A 1,003,729
GIRES
BRITISH
HONDURAS
1446
644
THE
VERSITY
IVERSITY

F MICHI
OF
MICHIG
IGAN ·
'S
L181
LIBRARIES
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1446
.G44
BRITISH HONDURAS.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
BRITISH HONDURAS:
AN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE
COLONY FROM ITS SETTLEMENT, 1670.
BY
ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON GIBBS, Esq.
"Sub umbra floreo."
COMPILED FROM ORIGINAL AND AUTHENTIC SOURCES.
London :
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1883.
[All rights reserved.]
F
1446
644
"I regard the history of British Honduras as affording
one of the most remarkable instances of British enterprise
and energy."
Sir C. METCALF.-Reply to address on leaving Jamaica, on
retiring from the Governorship of that island and its
dependencies, dated Fernhill, 9th December, 1842.
INTRODUCTORY
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
1
CHAPTER II.
-
DISCOVERY ABORIGINES CONQUEST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
BY CORTEZ
CHAPTER III.
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF BRITISH HONDURAS, 1638 TO 1717
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY SETTLEMENT (continued)
CHAPTER V.
FROM THE RETURN OF THE SETTLERS, AFTER THE CAPTIVITY
AT THE HAVANA
DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT BESUMED-PROGRESS FROM
1800 TO 1830.
CHAPTER VIII.
CROWN V. COLONY, 1830 TO 1842
-T
•
21
32
44
58
71
86
viii
Contents:
CHAPTER IX.
CONTINUATION OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE EXECUTIVE
PAGE
AND PUBLIC MEETING
CHAPTER X.
103
•
MAHOGANY AND TIMBER TRADE OF HONDURAS GENERALLY 114
CHAPTER XI.
HISTORY FROM 1851 To 1857.
CHAPTER XII.
•
126
HISTORY FROM 1861 TO DATE
•
CHAPTER XIII.
VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF THE POPULATION, 1881
THE LABOUR QUESTION
CHAPTER XIV.
wede bang
CLIMATE PRODUCTIONS
AND FAUNA-AND GENERAL FEATURES.
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX A.
APPENDIX B.
.
CHAPTER XV.
•
139
158
FLORA
175
190
195
197
BRITISH HONDURAS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
WHETHER the result be the splendid acquisition of an
Indian Empire, or the comparatively insignificant
addition of a small group of islands in the South Seas
to our possessions, or the reclamation of a tract of
tropical forest from a condition of primeval bush, a
record of British enterprise can never fail to prove
interesting to British readers.
The reproach that the average Briton, while he may
be conversant with the countries of continental Europe,
is deplorably ignorant of the more remote portions of
that empire upon which the sun never sets-their
history, characteristics, and situation-has no longer
the force of truth it once had. There is an increasing
desire and demand for information respecting our
colonial possessions and dependencies.
The colony of British Honduras has hitherto drawn
little attention to itself. It has pursued the even tenor
of its way without giving trouble to the Colonial
Office or bringing its internal affairs prominently
before the British public; gaining notoriety neither
B
2
British Honduras.
by intestine complications nor frontier collisions with
its neighbours, of any consequence. A small colony,
but always a solvent one, it has, nevertheless, offered
few inducements to the younger scions of powerful
families at home to seek its shores in quest of lucrative
public appointments. It has not as yet developed
gold-mines or discovered diamond-fields, "struck oil,"
raised loans, or promoted schemes for quotation on the
Stock Exchange. It has, therefore, few representa-
tive friends or influential patrons at home to push its
interests or disseminate information concerning its
resources and capabilities.
At present the white element in the population is
numerically insignificant, although strongly represented
in the wealth and intelligence of the colony. The
majority of the inhabitants are coloured creoles,
Yucatecan Spaniards, Hispano-Indians or mestizos,
sambos, and a few pure Africans, also creole by birth.
The generality of Englishmen when the word Hon-
duras is mentioned allow their ideas to revert to
Spanish Honduras Bonds, and the railway fiasco per-
petrated in that enterprising republic.
But although its geographical boundaries are limited,
its situation geographically-with ready access to the
markets of the United States; its topographical fea-
tures and contour; safe anchorages and convenient
harbours along its coast-line, and riverain facilities;
its agricultural capabilities; its undeveloped mineral
resources; its salubrious climate, immunity from pes-
tilence in an epidemic or endemic form, and from the
convulsions of nature which, in the forms of hurricane
and earthquake, are wont to devastate tropical regions,.
}
Introductory.
3
point it out as by no means the least important, while
its unique history renders it not the least interesting,
of our colonial appendages.
In the past, a lazy, lucrative, old-fashioned trade in
mahogany and dyewoods-the latter chiefly logwood
-has been carried on under a system of monopoly, to
the special advantage of some three or four business-
firms who, like monopolists everywhere, have paid
more regard to the protection of their own immediate
gains than-as even a selfish but longer-sighted policy
would have dictated-to the general advancement of
the colony commercially and industrially; retarding
internal development, and checking immigration of any
description above that of coolie labour, and dreading
nothing so much as the introduction of extraneous
energy to interfere with what they considered their
prescriptive rights.
So long as the river-banks and the margins of the
creeks and lagoons supplied an unlimited yield of
noble trees, and mahogany-lumbering and logwood-
cutting could be carried on inexpensively and remune-
ratively; while high prices were maintained in the
London market and the labour difficulty had not arisen,
the short-sightedness of the policy of monopoly was
not apparent.
But the day came when the giants of the forest could
no longer be found as they almost overhung the rivers
and creeks, and had merely to be cut down, roughly
trimmed, pitched into the flood of the wet season, and
rafted down to the ports of embarkation at compara-
tively trifling cost. Emancipation too had come, and
free labour was gradually getting scarcer and rising
B 2
4
British Honduras.
in price. In the good old slave times, and even long
after, the emancipated and their descendants never
grumbled. They worked hard, but it was for "old
massa." Their nine or ten months of arduous toil and
harsh exposure, during which they were well fed and
clothed and housed, according to their wants and
ideas, were cheerfully borne while they were kindly
treated; they were all unconscious that a few white
men—or Buckras, as they say—were coining money out
of the sweat of their brows and dusky skins, and they
were made perfectly happy by the six-weeks carnival
of dancing and dissipation annually granted them at
Christmas. But when the black labourer began to
find out the value of his labour-when good wood
grew scarce along the waterways, so that "huntsmen "
had to be employed to search for them in the depths
of the forests-when miles of expensive truck-paths
required to be cut to where the trees had been marked
out-and when from various causes, such as a change
of fashion in the matter of furniture, the substitution
of iron ships for wooden ones, prices went down at
home, monopoly received its death-blow.
It became evident, that the colony could no longer
depend entirely upon its original staple exports for
prosperity or even existence. Attention must be
directed to other industries. The rich, virgin soil at
least remained almost untouched.
Experiments were at first made in sugar cultivation.
Some thirty years ago, parties of refugees from Yucatan,
driven into exile by the disturbed state of their own
country, had successfully proved the suitability of the
soil for this branch of agriculture, but their operations
Introductory.
5
were limited, and went no further in result than the
supply of the local markets.
The first to embark in sugar cultivation on a more
extended scale and with a view to exportation, either
from inexperience or errors in judgment, did not
succeed; but it is almost certain that those who have
stepped into their places, with the few who have been
financially strong enough to persevere, will eventually
add this to the other industries of the colony. The
wood trade still continues and probably will continue.
in that category.
There is also at the present time a fair prospect
that the cultivation of the cocoa-nut and other tropical
fruits, plantains, bananas, oranges, &c., to supply the
New Orleans and Philadelphia markets, will prove
remunerative. Steamers now call regularly at Belize,
engaging in this trade.
The transit trade, once of considerable value, has
been adversely affected lately by these very steamers
visiting Spanish ports to the southward, but this
may be only temporary, and the colony makes up
indirectly what it loses this way. There is still a
fair trade done in general merchandize with buyers
from the interior.
Besides fortnightly mails to New Orleans, there is
an unsubsidized line to that port, a line of steamers to
Philadelphia, one to New York, and one to London
via Jamaica.
The colony is in a transition state. Its prospects
are promising, its financial condition unembarrassed.
All that is wanted is additional capital and increased
energy to develop its magnificent resources.
6
British Honduras.
It is in view of the colony's taking a fresh start,
and being drawn more closely into the comity of nations
by the introduction of steam communication, the sub-
marine and terrestrial telegraph, and, we hope, railways
by-and-by, that it has been deemed opportune to put
forth this slight account of its past history, present
condition, and future prospects.
7
CHAPTER II.
DISCOVERY-ABORIGINES-CONQUEST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
BY CORTEZ.
THE map of Central America shows on the Atlantic Discovery.
side a wide triangular bay of the Caribbean Sea whose
base is formed by the northern shore of Spanish Hon-
duras, one side by the coast-line of British Honduras
and the peninsula of Yucatan, the other by an ima-
ginary line drawn from Cape Catoche to Cape Gracias
á Dios. This bay is studded with numerous islands and
its inner basin protected by a continuous line of coral
reefs. De Solis, the Spanish historian of the Conquest 1502.
of Mexico, claims for the island of Cozumel,' a little to
the southward of Cape Catoche, at the northern ex-
tremity of the bay, the honour of being the first land
made by Columbus on quitting Cuba and Jamaica on
his continued voyage in search of a passage to the
Pacific. Herrera, another Spanish writer, states that
Bartolomé Columbus arrived at Punta Casinas on the
17th of August, 1502, and landing, took possession of
the country in the name of his most Catholic Majesty
of Spain, calling it Honduras, from the Spanish word
"hondura," depth, the soundings along the coast having
1 Isle of Swallows.
8
British Honduras.
1509.
1519.
Aborigi-
nes.
been found unusually deep by the Spaniards, especially
close in shore. Yet another account makes the island
touched by the great Columbus on this occasion
Bonaca, one of a group called the Bay Islands, in
which are also Ruatan and Utila at the southern ex-
tremity of the bay. It is probable that the whole bay
was exposed by the expedition of Columbus groping
for the desiderated passage to the Indies, but Yucatan
was properly first discovered by Dias de Solis y Pinzon
in 1509. It was in 1519 that Cortez and his warlike
companions landed in Yucatan to commence in Tabasco
the conquest of Mexico, the record of which is a series.
of marvels.
Towards the solution of the hitherto insoluble pro-
blem of how the western continent originally became
peopled and a final answer to the speculations of eth-
nologists upon the origin of the mystic races found
inhabiting it, that portion of it which unites the two
grand divisions of it, Central America with the southern
portion of Mexico, has furnished the greatest accumu-
lation of data. The explorer penetrating the forest-
wilds of that region comes suddenly upon remains of
what were once magnificent temples and palaces, the
ruins and semi-obliterated circumvallations of extensive
cities, hieroglyph-covered obelisks and sculptured co-
lumns half buried by the dense overgrowth of the
jungle. At Chalhuacan or Palenque, at Tulha or
Quirigua, among the coffee of Copan, at Utatlan and
Patanamit, in the Central States, are discovered the
ruined remains of cities covering spaces equal in ex-
tent to the area of Rome or Paris.
Although the Indian tribes inhabiting Mexico and
Aborigines.
9
Central America are not to be confounded with the
"haughty red men of the north," made familiar to our
youth in the romances of Marryat and Fenimore.
Cooper, or the cannibal savages of Patagonia, they
would appear to evidence an affinity of race and lan-
guage with them-the type modified by a tropical
climate and other causes. Into the theories of an
oriental origin or into any of the various speculations of
an Israelitish, Egyptian, or Phoenician derivation, it is
beyond the scope of this work to enter, but the promi-
nent cheek-bones, copper-coloured complexion, high
contracted forehead, long, black, straight hair, small
hands and feet, point to a community of origin between
the tribes inhabiting Central America and the men of
the tomahawk and calumet. In stature they are lower,
but as active and muscular, more fleshy, yet less dis-
inclined to physical labour. They are more docile,
less given to the pursuits of war and the chase, more
sensual.
The aboriginal Indian tribes met by the Spaniards
on their advance into Central America would seem to
have been branches of a great nation inhabiting the
southern portion of Mexico-the Toltecs. Juarros, in
his "History of Guatemala," writes the name Tualtec.
At the conquest this nation must have been divided
into many tribes, the chief of which were the Quiché,
Kachiquel, and Zutugil. Yucatan was-still is-peopled
to a great extent by the Mayas, the Mosquito Shore by
Waikas or Waiknas, remnants of which tribe still exist,
and stray specimens may be seen in Belize daily. Other
tribal names have come down to us in the existing names
of certain localities, such as Poyais, Jicaque, Chiapas, &o.
10
British Honduras.
1
According to Fuentes, the Toltec king or chief
Nimaquiché (great chief), the fifth who reigned in
Tula, was directed by an oracle to migrate with his
people from Mexico to the south. Like the wander-
ings of the Israelites, from whom they claim descent,"
in the desert, the migration of the Toltecs occupied
many years. It is stated by the historian above-quoted
that Nimaquiché and his people found the region upon
which they entered already inhabited. Acxopil, the
successor of Nimaquiché, divided the newly-acquired
western Canaan between himself and his two sons.
Quiché he retained, Kachiquel he gave to his eldest
son Jiutemal, who has given its name, it is supposed,
to Guatemala, and the third kingdom, Zutugil, to Axi-
qual, his youngest.
The names of seventeen kings of this dynasty have
reached posterity, the last of whom was Sequechul.
During the reign of the fourteenth, Kicah-Tanub, the
threatened invasion by the Spaniards of Mexico took
place.
Prior to the invasion the country was the scene of
sanguinary internecine conflict. Axiqual first invaded
the territory of his brother Jiutemal, and from that
date war raged for many generations. Again, after
an interval of peace, in the reign of Balam-Acan, the
2 Fuentes relates that he obtained from Father Francisco
Vasquez, the historian of the Order of St. Francis, a MS. of Don
Juan Torres, grandson of the last king of the Quichés, a docu-
ment in which the Toltecs claim to be Israelites, who, after
crossing the Red Sea, fell into idolatry, and from fear of Moses
fled westwards under a chief Tanub, and passing from one con-
tinent to the other (? how) reached Mexico.
Early History.
II
king of the Zutugils Zutuguilepob abducted from the
royal palace of Utatlan, Ixconsocil, the daughter of
Balam-Acan of Quiché, his friend. This Mexican edition
of the rape of Helen led to sanguinary wars, which
lasted, with few short intervals, down to the arrival of
Alvarado on his conquering march southwards. The
warlike weapons of the contending nations consisted
chiefly of missiles-stones hurled by slings, poisoned
arrows and javelins, pikes and swords, or pieces of
wood (macanos) into which roughly sharpened stones
(chay) were set like teeth, which did great execution.
They were also provided with shields made of the skin of
the "danta."3 The forces on either side varied (accord-
ing to Juarros) from 60,000 to 120,000, and the slaughter
during their engagements was frequently immense.
The capital city of Quiché, Utatlan, was undoubtedly
the most opulent found by the Spaniards in this quar-
ter. As it furnished 72,000 combatants against them,
it must have been extremely populous. The next in
importance was Xelahuh, now Quezaltenango. As it
had ten captains over it, and each captain, according
to the system of deputed government, ruled over
his "Xiquipil," or 8000 dwellings, it therefore con-
tained 80,000 houses, which Fuentes estimates would
give 300,000 as its population. Patanamit, or "the
city," is in the kingdom of Kachiquel, and was also
called Tecpan-Guatemala, which, Vasquez says, means
Royal House of Guatemala," wherefore he infers it
was the capital. Among the curious scattered remains
of Central America are the circus of Copan, the great
stone hammock, and the cave of Tibulca.
<<
3 Tapir.
12
British Honduras.
}
Francisco de Fuentes, the chronicler of Guatemala,
says the circus of Copan was entire in his time (1702).
It is, or was, a circular space enclosed by stone pyra-
midal columns, eighteen feet high, with figures, male
and female, in excellent sculpture, generally in bas-
relief, and enamelled. In the centre was the altar.
Isolated monolithic remains, profusely ornamented and
covered with hieroglyphs, are continually met with in
these districts of Guatemala, at Uxmal in Yucatan, and
many places in Mexico, all agreeing in archæological
character.
4
Modern interest has been little centred upon these
extraordinary relics of the past, and the difficulties in
the way of exploration and examination are great. In
1807 a Captain Dupaix explored a portion of them,
but the result of his labours was not given to the
world until 1834. He had been preceded by Del
Rio, and was followed by an American archæologist,
named Stephens, who had been previously engaged
on Egyptian antiquities. In the opinion of Mr.
Stephens, whose operations were curtailed by the war
of supremacy then being waged by the Liberals under
Morazan and the clerical or reactionist party under
Carrera, there is no identity between the sculptured
columns and hieroglyphics of the Indian ruins of
Central America and those of any eastern nation of
antiquity-their present remarkable state of preserva-
tion, when the nature of the climate they survive in is
considered, not admitting of any great age being
assigned to them. The original buildings and monu-
ments were constructed, he thinks, "by the races who
4 Paris, 1834.
Early History.
13
occupied the country at the time of the invasion by the
Spaniards, or of some not very distant progenitors.”5
These races are yet in existence in those countries,
many of their numbers still beyond the pale of civiliza-
tion, living as their ancestors lived under Balam-
Acan.
How these people acquired a knowledge of architec-
ture, skill in sculpture, and design in delineation-how
buildings of lime and stone, courts, obelisks and idols,
ornamented by sculpture and enamel, came to be con-
structed by them, if the theory of an eastern origin and
an antique date are untenable with regard to them,
must ever remain one of time's mysteries. Enough,
perhaps, that here lie mouldering the remains of a
once cultivated, polished, and peculiar people, who
passed through the usual vicissitudes incident to
nations-rise, progress, and fall.
.
The descriptions of the Alcazar or king's palace by
the Spanish historians recall the pictures of the
Alhambra found in the pages of later writers.
The system of government was a pure monarchy,
the king ruling, assisted by a council of twenty-four
Caciques, or princes of the blood, who had great privi-
leges granted them, and were entrusted with the con-
trol of the revenue and administration of justice. In
the ten principal cities satraps or lieutenants were
appointed to govern as many districts or Xiquipils.
They had full power except over the lives and pro-
perties of the "ahaun," or heads of noble families.
5 Explorations are now-1882-being extensively carried on
with great success by M. Charnay, under the auspices of Mr. P.
Lorillard and other wealthy amateurs.
1
Conquest
and sub-
jugation.
14
British Honduras.
These satraps also were assisted by councils of the
nobles in their government. All public offices were
bestowed on persons belonging to the noble class.
Marriage of a noble with a plebeian degraded him to
the rank of his wife, and carried with it the sequestra-
tion of his estate. Their religion was a form of idolatry
disgraced by human sacrifices, and the latter circum-
stance has been adduced as a justification of the cruelty
exercised upon them by the Spaniards of the conquest.
The worship of the sun, or some form of fire-worship,
would appear to have constituted a part of their
religious system.
In-
The criminal code contained the punishment of
death too frequently for modern ideas, but otherwise
seems to have been founded on just principles.
cendiaries were considered enemies of the State on the
ground that he who sets fire to a single house may
burn down a whole town. Death of the culprit and
banishment of his whole family was therefore the sen-
tence in cases of arson. The ordeal of torture dis-
graced the proceedings in most trials.
Domestic slavery was one of their institutions, and
a "simarron" (? origin of Maroon), or runaway, was
punished by death on the second offence. For the
first he was fined.
According to Torquemada they possessed a superior
system of education for the young of both sexes.
Cortez deputed the conduct of the expedition to
Don Pedro de Alvarado, who marched with a nume-
rically insignificant force of Spaniards and about
4000 Mexican allies. It is stated by Juarros that
the kings of Mexico and Quiché acknowledged
}
Early History-Conquest.
15
ties of relationship, and that Montezuma, himself
a prisoner, contrived to convey a private message
to Kicah-Tanub, to warn him of the intended in-
vasion.
1524.
In the course of one year Alvarado, by extra-
ordinary exertions and a series of unparalleled suc-
cesses, completed the conquest of the three kingdoms,
only the wider and more outlying portions of the
country remaining in the possession of the Indians.
In reviewing the extraordinary achievements of the
Spaniards in these regions, it is only possible to
account for the rapidity of their conquests over over-
whelming numbers by considering that the Indians
when they first saw the Spanish cavalry had never
set eyes on an animal larger than a tapir, and the roar
of fire-arms and artillery were novelties calculated to
produce in their minds superstitious dread of a super-
human power rather than to convince them of any
physical superiority in their opponents. There was
no union amongst the separate Indian kingdoms
against the invaders, and failing in his efforts to bring
a defensive unity about, and in dread of the Teules (or
gods), as the Spaniards were designated, about whom
he had received oracular information, Kicah-Tanub
died prematurely. Alvarado first entered the district
of Soconuzco, inhabited by the tribe of the Pipiles, 1524.
but quickly turned his attention to Xelahuh, or
Quezaltenango, the largest fortified place in Quiché,
to which he fought his way against the numerous
forces collected by Tecum-Unam, the son and suc-
cessor of Kicah-Tanub. The final struggle took place
on the plains of Itzacapa, when Alvarado, with his
16
British Honduras.
cavaliers and their allies, defeated an army of 250,000."
Alvarado slew Tecum himself with a lance-thrust.
Chinanivalut, his son, now began to treat with the
invaders, and invited Alvarado and his followers to
visit him at the capital, Utatitlan. The Spaniards
complied, and entered the royal city, but their sus-
picion of treachery being aroused, they withdrew
from it, and encamped on the plains close to the city.
Here Alvarado was visited by the king of Quiché.
Alvarado having found that treachery was intended,
tried Chinanivalut, and hanged him on the spot. The
Indians now attacked the Spaniards with desperate
fury, but were met with equal bravery, and routed,
abandoning a field covered with their dead and
wounded. The capital and kingdom of Quiché were
in the hands of the bold invaders. Alvarado had the
wisdom to continue the semblance of native royalty in
Quiché, while he turned his attention to the subjuga-
tion of Kachiquel (Guatemala) and Zutugil. Sinacan,
king of Guatemala, had already sent him ambassadors
with presents of gold while he was at Utatitlan.
Leaving Leon Cardona to command in Quiché, the
chief invader entered the capital of Sinacan, his new
ally, who persuaded him to direct his arms against
Zutugil, the third division of the empire of Quiché,
the capital of which was on the Lake Atitlan, a rocky
fastness in the highlands. One engagement subdued
the Zutugils, who became the allies of the Spaniards,
even remaining faithful during the subsequent revolt of
the Quiché and Kachiquel Indians from Spanish domi-
nation. Sinacan had meanwhile voluntarily submitted.
6 Juarros.
Early History-Conquest.
17
Thus was the empire of Quiché in its three divi-
sions subdued-Quiché proper, Kachiquel, and Zutugil.
Revolts, it is true, had subsequently to be quelled;
but 1530 may be quoted as the year of the consoli-
dation of the Spanish conquests in Central America,
and the foundation of the kingdom or captain-general-
ship of Guatemala.
1525.
The city was founded in 1527. It was destroyed 1527.
by the falling of a body of water from the crater
of an extinct volcano, and rebuilt in 1541 on the
spot now occupied by "La Antigua." Constant
destruction by, and alarms of, earthquake led to its
removal in 1773 to the valley of Las Vacas, where it
now stands. Salvador and Nicaragua (caciqueships)
were taken possession of by Pedrarias Davilla about
the same period.
Cortez, meanwhile, had taken separate measures for
the subjugation of the country on the Atlantic side.
Christoval de Olid had landed in Guimara (Honduras)
and founded cities there. De Olid would appear to
have set up for himself, or, at least, to have acted
independently of Cortez and Alvarado, and Las Casas
was despatched by Cortez to subdue him. De Olid,
at first victorious, was betrayed and murdered by his
companions. Las Casas thus obtained quiet possession
of the city of Trujillo. Cortez himself performed one
of the most remarkable journeys ever made with a
military force, from Mexico by way of Itza or Peten to
Honduras. While there, he founded a sea-port town
and called it Puerto Caballos-now Puerto Cortez in
the Republic of Honduras.
Subsequent to the discovery of this peninsula Yucatan,
C
1508-16.
18
British Honduras.
7
by De Solis, an expedition left Cuba during the
captain-generalship of Diego Velasquez, under Fran-
cisco Hernandez de Cordova, a rich planter of the
island. In reality it was composed of a band of
adventurers fired by the spirit of the epoch-
"de buscar nuevas tierras." They hit off Cape
Catoche or Cotoch, which received the name from
the incident of the Indians who came off, bringing
food and water in their canoes to De Cordova's
ships, crying in their language "conex cotoch!" So
the guttural Maya sounded to the Latin-tongued
Spaniards, but the cry was, "conex notoch" (conesh
notosh as it is pronounced, or in old Maya, conex
kotoch), meaning "come home"-an invitation to the
Spaniards to land. Campeché (Kimpech) and Ponta-
chan, Indian towns, were visited, and Bernal Diaz
describes the "adoratorios," or temples containing
idols. During the hostilities which subsequently took
place, the general, De Cordova, received ten wounds
from poisoned arrows, of which he died at Cuba on his
return; the adventure cost the Spaniards, besides their
general, seventy-two soldiers. Two Indians, christened
by the chaplain of the expedition, Alonso Gonzalez,
respectively Julian and Melchor, were taken to Cuba.
Some gold in the dust brought with them, excited
the cupidity of the Spaniards at the Havana and
1517. Velasquez equipped a second expedition, which he en-
trusted to Juan de Grijalva. Pedro de Alvarado,
the future conqueror of the empire of Quiché, Alonzo
Dávila, and Francisco de Montejo, all hidalgos of
Spain, accompanied Grijalva. Leaving the port of
1
7 B. Diaz Herrera.
Early History-Conquest.
19
!
Matanzas on the north side of Cuba and doubling Cape
Antonio, they sighted the island of Cozumel (Cuzumil
8
-isla de golandrinas). On landing, the soldiers were
surprised to hear the language of Jamaica, with which
they were partially acquainted. Inquiry produced
the information that, two years before, ten Indians
had crossed in a canoe from Jamaica to Cozumel; a
voyage which in a slight measure may account for the
dispersion of Indian tribes over these latitudes. Gri-
jalva pushed on to Pontachan, in Campeché, taking
the Jamaicans with him. Tabasco was taken posses-
sion of in the name of the Spanish king. Soon after
this, Benito Martinez was made Bishop of Yucatan,
the first bishop of New Spain. In 1519 Hernando
Cortez arrived in Cozumel, and the subjugation of
Tabasco and Yucatan was completed by him, and 1521.
Montejo under him, before Cortez left Mexico on his
famous journey to Honduras. The city of Vera Cruz
had also been founded.
Yucatan previous to its occupation and subsequent
pacification, in the time of Cortez and Montejo, had no
common name, but was divided into districts under
chiefs, as that of Cepech, of Choaca, of Chacan; unless
the name of the principal city, Mayapan, was applied
to the whole peninsula. Various origins are given to
the name Yucatan. Some make it a corruption of
Tectetan, a town in the interior: others derive it from
"yucca," a root (Adam's needle) from which cakes are
made, the Indian substitute for bread, some from the ex-
pression "Yucatta a tan," used by the natives to the first
discoverers, and meaning " we do not understand you.'
F
8 Diaz Herrera.
• Fra. Cogolludo.
"
1519.
c 2
20
British Honduras.
Soon after the conquest, Spanish missionaries en-
tered upon the more worthy subjugation of the country
by the conversion of the Indians to Christianity, visit-
ing the wildest parts, and displaying their wonted
zeal. Especially zealous was an amiable Dominican
named Bartolomé las Casas. But even to the present
day, in the wilds of the mountains of Central America
roam numbers of "Lascandones," or unbaptized In-
dians, probably following the idolatrous traditions of
their Toltec ancestors.
2 I
CHAPTER III.
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF BRITISH HONDURAS,
1638 TO 1717.
A HALO of romance surrounds the early history of
British Honduras, legend assigning this region as the
scene of many a daring exploit, many a riotous orgie,
in the good old times when the adventurous sons of
Albion roamed the Caribbean, partly under the pro-
tection of their own dreaded black flag, and sometimes
under that of the country of their birth, which did not
wholly cast them off while their depredations were
confined to his Catholic Majesty's galleons and settle-
ments on the Main.
The central hero of this romance was a Scottish
rover named Wallace, or Wallis, "who so distinguished
himself," naively remarks the Honduras Almanac fifty-
six years ago, "by acts of bravery and desperation
that his name became a terror to the Spaniards." His
name is supposed to survive in that of the town of
Belize, which is considered a Spanish corruption of
Wallis. In the Spanish language there is no W, and
Wallis became Vallis, and as V is sounded by Spaniards
almost as B, the transition to Ballis, Balize, and finally
Belize, is easily understood. The Indian name of
Belize is Mopan; of Honduras, Zuina.
22
British Honduras.
It is sufficiently a matter of history that the seas in
this part of the world were so far back as the time
of our own Charles I. infested by hordes of pirates
of our
own and other nations, the homeward-
bound, richly-laden merchant-ships of Spain offering
the inducement to the more adventurous spirits of our
rising navy to embark in such questionable enter-
prises. Letters of marque were issued, but gentlemen
of the stamp of Mr. Wallace, or Wallis, were not wont
to be very particular about the nature of their ships'
papers in days when they were not likely to be
frequently overhauled by our ubiquitous cruisers, and
were probably satisfied with the roving commission
and immunity from search given them by our national
hostility to Spain at that era.
The Bay of Honduras, with its numerous islands and
shore inlets, and its protecting reefs-the navigation
of which was ticklish work for the clumsy vessels of
war of the period, but which they were familiar with-
its creeks, lagoons, and river-mouths densely shrouded
by tropical foliage, was doubtless early selected by the
bold buccaneers as safe retreating-ground whence to
retire with the spoils of, and enjoy a respite from,
their successful sea-forays.
But these gallant Turpins of the rolling main were
not the class of men to found a peaceful and thriving
settlement. It is on record that most of them,
becoming regular pirates, and no longer confining
their attention to Spanish vessels, but considering all to
be fish that came into their net, met an exalted fate at
Kingston, Jamaica; while the persistent efforts of our
cruisers, as well as those of other nations, eventually
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 23
!
dispersed them, and buccaneering became an un-
profitable avocation.
The portion of the province of Yucatan now known
as 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.
The original settlement by the British of this part
of the Spanish Main cannot be authentically traced to
any date farther back than the Protectorate of Crom-
well, when it was used by them as a place of retreat
from Spanish men-of-war in the desultory warfare
carried on by us and that nation in these distant
localities, at times without regard to the terms upon.
which the Courts of Madrid and St. James's happened
to be with each other.
In 1638 a few British sailors were wrecked on
the coast of Yucatan and would appear to have
settled.
In 1655 the island of Jamaica was taken from the
Spaniards by Penn, one of Cromwell's admirals,
assisted by Venables. Indeed it was about this
period, under the vigorous foreign policy of the
Protector, England first seriously turned her attention
to conquest and colonization in this part of the world.
It was about this time also that the value of the woods
growing in tropical America first began to attract
attention, and to be sought after as articles of trade
and commerce. If, as by the adoption of her "totem
and appropriate motto, the colony of British Honduras
would appear to consider herself indebted (at all events
for past prosperity) mostly to another tree, it is to
""
1638.
1655.
24
British Honduras
1667.
logwood she certainly owes in the first instance her
existence.
It was at one time the practice of the class of
privateers (almost identical with buccaneers) cruising
against Spanish traders to set fire to all vessels they
captured which might be laden with logwood, having
first stripped them of everything valuable.
But it so happened that a Captain James, the
master of a letter of marque, having captured a
Spanish vessel¹ the cargo of which consisted of this
wood, brought the ship and cargo into the Port of
London. On endeavouring to dispose of the latter he
was gratified as well as surprised to find for it a ready
sale at an enormous price per ton. The crew, who
had used up a portion of the precious freight to burn
in the galley-fire, had little idea that they were using
fuel at a hundred pounds per ton during the voyage!
The fame of this dyewood soon spread, and priva-
teers were fitted out and despatched to cruise off the
Main, for the especial capture of logwood-laden vessels,
on their passage home to Spain from his Catholic
Majesty's possessions in the "Indies.”
In course of time, as prizes became scarcer, pro-
tecting cruisers of the Spanish navy more abundant,
the crews of the privateers found it more profitable
to search for the wood on shore, cut it, and load
their vessels with it. Earl Sandwich's Treaty of
Madrid finally compelled the abandonment of pri-
vateering in these waters, and the crews naturally
enough turned their cutlasses into machétes, and com-
menced to lop his Spanish Majesty's forest-trees on
shore when they no longer were permitted to cut off
1 Honduras Almanacs, 1826-27.
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 25
with impunity his lieges' heads and limbs on the high
seas.
Ruatan or Roatan, sometimes called Rattan, one of 1642.
the group known as the "Bay Islands," long after-
wards a bone of contention between England and Spain,
was first captured by the English in 1642. The group
lies just off Trujillo, a canoe-trip from the mainland.
The Spanish colonial authorities did not submit
tacitly to this British occupation of the Bay Islands.
The pious zeal of the Bishop of Comayagua, metropoli-
tan of Guatemala, was first roused, and in turn stimu-
lated the warlike energy of the Governors of Cuba and
Guatemala, and of the President of the Audencia of
San Domingo, who equipped a joint expedition to expel
the heretics.
Four ships of war, under the command of General
Francisco de Villalba y Toledo, arrived in the harbour
of Ruatan, and commenced the attack.
The attempt to dislodge the British was unsuccessful,
and Villalba re-embarked and sailed for Santo Tomas de
Castilla.' The Spaniards under Villalba were foiled by
the resolute defence and the natural strength of the place.
On the 4th of March, 1650, the Governor of Guate-
mala, Antonio de Lara Mongrobejo, despatched rein-
forcements, ammunition, and supplies, collected from
Guatemala and Chiquimula, to Villalba, who thereupon
proceeded to renew the attack. Profiting by his pre-
vious experience, the Spanish general made the second
attempt from a different point. Determined resistance
was again offered by the British defenders; but having
effected a breach in their entrenchments, the Spaniards
stormed and carried the place.
? Juarros.
1650.
26
British Honduras.
1759.
1662.
1667.
In their subsequent march upon the town the attack-
ing force suffered greatly from the heat by day, miasma
by night, and venomous reptiles and insects at all
times. They found the place evacuated, the garrison
having removed themselves and their valuables on
board their ships, and entirely abandoned the island.³
Very shortly after this expulsion of our countrymen
from the Bay Islands a few English sailors attacked
and took Campeché. The town had been pre-
viously visited by a buccaneer, William Park, in 1640,
and pillaged, according to Fr. Diego Lopez de Cogol-
ludo, of the Order of St. Francis, who has written a
history of Yucatan. The British corsairs were in fact
like a cloud of mosquitoes buzzing around the Spanish
possessions in this quarter of the globe.
But the first regular establishment of English log-
wood-cutters was made in 1662 by adventurers, pro-
bably from Jamaica, incited by the increasing demand
for logwood. Their numbers were soon augmented by
fresh arrivals, and extending southwards from Cape
Catoche, they in a short space of time spread as far as
the River Belize, and westwards to what appears to have
been then called the lake and island of Triste (between
Tabasco and the River Campeton), a lagoon with an
island in the middle of it. At this time there were two
places of rendezvous, or market-places, for the early
settlers-the mouth of the Belize River and this island
of Triste, adjacent to Campeché.
The operations of these adventurous colonizers were
at length the subject of negotiations between the re-
⁹ Juarros, "History of Guatemala." Translated, London,
1811.
8
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 27
spective Governments of England and Spain, and in
1667 it is stipulated that in case of war the subjects of
the two countries settled in these regions shall give each
other six months' notice before commencing hostilities.
It is allowable to infer from the mutual animosity
existing between the two nationalities at this time,¹ the
well-known jealousy shown by the Spaniards of other
nations, and especially of the English, encroaching on
the lands they had discovered and occupied, and the
slight regard paid in these remote countries to treaties
made in Europe, that the stipulation above referred to
had little force in the Bay, and that private encounters
quite irrespective of the fact of peace or war existing
between the parent countries, frequently took place
without previous warning. But the resolute Baymen
had got a grip, and with all the bull-dog tenacity of
their race they refused to let go, despite the strenuous
efforts of the Spanish colonists to shake them off.
By article vii. of the Godolphin Treaty of 1670, 1670.
Spain ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity right of
sovereignty over all lands in America and the West
Indies held by her at the time.5
It is difficult to reconcile this absolute concession
with subsequent treaties between the high contracting
parties, in which special reference is made to the Hon-
"The Udaller added his voice potential: There is never
peace with Spaniards beyond the line. I have heard Captain
Tragondacke and honest old Commodore Rummalaer say so a
hundred times, and they have both been down in the Bay of
Honduras, and all thereabouts."""The Pirate," by Sir. W.
Scott.
5
Bryan Edwards, vol. i. p. 175, " History of West Indies."
28
British Honduras.
1671.
1675.
duras wood-cutters, granting them only the privileges
of "cutting, loading, and carrying away," but refusing
permission for the establishment of permanent plan-
tations beyond mere provision-grounds, and safe-
guarding, in distinct terms, the sovereign rights of
the King of Spain and the Indies.
But on the promulgation of Sir William Godolphin's
treaty logwood-cutting establishments rapidly increased
in number, and the population of the settlement rose
to 700 whites. As yet no negroes had been intro-
duced. Among the settlers was the notorious Admiral
Benbow and his partner in wood-cutting, a person
named Jenkins. Benbow, re-entering active service
in the navy, left his interests in the hands of his co-
labourer, and, according to the story told, was consider-
ably astonished, on being stationed at Port Royal years
afterwards, at the appearance on board his flag-ship of
Jenkins, desirous of handing him over his share of the
profits ad interim. A creek on which the admiral and his
partner Jenkins worked is still known as Benbow Creek.
Writing in 1671 to the king-Charles II.—Sir
Thomas Lynch, Governor of Jamaica, reports that the
settlement of British Honduras "increased his Majes-
ty's customs and the national commerce more than any
of his Majesty's Colonies "a statement obviously not
founded on statistical information, but, as the report
was called for by "the Lords in Council," proving in-
disputably that the settlement had thus early attracted
official notice, and must therefore have attained con-
siderable importance.
Four years afterwards the Spaniards attacked the
British at the lake and island of Triste, capturing
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 29
260 of them, and carrying them prisoners to the mines
of Mexico.
Campeché was retaken in 1678; but a couple of 1678-80.
years subsequent to this recapture the British settlers
would appear to have abandoned all attempts to secure
a permanent footing on the other side of Cape Catoche.
The settlers on the Hondo, New and Northern
Rivers, and the River Belize, enjoyed comparative im-
munity from attack, the position of these settlements
lying out of the track of armed Spanish vessels passing
to and fro the Gulf of Mexico, while those in the Bay
of Campeché were constantly exposed to onslaughts.
The more northern colonists, for this reason, then,
retired to the remote and less exposed points begin-
ning to be permanently settled by their compatriots ;
where they were at liberty to pursue their avocations
to greater profit when not compelled so frequently to
abandon them in order to repel sudden invasions.
To the same spots the extension of the logwood
trade continued to send accessions from neighbouring
British colonies in America and the West Indies-
chiefly from Jamaica.
At this point there is a hiatus in the chronicles
of the colony. Indeed the records-especially re-
lating to the period prior to 1762—are altogether
meagre in interesting or useful data. Most of the
documents were lost beyond recovery in the invasion
of the settlement by the Spaniards in 1779. Some
few were carried to the Havana, and brought back
after the return from the captivity which followed
that disaster, but were subsequently scattered in the
hurricane of 1787. Another loss is supposed to have
1680-
1717.
30
British Honduras.
F
1717.
occurred when the ship Triumvirate went down off
St. George's Caye; but why public documents were on
board of that vessel is not clear.
It may be presumed, however, that the settlers were
left in a great measure undisturbed in their operations,
and to consolidate their institutions, increase their
trade, and swell their population.
In the year 1717 the Board of Trade and Plantations
addressed a memorial to his Majesty George I.,
asserting our right by treaty to cut logwood in those
parts. The only treaty, as far as we know, yet in
existence giving any such rights, which the memorial
could refer to, is that already quoted of 1670. The
memorial had no decisive result. It is useful in show-
ing by returns the quantity of logwood imported into
England in four successive years.
1713
1714
1715
1716
Tons cwt. qr. lb.
2189 15 3 22
4878 14 3 24
5863 12 1 14.
2032 17 2 9
14,995 0 3 9
1718.
but, says the memorial, "the price is at present reduced
from 40l. to 161. per ton." The falling off in the quan-
tity imported in 1716 is somewhat unaccountable.
Considerable alarm was created in the year 1718 by
the fitting out of an expedition by the Spaniards at
Peten, an Indian town on a lake of the interior at the
head of the Belize River. The whole district of Peten
is now the most peaceful and retired portion of the
Republic of Guatemala, inhabited by Peteneros or
Spaniards of mixed Indian descent.
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 31
In defiance of the six months' notice in case of an
outbreak of hostilities clause of the treaty of 1667, the
Spaniards secretly prepared a strong expeditionary
force at this interior town and advanced to the head of
the Old River, north-west branch, with the intention
of dispossessing the British. They advanced with
great caution and erected fortifications at the head of
the river. The settlers in that vanward position, how-
ever, had received intelligence of the incursion and had
made preparations for resistance, and even had time to
send for aid to the king of the Mosquito Shore, which
that mighty potentate afforded. There is thus tradi-
tional record of a good and satisfactory cause for our
subsequent friendly relations with that monarchy, and
our throwing the ægis of our protection in turn over
him and his realm. General Shute, Governor of Mas-
sachussets, having heard of the intended attack, dis-
patched H.M.S. King George, Captain William Weir,
to the assistance of the Baymen. The Spaniards, how-
ever, contented themselves with sending a few look-out
craft down the river, and as these never returned, they
made no further move. The stronghold they had
erected at the head of the river was occupied by an
outpost for several years. The site is now known as
Spanish Look-out, and remains of the fort were to
be traced there some years ago, and possibly are still
in existence.
The introduction of negro slaves appears to belong
to this period. They were not, however-at first, at all
events-brought from Africa but from our neighbouring
colonies, which had already imported them to a con-
siderable extent.
32
British Honduras.
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY SETTLEMENT (continued).
A BACKWOODS life in British Honduras in those days
must have been, for those who entered upon it, an
arduous, adventurous and precarious one. Arduous it
still continues; but it could only have been by con-
stant and unusual exertions that a small body of white
men could have realized fortunes-even with higher
market prices for their products-by penetrating into
the heart of the primeval forests, hitherto untrodden,
and of which the vegetation was dense beyond concep-
tion, and tearing from them the huge logs and ship-
loads of valuable billets-and the logs of those days
were giants. It is true they had not as yet to clear
miles of broad truck-paths into the woods, but the
tropical jungle had to be cleared in the immediate
neighbourhood of their operations. They had to pad-
dle themselves months' supplies of provisions, utensils,
tools, and rough articles of furniture, long distances
against strong flowing river currents and rapids, up
difficult creeks; they had their bush-huts and store-
houses for the season of labour to construct; they had
to endure a trying climate, myriads of flies, exposure
to wet weather, danger from noxious reptiles, and
were liable at any moment to attack from their
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 33
inveterate enemies the Spaniards. Yet the hardy,
resolute Baymen, faced difficulty. and danger cheer-
fully, displayed patient endurance of toil and hardships,
and indomitable courage whenever the enemy at-
tempted to drive them away.
The vessels carrying away their wood would cer-
tainly bring them provisions and general merchandize,
besides which they would seem early to have had in-
timate relations with our North American colonists.
In those early days even, they imported some of the
comforts and luxuries of more civilized countries, and
have ever shown an appreciation of the elegancies of
life, notwithstanding their rough mode of existence.
They displayed great shrewdness in managing their
internal affairs, an acquaintance with the elementary
laws of political economy, and prudence and foresight
in drawing up simple rules for self-government. They
were lovers of freedom always; men whose mental
calibre matched their physical stamina.
The following, extracted from an old Guatemala.
gazette, must of course be accepted "cum grano salis,"
but it suffices to show how much in early days the settlers
required treaty protection. The date is October, 1730.
"News has been received that a privateer from
Campeché, with a patent or licence from the governor,
arrived along the seas, in a well-armed brigantine, and
seized, on the River Belize, seven English brigs and
sloops, upon which they went with them to Campeché,
and a few days after, being encouraged by the governor,
and accompanied by another vessel, they went to Baca-
lar, whither they took six cannons of large calibre,
sent by the governor, which were mounted in the new
D
34
British Honduras.
1738.
fortress of San Felipe, and accompanied by the pri-
soners of the fortress with the Spaniard Don Alonzo
Figaroa, by order of the governor, and they did as the
Castilian had commanded them; they penetrated with
two brigs thirty-nine miles up the New River, and they
travelled across by land from New River, on the tran-
sit of which they made prisoners sixteen Englishmen
and an Englishwoman with her daughter, sixteen
negroes and four negresses. They burnt thirty hamlets
or ranchos full of logwood, which the English had got
ready to embark, and they burnt in Belizé altogether
twenty-four vessels; and having collected a great num-
ber of axes, saws, and other tools used for the cutting
of wood, they came away without having been attacked
by the English, who retreated into the bush to avoid
greater damage, and the expedition returned to Cam-
peché on the 20th June, 1730."
This bombastic account of what was an ordinary
foray of the time, throws a faint ray of light on the
condition of the settlement at this period, and that is
perhaps all it is useful for as an extract.
But, despite occasional inroads on its peace and
quiet, the colony established itself, and increased in
importance and in population.
Prior to the year 1738, the inhabitants chose seven
magistrates to administer justice, control finance, and
undertake any measures necessary for the public good
and safety. These magistrates no doubt held sessions
at stated periods-the adumbration of future grand
and supreme and summary courts; but they were
severally stationed or appointed to dispense a rough
kind of justice at the different points on the rivers and
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 35
lagoons where logwood and mahogany works had been
established-performing the duties of district-magis-
trates in short, and exercising a kind of family
sovereignty, each within his own bounds. This simple
and only form of government, concurrent with the
preservation of loyal allegiance to the crown, suited
the settlers, who long remained attached to their
"ancient usages and customs."
But in this year
they elected a certain Henry Sharpe, Esq., as their
superintendent, who was probably nothing more
than the presiding magistrate or chairman of the
magisterial body, as the annual election of magis-
trates was not altered, or their functions or powers
curtailed. The same simple patriarchal rule was con-
tinued until 1741, when we find that two commissioners,
Robert Hodgson and William Pitt, were sent out by
the home government. Ruatan and the Mosquito
Shore were included in these gentlemen's commission,
and during their execution of it, they resided princi-
pally at the latter places. They made no alterations in
the mode of government, and the elective magistracy
was continued without interruption down to the year
1765.
Attack by the British on Trujillo. Ruatan and
Bonaca were occupied by a British force, and a
governor appointed in the king's name.
As early as 1740 attempts had been made by English
adventurers to settle on the Mosquito Shore, an Indian
coast-territory never subdued entirely by the Spaniards,
but their efforts not proving successful their acts were
disavowed by our government.
Even at this date a project to form a connexion by
1742.
I
D 2
36
British Honduras.
1744.
1754.
canal between the Atlantic and Pacific, across this
portion of the American continent, via the San Juan
River and the Lake of Nicaragua, had received at-
tention in England: hence the attempts to effect an
occupation of the Mosquito Coast.
In this year it was recommended to the king
in council that a legislative body should be formed
for the purpose of drawing up a constitution for
British Honduras founded on the laws of England.
Whether this was the result of an application on the
part of the inhabitants of the Bay themselves or not,
does not clearly appear, but the presumption, consider-
ing their attachment to the simple form of government
by elected magistrates, is to the negative view. It
may have been brought on by representations from the
executive of Jamaica to the home authorities, or, which,
is still more probable, have been produced by some
report furnished by Messrs. Hodgson and Pitt on com-
pletion of their commission in the year 1741. It was,
if entertained, not followed by any action.
The Spaniards were aware that an attack upon
the settlement from the sea was unlikely to be success-
ful. The intricate navigation amongst the islands and
shoals of the Bay, better known to the Baymen than
to them, was an obstacle to any maritime force. Ex-
asperated, however, by the continued prosperity of the
British wood-cutters, they again, in the year 1754,
determined on a land expedition to drive the persistent
intruders from their territory.
Accordingly, a second time a large force was got
together at Peten in the year 1754.
The Spaniards mustered to the number of 1500, and
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 37
marched upon the Old River Works, and reached
Labouring Creek, a tributary of that river, unopposed.
But here they were met by a couple of hundred cutters
with their slaves, and defeated.
He
On this, as on other occasions, the slaves proved
their courage—which is no uncommon trait in African
nature-and their fidelity-which perhaps is more
remarkable—to their masters. There is only one way
to account for the invariable fidelity evinced by
the slaves employed in wood-cutting in Honduras.
Instead of the degraded bondage and grinding toil
which was the lot of slaves on plantations, the logwood
and mahogany-cutter was a slave only in name.
was not driven in a gang to his daily toil, but worked
side by side with his master, sharing with him the
unrestricted life of the backwoods, well fed, per-
forming the noble work of the axeman, which in itself
has a smack of freedom about it, his cutlass, or
machéte, as it is called, always by his side. Slavery
in Honduras brought with it the same social evils it
introduced elsewhere, and the effects of it as an insti-
tution are to be discerned still in the laxity of morals
and minor social blemishes characteristic of the
present mixed population, but it presented less harsh
features, and no such atrocities as marked its existence.
elsewhere.
The war between England and Spain which com- 1759.
menced in 1759 was closed by the Treaty of Paris in
1763.
The British settlers had now gained a tolerably firm
footing in Central America.
It is difficult on any principle of international law
38
British Honduras.
1754.
to justify the conduct of the early settlers in thus
persistently thrusting themselves upon territory which
another nation had fought and bled for, and which was
theirs both by right of original discovery and conquest.
It is equally so to exonerate the home government
from a share in the blame, for if they were chary of
recognizing the settlement during its infancy, or at
first in affording aid or protection to the settlers, they
unquestionably winked at their doings, and as the
intrusive project progressed and developed a perma-
nent character of occupancy, the authorities at home
began to take greater interest in the settlement. But
it must be borne in mind that during the progress of
British Honduras England was almost constantly at
war with Spain, and that a system of reprisals was
kept up between the two countries in these far-off
localities but little governed by treaty stipulations or
the relation existing between the two powers in Europe.
The treaty of 1763 extorted from Spain a recogni-
tion of the right of his Britannic Majesty's subjects.
to " cut, load, and carry away" logwood unmolested,
to occupy their houses and magazines, but stipulated
the demolition of all fortifications and reserved Spanish
sovereignty in the soil.
The Spanish colonial authorities took advantage
of these stipulations of this treaty to push their inter-
ference with the operations of the wood-cutters to
the point of exasperation. "Fortunately," says a
writer in the Honduras Observer, in 1841, "for the
present race, we feel nothing of the cruel visits of the
Spanish commissioners, but the humility, misery, and
inhumanity they occasioned, are not yet forgotten."
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 39
Their periodical visits to see that the treaty obliga-
tions were carried out, were probably used as occasions
for annoying as much as possible those whom they
considered interlopers, and houses were burnt and
plantations demolished by their orders on very slight
pretexts. The high spirit of the Baymen chafed
under this degrading system of inquisition, and when
Don Pedro Ramirez Estios, Governor of Yucatan, and
José Rosado, Comandante of Bacalhal (or Bacalar), by
two letters, dated respectively 29th December, 1763,
and 22nd February, 1764-sent through the "Sergeant
of the Look-Out of St. Anthony," to Joseph Maude,
Esq., chief magistrate ¹-ordered the withdrawal of
all the settlers located on the banks of the Hondo,
they called a public meeting and drew up a petition to
the Governor of Jamaica.
Their memorial was promptly attended to, and the
steps that were taken by our authorities drew from
the Spanish Government a disavowal of the action of
the Governor of Yucatan.
This was probably the first or one of the first acts
incurring a protective relation on the part of the
Government of Jamaica towards the settlement.
On our part, to see that the provisions of the
last-mentioned treaty were duly executed, the Lords of
the Admiralty appointed Vice-Admiral Sir William
Burnaby to proceed from Port Royal to Honduras, in
1765. The admiral spent nearly a whole year in the
settlement, arranging and settling boundaries, and
placing the settlers in full possession of their locations
and rights.
¹ Almanacs, 1826-29
1765.
40
British Honduras.
He also drew up a code of laws for the settlement,
in doing which he was assisted by the celebrated
navigator Cook. In the king's name he gave to the
people this "constitution," founded on their ancient
"forms and usages," a consolidation in fact of their
own simple rules of self-government, sanctioned and
approved by royal authority. Legislation by public
meetings-election of their magistrates by universal
suffrage annually-and the control of their finances were
preserved to the inhabitants. Burnaby's Code," as
it was ever afterwards known, was the Magna Charta,
Bill of Rights, and Habeas Corpus of the settlement of
British Honduras.
(c
Vice-Admiral Burnaby's constitution is a thing of
the past, but there is no colony of the empire which
can boast a more unique system of government than
the settlement of British Honduras from its foundation
to the appointment of the first representative of royalty
-the superintendent. Up to that period, although
the colonists' loyalty to the throne has never been
impugned, they were so little protected or interfered
with, that the crown element was in abeyance prac-
tically, and the small community was an instance of
government by a pure oligarchy, the governing body
elected by an annual plébiscite—the public meeting or
entire body of inhabitants, exclusive of the slaves.
The magistrates, seven in number, prior to the arrival
of a superintendent, were responsible to the public
meeting alone, and rendered an account, at least of
their financial operations, at the expiry of their term of
office.
During that term they had entire charge of the
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 41
administration of justice, collection and distribution of
the revenue, and the appointment of the few necessary
officials. Where written law was silent, custom
prevailed. The junior magistrate was coroner ex-
officio.
Robert Hodgson, Esq., was appointed Superin- 1768.
tendent of Ruatan. He was dismissed in 1775.
War broke out in 1779 between England and Spain. 1779.
The Spanish colonists in Central America had only
been waiting a favourable opportunity to recommence
their attacks upon the British, whose presence in Hon-
duras was naturally a thorn in their side. Disregarding
the agreement to give six months' notice on either
part prior to the outbreak of hostilities locally, they
took the Baymen unawares at their then principal
rendezvous at St. George's Caye.
This island is one of an extended group of coral
islets dotting the Bay of Honduras about ten miles
from Belize in an easterly direction. To-day it is a
mere strip of sand waved over by a few cocoa-nut
palms and on which are a few houses, the Caye being
still resorted to during certain favourable months of
the year as a sanatorium and bathing-place by the
wealthier Belizeians. Its former dimensions were
probably greater, but have been reduced by the action
of the sea, since it was the chief place of the settlement,
and seat of government.
The sudden attack of the Spaniards was in this
instance successful. Fortunately for some of the
settlers, H.M. ships Badger and Racehorse appeared in
the offing, and such as managed to escape were taken
on board and to Jamaica; but the greater number who
;
?
42
British Honduras.
1779.
1780.
were not captured, settled in Ruatan, then in occupation
by us.2
The captives were manacled and marched through
the country to Merida, the capital of Yucatan, back
again to the coast, and shipped to the Havana, where
they were kept in dungeons until July, 1782.
The effect of this attack was to drive a large number
of settlers from other parts of the settlement to the
Mosquito Shore, and British Honduras as such was
hardly in existence for five years after.
Revenge was taken for this attack on St. George's
Caye by the capture of the castle of Omoa by a
naval force from Jamaica. The illustrious Nelson
took part in the affair, commanding the Badger sloop.
He subsequently remained some time on the coast to
protect the inhabitants, whose thanks he received for
his services.
Omoa was abandoned in the following year, but a
more formidable expedition, in which Nelson also
shared, was organized, consisting of one line-of-battle
ship, two frigates, and two brigs of war, with flats, and
a force of two thousand men under Colonel J. Polson.
The expedition reached the port of San Juan de
Nicaragua on the 24th of March, 1780; but the corvette
Henchinbrack, commanded by young Nelson, was the
only vessel that could cross the bar of the river. Lieu-
tenant Nelson ascended the river as far as the island of
Mico. The troops were disembarked and reached the
fort of San Carlos, which they took, capturing a gar-
rison of 160 men. The Spaniards collected men from
• Gardiner, in "sketch" in Honduras Observer, 7th August,
1847.
Early Settlement of British Honduras. 43
San Miguel and elsewhere. The English suffered
greatly from the effects of the climate. Great numbers
fell sick, and many died. Reinforcements arrived
under Captains Dalrymple, Campbell, and Leith, in-
creasing the strength of the expedition to 8000.
The Lord Germain, armed flat-boat, reached the Lake
of Nicaragua, but sickness increasing, and news
arriving that further reinforcements on their way had
been compelled, owing to an outbreak of typhus fever,
to disembark at Kingston, Jamaica, the attempt was
finally abandoned, a loss of nearly one half of the force
having occurred from the deadly character of the
climate. It is probable that the design of this expe-
dition originated in more than a motive of revenge for
the successful attack on the British settlement in
Honduras at St. George's Caye in 1779; and that the
intention was to effect a permanent occupation of this
region with the object of carrying out the already
mooted project of a waterway across this portion of the
American continent. Had the result been otherwise
than disastrous, the effect upon the settlement whose
rise and progress we chronicle might have been to
materially alter its history.
In the same year the British were once more dis-
lodged from the island of Ruatan by the Spaniards of
Guatemala, and the prisoners carried away to the
Havana, to swell the numbers of the captives of 1779.
1
44
CHAPTER V.
•
1782-83.
FROM THE RETURN OF THE SETTLERS AFTER THE
CAPTIVITY AT THE HAVANA.
THE British Government had no intention of relin-
quishing the settlement. Its importance had come
to be appreciated, at least in certain quarters, as
the more explicit terms of the Treaty of Versailles
testify.
That treaty was executed on the termination of the
American War, and its article vi. contains the
following provisions:-
"The intention of the high contracting parties
being to prevent, as much as possible, all causes of
complaint and misunderstanding heretofore occasioned
by the cutting of wood for dyeing, or logwood, and
several English settlements having been formed under
that pretence upon the Spanish Continent, it is ex-
pressly agreed that his Britannic Majesty's subjects
shall have the right of cutting, loading, and carrying
away logwood lying between the River Wallis or
Belize and Rio Hondo." The article goes on to
secure to the settlers privilege to build the necessary
houses and magazines for carrying on their trade,
"provided that these stipulations shall not be con-
Return of Captives.
45
sidered as derogating in any wise from his Catholic
Majesty's rights."
1
In the same year, the garrisons at Black River 1782.
and Fort Dalling were captured by the Spaniards, who
withdrew to Cape Gracias; but a force under Colonel
Marcus Despard and Major Laurie retook the positions
immediately afterwards.
The liberation of the captives at the Havana was at
length effected by the representations of our govern-
ment in this year. Some few are said to have
returned at once to Belize, but the majority went
further south to the settlements on the Mosquito
Shore, which is a little extraordinary in view of the
events occurring in that locality narrated in the
preceding paragraph.
Not long after the treaty of 1783 was executed, the
settlement began to resume its former appearance.
Commissioners were, in 1784, appointed on either
side to regulate boundaries, and on the 27th of May, in
fulfilment of the treaty, formalities were exchanged at
the mouth of the New River, Don José Morino
Zervallez, “Brigadier of Royal Armies," and Captain-
General of the Province of Yucatan, making a formal
delivery of the lands to the British Commissioners,
Colonel Marcus Despard, Major Richard Hoare, and
Captains James McAuly, and Joseph Bartlett—
"agreeably to map and instructions I received from
my sovereign, having gone over the boundaries and
placed proper marks."
1784.
Major Hoare, one of the commissioners, remained 1784-85.
to arrange the affairs of the settlers who were now
¹ Hertslet, vol. ii. p. 237.
1
46
British Honduras.
returning to the locations they had been compelled
to abandon in 1779. He called a public meeting,
which was held for the first time at the "mouth
of the Belize River," and not at St. George's
Caye. The meeting readopted "Burnaby's Code,"
and before dissolving appointed the next public
assembly for the 1st of October following to be held at
the Haulover, where an old fort had been dismantled
in accordance with the treaty of 1763.
A characteristic incident was that of the arrival of
the Mercury, Captain Arnott, from London, with a
shipment of convicts purchased from government and
brought to Belize for sale. The Baymen would have
none of the jail-birds, and calling a special public
meeting compelled the captain to take his cargo
whence he came or where he chose.
1786-87. The colony would now appear to have reattained its
position previous to the disaster of 1779. From-vol. ii.
of Hertslet, page 247, we learn that on the 14th of
July, 1786, additional articles were added by the
Convention of London to the treaty of 1783, granting
more extended boundaries to the south. "The
Catholic king" wishing "to prove, on his side, to
the king of Great Britain, the sincerity of his senti-
ments of friendship towards his Majesty and the
British nation."
The English line now began from the sea, and,
taking the centre, proceeded up the Sibun (Sherboon
or Javon) River to its source, then across to the inter-
section of the River Wallis (Belize), thus adding nine
miles of coast-line to the settlement."
2 Art. ii., Convention of London, 1786.
Treaty Stipulations.
47
The right of cutting not dyewoods only, but, for
the first time, "not excepting even mahogany," was
granted by article iii., and also permission to gather
the fruits of the earth purely natural; but the same
article expressly stipulates that this grant is to be no
pretext for establishing any plantations of "sugar,
coffee, cocoa, or other like articles," mills, or machines,
and reserves as usual sovereign rights to the crown of
Spain, which are also again reserved in article vii. of
the same convention.
The treaty of 1783 required the evacuation by the
British of the Mosquito Shore. The settlers from
Black River, and other positions on that disputed terri-
tory, with their families and slaves, were brought to
Belize by the British Government, and among them
were the remainder of the captives liberated from the
dungeons of the Havana, who had preferred the Shore
to an immediate return to Honduras, when set free in
1782. This accession swelled the number of the in-
habitants to something like former times. A docu-
ment of the period, dated the 4th of August, 1786, is
signed by 112 persons.
On the 27th of June of that year the work of re- Col. Des-
pard, 1st
construction was completed by the holding of another Superin-
public meeting, over which the first superintendent, tendent.
Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, presided. Their
labours were confined to judicial arrangements, con-
tinued from time to time by a committee of seven, who
regulated also customs and harbour-dues. Colonel
Despard fixed his residence at the chief military
station, the Haulover.
The town of Belize was planned, regulated, and
48
British Honduras.
L
1787.
(C
enlarged, and the public meetings were then first held
at the "Court House, Belize Point."
St. George's Caye has been previously described as
the chief place of the settlement-the principal resort
of the wealthier inhabitants in former days for public
business and private retirement, when not engaged in
cutting, loading, and carrying away" their timber.
But from 1738 to 1765 there sprang up a town
at the mouth of the Belize, especially on the delta
formed by its double embouchure. Stoccadoed build-
ings were in existence, and a fort at the other outlet of
the river, the Haulover; and from Belize Point, as
well as other points in the settlement, wood was
shipped.
In 1787 the mere nucleus of a town had as yet been
formed. In this year it was laid out in lots, 50 feet
by 100 feet, and these lots were balloted for, the
lots being taken up chiefly by those who had recently
returned or newly arrived from Ruatan and the Mos-
quito Coast.
The work of reconstruction thus completed may be
looked upon as the foundation of the present colony.
But, unfortunately, a terrible hurricane visited the set-
tlement. Valuable property was injured and lives
lost. Every house in the settlement was destroyed
except one. The houses, however, at this period, it
must be remembered, were unsubstantial erections of
wood, thatched with the leaf of a species of palm. This
thatch is still known as "bay-leaf." As Honduras is
out of the ordinary track of these tropical storms, it has
been but rarely that it has suffered from a visitation of
this kind which has done similar damage.
Political Dissensions.
49
Colonel Despard, the first superintendent, found
his new government by no means a sinecure.
Dissensions were rife; and he was soon embroiled
with the high-spirited Baymen, unused to the novelty
of a representative of royalty dwelling in their midst.
They were loyal in their sentiments and conduct, but
fondly attached to their primitive oligarchy and its
simple rules of administration.
The constitution of the settlement now lost its
unique character, and assumed an anomalous one. The
oligarchical element was preserved in the retention.
of legislation by the public meeting, and the annual
election of magistrates, who continued to control the
finances, and to administer justice; but the monarchical
principle was introduced-visibly now-in the person
of the superintendent, appointed from Jamaica, but
probably nominated, or at all events approved of, at
home.3
That the two political elements should frequently
clash was what was perhaps to be expected. The
superintendent was closely watched by the magisterial
body, and they were as closely supervised by the
executive, and irritated by a control new and unac-
customed. Financial and legislative measures were
³ The Governor of Jamaica was styled in his commission
Captain-General of Jamaica and the territories thereon depend-
ing in America, i.e. the Mosquito Shore and British Honduras.
“But his jurisdiction over these settlements having been im-
perfectly defined, was seldom acknowledged by the settlers;
except when they wished to plead it in bar of the authority
claimed by their respective superintendents."-"History of
the West Indies," by Bryan Edwards, London, 1793, vol. i.
P. 124.
F
i
}
1789.
50
British Honduras.
initiated on both sides, to fall to the ground through
the opposition of one or other.
The admission of Spanish commissioners, who twice
a year came to "examine into the real situation of
things" that no forts or fortifications of any kind
were erected, the limits assigned for the cutting of
mahogany and dyewood were not exceeded, and no
plantations, beyond a certain extent, were formed, nor
any particular mode of culture pursued -as has been
already recorded, was particularly annoying to the in-
habitants, whose easily-roused spirit and ancient hos-
tility-revived by recent events-towards the South
American Spaniards required little to excite it to
action. When, therefore, in 1789 Colonel Despard,
urged by complaints made by the Spanish authorities
that the jurisdiction of the court of magistrates was
an infringement of the article vii. of the Convention
of London of 1786, and derogatory from the sovereign
rights of the king of Spain, sought to introduce a
change in the legislative and judicial system, his pro-
ceedings were strenuously opposed, and confusion and
discord-anarchy almost-took the place of the cus-
tomary peaceful tenor of the internal affairs of the
community. The superintendent was not without a few
interested supporters, who probably misled him as to
the true sentiments of the majority of the inhabitants.
It is impossible, without adequate materials to
ground one upon, to pass any opinion definitely as to
the dispute; but it is reasonable to infer that the first
superintendent was injudicious in forcing upon the
Baymen further changes in the constitution to which
4 Captain Henderson's account, 1809.
Restoration of Ancient Laws.
5 I
they were attached, before they had had time even to
become in some measure used to the alteration which
had just taken place in his own appointment. But the
superintendent had received a military training, and
may probably have looked upon the settlers as still a
band of adventurers on Spanish lands, descendants or
successors of lawless, piratical freebooters, who had not
acquired their footing on the Main in the regular way
either of peaceful colonization or legitimate military
conquest. Let these matters be how they may, " Bur-
naby's Code" was loudly demanded by the inhabitants.
1790.
Colonel
tendent.
The questions at issue between them and the
executive were eventually referred, and the result Hunter,
was in favour of the settlers. In the following year, Superin-
Colonel Peter Hunter arrived to relieve Colonel Des-
pard as superintendent, and a proclamation was at
once issued restoring its ancient laws to the settlement,
as fixed by Burnaby's Code, and calling a public
meeting to be held at "Mrs. Hodge's Tavern, North
Side," at which a new magistracy on the old plan was
returned, and peace again reigned.
Govern-
ment of
Colonel Hunter returned to Jamaica, leaving the 1791-96.
the affairs of the settlement once more in the hands
of the magistrates. To those in office at the moment Magis-
of his departure, he gave certain instructions for their
guidance, and confirmed the constitution by "an ex-
press sanction of his Majesty to it."
Since the incident of Colonel Despard's innovations,
in consequence of their representations, the periodical
visitations of Spanish Commissioners had been dis-
continued; but in the year 1791 great uneasiness per-
vaded the community on account of the attitude of the
trates.
5 2
52
British Honduras.
1795.
1796.
Col. Bar-
Spanish colonists in Yucatan, from the probability of
their pressing similar demands to those to which
Colonel Despard had yielded, by force. There were
no adequate means of defence, and, deprived of the
superintendent and commander-in-chief, they were
without a superior military officer of experience to
organize any. Application was made to Jamaica, for
another superintendent and commander-in-chief.
The practice of the African superstition of Obeah
was made a capital offence. Its occult rites had been
introduced by slaves from the other colonies; and its
incantations, potions, and general mumbo-jumboism,
are looked upon with a kind of reverent dread, little
short of awe and terror, by the descendants of the slaves
in the present day.
It was found necessary to institute a guard to
control the slaves during the annual Christmas holi-
days, the different African tribes, no doubt, occa-
sionally indulging in faction-fights. This was probably
the nucleus of the "Prince Regent's Royal Regiment
of Militia."
Ruatan, left a neglected desert by the Spaniards,
was reoccupied by the British as a penal settlement
for Caribs.
The increased warlike attitude of the Spaniards
row, Super-induced the inhabitants of British Honduras to make
further representations, which resulted in their wishes
intendent.
being acceded to, and the appointment of Colonel
Barrow as civil superintendent and military com-
mandant “to command his Majesty's subjects armed,
or that were to be armed.”
On their own part the inhabitants had laid in a
1
Impending Hostilities.
53
supply of defensive weapons for themselves, and had
also armed their slaves with pikes. It is a fact worthy
of note, that, almost from their introduction, the slaves
on the mahogany works of Honduras have been per-
mitted to carry weapons without any untoward results
to their masters on a single occasion, but that they
have uniformly used them with good effect in defence
of these same masters. The machéte, the implement
used in clearing the bush, hangs always by their side,
and though a cutlass of formidable shape in their
muscular arms, it has never been put to a bad use in
that way.
The hostile attitude of their neighbours beyond their 1797
limits, the prohibition to erect any defensive works of
a permanent character, and the disinclination of the
home government or of the authorities in Jamaica to
afford them continuous military protection, led, early in
1797, to the assembling of a public meeting to de-
liberate, "Whether this meeting do consider it most
for the interests of the community at large to continue
to carry on defensive operations for keeping possession
of the settlement, or to determine upon a general
evacuation." The question was keenly debated, and
the dernier ressort of evacuation was only prevented
being carried by fourteen votes.
Martial
Law.
“THE PORK AND DOUGH BOYS' WAR."
This year must ever be considered as memorable 1798.
in the annals of British Honduras. To the events of
that year it refers its final consolidation and legiti-
mate recognition as a settlement or colonial fragment
of the British Empire; its limits having been there
54
British Honduras.
and then determined by right of undoubted conquest,
no longer resting upon treaty boundaries with Spain,
nor its existence for the future amounting to a mere
tolerated occupation for special purposes. The second
engagement at St. George's Caye was its Bannockburn;
and, says the present colonial secretary, the Hon.
Henry Fowler, in a slight historical sketch appended
to his interesting "Narrative of a Journey across
the unexplored portion of British Honduras, 1879:"
"Few colonies can boast a history so unique or
thrilling, or give such a proof of the dogged tenacity
of the English race."
The Yucatecan ports of Bacalar and Campeché were
busy during the early portion of the year 1798 with
the preparations for an attack upon the settlement cn
a large scale. The British were to be driven from the
territory of Spain once and for all. The Baymen were
not without warning, however, of these warlike pre-
parations, or themselves unprepared to meet the im-
pending attack. The only thing was to ascertain in
what direction to look to anticipate it; a struggle for
life and for their homes they knew was before them.
It is easy to imagine the excitement that must have
seized the little community, the suspense they must
have endured. It is not possible to exaggerate the
courage and calm resolution of the small band of in-
habitants, which sustained them to await the onset
from whatever quarter it might come, rather than re-
consider their former decision, and, in face of the dan-
gers around them, adopt total evacuation in preference
to a life and death struggle.
Armed, as we have already stated, themselves and
Preparations for Defence.
55
slaves, but indifferently, and supported only by the
gunboat Merlin, they collected at St. George's Caye
flat-bottomed logwood-lighters, mounted guns in them,
and stationed them along the shoals. H.M.S. Merlin,
gun brig, Captain Moss, took up her station off St.
George's Caye, and as many coasting-vessels as could
be got together were manned and armed. For months
the scouting doreys, quick sailers, were out at sea to
warn them of the approach of the enemy, while a watch
was kept from the land side.
About the 4th to the 8th of September, the scouts
at sea reported a large naval force approaching, and the
Spanish fleet could soon be made out from the mast-
head of the Merlin as it made Caye Chappel. The Bay-
men promptly burned their houses on St. George's,
having previously removed their families and valuables
to spots less exposed, and prepared to do or die.
The Spanish fleet, commanded by Captain Boca
Negra, consisted of fourteen sail of the line and a
flotilla of flat-bottomed boats; a total of vessels
amounting to thirty-two of all rigs and sizes. Nine
vessels, and the boats, engaged in the attack; five were
held in reserve. A force of 3000 of all arms accom-
panied this fleet, and the expedition was under the
orders of General O'Neil, a field-marshal of Spain, who
was then Governor and Captain-General of Yucatan.
The Spaniards attempted to force a passage over
the Montego Shoals, with six of the heaviest vessels.
The Belize force is thus given by H. Gardiner in the
sketch of Honduras written by him for the Honduras
Observer, August 7th, 1847. Besides H.M.S. Merlin,
there were two sloops with one 18-pounder each, and
56
British Honduras.
twenty-five men; two schooners with one 6-pounder
each, and twenty-five men; seven gun-flats with one
9-pounder each, and sixteen men. Colonel Barrow
defended the Haulover with 200 men, including detach-
ments of the 6th West India and 63rd Regiments, and
of the Royal Artillery.
The engagement began on the 10th, Captain Moss
in the Merlin securing St. George's Caye at the
instant the Spaniards, with twelve of their vessels,
attempted to capture it. They thereupon (the
Spaniards) hauled their wind for Long Caye, and
then bore down-nine sail of sloops and schooners
carrying from twelve to twenty guns, including ten
24 and 18-pounders in the bow and stern of each-
upon the Belize flotilla. The contest lasted off and
on for two days, during which the most determined
bravery was displayed by the defenders. A steady
and well-directed fire was kept up from the flats sta-
tioned on the shoals, the coasting-vessels, and by the
Merlin, and the result was that the Spaniards fell back
on their reserves. A high meed of praise is due to
the gallant defenders, but it does not detract there-
from to draw the necessary inference that, had so
superior a force not been impeded by the nature of
the waters in which the engagement took place-a
circumstance also much in favour of the defence—it is
impossible but that the invasion would have had a
different termination. The execution done on the
crowded decks of the Spanish vessels by the steady,
well-managed fire from the home flotilla, reflects the
highest credit on the skill and courage of all concerned
in repulsing the attack, and this the Earl of Balcarres
Defeat of Spaniaras.
57
acknowledged on the part of the king in a despatch to
Colonel Barrow," through the Governor of Jamaica.
The Spaniards' local Armada went off with a light
southerly wind to Bacalar and Campeché, and thus
the last attempt to dispossess the settlers terminated.
Since then the crown of Spain has renewed and con-
firmed old treaties and privileges, but tacitly acknow-
ledged the right of the settlers to the territory they
had now won on the same terms as those upon which
Spain herself acquired all the American possessions—
legitimate conquest. The independent states of Cen-
tral America have never shown an inclination to
disturb the peace of the settlement, but trade and
commercè has sprung up between us and all of them.
Since September, 1798, with the exception of inroads
on the northern frontier by plunder-seeking bands
of semi-civilized Mayas, the colony has been free from
attack. The limits of the colony were extended to the
River Sarstoon, which has remained the most southern
boundary.
The “Pork and Dough Boys'" war is the local
name given to the encounter, from the fact that salt
pork and "Johnny cakes," or cakes of a doughy
consistency seasoned by fat pork, is the staple diet of
the Honduras wood-cutter. Others make it "Poke
and Do," from the Palmetto pikes handled so well by
them against the Dons; but "poke and do" is the
natural corruption in the Creole dialect for "pork and
dough."
1779 was devoted to putting things to rights. Num-
ber of magistrates restored from five to seven.
5
* Honourably mentioned, J. Paslow, Esq., and slaves.
1
户
​58
British Honduras.
ical situa-
tion.
CHAPTER VI.
DESCRIPTION.
THE limits of the colony having now been deter-
mined definitely upon the boundary-lines which are
found existing at the present time, it may be the
appropriate place to give its geographical outlines and
topography.
Geograph- It forms, in point of fact, an integral portion of the
former kingdom of Guatemala, its northern extremity
projecting into Yucatan, its southern resting on
Spanish Honduras, and the present Republic of
Guatemala forming its western frontier. It lies be-
tween 15° 53′ 55″ and 18° 29′ 5″ north latitude, and
between 18° 10′ and 89° 9′ 92" west longitude. Its
extreme length is about 180 or 190 miles, and its
average depth from the coast-line to the western fron-
tier, forty to forty-five miles. The northern boundary
is the Rio Hondo, the southern the River Sarstoon.
By a convention with the Republican Government of
Guatemala, determined by Major Ray, R.E, in 1860,
the western boundary is fixed by a line drawn from
the head of the Hondo and passing through Garbutt's
Falls to a point on the Sarstoon. The Bay or Gulf
of Honduras is numerously studded by islands and
Geographical Description.
59
protected by a long line of coralline reef. Area, 6250
miles-4,000,000 acres.
The coast-line fronting the bay, after a deep in- Coast-line.
dentation to the mouth of the New River, runs boldly
out in the promontory of Rocky Point for about
eighteen miles, and when this headland is rounded,
continues in an uninterrupted line of coast due south
for 160 miles to the southern limit.
The entire seaboard is protected, as above stated, by
the parallel line of reefs running north and south at
a distance of about ten miles from the main land,
forming a natural breakwater, and rendering navi-
gation of the coast safe for vessels of light draught;
but for 100 miles to the south of Belize there is a
depth of three fathoms' soundings close in shore.
The district is intersected by numerous rivers, all Rivers.
navigable for craft of light draught. The Hondo and
New River run almost due north, trending east a
little from their source. The Northern River has a
short course due east from Cutter's Lagoon to the sea.
The centre of the region is watered by the Old or
Belize River and its tributary streams. Its course is
very tortuous, first running north from its rise and
then winding east and south to the coast. The re-
maining streams flow eastward from the interior-the
Sibun, Sittee, Manatee, Sarstoon, and Mullins River,
some of them taking their rise in a spur of the Cocks-
comb Mountains. The River Belize, from its em-
bouchure at the town of Belize to the fork or
"branch," allowing for sinuosities, is estimated at
150 miles-75 miles with the crow. The breadth at
Orange Walk" is 187 feet; depth, 3 feet, 6 feet,
60
British Honduras.
9 feet, 6 feet, 3 feet, at different points across.
At the
Haulover, or upper outlet to the sea, it is 600 feet,
and 10 feet deep. At Belize Bridge it is 121 feet by
8 feet, 11 feet, 6 feet, the depths across.
NAVIGABLE DISTANCE UP THE SEVERAL RIVERS.
60 miles.
Hondo, navigable from its bar towards source
•
New River
60
39
""
Old River
120
""
"9
"
Sibun
30
""
Manatee
16
""
""
""
Mullins
16
""
Sittee
. 16
""
""
18
""
10
""
""
North Stann Creek
Sarstoon, navigable
The smaller rivers for a few miles-all of them.¹
The water at the flood rises in some places twenty,
thirty-five, and forty feet in the main river, and in the
creeks ten and twenty feet. The following elevations
are deduced from barometrical observations made by
the late Samuel Cockburn, Esq., police-magistrate of
the settlement, a native of one of the West Indian
islands, who made geology and meteorology his studious
recreations:—


Point on
Belize River.
Distance
from
mouths.
Height from | Height from | Height from
sea-level
to water's
edge.
sea-level
to top of
bank.
top of bank.
level of
stream to
Orange Walk
90 miles
32 feet.
60 feet.
28 feet.
Young Gal's Bank ....
93
34
6 in.
68
10 in.
34
Mount Hope
100
172
3
207
10
35
7 in.
"
33
Between "Spanish
Look Out" and 106
173
242
""
69,, 7,
Duck Run
¹ Honduras Almanac, W. G. Wilson, 1880.
.
Geological Description.
61
*
The hydrographic basin of the northern portion of
the Belize River district is much lower than the river
itself. Consequently, in the rainy season, much of the
country is under water. The creeks and lagoons, their
waters pushed back by the main-river flood, overflow
and inundate the valleys between the intervening ridges
or elevated lands. But, according to Mr. Cockburn,
"The lands are slowly rising as much from the detritus
brought down by the river as from the gentle influence
of internal forces, and, in the course of time, even the
lagoons will silt up and become dry, so that in after-
ages the whole will become a rich bottom, covered with
alluvial deposits of the most productive kind, in the
same manner as the existing ridges were before they
were elevated to their present height. As the river
is ascended, the banks on either side rise in a gentle
acclivity. The limestone formation crops out here and
there, embedded in a concretion of coarse calcareous
grit, mixed with iron oxide, silicates, and feldspathic
breccia, covered with thick layers of marl, loam, and
clay, and overtopped by silt and detritus of the river.
The formation about the Old River may be described
as a marine limestone of the tertiary period. The
sand of the river indicates, under the microscope, par-
ticles of granite, basalt, and other igneous rock, mica,
feldspar, and iron pyrites. These are, of course, not
in situ, but the result of rain-washings, and trans-
ported by the river from beds of conglomerate in the
interior, and the disintegrated sides of mountains.
The formation is undoubtedly a marine limestone of
the tertiary period, but of a soft, coarse, and impure
description, more of a sort of calcareous breccia, in
!
62
British Honduras.
some places not unlike the calcaire grossier of the Paris
basin, and so recent, geologically speaking, as hardly
yet to have acquired a consistency beyond indurated
calcareous marl.'
Fragments of shells procured by Mr. Cockburn at
Young Gal Bank, ninety-three miles from the sea,
find their analogues in existing species of volutæ
obtained in the waters of the neighbouring bay-
showing how very recent the formation is, probably
"posterior to the pleistocene of the tertiary.”
""
The banks of the river, except at the clearings, are
clothed with the dense foliage of the prickly bamboo,
and some distance up, the river is obstructed by shoals.
and rapids. River craft of light draught, such as pit-
pans or flat-bottomed canoes, navigate its whole course,
and there are numerous clearings or banks from
the mouth to the source at intervals. Logwood is
brought down in canoes or "bark logs," and mahogany
floated down almost from the source, when there is a
sufficiently high flood. As yet the cultivation at the
"banks" is limited. The land is undulating, rising in
a gentle slope of cahoon and pine-ridges up to the
base of the Blue Mountains of Guatemala. The entire
population of the Old River district may be roughly
estimated at ten thousand.
The prevailing type of formation for the whole
colony is tertiary. The soil is a varying depth of
clayey loam, overtopped with rich black mould and a
subsoil of calcareous marl, the pine-ridges having a
layer of sand. It does not appear that the laminated
formation of limestone extends to the cayes or islands
2 Cockburn, "Rough Notes," 1867-69.
Geological Description.
63
which group themselves at various distances from the
main throughout the bay, but that these are accumula-
tions of river-silt and detritus, covered with sand and over-
grown with mangrove-bush; some remaining perfectly
submerged while others are more solid. The waters
around them abound in fish and crustacea, mollusca,
radiata, sponges, sea-fans, pumice-stone, and fusi and
algæ. Near the mainland the floor of the sea is
covered with soft mud, to seaward it is fine calcareous
sand.
For a few miles inwards from the coast, the country
is low and swampy, abounding in profuse vegetation and
with numerous lagoons. The swamps and lagoons are
thickly grown with the mangrove (rhizophora mangle)
of which there are three varieties, the red, white, and
black; manchineel (hippomane mancinella), poponax,
and button-wood, &c., &c. As we ascend the rivers,
however, we find ourselves encompassed by lofty banks
consisting of alluvial deposits, and at moderate distances
from the rivers are the "pine-ridges," so familiar to
the inhabitants of the southern states of North
America.
Towards the western, and particularly the south-
western boundary, the region developes table-lands
and plateaux. The range of mountains beginning at
Sibun and running nearly parallel to the coast, are
clothed with verdure to their summits, but at right
angles to these are others veiled in mist rising behind,
higher and higher, in amphitheatrical form, whose
conical peaks proclaim their volcanic birth. The
highest point is in the Cockscomb, 4000 feet of eleva-
tion.
64
British Honduras.
Southern
District.
The whole coast from Sibun to Sarstoon, 103 miles,
is intersected by the rivers already enumerated and
many smaller creeks. The rivers rising in the hills
have short runs to the sea, and are navigable for
smaller vessels some distance from their mouths. In
most places the shore is still marshy and covered with
vegetation, but there are numerous strips of sandy
beaches, as for example, Stann Creek, Punta Gorda,
and Commerce Bight, upon which the Caribs build
their villages, and where the land slopes gently in-
wards and the streams run over pebbles and clean
brown sand. Such strips, sometimes of considerable
extent, are admirably adapted for cocoa-nut walks,
behind them there is alluvial land for ranchos and
plantations, and only requiring to be approached and
opened up; behind that, again, the mountain-slopes and
hill-sides suitable for coffee and cacoa.
The formation is regularly stratified, and consists of
indurated argillaceous limestone (Cockburn) in laminæ
between thin beds of fine clay; superstratum, clayey
loam of varying thickness; top-dressing of rich black
mould with sand on the pine and cahoon ridges.
Probably, the most valuable districts are these
cahoon-ridges, in which abound cedar and mahogany,
and the cahoon-palm, valuable on account of the oil to
be extracted from its nuts. The soil of these ridges is
richest virgin. They occupy two-fifths of the area of
the colony, and are scattered over it, varying in size
from a quarter of a mile wide to twelve and twenty
miles square; some situated near the coast, others in
the heart of the country.
As the washings from the hills in the southern
#
Geological Description.
65
portion of the colony will give a constant supply of
carbonates, silicates, and the phosphates arising from
the decomposition of the limestone, the lands in that
district will remain fertile, and will produce over and
over again crops such as sugar-cane without be-
coming exhausted. Increased attention to agriculture
must in time fill up the thinly-populated district of
the south, most of which, with the exception of a few
large and a few small sugar estates, is left to Caribs.
South Snake Caye was (1867) an example of the
palpable operations of the tiny coral insects in their
labour of construction, which an attentive observer
could discern for himself. The stalactite caves of
Manatee are objects of curiosity. There are others at
Indian Creek on the Sibun, described by Captain
Henderson as "sublime."
district.
The northern district, or that portion of the colony Northern
the correct southern boundary of which is Northern
River, is a dead flat, with the exception of a few small
hillocks or ridges, and some shallow basins with a very
gentle incline from the western frontier to the sea—a
plain of about one thousand square miles. There are
several lagoons, but comparatively few swamps. The
soil is a vegetable mould (humus) some twelve or
eighteen inches deep, subsoil stony marl. Sinking
wells at Corozal, the principal place in the district,
madrepores have been found at a depth of thirty feet,
and more recently a bed of fossil oysters was come
upon at Caledonia, on New River, seventeen feet below
the surface.
River.
The New River, flowing in a north-westerly direc- New
tion from its source, in the same watershed as the Old
F
66
British Honduras.
Northern
River.
The
Hondo.
The Sibun.
River, near the centre of the western frontier, is the
principal highway for travel up country. It runs
from the lagoon at Indian Church down to the bight
at Corozal (Rowley's Bight), and its course is exactly
parallel with the Rio Hondo (which forms the north.
and north-western boundary of the colony); for some
seventy miles navigable for small craft. It is a dull,
sluggish stream, without rapids, and never overflows,
consequently the alluvium on its banks cannot com-
pare with the deposits on the margins of the other
rivers to the south.
Northern River is a short stream by which a lagoon
empties itself into the sea. It is encompassed by rich
land.
The Hondo, as its name signifies, is the deepest river
in the settlement. Its lower bank has been occupied
by us from an early date of the settlement for fifty miles
up. Large vessels not drawing too much water-like
the Spanish bungays-navigate it for a considerable
distance from the mouth.
All the rivers have bars at their entrance, which are
very obstructive to navigation. The source of the
Sibun is not yet determined. British settlers occupy
it for 120 miles of its course.
The left branch near
the source disappears for some distance in the sand.
It is perhaps the river whose banks are most diversi-
fied of all those the colony boasts, and at points the
scenery loses the monotonous character of the other
riverain regions, and becomes picturesque. It is only
navigable, except for small canoes, a short distance up;
and although its banks are said to be lined with good
wood, it is next to an impossibility to get the logs out.
Rivers-Towns.
67
The district is mountainous, and the flood rises and
falls very suddenly.
That portion of the colony lying between the Hondo
and a line drawn from Belize to Indian Church,
embraces a region the formation of which consists of thin
surface-soil, the decayed droppings of trees over a sub-
soil of indurated marl. The uplands are so far interior.
that very little of their débris reaches this district, unlike
the southern, in which the surface-soil is alluvial from
the greater contiguity of high lands. At Indian Church
the limestone crops up, and beyond the Hondo the Yu-
catecan hills arise. To the west, about Booth's River,
the Bravo, and the Blue Creek (tributaries of the Hondo),
the marl has a top soil of blue clay under the surface-
soil. The absence of alluvium and detritus in the
northern district is manifestly owing to the slower
currents of the rivers.
It
This district is more populous than that lying to the Towns:
south of the Sibun. Corozal is, properly speaking, an Corozal.
Indian or Yucatecan town, with a population of be-
tween two and three thousand, and has several sugar-
ranchos in its neighbourhood. It lies in the bight
beyond Rocky Point, close to New River mouth.
can never be a place of much importance commercially,
not being approachable by large vessels from sea, but
it may and probably will become an agricultural centre
and depôt for a bartering kind of trade with Yucatan.
Further up the New River are the villages of Orange
Walk and San Estevan, similar in character to Corozal,
and differing only in size and population.
4
• There are New River Orange Walk and Old River Orange
Walk.
F 2
68
British Honduras.
►
Towns, &c.
The district of Corozal and New River, as far as the
Hondo boundary, is dotted with "ranchos" and
milpas," upon which sugar, corn (maize), rice,
ground provisions, and fruits, are raised.
(C
Ambergris Caye, a large island opposite the northern
portion of the coast-line, is very suitable for settlement
and agriculture. It is at present thinly populated.
The southern district has no towns, and little else
continued. beyond Carib villages, and the houses of the labourers
on the several sugar estates carried on in the
district.
The town of Belize, viewed from the harbour, is
extremely pretty; its jalousied, chimneyless houses, and
public buildings, churches, assembly-rooms, court-
house, &c., nestling among the palms and oleanders;
the mountains to the south in the hazy distance; the
distant cayes looming out to sea, those closer looking
brightly green in the noonday sun; and the harbour
enlivened by shipping of all rigs and sizes. It is built
on the banks of the river for about half a mile up,
and sweeps north and south along the shore from the
mouth of the river. The river is spanned by a neat and
substantial bridge, one originally constructed in 1797,
rebuilt higher up in 1816-18, and the present one
completed and opened in 1859.
The northern half of the town is built on an island
or delta formed by the double embouchure of the river.
There are the barracks (Newtown), the public hospital,
and jail (brick-built,) the Belize Estate Company's
(formerly the British Honduras Company) buildings
and "barquedier," St. Mary's church, Baptist, and
second Wesleyan chapel, and Roman Catholic church.
Public Buildings.
69
In the centre of the town, one of the most enterprising
merchants, Mr. C. T. Hunter, has erected a brick
house three storeys high, regardless of earthquakes.
On the south side are the court-house, finished in 1880
(the former building was pulled down in 1878, having
lasted since 1819, and the mahogany logs dug from
its foundation were found in as good "heart" as they
were when laid down), the house of assembly,
government-house, and a handsome Wesleyan chapel
of brick. St. John's Church (1812) is also built of
brick. The town is kept very clean, and has a decent
market, several handsome stores and commodious
private dwellings. Population of the colony by the
census of 1881: white, 375; coloured, 27,077; total,
27,452.
Beyond the natural waterways of the region, the in-
ternal communications of the colony are in a very back-
ward state. Outside the towns and villages there is
nothing worthy the name of a road; one is in course of
construction from Belize, by the present disgraceful
Haulover road, to Peten, but the course selected for it is
the subject of much dispute, and it is doubtful if, when
finished, it will prove of advantage to the colony. At
present, travellers into the interior are condemned to
follow mere bush-tracks and mahogany truck-paths,or
resort to the picturesque pitpan, or historical canoe of
the days of Bartolomé Columbus. The importance
of the improvement in internal communications
towards the development of the colony cannot be
exaggerated.
The sculptured and hieroglyphic remains of Mexico, Archæo-
Guatemala, and Yucatan, are not to be found within logy.
70
British Honduras.
!
the limits of British Honduras, but the Indian tumuli,
akin to the "barrows" of Great Britain and European
continental countries, yield earthenware and stone
relics, and human remains. These tumuli are found
about the banks of the rivers.
71
CHAPTER VII.
HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT RESUMED.
PROGRESS FROM 1800 TO 1830.
"VALOROUS enterprise, a manly, noble, and laudably
ambitious daring, first gave the settlers a footing from
the shores of Campeché to Cape Gracias á Dios, and
the same indomitable perseverance and indefatigable
pursuit after wealth, under circumstances of difficulty
and danger, have given them the most unexceptionable
right to the very small portion of Honduras which they
now possess. So writes Mr. Henry Gardiner of
Belize, in the Honduras Observer of the 7th of August,
1847, with reasonable pride in the colony of which he
was an inhabitant; and we fancy all who have followed
our imperfect record of its early history will coincide
with him. Although forming an integral portion of
the Spanish conquests in America geographically,
British Honduras never politically belonged to Spain,
was never occupied by Spaniards, but was found by
the British in possession of Indian tribes. In fact,
Yucatan itself has never been entirely conquered by
the Spaniards, and the "guerra de castas" is continued
to-day from the time of Grijalva and Montejo.
Up to the point at which we have arrived, the record
WorM
72
British Honduras.
}
:
1800.
Colonel
Barrow
Superin-
tendent to
August,
1800.
1801.
1
Sir B. Bas-
of the early settlement of the region is one of con-
tinuous struggle against not only hostile and jealous
neighbours, but against the rugged aspect nature
presents in these climes, dense jungle, tempestuous
weather, and—to toil in-a trying climate. That
struggle had been manfully sustained by the Baymen,
and now, from the opening of the present century, the
history becomes one of peaceful progress, advance in
civilization, and improvement in social characteristics
and political institutions.
The period from 1800 to 1830 may be looked upon
as the halcyon days of the settlement. Internal peace
was chequered by the perhaps wholesome excitement
of constitutional changes, but exempt from external
attack. At each alteration made in their "ancient
usages and customs," the spirited Baymen and back-
woodsmen chafed, and roused themselves whenever an
injudicious superintendent or law-official pulled too
hard on the curb; but in the long-run they proved
themselves consistently a loyal, law-abiding com-
munity.
During the first decade of the present century,
England was engaged in the Napoleonic war: it was
therefore hardly to be looked for, while Wellington
was at the head of combined forces of Englishmen and
Spaniards, driving the French out of the Peninsula,
that the Spanish colonists should renew their attempts
to expel British subjects from land now theirs by
conquest. For years to come the settlers enjoyed
immunity from foreign aggression.
In the year above named they established a currency
set, Supt. in which fines were made payable, instead of in logwood.
MOU
0.
Superintendents—Population.
73
1800-1802.
About this time, the Governor of Jamaica, Colonel August,
Nugent, sent a Captain Corbett to Honduras to report Captains
upon its capabilities.' He remained some time, and Leeson
ascended both the Belize and Sibun Rivers.
report if he made any, has not seen the light, nor pro-
duced any visible result.
and
His McDonald,
ad interim.
1803.
Colonel
The first permanent fortification was constructed on
an island, formed principally of English soil, discharged Barrow
as ballast, on the north side of the river-mouth. Supt.
1804
It was named Fort George. Duty first imposed on Colonel
imported liquors.
Gordon,
Supt.
1805.
Colonel
In the year following, Colonel Gordon was succeeded
by Colonel Mark Kerr Hamilton. Proper regulations Hamilton.
for slave courts were drawn up, and these courts Superin-
placed on a right footing.
Intercourse of an amicable character appears at this
time to have been carried on between the authorities
of Belize and Merida (Yucatan), by means of Indian
couriers.
According to Captain Henderson, an officer of the
5th West India Regiment stationed at Belize about
this time, who was officially sent on a mission to
Mosquitia, and who has written a short account of
Honduras and his trip to the Mosquito Coast, 1806,
the then Captain-General of Yucatan was a generally
esteemed, amiable Spanish gentleman.
From the same authority we learn that the popula-
tion then was 200 pure whites, 500 free persons of
colour, and 3000 slaves, but no census had been
recently taken.
According to more definite statistics
from other sources, we take the three years-
tendent.
1806.
}
1 Henderson.
2 London, 1809.
74
British Honduras.
1802. Free
735
Slaves
2146
Total
2881
1803.
Total
3500
•
1805. Free
•
1098
Slaves
2540
Total
•
3638
The revenue was at this time about 6000l. to 70001.
annually, derived from the tonnage and harbour-dues
(31. on each ship), duties, fines, licences, and a tax on
transient traders. Dry goods, cutlery, glassware and
crockery, and salt meat, were imported from Europe;
flour, salt pork and fish, potatoes, and provisions
generally, from America. Upon mahogany shipped to
the United States, both from Jamaica and Honduras,
there was a restriction as to the size of the logs. The
following is a statement of wood shipped in the years.
1802-5, from newspaper reports:-

Year.
Mahogany.
Logwood.
Feet.
Tons.
1802
2,125,000
698
1803
4,500,000
900
1804
6,481,000
1412
1805
2,434,000
1268
No reason is assigned for the falling off in 1805.
As cattle were now beginning to be used in the wood-
Slaves: Labour and Value.
75
cutting operations, a trade with the south and the
interior sprang up in cattle and mules for use in truck-
ing-out, and this was also, probably, the beginning of
a reciprocal business in general merchandize, which
eventually led to the port of Belize becoming a depôt
for European and American manufactures.
Twice a year application was made to Jamaica for a
convoy for the Honduras merchant fleet.
Henderson alludes to the great wealth of the free
inhabitants, white and coloured, in his time. The
latter class were slave-owners as well as the whites.
He also remarks that the slaves of Honduras pos-
sessed "indulgences not granted to their condition in
any other country." According to the same authority,
the value of a slave on importation was 120l. to 1607.
currency; when trained, his value increased to
2001. and 3007. The annual cost of a slave (he
estimates in detail) amounted to 251. to 30l. a year.
Saturday was the slave's own to employ as he liked,
but his owner allowed him 3s. 4d. currency, for
every Saturday he worked for him. The slaves' rations
on mahogany work were five pounds of pork and seven
pounds of flour, with sugar and tobacco-the same
as to-day, less the luxuries. The arrangements for
domestics were of course different, but all slaves were
housed and clad, as well as fed by their masters.
At Christmas, when the season's work of cutting,
hauling, manufacturing and bringing out was over,
the slaves were allowed from three weeks' to a month's
licence to enjoy the pleasures of town in Belize, accord-
ing to the respective ideas of what was enjoyment
peculiar to the several tribes. These congregated in
•
76
British Honduras.
1
separate bodies, and followed the African rites they
had brought with them, but all displaying the same
wonderful endurance in undergoing the fatigues of
dissipation that they undoubtedly did in sustaining
those of toil-"keeping it up" day and night.
Amongst other questionable results deducible from
slavery-times, this of keeping festivity going all night
as well as all day, clings to the celebration of the
Christmas holiday still. Music and dancing and the
extravagant consumption of gunpowder by discharging
it from their shot-guns, were common to all the tribes.
Pitpan-races on the river formed a much more interest-
ing and agreeable feature of the carnival, and a prettier
aquatic sight cannot be witnessed in any quarter of
the globe.
The mahogany pitpan is a long, narrow "dug-out,"
drawing only a few inches of water in the centre, rising
to square ends bow and stern, and peculiarly adapted
for river navigation, in which of all sizes it is employed
to transport supplies from Belize to the works up-river,
and logwood from thence to Belize. In antiquity it
probably yields to no known specimen of naval archi-
tecture, having been found in use among the aboriginal
tribes at the Spanish discovery of this part of America.
Some of them are fitted with permanent awnings in
the middle, rather aft.
On race-days the largest pitpans are manned by
crews of from twenty to forty paddlers, appropriately
dressed and representing rival mahogany firms. The
crew is placed forward, the steersman right aft,
guiding the craft with the utmost nicety by a light
stroke of his paddle, or a peculiar turn or twist of its
St. John's Church founded.
77
blade in the water. The crews keep excellent time,
the thirty or forty hands clutching the notch in the
top of the paddle, rising in the air together as if moved
by machinery, with a one-two, or a one-two-three
stroke as the leader chooses. The excitement of the
crowd lining the river-banks is very great, and the
whole scene is as lively and picturesque a regatta as
any river in the world can provide.
1810.
Lieut.-Col.
The time for the election of magistrates was altered
from May to January 1st, the poll closing on the J. Nugent
31st of December previously.
Smyth,
Supt.
tendent.
The year 1812 is memorable for the erection of the 1811-12.
first Protestant church in Central America. In that Colonel
Smyth,
year Colonel Smyth laid the foundation-stone of the Superin-
Protestant episcopal church of St. John the Baptist, on
the site of the old barracks at Yarborough, the southern
end of the town of Belize. It still remains; a neat,
plain, brick erection, with a square tower (or rather now
the stump of a tower).
As far back as 1786, the chaplain of the united settle-
ment of British Honduras and the Mosquito Shore had
drawn attention to the subject of the ecclesiastical, and
also the judicial establishments. But, as we have seen,
that period was one of rapidly-occurring events, and
the Rev. Mr. Shaw's plans were in abeyance until 1810,
when it was decided in solemn assembly, that the
Protestant religion known under the form and desig-
nation of the Church of England should be the domi-
nant religion of the settlement, and an endowment was
vested for the support of a clergyman, and the church
to be erected. The superintendent gave a grant of land
3
3 Almanacs.
78
British Honduras.
!
1813.
1814.
1815-16.
Colonel
Arthur,
tendent.
and the advowson (an advowson donative with cure of
souls-incumbency by presentation, institution or in-
duction) vested in the gift of the magistrates for the time
being; churchwardens being appointed by the public
meeting which resolved itself into a vestry annually
for the purpose.
The church thus established was
included in the diocese of Jamaica. The endowment
was 4001. per annum-3001. for the priest's stipend,
1007. for a clerk.
It is singular that this pious work was hardly com-
pleted when, next year, another terrible hurricane
visited the settlement.
Government House was built on its present site close
to St. John's church. Although frequently repaired,
it is still an existing evidence of the durability of the
timbers of the country in its posts and uprights.
The old treaties between England and Spain were
renewed, and the conditions bearing reference to Hon-
duras remained unaltered. The Spaniards, however,
never made any further claim to the territory, and
trade had sprung up between British and Spanish
colonists, convenient to both and enriching the Belize
traders, so that they by-and-by began to vie with the
mahogany merchants in the race for wealth.
Education next received attention, and a free school
was founded in 1816. In the same year a king of the
Superin- Mosquito Coast was crowned with much ceremony of
the semi-ludicrous order at Belize. A recurrence of a
similar investiture will receive more detailed descrip-
tion. A bridge across the River Belize was begun at
Belize this year.
1817.
It would appear that this is the year in which the
Grants of Land first recorded.
79
crown first made grants of land on a proper system of
record. Grants had previously been made after 1798.
The landing of some revolted negroes from Barbados
was opposed by the inhabitants. The raising of the
Prince Regent's Royal Regiment of Militia belongs to
this year.
A new court-house was erected in 1819, and a 1818-19.
criminal court established by imperial Act of Parlia-
ment. The superintendent was also now appointed
under royal letters patent; so that the settlement
assumed the recognized status of a colonial dependency
attached to Jamaica.
Eboe Town, a section of the town of Belize reserved
for that African tribe, was destroyed by fire.
The new bridge at Belize across the river was com-
pleted and opened for traffic.
Commodore Aury's independent squadron, says the
Almanac, anchored off the Triangles, a group of
islands a few miles south of Belize, after attacking and
plundering Yzabal. The following year he treated
Trujillo and Omoa in the same fashion. The commo-
dore carried letters of marque, but was nothing else
but a French pirate of the Paul Jones type, confining
his depredations to Spanish property. A public hos- 1820-21.
pital was instituted in 1820, and in 1821 a lighthouse
was erected on Half-Moon Caye.
Meanwhile a great change had been steadily pro- 1821-23.
gressing to its legitimate issue in the neighbouring
Spanish countries of Mexico and Central America.
Guatemala took the initiative of giving effect to the
liberal ideas spreading amongst these populations,
originally most likely from the United States. On the
80
British Honduras.
Martial
Law.
Major-
Gen. Pye,
Supt.
1823.
15th September, 1821, at the palace of the Audencia,
the independence of the state was proclaimed.
Iturbide, emperor of Mexico, which country had
already thrown off allegiance to Spain, but preserved
the monarchical form of government, succeeded in
defeating the liberals of Guatemala, and the supremacy
of the ephemeral emperor was declared, on the 5th
of January, 1822, over the whole of New Spain.
But Iturbide's fall was not long delayed, and the
five intendencias of Guatemala, San Salvador, Hon-
duras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, agreed together to
adopt the system of government of the United States
of America, and formed a federal republic, based
on popular representation and independent state
organization.
The superintendent, Colonel Arthur, who was also
military commandant, seems to have involved himself
in some unpleasantness with his military subordinates,
and Major de la Houssaye and the other officers of
the 2nd West India Regiment refused to obey orders.
Martial law was proclaimed and existed from Decem-
ber 19th, 1821, to January 16th, 1822.
Discontent must have spread to the civilians, as we
find a record of a memorial against Colonel Arthur,
who was recalled this year (1822), and succeeded by
Major-General Pye. Colonel Arthur's subsequent
statements against the settlers, drew from them a
reply dated 1823.
The Mosquito Shore evacuated in compliance with
Mosquitia. the stipulations of the treaty of 1773, the British
Government still remained anxious to preserve its
influence in that quarter for reasons of its own.
Poyais Expedition.
81
Since the evacuation, therefore, the most friendly
relations had been maintained with the half-civilized
tribes inhabiting it. Captain Henderson, whose ac-
count of Honduras has more than once been referred
to, paid the Shore an official visit during his term of
service in this part of the world. He was sent in the
schooner Huntress, in 1804, to convey a variety of
presents ordered by the government for the chiefs of
the Mosquito nation. He describes the Waiknas as a
docile, but debased race, much given to donning cast-
off uniforms, preferring, however, the upper garments
and discarding the continuations. The chiefs and
nobles were flattered by us, the kings successively
pensioned and provided with a kind of keeper or
guardian, euphemistically called a private secretary.
Blewfields, the capital of Mosquitia, is built on a
river and lagoon of the same name.
Baron Bulow, in
furnishing to the London Pictorial Times, 1847, an
account of a Prussian settlement near it, describes the
situation as "beautiful." In it were the residence of
the king (then named George II.) and of his secretary,
Patrick Walker, Esq.; over the latter floated the
royal standard of England. Notwithstanding re-
peated attempts, the Spaniards never succeeded in
subjugating the territory. In 1820 Sir George
McGregor was created cacique of Poyais by royal
deed at the court of Cape Gracias á Dios: upon the
strength of this he claimed absolute control of that
part of the kingdom. One result of this was a project
to found an English settlement on the Rio Tinto or
Black River of the Poyais.
The scheme was most ridiculously managed, and
G
82
British Honduras.
1824-25.
the bubble soon burst. The scattered remnants of its
dupes, military armament, theatrical company and all,
were to be discovered in exile about the Bay thirty
years after.
In 1823 the most helpless of the victims were re-
moved to Belize, and the Baymen received the royal
approval of their humane conduct in coming to the
rescue of their unfortunate and misled fellow-country-
men. About 250 souls perished in the attempt to
colonize.
The coronation of King Robert of Mosquito,
took place at Belize on the 23rd of April, 1825.
King Robert, whom Henderson saw as a youth, had
been educated at Jamaica. His father was assassi-
nated by Prince Stephen, his intriguing brother.
Previous to the coronation ceremony, the rite of
baptism was administered to several of the chiefs.
(caciques), they taking the names of celebrated indi-
viduals, as Lord Rodney, Lord Nelson, from the font.
The coronation was followed by a repast, at which the
newly-baptized and regenerate heathen nobility got
royally drunk. Dunn, in his History of Guatemala,
thus describes the scene: "The smutty chiefs were
all ranged in state at the court-house, and had
undergone a complete metamorphosis; they were now
attired in cast-off coats of artillery and infantry officers,
and their appearance was anything but imposing.
The king, accompanied by British officers, went to
fetch the general (Major-General Codd, his Majesty's
superintendent), who returned with them and joined
the procession, as follows: public officers (civil)—
mounted officers of the garrison-general-the priest
Legislative Assembly.
83
-the king, with General Codd on his right, Major
Nicholls on his left-the crown-merchants and in-
habitants of Belize.'
A commission to inquire into the mode of legal pro-
cedure of the settlement, arrived this year in H.M.S.
Valorous, Captain the Earl of Huntingdon. The first
printing establishment was set up, and a society for
the promotion of Christian knowledge established.
A road for cattle to the Haulover was cut.
This year is noticeable for the first visit of the
bishop of the diocese. Bishop Lipscombe consecrated
the church of St. John, and also held a confirmation
service.
In this year Canning uttered his celebrated boast,
"I called into existence the kingdoms of the New
World to redress the balance of the Old! Great
Britain recognized the republics of Central and South
America.
1826.
St. George's Caye submerged by a tidal wave 1827-28.
during a hurricane. The Rev. Mr. Newport arrived
as settlement-chaplain.
The garrison of Belize seized Ruatan. H.M.S. 1829.
Rangoon and cutter Chatham surveyed the coast by McDonald,
Major A.
order of the admiralty.
Hitherto there had been no trouble between the
executive and legislative bodies, but during the acting
commission of Major Alexander McDonald and that of
his successor en permanence, Colonel Francis Cockburn,
the accord was not maintained.
The public meeting (now beginning to call itself the
legislative assembly), was undoubtedly a mere
"creature of usage," as it has been called by a
Acting
Supt.
G 2
84
British Honduras.
secretary of state (despatch to the Governor of Jamaica
by the Secretary of State for Colonies, Downing Street,
30th December, 1842), but from time immemorial it
had assumed legislative functions-" from the earlier
days when the settlers, being under no regular govern-
ment, took the opportunity of their assembling
together on the coast, for the purpose of shipping
their mahogany and logwood, to make regulations for
the well-being of their community." And this assump-
tion of legislative power, as well as the investiture of
the annually-elected magistrates with judicial functions,
and the control of the finances, had been tolerated by
successive secretaries of state and the superintendents
appointed as yet. Interference with these rights now
irritated the settlers. But the state of political
feeling does not appear to have affected the prosperity
of the settlement :-
Year.
Revenue.
Expenditure.
£
£
1824
14,346
8,486
1825
16,000) (round
10,580
1826
16,000 figures)
8,253
1827
16,825
24,830
1828
16,000
(round
16,275
1829
16,000 figures)
16,473
• Memorandum to the Earl of Aberdeen, Secretary of State
for the Colonies, from Colonel Cockburn, 1835.
Statistics.
85
SHIPMENTS OF WOOD, ETC.
5,500,000 feet.
1824, Mahogany
1825,
1826,
1827,
•
5,783,590
>>
6,379,000
>>
7,743,486
Cedar
Logwood
Tortoise-shell.
15,643
1,856 tons.
1,386 lbs.
>>
Sarsaparilla
Indigo
•
19,753
183,960
"
Cochineal
63,551
(Duty on mahogany, £3 16s. per ton.)
1825, Cedar
", Logwood
Tortoise-shell.
2,196 tons.
4,825
39
3,915 lbs.
From London Prices Current.
Average price, Mahogany, 187. per M. feet.
""
>>
>>
""
Logwood, 67. to 6l. 5s. per ton.
Tortoise-shell, 17. 19s. to 27. 2s. per lb.
Sarsaparilla, 2s. 6d. to 3s. per lb.
Indigo, 3s. to 5s. per lb.
Cochineal, 12s. 6d. to 14s. per lb.
Vessels, 1st July to 31st December, 1827.
British 25, French 1-26 Inwards, 6496 tons.
""
40,
1-41 Outwards 10,731 tons.
The population in 1826 was 5,197. In 1829, 3,833. Falling
off unexplained.
To the above returns of trade must be superadded
the transit trade of transient traders who paid a tax,
the trade with North America, and that with the new
republics, which had sprung up since the substitution
of an ad valorem duty of five per cent. on the abolition
of the old prohibitory one of thirty-three per cent. on
foreign goods imposed by the jealous commercial
policy of old Spain.
86
British Honduras.
CHAPTER VIII.
CROWN v. COLONY, 1830-42.
1830-39. THE crown had now begun to adopt quite a different
policy with regard to the settlers and their institutions.
King Log had come at last.
1835.
means
In 1835, Colonel Cockburn directed Mr. Thomas
Miller, the keeper of the records, to draw up a
memorandum showing the difficulties the superinten-
dent had to deal with in his administration of the
affairs of the settlement, judicial, financial, and econo-
mical. The memorandum, after a by no
accurate topographical description, and account of the
trade, products, inhabitants, &c., enters at length upon
the question of the tenure of the soil, advocating nego-
tiations being opened with Spain for a full cession of
the territory before the neighbouring republics put in
claims. The memorandum was addressed to the Earl of
Aberdeen, then at the head of the Colonial Office, who
wisely did not adopt the suggestion, but was satisfied
with the de facto possession, allowing, as lawyers would
say, the other side to commence an action for ejectment.
The subject was, however, mooted by our minister at
Madrid, during the negotiations for a definite treaty
between Mexico and Spain, in 1835-36. Some such
Assembly and Voters.
87
1
attempt had been made by the central government of
the federation in a late grant to a Colonel Galindo, of
land actually in possession of the British, but nothing
came of it. The document then proceeds to describe
the constitution. The public meeting assembles (the
memorandum says) of its own accord once every four
months. To this body a 4001. currency qualification is
necessary, but limited to British-born subjects; a can-
didate for election must be proposed by a member and
returned by twenty-six votes, and was elected for life.
The voters' qualifications to vote being the same as the
candidates to sit as members, except that the property
qualification is only 100%. currency, and two years'
residence. The body has no limit to its numbers; it
then consisted of sixty-five members. It is not called
together by the superintendent, and there was no
authority for its existenee from the crown, but it
originated in the early customs of the settlers them-
selves. (This is correct; but a settlement which had
been left for 200 years-from its origin-to govern
itself had certainly acquired the right of legislating for
itself through its representatives in public assembly.)
The memorandum then bluntly states: "This meeting
until the last ten years could confer upon the discus-
sion of any question that a member thought fit to
propose, but a check has been put to the exercise of
the privilege by a late regulation of the superinten-
dent, which requires all notices of motion to be sub-
mitted to him for approval, and to be advertised for a
certain period, previous to being brought forward at
the meeting." The proceedings of the meeting in
electing the chairman and addressing the superinten-
?
88
British Honduras..
dent by deputation-his message in return discussed
and replied to-motions next discussed and formed into
laws of the settlement or rejected-supplies granted
for the ensuing four months--and, the meeting having
resolved itself into a vestry and elected churchwardens,
dissolving, are then detailed in the memorandum.
The proceedings are transmitted to the superintendent
who has the power of veto. The annual election of
magistrates at one of the yearly meetings is then de-
scribed, and the financial powers granted them. "They
usually report their proceedings to the superintendent,
who, in the event of any misapplication of the public
money, would, it is believed, take upon himself to
interfere."
"The magisterial body, until the last two years, was
appointed by vote of the inhabitants, and went out of
office every year. They are now appointed by the
superintendent for the same period. In addition to
this anomalous legislature, it is to be remarked that
the magistrates have been in the habit of making laws
by themselves alone." [No instances of this are
given.] "The superintendent also legislates by pro-
clamation on occasions when he may consider it neces-
sary."
It was this very matter of proclamations, and the
interference, above-stated by the memorandum, with
the power to originate and discuss independent mo-
tions, of which the inhabitants complained. Two
memorials had already been forwarded by them, one,
in 1831, to Lord Stanley (the late Earl of Derby), the
other to Spring Rice, Esq. (afterwards Lord Mont-
eagle), and the Duke of Wellington, in 1834, detailing
1
Memorials and Answer.
89
their grievances, and asking for the lands to be given
the settlers, and that the imports from the settlement
into England, should be put on the same footing as
those from other West Indian colonies. The memo-
randum of Colonel Cockburn was obviously a counter-
blast. "Colonel Cockburn," it continues, "has received
the assurance of Sir George Murray, Mr. Secretary
Stanley, and Mr. Secretary Rice, that it is the inten-
tion of his Majesty's government to take an early
opportunity of remodelling the legislative institutions
of Honduras ;" and it is recommended "to abolish the
public meeting altogether," and substitute for it "a
council of advice, to consist of six persons "--but if that
suggestion be not adopted, it is not recommended to
attempt its improvement except by withdrawing from
it the power of assembling and dissolving without the
authority of the superintendent.
The memorandum next diverges to the difficulties
in the administration of justice, its views on which will
be referred to hereafter. Finances are alluded to;
"the public debt on the 30th September last amount-
ing to 75001.," and a paper currency having been issued
which "had on the face of it a mere obligation on the
part of the public of Honduras to pay interest on its
value, at the rate of six per cent." until redeemed.
"It is not a legal tender," and is stated to have then
been commonly discounted at from ten to fifteen per
cent. The superintendent complains that his efforts
to have it made legal tender were opposed by the
assembly. He recommends the soil being given
to the settlers for cultivation, in compliance with the
memorials, and grants of land being made to them.
90
British Honduras.
1834.
Occupiers of town-lots, banks, and plantations, were
to be confirmed in their holdings in perpetuity; but
former grants or permissions of extensive lands for
cutting wood were not to be considered as giving pre-
sent occupiers permanent possession, but merely priority
of claim to a new grant.
The memorandum concludes by pointing out the
difficulties in reference to transient foreign traders,
the impolicy of the American tonnage-duty, and diffi-
culty in registration of vessels. He applies for a small
vessel of war to be stationed permanently at Belize,
and recommends that, if any steps be taken to open
fresh negotiations with Spain and the Spanish re-
publics on the subject of territorial title, Ruatan and
Bonaca ought to be included in the British claims to
possession, as, from their contiguity, they ought not
to be in the hands of a hostile power or a commercial
rival. The memorandum, evidently drawn up in reply
to the memorials of 1833-34 from the inhabitants, is
right on many points, and shows how much on legis-
lative, financial, and judicial questions Colonel Cock-
burn was at variance with the people he was sent out
to rule. Another memorial from the inhabitants,
similar in substance to those of 1833-34, more sub-
missive in tone, was forwarded in 1839, but was left
also without reply.
On the 1st of August, 1834, the emancipation of the
negroes in the British West Indies was consummated.
Total abolition did not take place simultaneously in
Honduras. A more gradual process of manumission
was wisely adopted. The slave-owners of Honduras
did not, of course, share in the compensation allowed
7
Abolition of Slavery.
91
other possessors of slaves who manumitted in 1834; but
they curtailed voluntarily by two years the continu-
ance of the intermediate system known as the appren-
ticeship of predial labourers. No excesses or diminu-
tion of labour resulted from abolition. It took place
on the 1st of August, 1838, although not due by the
arrangements with the home government until two
years after.
Col. A.
McDonald,
The resumption of the post of superintendent 1837.
by Colonel Alexander McDonald at this time, did not
allay the irritation caused by recent alterations in the Supt.
constitution of the settlement, and encroachments on
ancient rights and customs.
The colonel was a fine, tall Highlander—a soldier
of the Peninsula—and perhaps just a little too deeply
imbued with the martinet spirit then dominant in
military circles, to make a judicious or popular civil
governor.
Beyond exercising the veto on disbursements, he
controlled the finances by interfering with the right
of the assembly to vote supplies, denying the public
meetings power to debate any motion until he had
approved of it. Hitherto, the control of the disburse-
ments had been in the hands of the magistrates, who
were accountable to the public meeting alone, that
legislative body voting all sums for expenditure. And
it was subsequently laid down by a secretary of
state's despatch, that "all grants must be made to
the crown, and the expenditure of them must be
committed to the executive authority. But on the
other hand the executive authority ought to govern
itself by the terms of the appropriation, and if grants
92
British Honduras.
1840.
are made which are objectionable, either as to their
appropriation or as to the conditions attached to them,
the superintendent should decline to sanction such
grants, and he ought not to accept the money and
violate the conditions.""
But Colonel McDonald gave more cause for com-
plaint by his arbitrary measures and his legislating
by proclamation. In one of these autocratic missives
he goes the length of assuming the right of "confining
in the common gaol any individual acting against his
authority or obstructing his mandate."
In this year the ancient usages and customs
were finally abrogated as far as the administration of
justice was concerned, and it was proclaimed that
"the law of England is and shall be the law of this
settlement or colony of British Honduras." Old
Burnaby was knocked on the head. The superin-
tendent also appointed an executive council to assist
him in the administration of affairs.
During the period now under retrospect the trade
with the interior steadily increased. From 119,000l.
currency in 1824, it was estimated to have risen this
year to 300,000l. currency. It began to be of impor-
tance also with the peninsula of Yucatan, transient
traders arriving from Campeché and Sisal to make
purchases.
Peace in the neighbouring new-born republics con-
tinued up to 1838 unbroken. The following is a state-
ment of the revenue and expenditure for the ten years:-
1 Secretary of state's despatch, quoted by Colonel McDonald
himself, in his letter to chairman of public meeting, 31st
October, 1842, in Observer, No. 50, vol. ii., 3rd November,
1842.
Revenue Statistics.
93
Revenue.
1830
£ S. d.
14,931 11 6
Expenditure.
£
8. d.
13,278 6 2
1831
11,712 8 11
11,525 15 0
1832
14,050 5 11
16,997 18 10
1833
12,732 2 5
14,113 15 8
1834
14,706 0 0
14,241 10 2
1835
16,860 3 3
13,915 9 2
1836
17,799 14 1
12,771 17 8
1837
•
13,945 12 3
13,770 5 5
1838
15,739 7 2
16,592 16 4
1839
13,752 15 4
15,970 15 1
1840
12,246 5 3
12,537 8 5
In 1830-31 the export of mahogany fell two and a
half millions of feet, having retrograded since 1826-27,
in consequence of overtrading and a glut in the home
market. It began to increase again to three, four,
five, six millions of feet each successive year, until
1837, when it reached eight and a half millions. This
1837 was a particularly prosperous year. Other
articles increased also in the amount exported.
The following statement for the six months, from 1840-41.
October 1st, 1840, to September 80th, 1841, may be
compared with any previous twelve months, for which
statistics have already been given :-
Cedar
Logwood
Fustic
Rosewood .
Cochineal
Indigo
•
•
Sarsaparilla
Cocoa-nuts
Tortoise-shell
12,248 feet
5546 tons
33 tons
118 pieces
6201 seroons
1746
106,734 lbs.
·
129,400
880 lbs.
9233 logs mahogany, 4,571,056 feet.
""
600 lbs. cotton, 3068 ox-hides, and 24 bags rice.2
* From true copy of statement from government secretary's
office
94
British Honduras.
1841.
The new articles on the list show that attempts
were thus early being made to introduce new staples
of export. The total imports for the period were in
value 382,915l. 19s. 6d.; tonnage :-vessels, 112;
tons, 21,862. The total value of exports, 400,000l. A
specimen of home-grown tobacco was exhibited this year.
The population was considerably reduced at this time.
The statement shows a fair amount of business for
so small a community, but in the principal staple
production of the country, mahogany, there had been
a great deterioration in price within the last few years,
while there had been greatly increased public expen-
diture, and consequent burdens on the inhabitants
and their commerce. Belize was not without its
Joseph Humes to advocate retrenchment and accuse
the executive of extravagance. Following the abolition
of slavery, slave-grown sugar was placed at a diffe-
rential duty of double that levied on free-grown, viz.
20s. per ton.
It will perhaps be as well to let the inhabi-
tants now speak for themselves. Their memorials
to the home government not meeting with any re-
sponse they this year drew up two fresh petitions.
A fair idea of the state of the settlement will be
obtained from the following extracts:-
"The petition³ of the members of the legislative
assembly of Belize, Honduras, humbly showeth :-
"That your petitioners are British-born subjects,
settled and established on this coast, industriously
occupied as mahogany-cutters and merchants.
*
*
*
*
*
• Honduras Observer, No. 16, vol. i., March 10, 1811.
Memorial on Abuses.
95
"That within the last half-century Belize consisted
of a few wretched huts, in the midst of a miserable
swamp; but the spirit and perseverance of the in-
habitants have, with scarcely more aid than the mere
countenance of the mother-country, elevated the
settlement of Belize into an important appendage of
the British empire, changed the huts of fifty years.
since into well-built houses, and from a miserable
swamp have raised a town flourishing in its commerce,
giving employment annually to 20,000 tons of British
shipping, and increased its imports to nearly half a
million sterling of British manufacture.
*
*
*
*
*
"That the inhabitants of Belize have long retained
and flourished under a primitive state of government,
left by the mother-country almost wholly to their own
views of internal policy, and almost to their own re-
sources for its support and expenditure.
"That thus left to themselves the loyalty of the in-
habitants has never been impugned (fondly clinging
to their constitution as the palladium of their rights,
and their shield from oppression), and in the late
anxious change in the state of their labouring popula-
tion, your petitioners went cheerfully, voluntarily, and
without prompting, hand and hand with the views of
the parent government. . Neither diminution of
labour or the fruits of labour, nor increase of crime,
has obtained from the total abolition of slavery in the
settlement.
"That your petitioners humbly pray reference may
be had to the report of the commissioners of legal
inquiry of the years 1825 and 1826, wherein the pro-
96
British Honduras.
cess of the judicial courts of this settlement is highly
approved of, and that no appeal has ever been made.
from their courts of justice to any higher tribunal."
[The petition then goes on to point out the mode of
election of magistrates, their control of finance and
judicature vested in them by the public assembly,
and proceeds :-]
"That, within the last two years, her Majesty's super-
intendent, Colonel Alexander McDonald, C.B., has on
various occasions legislated by proclamation, by which
the acts of this legislative assembly have been ren-
dered a nullity. Not, your petitioners would respect-
fully observe, by a constitutional exercise of the acts.
by the superintendent, but he wholly and entirely
superseding our authority, and assuming to himself
the legislative, judicial, and executive power."
[The proclamation of the superintendent with refer-
ence to confining individuals in the common gaol, is
then “viewed with dismay," &c.; his assertion in his
messages to the assembly, 4th and 5th March, 1839,
"of full and entire control over the revenue," is re-
pudiated, and the proclamation of the laws of England
as the future laws of the settlement is "viewed with
astonishment, inasmuch as the laws of England have
always been in force, except in some few cases where
the constitution of society and circumstances purely
local rendered a deviation from them unavoidable."
The petition closes with the following demands :- -]
"Your petitioners therefore pray they may be al-
lowed freedom of discussion in their public delibera-
tions. . . the right of enacting local laws for their
internal government and guidance . . . and for the
Memorials continued.
97
right of raising a revenue from their own resources,
and of applying the same to the contingencies and
support of their institutions and government."
This petition is signed by a committee of four, and
dated the 2nd of March, 1841. The second opens
thus:
"That your petitioners are British subjects, settled
under a superintendent appointed by the crown, in
that part of the Bay of Honduras known as British
Yucatan. [This is the only occasion met with of its
being so called in the progress of extended researches.]
That the trade of the settlers having been hitherto
confined to the cutting of mahogany and logwood,
until the recent independence of the Spanish American
republics has of late years opened to them a market
for British goods to the extent of half a million sterling,
and the cutting of the said woods having become
a very precarious employment, your petitioners are
desirous of acquiring the unquestionable right of cul-
tivating this extensive soil, with a bona fide title of
property in the arable lands thereof [a mistake, it
may be said, to raise this question of title], and with
unrestricted permission to export such cultivated pro-
ducts from this, and to have them imported into the
United Kingdom at the same rate of duties as from
the British West India Islands."
[The petitioners then refer to their former memo-
rials.]
"No climate or soil can be better adapted for the
productions of the tropics than those of British Hon-
duras. In particular, lands near the sea can, by free
labour, furnish every variety of cotton, and those bor-
H
98
British Honduras.
dering on the lagoons could grow abundance of rice.
and tobacco."
After statistics in reference to the production of
these articles in the United States, and their ex-
portation to Great Britain, the memorialists dwell on
the fall in value of mahogany, which sold in 1835-36
at a price equal to 181. and 207. sterling, and now
"will not bring more on the spot than 91. to 121. per
1000 feet." The petitioners conclude by reiterating
their requests for possession of the soil for cultivation,
the right to cultivate and to export on the same terms
as the West India Islands.
Until a reply was received, the assembly determined
to transact no public business. The superintendent
continued to carry on the government by proclamation
and with the aid of the executive council.
During a visit this year to the Mosquito Shore, in
H.M.S. Tweed, accompanied by his private secretary,
Patrick Walker, Esq., Colonel McDonald executed
some very high-handed proceedings towards the State
of Nicaragua, which had a boundary dispute with the
Mosquitoes near Cape Gracias. He actually landed
and made Colonel Quijano, Comandante of San Juan
del Norte, prisoner, removing him on board the Tweed.
Of course this led to a warm correspondence. Five
British merchants were imprisoned as a reprisal by
the Central American authorities.
It was notified that the affairs of the colony were
under consideration by Mr. Labouchere and the Board
of Trade. Colonel McDonald this year proceeded
with a few officers to, and hoisted the British flag on,
the island of Ruatan.
Answer to Memorial.
99
The year 1842 begins with a second visitation by 1812.
the diocesan, when it was mooted to have a second
clergyman for the settlement, and to build a chapel of
ease to St. John's church.
Public officials were, by an act passed this year, in
future, to be paid by salaries instead of by fees, and a
committee managed the new scale of salaries and
the altered schedule of fees. H.M. superintendent's
salary was fixed at 3000l. currency; clerk of courts;
1000%; public treasurer, 1000l.; queen's advocate,
10007., with private practice; rector, 1000l.; colonial
secretary, 1000l.; provost marshal, 8331., and others
in proportion.
About June, the chairman of the public meeting,
W. H. Coffin, Esq., received a reply to the memorial of
1841, from Sir C. Metcalf, the enlightened Governor
of Jamaica, the contents of his despatch being directed.
to be published to the meeting.
"The public meeting is authorized by her Majesty's
Government to continue to exercise its legislative
powers, harmoniously if it can, with the executive,
each taking usage as the rule by which their respec-
tive powers are to be defined." And in a subsequent
despatch it is intimated that her Majesty's Govern-
ment has "not yet determined on what principles the
future constitution of the settlement shall be based,"
Sir Charles also lays down the principle "that it is in
the nature of popular assemblies to check the excessive
power by the executive government, and that the
free constitution of Great Britain has arisen from pro-
ceedings animated by this spirit." Colonel McDonald
took the admonition in good part, and in his com-
Hor M
H 2
100
British Honduras.
munications to the meeting became quite conciliatory,
alleging the late differences to have arisen from "that
sole cause, that we claimed severally the exercise of
functions each of us considered we had a title to
maintain,” and solemnly delegates to it all legislative
duties.
But there was still a question at issue between the
executive and the legislative-the control of the
finances. Since 1833 the magistrates were no longer
the elected of the people, but the nominees of the
crown, i.e. the superintendent. Were they then to
retain the control of the expenditure of the sums
voted by the assembly? The assembly contended
not, but urged that, "under the altered circumstances
of the appointment of the magistracy, the meeting
should adopt measures to ensure the proper and
economical appropriation of the public funds." They
did not propose to take the control away from the
magistrates, but placed them as usual at their disposal
under certain conditions and restrictions, and in doing
so they were, it must be granted, acting constitu-
tionally.
In former years the qualifications for the magistracy
were three years' residence and the possession of 5007.
visible "property." Then they had unlimited control
of expenditure, the assembly voting the supplies. In
1829 Colonel McDonald himself asked the meeting to
curtail these powers of the bench, alleging extravagant
dealings with the public moneys against them.
The question of judicial reform also arose. It had
been suggested by Colonel McDonald that a chief
justice should be appointed at a salary of 1000l. a
Chief Justice appointed.
ΙΟΙ
year. Lord Stanley intimates to Sir C. Metcalf,
March 31st, 1842, that, if the public meeting gave the
superintendent the authority to create the office and
votes the salary, he "does not anticipate any difficulty
in finding a competent person to fill it."
"The difficulties in the administration of justice,"
according to Colonel Cockburn's memorandum, "arise
principally from the limited jurisdiction of the supreme
court of criminal judicature, the only court in the
settlement which is founded on a legal basis." It was
created in 1821 under the great seal, and took cog-
nizance only of five crimes-murder, manslaughter,
rape, robberies, and burglaries [query arsons ?]. The
superintendent presided with the two judges on the
bench. The grand court took cognizance of the
minor crimes, and sat for the trial of suits and actions
at law, and there were, besides, the summary court.
and the police court, presided over by the sitting
magistrates.
The head of the executive presiding on the bench
was certainly an anomalous arrangement. This year
an act passed for the appointment of a legal judge,
and henceforward the executive and judicial functions
were kept distinct.
There were great complaints at this time of de-
pression in trade. Mahogany exportation fell to
4,500,000 feet. The total value of exports for
the six months to September 30th was 322,1407.
sterling; imports, 193,6567. (including 32,9467. from
the United States): showing, as compared with the
previous twelve months a falling off in imports of
more than half, 195,2591., exports, 63,1891. sterling.
102
British Honduras.
The falling off in imports is attributed to excessive im-
portation in the two or three years preceding. The
states of Central America were very much disturbed,
which interfered with the transit trade of the colony.
The war between the "Liberales," under Morazan,
against the "Serviles," or clerical and reactionary
party, had assumed a new phase by the accession to
the latter of Carrera and his hordes of Indian moun-
taineers. Morazan, a native of Spanish Honduras,
was an amiable and attractive leader and an en-
lightened patriot, the son of a French creole. For
fifteen years he was the mainstay of the liberals of
Central America, he preserved tranquillity tolerably
well up to 1838, but the half-breed Carrera coming to
the aid of the "Serviles," and Malespin revolting in
San Salvador, Morazan was unable to make head
against both. He carried on the struggle till 1842.
In September of that year he was finally defeated
by Carrera, taken prisoner, and, as a matter of course,
shot.
103
CHAPTER IX.
1842 TO 1850.
CONTINUATION OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE
EXECUTIVE AND PUBLIC MEETING.
A CHANGE now took place in the sentiments and line
of conduct of the bench of magistrates. They were
no longer, as they had been by usage, chosen from
the members of the assembly, and now asserted inde-
pendence of, even superiority to, that body, considering
themselves part of the executive; especially they pur-
sued an independent course of action in controlling the
disbursements of the sums voted for public expendi-
ture by the public meeting. In this they were sup-
ported by the superintendent.
In placing restrictions on the expenditure of certain
votes-contingency votes for example-the public
meeting may have acted constitutionally; but the
superintendent and the magistracy had right on their
side in denying the public meeting the power to
interfere with the control of expenditure of sums they
had once for all placed at the disposal of the executive.
Colonel Cockburn was right in saying that in case of
misappropriation by the magistrates the superinten-
dent would most probably interfere. Such was his
1843.
104
British Honduras.
duty; on the other hand, the Secretary of State's
despatch already quoted in the preceding chapter lays
down the course to be pursued in regard to the
appropriation of grants by the public meeting; this
despatch was communicated to the meeting by
Colonel McDonald, in his message of 31st October,
1842.
By the packet of June 15th, his Excellency Colonel
Charles St. John Fancourt arrived to relieve Colonel
McDonald, and with him came Robert Temple, Esq.,
barrister-at-law, to assume the duties of the newly-
created office of chief justice.
Colonel Fancourt struck the key-note of the policy
he intended should mark his administration in the first
message he sent to the meeting. "I am instructed to
impress upon you, that the public meeting at Hon-
duras has no right, strictly speaking, to legislate,
though it may with the consent of the superintendent
make rule for the conduct of the settlement."
The public meeting had been the "creature of
usage," it was now to be made the creature of the
executive. Similar instructions, it has been evident,
had been issued to Colonel Fancourt's two immediate
predecessors to initiate and pursue the same line of
policy. That policy was skilfully to withdraw from
the public meeting its constitutional powers and
privileges, and to subvert the influence of the people
in the government. The suspension of the free
election annually of the seven magistrates and their
nomination in future by the crown, was a deadly blow
to the constitution; the withdrawal of the power to
originate motions and freely discuss them was the
Powers of Judges defined.
105
second; the gradual increase in the exercise of the
veto by the superintendent, and separation of the
magisterial body from a common interest with the
public meeting, further continued the same machia-
velian policy. Small as Honduras is, a political
student may gain a hint or two from studying its
history.
But Colonel Fancourt was a diplomatist by training,
and a courtier, and knew well how to conceal the iron.
hand of arbitrary authority under the silken glove of a
bland and courteous manner. Matters progressed
favourably for a time.
"We take pleasure," says the Honduras Observer of
the 18th May, 1843, in announcing that the first
66 steamer built in this settlement was launched on
Saturday and named the British Honduras." She
was built by Messrs. Grant and Munro, to ply about
the Cayes. We read no more about her in the
papers.
The two principal courts of the settlement were now 1843-46.
precisely the same in their constitution, both being
presided over by the chief justice, with two puisne or
assistant-judges sitting with him, the supreme court
having the same jurisdiction as formerly, the grand
court taking cognizance of minor crimes, and acting
as a court of oyer and terminer in civil actions. The
summary and police courts were left to magisterial
superintendence. In 1845 the public meeting defined
and limited the powers of the chief justice, the judges
and the several courts. The grand court could im-
prison for four years, or fine up to 500l. currency.
The summary court required three or more justices on
106
British Honduras.
the bench, and had power to imprison for three months,
or fine up to 50l. currency. An attempt to introduce
regular legal practitioners into the courts, originating
with the chief justice, was again and again successfully
resisted.
Chief Justice Temple was a sound lawyer, and a
man of ability, but arbitrary, dogmatical, and in his
personal antipathies vindictive. In place of tenta-
tively and gradually introducing legal reforms, he
attempted so to do vi et armis, and naturally roused
opposition; he soon became extremely unpopular, and
his unpopularity continued, and even increased,
during his occupancy of the high post he held in the
settlement.
Trade was affected by the disturbances beyond the
frontiers during the whole of this period; the duty on
mahogany was raised fifteen per cent. by the United
States, from December 1st, 1846, but the simul-
taneous presence of seven vessels of that nationality
in the harbour was hailed as an augury of future
trade with that country which has proved a correct
one.
1845. Revenue, 22,3727. Expenditure, 18,3027.
1846.
"
21,6677.
"9
19,2007.
1847-48.
1846. Exports, 408,1887.
Imports, 243,7251.
Mahogany shipped, 1845, 9,319,507 feet.
""
1846, 13,719,075 feet.
(Some portion cut beyond the limits.)
Number of vessels, 152. Tonnage, 39,485 tons.
The year 1847 proved itself one of considerable
internal excitement and dissension.
Capture of Bacalar.
107
1847. Revenue
27,7987.
""
Expenditure 36,3487.
Difference 85507.
An act was passed for abolishing the unpaid
magistracy and substituting a stipendiary police-
magistrate and justice of the peace. The assistant-
judges were to be appointed under the seal of the
colony. Also acts relative to Dissenters, for estab-
lishing the office of attorney-general, for the main-
tenance of good order in the community, and for the
registration of foreign residents. This latter act
was rendered necessary by one result of the out-
break of the " guerra de castas in Yucatan, which
drove bodies of Yucatecan Spaniards as refugees
across the northern frontier into our territory. Great
alarm prevailed throughout the settlement that the
sheltering of these refugees would bring upon it
Indian raids and reprisals. Both parties in the con-
test sought the British of Honduras as allies, and
each watched closely our dealings with the other.
The public meeting voted for defence a sum of 50001.
and, as usual, applied to Jamaica for reinforcements,
which arrived, and troops were stationed on the
Hondo under Lieutenant Glubb. The scare did not
pass off until the Indians, having taken Salamanca-
Bacalar, requested to be permitted to trade on the
same terms as the Yucatecans had previously done.
At the capture of Bacalar, the Spanish colonists are
said to have behaved with great cowardice, the Santa
Cruz Indians to have exhibited great ferocity and
committed many atrocities.
108
British Honduras.
1849.
The Ladinos or Mestizos' of Yucatan (and there are
but a very few families who can boast the pure "sangre
azul" of old Spain in the western peninsula) are about
one-fifth of the population, or about 500,000, and
are much degenerated from the war-like conquerors of
New Spain, speaking a miserable patois. Of the
400,000 Indians, some are peaceable, the majority
untamed enemies of all rule.
Major O'Connor, commanding the troops on the
Hondo, visited Bacalar in 1849 to mediate, and reported
seeing roasted bodies. In May, the Spaniards retook
Bacalar, to lose it again in July, when a Colonel Rosado
was killed. He was commandant. The fort still held
out for the Spaniards.
The differences between Great Britain and Nicaragua
on account of the boundaries of the Mosquito kingdom,
did not affect the settlement much. Mr. Patrick
Walker, ex-private secretary to the late superin-
tendent, Colonel McDonald, would appear to have been
superseded as the keeper of the Mosquito king and
his affairs by her Majesty's Consul-General for Central
America, Fred. Chatfield, Esq., who undertook nego-
tiations. We laid claim to the Roman River, and took
San Juan del Norte, calling it Greytown, notwithstand-
ing protests from Nicaragua and other republics making
common cause with her. Tigre, a beautiful island in
the Gulf of Fonseca, was at the same time ceded to
the United States by Nicaragua. All this consular
activity may be laid to a scheme for an inter-oceanic
canal. In 1849, Commodore Paynter and Consul-
General Chatfield seized the island of Tigre, lately
¹ The names given the mixed race sprung from Spanish and
Indian blood in Central America.
Local Dissensions.
109
ceded to the United States. The United States'
Consul protested, but Mr. Chatfield would do no more
than refer the question, retaining his conquest. So
matters stood at the opening of 1850.
It is only to-day that the Emperor Francis Joseph
of Austria has settled the disputes between Nicaragua
and Great Britain by arbitration (1882).
The executive council of Honduras now consisted
of the chief justice, attorney-general, colonial secretary,
and public treasurer.
BELIZE PRICES CURRENT.
Flour $7 @ $8 per barrel. Pork, Mess $19 @ 20 per barrel.
Pilot Bread $7
Prime $17 @ $18,,
""
39
Navy
$6/12/2
دو
Beef, Mess $16
""
Indian Corn $2 @ $3
""
"9
Family $18
59
Prime $14
"All at loggerheads," may be an expression beneath 1847-48.
the dignity of even so humble a historical retrospect
as the present. Nevertheless, it is the only one which
can adequately convey the state of affairs in Hon-
duras brought about by Chief Justice Temple. The
legislative body was still recalcitrant and had its own
subjects of dispute with the executive and the
magistracy—such as the increase of expenditure—but
Mr. Temple was soon at variance with the executive,
the legislative and the judicial elements, and had
roused the ire of the whole venire of jurors.
The first bubble of the "hot water," in which the
settlement was kept for some few years, was a prose-
cution by the attorney-general for seditious libel, of
the editor of the Honduras Observer and Gazette, Mr.
Fitzgibbon—an alien, an American by birth, an Irish-
man by descent. The crown failed to obtain a verdict.
1
110
British Honduras.
Mr. Temple next plunged into the hot bath over
head and ears, by a wholesale aspersion of the jury-
men of the settlement, in a letter to the superintendent,
which Mr. Fitzgibbon somehow obtained and published.
Three-fourths of the jury-list memorialized the super-
intendent, requesting to be exempted from being
called upon to serve while Mr. Temple sat; this of
course the superintendent could not grant, and at the
next grand court, 28th April, 1848, some ten jurors
refused to be empanelled. The jurymen were im-
prisoned, and at the same court Fitzgibbon was fined
100%. currency, and sentenced to six months' imprison-
ment, and whilst in gaol was very rigorously dealt
with.
These were harsh and injudicious measures, but the
judges were only carrying out the law. However
foolish and wrong Mr. Temple's letter to the super-
intendent, it was a privileged communication, not meant
for publication, and the editor was properly fined;
imprisonment might have been omitted.
his
The jurors on their part, by refusing their obvious
duty, were not seeking redress of their unmistakable
grievance in the proper way. The superintendent
kept himself as much as possible out of the fracas.
His conduct may be viewed in different lights, but it
should be remembered he was involved in trouble with
the assembly, having refused to compel the treasurer
to produce certain vouchers at the assembly's request,
while he himself was also embroiled with the fiery
Temple. The act of 1845, passed by the assembly and
sanctioned by him, defining the powers of the courts and
judges, had displeased the head of the justiciary, and
Local Dissensions.
III
that functionary did not hesitate to address the
Governor of Jamaica directly on the subject of his
grievance. In his letter to Lord Elgin, March 18th,
1845, he professes to uphold "the authority of the
courts of law of this settlement, and the independence
of the judges," asserting that, "against that authority
and that independence a fatal blow has been aimed by
her Majesty's superintendent, and that small section
of the inhabitants which constitute the public meet-
ing." He also intimates that he will treat the act
(above referred to) as "a nullity until it shall have
received the sanction of her Majesty in council."
Lord Elgin's reply, dated 30th May, 1845, is diplo-
matic and unsatisfactory, pats the superintendent on
the back, and indecisively and mildly admonishes the
chief justice to be more respectful in his language
when speaking' of the public meeting. The corre-
spondence was not published until April, 1848.¹
The next person to fall under Mr. Temple's dis-
pleasure was a Mr. W. H. Coffin, one of the leading
merchants, who had long taken the lead in public
affairs, been almost perpetual chairman of the meeting
by choice of the members, annually elected to the
magistracy for years, and was then colonel of militia,
and an assistant-judge. A motion of the meeting con-
demnatory of Mr. Temple's letter with reference to the
jurors having been signed or joined in by Mr. Coffin,
the chief justice complained to the superintendent, who
rightly judging Mr. Coffin in error in so doing, being
on the bench, deprived him of his judgeship.
The newspapers-the Observer and Gazette, in oppo-
1 Honduras Observer, April 15, 1848.
I 12
British Honduras.
sition to a new one, the Central American Times, started
for the purpose in support of the government-kept
the excitement up.
In viewing at this distance of time this general scrim-
mage between the executive, legislative, and judicial
bodies, one can only regret that there was not a states-
man of the capacity and firmness of Sir C. Metcalfe at
the head of affairs in Jamaica, to point out to the super-
intendent the limits of his authority, to recommend
reforms in the legislative chamber, and to curb the
pugnacious temper of the chief justice. Memorials
were addressed through the Governor of Jamaica, Sir
C. Grey, for administrative changes, and one for the
removal of Mr. Temple, without, however, succeeding
in producing any intervention on the part of the
Colonial Office.
1848. Expenditure £28,361 1849. Expenditure £27,610
Revenue £20,361
Revenue £20,979
Towards the close of 1848, a better feeling existed
between the superintendent and the public meeting,
but the unpopularity of Mr. Temple continued to in-
crease. At the grand court of November, 1848, Mr.
Coffin was find 1007. currency, and sentenced to six
months' imprisonment for contempt of court, for re-
fusing to answer whether he was or not the writer of
certain letters, signed" Young Belize," in the Observer,
reflecting on the chief justice. Mr. Coffin was not the
author (but a Mr. M. F. Sterling, who was dis-
charged with an admonition); Mr. Coffin therefore
merely suffered for obstinacy, which many regarded as
noble firmness. The excitement caused by this was
very great, Mr. Coffin being extremely popular, and
Mail Service established.
113
on his release in the February following, by orders.
from Sir Charles Grey, there were grand manifestations
of the people's sympathy and delight.
There was great depression in trade in 1848-49.
The depression of trade continued, and it is now
that the key-note was struck of the tune which has
been harped upon ever since-the decline of the
mahogany interest.
About this period a second church or chapel of ease
was finished and opened. The Baptist persuasion also
built their present meeting-house.
Ecclesiastical
affairs were not exempt, however, from the prevailing
epidemic of dissension. Colonel Fancourt interfered
with the patronage of St. John's, and there were two
rival claimants for the rectory, the Rev. M. Newport
and the Rev. T. Coghlan.
Chief Justice Temple was thrashed in the streets by
young Coghlan, Mr. Temple having brought this youth
and another before the police-magistrate on a frivolous
charge of larceny. The attorney-general, Mr. Lewis,
resigned, and an unsuccessful movement was made
to abolish the office. The mails were now carried
between Jamaica and Belize by the Royal Mail
Steamer Conway. The superintendent made an
attempt at mediation between the contending races
in Yucatan, and visited the peninsula. His good
offices were not appreciated by either combatants.
An insurrection in Guatemala gained some advantage
over Carrera's forces.
1850.
I
I14
British Honduras.
CHAPTER X.
MAHOGANY AND TIMBER TRADE OF HONDURAS GENERALLY.
1850. THE rise and progress of the British settlement whose
history we have imperfectly traced have been indis-
solubly connected with the fortunes of its trade in
timber and dye-woods. When London and Liverpool
prices current showed an advance in the rates for log-
wood and mahogany, there were cheerful, smiling faces
in the counting-houses, and bustle and activity around
the wharves of Belize-when prices fell there was
dullness everywhere; lounging woodcutters on the
bridge or round the grog-shops, instead of being away
in the woods, axe in hand; clerks eating up their
salaries, and principals looking glum. For little short
of 200 years the Baymen had reaped a rich harvest,
and the crop is not yet exhausted, were prices only
maintained by better demand. It was about this year,
1850, that permanent depression of the mahogany
trade may be said to have begun. Prices not only
fell, but, as the larger trees became more difficult to
find in situations near the creeks and rivers handy to
the port of embarkation, the expense of bringing out
the wood after it was felled and squared was much
increased. The trade had always been a fluctuating
Decline of Mahogany.
115
one, but one good season went against a couple of bad
or indifferent ones: lately, however, the margin for
bad years has become less extended.
"Sub umbra floreo," in allusion to the mahogany-
tree, is the motto gratefully chosen by the colonists,
but it is to the humbler denizen of the forest, the log-
wood-shrub, the colony owes its birth.
The value of the wood is said to have been one of
the many discoveries of things useful made by Sir
Walter Raleigh. On one of his cruises he put in at
Trinidad and, his carpenter requiring lumber, brought
some pieces of mahogany off from shore. According
to an anecdote related in Dickens' All the Year
Round, accident first led to its use in the manufacture
of furniture. A Dr. Gibbons, who appears to have
flourished about the end of the seventeenth or be-
ginning of the eighteenth century, happened to have a
brother a captain trading to the West Indies. Some
planks or junks of the wood, brought home by the
West India skipper, were thrown aside in the doctor's
back premises, having been found by the carpenters
too hard to work up. But, a short time after, Mrs.
Gibbons required a candle-box, and the mahogany
slabs were put in requisition. The carpenters em-
ployed on this occasion also complained that the hard-
ness of the strange wood turned the edges of their
tools, but the candle-box was made. Induced by the
beauty of the grain, now that he had seen the wood
worked up, Dr. Gibbons had a bureau made of the
mahogany, and the fine colour and exquisite polish
caused this piece of furniture to become an object of
curiosity. Amongst others who came, saw and ad-
I 2
116
British Honduras.
mired it, was the Duchess of Buckingham.
She at
once gave an order to the carpenter who had made
the bureau for Dr. Gibbons, Wollaston, for one like
it. Wollaston's fortune was made, and furniture in
mahogany became the rage.
This magnificent tree is unequalled by any of the
forest giants, when all its qualities are considered: the
height of the trunk to the first crutch, the space of
ground covered by its roots, the girth, wide spread of
its branches, its umbrageous foliage, coupled with the
beauty and durability of its grain, and value of its
timber. In the present century a tree was cut, by a
Mr. Charles Craig of Honduras, the trunk of which
yielded a log of fifteen tons' weight. It measured 5168
superficial feet, squaring 57 in. by 64 in. The log was
trucked out by Mr. Craig, and the limbs of it would
probably, when "manufactured," that is, prepared for
shipment, more than pay all expenses.¹ Other Brob-
dingnags of the woods, it is said, of much larger di-
mensions, have been shipped from the settlement, but
the accounts of them do not rest on the very best
authority. Henderson speaks of a legendary tree of
his day which he puts down as having given 12,000
superficial feet, realizing 1000%.
The mahogany-tree belongs to the class Decandria
monogynia, and its botanical description is :-
"Swietenia nect. tubulosum, 10 dentatum. Caps.
lignea 5 valves. Sem. imbricata margine membra-
nacea."
It takes 200 years to arrive at maturity.
The Spaniards first used it in ship-building. We
1 Honduras Observer, 1843.
Fluctuations of Mahogany.
117
did not follow their example until the close of the first
Napoleon's wars. Reliable returns are not procurable
farther back than 1802, when 2,250,000 feet are men-
tioned as the quantity exported; 1803, 4,500,000 feet;
1805, 6,481000, feet. In 1824 it had kept the same
figure; in 1840 it was reduced to 4,500,000 feet, but
there had been over-exportation in the few years pre-
ceding, and stocks had accumulated in the home
markets-in 1837, for example, there were shipped
from Belize 8,500,000 feet. The same mistake was
made in 1845-46. In the first of these years the
returns show 9,919,507 feet, and in 1846 the enormous
increase of 13,719,075 feet. A portion of these
annual quantities was wood cut outside of the limits.
The depression in the years 1848, 1849, 1850, is not
difficult to account for. In 1874 the quantity had
come down to the old figure of about 6,000,000 feet,
and in 1878 lower still, 3,146,582 feet.
The fluctuations in price are perhaps not greater
than occur to other foreign staples in the English
market, and have been affected by similar causes.
Thus, for example, an admiralty board could send the
market up at once by advertising for tenders; a
change in the taste for furniture to maple or black
walnut, would send it down for years. Railway con-
struction gave it a lift from 1835 to 1845.
cessation of that new industry on the same extensive
scale, and the introduction of iron in place of wood
into the ship-building trade, are accountable for its
unremunerative aspect from 1850 till the actual
present, when a reversion to its use in furniture in
America and Europe is again stimulating prices and
The
118
British Honduras.
production. The price was originally 2s. 6d. per
foot, fell gradually to 1s., and eventually to quotations
of 4 d. to 7 d. In 1847 the quotations in the
Liverpool prices current are 5d. to ls. 4d. It is now
(1882) quoted at 5d. to 9 d., with fair prospect of
these prices being upheld.
The quality of the wood shipped from Honduras has
not always demanded the top prices in the home
market. St. Domingo mahogany and Campeché log-
wood would appear to fetch better rates at all times.
This does not arise altogether from the absence of
wood of superior quality in the colony, at least with
regard to mahogany, but from other causes. The
wood of the northern district is superior to that cut in
the central and southern-the latter districts producing
plain, free-grained, splitting wood, applicable only to
the coarser manufactures. But as the wood of the
north, though easier of access to cut, requires to be
transported in large and expensive coasters—at a
freight of ten to twelve dollars per 1000 feet-
to the port of exportation, it leaves less margin for
profit than that of the other two districts, at whose
rivers' mouths the vessels can lay and load, as the logs
are rafted down to them. Hence greater quantities
of the inferior quality have been shipped in the past to
obtain speedier profits. Much of the wood shipped at
Belize comes from beyond the limits, or is shipped by
Belize houses and swells the returns for the colony;
as for instance, from the Rivers Montagua, Ulloa,
Román and Chimilcon, and is all similar in quality—
large-sized but plain through, firm in texture.
It is a mistake to suppose that the supply of maho-
Mahogany Cutting.
119
gany is exhausted. There is plenty of wood, and of
the finest quality, although, for reasons already given,
the cost of production is very greatly increased since
the days when no cattle were necessary to haul the
logs out of the woods. While acting to some extent
on the principle of killing the goose that laid the
golden egg, mahogany firms have not been utterly
reckless. The system pursued has been to open a
work in one direction, fell the largest trees,-those
squaring say upwards of 16 in.-leaving the smaller
trees to acquire by growth the requisite dimensions.
The work would then be closed for a time-from ten
to twenty years, let us say. But beyond these are vast
tracks of mahogany-bearing lands, which have not as
yet re-echoed the clink of the axe. Let prices be
maintained, and capital for the initiation of new opera-
tions be forthcoming, and abundance of timber of
excellent quality will be forthcoming also.
There are two seasons in which the trees are felled;
one beginning shortly after Christmas, or at the end of
the wet season, the other about the middle of August.
The Christmas holidays, which are usually extended
well into the new year, over, the labourers turn their
minds to completing arrangements for the ensuing
season, and “hiring" commences in earnest.
A form of contract between the parties, called a
hiring-sheet, is signed before the police-magistrate,
according to the ordinance made and provided, and
the labourer is bound until next Christmas-longer, of
course, or shorter, if he chooses-to his employer. The
gangs for mahogany works are generally from twenty-
five to fifty strong, with one or more captains, carpen-
120
British Honduras.
ters, foremen, book-keepers, and, over several works, a
manager.
The labourers are allowed to take their
families with them, and seldom see town again until
the season's toil is accomplished. Pork, flour, gro-
ceries, clothing for the hands, tools, and reserves.
necessary, are forwarded up to the banks by pitpans
from Belize, and before the dry weather has fairly set
in, work begins.
Henderson has compared the excitement attendant
on the starting of a mahogany-cutting gang to their
season's labour after the holidays, in his time, to a
crowded embarkation for a long voyage. During
the holidays, the hands have indulged in all kinds
of excesses, but that short carnival over, the en-
suing nine months are vowed to sobriety and hard
work.
The situation of the bank or work, the headquarters
of the gang, depends on the operations of an individual
called the "hunter," but it must necessarily be on an
eligible site on the river. About the month of August,
the huntsman or tree-finder starts, machéte in hand, to
cut his way through the thick bush to some rising
eminence, and, climbing the highest tree he can find,
examines the surrounding forest. As at this season of
the year, the leaves of the mahogany are of a reddish-
yellow tint, they are easily distinguishable by the
hunter when making his survey. He is, where the
lands he is working are not very clearly defined as to
proprietary limits, compelled to proceed craftily, so as
not to be overreached, especially in placing his marks
for recognition, by a rival. The trees are not found in
clumps, but singly, sufficiently adjacent, however, to
Mahogany Cutting.
121
circumscribe the area of operations about to be under-
taken.
The bank on the river being conveniently arranged
to his discoveries, a main truck-path is opened up in
their direction, with branch paths diverging right and
left to the trees selected for felling that season. In
determining this part of the year's plans, great judg-
ment is required to avoid cutting paths to trees that
will not pay for the time and labour necessary to clear
a passage to them.
At the bank are the store-houses, bush-dwellings,
cattle-sheds, and "barquadier." The hands spend
most of their time away in the bush, only meeting
at the banks at certain intervals.
The truck-paths having been properly prepared and
levelled-work generally given out in tasks of about
100 yards per man per day to clear-the hands are
away in the bush, felling. The axe is applied to the
trunk about twelve feet from its base, the axe-men
standing on a platform skilfully constructed, and at-
tached to the tree. At the moment of falling, a firm
nerve and quick eye is required to avoid accidents,
which do sometimes occur. The tree felled, the branches
are lopped, and they with the trunk reduced from their
rounded to a four-sided form. But there they lie,
huge, cumbersome timber-giants, and the river, eight
or ten miles off, on whose bosom they are eventually
to float, sometimes with a sluggish current, anon at a
speed of ten miles an hour.
There are two, or properly speaking, three, modes
of hauling the precious logs from the depths of their
native forests, and of course it depends entirely on
122
British Honduras.
the nature of the country and the distance from navi-
gable waters, which mode has to be adopted. Rolling
is the original process, long followed with pecuniary
success, before cattle-trucks and truck-paths were
found necessary. Sliding on skids is practised where
the lie of the country, the ground declining gradually
to the bank, will admit the logs being hauled over
skids, and it is adopted in bringing out the wood from
the branch paths into the main truck-path. Trucking
is, of course, where the logs are hoisted on to suitably-
constructed vehicles, which run on broad wooden truck-
wheels, the hindmost higher than the foremost pair.
The three modes of carrying away the logs are fre-
quently combined, a season's cuttings being got out
partly by trucking, partly by rolling and sliding. To
a gang of forty hands there will be a complement of
six trucks, with a team of seven or eight pairs of oxen,
and two drivers to each truck. The mahogany logs
are elevated on the trucks by inclined platforms, the
logs having been sawn into sizes to equalize the loads.
for the yokes of oxen. Twelve men are told off, in
trucking, to load, and sixteen to cut food for the teams
and to perform miscellaneous duties on the works.
Night is the time selected for trucking out, and the
scene is an animated and characteristic one.
Upon the heavy background of the dense, tropical
foliage, the torches carried by the workmen make a
flickering clear-obscure, by whose light their dusky
forms, naked to the waist, are made phantasmagorically
visible, moving round the huge, inert mass of timber
as it lies on what may readily be mistaken for a gi-
gantic catafalque, while the patient oxen wait for the
Mahogany Cutting.
123
crack of the driver's whip, and the shouts of the gang
break the deathlike stillness of the surrounding forest.
The signal given, the whole rude cavalcade starts off
at a rapid pace, with wild whoopings, crackings, and
shouts, for the river's brink.
The logs once arrived at the bank, they are roughly
squared on the river "barquadier," "manufactured,"
the hands call it; but this work is frequently postponed
until the timber arrives at the river-mouths, where are
more extensive and convenient "barquadiers," especially
when advantage has to be taken of sudden high flood.
The body of the tree, from the size of the timber it
furnishes,, is deemed the most valuable; but the limbs,
showing a finer and more variegated grain, are pre-
ferred for ornamental purposes. Logs cut in February
and September are liable to split, but this can be ob-
viated by keeping them in deep water.
On the Old River, the logs are floated down inde-
pendently until they reach the point called the Boom,
twenty-three miles up-river from Belize, where they
are collected, formed according to marks into small
rafts as wanted for shipment, and thence floated to
Belize, to be towed alongside the vessels. Previously
to being shipped, the "butts" and "fans" are sawn
off, the wood further (sometimes entirely) prepared
for shipment, bad wood picked out, and the good
measured by sworn measurers.
The question of measurement has always been a
sore one. Notwithstanding their official position, the
measurements of the sworn measurers of the Bay are
little respected by the measurers of Liverpool and
London. The tare and draft in Liverpool generally
124
British Honduras.
comes to an allowance of every third, in London of
every fourth, and in Bristol of every fifth log to the
buyer. In American ports the mahogany exporter
fares no better.
Mahogany-trees shed annually plenty of seeds, so
that the natural supply is kept up.
*
*
*
*
Logwood belongs to the same class botanically
(Decandria monogynia) as its gigantic neighbour;
order, Lomentacea, L. hæmatoxylon; and is described:
calyx quinque particle, five capsuled petals, lanceolate,
-semi-locular and bivalved-valves navicular. The
stem is crooked, and grows sixteen to twenty-four feet
high, seldom thicker than a man's thigh, the branches
also crooked and irregular, thorny; leaves winged;
and flowers pale-yellow.
The yield of it is almost inexhaustible from Campeché,
Honduras, and the West India Islands, as it seeds
freely, and can be recut in ten to fifteen years. Its
original value was 1001. per ton, then 401.; in 1825,
167.; and it is now quoted at 51. to 71. Its export from
the colony has been pretty uniform: 1713 to 1716,
5740 tons; in 1824, over 4000 tons; in 1874, 9210
tons, and since as much as 13,000 tons in one year.
Its shipment, except as the broken stowage with
mahogany logs, hardly leaves any margin for profit,
but it is a favourable mode of remittance for merchants
desirous of saving the exchange. It grows in soft,
spongy soils.
Its production for shipment requires
less capital than mahogany, and is frequently under-
taken by small capitalists employing small gangs,
who pay a royalty for cutting on the estates. It is
1
Dye and other Woods.
125
generally cut the length of cordwood, three feet. It is
brought down the rivers and along the coast in dories,
and down the rivers in "bark logs," or floating cradles
made of the cabbage-palm.
The other woods shipped are cedar, rosewood, santa
maria, braziletta, and fustic, but the list of valuable
trees of the region is a very long one. Pitch-pine is
found in abundance on the ridges. The sappodilla is a
most durable wood for house-posts, &c. The caout-
chouc (Siphonia elastica) is common in certain districts,
and there are minor botanical productions to be referred
to hereafter. A collection of the woods of the country
in polished specimens attracted great attention at the
State Fair of Louisiana, held at New Orleans in 1867.
Nevertheless, white pine lumber is imported in large
quantities.
126
British Honduras.
CHAPTER XI.
HISTORY FROM 1851 TO 1857.
1851-52. COLONEL FANCOURT was succeeded by Sir Philip
Wodehouse, K.C.B. He was presented with the usual
address on leaving; and upon the whole he had acted
with discretion and tact, if he had employed a tem-
porizing policy. He had certainly carried the colony
through a season of great internal discord.
Sugar-
cane.
A general meeting of the inhabitants was called to
consider propositions for a new constitution, which were
agreed to and forwarded with a memorial to the Secre
tary of State for the Colonies, but the wish was not
granted for two years after. An act for the better
registration of deeds and documents was passed.
The decay of the prosperity of the mahogany and
logwood interests led the attention of the far-seeing to
be turned to the introduction of other industries, and
agriculture was ably recommended in a series of papers
by a writer under the signature of "Agricola " in the
newspapers.
The sugar-cane is indigenous; the soil in localities
admirably adapted to its growth, the canes reaching a
height of ten, twenty, even thirty feet, and ratooning
freely for a decade. In 1847 cane cultivation was in-
Sugar Industries.
127
troduced into the northern district by the Spanish
Yucatecans who had fled thither from the Indians
during the outbreak of the war of races.
The success
these "rancheritos " met with, although, their capital
being small, their operations were limited to the supply
of the home demand, led to others embarking in the .
cultivation.
A sugar-estate was advertised for sale at Manatee in
1847 by J. McDonald. The names of Mr. James Hume
Blake and John Johnston are also mentioned in con-
nexion with early sugar-planting. Mr. Carmichael,
formerly a Liverpool merchant, became a planter at
Corozal, and was the first to persist in the attempt in
sugar-planting on a large scale. Twelve estates were
started, but upon all of them the same reckless manage-
ment and want of practical experience were noticeable.
Extravagant outlay on machinery and in the introduc-
tion of labour resulted in failure and collapse, but most
of the estates have changed hands lately, and under
different management promise fairly. Experience has
been paid for by the pioneers in this attempt, and the
lesson of circumspection inculcated, in place of visionary
experiments by new beginners.
It would be folly to overlook the fact that, before
sugar can be cultivated, the lands have to be cleared.
But to counterbalance this, there is the richness of the
virgin soil, whose yield-two to three and a half tons
per acre-is not surpassed elsewhere. And it must be
remembered that the land once cleared, the cost of that
in particular is over, while it is generally lessened also,
for the canes once established will ratoon with little care
for ten years. Here the cleaning should take place
128
British Honduras.
from September to November, the planting in June or
December. No manuring is required, or likely to be
required for an indefinite period. What is wanted is
experience and capital. Ten pounds per acre is a fair
estimate for the expense of clearing, planting, and
keeping clean, for the first year. In the following
years the cost of labour for such purposes would be
rather less than it is in the islands. Roads can be con-
structed for about fifty dollars a mile. An advantage
too lies in the fact that, whereas, in older sugar-growing
countries, the cane trash, or "megass," as it is called—
the refuse of the cane after the juice has been expressed
-is required for manure, here it will be available for
years to come as fuel, and when no longer so, fuel is to
be obtained in unlimited supplies to keep the machinery
going. Concretors have been introduced and "Hon-
duras Concrete fetches 19s. to 21s. in the London
market; in the United States still higher prices. The
first shipment of concrete took place in May, 1867.
Muscovado has only a limited market. 'From all I
have been able to gather," writes the present colonial
secretary, "I think it can be demonstrated that well-
managed estates in the colony have been able to pay
their way, and persons judiciously managing their own
estates have been able to make a good living out of
them, besides adding to a reserved fund, or reimbursing
a fair portion of the purchase-money within a very
short time, even under recent adverse circumstances
affecting the sugar trade. Whether estates can be
continued with the same results will of course depend
upon the state of the market." There are advocates
of the central factory system, which provides that one
Sugar Industries.
129
class of agriculturalists should grow the canes, and
that the results of their labours should be manufactured
in a central factory, as English farmers send their
wheat elsewhere to be converted into bread. Rum, of
course, is produced, but not exported, except in small
quantities. It may be smuggled across the frontiers.
As far back as 1807, both sugar and rum, said to be
equal to Jamaica, were produced by the settlers on
Black River on the Mosquito Shore (Henderson)..
The future expectation is that sugar, tobacco, and
coffee, with a few other articles, will supplement, if they
do not supplant, the older staples; while large tracts of
land, incapable of producing anything else, will yield
millions of cocoa-nuts; richer arable patches being de-
voted to other tropical fruits for the American markets.
It is possible, however, that woods, such as at present
are, always will be, exported from Honduras so long as
it is a colony of Great Britain.
One of the first matters Sir Philip Wodehouse
directed his attention to, was the improvement of the
finances and fiscal reform. The colonial secretary was
made collector of customs, and that department was
rendered more efficient. The most respectable
merchants had previously regarded the systematic
defrauding of the revenue as a very venial sin. }
An anecdote, if not quite proved, is generally believed,
that an old lady, purchasing a barrel of flour at a well-
known store, was both surprised and delighted to find
in the centre of it a neat little quarter-chest of the best
Bohea! Verb. sap.
At this time Ruatan was included in the superin-
tendent's commission.
K
130
British Honduras.
1853.
1854.
1856
Further attempts at mediation between the contend-
ing races, were rejected by the Indian chiefs.
The great event of the year was the remodelling of
the constitution by "an act to amend the system of
government of British Honduras." It was provided
that the executive should consist of a superintendent
and a legislative assembly of eighteen elected and
three nominated members. The qualification for a
vote was fixed at the ownership of real estate of the
annual value of 71. sterling, the occupation of land
or houses at the annual rental of 71. sterling, or
receipt of an annual salary of 100l. per annum, both
for a period of six months prior to registration. An
executive council, composed of the officer command-
ing the troops, the colonial secretary, the treasurer,
attorney-general, and three others chosen by the
superintendent, was to assist the superintendent. It
was finally established that the judiciary should con-
sist of a chief justice and five assistant-judges, a police-
magistrate, coroner, and justices of the peace, with
various subordinate public officials.
1853. Imports-198,1867. Exports-345,3761.
Revenue-29,5107.-Expenditure—28,8741.
A destructive fire broke out this year, on the pre-
mises of a Mr. Deiseldorff, who kept a store near the
Belize Market, from the ignition of some carpenter's
shavings. Damage, confined to the buildings near
the market, was done to the amount of 60,000l.
tributions were nevertheless sent to the Crimean
Patriotic Fund, although that campaign further re-
duced the demand for the colony's staple products.
Con-
Another great fire devastated the north side of the
Incendiary Fires.
131
town of Belize, doing extensive damage to the
property of the largest firm in the colony.
This fire was supposed to have been the act of an
incendiary, and in the excited state of public feeling,
amounting to a panic, a person named Ambrister was
imprisoned and tried, found guilty and hung, on the
most unsatisfactory evidence. A perusal of the pro-
ceedings reflects anything but credit on the prosecu-
tion or the judges, and the man was in fact judicially
murdered. The common belief is, now, that the
principal witness against Ambrister, a miscreant called
"Coolie George," incarcerated for other crimes, was
deeply perjured, and himself not innocent of this and
less destructive arsons.
The following returns of sugar and rum are ex-
tracted from the Official Gazette of 3rd July, 1856, for
the six months ending 31st June of that year :-
Spirits, 14,819 gallons. Sugar, 302,382 lbs.
The Chichenha Indians invaded the territory, thus
breaking the long spell of freedom from external
attack which since 1798 had been enjoyed by the
settlement.
They would appear to have been instigated by the
Yucatecan Spaniards, whom they had joined against
the Santa Cruz tribe, and who bore us enmity on the
grounds of our trading with their inveterate enemies,
the same Santa Cruz, in arms and ammunition, which
the Belize merchants undoubtedly did and still do, a
sale of worthless arms having been made to the chiefs
of the Santa Cruz by a large Belize house only last
year (1880). Certainly, if strict neutrality is incum-
K 2
132
British Honduras.
.
1857.
1858.
Mr. Sey-
mour,
Supt.
bent on any nation in a conflict carried on between a
civilized race and warlike savages on its borders, it is
incumbent on us, and particularly on our colonial
fellow-subjects, when we consider for how long we
have carried on similar contests, in various parts of
the globe, against aboriginal tribes; and the trade in
contraband of war with savages is disgraceful to the
Belize firms who profit by it for the time, but eventu-
ally suffer with their fellow-colonists, and repre-
hensible in the executive which winks at such
proceedings.
The invaders came across at Blue Creek, on the
Hondo (Panting's Bank) and seized and occupied the
mahogany works of Messrs. Young, Toledo, and Co.,
in charge of Mr. Panting. Eventually the firm had to
pay a large sum of money to the Indians, to ransom
their works, people, and cattle. Notwithstanding
that they paid a heavy rent to the Mexican Govern-
ment for permission to cut mahogany, &c., on Mexican
lands and the Hondo, a second seizure was made of
their property on these lands next year by the opposite
belligerents, the Santa Cruz. Mr. Edward Rhys of
Belize proceeded to Bacalar, and the Santa Cruz made
apologies and gave expression to friendly intentions.
Bacalar was recaptured by the Indians, and the war
of castes broke out once more with great fury.
A Captain Anderson and Mr. Blake, a northern
planter, went to Bacalar to intercede for and ransom
some Spanish prisoners taken by the Indians. They
have described the consultation of the "Santa Cruz"
oracle, which differs little from similar savage mum-
meries amongst other superstitious tribes. The oracle
Registration of Lands.
133
was unpropitious, and the prisoners were massacred
before the eyes of the mediators; the ransom being,
however, honourably returned to Blake. Only the
female children were spared.
A display of force was made by our military
authorities, reinforcements having been applied for
and received from Jamaica. Troops were stationed on
the Hondo, and the Santa Cruz became more friendly
than ever.
1860.
T. Pine,
Acting
In 1860 the Bay Islands were surrendered to the
republic of Spanish Honduras. An act was passed to
legitimize children born out of wedlock on the subse- Supt.
quent marriage of the parents, but the act did not
apply to parties who had ceased to cohabit after the
birth of the children to be legitimized.
Permission granted to the state of Guatemala to fit
out vessels and recruit men for operations against the
American Filibustering Expedition.
Registration of Land Titles Act. With reference to
purchases or grants of lands from the crown, "the
practice is not to give a grant now to the purchaser,
but merely to give a receipt for the purchase-money
and to transfer the lands to the buyer upon the records
of the court. Thereupon a certificate is handed to the
buyer, showing on its face the several conveyances of
the estate from the first crown grant to the date of
the purchase.”¹ Crown leases of land are granted for
ninety-nine years.
Two officers, Lieutenants Twigg, R.E., and Plum-
ridge, 3rd West India Regiment, were despatched on
some friendly mission to Bacalar. They would appear to
¹ British Honduras Colonist, January, 1868.
1861.
134
British Honduras.
1862.
Acting
Governor.
1863.
Acting
Governor.
1864-65.
J. Gar-
diner
Austin,
Lieut.-
Governor.
have been rather jocularly inclined, and indiscreet in
their communications with the chiefs, and were in con-
sequence treated by Benancio Puc or Pec, the Indian
comandante, with great indignities. Report speaks
of their being put through some painful ordeals with
which Chili peppers had something to do, but the
officers eventually returned to Belize crest-fallen, but
not much the worse corporeally-sadder, but certainly
much wiser men.
Population, 25,635.
In 1862 the settlement was proclaimed a colony,
the superintendent in future to be styled Lieutenant-
Governor under the Governor of Jamaica.
Another great fire occurred this year on the south
side of the town of Belize.
The Santa Cruz Indians severely chastised the
Chichenhas of Icaiché on our borders.
The insurrection of negroes in St. Thomas in the
East, Jamaica, broke out prematurely in October of
1865.
The Chichenhas (Icaiché branch) now became very
troublesome to the colony's northern inhabitants,
demanding rent which was irregularly paid them by
Belize firms who were cutting on the territory between
the Rio Bravo and another branch of the Hondo,
claimed both by us and the Mexicans. The source of
the Hondo formed the basis of the dispute. In 1865
they attacked Quam (or Qualon Hill) on the Bravo,
under a chief called Marcos Canul, and carried away
the manager, some sixty labourers, and the cattle.
1866. This gang was ransomed by the government of the
colony for 3000l. Mr. Phillip's bank at Labouring
Expedition against Indians.
135
Creek was similarly visited a short time after, and at
the same time Messrs. Toledo's works at Orange
Walk, Old River, had to be abandoned in consequence
of their threatening appearance there, making renewed
demands for rent.
After much delay a hybrid expedition was organized
between Governor Austin and the officer in command
of the troops. The governor appointed a civil com-
missioner (the same Mr. Rhys who had proceeded on
a mission to Bacalar in 1856-57). The military com-
prised the entire garrison of Belize.
One hundred and forty-three men with three officers
of the 4th West India Regiment, a volunteer officer
who was also an employé of Messrs. Toledo and Co., a
civilian doctor, and a commissariat-officer, were des-
patched, as escort to the commissioner and to enforce
his demands, up the Old River to Orange Walk in
pitpans, carrying with them the requisite supplies and
matériel, in December, 1866. The force reached
Orange Walk in eight days. Another body of troops,
composed of a detachment of the 4th West India
Regiment under the orders of Captain Edmunds, and a
party of volunteers, proceeded in a small steamer to
the Hondo, to intercept the Indians should they
attempt to cross that frontier. The Old River expe-
dition was militarily commanded by Major Mackay,
4th West India Regiment, and having crossed the
Belize, marched at midnight upon an Indian village,
San Pedro de Siris, within our limits; the coman-
dante of which was one Asencion Ek. The route was
by an abandoned truck-path, crossed by enormous
creeks and knee-deep in mud, the season being the
136
British Honduras.
wet one.
The men were soon exhausted, and the
loaded mules "bogged" at every creek. After a
toilsome and harassing night-march, the troops
halted at daylight for breakfast, and while so engaged
the head of the column was suddenly attacked by a
party of Indians. It has been attempted to prove
that the Indians were insignificant as to numbers.
Sufficient discredit attaches to the affair without
minimizing the enemy's force, but, although from their
peculiar bush-tactics no approximate idea even of
their numbers could be formed, they must have been
in force, as in the short brush which ensued, lasting
about twenty minutes, four men of the 4th West India
Regiment and two carriers were killed, and sixteen
others wounded.
For some reason best known to himself Major
Mackay ordered the bugler to sound the retire about
twenty minutes after the first shot was fired. The
troops at first obeyed the order reluctantly, but as the
three combatant officers, the gallant major at their
head, nobly led the strategic movement to the rear,
the retreat soon became a stampede back along the
line of the previous night's march, during which the
black troops threw away everything but their rifles
and pouches. The truck-path was strewn with water-
proof sheets, haversacks, &c., &c. ; the medical pan-
niers, ammunition, and commissariat stores, including
a rocket-gun (6-pounder), were abandoned, and mules
and horses galloped home alone. The Indians had also
taken to their heels. Arrived at Orange Walk, Major
Mackay called a council of war, to which he summoned
besides his two subaltern officers, the volunteer and
Disgraceful Stampede.
137
commissariat-officers, and the civilian doctor also gave
his opinion. The men, it was found, were in a state of
mutiny, openly cursing the major. They had fired off
all the ammunition in their pouches save a few rounds;
they were shoeless; the rest of the ammunition, and
the commissariat and medical supplies were lost; there
were no means of transport to resume the march with,
and, worst of all, all confidence in the commanding
officer was gone. A return to Belize by river was
decided upon, and immediately carried out.
The commissioner, Mr. Rhys, disappeared at the
moment the cry of "Indians!" was raised during the
memorable halt for breakfast, and his subsequent fate
was never cleared up. He was well known to the
Indians—indeed, had a good deal of Indian blood in
him by his mother's side-and it is supposed if they
recognized him they would do him no harm. He was
in delicate health and almost a cripple, and it is most
likely he got separated from the main party during the
encounter, and, from the subsequent hasty retreat,
could not succeed in rejoining it, but eventually
perished in the bush. He was the son of a retired
army-doctor who had settled and married in the colony,
and was a gentlemen of considerable ability, great
courage and firmness and amiability.
The news of the disaster preceded the troops to Belize,
where the greatest excitement and apprehension pre-
vailed. The volunteers were kept on duty day and night,
the Indians being looked for either ahead of, or in the
immediate wake of Mackay and his routed Zouaves.²
The Hondo party, under Captain Edmunds, which
2 The West India corps wear the Zouave dress.
2
138
British Honduras.
1867.
had reached Betson's Bank on that river, was recalled,
and the inhabitants, Governor Austin's family, at least,
included, if not himself, were all packed up ready to
take to the shipping.
Dr. Hunter of Belize, public medical officer, who
accompanied Captain Edmunds' party, speaks well of
the cheerfulness with which the volunteers submitted
to the hardships of a bush-campaign.
A court of inquiry was subsequently held on Major
Mackay. He was leniently allowed to sell out, not-
withstanding that at Tubebarcalong in Africa he had
been previously reported by Governor D'Arcy for
"tardiness" in meeting the enemy. Let us be lenient
too, and allow him his own excuse, "he lost his head
a heart in his breast he never had to lose. Christmas
was anything but a holiday in Belize that year.
The opening of the year following brought one
J. R. Long-
den, Lient.- man-of-war after another to the harbour of Belize.
Governor. The garrison of Belize was reinforced by 300 of the
3rd West India Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel
Harley, a 6-pounder Armstrong, and a party of white
artillerymen from Port Royal.
In February a second expedition started by a dif-
ferent route to Old Orange Walk, and the district of
the recent disaster (as subsequently was the Hondo
district) was scoured by the flying column, without the
foe being encountered, or greater military achievements
accomplished than the burning of the aforesaid San
Pedro de Siris, and other Indian villages. As Mr.
Fowler correctly describes it in his rapid sketch already
alluded to, the operations were rather of the "Bom-
bastes Furioso" order.
139
CHAPTER XII.
HISTORY FROM 1868 TO DATE.
THREE years after Lieutenant-Colonel Harley's grand 1838
campaign, Canul and Chan, two chiefs of the Icaichés,
marched through the country to Corozal, and took
possession of it, asking for an interview with the magis-
trates, from whom Canul peremptorily demanded pay-
ment of $3000, as a penalty for the inhabitants having
supplied their enemies with arms and ammunition.
But some of the Santa Cruz Indians happened to
appear upon the scene, and Canul, fearing they would
bring their tribe upon him, withdrew his force, said
to number 400. Mr. Longden, the lieutenant-
governor, took prompt measures for defence. But in
1872 the same Canul attacked Orange Walk, New
River, in earnest, and was repulsed by the detachment
of troops under Lieutenant Smith, 1st West India Regi-
ment, who was seriously wounded. Fourteen men
were wounded and two killed-a Yucatecan was bar-
barously killed-and some twenty-five or thirty of the
inhabitants wounded; fifteen houses were burnt, and
others pillaged. A useful diversion was created by
some American settlers (accustomed to Indian raids
probably). One of them, Mr. Oswald, received the
Cross of St. Michael and St. George.
Canul was
140
British Honduras.
1872-78.
killed, and since that time the colony has been free
from Indian incursions. The war of races still con-
tinues in Yucatan.
The "Indios bravos," or unsubdued indigenous
tribes of Yucatan, are trained to arms and discipline,
are capable of enduring much fatigue, and, though
invariably low in stature, are wiry, hardy, and coura-
geous. They are badly armed with old smooth-bores,
and ill provided with ammunition, using any small
pellet of iron and buck-shot in place of the bullet.
They follow the ordinary bush-tactics of savage tribes,
and invariably carry a machéte or cutlass. They wear
white linen or duck suits and straw hats, brown
leather accoutrements and moccasins. On the march
they roll their trousers above the knee, and carry with
them their simple rations of corn-cakes or tortillas.
As these events produced a diplomatic correspon-
dence between the British and Mexican Governments
which in its progress entered upon the question of
territorial rights, it may be appropriate to consider it in
this place. The first despatch is from Lord Granville,
and is under date 2nd of March, 1872. After detailing
the recent attack by Canul at Orange Walk, and allud-
ing to the other incursion into the colony in 1870, the
British minister directs the attention of the Mexican
authorities to the matter, and claims "satisfaction for
the past and security for the future." The reply from
the Mexican Foreign Office is signed by J. M. Lafragua,
and dated 12th of February, 1873. In it is denied the
control over Canul by the Government of Mexico, and
all responsibility, directly or indirectly, for the acts of
that chief, or the Chichenha Indians. It also retorts
Indemnification demanded.
141
upon us that the colonists of Belize have fomented
the war of races in Yucatan, and remarks, "Esta
guerra no ataca el derecho de gentes, sino la justicia
universal; no viola un tratado, sino la moral; no ofende
á un pueblo, sino á la humanidad." This is replied to
by Lord Derby in a despatch of the 28th of July, 1874,
in which he incontestably proves that Marcos Canul,
his predecessor Puc, and his successor Chan, were re-
cognized as generals and comandantes of the canton
of Icaiché, both by the Comandante of Bacalar,
and the Governor of Campeché, and refers to despatches
and official documents in support. Lord Derby reiterates
the demand for indemnification made by Lord Gran-
ville in 1872, and that efficacious measures should be
taken by the Mexican Government against a repetition
of similar invasions. A change also having taken
place in the personnel of the Mexican Foreign Office,
Lord Derby's note is replied to by H.E. Señor Val-
larta in a very long and very able despatch, dated
23rd of March, 1878. Señor Vallarta rather springs a
mine under the British Foreign Office by taking his
start from the Treaty of Versailles, 1783, and the Con-
vention of London, 1786, between Great Britain and
Spain; "posteriamente revividos" by the Treaties of
Amiens, 1802, and Madrid, 1814, as he alleges. He
alludes for a confirmation to a correspondence between
the Governor of Bacalar, Don Juan Bautista Gual, in
1810 and 1812, with Lieutenant-Colonel Nugent Smyth,
then Superintendent of British Honduras, in which the
Mexican official contends against the arguments of
English writers, that the colony was not comprehended
in the provisions of those treaties (1802 and 1814), ex-
•
1
142
British Honduras.
cept as regards the mere defining of existing boun-
daries, and their assertion of the point that England,
by her colonial subjects settled in Honduras, had
acquired a title to sovereignty over it by right of con-
quest in 1798. He also alleges that the "leyes del
parlemento inglés de 1817 y 1819" confirm categori-
cally and determinately that Belize "no está dentro de
los limites y dominos de S. M. B.," and the English
Parliament by these "leyes" had declined to assume
the right to legislate for Honduras, except under the
stipulations of the treaty of 1783 and convention of
1786.
The Mexican Foreign Minister's further arguments
may be epitomized thus, that by the Treaty of London,
26th December, 1826-framed purposely for the formal
recognition of Mexican independence-all the rights,
territorial and otherwise, held by Spain at the time of
the declaration of independence of Mexico, and
anterior to that political event, devolved upon the
Mexican Government. And Señor Vallarta goes on to
catalogue the various subsequent occasions which have
given rise to discussion between Great Britain and
Spain-in 1812-13 on the question of limits; and with
Mexico as to her pretensions, in 1826, 1828, 1849,
in which the terms of the treaties made with Spain
are alleged to have been invariably recognized as
still binding and as the basis of negotiations by the
British representatives. Moreover, that at the pre-
liminary negotiations for a treaty of amity and for
recognition between Spain and Mexico, 1835, Mr.
Villiers, our minister at Madrid, demanded a formal
cession from Spain of British Honduras; which ces-
Treaty Disputes.
143
sion would not have been demanded had we then
considered we possessed sovereign rights over the
territory. The treaty of 1836, by which Spain finally
recognized Mexico, further confirms to her territorial
rights, Señor Vallarta argues, over the colony of
British Honduras; and with allusion to subsequent
correspondence, he closes what must be considered an
ingeniously-put case, by saying,—
"The recognition of the independence of the republic
transfers to it legally the sovereign rights which Spain
had exercised over it (British Honduras) by right of
conquest."
It is not difficult to meet Señor Vallarta's arguments.
It cannot, to begin with, be granted that in all cases
where a change in the form of government, or a transfer
of the governing power to other hands, has taken
place, the treaty rights of the former holder of sove-
reign power necessarily devolve upon the successor.
A treaty is a solemn engagement between two (or more)
high contracting parties, described in the preamble
with minute and technical precision. Without the
acquiesence of both England and Spain, Mexico could
not assume the place of Spain in a treaty between them,
affecting their respective interests, and binding them
alone. Nor was Mexico ever in the position to assume
any of the territorial rights of Spain, but as a revolted
subject dependency had to make good her title vi et
armis to the territory actually in her possession, until
Spain executed the treaty of 1836, and thus recognized
her independence; her very existence previously being
due to revolutionary proceedings, which Spain, theore-
tically, at all events, refused to acknowledge or coun-
144
British Honduras.
tenance until 1835, the date of treaty negotiations;
Spain having still the right to reduce Mexico again to
subjection up to that date by force of arms.
We must get behind the treaty of 1826, by which
Great Britain recognized Mexican independence-and
almost contemporaneously that of the other revolted
Spanish republics-to the date of the revolts and
declarations of independence. Here was a complete
bouleversement of existing affairs, not a mere transfer
of power and sovereignty to which the de jure party
in possession, Spain, gave consent to the assumption
of her rights by those who were in de facto possession.
We had in fact a better title to our territory in Central
America, than any of the new republics who in interna-
tional law had as yet no locus standi and no title, other
than the "nine points of law"-one of actual possession
-until formally recognized by Spain and other powers.
It was therefore, and is, only Spain herself whom
we could ever have recognized as possessing a shadow
of right to a title to the territory we claim, or a right
to dispute ours. But Spain had abandoned all claim,
and given tacit consent to the exercise by us of all
the rights of sovereignty she had by previous treaties
denied us up to 1798, and had she even felt disposed
to transfer her rights, had no longer the power to do
Since the defeat of the Spaniards under Marshal
O'Neil by the settlers, plantations had been formed;
crown grants of land made; fortifications erected i
a superintendent appointed by royal letters patent;
regular troops stationed permanently, and barracks
built; and consuls had been appointed by the new
Spanish republics, and by Mexico herself. Further,
So.
Discussion of Treaties.
145
the settlers no longer confined their operations to the
limits laid down by former treaties, but acted contrary
to the express stipulations of them by occupying the
district from the Sibun to the Sarstoon in addition to
what they had already occupied so long.
These encroachments were neither resented nor ob-
jected to by Spain, on pacific relations between the
two powers being resumed at the close of the war
which had broken out in 1796, nor was any remon-
strance lodged by Spain against them, or any assump-
tion of sovereign rights, between the dates of the
Treaty of Paris (1814) and the revolt of the Spanish
American provinces.
The treaties between Spain and England of 1802
and 1814, by which Señor Vallarta claims the older
treaties executed previous to 1798 are renewed (revi-
vidos), do not refer to the subject at all, but they
contemplate "the early negotiation of a new treaty of
commerce at a fitting time.”
The laws of the British Parliament (" leyes del parla-
mento inglés de 1817-19") referred to by the Mexi-
can Foreign Minister, are 57 George III. cap. 53, and
59 George III. cap. 44. They provide for the punish-
ment of murders, &c., committed in Honduras and other
places "not within his Majesty's dominions," but so
far from renouncing the right to legislate for Honduras,
assert it, and provide for the execution of it. These
acts were necessary, because, first, Honduras was then
a settlement, not a colony, therefore strictly speaking,
not within his Majesty's dominions, as Ireland, or
Jamaica even. Second, the sovereignty de jure was
vested by treaty in Spain, but de facto exercised by
L
146
British Honduras.
the British settlers. And third, Spain having been
since the Peninsular war an ally of Great Britain, and
on friendly terms, it was not likely England would
wound her susceptibilities in this matter. But Spain
had previously, and did then and subsequently, allow
her claims of sovereignty to go by default as has been
set forth above, and more especially by the cessation
of the exercise of her treaty right to send commissioners
into the colony after the attack on St. George's Caye,
and her general indifference to the course pursued by
the British Government, although approached on the
subject in 1835.
When it was proposed, in 1862, to declare the settle-
ment a colony, Spain was communicated with, but no
remonstrance was forthcoming, and this communication
to the court of Madrid shows that Spain, and Spain
alone, was considered as possessing at any time a right
to be consulted, which right she has forfeited all claim
to-except one on the diplomatic courtesy of Great
Britain-by her own lapses.
The only protest lodged was one by the American
consul, bribed, it is said to make his country look
ridiculous, or imbued with the spirit of the Monroe
doctrine, and anxious to shine before his little world."
British Honduras is excepted from the conditions of
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which promises, on the
part of Great Britain, not to colonize Nicaragua,
Central America, and the Mosquito Coast.
It is clear that neither Mexico nor the Central
American States knew their proper territorial limits
when they revolted. The federal constitution
See Whitaker's Almanac, 1879, page 249.
of
Discussion of Treaties.
147
Mexico, promulgated October 4, 1824, states that
"the limits of the confederation shall be defined by a
constitutional law as soon as circumstances permit."
Also the federal constitution of the Central American
States, promulgated November 22nd, 1824, states that
"the limits of the territory of the states shall be
defined by a constitutional law when the necessary
information shall have been obtained."
These constitutional laws have not been passed as yet.
In 1827 Mexico appointed commissioners to ascer-
tain the limits between herself and Guatemala, and to
inspect the boundary-line of the British settlement,
and the step was preparatory to the Mexican Govern-
ment inviting the British Government to appoint a
commission to carry into effect article xiv. of the
treaty between Mexico and Great Britain of December
26th, 1826, to settle the limits claimed by the British
settlers, who, it was well known at that time, had
passed the limits fixed by the Convention of London
of 1786.
The treaty of 1826, art. xiv., "reserves the rights,
privileges and immunities of H.B. Majesty's subjects
within the limits laid down in the convention of 14th
July, 1786, the contracting parties to the treaty re-
serving for some more fitting opportunity the further
arrangements on the article." This is interpreted by
Mexico as implying a recognition of its succession
to the rights of the crown of Spain, and the reserva-
tion of the rights of the British settlers within the
limits of the convention of 1786. But on what
principle could Great Britain recognize such rights in
the republic of Mexico in face of treaties with Spain,
L 2
148
British Honduras.
unless her treaties with that power had been speci-
fically abrogated, and Mexico previously placed in the
stead of Spain?
That Spain was approached in 1835 by our minister
at Madrid shows conclusively that we never recognized
any rights beyond our own, except hers. Nor was it
likely England would jeopardize the interests of her
own subjects who had thrown off the yoke of Spain
more than twenty years before Mexico did so (1821)
under her ephemeral Emperor Iturbide, and who had
rights of occupation existing over two hundred years,
which had been time after time recognized by Spain
by treaty engagements.
(c
The fitting opportunity" for making further
arrangements on article xiv. of the treaty of 1826,
like the making of the constitutional law to define
boundaries has not yet come, it would appear.
The British settlers established the same rights in
1798 over the territory they occupied, that Mexico did
in 1821 over the territory the Mexican revolutionary
leaders controlled; therefore British Honduras was a
state twenty years old, before the republic of Mexico
had any existence.
Mexico claims the sovereignty exercised by Spain
over British Honduras under the treaty of 1836, a
sovereignty which had de facto ceased for more than a
quarter of a century previously. Let it even have
been supposed to exist de jure at the recognition of
Mexico by Spain by that treaty of 1836, Spain could
not transfer it in face of the treaties of 1783-86, without
the consent of England. Spain, if she had included a
transfer of sovereignty over British Honduras and the
Discussion of Treaties.
149
British subjects of that territory in her treaty recog-
nizing her revolted province, Mexico, would have
committed an overt act of hostility against a faithful
ally; an act which if Spain were now accused of she
would disown, and of which any European government
would be ashamed.
It is not likely that arguments apparently strong,
but intrinsically so weak as Señor Vallarta's will be
used except as a set-off to similar claims by us for
Indian raids.
Against the arguments that the Mexican Government
is not responsible for the acts of the Indians still un-
subdued; that our lieutenant-governors have entered
into compacts with their chiefs; and that our colonists
have supplied arms and powder to tribes hostile to
Mexico, we fear it will not be such an easy matter to
furnish replies.
Since penning the above, we have accidentally come
across a short correspondence quietly ignored by
Señor Vallarta, from which we make the following
extracts :-
1. "Her Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, to H.E. Señor
Ramirez:-
"Mexico, March 6th, 1865.
"The undersigned has the honour, &c., that the
attention of H.M. government has been drawn to a
proclamation or decree issued by certain commissioners
of the Emperor of Mexico on 19th September last, and
published in the "Gazette of Yucatan," of the 23rd
of that month, wherein the boundaries of the province
of Yucatan are treated in such a manner as to com-
150
British Honduras.
1867-68.
1867.
Lieut.-
prise within its limits the British colony of Honduras.
The undersigned is ordered formally to declare to the
Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs on the part of
her Majesty's Government, and does hereby declare,
that Mexico has no claim whatever to any part of the
territory which forms the colony of British Honduras,
which is under the exclusive sovereignty of the British
crown."
"The undersigned, &c.,
"P. C. SCARLETT."
2. H.E. Señor Ramirez to our envoy in reply:-
((
Mexico, March 9th, 1865.
[After acknowledging receipt, &c.] "In his turn
has the satisfaction to declare to her Britannic Majesty's
Minister that there must be some error in the case, as
Mexico has never enunciated the pretensions indicated.
If anything has been done to the contrary, the
emperor's government will correct it immediately; as
it is jealous of the inviolability of its frontiers, so will
it religiously respect that of its neighbours. The
undersigned hopes to have the pleasure of giving to
Mr. Scarlett explanations which should suffice to re-
move all doubts, on seeing the antecedents of the affair."
Having brought the accounts of the Indian raids
down to the last instance, it is necessary to catch up
the thread of the general history where it was dropped.
The finances of the colony, heavily burdened by the
Governor payment of the military expenses incurred by the opera-
Longden. tions of 1866-67, were in a deplorable condition when
taken in hand by Mr. Longden. An act was passed
to levy a land-tax.
1
Immigration from South U.S.
151
Sir John Peter Grant, the Governor of Jamaica and
dependencies, of which the colony was one, paid it a
visit the first instance of such an event. The general
commanding, Major-General Luke Smyth O'Connor,
also renewed his acquaintance with the colony in which
he had formerly served, by visiting it on a tour of
military inspection.
During "the reconstruction" of the Southern States
of America after the civil war, a portion of the dissatis-
fied ex-confederates found their way to British Hon-
duras, but advantages were not held out to them,
and only a proportion of them eventually became
settlers. One hundred arrived first in the steamer
Trade-Wind. It is alleged that the late Governor Mr.
Austin's sudden and undignified removal from his post,
was due to the unauthorized grants by him of crown
lands at a cheap rate to these Southern exiles, rather
than to his recent mismanagement of Indian affairs.
Our home government probably did not wish to offend
that of the United States by offering inducements to
its malcontent subjects to leave their own country for
one of our colonies.
Two hundred more of these planters, however, some
with capital, arrived the year following.
A frontier police-force was organized, which was
shortly disbanded.
A certain number of the American families from the
Southern States about this time obtained lands on
tolerably easy terms from the house of Toledo and Co.,
and settled about a mile north of the Carib village of
Punta Gorda, almost on the southern border; built
houses, made four miles of road, a wharf, dug wells, and
1868.
152
British Honduras.
1869.
1870.
W. W.
Cairns,
Lieut.-
Governor.
resolutely set to work to clear away the bush. There
were originally sixty souls belonging to the "Hatch,'
(a Wesleyan) community, but they have from one
cause or another dwindled down to a few families.
They commenced the cultivation of sugar, and by
great perseverance the remnant have thrived by sup-
plying the home market. According to the Hon. H.
Fowler, they had 240 acres under cultivation in 1878.
They had little or no capital, and furnish a striking
instance of what energy and perseverance can accom-
plish in the colony when properly directed. The Rev.
Levi Pearce has been perhaps the most successful
amongst them. He is a gentleman of superior attain-
ments, somewhat advanced in years, but did not
disdain to cast off his coat and join his sons, axe in
hand.
The Trade- Wind, the steamer carrying the mails to
New Orleans, was lost.
This year the colony took what all lovers of liberty
and free institutions must consider a retrograde step.
The legislative assembly committed political suicide
by petitioning that Honduras, like Jamaica, whose
constitution was altered after the disastrous events of
1865, should be made a crown colony. In the case.
of this colony there was no occasion for this movement,
and bitterly are the inhabitants now rueing it, that
they allowed a majority of their representatives to
throw the colony back in its political career.
The Indian troubles having been brought down to
1872, there remains little of historical interest to add
to the account of the colony. In 1870 it became a
crown colony, after having enjoyed free representative
Crown Colony Government.
153
institutions, in one form or another, for 200 years
from its origin in 1670.
Lieut.-Col.
Mr.Cairns.
During the administration of affairs by Mr. Cairns 1871.
including the period when Lieutenant-Colonel Harley Harley
acted for the lieutenant-governor on leave-the mea- acting for
sures of retrenchment initiated by Mr. Longden were
carried on, and the colony felt little or no change from
its altered constitution; while general affairs assumed
a more healthy condition.
The census of 1871 showed the population to have
increased considerably.
Males. Females. Total.
Northern District
5577
4975
10,552
Central
5398
5510
10,908
Southern
1628
1622
3,250
وو
12,603
12,107
24,710
The difficulty of taking the census is very great, but
the returns are probably under rather than over the
actual numbers.
In 1872 Mr. Cairns resumed his post. Captain 1872-82.
Mitchell, R.M., colonial secretary, was acting in 1874
and 1876. Major Mundy arrived as governor in 1874,
and retired on a pension in 1876. In 1877 the present
governor, F. P. Barlee, C.M.G., took up the reins of
government. The advent of irresponsible power was
not much felt until the present régime. Since 1870
the government of the colony, it must be obvious, has
been purely personal, for the executive council and
legislative council have no influence. The former
composed entirely of officials under the governor, viz.
the chief justice, colonial secretary, officer command-
154
British Honduras.
ing the troops, colonial treasurer, and attorney-general,
are merely a committee to carry out the views of the
governer. The legislative council, consisting of the
above official members, with the addition of five un-
official members, nominated by the executive, meets
once a year to give formal sanction to the cut and
dried measures laid before it. The nominated mem-
bers, if they are inclined to discussion, or any of their
number daring opposition, are soon muzzled and driven
to retire in disgust. Such a form of government, it is
almost unnecessary to point out, must depend for its
character on the temper and proclivities of the one
man at the head of it. In 1880 the inhabitants, feel-
ing the curb as tightened upon them by Lieutenant-
Governor Barlee unbearable, petitioned the Secretary
of State for restitution of self-government; but a
Liberal cabinet at home refused the restoration of free
institutions to a colony abroad. Hope is not abandoned
that ere long that restoration will be granted. It pro-
bably would have been had Lord Carnarvon been at the
Colonial Office when the memorial went home.
The mahogany and logwood trades continued on the
whole in a languishing condition during this period,
while the sugar trade also received a check from the
failure of those who had originally embarked in it
without practical experience or sound judgment, and
with too high-flown notions. Sugar cultivation, how-
ever, if it is never destined to become the mainstay of
the colony's prosperity, will surely one day, and that
an early one, develop into a most efficient prop to its
welfare.
The rise and progress of the fruit trade followed
Revenue Statistics.
155
on increased means of steam communication with
America.
The following statement will give an idea of the
fiscal and commercial state of the colony during the
period under consideration :-
COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURE, &c.,
1870-78.

Year. Revenue.
Expendi- Public
ture.
Debt.
Imports. Exports.
£
£
$
€
1870 133,617 131,100 147,950
921,685 859,885
147,950
111,609 844,045 1,017,860
77,950 1,183,075 | 1,084,960
76,950 891,885 1,203,140
65,305 876,605 1,102,560
25,204 817,015 1,032,100
903,300 1,038,355
1871 189,432 139,833
1872 195,681 152,770
1873 260,053 182,318
1874 222,454 200,051
1875 213,482 203,923
1876 213,716 219,192
1877 220,110 217,488 25,204 836,160 622,515
1878 201,807 255,469 25,204 957,453 655,035
The exports, with the exception of one year (1873),
show in favour of the colony over the imports, and it
must also be taken into consideration that the colony
has had a fair import transit trade. The public debt
was chiefly for military expenditure, and for the last
three years entirely under that head to the imperial
government, and has since been almost extinguished.
156
British Honduras.

Year. Revenue.
Expendi-
ture.
Public
Debt.
Imports. Exports.
*A
$
£
£
1879
201,624 253,498
22,529 159,883
187,673
1880 216,172 | 189,613
44,260 237,204
237,204 | 252,855
1881 218,211 203,569 39,629 201,811
247,402
The bonded and warehousing system has been per-
fected, but it is less a source of revenue now since the
transit trade has been diverted through steamers calling
at southern Spanish ports.
In 1878 the old court-house was pulled down, and on
the site an expensive pile of public offices (completed
1880) and court-house erected, which has given any-
thing but general satisfaction. The old court-house
had lasted since 1818, and the mahogany logs dug out
of its foundation only needed to be trimmed to render
them fit for sale. This after having been buried sixty
years.
During his term of office Governor Cairns suggested
the holding of an industrial exhibition. It came off in
1872. [Another was proposed to be held in May of the
year 1882.] In that year a stringent press law virtually
prevented the establishment of journals other than the
Official Gazette. Two newspapers have since been
started: the Belize Advertizer in May, 1881, and the
Colonial Guardian, January, 1882.
The disestablishment of the Church of England has
assimilated the ecclesiastical status of the colony to
that of other colonies. It was effected in 1871.
New Mail Service.
157
Corozal,. the principal place in the northern district,
has much increased both in population and the impor-
tance of its trade with the neighbouring Spanish
countries, and in its manufacture of sugar and rum.
In no department have there been more frequent
changes than in the mail route. Since 1879 the royal
abandoned, and that
mail route via Jamaica has been
via New Orleans reverted to. The subsidy paid is
about the same ($25,000) as formerly, but the service
is fortnightly instead of monthly.
Increased intercourse and communications have pro-
duced increased material prosperity, but no ameliora-
tion in the social features of the population. Concu-
binage is still preferred to the married state by the
lower orders, and immoral connexions between the
sexes exist in every grade of society. The leaven of
slavery times in the relations of the sexes will proba-
bly never be eliminated. Drunkenness is very prevalent,
and crimes of violence common. In other crimes the
colony contrasts favourably with most communities
comparable with it. Little attempt has been made to
elevate morals, extend education, or introduce refine-
ment. The inhabitants are as conservative in their
bad social, as they were formerly in their excellent
political, "usages and customs.'
""
158
British Honduras.
CHAPTER XIII.
VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF THE POPULATION, 1881.
THE census-returns' taken this year are probably toler-
ably near the mark. They are as under,-

Increase.
Males. Females. Total.
Total.
Per cent.
Northern District
6,084
5,355 11,439
877
8.31
Central District
•
5,554 5,€55❘ 11,209
Southern District 2,470 2,334 4,804
301
2.75
1554
47.81
14,108 13,344 27,452 2732
Showing an enormous increase in the southern dis-
trict. The white population amounted to 375, 271
of whom were males. Representatives of every
varieties of nation under the sun are to be found in this peculiar
lation. little colony. The phlegmatic German, the volatile
The
the popu-
Frenchman, the Belgian cross between these two,
the morose but imperturbable European Spaniard,
contrasting with his colonial counterpart, the hot-
blooded Italian, the Swiss, Dane, Swede and Nor-
1 From official returns in Colonial Secretary's Office.
Ethnological Description.
159
wegian, occasionally a Russian Finn or a Polander Jew,
and the three varieties of the insular-minded Briton,
all preserving their national traits, if their habits are
modified by tropical customs and the warmth of the
climate. The East sends its bespangled, turbaned,
delicate-featured Hindoo, and "heathen Chinee," cute
and ugly-featured, both indescribably dirty; the latter
chin-chinning with Maya Indians (some mystic affinity
having been discovered mutually between the two
races). Waikas and Caribs are indigenous, and then
there is the vast mixed population of every shade of
colour, every degree of ethnological distinction that
science can invent in order to classify the combinations
natural production on principles of miscegenation has
produced, from the coal-black, cicatrized Eboe or
Mandingo from Guinea, to the sickly-complexioned
mustafina, through all the variations and gradations of
mixed descent-mulatto and sambo, mestizo or ladino,
quadroon, octaroon, and mustee.
The aborigines claim priority in description. The Indians.
aboriginal tribes as they exist in Central America to-
day have not received the attention their numbers and
past interesting history (slightly sketched in an early
chapter) seem to warrant.
The descendants of the great Toltec nation now to
be met with in Honduras, either settled in villages
within its boundaries or occasionally visiting the towns
to purchase or sell, present many features of a common
origin, but, as in the Waikas, who are supposed to have
an admixture of African blood, sometimes develop
distinctive ethnological features and characteristics.
The Indians of Guatemala and Yucatan assimilate more
160
British Honduras.
to each other and present in fact but few points
of divergence. They are a small-sized, swarthy-com-
plexioned, wiry race, not capable of sustained physical
exertions; Asiatic in feature. Of those still in a wild
state little is known. Unreclaimed (Los Candones,
unbaptized), they roam the wilds of Central America.
Certain ferocious tribes, called "Indios bravos "by the
Yucatecans and Hondurenos, used formerly to make
incursions on the settlements; but none of these are
to be confounded with the semi-civilized yet unsub-
dued tribes such as the Icaichés and Santa Cruz,
inhabiting territory close to our borders.
The Mayas of Yucatan, more isolated in their pen-
insula, have perhaps preserved the traditions of their
race with greater fidelity than other tribes, and are also
more warlike. The bow and arrow is still the weapon
of such unreclaimed tribes as the "Jicaques" of Hon-
duras, but the Mayas of Yucatan are armed with guns
and machétes or cutlasses. The religion of the Mayas,
like that of the whole Toltec nation, was a form of
idolatry; but Cogullado, who wrote a history of Yucatan,
published at Campeché, 1742, credits them with belief
in a supreme deity ruling over their tutelary gods,
and an evil spirit, Xibilba; also in a future state of
rewards and punishments. The name of the Santa
Cruz tribe, and their ceremonies of the oracle, revive the
story, so common with all the monkish historians of the
Spanish conquest, of the worship of the symbol of the
cross among the aboriginal tribes in Mexico. The
Mayas kept on bark leaves a record of events: their
chronicles of wars, inundations, hurricanes, famines,
2 Such were and are the Chols Mopan, Jicaques, Poyais, &c.
·
Indian Architecture.
161
y otros sucesos." In their chronology they divided
the year into eighteen months of twenty days each.
The surplus five days--corresponding to our 12th to
16th July-were considered unpropitious. They also
marked lustres of ten, twenty, and forty years by
stones wrought and placed in certain positions in the
temples. Cogulludo is inclined to think the ruined
remains of Yucatan assimilate the Toltec rather than
the Aztec specimens of architectural relics, which
although evidencing a common origin exhibit diver-
gences from the common type. The worthy padre
expresses his curiosity as to who the workmen were
who produced these buildings of wrought stone;
"piedra labrada ;" and sadly remarks "ni los indios
tienen tradicion de ello." The Chevalier Friedrichsthal,
a Vienna naturalist, visited the ruins in 1838, combining
archæological with botanical research. He identifies
the general character of those at Uxmal and Chichen-
Itza with those of Palenque, "but," he says, with
reference to the ruins of Yucatan, "the stonework of
the outside walls is more sumptuous and more neatly
finished." He notices the accurate reference to the
east in the erection of temples, the concrete founda-
tion of the walls, terraced construction, low elevation,
and astonishing variety of hieroglyphs and statuary.
He found no trace of Egyptian tile or brick work.
Stephens also explored Yucatan and its ruins. He
states that" for the first time in Yucatan" he finds at
one place only, Chichen-Itza, the character of the sculp-
tured hieroglyphs "beyond all question bearing the same
type" as that he previously discovered in the ruined
remains formerly met with by him and the artist
M
162
British Honduras.
Catherwood, who accompanied him at Copan and
Palenque.
The Indians who are found in the vicinity of Belize—
at Peten in Guatemala and at Bacalar in Yucatan, for
example-are baptized, but mix up idolatrous rites and
superstitious beliefs with the Christian creed and
ceremonies. In disposition they are docile and timid
and inoffensive, except, as in the case of Chichenhas
and Santa Cruz, when roused to take part in a war of
races, when they become cruel and fierce. They live
industriously and inoffensively in villages scattered over
the district, cultivating their patches of maize and
pulse, their pigs and poultry-those near the coast
engaging in fishing, and cutting braziletto or tinta
(logwood), and trading with Belize, and even Havana,
in their hollowed-out "bongays"
bongays" or coasting proas.
Their diet is simple and frugal, and rather monotonous,
consisting of corn cakes (tortillas), frijoles (fried beans),
eggs, and occasionally poultry, game, wild hog dried,
or domestic pork. Their dress is equally simple and
also light; the ladies wear simply a double allowance
of embroidered robe; one depending from the hip to the
ankle, the other from the shoulder to a little below the
waist. In full dress they wear a shawl after the mode
of the Spanish mantilla, and at all times plain gold
ornaments, especially ear-rings. The men wear only
loose drawers and a shirt or blouse of manta drill or
manta cruda, straw hats, and a coloured sash round the
waist. Both sexes wear moccasins on their feet. In
full dress the men wear pantaloons over the drawers,
tuck in the shirt, and wear a braided vest. Mounted,
the poncho-called "mango" or "serape" according to
Indians and their Habits.
163
1
style-is carried for wet weather.
Men and women
are perpetually smoking their "cigaritos" or straw
cigarettes. Their houses are erections of wattle and
daub (adobe) thatched with palm-leaves. Their intel-
lectual capabilities are by no means slight.
Formerly the Indians of Yucatan were formed into
one kingdom, called Mayapan, ruled over by a supreme
chief, with subsidiary chiefs under him who were semi-
independent. Previous to the Spanish conquest of
Mexico, about 1420, the tributary caciques revolted,
and the chief ruler was left only the province of Mani.
One of these revolted chiefs left his own province of
Chichen-Itza, about twenty leagues from Tinhoo, now
Merida, and retired to the Lake of Peten (lake of the
island) or Itza, fixing his residence on Peten Grande,
the largest of the numerous islands of the lake. In
1697 Peten was reduced by Don Martin Ursula, when
making a highway from Campeché to Guatemala.
The Spaniards do not appear to have occupied the
district. It is now a province of Guatemala, but being
geographically separated from the republic, has much
greater intercourse with Yucatan and British Honduras.
The Peteneros frequently visit Belize to buy and sell;
and a truck-road is now in process of construction
from a point on the Old River to Peten, to encourage
them, and develop further our trade with them in
mules and cattle. The Peteneros are stout, swarthy,
little folk, well-nurtured, and with a pleasing expres-
sion and gentle manners; much given to balls, bull-
fights, and "fiestas" generally.
It is said, in Stephen's "Incidents of Travel in
Yucatan," that beyond the lake of Peten lies a wilder-
M 2
164
British Honduras.
Mosquito
Indians.
ness, in which roam unknown tribes of Los Candones,
or unbaptized Indians, and that in it there is a city
never reached by a white man, but still occupied by
wild Indians precisely in the same state they were
before Columbus discovered America.
Mr. Stephens found traces of a superstition, the sign
or symbol of which he discovered on the edifices of
Yucatan-the mano colorado " or red hand-the
same symbol being in common use amongst certain
tribes of North American Indians. The following
specimen of the Maya language is from a translation
into it of portions of Scripture by the Rev. Mr. King-
don, a Baptist missionary of Belize. The last two
verses of the Gospel of St. Matthew are here given :—
Docaán u binel cambizeex ti tulacalóob macóob taan
u bulul leoob ti beti kaba ti leti Yum, iix ti leti
takpal, iiv ti leti Espiritu Cilich. Taán u cambesic
leoob u betáal tulacalóob leoob baalóob bicil teex
yanhi tuxtic. lix, ilac, ten yanen y teex tulacalóob
kinóob tac leti xul ti noh hab. Tu hahil.
Ɔ, as in knats; c, always hard; a, as in art; i, as
in me; x, sh; k, ch with a strong clicking sound.³
3
The Mosquito Indians, or Waiknas, inhabiting the
Shore, present marked differences from the interior
tribes above-described. It is said they have a strong
admixture of African blood in them, and although
their features are regular, their hair has an undoubted
curl in it. They are taller, and bony rather than
muscular, their complexion ashy black, unlike the
glossy hue of the Quiché race, or even the Carib.
³ See Appendix B.
Waikna Indians.
165
Their habits are nomadic almost-at all events un-
settled-shifting their quarters with frequency. They
live chiefly by fishing, and are dexterous in the
management of their canoes. They hate Ladinos and
Spanish-speaking Indians, and will assassinate them
by stealth on an opportunity; but they are very fond
of the English. They dislike being in houses when
they come to Belize, and take possession of some
private wharf or other, whose owner they have worked
for. They are the most debased of all the aboriginal
tribes of the region. Never having been subdued,
they have retained their customs from early times, one
of which is polygamy. There are traces of demon-
worship among them, but no name even for the Deity.
Their "Sukia" is a kind of fetish, or sorcerer, the
servant of Walushu, the evil one. Their adoration of
evil spirits arises from the original idea that they are
likely to suffer more inconvenience from them than
from beneficent powers. Their women are delicate
and handsome, and are espoused at the early age of
ten or twelve. When pregnant, a place is prepared
for them in the depth of the woods, whence they are
not allowed to emerge for a stated period. That
accomplished, a public lustration of mother and infant
takes place. Like all other Indians the Mosquito men
are fond of rum. They are reputed to be addicted to
crimes particularized in the first chapter of Romans.
The different tribes of Indians in Central America
have each a dialect of their own, derived from one com-
mon stock, as European languages are from Sanskrit.
Their work in red pottery and mat and basket-work
cannot be excelled by savage tribes such as they are.
166
British Honduras.
The Carib.
The Caribs, although ubiquitous over the colony, are
properly another coast tribe of mongrel breed and
mixed descent. Although the Carib is found in the
towns engaging in domestic service, on board lighters
or coasting droghers "sailorizing," or away in the
backwoods cutting logwood or mahogany, his proper
element is the sea, coasting up and down in his
mahogany, cedar, or "tubruse" creaw or dorey, bringing
his yams and cassava to market. The principal Carib
settlements are on such strips of sandy beach as are
found to the southward at Stann Creek and Punta
Gorda, Middle River and Red Cliff.
The Carib of Central America is not a pure Indian,
but much more a descendant of Ham.
According to Bryan Edwardes, the original "Cha-
raibe" was a warlike, tattooed cannibal, with an olive.
complexion, straight, black, coarse hair; "trained to
draw the bow with unerring skill, wield the club with
dexterity and strength, to swim with agility and
boldness," and to fish. Such was the Red Carib of
the islands, copper-coloured rather than olive-com-
plexioned. The Carib of Central America is a woolly-
headed, thick-lipped, ordinary-looking negro, showing
little of the Indian strain in his physiognomy or the
conformation of his skull; innocent of all acquaintance
with bow and arrow or war-club or tattoo-marks, and
also of cannibal propensities; but he can fish and sail
or paddle a canoe, and is an amphibious creature, as
much at home in as out of the water. He is a
Christian where the Red Carib was an idolater, but
he is, as his congener was, polygamous, superstitious,
and migratory. Like the Carib of the islands, he will
Caribs.
167
.
not eat peccary or turtle or manatee; he prefers salt
fish and plantain, yams and pork, and cassava cakes.
He has preserved a language which may or may not
be traceable philologically to a true Carib source, but
which, to hear a few of the people jabber it, sounds.
like nothing human. He manages to pick up Creole
English well, and Spanish better, however. He is
also found using the first twenty French numerals,
and a few French words besides. The Scriptures in
portions have been translated into Carib.*
Historically he is said to be descended from the
Black Caribs of the Island of St. Vincent, on which
island, somewhere about 1685, a ship from Guinea
landed a cargo of Africans, intended as slaves for one
of the other islands.
Accessions to these Africans were from time to time
made of runaways from Barbados, and eventually a
mixed race, in which the African element greatly pre-
dominated, sprang from intermixture. The Red Carib
is only met with now-a-days in single instances, at very
rare intervals. How the Black Carib was brought to
Central America is an open question, but the spread
of races in these regions is now very difficult to trace.5
They have a system of authority amongst themselves,
by which certain elders are obeyed as "captains."
The Carib women are similar in physical outline to the
4 Bryan Edwardes, "History of the West Indies.”
5 Crowe, page 48, states “that when partly exterminated by
the British in St. Vincent, the remnant were finally expelled,
1796. Thence a residue were conveyed to Ruatan in men-of-
war, and abandoned on that island, finding their way from
Ruatan to the adjacent coasts, rapidly increasing in numbers,
as they are still.”
168
British Honduras.
men. They are faithful, modest in demeanour, and,
though given to a free display of well-developed per-
sonal charms, virtuous, except in the matter of poly-
gamous connexions. Each wife has a hut for herself
and progeny provided for her by her husband, whose
scattered harem may be as extensive as his ability to
build wigwams. Afterwards the wife supports herself
in the plantation, planting and raising yams, manioc,
poultry, and hogs, while the lordly husband goes
fishing, or sailing to Belize, or reclines in his hammock.
At times he will take service at a mahogany work or
sugar rancho, or engage on board a coasting-vessel, but,
although more inclined now to permanent labour than
formerly, they are an unsettled race. They are like-
wise fond of rum and outbursts of festivity. The mis-
sionaries have greater success with Caribs than with
the aboriginal Indians-with the Mosquito men little
The Carib has an inordinate share of vanity
and frivolity, united to a fund of cheerful buoyancy
of spirits, but he is limited as to intelligence and perse-
verance. They are quiet, inoffensive people, rather
cowardly as a race, although in their canoes they will
dare the roughest seas. They are subject to a peculiar
skin disease, which is a description of leprosy, and
shows in white spots on the hands and feet: the
Creoles call those so marked "peckly Caribs," i.e.
speckled Caribs. They construct very good huts of
cane and posts, thatched with palm-leaves, roomy and
lofty, and keep them neat and clean, and one of their
settlements is an interesting spectacle of primitive
domestic institutions, when one is not squeamish in the
or none.
Mixed Races.
169
matter of how many establishments a paterfamilias may
be allowed.
The mixed races of European and Indian descent, Mestizos.
or Ladinos; Indian and African, or Sambos; and
European and African, or Mulattos,-remain to be
noticed.
The Ladinos-as the Mestizos of Central America and
Mexico, the descendants of Spaniards and Indians, are
designated in these localities-are a low-statured, fleshy
race, light or dark in complexion according to the
degree of admixture. The term Ladino signifies
"gallant men," and, applied as it is, is quite a misnomer.
They are by no means a brave race, and are very
treacherous. They are intellectually, by cultivation,
superior to the Indians, over whom they are a dominant
class. Their habits are voluptuous, their moral tone low
in the extreme. They are not so priest-ridden as the
European Spaniards, but they have an inferior class of
clergy to deal with-men who themselves are wanting
in cultivation and moral excellence. The Sambos are
limited in number-and amongst the Spanish-speaking
inhabitants so also are the Mulattos; the hidalgos of
New Spain having preferred to mix the sangre azul
with Indian rather than African blood-and partake
of the habits and manners of their African or Indian
progenitors according to circumstances. They have
generally better and more regular features than
Mulattos. The Mulattos-in which are included the
various degrees of consanguinity described by the terms
quadroon, octaroon, mustee, &c.—resemble in their
most salient characteristics the products of slavery
170
British Honduras.
institutions everywhere. The coloured race-as dis-
tinct from the African or Creole African-have made
some progress in social advancement and culture since
abolition, without increasing in refinement or moral
status. As has been mentioned previously, the slave
of British Honduras never occupied the degraded
position of the plantation slave. He was not driven
in a gang to the drudgery of the field hoe under brutal
overseers, but laboured side by side or under the eye
of his owner, between whom and himself the best
relations compatible with his condition of servitude
existed. He lived the free life of the backwoods,
wielding that noble tool, the axe, or the cutlass, and
was kindly treated. The natural result is that to-day
his descendants are in all respects superior to the
coloured populations of other countries in which slavery
once existed. He is more self-reliant, less crafty and
cringing. A class of free people of colour sprang up
early in the settlement's history, between whom and
the handful of whites there never was drawn a hard and
fast line of social distinction, such as was rigidly adhered
to, and has not been removed yet, in places like
Jamaica and Barbados.
The mahogany labourers of Honduras are capable
of severe physical toil, less disinclined to undertake it,
if they are not free from a common preference for
intermittent industry, relieved by idle spells, and diversi-
fied by indulgence in feasting and merry-making.
Intellectually the coloured race in the Islands are pro-
bably their superiors, morally there is a dead level,
which is not a high one. They are as excitable as the
race elsewhere, as frivolous and unreliable. Good-
Negroes and their Habits.
171
humoured, easily pleased, vain and passionate, but
variable in all their humours and inconsequent in their
ideas; insincere, and if not untruthful, given to
exaggeration in their sentiments, and incapable, un-
assisted, of any organization. The labouring classes
are much given to rum, music, dancing, and sexual
pleasures. Their wants are easily supplied. Their
dwellings are little better than out-houses, even in the
towns; their food coarse and ill-prepared, consisting
for the most part of salt fish, and plantains or yams,
flour, pork, tropical fruits, vegetables, and fresh fish,
with rice or cornflour; clothing light and inexpensive
as a rule, although they spend a good portion of their
wages on cheap finery and dressy but not costly
clothes. They raise poultry and pigs, but buy nearly
every other article of food. Tea they use little, but
must have coffee, and consume large quantities of
sugar in one form or another. They are healthy, as a
rule, and active, but an epidemic of cholera or small-
pox makes wholesale ravages among them. They are
tolerably cleanly in their habits and persons.
"C
In a great measure they are losing their respect for
Buckra," as it was once more generally their habit
to call the white folks, and are becoming insolent,
which they think is the same thing as being independent
in manner. Their vanity and sensitiveness to slight or
insult is sometimes amusing, and they "nurse their
wrath to keep it warm," until in some shape they
have obtained" satisfaction," as they say. A very deep
insult is to allude to their progenitors, in a manner in
the slightest degree derogatory. "Cuss me daddy,
cuss me mammy," is to rouse their ire at once.
De-
172
British Honduras.
prived of spectacular amusements, they elect the police-
court as their house of the drama, and bring each
other up before his worship on the slighest provoca-
tion-indulging their self-importance, in default of a
better platform, in the dock and witness-table alter-
nately. Thus the time of the officials of the court is
principally taken up listening to the choice Billingsgate
interchanged between Miss Cudjoe and Mrs. Quashee,
and in determining how much the latter must contribute
to the revenue, in the shape of fines and costs, for her
indulgence in abusive language familiarly known to
them as "cussin."
There is considerable humour and practical wisdom
embodied in some of their quaint sayings well expressed
in their idiomatic Creole English.
"You heah massa caal you?" said one darkie to
another, whom he was endeavouring to arouse. "Sleep
no hab massa," replied the sluggard, rolling over on
his other side to "slumber again." "Cry cry picney
nebba hab right!" they apply to a querulous grum-
bler, and they convert our proverb that all so-and-so's
geese are swans into "Ebery John Crow tink um picney
white," the young of the John Crow (vultur aura), the
scavenger of these parts, being born with a fine cover-
ing of white down, although the bird is ashy black at
maturity. Again, their own proverb "Rock (s) tone
bottom ob him ribba no feel de sun," is a recommenda-
tion to humility in selecting one's position in life as
ensuring immunity from the effects of the noonday
heat of passion.
The Creoles of Belize are much less superstitious
than the coloured populations of the islands. The
Baymen Manners.
173
Obeah art is not unknown, or altogether without its
practitioners and believers, but it has little hold even
on the lowest classses.
men and
their de-
The manner and morals of the “ Baymen" in former The Bay-
times had doubtless a smack of the backwoods, with a
flavour of the rollicking freedom of sea-life about scendants.
them. They retained a dash of the original bucca-
neering element. They worked hard, and drank hard
when they assembled on the coast to ship their wood.
One is hardly disposed to moralize too gravely over
Jack Tar enjoying his spree on shore after a long
voyage, and when after nine months of toil and exposure
in the bush, the Honduras wood-cutters met together
at St. George's Caye or at Belize, we must not con-
demn too loudly their annual orgie. They lived a
rough life, cut off from civilization and refining
recreation, and as the pioneers of a lucrative trade
cannot be judged by ordinary standards. They
were honourable in their dealings, united amongst
themselves, unbounded in their hospitable generosity
to strangers, and, to their credit be it said, they
lessened for their bondsmen the hardships of the lot
of slavery.
But slavery here, as elsewhere, developed the same
social taint which, as an institution, has marked its
existence in every country it has cursed. Nor has
that taint—laxity of morals-been eradicated from the
blood of the descendants of the Baymen. It is only
fair to say that no exalted standard of morals has ever
been set up in the Bay, and that Europeans whom
circumstances have made sojourners there have seldom
presented the inhabitants with a pattern of purer
174
British Honduras.
morality, while the communities around them were
sunk in depravity with few redeeming traits.
Intellectual culture is almost unknown, and educa-
tion of the primary sort even in a backward con-
dition. Increased communication with more advanced
countries, and the influx of a better class of permanent
residents, it is hoped will work reformation and lead
to social advancement. This much may be said, that
there is always hope for a community which throws
no cloak over its blemishes and sores, in which
depravity assumes no sanctified mask, but in which
the evil floats to the top like scum.
The white population is very limited and out of all
proportions. Few white people but look upon it as a
resting, not an abiding place, one from which they hope
eventually to return enriched to their native soil. This,
in more ways than one, is disadvantageous, but the
day will surely come when a permanent upper class,
refined and intellectually on a par with other countries,
will form itself in Honduras; the tone of public
morals will be elevated; more wholesome recreation
provided for all classes, educational schemes promoted,
and something over and above mere material prosperity
looked upon as the chief end of existence.
175
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LABOUR QUESTION-CLIMATE-PRODUCTIONS-FLORA
AND FAUNA-AND GENERAL FEATURES.
In view of increased agricultural operations, conse- Labour
quent upon the anticipated extension of the cultivation Question.
of sugar, the development of the incipient fruit trade,
and the contingent demands for labour that these and
existing industries must give rise to, the question of
a supply of efficient labourers must soon press its
importance upon all connected with the colony, as
private members of the community, or as officials con-
trolling its affairs.
The invincible distaste of the mass of native coloured
labourers to the avocations connected with the culti-
vation of the soil, and their inherent preference for
the life of the mahogany or logwood works, or of the
coasting-vessel, will necessitate agricultural capitalists
looking beyond the limits of the colony for planta-
tion hands. At the same time, as it is certain that
agriculture will only supplement, not supplant, the older
staple industry of wood-cutting and shipping, it is by
no means desirable that a single labourer-or, for that
matter, a single pound of capital-should be withdrawn
from it to be diverted to the work of the sugar-estate
or the farm.
176
British Honduras.
Truck
system.
Chinese and Indian coolie immigration, to the ex-
tent to which it has been tried, has not apparently
found favour in the eyes of employers. From the
islands only the refuse of their labour-market finds
its way to Honduras. The restless Carib is too
migratory in his habits, although an excellent work-
man, to settle down permanently to the labour of
cultivation. It is a drudgery he leaves to his women-
he will wield the axe, the paddle, but the hoe he
dislikes as much as does the Creole.
The indigenous Indian from beyond the limits might
be made available to some extent could he be induced
to quit his scattered village-homes, and this is perhaps
the cheapest labour to be procured. Free immigration
from Africa has been proposed, but as yet no feasible
scheme, adequate to meet future wants, has been suffi-
ciently ventilated. The general law that labour follows
capital will probably operate here as elsewhere.
The existence of a most pernicious system-long
abolished in England-called the truck system, of
settling with the labourers on wood-cutting establish-
ments has been the bane of the colony. The first
principle in this system, which exercises perhaps the
most baneful influence on the labouring population, is
the advance of three or more months' wages at the
time of hiring. The labourer engages himself some
time during the Christmas holidays for the ensuing year
at say nine dollars per month. But he has just entered
upon, or is in the height of, his few weeks' annual
festivity, and he and the woman he lives with, and the
children, if any, require money "to keep Christmas."
He applies for, and is granted four months' advance of
The Labour Question.
177
wages; probably taking three to begin with, and
spending it out, returning for another month's advance.
But by his agreement he is bound to take half of
his wages in goods from his employer, who keeps in
his store a stock of such goods as his hands require,
and of a certainly inferior quality. First of all there
is an undue advantage on the employer's side, allowing
that the majority of employers are contented with
nothing beyond legitimate percentages of profit. But
even in extreme cases, where less conscientious em-
ployers are not over tender in conscience, the evil of
his purchasing in the dearest market, instead of being
allowed to take his money where he likes, is the lesser
one only; the greater is that he receives these goods
and the cash in the middle of a saturnalia of dissipa-
tion, and the consequences are the hard cash disappears
like butter before the sun, finding its way into the
tills of the rum-sellers. The goods are next sold at
one half what he is charged for them; that money,
or the greater part of it, also disappears, and another
advance follows. The labourer has therefore to start
his year's engagement three, four, or even five months
in debt. On the works the same rule of half goods
half cash is pursued, but he sees no more cash although
he gets goods. The book-keeper of the gang keeps
his account, debiting so much for every day he is
absent from work, even from sickness, and exacting
fines rigorously, the contract being in every way a
tight one for the labourer. It is hardly necessary to
add that when his season's work is over he finds him-
self in debt when he comes down to Belize for his
Christmas spree. At no time is he capable of under-
N
178
British Honduras.
Climate.
standing his accounts clearly, and the time chosen for
settling his year's accounts is when he is enjoying
a continuous carousal, during which his small amount
of brains is further muddled by drink. It may be
admitted that there are employers who are rigidly
conscientious, but the system is a most pernicious one
in every way. The remedy is to abolish advances
altogether, and to pay each labourer his weekly wages
in cash, and let him buy his goods where he likes,
giving him, of course, his rations as now. Get rid
also of the Christmas carnival by destroying Belize
centralization for rioting and dissipation annually, and
establish the labourers near their work, with depôts on
the estate at which they may make their purchases.
Employers and employed will be eventually benefited
by the change, the former far above the petty and
inglorious gains of this detestable truck system with
its demoralizing influences.
Although lying within the tropics, the climate of
British Honduras is sub-tropical rather than tropical.
That is principally owing to the prevalence of easterly
trade-winds during four-fifths of the year, which when
they veer round to E.N.E. have a touch of rigour
in them by no means pleasant to the natives, or those
Europeans who have resided any length of time in
warm countries. On the other hand some natural
barrier or shield, such as high or mountain ranges to
the rear, would seem to protect the strip of coast
from the hot, miasma-laden breeze crossing the western
interior.
British Honduras has suffered the prolonged and
unmerited injustice of having been given a very bad
Climate: its Salubrity.
179
name for unhealthiness. "Fever-pot," "mud-bank,"
are specimens of the milder class of epithets applied
to it by ennuyé military subs and other transitory re-
sidents, with a great deal more absence of truth than
generally attaches to such inconsiderately-chosen epi-
grammatic distinctions. Military medical men, mindful
of the necessity of making out a case for "extra
climate pay," have not forgotten to dwell exhaustively
on the swampy nature of the soil, and the climatic
influences they supposed were exercised on the health
of the troops by residence in the colony, their know-
ledge of the country being mostly limited to the
marshes behind Newtown Barracks, and occasional
trips in the commissariat pinnace to adjacent cayes.
But, says more scientifically and conscientiously one
of themselves in the medical report for 1879, "con-
trary to what might be expected from the swampy
nature, slight elevation, and luxuriant vegetation of
the country in the immediate vicinity of Belize, the
climate is, on the whole, healthy," while the public
medical officer, Dr. Hunter, completely refutes the
charge of insalubrity after an extended residence
in that position in the colony. Five years' careful
observations lead him to state the temperature as
follows:-min. 78°; max. 82°; mean 80°. A table
of meteorological statistics for the year 1878, and
other information, appended to this volume, will show
more conclusively than a long dissertation the nature
of the climate and kind of weather prevalent. The
rainfalls for the months of October and November
of the year 1878 are abnormal.
The death-rate returns, the longevity of the people,
N 2
180
British Honduras.
and the statistics of disease will contrast favourably,
not with those of other tropical climates only, but with
those of temperate regions. Belize enjoys almost per-
fect immunity from the epidemic visitations incident
to the tropics, while endemic fever is limited to occa-
sional sporadic cases, generally yielding to proper
treatment. The yellow fever scourge has visited these
shores, but never to commit the ravages it does in
Jamaica, for example, or New Orleans. Small-pox
does not commit greater havoc here than in Europe,
and cholera merely pays a visit on its devastating
march westward when all countries and climes suffer
more or less; there are no outbreaks of scarlatina or
typhoid fever, and there is freedom from catarrh and
bronchial affections, although influenza is prevalent
during the "northers," wet and dry. The climate is
particularly favourable in cases of phthisical complaints.
The ailments of childhood are symptomatically milder,
and yield more readily to treatment, and the small
fry of all sizes and complexions are robust-looking and
healthy.
The seasons here, as elsewhere in the tropics,
naturally divide themselves into the wet and dry; but
of the former there are two separate periods—a short
"wet" in May or June of heavy showers, the proper
wet season commencing in September and October,
and lasting until February, during which there shall
be few days of twenty-four hours unaccompanied by
showers of rain, with variations of severe thunder-
storms. Hurricanes are fortunately like angels' visits,
few and far between, and there is no record of any
injurious earthquake, although earth-rumblings are
Climate.
181
not uncommon. The inhabitants are dependent on
the clouds for their supply of water for domestic pur-
poses. It is stored in iron tanks and wooden vats,
but excellent spring-water can be supplied by vessels
proceeding for it to spots on the coast, and, at a pinch,
water can be brought from some distance up the river.
River-water, however, is less wholesome, and only used
on an emergency, unless by the riverain population.
Europeans find exercise no exertion, and can even
undergo a moderate amount of fatigue and exposure, as
long as they avoid the fiercer rays of the noonday sun.
The nights are generally cool and pleasant. Mosquitoes
are bad, but as the Creole dialect says, "not too
bad;" but during the prevalence of the breeze from
certain quarters the swarms of sandflies render exist-
ence intolerable while these winds last. They rarely
last any time, fortunately. In the bush the "doctor"
-a handsomely-marked species of the order Diptera
—and the Botlass fly inflict painful and pestilent bites
on their victims, and cattle and silver ticks are the
cause of numerous flesh-sores. A local leprous affec-
tion, called cacoabay, affects the hands, feet, and joints,
and once established is most difficult to eradicate, but
persons of cleanly habits are exempt from such
diseases.
As the country becomes cleared and settled, a
change will most likely take place in the climate, rain-
fall, and salubrity, and it must necessarily be one of
improvement.
ductions.
Having previously dealt with the principal woods, Minor Pro-
sugar, and rum, it is only necessary now to direct
attention to the minor articles the region produces.
182
British Honduras.
Cacao.
Tobacco.
Cotton.
Cochineal
and sar-
saparilla.
Coffee grows wild, and as the district of the higher
lands of the south-west becomes opened up, this
branch of production will probably receive attention.
At present it is advocated that the description known
as Liberian should be introduced for cultivation, as it
does not insist on any particular altitude, but grows
equally well near the sea,¹ and virgin forest is suitable
to this variety.
The cacao-tree also finds a kindly soil adapted to it,
and there is every facility for establishing extensive
walks of this handsome tree, productive of the most
lucrative yields.
Tobacco of excellent quality is produced, and there
are many spots in the district particularly suited to
this plant. The leaf is dried and put up roughly for
home consumption. Cigar manufacture has been
recently attempted by Mr. C. T. Hunter, an enter-
prising merchant, and "weeds" for exportation, of a
superior quality and make over the locally-consumed,
ill-made specimens, are now shipped by him in large
consignments, as well as an article furnished for the
home-market at a reasonable price. This industry will
undoubtedly form an important feature in the future
commerce of the colony.
Cotton has been experimented upon, and the results
have received favourable mention, but the cultivation
has not as yet been undertaken by experts in the raising
and shipment of that staple. It is said that the shrub
is liable to the attack of an insect fatal to its healthy
growth.
Cochineal and sarsaparilla, as will be seen from
1 Hooker.
Agricultural Products.
183
returns already given, have long been amongst the
minor articles of exportation and will always swell the
returns of products.
and fibres.
Indigo and anatto are valuable dyes, which the Indigo and
country will yield extensively, and there are also anatto.
medicinal plants indigenous to the soil, chinchona, jalap,
aloes, copaiba, ipecacuanha, castor oil, and croton.
Grasses and fibres for mat and rope-making, paper- Grasses
making, and other economical appliances, are nu-
merously catalogued. The silk grass (Agave sisilana) is
well known; an acre properly planted will yield three
tons of this, the finest, toughest, largest-stapled fibre
in the world. The ramie or China grass is stronger
than the best flax or hemp; it requires less labour to
cultivate than cotton, is not injured by worms or
excess of rain. It is worth in England from 501. to
801. per ton. From the plantain and banana stalks
beautiful fibrous material can be produced, and a coarser
material from the cocoa-nut-tree and other palms.
nous
There are several varieties of these-especially the Legumi-
red bean, much used as food by the Spanish Indian plants.
population and not neglected by the Creoles.
maize.
The latter especially is extensively cultivated, but Rice and
of course at present only for home use. The produc-
tion of the former might be greatly increased, and the
quality of the grain improved by more skilled farming.
Arrowroot and tapioca can be produced from the Arrowroot
manioc or cassava, from which the Caribs now make pioca.
starch and cassava bread for sale in the markets of
Belize and elsewhere.
and ta-
Under this head may be catalogued nearly all the Spices.
valuable West Indian spice-plants-pimento, mace and
184
British Honduras.
Fruits and
vege-
tables.
nutmeg (the former the reticulated scarlet arillus or
outer covering enveloping the oval shell of the latter),
and vanilla (an orchid).
The pine-apple succeeds well, and the finest qualities
of sugar-loaf and Spanish red are sold cheaply in the
market. The citron family is represented in all its
varieties-oranges, limes, lemons, forbidden fruit, and
shaddock. The plantain forms the staple vegetable
food of the community, and is now largely exported to
New Orleans, its congener the banana accompanying it.
Yams and other "ground provisions" abound, and to
the fruits must be added the plentiful supply in season
of mangoes, papaw, custard-apple, mammy-apple,
monkey-cap, avocado-pear, melons, coco-plum, and
many others. Magnificent specimens of the bread-
fruit-tree are to be seen loaded with fruit. But there
remains the extensive family of palms, all of which are
found here. The cabbage, with its smooth, perpen-
dicular, columnar stem, is rather a graceful arboreal
ornament than a useful production; and the excessive
hardness of the cahoon-palm-nut renders the most
powerful and expensive machinery necessary to
express the valuable oil from it. Little description is
necessary of the well-known cocoa-palm, its produc-
tions of fibre and nut are familiar to all. In 1880,
1,623,631 nuts were exported at prices averaging
18 dollars to 20 dollars per 1000. It grows to advan-
tage in the most sterile soils, along the sea shore of
the coast and on the cayes, and there is almost no
limit to the supply of the nut, which at present is
almost entirely exported, husked, to America. The
2
2 See Honduras Almanac.
Zoology.
185
•
valuable fibre is therefore not availed of, but could
easily be prepared on the spot for European markets.
Magnificently is this country dowered with flowers Flowers.
and flowering shrubs, the orchid family producing
rare and valuable varieties, the glorious flamboyeau,
the oleander, fragrant frangipanni, and countless
specimens in the domain of Flora, delighting the eye
and charming all the senses.
The woods abound in game and wild animals, the Fauna.
small red deer, ten varieties of wild hog, the peccary
(Dicotyles labiatus) and waree (a mere variety), the
paca (Coelogenys subnigra), a burrowing animal locally
called gibbonet or gibnut, considered good eating;
the coypus of the otter tribe, the glutton or wolverine,
ant-eater, racoon, opossum, armadillo, and, amongst
the aquatic mammals, the sea-cow or manatee; and
the riverain, graminivorous, amphibious tapir.
The feline species is represented by the jaguar,³ the
puma,* tiger-cat, &c., none of which are dangerous to
man.
5
The agouti or Indian rabbit is also indigenous, and a
specimen of the tribe of viverra, known locally as the
quash, very useful in destroying vermin. Squirrels
and foxes are numerous, the latter in the mountainous
districts.
The quadrumana are confined to the sapajou and
sagoin families, as the horned sapajou, apella, brown
sapajou, capucin, &c.
Parrots of the red mangrove species fly in flocks, Birds and
and the more valuable and talkative yellow-heads are
reptiles.
procured from the interior.
Magnificent-plumaged
3 F. onca.
4 F. concolor.
5 F. catus ferus.
186
British Honduras.
Ants.
Saurians.
Chelonia.
cardinals, banana-birds (orioles), toucans, rice-birds,
kingfishers and yellow-tails, fly about, with rare species
unnamed, awaiting classification by the ornithologist.
Raptorial birds-eagles, hawks, ospreys, vultures
(especially the vultur aura)—are well represented. Of
the gradiatorials there are pelicans, galdings, curlew,
snipe, teal, herons, and others. The Honduras wild
turkey has rather the plumage of the peacock than
the turkey family, but it is now very rare; the curas-
sow and crested curassow are common, also the quam
(Penelope cristata).
Insects have been already alluded to. Centipedes
are more common than scorpions. The lepidoptera
are almost all present, and some huge specimens are
seen flying in the interior. The coleoptera are princi-
pally represented by the chafers, longicorn and
lamellicorn beetles, the tribe curculio and families of
the elateridæ, lampyridæ, and coccinellida.
Ants and spiders are very numerous, and of various
species.
Alligators of enormous size infest the rivers, and
the lizard family are numerous individually and
specifically. The iguana and its eggs are considered
great delicacies by some portions of the people. Few
Europeans can be induced to partake of this food.
Turtle are shipped to Europe and America, and are
plentifully found. Turtle-fishing employs a percentage
of the population. There are three kinds-the green,
used for food, the hawksbill, and loggerhead, caught
for the shell, a valuable article of export. Land, or
rather river tortoises the terrapin, called here hecatee
-of delicious flavour, find their way to market.
Zoology.
187
Serpents are in this region but too common, and some Serpents.
are very deadly. The coral, barber's pole, jumping
tomagoff, rattlesnake, with numerous others, infest
the bush. The natives, English and Spanish, have
remedies of their own.
The crustacea of the terrestrial division are repre- Land-crab.
sented by the land or mountain-crab, an animal whose
habits require some description. According to Du
Testre, they live in orderly societies in holes in the
ground. In April or May they begin a migratory
march to the sea, taking a geometrically straight line,
and cover the land, marching at night over all inter-
vening obstacles; when, arrived at the coast, they spawn
and hatch their eggs in the sand, and after a time the
old ones march back with millions of their progeny to
the mountains. In August they fatten, when they are.
eaten; they then prepare to moult, and remain inactive
until the old shell is cast. In Jamaica the black
mountain-crab is considered bonne-bouche.
The seas of this region abound in fish of all de- Fishes.
scription-baracouta, shark, king and Jew fish, bass,
mullet, snapper, sheephead, grouper, catfish, tarpaum,
mackerel, and the famous callipiver, the salmon of the
West Indians, a species of mullet. Shell-fish: the
stone-crab, crayfish, whelk, and lobster. Oysters of a
small breed are found sticking on the branches of the
marine shrub, the mangrove.
A small breed of horses, suitable for the country, is Domestic.
maintained. Mules of excellent qualities are to be
purchased; the ass is used here only for stud pur-
poses. The usual friends of man, the cat and dog,
are present.
188
British Honduras.
Minerals.
tions for
Minerals.
Gold-bearing quartz has been found. The mineral
deposits are unexplored, but probably would repay
Explora exploration. More than one exploring expedition
has been set on foot with varying results. Two
American gentlemen in 1872, Colonel W. T. Mechlin
and W. R. Warren, Esq., made a journey from
Belize to the city of Guatemala, via Peten, Sacluc,
and Coban, and their joint report has been printed.
It has greater reference to Guatemala than Honduras,
and directs attention chiefly to future means of com-
munication between Belize and that republic, and
recommends a railroad as a means of diverting trade.
at present carried on by the Pacific to Belize. "All
that benefits Guatemala," it says, "would equally
assist Belize." In 1878 another movement was set on
foot to explore the unknown parts of the colony,
partly under government, partly under private aus-
pices Messrs. Drake and Worth, the former a sugar-
planter who is also an old traveller and explorer, the
latter a miner who had recently arrived in Belize.
They ascended the Cockscombs to an elevation of
2000 feet. They were away a month, but found the
difficulties of their project greater than they had anti-
cipated, and returned without effecting much. Great
disappointment was felt, and as their resources were
still unexhausted, another expedition was resolved on,
and they started again, accompanied by the present
colonial secretary, and depending on Indians for
packers left Belize in a pitpan on the 23rd of
November, 1878, for the Cay (Old River), so far fol-
lowing the route of Mechlin and Warren. They re-
turned to Belize on the 18th of January, 1879. We
Mr. Fowler's Expedition.
189
refer to the report itself (published at the government
printing-office) for details, merely extracting the fol-
lowing summary of results by Mr. Fowler (page 35).
“The result of the expedition may be briefly summed
up as follows:-The interior of the colony was found
to be a succession of valleys and hills from 1200 feet
to 3300 feet above the level of the sea, and may be
divided into pastoral, mineral, and agricultural dis-
tricts, each of which can be fairly defined. The most
important discovery to be considered is the indications
of mineral wealth. The sandstone, shale, anthracite,
quartz, and veins of ores met with, together with the
formation of the country, justify the belief that it is
highly probable coal, gold, and silver may be found.
This mineral district is a belt of country twenty or
thirty miles broad, running north-east and south-west
from the south of the Cockscomb range into the neigh-
bouring republics of Guatemala and Honduras, and
parallel to and distant from the coast, as the crow
flies, about twenty-five miles. It is known that opals
and gold have been found, and gold-mines are being
worked in these countries which adjoin our frontier.
The quantity of gold-dust produced from the Hon-
duras mines has increased considerably of late, and it
has become a means of remittance in consequence of
currency difficulties. I ascertained that 1756 ounces
have been shipped from Belize during the past six
months, which have been obtained immediately south
of us.
I have lately seen nuggets from Honduras
weighing over three ounces, &c."
190
British Honduras.
CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUSION.
A REGION of upwards of six thousand square miles, or
four million acres in area, four-fifths of which consists
of rich arable lands laid down in virgin alluvial soil
capable of producing in abundance the commodities
demanded by the requirements of more civilized
countries and populous communities; whose boundless
forest tracts will yet yield unlimited supplies of
massive logs of costly timber and valuable dye-woods;
whose mineral resources, as yet untouched, there is
warrant for saying are very extensive; whose plateaux
and mountain altitudes are adapted to specific culti-
vation; whose cayes and sea-beach, so far from being
mere sandy wastes, will become remunerative cocoa-
nut walks; whose swampiest portions can be made
available for the growth of such congenial plants as
tobacco-lies waiting the advent of fresh energy and
increased capital. The more elevated districts of the
interior are extensive pasture-land for stock-raising;
the slopes of the adjacent hills are well adapted to
coffee and cacao-trees; the waters surrounding its coasts
teem with myriads of the finny tribe of delicious
flavour; its forests abound in game; and, without
Sources of Development.
191
trenching on other industries of cultivation, there is
more than a sufficiency of land for vegetable culture
for the supply of four times the existing population.
But the question of food-supply is further rendered
easy by its contiguity to the open ports of the New
World, which are communicated with by steam in a
few days.
The present population is numerically inadequate to
the development of such a region, and as yet no suffi-
ciently alluring scheme of immigration has been in-
augurated, or even under consideration, to induce the
right stamp of settlers to select it as their home. An
agricultural labouring class has yet to be formed, and
considerable augmentation of the class of moneyed
planters is desiderated.
The system of monopoly, which allowed a few
wealthy firms connected with its timber trade to
cramp the development of the colony generally by the
hold they had acquired over large tracts of land, has
been in a great measure broken up by the failure of
some of those who followed a dog-in-the-manger
policy, and the awakening of others to the truth that
their real and permanent interests are bound up in
the general advancement, and not confined to selfish
ends only. There is little danger of that system re-
establishing itself to press down the colony under its
weight like another Old Man of the Sea.
The accommodating waterways of the region will
always be found useful, but internal communication by
road and rail is necessary to open up the country
away from the coast and river-banks. The harbours
along its coast-line are capable of improvement, and
192
British Honduras.
its coasting trade of reform and extension. But con-
jointly with these improvements the main objects
ought to be "to tap the back regions."
But the suicidal step taken by the local legislature
in 1869-70 must be reversed in view of the future of
the colony.
The evil of irresponsible power, in the form of a
crown colony government, which leaves the interests.
of all in the hands of one man, selected often without
due qualifications for the exercise of such unlimited
authority by the Colonial Office, are even now palpably
felt, and keenly so, by the inhabitants who were be-
trayed by their former representatives voting away
the constitution.
It is an anachronism in the history of the British
Empire, an anomaly in the existing state of its poli-
tical institutions, that such despotic rule as that of
crown colony government is present in any portion
of the dominions of a constitutional sovereign; that
any fragment of that empire peopled by free-born
British subjects, over which floats the flag of free
England, should be deprived of representative govern-
ment, and its population of the control of their own
finances. Such a state of affairs can no longer be
allowed to continue without on each occasion when
the demands of the colonists for restitution of self-
government are refused-discredit and a valid charge of
infidelity to the principles of political freedom being
brought against the successive administrations de-
clining to grant restoration of free institutions to the
colony.
The colony in question is surrounded on every side
Defects of Crown Government.
193
by free republics, the offspring of priest-ridden, mon-
archical Spain, all boasting of possessing the ines-
timable privileges of representation and responsible
government, and in the region where it is situate the
only single spot destitute of free institutions upon
which the finger can be placed in the map is the
British Colony of Honduras!
It is not because a colony has been contented and
law-abiding throughout its history that advantage
should be taken of it.
It were a more a graceful act to restore its privi-
leges now, than to postpone the reversion to the former
free constitution until its voice becomes so powerful
that a deaf ear can no longer be turned to its de-
mands.
No definite improvements will ever be carried out
under this system; for what one lieutenant-governor,
absolute for five years, does, his successor will not
continue, or will undo. There has been no social
amelioration or educational advancement, and no con-
tinuous effort to encourage even material progress
under the "paternal system."
True, the trade and commerce of the country, dis-
playing unusual vitality and energy, have forced them-
selves forward in spite of obstacles, the mistaken policies
of diverse executives, and short-sighted, selfish monopo-
lists, and the neglect of home authorities, whose ideas
are limited by their geographical acquirements-many
of them not being sure whether Honduras is an island
in the West Indian group, a mountain in Mexico, or
a part of the South American continent!
If in laying this retrospect of the past career of the
0
194
British Honduras.
colony before the public, the compiler has even in a
slight measure smoothed the path of progress, or given
that progress of the colony ever so gentle an impulse
by turning attention to it, he will be more than
sufficiently rewarded for the not inconsiderable labour
of research and compilation which he has now com-
pleted.

Barometer Reading.
Month.
Mean.
Maximum.
Minimum.
Maximum.
Minimum.
APPENDIX A.
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS DURING 1878, AT BELIZE.
Temperature of Air.
Mean of
Rainfall.
Wind.
Mean of
Maximum.
Mean of
Minimum.
Mean Daily
Range.
Dry Bulb.
Wet Bulb.
January
29.51
30.98
29.80
89.00
78'00
86*38
69*25
17.13
85.76
78'41
12
February
30.03 30.91 29'91 86'00 65.00 82.01 73.19 8.82 79.56 76.57
1
1.50
S.E. & N.
...
March
30'13 30*98 29.84 89'25 68'00 84.70 79.80
4.90 83.81 83'81
4
2.15 S. E. & N. W.
April.....
May
29.91 29'97 29.15 92'00 80.00 88.00 82'00
29.98 30.09 29.91 89.50
75*50 87.00 81.28
June
6:00 87.47
5.72 86.66
29.99 30.10 29.92 89'00 72 25 87'45 79'62 8-83 87.02 87.02 10
July
30'00 30.91 29'84 88.75 75'00 86'97 81.27 5.70 86.27 86.27 16
August
29.99 30.01 29'84 89*25 75'00 87'41 80'45 6.96
86'50 86.50 16
September.. 29 63 30.04 29'88 89*50 72.25 86.54 77.04 9.50 84.45 84'45
October 29'96 30.03 29.79 88*75 70'00 84.12 75.28 8.84 74.52 74.52 21
November...] 30'01 30.13 29.93 84.25 64.50 80.72 74.83 5.89 78.82 78.82 16 15.79
December... 29.90 30.13 29.22 | 84°50 61.00 77'75 64.71 13.04 76.70 76'70 16 10'41
87.47
86.66
12
20
22 220 2
*50
S.E.E.
3.85
"
6.40
4'41
S.E.
5.61
20'69 N.N.W.
29.89
9990
N.W. & N.E.
N.
4.29 N. & N.W. | Cool; westerly winds;
occasional showers.
Northerly winds; dry,
cool, and pleasant.
Warm and dry; show-
ers at night.
Dry with few hot days.
Sultry;
showers.
occasional
Fine and pleasant.
Generally dry; squalls.
Much lightning, thun-
der, and rain.
Heavy rain and thun-
der storms.
Largest rainfall yet
recorded on 19th.
Cold, dull, heavy rains.
Lowest temperature:
greatest variation of
thermometer; rain.
No. of days.
Collection;
inches.
General
Directions.
Remarks.
196
British Honduras.
RAINFALL AT BELIZE, BRITISH HONDURAS, FOR THE
YEARS FOLLOWING.

Total
Mean
1863. 1864. 1865. 1866. 1867. 1868.
in six
years.
of six
years.
Total
54.12 77.87 71.67
67.40 88*84
60
420
70
Average
per
month.
4:51 6'49 5'99 5'62 7.40
5
35
HEIGHTS (OLD RIVER POINTS) FROM BAROMETRICAL
OBSERVATIONS.

Sea-level
Point.
Sea-level
to
River-level
to
From
Belize.
to
river-level. top of bank. top of bank.
ft.
in.
Orange Walk
32
0
283
ft. in.
ft.
60
0
Young Girl Bank
34
6
68 10
Mount Hope
172
3
207 10
Spanish Look-Out......
172
8
207
0
Duck Bun
173
0
242
0
285
+ 12 +8
in.
Miles.¹
28
0
40
34
0
45
35
7
34
0
69
2
8 18 88
50
55
58
1 As the crow flies.
APPENDIX B.
EXTRACTS FROM THE POPUL VUH, OR SACRED
BOOK OF THE QUICHÉ INDIANS OF CEN-
TRAL AMERICA.
(See Professor J. G. Dawsons's " Origin of the World," p. 22: Dawson
Brothers, Montreal, 1877.)
Professor Dawson, in giving the following extracts from the
Quiché Bible or sacred writings, says it is "an undoubted
product of prehistoric religion in the Western Continent."
He says also in a note that he avails himself of the con-
demned translation in Bancroft's Native Races," vol. iii.
“The original French translation of Brasseur du Bourbourg
is more full.”
EXTRACTS.
"And the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set
in their angle and alignment, and its boundaries fixed towards
the four winds by the Creator and Former and Mother and
Father of life and existence-he by whom all move and breathe,
the Father and Cherisher of the peace of nations and of the
civilization of his people-he whose wisdom has perfected the
excellence of all that is on the earth, or in the lakes, or in the
sea.
"Behold the first word and the first discourse. There was
yet no man, nor any animal nothing was but the firmament.
The face of the earth had not yet appeared over the peaceful
·
198
British Honduras.
sea, and all the space of the heaven . . . nothing but immobility
and silence in the night.
"Alone also the Creator, the Former, the Dominator, the
Feathered Serpent-those that engender, those that give being
-they are upon the water like a growing light. They are
enveloped in green and blue, and therefore their name is
Gucumatz.¹
Lo! now the heavens exist, now exists also the Heart of
Heaven; such is the name of God. It is thus he is called.
And they spake; they consulted together and meditated; they
mingled their words and their opinions.
"And the creation [of the earth] was verily after this wise.
Earth, they said, and on the instant it was formed; like a
cloud or a fog was its beginning. Then the mountains and the
plains were visible, and the cypress and the pine appeared.
Then were the Gucumatz filled with joy, crying out, Blessed be
thy coming, O Heart of Heaven, Thunderbolt. Our work and
our labour has accomplished its end.”
"This corresponds," says the learned professor, “to the first
four creative days; and next details are given as to the intro-
duction of animals, with which, however, the Creator is dis-
satisfied, because they could not know or invoke the Creator.
Then comes the creation of man, also imperfect, for he has
speech without intelligence: so he is destroyed by water; after
which a new race of man is produced of which it is related,
'they forgot the Heart of Heaven.' These were partly destroyed
by fire, a part turned into apes. Lastly, the perfect race of
man was formed, and the book goes on with the early history
and migrations of men."
Similar traditions, whose connexion with ancient Semitic
and Turanian revelations in Asia is unquestionable, existed
among the aboriginal Mexicans and Indian tribes of America
in ruder forms.
1 The Feathered Serpent is perhaps the representative of the
Dragon and Serpent in the Semitic version; but has not the same
evil import, and his colour gave sacredness to blue and green stones,
as the turquoise and emerald, both in North and South America, and
perhaps also in Asia and Africa.
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