Arthur, with his rigid “Evangelical Anglicanism”, was the prime mover behind this resolution, which affected virtually every mulatto concubine of the oligarchy. For a fairly critical view of Arthur’s brand of Christianity, see Johnson, History of Christianity, 73–76. The Honduras Almanack (1830), 22, says that a “few years back there were very few married couples in Belize, and the sacred institution of marriage was not only neglected, but despised; concubinage if not promiscuous intercourse, drunkenness, etc., were among the besetting sins of the land”. Donald C. Simmons, Jr., Confederate Settlements in British Honduras (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 56–58 and 121–22. An editorial in the British Honduras Colonist and Belize Advertiser of 24 October 1868 expresses outrage at a particularly crass example of racial violence by a Southerner against a labourer: “wherever British law obtains and British feeling exists, it is that the use of deadly weapons shall not be resorted to for the settlement of private or personal, real or imagined wrongs . . . if the persons who immigrate to our shore . . . cannot keep their violent and lawless passions under control, it would be for better that they remained under the tender and merciful care of Major-General Butler and the Authorities who have succeeded him in the Southern States than come here to disturb our repose”, 57. CO 123/24, Arthur to Bathurst, 16 February 1815, with the first recorded memorial from a free coloured person, William Usher, but nothing came of it. For a comprehensive history of this group on Jamaica, see Campbell, Dynamics of Change, 63–68 and passim. Johnson, Christianity in Belize, 116. See CO 123/45, Cockburn to Spring-Rice, 11 August 1834, among others; also British Parliamentary Papers (PP) 1835 (278 II) L 393; PP 1837–8; (64) XLVIII 329; Williams, Columbus to Castro, chapter 17, for the protracted discussions leading to emancipation.

UWI PRESS

UWI PRESS Bibliography

Bibliographies and Guides Comitas, Lambros. The Complete Caribbeana, 1900–1975; A Bibliographic Guide to the Scholarly Literature. New York: KTO Press, 1977. Grieb, Kenneth J., ed. Research Guide to Central America and the Caribbean. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Minkel, Clarence W., and Alderman, Ralph H. A Bibliography of British Honduras, 1900–1970. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1970. Penford, P.A., ed. Maps and Plans in the Public Record Office. London: HMSO, 1974. Woodward, Ralph Lee, Jr., compiler. Belize. Vol. 21. Edited by Sheila Herstein. Oxford: Clio Press, 1980. Wright, Peggy, and Brian E. Coutts, compilers. Belize. Vol. 21. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clio Press, 1992.

Primary Sources Colonial Office Records. Public Record Office, London (now British National Archives). These contain superintendents’ dispatches to and from secretaries of state, Law Office and Board of Trade reports, memoranda from Spanish commissaries, numerous “Remarks” on the Mosquito Shore and the like. Most of these are classified under CO 123/1—. The beginner should be aware that the documents in CO 123/1–4 deal almost entirely with the Mosquito Shore; thereafter the “Bay of Honduras” (Belize) is featured. Other records containing information on Belize include CO 128, Blue Books (useful for censuses); CO 124, Entry Books; and CO 125, Acts, etc. Belize Archives. Belmopan. Recently completed, the archives contains miscellaneous documents mainly from the nineteenth century. 395

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Belize Registry. Belize City. This contains some old records dealing with wills, manumissions and some magistrates’ meetings. They are not in any order and most are in a state of disintegration. Yucatan Archivo General. Mérida. This archive contains communications between some Belize superintendents and Spanish officials, including governors general and commissaries, during the eighteenth century. Unfortunately the documents had not been calendared, catalogued, indexed or listed in any way when I visited, but the situation may be different today. They remain an untapped source for Belizean history, especially from the eighteenth century. Hakluyt Society Documents. The early ones, edited and translated by I.A. Wright, are useful for insights on early British settlements in Belize. Some of them contain primary documents directly from the Seville Archives; see, for example, Spanish Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Caribbean, 1527–1568, London: Hakluyt Society, 1929. Sir George Arthur Papers. 1814–22. Special Collections, Manuscript Department, Cambridge University Library. This is a voluminous collection of Arthur’s official and personal papers written during his superintendency in Belize. These papers are invaluable for an understanding of Belizean history far beyond the period of his administration, since in them he makes observations on just about every aspect of governance in a territory such as Belize. Stephen Kemble Papers. 1780–93. William Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Hardyman Parker Papers. Manuscript Department, Cambridge University Library. This rambling, disorganized set of papers was written by Parker while he was Registrar of the Supreme Court and Keeper of Records in the 1880s. Apparently his aim was to write a history of Belize, but he did not succeed. However, the disjointed papers do provide some vignettes of Belize history. Honduras Almanack. 1826 and 1830 volumes, Rhodes House Library, University of Oxford. 1828, 1829 and 1830 volumes, Manuscript Department, University of Cambridge Library.

Select Bibliography of Books, Articles and Dissertations Adams, Richard E.W. Prehistoric Mesoamerica. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Ancona, Eligio. Historia de Yucatan Desde La Epoca Más Remota Hasta Nuestro Días. 3 vols. Barcelona: Jaime Jepús Roviralta, 1889. Anderson, A.H. Brief Sketch of British Honduras. Belize: Government Printer, 1948.

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Andrews, Kenneth R. The Spanish Caribbean: Trade and Plunder, 1530–1630. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. Atkins, John. A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil & the West Indies. 1735. Reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1970. Bancroft, H.H. History of the Pacific States of North America. 2 vols. San Francisco: A.L. Bancroft, 1883. Bannantine, James. Memoirs of Colonel Despard. London: Temple Street, St George’s Field, 1799. Bauman, Jon. The Sovereigns and the Admiral. Lufkin, Tex.: Epigram Press, 1991. Blyden, Nemata. West Indians in West Africa, 1808–1880: The African Diaspora in Reverse. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2000. Bolland, O. Nigel. The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from Conquest to Crown Colony. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. ———. “The Maya and the Colonization of Belize in the Nineteenth Century”. In Anthropology and History in Yucatan, edited by Grant Jones. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977. Bradley, Keith R. Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 BC–70 BC Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Bridges, G.W. The Annals of Jamaica. 2 vols. 1828. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970. Brigden, Susan. New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603. London: Penguin, 2000. Brown, Vera Lee. “Anglo-Spanish Relations in America in the Closing Years of the Colonial Era”. Hispanic American Historical Review 5, no. 3 (August 1922), 327–483. Burdon, John Alder. Archives of British Honduras. 3 vols. London: Sifton Praed, 1931, 1934, 1935. Burns, Alan. History of the British West Indies. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1955. Caiger, Stephen L. British Honduras: Past and Present. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1951. Calderón Quijano, José Antonio. Belice, 1663?–1821: Historia de los Establecimientos Británicos del Rio Valis hasta la Independencia de Hispanoamérica. Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 1944. Campbell, Mavis C. “Aristotle and Black Slavery: A Study in Race Prejudice”. Race 15, no. 3 (1974), 283–98. ———. Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons, from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1993. ———. The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1976. ———. The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1988.

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UWI PRESS

UWI PRESS Index

Adams, Richard, 16–17 Affleck, Rear Admiral, 257–58 African peoples intermingling with Miskito Indians, 135–36 Afro-Belizean population, collective memory of, 286 Aguilar, Hernando Sanchez de, 80 Aguilar, Jerónimo de, 9, 11, 44 Aguilar, Joseph, 157–58 Aguilar, Juan de, 33–34 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 165, 362n30 Albemarle, Duke of, 148, 178–79 alcalde, defined, 36, 45 Al Can (Chan), 86 Alexander VI, Pope papal bulls, 4–6 Allen, Mary, 123–24 Allun, John, 223 Ancona, Eligio, 7 Anderson, Grace, 294 Anglo-Miskito relationship attacks on Spanish holdings, 142–44 historical precedent for, 147–48, 359– 60n63, 359n60 Mosquito Shore settlement, 128–29, 135, 136–37, 183, 354–55n1 mutual dependency of, 141–42, 150–51 retaking of Black River, 209–10 Spanish attacks on, 153–54, 360n75

apostasy, 44, 45, 49, 60–62, 75, 344n66 Arawaks, 10 Armstrong, Charles, 261–62, 263 Arriaga, Fray Julian de, 170 Arthur, George criticism of slave treatment, 285 mistreatment of slaves, investigation into, 295–96, 388n47 as superintendent of Belize, 150, 227–28, 250, 293–94, 295, 376n48, 387–88n44 Atkins, John, 111–12, 113, 116, 117, 118 August, Samuel, 305 Auld, Allan, 191 Axe, Samuel, 131–32 Aztecs overthrow of, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19 prophetic history of, 57, 99, 349n17 Bacalar, 7, 13 effect of piracy on, 75, 346n42 encomiendas, 35–36 founding population, 37 runaways from, 69 Tipu, administration of, 45 Balcarres, Earl, 266, 267, 271, 272 Belizeans appeal for assistance, 263–64 Bancroft, H.H., 159–60 Bannantine, James, 213, 225 Barbados, slavery, 286–87, 312

407

UWI PRESS 408

INDEX

barkadares, 111 Barrow, Thomas Battle of St George’s Cay, 267–73 as commander-in-chief of Belize, 264–65 as superintendent of Belize, 278, 279–82, 295, 387–88n44 Bartlett, James, 225, 226, 231–32, 249, 259, 283 on Despard as magistrate candidate, 248 on Hunter as superintendent, 247 on magistrate election controversy, 250 Bassett, Sir Richard as superintendent of Belize, 279 Bathurst, Earl of, 296, 306–7 Battle of St George’s Cay, 6, 267–73 British policy, post-victory, 275–77 evacuation vs defence against Spanish, 265–66 naval strategy, 268–69, 270, 271, 381n68 slaves as factor in, 126, 267, 270–73, 284, 381n70 Spanish policies, post-battle, 277–82 Battle of the Saintes, 201 Bay Islands Columbus and, 8 Roatan (Rattan), 152–54, 162–66 Baymen Barbadian slaves, 286–87 Battle of St George’s Cay, 126, 267–73 British protection, 109, 186–87, 367n22 buccaneer lifestyle, 118, 127 buccaneer origins, distancing from, 283–84 Burnaby’s “Regulations”, 188 civil government, request for, 118–19, 188–89 claims for reparations, 190, 199–200 Committee of Correspondence (Belize), 220 committee of thirteen, 219–20, 226–27 courts of justice, 122–23, 353n103 executive authority, conflict with, 226– 28, 295, 387–88n44 fishing rights, 202, 206, 216, 278, 281

hostility with Maya, 195 “King” and “Queen”, 116 lawlessness of, 189–90, 368n31 “Laws and Regulations”, 117–18, 119–22, 353n93 living conditions, 111–16 logwood trade, 175, 364nn64–65 mahogany industry, 212 merooners, 138–39 Mosquito Shore as refuge, 140 and Mosquito Shore evacuees, 211–12, 218–21 nouveau riche, 120, 249 “Pavillions”, description of, 112–13 property, perceptions of, 124–26 Public Meetings, 124, 354n108 response to Spanish attacks, 160, 162–63, 361n12 slaves, recognition of participation in warfare, 272–73, 284, 285–86, 313 slaves, selectivity in, 297–99 social life, 115 Spanish attacks on, 155–56 Spanish luring of slaves, 166–67, 190–92, 362n36 Spanish restrictions on, 185–86, 216–18 system of governance, 116, 117–21, 173, 174 Treaty of Paris, 180–81, 184–85, 186, 199 Treaty of Versailles, 202–3 See also logwood cutters; Principal Inhabitants Bay Triangle, 130, 152 Beaty, William, 241 Bedford, Duke of, 151, 158 Belize: early settlement Anglo-Spanish logwood conflicts, 38, 85, 176–77, 365n71 Battle of St George’s Cay, 6, 126, 267–73 Baymen resettlement after Spanish 1754 attack, 172–73 Bay Triangle, 130, 152 civil government, request for, 118–19, 188–89

UWI PRESS INDEX

coastal hazards, 24–25, 96, 97, 288 controversy over Spanish settlement, 6–9 demolition of fortifications, 182–83, 184 dependence on Mosquito Shore, 175 divide and conquer strategy of Spain, 161–65 Haulover, 172–73, 174 Honduras Almanack, 171, 319, 363n51 Labouring Creek, 171 lawlessness of Baymen, 189–90, 368n31 Mosquito Convention, 204–7 relationship with Jamaica, 126 Rendezvous Kay, 97 reports of Delgado, 82 Seven Years’ War, effect on, 177–79, 365n78 slaves, reliance on for protection, 163 smuggling, and contraband trade, 152–53 Spanish attacks on, 88, 140, 155–57, 158–60, 170–72 Spanish Lookout, 159 Villa Real, 21 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 146, 162–66 See also logwood cutters Belize City Anglican Cathedral, 150, 317, 322, 323, 393n24 Cayo Cacinas and, 8 Belize: post-Shore evacuation abolition of Baymen’s government, 240 appeal to Bacalar for provisions, 255 Barbadian slaves, 286–87 Battle of St George’s Cay, 6, 126, 267–73, 381n68 British policy, post-battle victory, 275–77 civil government established, 212–13, 258, 373n8 class and racial hierarchies, 233–34, 236, 250 colonial status, 284, 384n3 commercial importance of, 245–46

409

“Conservators of the Peace”, 241 constitution (“Plan of Police”), 240–41, 243, 246 constitutional development, 274–75 Convention Town, 218, 231 defensive measures against Spanish threat, 266–67, 278, 280, 288, 383n107, 386n14 food shortages, 238–39, 264–65, 266, 280–81 free people of colour, restrictions on, 232–33, 321–22 Haitian slaves, 254–57, 258 land allocations by Spanish, 217 land distribution conflicts, 224–26, 231–32 land-distribution policy of Despard, 218–21 land tenure under Spanish sovereignty, 263 magistrate election controversy, 249–51 magistrates, reinstatement of, 246–49 manumission tax, 232 Mosquito Convention, 212 population figures, 285, 384–85n6 post-evacuation politics, 219–22, 226–27 provision grounds, 215–16, 238–39, 242, 258–59 relationship with Jamaica, 253–54 settlement expansion, 277 Spanish espionage, 260–62, 380n43 Spanish inspections, 215–16, 253, 258–59, 276–77, 383n92 Spanish policies, post-battle, 277–82 Spanish threat to, 252–53, 260, 264–65 system of governance, 253, 255 trading relationship with Shore, 318–19, 392n12 unemployment, 236, 281 See also Mosquito Shore evacuees Belize: present day as anomaly in Central America, 4, 333n4 demographics, 286

UWI PRESS 410

INDEX

Belize River (formerly Tipu River), 25, 40, 48–49, 218, 293, 294 Belize River settlements, 158, 171–72 Bell, Philip as governor, Providence Island, 149 Belmopan, 63, 73 Bennett, Marshall, 241, 249, 250, 276, 277, 318 relocation to Guatemala, 307, 390n72 slave desertions, 305–6, 307, 390n69 Benque Viejo del Carmen, 41, 91 bercadares, 111 Bichab, Mateo, 84–85, 88 Bienvenida, Father Lorenzo de, 30, 31 on Tipu, 43–44 Black Caribs, 133, 298 Black River settlement, 130, 139, 140, 165 as Conceptión de Honduras, 209 Despard’s retaking of, 208–10 Spanish attack on, 143, 200 Blauvelt, Abraham (Albertus), 130 Blauvelt, William, 130 Board of Trade Mosquito Shore, strategic value of, 183, 184 Bode, Philip, 208, 210 Bonny, Anne, 124, 354n107 boundaries, of Belize definitions of, 3–4, 333n1, 333n2 Mosquito Convention, 204–5, 218 settlement expansion, 277 Treaty of Paris, 185 Treaty of Versailles, 202, 371–72n65 brazil (or braziletto), as dyewood, 104 Brazil, as Portuguese territory, 5 Bridges, G.W., 318, 319 Bristol, Lord, 178 Britain American War of Independence, 192– 98 Anglo-Miskito relationship, 128–29, 135, 147–48, 354–55n1, 359–60n63, 359n60 Anglo-Spanish logwood conflicts, 108– 9, 176–77, 365n71 colonial policy of presents, 152, 164, 317

commercial importance of Belize, 245–46 English pirates, and Spanish confrontations, 91–92, 95 financial resources, strains on, 273 logwood smuggling, 106–7 Miskito cession of territory, 146–47, 359n59 Miskito Indians, as asset in Central America, 133, 142 Mosquito Convention, 204–7 pan-Indian alliance, dreams of, 130, 145, 196, 355n7, 359n56 pirate activity in Caribbean, 65 pirate activity on Belizean coast, 82–83 policy on subject peoples, 235–36 response to Spanish attacks, 163–64 Spanish seizure of ships, 166–68, 176 suzerainty over Mosquito Shore, 147–50 Treaty of Paris, 179, 180–81, 184–85, 186, 199 Treaty of Versailles, 201–2, 371–72n65 war against Spain (1779), 192–202 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 146, 162–66 See also Whitehall British Empire in South America, Raleigh’s vision of, 130, 355n7 British Honduras (Belize), 3, 82, 90 British settlement, documentary evidence of, 95–96 buccaneers on Belizean coast, 82–83, 102–4 as British settlers on the Shore (merooners), 138–39 “English Lutheran corsairs”, 96–97, 98 female buccaneers, 123–24 Indian slave raids, 105 as logwood cutters, 92, 104–5 Miskito Indians, respect for, 141–42 on Mosquito Shore, 133 in Nueva Sevilla, 37, 340n121 outlawing of, 103–4 Bull, Abraham, 221

UWI PRESS INDEX

bulls, papal European views of, 98–99 and territorial donation to Spain, 4–6 and Treaty of Godolphin, 103 Burdon, John Alder, 185 Burnaby, Sir William Anglo-Spanish relations, 186, 367n16 “Regulations”, 188 “Burnaby’s Code”, 118 cabildo, 21 cacao, 51, 132 Caiger, Stephen, 7, 99 Calderón Quijano, José Antonio Belice, 1663(?)–1821, 96 Camál, Fernando (alias Francisco Camul), 69 Camock, Captain Sussex Anglo-Miskito relationship, 136–37, 142 at Cape Gracios a Dios, 129–30 Campbell, Archibald as governor of Jamaica, 208, 214, 260 Campeche, Bay of, 69 attack by Nachi Cocom, 25–26, 337n78, 337n79 demographics, of early settlement, 110 founding population, 37 logwood settlements, 11, 104–5, 108, 158 as Mayan town, 11 Salamanca de Campeche, 18 Spanish attacks on, 157 Campin, 80 Campo, Bernardo del, 203 Can, Martin Francisco, 86, 88–90, 347–48n81 Can Ek Christian entrada to Peten Itza, 52–53, 57, 58, 63–64, 67–69 Christianizing of, 85–87 and Cortés, 45 Cano, Friar Augustin, 83 Card, Jonathan, 230 Caribbean British policy, and principles of Elizabeth I, 98–99, 166

411

international pirates, presence of, 65 logwood trade, 107 Caribs, 10 Carmarthen, Lord, 203, 207 Carrillo, Andrés, 47, 49, 50 Caste War, 12, 53, 90, 91, 102 Catholicism. See Christian missionaries; Dominicans (religious order); Franciscans (religious order) Catoche, Cape logwood settlements, 10, 105, 108 Caulfield, Major, 163, 164 Cay Casina (St George’s Cay) British settlement at, 65, 96, 97 as buccaneers’ headquarters, 82–83 Spanish attacks on, 84, 156–58, 360n1 Cayo Cacinas, 8 Cecil, Sir William, 99 cedulas on Christianizing activities in Spanish America, 69, 79 on cruelty of Pachecos, 34 Dominican authority in Golfo Dulce, 36 logwood trade, 108–9 punishments for breach of, 36 Central America Belize as anomaly, 4 British occupation of Mosquito Shore, impact of, 130 Miskito Indians as British asset, 133 Spanish resentment of British presence, 96, 273–74, 349n7 Chac River, 47, 72 Chamberlain, Robert S., 14, 15, 30, 32, 33, 42 Champoton, 11, 69, 108 Chanlacan, 32, 33, 34 Chantome, 72 Charles I, King of England, 148 Charles III, King of Spain anglophobic views, and Belizean settlements, 176–77, 365n71 Chequitaquil, 21–22, 336n62 Chetumal, 13–23

UWI PRESS 412

INDEX

devestation of by Pacheco entrada, 31–32 first Spanish expedition, 13–18 Pacheco entrada, 29–32 second Spanish expedition, 18–25 Chilám Balam, 88 Chols, 7, 69, 71, 79, 83–84 Christian missionaries in Belize, 38 cedulas on Christianizing activities, 69, 79 Christian entradas, 43, 45–49, 52–59, 66–68, 342n24 Indian conversions, 30, 318, 392n10 Indians response to Christian theology, 59 Mayan satirical attacks on priests, 70–71 New World colonization, 4–6, 39, 92 requerimiento, 74, 345–46n34 response to idolatry. See apostasy; idolatry Chunukum, 77 cimarrones animosity towards Spanish, 134–35 cooperation with “English Lutheran corsairs”, 100, 350n20 in Nueva Sevilla, 37 zambo/zambigo offspring, 135, 357n23 Clendinnen, Inga, 23, 27, 37, 42 Cob, Andres, 88 Cockburn, Colonel Francis, superintendent of Belize, 319 Codd, Edward as superintendent of Belize, 302–3, 304–9 Cogolludo, Diego, 45, 55, 57 colonization Catholicism and, 4–6 glass beads as commodity of, 47, 342n27 principles of Elizabeth I, 98–99, 166, 176 Spanish vulnerability, 98 Columbus, Christopher, 4, 5, 7–8, 51 Committee of Correspondence (Belize), 220

Comparato, Frank E., 42, 63 Conceptión de Honduras, 209 concubines, 125, 229 mistreatment of slaves, 295–96, 388n47 restrictions on, 322, 393n24 Conner, Clifford D., 209–10 constitution (“Plan of Police”), 240–41, 243, 246 Convention Town (Belize), 218, 231 Cook, James, 187, 217, 367n23, 368n24 Cooke, Thomas, 292 Cordoba, Francisco Hernandez de, 10–11 corsairs “English Lutheran corsairs”, 96–97, 98 Cortés, Hernán, 9, 11, 13, 17, 19, 44, 57 horse of, as source of legend, 45, 57–58 Costa Rica Indian enslavement, 143 San Fernando de Matina invasion, 165 cotton, 281 Council of the Indies and Treaty of Paris, 186 treaty proposal of Miskito King Edward, 144 Cozumel, 11, 108 Crawford, George, 223, 230 Creole population, 286 Cudjoe (slave), 261, 380n43 cues, 57 Cumúx, Francisco, 44–45, 52, 54, 66 Cunningham, Andrew, 276 Cunninghame, Graham, 48 Dalling, John, 193, 194, 208, 214 Dalrymple, William, 194–96, 197–98, 211–12 Dampier, William on lifestyle of Baymen, 118 on logwood, 106 on logwood cutting, 104–5, 109–16 on Miskito Indians, 141–42 Davey, Captain, 292–93 Davies, David, 223 Dávila, Alonso, 97 Chetumal strategy, 13–18

UWI PRESS INDEX

false information as Mayan strategy, 17 Relación, 19, 20, 22 second expedition to Chetumal, 18–25 Spanish Honduras, retreat to, 24–25 Villa Real, 21, 23–24 Davis, Edward, 225, 226, 232 Davis, Thomas, 276 Defoe, Daniel, 124 Delgado, Father José (Joseph), 79, 81–82 Delgado, Friar Diego capture by buccaneers, 82–83 entrada to Peten Itza, 66–68 massacre of, 68, 70 mass baptisms, 81, 82 Despard, Edward Marcus complaints against, 234–37, 239–40, 377n75 constitution (“Plan of Police”), 240–41, 243, 246 and English Jacobins, 251–52, 378n14 land-distribution policy, 218–26 as magistrate candidate, 248–49 military service, 214–15, 374n14 Principal Inhabitants opposition to, 226–32 relations with Spain, 216–18 removal from office, 243–44 retaking of Black River, 209–10, 214 return to Britain, 251 scrutiny of by Grenville, 241–43 and Spanish commisaries, 215–16, 238, 377n72 as superintendent of Belize, 212–14, 373–74n9, 373n7, 374n10, 374n11 Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 9, 10, 11, 16, 57 Diez Navarro, Luis, 184 Dobson, Narda, 6, 270 Dominicans (religious order) in Belize, 31, 79–82 effect on Spanish colonization, 39, 92 opposition to Golfo Dunce colonization, 36, 38 “peaceful penetration”, policy of, 31 San Lucas Tzalac (Salac) as base for, 83 tension between religious orders, 46

413

Drake, Sir Francis alliance with cimarrones, 100, 350n20 Dundas, Henry, 251, 260, 275 Dundridge, James, 241 Dunlop, William, 253, 256 Dyer, George, 205, 236 as agent for Belize, 229, 231, 239–40, 243, 244, 247, 275–76, 280–81 salary, 276, 383n91 dyewoods brazil or braziletto, 104 See also logwood Dzuluinicob River (New River), 48, 72 Edmonson, Munro S., 87 Edwards, Bryan, 132, 271, 274 Effingham, Duke of, 245, 246, 253, 256, 275 Elizabeth I, Queen principles regarding New World, 98–99, 166, 176 Emancipation Act, 312, 324–25 embarcadares, 111 encomienda system, 21, 23, 32, 38–39, 337n69, 337n70 military service as condition for, 39 Nueva Sevilla, 36–37 of Pachecos, 35 of Perez, 76 resentment against, 71, 345n20 in Yucatan, 38–39, 341n124 English, Robert, 221 English Jacobins, 251–52, 378n14 English Kay, 97 Enriquez, Father Juan, 68 Ensenada, Marquis de la, 155, 169 divide and conquer strategy, 161–65 fall of, 169–70, 363n48 entradas and Christianity, 78–82 impulse behind, 10 to Peten Itza, 43, 45–49, 52–59, 66–68, 75–78, 342n24 Spanish conquest of Yucatan, 9–25 epidemics, and European diseases, 83–84

UWI PRESS 414

INDEX

Escurruchán (Xcarruchán), 81 Esquemeling, Joseph, 106, 117–18, 133, 137, 141 Estrada, Fray Juan de, 71–75 Fancourt, Charles St John, 45, 51, 64, 68, 81, 82, 90 Fanon, Frantz, 89 Farris, Nancy M., 19, 91 Feeling, Luke, 225, 226 Ferdinand VI, King of Spain, 168–69 Fergusson, John, 234 Figueroa y Silva, Antonio de, 160 fishing restrictions on Baymen, 202, 206, 216, 278, 281 Floyd, Troy, 165, 207–8 “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, 83–84 Fowler, Henry, 49, 158 France family compact with Spain, 177, 192, 365n76 Seven Years’ War, 177, 178, 365n76 Franciscans (religious order), 31, 39, 46 on Pachecos’ brutality, 30, 34 Francis I, King on papal donation to Spain, 98 Franklin, Benjamin, 181, 201 free people of colour Belize, 1779 population, 212 concubines, 229 discrimination against, 223–24, 321–22, 393n23 economic conditions of, 230, 232–234 eligiblity to vote, 248–49 as slave owners, 230 unemployment among, 236, 281 Fuensalida, Fray Bartolomé de, 70, 71–75 entrada to Peten Itza, 43, 46–49, 63–64 Gage, Friar Thomas, 59, 62, 80 Gale, Mathias, 241, 249, 250 Gallegos, Francisco, 79, 81, 82, 83 Galomel, Annie, 124

Gálvez, M., 200 Gann, Thomas, 13, 30, 40, 42, 87, 90, 101 Garbutt, John, 241, 249, 250 Garifunas, 133, 298 Garnett, Benjamin, 261–62, 263, 276 Gaul, Juan Bautista, 238, 240, 242 Gentle, William, 305 George III, King of England, 191 Germain, Lord British war strategy against Spain, 193–94, 196 Getza, Gaspar, 54, 59, 60 Gibbs, Archibald, 7 Gibraltar, 177, 178, 365n74, 365n78 Gibson, William, 276 Godolphin, Lord, 106, 107–9 Godolphin, Treaty of and British sovereignty in Caribbean, 103, 149 gold in Belize River, 49 at Chequitaquil, 22 in Chetumal, 18, 19 in Yucatan, 11, 13, 92 Golfo Dulce, 97 colonization of, 35–37, 38 resistance to Pachecos, 31 Gonzáles, Blas probanza of, 26, 337n80 Gonzales, Peter, 260–61 Goveia, Elsa, 291 Gracias á Dios (cape), 8 Gracias a Dios Falls, 81 Gracios a Dios Rapids, 80 Graham, Elizabeth, 41, 42 Graham, Thomas, 249, 250, 276 Grenville, Lord instructions to Hunter, 245–46 scrutiny of Despard, 241–43 Grijalva, Juan de, 11 Grimaldi, Minister, 192 Grimarest, Colonel, 233 Grotius, Hugo, 98 Guatemala Anglo-Miskito attacks on, 144

UWI PRESS INDEX

runaways, 304, 306, 307, 309–10 Guerrero, Gonzalo, 9–10, 11, 22, 44, 338n89 as adopted Mayan, 14–15, 25, 26–28, 335–36n42 Guevara, Governor, 96–97, 98 Guiana, 130 Haiti rebellion, 290, 312 slaves to Belize, 254–57 Haldane, George, and Robert Hodgson, 169 Halifax, Lord, 186–87, 367n22 Hall, Charles, 257 Hamilton, Alexander as superintendent of Belize, 275, 277, 284 Hariza, Francisco de, 84–85, 86, 156–57, 360n1 Harrison, Samuel, 221 Haughton, Luke, 116–17 Havana capture of by British, 178–79 compensation payable for ship seizures, 169 Hawkins, John, 98 Henderson, George, 7, 100–101, 138 Hilton, Anthony, 104 Hispaniola, 5, 51 historical scholarship British vs Spanish occupation of Belize, 6–9 Hoare, Richard, 226, 232, 238, 292 application as superintendent, 259–60 request for British protection, 252, 379n18 Hodgson, Robert, 131, 134, 236, 356n13 and Charles Knowles, 169 on merooners, 139 military presence, Mosquito Shore, 145–47, 168 on Miskito animosity towards Spanish, 136 Miskito Indians, leadership system, 137–38

415

Mosquito Shore as retreat, 160, 171, 361n12, 363n52 as Mosquito Shore superintendent, 151–52 on surrender of Roatan, 166 Hodgson, Robert, Jr., 214 Anglo-Miskito relationship, 210, 372–73n83 demolition of fortifications, 182–83, 184, 366n8 “Letter of Instructions”, 173–75 Mosquito Shore evacuees, Spanish policy on, 211, 373n2 Holland Dutch piracy, 65, 75, 346n42 Dutch trading practices, 175, 364nn64– 65 logwood trade, 107 Holzuz, 76, 77 Hondo River, 13, 158, 277 Honduras (Belize), 3 Honduras (British). See Belize; Belize: post-evacuation Honduras, Bay of, 8 and Bay Triangle, 130 logwood settlements, 105, 108–9 map, 3, 333n1 Spanish recognition of logwood cutters, 181, 185–86 See also Baymen; logwood cutters Honduras, Cape, 8 Honduras, Spanish, 24–25 Honduras Almanack, 171, 319, 363n51 honey, 14, 21, 39, 51, 70 Hubelna, 73, 75 Hughes, Edward, 257 Hume, George, 127 Humphreys, R.A., 276, 277, 317, 383nn92–93 Hunter, Peter constitution (“Plan of Police”), 247 defensive measures against Spanish threat, 253 as superintendent of Belize, 245–46, 250, 252

UWI PRESS 416

INDEX

Hyde, James, 276 idolatry of converted Indians, 44, 45, 49, 60–62, 344n66 Miskito Indians, 149, 360n65 Saint Augustine and, 343n61 Spanish smashing of “idols”, 57–58, 61, 66, 70, 75, 87 Incas, 12 Indian Church (formerly Lamanai), 48 Indians (Amerindians) cedulas on Christianizing activities, 69, 79 encomienda tributes, 39 enslavement of, 36, 37, 105, 106, 114, 140, 143–44, 296, 302–4, 358n39, 389n65 as invisible warriors, 34–35, 88 response to Christian theology, 59 Spanish brutality towards, 27, 29–32, 338n85 as targets for conversion, 79–82 indigo, 97, 132, 139 Indios Bravos, 100–101, 350n22 indios del monte Muzules, 86–87 Itza change in Spanish policy towards, 85 Christian entradas to, 45–49, 52–59, 66–68, 342n24 conquest of, 42, 43, 87–88, 342n16 desire to be Christianized, 84–85 fear of, 47, 52, 63 historical prophecy, 87–88 as Indios Bravos, 101 relationship to Tipu, 59, 60 Jacobins, English, 251–52, 378n14 Jamaica and Bay Triangle, 130 Campbell as governor, 208, 214, 260 Dalling as governor, 193, 194, 208, 214 Duke of Albemarle as governor, 148 Effingham as governor, 245, 246, 256

Keith as governor, 236 Knowles as governor, 169, 170, 171, 283 Lyttelton as governor, 182–83, 186 maroon societies, 290 Maroon wars, 273 Mosquito Shore as dependency of, 150, 151 and Mosquito Shore evacuees, 211 Nugent as governor, 280 Port Royal as buccaneer headquarters, 102 relationship with Belize, 126, 253–54 slave rebellions, 312 slave trade, 140, 143, 358n39 in Treaty of Godolphin, 103 Trelawny as governor, 145–46, 359n56 Trelawny Town Maroon War, 264 Jefferys, Thomas map, Bay of Honduras, 3, 40, 101, 333n1 Jeffrey, Charles, 223 Jews, discrimination against, 321, 393n23 Jones, Grant, 24, 31, 32, 38, 41, 42, 51, 63, 80 Jones, Henry, 241, 249, 250 Jones, Joshua, 223, 224–26, 230, 235, 236 Kaye, Robert, 249, 250 Keene, Benjamin as ambassador to Madrid, 168, 171, 172, 176 and fall of Ensenada, 169–70 Keith, Sir Basil, 189, 236 Kekchi Maya, 84 Knowles, Sir Charles, 119, 169, 170, 171, 283 Lacandons, 69, 79 Lamanai, 35, 90 Lamanai (now Indian Church), 48, 72, 345n23 Lamb, David, 241, 249, 250 land conflicts, 224, 225 land surveys, 218, 223 Landa, Fray Diego de, 14, 15, 16, 31, 49, 62 Maya culture, vandalism against, 30, 338n93 and Nachi Cocom, 26, 337–38n81

UWI PRESS INDEX

Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 27, 31, 79 Lawford, Captain, 258–59, 276 Lawrie, James, 173 superintendent of the Shore, 192, 194, 214, 219 Lewis, Dean, 323 Llobett, Captain, 261 logwood commercial value, 104, 105–7, 167, 362n37 Dutch trading practices, 175, 364n64, 364n65 duties on, 107 as legal tender, 116, 123, 124 as plunder, 106, 351n40 prices of, 110, 190, 352n60, 368n34 logwood cutters alliance with Miskito Indians, 8 on Bay of Honduras map, 3–4, 333n1 British protection of, 186–87, 367n22 buccaneers as settlers, 92, 102–4 and Cape Catoche, 10 effect of Seven Years’ War on, 176–79 and Friar Cano, 83 Indian attacks on, 100–102, 351n28 living conditions, 111–16 Mosquito Shore, retreat to, 160, 171, 175, 361n12, 363n52 Paris, Treaty of, 179, 180–81 servants among, 113–14 settlement patterns, 101 Spanish attacks on, 84, 106, 108–9, 110, 157, 181–82 Spanish resentment of, 85, 160–61 St George’s Key, 118–22 white women and, 116–17 See also Baymen; mahogany cutters Long, Edward, 166, 175, 193–94, 315, 364n64 Lopez, Felipe, 165 Loyalists, 200–201, 221, 222 Lucú (Luku), 62–63 Luke, Sir Harry, 95–96, 207, 372n74 Luttrell, John (Commodore), 198, 370n53 Lyttelton, William Henry, 182, 186

417

Macal River, 40, 41, 51 mahogany Baymen, involvement in, 212, 277, 318 conflicts over cutting rights, 222–23 expanded use of, 320 illegal cutting, 258, 259 Mosquito Shore exports, 132, 139, 191, 205, 356n16, 372n71 in Tipu, 40 mahogany cutters hostility with Maya, 195 Indian hostility towards, 101–2 settlement patterns, 101 and slavery, spatial dimension of, 288–89, 386n15 Spanish restrictions on, 185–86, 217–18 See also logwood cutters malaria, 83–84 Manatee Lagoon, 256 Manché Chol Maya, 69, 79, 80, 83–84 Manchester, Duke of, 317 Mandingo, Anton, 135 Manila, 179 manumission of slave soldiers, 272–73, 382n80 tax on, 232 Maroons, 298 cooperation with “English Lutheran corsairs”, 100, 350n20 Maud, Joseph, 292 civil government, request for, 188–89 claims for Spanish reparations, 190 recommended for superintendency of Bay, 188, 259 Spanish restrictions on logwood cutters, 185–86, 217 Maya Indians Anglo-Maya relationship, 100–101, 157, 350n22 British military action against, 100, 101, 102 Can Ek, as symbol of resistance, 53 Caste War, 12, 53, 90, 91 Chilám Balam, 88

UWI PRESS 418

INDEX

Maya Indians (cont’d) Christian entradas to Peten Itza, 45–49, 52–59, 66–68, 75–78, 342n24 cosmology, and prophetic history, 56, 57, 343n56 dyewoods, knowledge of, 105–6 European diseases, epidemics, 83–84 Great Maya Revolt, 12, 32–34 honey, 14, 21, 39, 51, 70 hostility with mahogany cutters, 195 Kekchi Maya, 84 Mopan Maya, 7, 80, 84 on Mosquito Shore, 136, 357n26 obstructionist behaviour, 54–55 reaction to British, 99–102, 349n17 resistance against Spanish, 10–12, 22–25, 31, 38, 56, 65–66, 69–70 satirical attacks on priests, 70–71 Spanish vs Mayan weaponry, 11, 16, 34–35 symbolism of, 73, 81 T-ho, battle of, 29 Tipu as haven for runaways, 44, 56 warfare methods, 14, 15–17, 29 Maya Mountains, 17 Mazún, Luis, 49, 60 Meighan, Edward, 294 Meighan, Lawrence, 241, 249, 250 Mérida, 18, 29, 37 Merida, Captain, 89–90 merooners, 138–39 Merry, Mr, 246 Mesoamerica, 4, 16–17, 72, 345n23 mestizos, 135, 286 Mexico, 9, 11, 12, 158 Mirones, Francisco, 67–69 Miskito Indians African presence among, 135 alliance with English logwood cutters, 8 Anglo-Miskito relationship, 141–42, 147–48, 150–51, 183, 280, 359–60n63, 359n60 animosity towards Spanish, 134–35, 136 attitudinal change toward, 315–17, 320

as British asset in Central America, 133 cession of territory to Britain, 146–47, 359n59 coronation of kings, 150, 317–18 cultural composition of, 133–36 firearms, skill with, 141 George Frederick, 316–17 King Edward, 144, 146 King George, 316, 391n5 land grants from, 318 leadership system, 137–38 and Mayan runaways, 136, 357n26 military strength of, 145 and Mosquito Convention, 206–7 and Mosquito Shore settlement, 128– 29, 135, 136–37, 354–55n1 navigation skills, 131 oral history, 134 physical description of, 137 relationship with Providence Island, 149, 360n65 in retaking of Black River, 209–10 Spanish attacks on, 142–43, 144, 153–54, 358n48, 360n75 Spanish fear of, 143, 154, 181–82, 200, 210, 372–73n83 traditional weaponry, 141, 358n44 in war against Spain (1779), 193–94 Zambo (Sambo) Miskitos, 133–34 Modyford, Sir Thomas, 108 pan-Indian alliance, 135, 145 Monkey River, 80 Montagu, Duke of, 109 Montejo, Francisco de (nephew of senior), 18–25, 21, 33 Montejo, Francisco de (senior) as adelantado, 12 administrative failures, 38 Chetumal strategy, 13–18 entrada of, 11–12 Golfo Dulce, colonization of, 35–37 as governor of Honduras, 28–29 letter to Guerrero, 14–15, 335–36n42 second expedition to Chetumal, 18–25 Tabasco expedition, 18

UWI PRESS INDEX

Montejo, Francisco de (son of senior), 18, 29 Montezuma, 57 Mopan Maya, 7, 80, 84 Mopan River, 40 Morán, Friar Francisco, 80–81 Morgan, Henry, 103 Mosquito Coast King Jeremy, 148–49, 359–60n63 Shoremen, 113 Mosquito Convention, 204–7, 212 commercial crops, 281 lands granted to Britain, 218 Mosquito Shore and Bay Triangle, 130 British suzerainty over, 147–50 class and racial hierarchies, 233–34, 236 climate, 131–33, 356n12 as dependency of Jamaica, 150, 151 divide and conquer, Spanish strategy of, 161–65 geographic boundaries, 131 migration of American Loyalists, 200–201 military establishment on, 145–47 Nicaraguan sovereignty over, 320 pan-Indian alliance, 135 as retreat from Spanish attacks, 160, 171, 361n12, 363n52 Spanish claim to, 8, 184 strategic value of, 183 vegetation and medicinal plants, 132 in war against Spain (1779), 192–202 Mosquito Shore evacuees conflicts over mahogany cutting rights, 222–23 land-distribution policy of Despard, 218–21 relocation of, 211–12 response of Baymen to, 211–12, 218–21, 220 response to committee of thirteen, 221–22 Shore elite, involvement in Bay politics, 219–22, 276

419

Spanish policy on, 211, 373n2 Mosquito Shore settlements and Anglo-Miskito relationship, 128–29, 135, 136–37, 354–55n1 Black River, 130 British settlers (merooners), 138–39 Cape Gracias a Dios, 130 civil government, request for, 151 commercial activities, 139–40 demolition of fortifications, 182–83, 184, 366n8 evacuation to Belize, 203–5, 211–12 Mosquito Convention, 204–7 Principal Inhabitants, 191 and Providence Island, 129–30 relationship with Bay settlement, 155–56 Seven Years’ War, effect on, 177–79, 365n78 slave trade, 140, 143–44, 358n39 Spanish attacks on, 155–56, 181–82 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 146, 162–66 Moss, John Ralph Battle of St George’s Cay, 268, 269, 270, 271, 274 mulattos, 135 in population of early settlements, 139 restrictions on, 232–33 unemployment among, 236, 281 Muzules, 86–87 Ná, Cristóbal, 52, 53, 54 Christian entrada to Peten Itza, 63–64, 67, 68 Nachan Can (cacique), 14, 17, 25, 28 Nachi Cocom (cacique), 25–26, 30 Napoleonic Wars, 263, 264 Navidad colony, 5 Naylor, Robert, 130, 280, 316 Neal, John, 223, 230 Negroman, 40, 41 Nelson, Horatio, 213–14 Nepean, Evan, 237, 243 Newcastle, Duke of, 178 Newfoundland, 177 Newport, Reverend, 311–12

UWI PRESS 420

INDEX

New River (Dzuluinicob river), 48, 72, 158 New River settlement, 162–63 Newton, A.P., 104, 107, 128, 133, 149 Nicaragua, sovereignty over Mosquito Shore, 320 Nohukun River, 47 nouveau riche, 120, 249 Nueva Sevilla, 36–37, 37 Nugent, Governor of Jamaica, 280 suggesting colony status for Belize, 284 O’Brien, Richard, 249 O’Brien, William, 225, 226, 231–32 Oldmixon, John, 111, 112 Oman, Charles, 213, 241, 251, 374n11 Omoa, 7, 162, 181 capture of by British, 198, 370n53 O’Neil, Arthur Battle of St George’s Cay, 267–68 mutual agreement on deserters, 281–82 Orbita, Fray Juan, 70 destruction of horse “idol” (Tziminchac), 57–58, 66, 70, 75 entrada to Peten Itza, 43, 46–49, 63–64 in Tipu, 59, 62 O’Reilly, John, 307 Otway, James (Joseph), 181–82, 201 Oviedo, Fernández de, 23, 24, 26–27 Oxenham, John, 100, 350n20 Pacheco, Alonso, 29–31 Pacheco, Gaspar, 29–31 Pacheco, Melchor, 29–31 Panama San Blas Indians, 134–35, 357n23 Pares, Richard, 139, 176 Paris, Treaty of, 179, 180–81, 199, 212 demolition of fortifications, 182–83 interpretations of, 186 Parker, Admiral Hyde Parker, 264, 267 Parker, Frederick Hardyman, 7 Parker, William, 106, 351n40 Parry, Admiral, 188, 189, 368n31 Paslow, Thomas, 266, 270–71 Pec, Isabel, 49, 60–61, 66

Pech, Lazaro, 74 Pendergast, David, 42 Perez, Benito, 278 Pérez, Francisco, 75–78 Peten Itza Christian entradas to, 45–49, 52–59, 66–68, 75–78, 342n24 Itza conquest, 43, 87–88, 342n16 Mayan runaways, 29, 56 rebellion against Spanish, 89–90 strategic value of to Spain, 88 Philip V, King of Spain, 144 Pinzón brothers, 8–9, 334n20 piracy British activity in Caribbean, 65 Dutch piracy, 65, 75, 346n42 of “English Lutheran corsairs”, 96–97 interference with Spanish commerce, 76–77 multinational “brotherhood”, 102 See also buccaneers Pitt, William (Mosquito Shore), 140–41, 143, 191 and fall of Ensenada, 169–70 “rescue” of Diez, 184 on Roatan, 152, 153–54, 164 ship seizure by Spain, 167–68 Spanish attack on Belize, 170–72 Pitt, William (the Elder) Seven Years’ War, 177–79, 365n74 Pitt, William (the Younger), 203–5 Pitt Lawrie, James, 230 Polson, John, 208 Portland, Duke of, 266 Port Real, 108 Portugal, land claims, 5 Potts, Thomas, 226, 232, 241, 247, 248, 249 Haitian slaves and, 256–57 as magistrate, 259 on slavery in Belize, 262–63 pozol, 70 Principal Inhabitants and buccaneer origins, 283–84 conflict with executive authority, 226–28, 376n48

UWI PRESS INDEX

constitution (“Plan of Police”), 240–41 Dyer as official agent, 275–76 free people of colour, restrictions on, 232–33 Hunter as superintendent, 247 and Mosquito Shore evacuees, 219, 276 opposition to Despard, 226–32, 237–38, 239–40, 377n75 request for British protection, 191 privateers. See buccaneers; piracy probanzas, 26, 33, 34, 339n108, 339n109 Providence Island Puritan settlement of, 129–30 relationship with Miskito Indians, 149, 360n65 Public Meetings eligibility for attendance, 321–22 as form of governance, 119, 121, 122, 124 on slaves, 126, 255, 257 war preparations, 266, 279 Pym, John, 129, 149 Quijano, Antonio Calderón, 6, 7, 8, 96 Quintana Roo, 13, 66 racial violence, 322, 393n25 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 130, 355n7 Read, Mary, 124, 354n107 Reed, Nelson, 44 Rendezvous Kay, 97 requerimiento, 74, 345–46n34 Restall, Matthew, 18–19 Rio Hondo, 47, 72, 102, 351n28 Roatan (Rattan) British military presence, 162–63 Roatan [Rattan] British surrender of, 165–66 Despard as commander-in-chief, 214, 215 strategic importance, 152 Robinson, General (Miskito Indian), 316 Rodney, Admiral Battle of the Saintes, 201, 208 Rodriguez, Martin, 32, 34 rum, Miskito addiction to, 141

421

runaways maroon societies, 290 return of, 308 Spanish luring of runaways, 166–67, 190–92, 362n36 Spanish policy on, 290, 304–9, 387n25 Sactún River. See Sarstoon River Saint-Dominque (later Haiti) Haitian slaves in Belize, 254–57, 258 Salamanca de Campeche, 18, 22 Sambo (slave), 291 Sambo (Zambo) Miskito Indians, 133–34, 144 San Blas Indians, 134–35, 210 San Felipe y Santiago Zaclún, 66 San Fernando de Matina, 165 San Juan expedition, 198, 200, 208, 218 San Lucas Tzalac (Salac), 79–82, 83 Sapadillo Keys, 248 sarsaparilla, 48–49, 132, 139, 191 Sarstoon River, 80, 81, 277 Scholes, France V., 32, 40, 48, 62–63, 77–78, 86 Seven Years’ War Bourbon France, family compacts with Spain, 177, 365n76 effect on British logwood settlements, 176–79 Gibraltar, conciliatory approach to Spain, 177, 178, 365n74, 365n78 Sharp, Bartholomew, 82–83, 120, 175 Sharper (slave), 294 Shute, General, 159 Sibun River, 205, 218, 293, 294 Sierra Leone, 287, 385n8, 385n9 silk-grass, 132, 139 Sittee River, 87 slavery abolition of slave trade, 298 Emancipation Act, 312, 324–25 English slave raids, 91, 157 free people of colour as slave owners, 230 of Indians, 36, 37, 105, 106, 296, 302–4, 389n65

UWI PRESS 422

INDEX

slavery (cont’d) in logwood industry, 114 master-slave relationship (Belize), 262–63, 287–90, 300–302, 310–14, 385–86n10 punishments for runaways, 125 recognition of abilities, 313, 391n88 slave trade, Mosquito Shore, 140, 358n39 spatial dimension of in Belize, 288–89, 386n15 slaves accommodation strategy, 300, 389n60 Allan Auld, on runaway slaves, 191 Battle of St George’s Cay, 126, 267–73 Baymen’s selectivity in, 297–99 Belizean slaves vs others of the region, 299–300, 312–13, 389n57 Caribbean revolts, 312–13, 391n82 as huntsman, 289–90, 386–87n24 ideal conditions for resistance in Belize, 287–91 Indian-slave alliances, fear of, 297–98, 388–89n53, 388n52 manumission tax, 232 Miskito Indians, intermingling with African slaves, 135 mistreatment, investigation into, 295–96, 388n47 of Mosquito Shore evacuees, 211–12 passive resistance of, 302–4 population figures, 297, 309, 390n78 power relations of ownership, 323–24 as property, 125–26, 261–62, 263 punishment of, 291, 387n26, 387n27 reliance on for protection, 163 slave desertions, 304–9 slave soldiers, recognition of, 272–73, 382n80 Spanish luring of runaways, 166–67, 190–92, 216, 260–62, 280–81, 290, 362n36, 387n25 Sloane, Sir Hans, 137, 148, 150 Smith, John, 209–10 smuggling, and contraband trade, 152–53 Sorsby, William, 155

Spain Anglo-Miskito relationship, resentment of, 128–29, 142–43, 153–54, 185, 358n48, 360n75 army recruitment of runaways, 306, 309 attack on St George’s Cay, 196–98, 369n49, 370n51 attack policy, 159, 160 Battle of St George’s Cay, 6, 126, 267–73, 381n68 conquest of Yucatan, 13–18 controversy over Belizean settlement, 6–9 declaration of war on Belize, 264–65 declaration of war on Britain (1779), 192–202 espionage against Belize, 252, 260–62, 380n43 factors affecting colonization, 92 family compact with France, 177, 192, 365n76 guerrilla diplomacy, 199 horses, impact of on Mayans, 16, 17, 336n49 indirect colonial rule, system of, 50, 52 Miskito Indians, fear of, 143, 154, 200, 210, 372–73n83 Mosquito Convention, 204–7 Mosquito Shore evacuees, policy on, 211, 373n2 Napoleonic Wars, 263, 264 papal donation of Americas, 4–6, 98–99, 161, 176 piracy, effect on, 65, 82–83, 91–92, 95 post-battle policies on Belize, 277–82 resentment against British in Central America, 96, 273–74, 349n7 runaway British slaves, freedom for, 166–67, 362n36 seizure of British ships, 166–68, 176 Spanish vs Mayan weaponry, 11, 16, 34–35 and Treaty of Godolphin, 103 Treaty of Paris, 179, 180–81, 184–85, 199 Treaty of Versailles, 201–2, 371–72n65

UWI PRESS INDEX

War of Jenkins’ Ear, 146, 162–66 Spanish Honduras. See Honduras, Spanish Spanish Lookout (Belize), 159 Spanish Main British presence on, 96, 349n7 Speer, Captain Joseph Smith, 3, 97, 181, 333n2, 354–55n1 Anglo-Miskito relationship, historical precedent for, 147–48, 359n60 on Miskito animosity towards Spanish, 136 Stannard, David, 27, 338n85 Stephen, James, 278 St George’s Cay/Key Battle of St George’s Cay, 6, 126, 267–73, 381n68 Bay currency, 126 as Cay Casina, 82–83, 96 cemetery at, 123, 354n105 description of, 195 logwood settlement at, 118–22, 353nn103–5 monetized payments, introduction of, 126 in Mosquito Convention, 206 slave population, 195 Spanish attack on, 196–98, 369n49, 370n51 Spanish policies, post-battle, 277–82 St Lucia, 109 St Paulo, 108 Succotz (Succoth/Socotz), 91 Suriname, 290 Sydney, Lord, 199, 201 on conflicts within Belize settlement, 234–37 on Despard’s military success, 214–15 relations with Spain, 239 Tenochtitlan, 13 Thompson, Sir J. Eric S., 9, 13, 20, 32, 62–63 on Anglo-Maya relationship, 100 Escurruchán (Xcarruchán), location of, 81 on Martin Can, 86

423

Peten Itza refugees, 91 on reports by Pérez, 77–78 on San Felipe y Santiago Zaclún, 66 on location of Tipu, 40–41, 42 on Tipu River, 48 timber industry slavery, spatial dimension of, 288–89, 386n15 Tipu agricultural production, 51 and Bacalar, administration by, 45 as centre of resistance, 69–70 Christian-style burials, 84 demographic fluctuation of, 51 English slave raids on, 91 location of, 40–41 Peten Itza refugees, 90 as rebel frontier town, 39, 43–45, 75 relationship to Itzas, 59, 60 Spanish interest in, 56, 75 Tipu River (now Belize River), 48–49 Tlascalans, 19 Tompson, George, 276 Tonoston, Richard, 223 Tordesillas, Treaty of, 5 tortoiseshell, 132, 139, 191, 356n16 Tortuga, 102, 104 Tozzer, Alfred, 79 treaties Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 165, 362n30 Belizean government and, 212 Godolphin, Treaty of, 103, 149 Paris, Treaty of, 179, 180–81, 184–85, 186, 199 Tordesillas, Treaty of, 5 Versailles, Treaty of, 201–2 Trelawny, Edward British response to Spanish attacks, 163–64 military presence, Mosquito Shore, 145–46, 150, 151 pan-Indian alliance, 145, 359n56 Roatan, surrender of, 166 seizure of British ships, 167–68 Trelawny Town Maroon War, 264

UWI PRESS 424

INDEX

Trujillo, 7 Tui River. See Sarstoon River Tyler, Elisha, 276 Tziminchac, 57–58, 66, 70, 75 Uaymil province, 13 Uicab, Mateo, 84–85 Ulua River, 28 United States manifest destiny, 320 War of Independence on Belize, 192–98 Uring, Nathaniel on Baymen, 111–13, 116 as privateer, 109–10 Ursúa, Martin de appointment in Philippines, 90–91 attacks on Cay Casina, 156–58 Peten Itza rebellion, 89–90 road system, 85, 88, 348n88 Usher, James, 219, 225, 232, 233 Committee of Correspondence (Belize), 220 re-election as magistrate, 247, 249, 250 Usher, William, 219 Valladolid, 33, 37 Vázquez, Francisco, 19 vecino, definition of, 51 Vera, Juan de, 153, 176 Versailles, Treaty of, 201–2, 212, 371–72n65 Vicab, Mateo, 84–85, 88 Villagutierre Soto-Mayor, Juan de, 43, 55, 68, 80, 156 on Cumúx, 44–45 on English pirates, 95 on Fuensalida and Orbita, 46, 60 History of the Conqust of the Province of the Itza, 41–42 on Martin Can, 88–89 on Mirones, 67 on Tipu, 51 Villa Real, 23–24, 25, 337n67 encomienda system, 21, 23, 337n69, 337n70 founding population, 37

Wall, Ricardo, 168 and fall of Ensenada, 170, 363n48 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 146, 162–66 Warwick, Earl of, 148–49 Wel, Mary, 123 Westby, George, 306 West India Regiments, 267, 279, 309 White, Robert, 229 as unofficial agent for Baymen, 199– 200, 203, 231, 370–71n56 Whitehall controversy over demolition of fortifications on the Shore, 182–83, 366n8 demolition of fortifications at Belize, 184–85 directives to Despard, 217–18 logwood, policy of connivance, 107–9 no superintendent for Belize, 258 support for Loyalist migration, 201 See also Britain Whitehead, Thomas, 223 Whitsunday service (Tipu), 49–50 Will (slave), 294 Williams, Edward, 130 Wilson, Arthur M., 107 Winter, Stephen, 230 Xcarruchán (Escurruchán), 81 Xecchán (Xecchacán), 44, 66 Yalain District, 86 Yarborough, James D., 219, 247, 249 Yaxhaá, Lake, 54–55 Young, Aaron, 219, 224, 225, 226, 232, 233, 241 Committee of Correspondence (Belize), 220 Young, Thomas Miskito Indians leadership system, 138 Yucatan Belize as British Yucatan, 3, 7 Caste War, 12 governors of, and their protests against Belize, 278, 280, 383n107 Maya rebellion against Spanish rule, 22–25

UWI PRESS INDEX

zaca, 49 Zacatan, 157 Zaccuc (Zaczuz), 62–63 Zaclún (Sacluc/Sacalum), 66, 68, 69 Zactún River. See Sarstoon River

425

Zaczuc, 72, 73 Zambo (Sambo) Miskitos, 133–34, 135–36, 178–79, 357n23 zambo/zambigo, 135