OPENING SOON

Home arrow About Belize arrow Districts arrow A short history of Belize
A short history of Belize PDF Print E-mail
The story usually beings when the settlement began, in the 1600s.
But the Maya had settlements here on Moho Caye centuries before that.
The site at Altun Ha was occupied by the Maya for over 1200 years before their mysterious collapse and is thought to date back to around 250 BC.
Beginnings in Belize are really anybody’s guess but since we have to start somewhere, we begin at St George’s Caye.

The buccaneers based themselves on the island of St George’s Caye between trips out to plunder the British and Spanish merchant ships that plied the Caribbean. Deciding to opt for legitimacy and respectability over the uncertainty of buccaneering no doubt, they gradually moved their settlement and their slaves to the mouth of what is today Haulover Creek. But shivers me timber and all that, what could possibly be more lucrative, or more fun, then being a pirate? Well how about logging the incredibly rich frost of Belize’s interior, floating the logs down a big river and into the waiting hull of European ships sitting in the pretty blue Caribbean. Fabrics needed dyes respectable furniture demanded Mahogany, and money was money. Still is.

But the Spanish and British weren’t friends and couldn’t agree on who need the trees more, or who the whole place belonged to, and they weren’t asking the Maya. So they battled and feuded until on September 10th, 1798 a small group of former pirates, now, called Baymen, and one British Schooner along with sizable contingent of slaves and fishermen took on and put down an attacking armada of 32 Spanish ships. The Spanish limped off to their hammocks on one of the nearby cayes, buried their dead, downed a couple of rum and coconut cocktails and hit the high seas for home with the bad news. The Baymen returned heroes, forever to be regaled in books and movies. And began the land of the free by the Caribe Sea. Sort of.

Following the Battle of St George’s Caye, the buccaneers hit their stride back on the mainland and the population of African slaves and Europeans exploded. More land was cleared and Belize City begun to take shape that hasn’t changed all the much in years since. The descendants of those European and their slaves created a Belizean that blended their blood as well as their cultures. The Creoles are so many mixtures of mixtures from which come a people whose ancestors are both slaves and slave owner and oppressed, white and black. By the start of the 18th century they were well on the path to building British Honduras with settlements being established all over Belize District and beyond. The increased demand for tropical hardwood fed the expansion and attracted new immigrants who created new settlements inland.

If a single trait could characterize the people that made their homes in and around Belize City, it could be resilience. A major fire in 1856, eighteen years after emancipation, wiped out most of the north side and six years later another attributed to arson destroyed most of the south side. The rebuilt, expanding as they went, installing infrastructure that another fire in 1918 destroyed most of. They rebuilt and expanded again, only to face a devastating hurricane in 1931 that razed most of the city and claimed 2000 lives out of a population of around 16000. Then Hurricane Hattie arrived in 1961 claiming 259 lives and costing fifty million dollars in damage. Unlike most of the population, the government retreated to Belmopan, today’s capital.

Independence finally came in 1981 with the promulgation of a new constitution and Belize’s commonwealth as an impendent state. A government based on the Westminster model was established and has been primarily a two party affair ever since.
 
[ Back ]
Site by Starwood