Belize and Its People: Life in A Multicultural Society
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 220 pages
Publisher: Continental Press (20 June 2010)
ISBN-10: 9987932215
ISBN-13: 9789987932214
Part Two:
Belize: General Background
BELIZE is a small country in Central America. It's bordered by Mexico on the north and northwest, by Guatemala on the south and southwest, and by the Caribbean Sea on the east.
It's located along the coast in the eastern part of Central America and is separated by sea from Honduras, its neighbour on the southwest.
It has an area of about 8,870 square miles and had a population of more than 322,100 in 2008.
Belize's population density is the lowest in Central America. It's also one of the lowest in the world. But its population growth rate is the highest in the region and one of the highest in the Western hemisphere.
Its population increased sharply in the 1980s when a very large number of illegal immigrants entered Belize from Guatemala, El Salvador Honduras, and Nicaragua when those countries were embroiled in conflicts including civil wars.
This wave of immigrants changed the demographic balance in the country. Belize also earned the distinction of having one of the highest percentages of illegal immigrants in the world.
The immigrants constituted about 15 to 20 per cent of the country's population. One out of every six persons in Belize was an illegal immigrant.
In terms of raw numbers, the country ended up having an additional 60,000 people by the 1990s, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and also from Mexico.
The mainland of Belize is about 180 miles long and up to 68 miles wide. Belize also has more than 450 islands. The size of the islands varies greatly, ranging from a few hundred feet to 25 miles long and 4 miles wide.
Most of the islands are located inside the 200-mile Belize Barrier Reef. The reef serves as a buffer against devastating winds and waves of the Caribbean Sea which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.
The coastline is flat and swampy. And the country's interior has low mountains.
Belize has a subtropical climate of dry and wet seasons. It's hot and humid.
The rainy season starts in June and ends in November. But in some parts of the country, rains starts in May. The month of May also is the hottest in Belize; the coldest is January.
English is the official language. But Spanish also is widely spoken.
Other languages include Kriol which is a dialect of English and mainly a product of the descendants of African slaves; Garifuna which is based on the Arawak language of the Amerindian indigenous people of the Caribbean islands and sprinkled with African words and idioms; Mayan languages; German spoken mostly by Mennonites; Chinese; Hindi spoken by immigrants from India; Arabic; and Turkish.
Belize was once a British colony known as British Honduras. And it's the only country in Central America which uses English as the official language.
It's also the only country in Central America with a British colonial heritage. The rest are Spanish.
Although geographically it's a Central American country, it has strong ties to the island nations of the Caribbean.
The ties have been forged and reinforced by a common racial heritage of Belize's black population and of the island nations which are also predominantly black.
They have a common African origin. The countries also have a common history of slavery and as former British colonies.
Although it's a small country, Belize is known for its ethnic, racial and cultural diversity. It's the most heterogeneous society in Central America.
It also has a long history, not necessarily as a country that came to be known as Belize but as a geographical and cultural region.
The area that came to be known as Belize was an integral part of the Maya empire. The Maya civilisation spread into the area which is known as Belize today between 1500 B.C. and 300 A.D. It flourished until about 1200 A.D., although there is a dispute over that. Some historians say it thrived until 800 A.D.
The name Belize itself is believed to be of Mayan origin. The Mayan word, belix, means “muddy water.” It's a term used to describe what is now known as Belize River.
When the Mayan civilisation came into existence about 3,000 years ago, it covered the lowlands and highland areas of what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, and Belize. And the continued existence of cultural vestiges and physical monuments of this magnificent civilisation even after 500 years of domination by its European conquerors is an enduring testimony to its resilience and achievements.
Before 2500 B.C., various groups of the Maya settled in small villages in this large region. Some were hunters and others were farmers. And there were also those who survived by moving from place to place, foraging, for survival.
The groups eventually got together and formed communities which engaged in farming.
That was the beginning of organised farming in the region, and the people later started growing on regular basis crops such as maize, beans and chili peppers.
The Maya were among the first people in the world to grow maize which was later taken to other parts round the globe.
Through the centuries, a variety of languages and distinct subcultures developed in the region which collectively constituted the Mayan civilisation. This evolution was one of the distinct features of this great civilisation.
The native people did not belong to one ethnic group, and different identities among them persisted through the centuries although they all belonged to the same civilisation.
Basic institutions of the Mayan civilisation, including institutional structures of governance and religion as well as economic development, evolved between 2500 B.C. and 250 A.D. The civilisation reached its peak during the classic period which began around 250 A.D.
During the latter part of the Mayan empire before 1000 A.D., about 400,000 people lived in the region that's now known as Belize.
People established villages and other communal settlements in almost every part of the country where they could farm and grow crops. They also settled in the island and coastal swampy areas in the eastern part of what's now Belize.
But something happened in the 10th century.
The Mayan civilisation experienced a major decline which amounted to a breakdown of the Mayan society. It was the beginning of the end of one of the most significant and most advanced civilisations in the history of mankind during that period.
Construction of public buildings as well as other infrastructure and institutions stopped. The administrative centres which helped to hold the society together lost power.
These administrative centres collectively constituted the central authority of the Mayan civilisation. The centre could no longer hold the empire together.
There was also a major decline in the Mayan population. The social and economic structures which had worked so well through the centuries lost their functional utility.
Some people continued to occupy and may even have reoccupied sites such as Altún Ha, Xunantunich, and Lamanai. Still, these sites were no longer what they used to be as centres of the Mayan civilisation.
The rise and fall of Mayan civilisation has never been fully explained and questions still remain:
How did the people of that era learn advanced astronomy and mathematics? Where did this knowledge come from?
Why were they so far ahead of other people in the region and elsewhere in different parts of the world?
What caused the dramatic decline of this magnificent civilisation? Was there a single cause or was it a combination of factors?
And did it really fall abruptly in only a few years? Or did it collapse after almost a century?
Experts differ on that.
Instead of attributing the decline of the Mayan civilisation to a single cause, many archaeologists now believe that its decline was a result of many complex factors. They also believe that the decline occurred at different times in different regions.
But there is no question that during its period, it was a highly advanced civilisation even by modern standards in some areas such as architecture, astronomy and mathematics. Several major archaeological sites which exist even today are a living monument to that wonderful civilisation.
The Mayan empire also had a much denser population for that era in human history, contrasted with many other societies around the world during the same period.
Besides the archaeological sites such as Caracol, Lamanai, Lubaantun, Altun Ha, and Xunantunich which still exist today, there are many others, although not well-known, but no less important.
But in spite of its splendid achievements, the foundation of this civilisation was, in one way, an open secret. And it could not have existed, let alone thrived, without it. The question is why the Mayan society was able to develop and achieve phenomenal growth while others in the region remained behind or stagnant.
More than anything else, the Mayan civilisation was based on agriculture, as was the case with other civilisations in other parts of the world during that period. The Maya – or Mayans – engaged in a variety of agricultural activities and developed several ways to improve farming.
Their farming methods were relatively advanced for that period compared with other societies in different parts of the world.
They developed a fairly complex irrigation system which was labour-intensive.
They also used ridged-field systems to retain fertile soil and water and enable plants to grow well without shortage of water and good soil which could easily have been washed away by rain and rivers without the ridges.
The Maya also used shifting cultivation and slash-and-burn techniques.
In shifting cultivation, land is used temporarily, or periodically, so that the fields which were previously used to grow crops are left fallow.
Shifting cultivation sometimes involves both people and crops. Both shift.
The people move to a new settlement while the land is left to “rest” or regain its vitality. But a lot of times, it's only the land which is shifted, or cultivated temporarily, while the people remain in the same villages or settlements and then go to the land to farm and grow crops.
Slashing-and-burning techniques involve cutting and burning grass and forests to clear the land for farming and are sometimes used together with shifting cultivation.
All these farming methods helped to develop and sustain the Mayan civilisation for centuries.
The Mayan empire had many highly skilled people. The included specialists in different areas. Many were craftsmen and merchants. There were also warriors, and priest-astronomers who coordinated agricultural and other activities based on seasons. They performed rituals based on the Mayan calendar. These rituals were performed at designated centres where religious activities and other ceremonial activities took place.
The priest-astronomers were great experts in the field of astronomy even if, by modern standards, they had only rudimentary knowledge in some areas. But they were able to track the movements of the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. They also developed a highly advanced system of calendar and mathematics which enabled them to record time and events. The records were kept on carved stones and sometimes on wooden slabs using Mayan writing.
The large number of these slabs – also known as stelae – which still exist in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on that civilisation.
The Maya were also highly skilled in making pottery and carving jade. They also made elaborate costumes of feathers for religious ceremonies and daily use.
Their advanced architecture was noted for its temples and magnificent residential buildings made of stone. They were well-decorated with paintings and complex geometric patterns. The arrangement of the buildings themselves followed a geometric pattern.
It was all the product of an advanced civilisation whose achievements in fields such as astronomy and mathematics still baffle experts today.
The majestic ruins and other sites of magnificent splendour are now an important part of Belize's cultural heritage and history even though there was no country known as Belize back then, and even though the majority of the people in Belize today are not descended from that civlisation.
Many items have been recovered from that old civilisation. They include bowls, jars and other items which are among the oldest found in the region of Central America and of what is now Mexico.
The collapse of the Maya civilisation was probably the most critical event in the history of the Maya people since the founding of their civlisation.
Another major event of equal importance in terms of impact on the lives of the Maya was the arrival of Europeans in the 1500s A.D. Their lives changed forever.
When Europeans first arrived in what is now called Central America, there were some Mayans still living in the lowland areas of what is Belize today.
Research including archaeological evidence shows that there were different groups of the Maya in the 1700s in the area now known as Belize.
But the Maya territory covered more than that. Besides what is now Belize, it also included parts of Mexico and Guatemala.
The first European to arrive in the region was Christopher Columbus. That was in 1502 when he sailed along the coast of what's now Belize and other parts of Central America. He explored the coastal area of Belize as did other explorers from Spain.
Spain had the upper hand during that period and sent expeditions to the area of what is now Guatemala and Honduras. It was the dawn of a new era in the history of the region, and the conquest of Yucatán began in 1527.
The Maya fought back, putting up stiff resistance against the European invaders who described their campaign as “pacification” of the indigenous people whom they considered to be inferior to them.
But resistance by the native population was not successful because of their inferior technology. Their crude weapons were no match for European guns.
Their resistance was also compromised by another weakness: vulnerability to disease.
The diseases, some of them unheard of, devastated the indigenous population and weakened its ability to resist conquest. The diseases were brought from Europe by the Spanish invaders and the Maya had no resistance to the new infections. The result was catastrophic.
Permanent European settlement was also facilitated by the propagation of a new faith in the region. Spanish missionaries established churches in Mayan settlements in the 1600s to covert the people to Christianity.
But for the Spanish rulers, and even for some of the missionaries, there was another motive behind such proselytisation. And that was subjugation and control of the indigenous population to make them docile by convincing them to wait for their pie in the sky while their conquerors enjoyed theirs right here and now.
There were some white missionaries who were true Christians, but not all of them were.
Other colonised people had the same experience and discerned the same ulterior motives, although there were some missionaries who had good intentions in other parts of the world as well. As Jomo Kenyatta, who was accused of leading Mau Mau in Kenya, once said: “The white man came and told us, 'Shut your eyes, let us pray.' When we opened our eyes, it was too late. Our land was gone.”
The fate of the Maya centuries earlier was not much different from what befell Africans and other conquered people in different parts of the world.
While the Spanish conquistadors were consolidating their rule in the territories they had conquered in Central America, another enterprise was taking place during the same period. And that was piracy. It became a thriving business in the region and the area that is now Belize was one of the focal points of this activity.
Some Spanish settlers tried to establish settlements in the interior of what is now Belize but they were repelled by the Maya. The attacks forced them to abandon their settlement scheme in the area. But they succeeded in establishing settlements elsewhere in Central America and South America.
In the 1700s and 1800s, Spain tried to maintain a monopoly on trade and colonisation in its colonial territories in Central America. But northern European powers were equally interested in the region. They wanted to establish their own colonies in Central and South America and in the Caribbean. They also wanted to conduct trade.
The northern European powers – Britain, France and The Netherlands (Holland) – entered the region determined to thwart attempts by Spain to become the dominant power in the area. They used a combination of tactics including war to achieve this goal. They also engaged in piracy and smuggling.
The 1800s were a turning point in the history of colonial conquest of the region. It was during this period that the Dutch, English and French seriously challenged Spain in Central America. One of those areas was Belize as it came to be known later.
The first Europeans to establish a settlement in the area that is now Belize were British. That was in 1638, an important milestone in the history of Belize. They were mostly from England. But there were also settlers from Scotland.
During the first part of the 1600s, buccaneers from England got involved in the lumber business for the first time in the region. They began cutting logwood in the southern part of Mexico and on the Yucatán Peninsula, introducing a new enterprise that was to determine the history of the region for centuries.
There is a legend which says one of the buccaneers, Peter Wallace, is the one who gave his name to the largest river in Belize in 1638. The name of Belize River is said to have come from Peter Wallace's nickname. The Spanish settlers reportedly called him “Ballis,” hence Belize River, and Belize the country as it is known today. Another source of the name is, of course, said to be Mayan as we learned earlier.
The buccaneers were known as Baymen. They first settled along the coast of Belize in order to have a vantage point from which they could attack Spanish ships in order to drive the Spaniards out of the region. The Spanish ships carried mainly logwood during that period.
But later, the buccaneers stopped attacking Spanish ships and started cutting their own wood in the 1650s and 1660s.
The sale of logwood formed the foundation of the British settlement in what is now Belize. And it helped to sustain the settlement for more than one hundred years.
Involvement in the logwood industry was also facilitated by an agreement signed by the European powers in 1667. Spain, Britain and other European powers competing in the region agreed to work together to end piracy in the area.
This encouraged the British settlers in Belize to stop piracy and start cutting logwood. It was a lucrative business for them and it changed the history of the region. It was the Baymen – former pirates and now logwood cutters – who paved the way for the establishment of what later became the colony of British Honduras, now known as Belize.
The first Baymen settled in an area that became Belize City in the 1650s. They settled mainly in the northern part of the city – before it became a city and when it was just an open area.
During the next 150 years, after the first settlements were established in 1638, more English settlements were established in the area. This was also a period piracy and attacks by Indians and by Spanish settlers in surrounding areas who wanted the British out of there.
The Baymen tried to neutralise the Spanish settlers in Mexico and Central America without much success.
But they did earn a living cutting and selling logwood which played a major role not only in the establishment but also in the survival of the British colony.
And although the powers involved – especially Britain and Spain – agreed to contain and end piracy, it did not mean an end to competition and rivalry between these powers in the region of Central America. Conflict continued, and sometimes even escalated, between Britain and Spain over the rights of the British to cut wood and settle in the region.
During the 1700s, Spanish forces attacked the British settlers repeatedly in the area that is now Belize But Spanish settlers never settled in the region, and the British always returned to expand their trade and settlement.
The Treaty of Paris signed in 1763 conceded to Britain the right to cut logwood but asserted Spanish sovereignty over the territory, although not in a clearly defined way as we will learn later.
When war broke out again in 1779, the British settlement was abandoned until the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1783 allowed the British again to cut logwood in the area. But by that time, the logwood trade had declined significantly and the Honduras mahogany became the main export.
However, the logwood trade can not be underestimated in the role it played in the founding of Belize as a country and as a nation. Its role was also unique in the history of the region because of its origin.
Logwood is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America. It has been of great economic value for many years. And what is Belize today as a country and as nation would probably not be what it is today had it not been for this tree. The country grew from logging camps established by the British – especially the English and to a smaller extent the Scottish – during the 1600s. Their activities intensified in the 1700s.
The wood produced a fixing agent for clothing dyes that was vital to the European woolen industry.
For many years, logwood continued to be used as the main source of dye. And it's still important today. The bark and the leaves are used for medical purposes in a number of areas.
During the early years of European settlement in the region, the dye from logwood was very important and was widely used not only in the production of textiles but also in the production of paper. And the history of Belize is inextricably linked with these products besides the tree itself.
The first British settlers also played a role in shaping the events which would later determine how the British settlement would be administered as a colony.
After the English and Scottish buccaneers and pirates settled in the northern part of what is now Belize City, they became very powerful in the administration of this urban settlement.
In the late 1700s, an oligarchy of relatively wealthy British settlers controlled the economy of the British settlement. They were also the dominant political force in this settlement. They owned about four-fifths of the land; owned about half of all the slaves; controlled imports, exports, and the wholesale and retail trades; and imposed taxes on their own terms.
Also, a group of magistrates whom they elected from among themselves had executive as well as judicial functions over the British settlement. And they resisted any challenge to their growing political power derived from the wealth they had.
They controlled the municipal government and later the national government itself since the town constituted the nucleus of the new colony.
And it was they who controlled the system of slavery in Belize. They used African slaves to cut logwood and do other work. Some of the slaves escaped but ended up under new masters, the Spanish settlers in neighbouring countries such as Guatemala.
The British settlers in Belize also had to find ways to maintain their control over their African slaves. The settlers were few and they were outnumbered by the slaves.
One way the settlers maintained effective control over their African slaves was by separating them from the growing population of free blacks who were given limited privileges. These blacks were known as Kriols, descendants of African slaves.
Although some Kriols were legally free, their economic freedom and voting rights were severely restricted. However, whatever privileges they enjoyed, and however limited, encouraged them to embrace British culture and pledge loyalty to Britain. They literally saw themselves as black Englishmen or Englishmen only with a black or nonwhite skin.
The slaves were finally freed by the British in 1838 but still lived as second-class citizens in Belize. And in 1840, the colony of British Honduras, what is Belize today, was formally declared.
The law abolishing slavery was intended to avoid drastic social changes in the British settlement.
It was enforced slowly or gradually by carrying out emancipation over a five-year transition period; by implementing a system of “apprenticeship” intended to extend masters' control over the former slaves; and by compensating former slave owners for their loss of property.
Slaves were considered property like furniture. They were not even considered to be full human beings. For example, in the United States, they were considered to be three-fifth of a human being, not much different from what they were in Belize.
After 1838, the people who controlled the British settlement in Belize continued to dominate the country for more than a century. And they denied freed slaves access to land and severely limited their freedom in all areas of life.
At the same time that the British settlers in Belize were thinking how to deal with the end of slavery, and whatever problems may arise from this fundamental change, a new ethnic group, the Garifuna, emerged on the scene in another part of the British empire but with profound implication for the future of Belize.
The terms “Garifuna” and “Garinagu” are sometimes used interchangeably although there is a technical difference between the two, with “Garinagu” being the plural form of “Garifuna.” But “Garifuna” is now the preferred term even in plural form.
In the early 1800s, the Garifunas – or Garinagu – who were descendants of Carib peoples of the Lesser Antilles and of Africans who had escaped from slavery, arrived in the British settlement of Belize.
The Garifunas resisted British and French colonial rule and oppression in the Lesser Antilles until they were defeated by the British in 1796.
After suppressing an uprising by the Garifuna on the island of Saint Vincent, the British colonial rulers moved between 1,700 and 5,000 of them to Central America. They were forced to settle on the Bay Islands – what is now Islas de la Bahía – off the northern coast of Honduras.
They later left the Bay Islands in search of a new home. Different groups eventually settled in the Caribbean coastal areas of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and the southern part of what is now Belize.
By 1802, about 150 Garifunas had settled in the Stann Creek area in southern Belize, especially in Dangriga, where they became involved in fishing and farming. They are among the best fishermen in Belize today and have been for many years.
Years later, other Garifunas migrated to the British settlement in Belize, fleeing from civil war in Honduras in 1832. Many Garifuna men soon found jobs in the forestry industry cutting mahogany together with the slaves.
In 1841 – about a year after the colony of British Honduras was established – Dangriga was a flourishing village. It was the largest Garifuna settlement in Belize; and it is still one today. There was another thriving Garifuna settlement in Punta Gorda, also in southern Belize, with many successful farmers.
But the British settlers in Belize did not treat the Garifunas as equal residents or citizens. They treated them as squatters.
In 1857 the British told the Garifunas that they must obtain leases from the Crown or risk losing their property including land and houses.
It was blatant racism.
But African slaves and other groups – including the Garifuna who are also partly African – were not the only people who suffered at the hands of the European settlers. The indigenous people also suffered immensely.
Their land was taken away from them. They were enslaved and exploited. And their traditional way of life was profoundly affected by the intrusion of foreigners from Europe who also regarded them as inferior to whites; a common experience of colonial subjects at the hands of their conquerors around the world.
In the area that is now Belize, the Maya suffered and died under Spanish occupation. They were massacred and fled into the dense forests of central and western Belize for security.
The British buccaneers and pirates also attacked the Maya along the coast of Belize. They raided and destroyed most of the Mayan settlements along the coast. They also stole food, enslaved the Maya, and kidnapped Mayan women and children.
Some Mayans were even sold as slaves to British plantation owners and settlers in Jamaica. Some were also sold to slave masters in the southern states of the United States, especially North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
The region was a land of suffering for nonwhites but also of prosperity for settlers from Europe.
Attempts were also made to improve relations between the rival European powers in the region when Spain granted the British settlers the right to occupy the area that is now Belize. Spain also allowed the British settlers to cut logwood in exchange for an end to piracy, while slavery continued.
From the early 1700s, African slaves were shipped from Jamaica to Belize to cut logwood and do other slave work for the British settlers.
The earliest written record about African slaves in the British settlement of Belize is an account by a Spanish missionary in 1724 in which he stated that the British had recently been importing slaves from Jamaica, Bermuda and other British colonies in the region.
A century later, the number of African slaves in what is now Belize reached 2,300.
Most of the slaves were born in Africa. And many of them knew which tribes they came from. They also continued to follow their African way of life in a number of areas including observing customs and traditions. Even the way they socialised, prayed, sang, danced and cooked had echoes from the past traced all the way back to where they came from.
But as time went on, they embraced British culture while at the same maintaining some aspects of their African way of life. Cultural fusion took place and the result was a new culture, Kriol, and a new people also known as Kriol, although the culture was predominantly British as it still is today among the Kriol (Creole) in Belize.
However, the influence of African slaves and those who were later set free can not be underestimated in the history of Belize.
In fact, as early as 1800, African slaves outnumbered British settlers in Belize by about four to one.
By then, the settlement's primary export had shifted from logwood to mahogany. And as Professor Nigel O. Bolland of Colgate University, New York, states in his book Colonialism and Resistance in Belize: Essays in Historical Sociology:
“The principal establishment was located at the Belize River mouth. This settlement grew into Belize City.
In the nineteenth century, Belize Town, which in 1881 consisted of 5,767 persons (about 21 per cent of the colony's population), remained a small town. It was, and still is, the centre of concentration of Belize's Creole population: over 60 per cent of the 45,584 inhabitants of Belize City today are Creole.
Whatever the date at which Africans first appeared in Belize, they certainly outnumbered the white settlers by the middle of the eighteenth century.
A description of the settlement in 1799, a few days before St. George's Cay was captured, stated there were about 500 British settlers and 3,000 slaves.
After the resettlement, 2,214 people, three-quarters of them slaves, were evacuated to Belize from the Mosquito Shore. Some of these were settled in Convention Town, which was established on the south point of the Belize River mouth.
Censuses taken in 1790 indicate that there were about 2,200 slaves and about 400 'free people of colour' in a total population of less than 3,000.
Most of these people were engaged in cutting logwood and mahogany up the various rivers and creeks, principally the Belize, Sibun, New, and Northern rivers, but their principal settlement, to which the woodcutters returned at the end of of each logging session, remained Belize Town (Bolland 1977: 25 – 48).
The economy largely determined this pattern of settlement. Woodcutters were required to spend several months living in isolation in temporary makeshift camps in the forest.” – ( Nigel O. Bolland, Colonialism and Resistance in Belize: Essays in Historical Sociology, Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize: Cubola Productions, 3rd Edition, 1 June 2004, pp.79 – 80).
Although African slaves were an integral part of the economy from the beginning starting with the logwood industry and were, in fact, indispensable, they were treated as if they were on the periphery of the economic mainstream because they had no power. And they were not allowed to own land.
They were victims of blatant discrimination. And as slaves, they could not be equal to their masters. But even freed blacks were treated the same. Land ownership was concentrated in the hands of only a few whites. As Bolland goes on to state:
“By the late eighteenth century, a small group of between twelve and twenty 'old Baymen,' as they styled themselves, owned over half of all slaves in the settlement and had allocated vast tracts of land to themselves. This 'monopoly on the part of the monied cutters' was unsuccessfully challenged by Superintendent George Arthur in 1817, though he did manage to proclaim all unclaimed land to be Crown Land, henceforth to be granted only by the Crown's representative (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 34 – 42).
Prior to emancipation in 1838, the number of 'free people of colour' in Belize had increased substantially until they were almost half of the population, but in addition to the usual forms and processes of discrimination the extraordinary degree of economic monopoly made them almost entirely dependent upon the 'forestocracy.'
After apprenticeship was abolished, the majority of the population remained poor and dependent largely because they were landless.
While the forestocracy were confirmed in their possession of virtually all the accesisble land in Belize, land that they had acquired gratuitously, Crown land was not to be freely granted after 1838 for fear that allowing the ex-slaves to obtain land might 'discourage labour for wages.'
The result of this policy was that no Crown land was sold in the period up to 1855, and by 1868 the total amount sold was said to be 'utterly insignificant.'” – (Ibid., p. 80).
Refusal by the white settlers to give or sell land to blacks had profound implications not only in economic terms; it also profoundly affected the settlement pattern, creating a demographic landscape which reflected these historical patterns. And it explains why there were very few black communities in the rural areas.
They had been denied land and ended up living in urban areas, mostly in Belize Town which later became Belize City.
Freed slaves remained virtual slaves because of a system that was designed to keep them in perpetual bondage even after emancipation. As Bolland states:
“The inability of the ex-slaves to obtain suitable land, combined with the undeveloped internal market system and a method of labour control that combined advance payments and truck practices to create virtual debt servitude, meant that small farming was not a practical means of livelihood. In Belize, therefore, despite the apparently favourable man/land ratio, a peasantry did not develop after Emancipation as it did in Jamaica and British Guiana.
The slaves of Belize had been accustomed to growing provisions such as plantains, rice, and ground foods in temporary provision grounds near the mahogany camps, but this was largely undertaken to supplement their rations.
Such seasonal or shifting cultivation was compatible with the economy of timber extraction – indeed, it is more accurate to say that agriculture was largely restricted to this form by the predominant economy – but it did not encourage the development of a settled agricultural system.
The forest workers, both during slavery and after, had little time or opportunity to devote to farming. Even though the provision grounds were usually on the river banks, the time needed to transport produce to the market in Belize Town and, even more, to return upriver, was generally prohibitive. As a result of all these factors, the growth of rural communities after Emancipation n Belize was severely retarded (Ashcraft 1973: 80 – 85).
There is evidence of maroon communities in Belize during the time of slavery, but they do not appear to have survived. Most Creole villages – as distinct from Maya, Garifuna, and Mestizo communities – were established late in the nineteenth or in the twentieth century.” (N.O. Bolland, Colonialism and Resistance in Belize: Essays in Historical Sociology, Ibid., pp. 80, 82)
The Creole are associated with urban life more than any other ethnic group or community in Belize because of this historical pattern created and perpetuated by the white settlers who owned the slaves and determined and shaped the fate of the descendants of these African slaves.
Slavery in the settlement of Belize was associated with the extraction of timber because treaties forbade the production of plantation crops. And even if large-scale plantations had been allowed for commercial farming, ex-slaves would not have benefited from this economic activity because of discrimination.
Settlers needed only one or two slaves to cut logwood. But after logwood lost its importance and mahogany became the primary commodity in the forestry industry especially in the last 25 years of the 18th century, the British settlers needed more land for larger-scale operations. And that more slaves to meet the labour requirements of such operations.
Besides those who worked in the forestry industry, there were slaves who worked as domestic servants. There were others who worked as sailors and as blacksmiths. Some even worked as nurses.
The experience of African slaves and their descendants in Belize was different from the experience of other slaves in places such as Jamaica and Trinidad where they worked mostly on the plantations. That was because the economies were set up differently.
But there was no qualitative difference between the two.
It is true that there were no plantations in Belize. Therefore the slaves did not work on any plantation. It was a different economic pattern determined by the forestry industry.
But in spite of all that, slaves in Belize were still oppressed by their masters. Their masters were brutal, subjecting the slaves to “extreme inhumanity,” according to one report published in 1820. And there were other documented accounts of such brutality.
This was also clearly demonstrated by the persistent attempts, many of them successful, by a large number of slaves to escape from their masters.
Many of them fled to Yucatán in the 1700s. And in the early 1800s, many African slaves fled to Guatemala. Others went to Honduras, travelling down the coast from Guatemala.
African slaves were not in Belize from the beginning when the Baymen – buccaneers and pirates – first went to the region But they played a very important role in the economic growth of Belize.
The British settlers knew that they desperately needed them especially in the logging industry, the main economic foundation of the colonial settlement when it was first established. And there is no question that logging, which was a thriving business during that period, could not have been run successfully without abundant and free labour provided by African slaves.
But when the logging business began to decline, due to the scarcity of logwood which had been extensively harvested through the decades, the Baymen turned to mahogany and tropical cedar to stay in business.
Another reason why logwood was no longer a major source of income was that prices for this commodity fell in Europe. Other dye products were also developed, replacing the dye from logwood. It no longer became necessary.
But this also caused a lot problems. When the Baymen started cutting down tropical cedar and mahogany trees as a source of income, they ended up going deeper into the forests where the Maya lived. This brought them into direct conflict with the indigenous people who lived in the villages built in the forests.
Great Britain first sent an official representative to the area of Belize in 1786. Before then, the British government did not recognise Belize as a British colony. The government in Britain feared that recognising Belize as its colony would have caused a lot of problems.
The British were reluctant to establish any kind of formal – colonial – government in the area because they did not want to antagonise the Spanish settlers who occupied a bigger area in the region, virtually surrounding what came to be known as the country of Belize.
But such non-intervention by Britain also had serious consequences. It led to the occupation of Belize as a personal fiefdom for the wealthy English and Scottish settlers, but mostly English.
Instead of establishing democratic institutions or enacting fair laws, powerful settlers took matters into their hands and made decisions to protect and promote their own interests to the detriment of the larger community.
They passed their own laws, established their own government, and gained control of the local legislature which no longer remained representative. It came to represent the interests of the few wealthy settlers, while ignoring the interests of the poor and the powerless. They also ended up owning most of the land in the settlement and gained control of the timber trade.
But not everything worked in their favour. There was persistent threat from their rivals, the Spanish rulers who claimed the entire Central America, including Belize, as their own territory. There were also threats from the indigenous people.
Conflict between the indigenous people and the new comers from Europe continued; while the buccaneers were ruthless in their pursuit, determined to continue cutting down tropical cedar and mahogany trees in the forests.
The Maya attacked the British encampments in the forests but without much success, and the area of Belize was on its way to becoming a British colony.
The Spanish settlers who surrounded Belize tried several times to seize the territory. But they were not successful.
Spanish forces launched their final attack on the British settlement in Belize on 10 September 1798. They were equally unsuccessful. The British were able to defend the settlement and neutralised any attempts by the Spanish to seize Belize or dislodge the British settlers from the territory.
In fact, it was a decisive victory for the people of Belize when they defeated a large Spanish fleet at The Battle of St. George's Caye on 10 September 1798. The anniversary of the battle is now a national holiday in Belize.
But the battle was not fought just on the 10th of September.
It was a short military conflict. It lasted for about a week, from 3 September to 10 September, and was fought off the coast of Belize. However, the name of The Battle of St. George's Caye is typically reserved for the final battle which was fought on the 10th.
The invading force came from Mexico. The Spanish invaders wanted to seize Belize from the British settlers. They were met with a smaller force of Baymen, woodcutters living in Belize, who were assisted by their African slaves.
The final battle went on for two-and-a-half hours. The Spanish invaders, ravaged by yellow fever, withdrew and the British settlers declared victory.
The territory that is now Belize had been in dispute since the mid-1750s, claimed by both Spain and Great Britain. Although Spain never occupied the territory, she claimed it as hers like Mexico and Guatemala simply because, geographically, it was part of Central America, sharing borders with both Mexico and Guatemala, as well as Honduras, another Spanish territory to the south.
When British settlers – Baymen – entered the territory in 1638, their intention was to harvest logwood, and later mahogany, and not to create a new country, although some of them may have had colonial ambitions.
But their main interest was to make money by cutting down and selling logwood. And the Spanish – the government of Spain – recognised this commercial activity, but not occupation of the territory by the British. Colonial or not, they wanted them out of there.
Recognition – by both Britain and Spain – of the timber trade conducted by the British settlers in Belize was formalised by the Treaty of Paris signed in 1763.
But the treaty did not clearly demarcate the territory. There were no clearly defined boundaries showing that this was indeed Spanish territory or a Spanish possession with clearly-defined. territorial boundaries.
Also, there were no terms stipulated in the treaty to show or even suggest that Spain itself had well-defined boundaries around the territory that came to be known as British Honduras, and later as Belize.
It was therefore open to more disputes. And hostilities between the two colonial powers continued.
Hostilities between the two countries ended in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles which allowed British settlers rights between the Belize and Hondo rivers. This was extended to the Sibun River on terms agreed upon under the Convention of London signed in 1786. And cutting rights were granted to the settlers on the condition that the settlement – founded and established by the British – be recognised as belonging to Spain.
But the Spanish were determined to seize Belize. The British settlers – Baymen – were also determined to defend their settlement. And they got some help, including muskets and ammunition, from the British in Jamaica.
When they engaged the Spanish invaders, the battle became a defining moment in the history of Belize and the entire Central America. And the help of African slaves can not be underestimated. They played a major role in determining the outcome of the battle because of their knowledge of warfare.
The Battle of St. George's Caye was fought at sea but there were also 700 men on land waiting to defend the territory just in case the Spanish force landed ashore.
By September 13, the Spaniards were in full retreat and the British settlers pursued them to push them farther.
Conditions in Belize did not improve much after the battle, but the threat of Spanish attacks on the British settlement decreased significantly.
In the early 1800s, the British government sought greater control over the British settlement in Belize. Britain also told the settlers they would lose the right to govern themselves if they did not observe Britain's instructions to abolish slavery.
Although slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1838, there was little or no change in working conditions for the freed slaves and labourers in the British settlement in Belize.
African slaves in Belize were highly valued for their ability to harvest timber, especially mahogany which had now become the main commodity after logwood extraction virtually ended.
Soon after, a series of institutions were put in place to ensure the continued presence of a viable labour force. Some of these included greatly restricting the ability of individuals to obtain land, and a debt-peonage system to control the newly “freed” slaves.
Also the freed slaves had nowhere to go. And the settlement was fully controlled by whites. Black people therefore had no choice but to continue working for whites even when they were free.
In 1836, after the emancipation of Belize from Spanish rule, the British claimed the right to administer the region as a colony.
In 1862, Great Britain formally declared it a British crown colony and named it British Honduras. The colony was headed by a lieutenant governor who was subordinate to the governor of Jamaica.
About three years earlier in 1859, Britain and Guatemala signed the Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty which established the western boundary – that exists today – between Belize and Guatemala. The treaty temporarily settled the question of Guatemala's claim on Belize; a dispute that continues today.
As a colony, Belize began to attract British investors. Among the British firms that dominated the colony in the late 1800s was the Belize Estate and Produce Company which eventually acquired half of all the privately-held land in the colony.
But while all these changes were taking place, mistreatment of the Garifuna – and of the former slaves – continued. Nothing had changed for them. They remained subordinate to the British settlers and did not have equal rights which were taken for granted by whites in British Honduras (Belize).
In 1872, The Crown Lands Ordinance was passed, establishing restrictions for the Garifuna and for the Maya. The British prevented both groups from owning land and treated them as a source of cheap labour. It amounted to virtual slavery.
However, resistance by the Maya continued until the 1870s, more than a decade after the colony of British Honduras had been established.
The conflict between the two started long before then because of British encroachment on Mayan territory as the British consolidated their settlement and pushed deeper into the interior in search of mahogany.
The Maya had some success against the British in some of these encounters. But in most cases, the British won.
One of the most notable successes by the Maya was in 1866 when they defeated a detachment of British troops sent to San Pedro. Earlier in the same year, a group of the Maya attacked a mahogany camp on the Bravo River. Conflicts between the two were far from over, although they were to end only a few years later.
Early in 1867, British troops marched into areas in which the Maya had settled and destroyed villages in an attempt to drive them out. The expelled Mayans returned and occupied the town of Corozal in the western part of British Honduras in April 1870.
An unsuccessful attack by the Mayans on Orange Walk – also in western British Honduras – in 1872 was the last serious attack on the British colony of Honduras.
Also, other developments took place through the years and played a major role in shaping and reshaping the demographic and cultural identity of British Honduras. The indigenous people were one of the major forces of change especially in the demographic transformation of the colony.
In the 1880s and 1890s, two major groups of the Maya fled from forced labour under Spanish rule in Guatemala and settled in several villages in southern British Honduras.
They became an integral part of British Honduras, ruled by indirect rule, a system of government that was perfected by the British in other parts of their colonial empire including Africa where the colonial rulers used local rulers including chiefs to control the indigenous people.
But because the Maya lived in remote, isolated areas in the southern part of British Honduras, they did not become fully integrated into the colony as other people did. In fact, their fellow indigenes in the northern part of British Honduras became more integrated into the colonial society although they still retained their traditional ways and their cultural identity. Northern British Honduras became a stronghold of Mestizo culture.
By the end of the 1800s, the ethnic configuration of British Honduras – that remained largely intact throughout the 20th century – was already in place. It also had a religious dimension.
The ethnic pattern consisted of Protestants, mainly of African descent, who spoke either English or Creole and lived in Belize Town; the Roman Catholic Mayans and Mestizos who spoke Spanish and who lived mainly in the northern and western parts of the colony; and the Roman Catholic Garifuna who spoke English, Spanish, or Garifuna and who settled on the southern coast.
But threat from the Maya was not completely over. The people who lived in the town of Belize, especially the merchants, felt that they were relatively secure from attacks by these indigenous people. They did not even want to contribute towards the protection of mahogany camps in the interior which were susceptible to Mayan attacks. But the landowners felt differently. They felt that they should not be required to pay taxes on lands which did not get adequate protection.
It was a conflict of interest and it led to a stalemate. The colonial Legislative Assembly of British Honduras failed to authorise the raising of sufficient revenue for the colony, especially for its protection.
The political rulers of the colony now had only one option left. They relinquished power and asked for the establishment of direct British rule in return for greater security of the crown colony.
It was a fundamental change in the way this British territory had been administered.
For 50 years, power had been in the hands of rich settlers who owned most of the land and controlled the economy of the territory. Now power had shifted from the old settler oligarchy to the colonial office in London and to the directors of British companies who had a lot of control over the economy of this British colonial outpost in Central America.
And there was no question that the indigenous people had lost. They were no match for their conquerors from Europe. And logging companies continued to displace Mayan villages deep in the forests in this British colony until the 1950s.
After the colony was established in 1862, several constitutional changes were introduced through the decades to expand representative government.
But there was also the role of powerful economic interests which could not be disregarded in the evolution of this colony including its economic growth.
One of those powerful economic interests was the forestry industry.
The forestry industry's control of land and its influence in colonial decision-making slowed the development of agriculture and the diversification of the economy. Although British Honduras had vast areas of sparsely populated, unused land, landownership was controlled by a small European monopoly, thwarting the evolution of a Creole landowning class from the African former slaves.
It was blatant discrimination. Even the end of slavery had not radically transformed the lives of former slaves.
Landownership became even more consolidated during the economic depression of the mid-1800s. And the depression had a profound impact on the colony and ts future.
Major results of the depression included the decline of the old settler class, the increasing consolidation of capital, and the intensification of British landownership.
The British Honduras Company, later renamed the Belize Estate and Produce Company, emerged as the predominant landowner. It had about half of all the privately-held land in the colony. And the company became the dominant force in British Honduras's political and economic life for more than a century.
Financial moghuls not only controlled the levers of power; they also transformed the political and economic landscape of British Honduras as never before. They had all the money in their hands.
This concentration and centralisation of capital meant that the direction of the colony's economy was henceforth determined largely in London, the financial centre of the British empire. It also signaled the eclipse of the old settler elite in British Honduras.
By about 1890, most commerce in British Honduras was in the hands of a clique of Scottish and German merchants. Most of them were newcomers.
The European minority exercised great influence in the colony's politics partly because they were guaranteed representation in the colonial Legislative Council all of whose members were appointed. Not one was elected by the people. In 1892, the governor appointed several Creole members, but whites remained the majority in this legislative chamber.
However, Creoles gradually gained influence through the years, although they were still eclipsed by whites.
In 1927, Creole merchants and professionals replaced the representatives of British landowners on the Legislative Council, except for the manager of the Belize Estate and Produce Company.
The participation of Creoles in the political process was a fundamental change in the British colony. And it signalled the beginning of other changes which would later radically transform the society especially in terms of power. And the colony functioned fairly well until the Great Depression came.
The economy of British Honduras almost collapsed during the Great Depression in the 1930s because of the low demand for timber in Britain. Also, there was very high unemployment during the Depression, compounded by the damage caused by a devastating hurricane which hit British Honduras in 1931.
There were also widespread perceptions among the people that the government did not want to help them during the crisis. This was compounded by the colonial government's refusal to legalise labour unions and introduce minimum wage.
The Great Depression of the 1930s also had a profound impact on British Honduras in other ways.
It destroyed the economy. Many jobs were lost and and unemployment rose sharply.
The problem was compounded by a natural disaster of great proportions. The country was hit by a hurricane on10 September 1931. it was the worst in the nation's recent history and destroyed Belize Town. More than 1,000 people were killed.
To make things worse, response to the disaster was slow and inadequate. The people in the colony expected help from Britain. They did not get it, at least not in the amount they expected. Instead, the British government took advantage of the situation to expand its authority over the colony. It imposed tighter control on the colony and gave the governor more power to enact laws in emergency situations.
Those were hard times for the colony and the Belize Estate and Produce Company survived the depression only because of its special connections in British Honduras and London.
As the depression continued, conditions also continued to get worse, especially for the poor.
Workers in mahogany camps were treated almost like slaves. To add insult to injury, most of the workers in those camps were black, descendants of slaves, or indigenous people who had already lost their land to the European settlers.
There was even a law governing labour contracts, passed years earlier in 1883, which made it illegal and a criminal offence for a labourer to break a contract with his or her employer. In such a racially stratified society, it was obvious the law targeted blacks and other non-whites.
The pain and suffering during the Great Depression was hard enough without inflicting more pain on the poor by enforcing such an unjust law. It was a draconian law enforced during the worst of times.
In 1931 the governor of British Honduras rejected proposals to legalise trade unions and introduce minimum wage and sickness insurance. But the people, mostly poor, did not give up.
In 1934 they responded with a series of demonstrations, strikes, petitions and riots which marked the beginning of modern politics and the independence movement in British Honduras. It was a turning point in the history of the colony.
The defiance campaigns and riots fuelled the independence struggle which later evolved into a well-organised independence movement across the country.
In an attempt to defuse tensions and calm down the people, the colonial government repealed criminal penalties for workers who broke their labour contracts and granted workers the right to join unions.
Riots, strikes, and rebellions had occurred before, but the events of the 1930s had gone much further. They were modern labour disturbances in the sense that they gave rise to organisations which were able to articulate well-defined industrial and political goals and grievances as never before.
Economic conditions improved during World War II when many men joined the armed forces or engaged in other activities which contributed labour to the war effort; a situation similar to what happened in the United States during the same period when the unemployment rate was lowest in 1944 because many people found jobs which supported the war.
But after the war, the economy of British Honduras suffered again, causing more problems including social unrest.
The leaders of the labour oganisations sharply criticised the governor and his colleagues as well as the rich merchants, including the Belize Estate and Produce Company, for their mistreatment of the workers. They pointed to the injustices and forcefully articulated the workers' demands in political and moral terms.
And there was a corresponding rise in the political consciousness of the people, especially no-whites, as the injustices continued. Former Africans slaves, the indigenous people and others were the primary victims of the injustices being perpetrated against the poor and the weak most of whom were non-white.
All this contributed to the emergence of a new awareness which led to the development of nationalist sentiments and demands for democracy.
To avoid civil unrest, the governor acceded to some of the demands by the workers. The immediate result was the creation of relief work. It was a tactical move by the governor and a partial victory for the people but it helped defuse tensions.
The workers continued to press their demands. Their greatest achievements were labour reforms which were passed between 1941 and 1943.
Trade unions were legalised in 1941. And in 1943, a law was passed which clearly stated that it was no longer illegal for workers to break contracts. The new law removed breach-of-labor-contract from the criminal code. It was a major achievement by poor and ordinary people in their quest for justice.
It was in the same year, 1943, that the General Workers Union (GWU), formerly known as the Workers and Tradesmen's Union, was registered. And it played a major role in the political transformation of the country.
The union quickly expanded into a nationwide organisation and provided crucial support for the nationalist movement which gained momentum after a major political party, the People's Union Party (PUP), was formed in 1950.
The 1940s was one of the most important decades in the history of British Honduras. It marked the beginning of fundamental change in the political life of the country, with labour leaders and other people pushing for democratic rights including universal suffrage.
Britain's decision to devalue the British Honduras dollar in 1949 worsened economic conditions and led to the creation of the People's Committee which demanded independence.
The People's Committee formed the nucleus of the independence movement and was later transformed into a political party, the People's United Party (PUP), which sought constitutional reforms that would expand voting rights to all adults.
A turning point took place in December 1949 when the governor of British Honduras devalued the currency without the approval of the Legislative Council which was supposed to represent the people. It was a unilateral decision by the governor. And it had major implications across the country.
It showed that the colonial rulers had extensive powers which they could exercise at will even if what they did was against the wishes of the majority of the people in British Honduras. It also showed that the colonial legislature which was supposed to represent the people had very little power and leverage in the conduct of national affairs. It was the governor and his colleagues who had all the power, and they did not represent the people of British Honduras.
All this helped fuel the independence movement, with the governor's decision to devalue the British Honduras dollar, against the wishes of the Legislative Council, being the most prominent factor which pushed nationalists to the extreme. They felt, and rightly so, that the people were being ignored and colonial rule was undemocratic. It was time for change.
The devaluation of the currency also angered labour organisations because it protected the interests of the big transnational companies while forcing the poor and working-class people to pay higher prices for the items they bought including basic necessities such as food.
The governor's decision therefore had unintended consequences. It became a rallying cry for the people and it united labour leaders, political activists and Creole middle class members in a broad coalition of interests to demand concessions from the colonial rulers and agitate for independence.
The devaluation of the currency was a blessing to the colonised people of British Honduras. It galvanised them into action as never before.
On the same night that the British governor announced devaluation of the currency, nationalists also made an important decision.
They formed the People's Committee, the same night. And the independence movement which had been growing gradually through the decade during the 1940s now became a force to be reckoned with in national politics and in the life of the country as a whole. It was the beginning of the end of colonial rule in British Honduras.
The People's Committee was dissolved in September 1950 and was replaced by the People's United Party (PUP), a national movement demanding independence.
The PUP went into action and, from 1950 to 1954, did a lot of grass-root work mobilising the people across the country in pursuit of its agenda for independence. Its activists forcefully articulated its demands and the message resonated well among the people.
High on the agenda was constitutional reforms. But the People's United Party had other important items on the agenda including currency devaluation which helped galvanise the independence movement.
Also on the agenda was the proposed West Indian Federation.
The nationalists in British Honduras wanted their country to join the federation after independence because of its historical ties to the island nations of the Caribbean which were also British colonies and had large populations of people of African origin. All of them were also linked by a common history of slavery besides their common African heritage.
But more than anything else during that time was the demand for constitutional reforms which would pave the way towards full independence. Constitutional reforms which started in 1954 led to a new constitution 10 years later.
Therefore, the People's United Party concentrated on agitating for constitutional reforms including universal adult suffrage without a literacy test; an all-elected Legislative Council; an Executive Council chosen by the leader of the majority party in the legislature; the introduction of a ministerial system; and the abolition of the governor's reserve powers.
In short, the PUP pushed for representative and responsible government.
The colonial rulers were not amused by all this. Alarmed by the growing support for the PUP across the country, they retaliated by attacking two of the party's main public platforms: the Belize City Council and the PUP itself.
But the independence movement weathered the storm. The People's United Party (PUP) had already become a powerful political force and nothing was going to stop it in its pursuit of total independence.
All attempts by the colonial rulers to discredit the PUP failed.
The main test came in April 1954 when voters went to the polls. It was the first election under universal literate adult suffrage. And the main issue was clearly colonialism. A vote for the PUP was a vote for self-government.
Almost 70 per cent of the electorate voted. The PUP won 66.3 per cent of the vote. It also won 8 of the 9 elected seats in the new Legislative Assembly.
Further constitutional reforms were clearly on the agenda. Change was irreversible. Independence loomed on the horizon.
But there were obstacles on the road to independence. One was, until the early 1960s, the reluctance by Britain to allow the people of British Honduras to govern themselves.
The other one was Guatemala's total refusal to accept British Honduras as a separate territorial entity with the right to exist as a sovereign nation.
Guatemala had always claimed that the entire territory of British Honduras belonged to Guatemala and had even repeatedly threatened to use force to annex the territory. Only Britain's military might discouraged Guatemala from launching a full-scale offensive to take over British Honduras.
However, by 1961, Britain relented – although grudgingly – to let the colony become independent. Agitation for independence was unstoppable.
Negotiations between Britain and Guatemala over the disputed territory started again in 1961, but the elected representatives of British Honduras had no voice in these talks.
The leader of the nationalist movement, George Cadle Price, rejected an offer by Guatemala to make British Honduras an “associated state” of Guatemala. He made it clear that he wanted full independence.
In 1963 Guatemala stopped the negotiations and ended diplomatic relations with Britain.
And in January 1964, British Honduras won full internal self-government under a ministerial system. The head of the PUP, George Cadle Price, became the colony's prime minister.
But Britain remained in control in a number of critical areas. The colonial power controlled defence. It also controlled foreign affairs, internal security and the civil service since the country had not yet attained full independence.
The dispute with Guatemala also remained a major issue. Talks between Guatemala and British Honduras on the border dispute went on intermittently and stopped abruptly during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
But the failure of those negotiations did not stop the quest for independence. The nationalist leaders in the colony continued to carry on the struggle and the official name of the territory was changed from British Honduras to Belize in June 1973 in anticipation of full independence.
Still, progress towards independence was not smooth. Guatemala's claim to sovereignty over the territory of Belize threatened to slow down the nationalist movement even if it could not stop it in its quest for full sovereign status.
By 1975, the governments of British Honduras and Britain, frustrated in their dealings with the military-dominated regimes of Guatemala, agreed on a new strategy that would take the case for Belize's self-determination to various international forums.
The government of British Honduras felt that by taking its case to the international arena and gaining support around the world, including support from the United Nations (UN) for its status as a separate territorial entity with the right to self-determination, it could strengthen its position, weaken Guatemala's claims, and make it harder for Britain to make any concessions to Guatemala which continued to claim the entire colonial territory as part of Guatemala.
The nationalist leaders of British Honduras argued that Guatemala was trying to frustrate their country's legitimate aspirations to self-determination.
They also argued that Guatemala was advancing an illegitimate claim and disguising its own colonial ambitions by trying to present the dispute as an effort to reclaim its territory lost to a colonial power: Britain.
Between 1975 and 1981, the leaders of British Honduras presented their case for independence at a number of international forums.
They argued their case at a number of conferences attended by the heads of state and government at the Commonwealth which is made up of former British colonies. They also presented their case at a conference of ministers of the Nonaligned Movement and at UN meetings.
Initially, Latin American governments supported Guatemala's claim. But that changed when, between 1975 and 1979, British Honduras won the support of Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Nicaragua.
Finally, in November 1980, with Guatemala completely isolated, the UN passed a resolution that demanded independence for British Honduras.
A last attempt was made to reach an agreement with Guatemala before the colony's independence. But the colony's representatives to the talks made no concessions and a proposal called the Heads of Agreement was reached on 11 March 1981.
However, when conservative political forces in Guatemala denounced Guatemalan proponents of this agreement as sellouts, the Guatemalan government refused to ratify the agreement and withdrew from the negotiations.
Groups in British Honduras which were opposed to any kind of compromise with Guatemala engaged in violent demonstrations against the Heads of Agreement and a state of emergency was declared. But they did not come up with any meaningful proposal to end the dispute with Guatemala in a peaceful way.
One one thing remained clear: independence for British Honduras as soon as possible. And it finally came.
British Honduras attained sovereign status on 21 September 1981 without reaching an agreement with Guatemala on the territorial dispute. And Guatemala refused to recognise Belize as an independent nation.
About 1,500 British troops remained to protect Belize from a possible Guatemalan invasion.
George Cadle Price became the country's first prime minister. He served as prime minister and minister of foreign affairs from 1981 to 1984, and again as prime minister from 1989 to 1993.
Together with Monrad Metzgen, he was one of the main leaders of the independence movement in British Honduras. He was also a co-founder of the People's United (PUP) Party which led the struggle for independence. He led the party for 40 years.
There was also a change in Belize's relations with Guatemala. In 1992, the president of Guatemala formally recognized Belize’s independence.
And in the following year, the United Kingdom announced that it would end its military involvement – in its former colony – whose primary purpose was to protect Belize from Guatemala's territorial ambitions.
All British soldiers were withdrawn in 1994, apart from a small contingent of troops who remained to train Belizean troops.
The withdrawal of British troops from Belize also signalled an end to the territorial dispute with Guatemala. There would have been no need for such military presence, to guarantee security, if there was no threat to Belize's territorial integrity.
But the dispute was never fully resolved in spite of what may be described as peace between the two countries.
In 1993, the prime minister of Belize, Manuel Esquivel, who was also the leader of the United Democratic Party (UDP), announced the suspension of a pact reached with Guatemala during the tenure of Prime Minister George Price, claiming that his predecessor had made too many concessions in order to gain Guatemala's recognition of Belize's independence and territorial integrity.
The pact signed by his predecessor would have resolved a 130 year-old border dispute between the two countries. It did not, especially after being renounced in 1993 by the government of Belize.
The pact also did not gain full acceptance in Guatemala. There were, and still there are, elements in Guatemala's leadership who maintain that Belize is part of Guatemala and will always be.
Border tensions between the two countries continued into the early 2000s, although the two neighbours cooperated in other areas of mutual interest.
But tensions are bound to continue and may even erupt into hostilities in the future because of Guatemala's claims.
Throughout Belize's history, Guatemala has claimed ownership of all or part of the territory of this small Central American nation. This claim is occasionally reflected in Guatemalan maps showing Belize as Guatemala's twenty-third province, and not as a separate independent country as it is shown in other maps around the world.
The border dispute remains unresolved and quite contentious and has at various times required intervention and mediation by other countries and international organisations including the United Kingdom, the Caribbean Community heads of government, the Organisation of American States (OAS), the United States, and the UN.
A British garrison has remained in Belize at the request of the Belizean government since independence because of that.
Without guarantee of security by the United Kingdom, Belize faces the prospect of an invasion by Guatemala.
In a tragic way, Belize's independence is real only because it is guaranteed by its former colonial master, the United Kingdom; a contradiction hard for any weak country to resolve.
It's a harsh reality to live with, especially when you claim to be independent, yet you can not even defend yourself or guarantee your independence.
Belize also continues to be a nation of ethnic and racial diversity, although problems of racial inequality and other injustices continue to exist. Also, race relations are not as good as some people claim. And there are many cases to illustrate this point.
Mestizos are derisively described by some Belizeans as “aliens”even by descendants of African slaves such as Kriols and and Garifunas who should know better because of their history of suffering as victims of slavery and racial injustice.
Although Mestizos are Belizeans, they are told they are not an integral part of the Belizian nation. Mestizos are also – because of their Spanish ancestry – accused of being sympathetic to Guatemala which wants to annex Belize.
Descendants of the Maya, the most disadvantaged group, are also not considered by some of their fellow countrymen to be true Belizeans. They are, instead, told that they belong to other parts of Central America.
And blacks, although they have always been an integral part of Belize from the beginning and even at one time – as early as 1800 – outnumbered whites 4 to 1, still carry the stigma of slavery which is associated with racial inferiority although many of them have been prominent in many areas of national life including leadership.
Also, dark skin is still seen as a badge of inferiority and ugliness. Even the fact that many blacks have risen to positions of prominence in national life including academia has not changed this perception and stereotype. They are still considered by many non-blacks to be the most inferior and least intelligent people on earth.
And it was not until February 2008 that a black, Dean Oliver Barrow, the leader of the United Democratic Party (UDP), rose to the highest office in the land and became prime minister. He became the first black to serve in that position.
He once served as deputy prime minister and as minister of foreign affairs from 1993 to 1998 when his party was in power. And he became the leader of the opposition from 1998 and served in that capacity until February 2008 when the UDP won the election, thrusting him into national leadership.
Yet in spite of all those problems, Belize does not have the kind of inter-ethnic and racial strife that has wreaked havoc in many countries around the world, even if it's not a veritable paradise in the tropics. As Professor Irma McClaurin, who became the first African American to get tenure in the department of anthropology at the University of Florida in 1999, states in her book Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America:
“It would be untrue to paint a portrait of Belize as a country completely without conflict.
There are ethnic tensions that can be traced to colonial policies and practices; moreover, recent competition over jobs and other strategic resources has th potential to pit ethnic groups against one another in the future as the population struggles to survive in an atmosphere of shrinking natural resources and rising costs.
A Mosaic: 'Many Cultures, One Nation'
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Belize is its people. As one moves about the country, ethnicity is real and palpable.
In many respects an infant among independent nations, Belize offers a lesson to the giants that grapple with questions of cultural tolerance, equality, and ethnic civility.
Though not without internal problems and operational ethnic boundaries and tensions, the country still lacks the ethnic turmoil of a Guyana or a Trinidad.
Nor does the country exemplify either the structural dimensions of segregation and institutional racism that characterize the United States or the intense color caste system of Jamaica.
Belize might be called truly 'multicultural.' The government actively seeks to construct a national identity that deemphasizes ethnic differences and builds on common national interests. Its efforts are captured in a former slogan of the People's United Party, 'We all de one,' and in the United Democratic Party's more recent rallying cry, 'Many cultures, one nation.'
One major reason for Belize's lack of stressed ethnic relations is spatial. Fredrik Barth has argued that where ethnic groups can maintain distances that allow them to create their own niches, diminishing competition for strategic resources, ethnic conflicts are minimal.
Spatial circumstances can be cited to explain why Belize has not experienced the extreme ethnic tensions that characterize social relations in some of the surrounding Central American countries or among some of its Caribbean neighbors.
The two largest ethnic groups – Mestizos and Creoles – in Belize are geographically dispersed.
Mestizos live in those areas of the country bordering Mexico and Guatemala; Creoles dominate Belize City. Moreover, neither group can claim to be the 'original' Belizeans, since nearly all of the country's population came from somewhere else.” – (Irma McClaurin, Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America, Newark, New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1 August 1996, pp. 29 – 30).
Different origins also sustain and reinforce ethnic distinctions and identities especially in societies where assimilation or integration has not been fully achieved. People of different origins tend to maintain ties with their own kind and with their original homelands even if only in the cultural realm by retaining and transmitting to the younger generations values, customs and traditions from the old country.
That has not been quite the case in Belize where descendants of African slaves lost their African cultures during slavery. But mere identification with Africa is enough to sustain a spirit of unique identity in a society which is composed of different ethnic, racial and cultural groups with different origins. And as McClaurin states:
“The ancestors of most Belizeans arrived by force from Africa and the West Indies as slaves, others came from India as indentured laborers, and still others first crossed over the borders of Belize from the Yucatan to escape the bloody turmoil during the Guerras de Casta (Caste Wars).
Even many of the present-day Maya, who are the 'original' people of the area according to archaeologists, also immigrated.
Travel writers and historians both assert that only a small segment of the Maya population now living in Belize can claim to be direct descendants of the people who built the ruins that so delight archaeologists and attest to the presence of a highly developed Maya civilization at one time.
The majority of those living in Belize today are believed to be descendants of Maya from adjacent empires who fled from the Yucatan in the nineteenth century and of later groups of Mopan and Kekchi Maya in the south of Belize who came during the late nineteenth century to escape forced labor plantations in their native Guatemala. While to the outside eyes these groups are all Maya – that is, a homogeneous group – among themselves they separated by language – Yucateco, Mopanero, and Kekchi – and different interests.
Ethnic boundaries do exist in Belize among the various groups, but people who reside in close proximity interact without enmity.
The consequences for marrying outside the group are generally not severe, though stories of violence against one party of an interethnic relationship do surface.” – (Ibid., p. 30).
There is no question that the issue of ethnicity is of some concern even in Belize where inter-ethnic relations are relatively harmonious.
And it is a complex phenomenon in the Belizean context because of the way the society has evolved through the years, sometimes blurring ethnic distinctions, with ethnic identity assuming a cultural dimension in sharp contrast with racial identity. This complexity plays a major role in defining and shaping inter-ethnic relations in Belize.
Also, as in any other country in the world, ethnic identity is a fact of life in Belize, sometimes leading to tensions. This has been clearly demonstrated in recent years, a development attributed to a number of factors. As Professor Anne Sutherland of the University of California-Riverside states in her book The Making of Belize: Globalization in The Margins:
“Some Belizean Creole intellectuals and leaders, for example, are trying to raise consciousness of and pride in the African roots of Creoles and Garifuna. In addition, both the Garifuna and the Maya have their own cultural associations to revitalize their indigenous roots....
There is an increase in the rhetoric of ethnicity in Belize and its use by Belizeans to describe themselves. Such rhetoric can be heard both in the streets and in private conversation: it has existed for some time, making it hard to measure just how much it has increased over time.
However, in the last few years, Belizean politicians have become more vocal about expressing social issues in terms of ethnicity. Furthermore, newspapers regularly feature articles, letters, and op-ed pieces expressing concern about ethnic divisiveness and negative racial stereotypes among Belizeans. Many of these writings are responses to Amandala's openly Afrocentric position – a position that most Belizeans do not share.” – (Anne Sutherland, The Making of Belize: Globalization in The Margins, New York: Bergin & Garvey, 30 July 1998, pp. 80, 81 – 82).
The Afrocentric position is irrelevant, and divisive, in the larger Belizean context because Belize is not a predominantly black nation.
Even in the Creole community itself, it may be relevant only to a minority group since the majority of Creoles and other people of African descent don't share its strident rhetoric and militant message which they consider to be divisive in a multiracial and multicultural society.
Yet it has a powerful message which resonates well among its adherents even if they are a minority. But they do tap into the fear that may be prevalent among a significant number of blacks who feel that they are being marginalised.
Many people of African descent around the world – including those in Belize – are also aware of their position as members of what may be the most despised race on earth, based on historical experience.
All that is harnessed by a number of blacks in Belize in an attempt to mobilise other blacks into a potent political force whose message and mission is defined by their ethnic identity and interests.
However, this ethnic consciousness is not peculiarly black. It's common among other groups even though it may be more pronounced among Belizeans of African descent who are members of the Creole and Garifuna communities. And as Sutherland states:
“It may be too soon to know how ethnic divisiveness will develop, but certain events stand out as markers of its increase.
First, Belize, as one of the last British colonies to gain independence, has become a nation in which the idea of a specifically Belizean national – as opposed to colonial – identity has taken shape only since the early 1980s.
Consciousness of Belizean identity, of course, is not new and was a feature of Belize before independence. What does represent a more recent change is the convergence of the post-independence political development of Belize and things Belizean with the end of the Cold War global emphasis on ethnicity as identity.
For example, in an article titled 'Is There A Future for Africanness in Belize?' Joseph Palacio argues that in Belize, cultural identity has been more important than skin color:
'The Belize case introduces the concept of cultural segmentation as overriding identity among peoples sharing black skin colour. Or, in other words, two persons may be black but they relate primarily to their distinct ethnic culture and not their colour' (1996, 36).
Palacio goes on to say that this is a 'problem' because it has led to a rejection of Africa, even though the foundation of Belizean culture, was African, and what is needed is a renewed identification with Africa, a revitalization of African elements in Belizean culture, and a privileged status for immigrants of African descent:
'Very few people pay tribute to the fact that it was the desire of persons of African ancestry for freedom that became a founding stone for what would eventually become the nation state of Belize....With such a significant lead, how has Africanness eroded within a period of a little more than two hundred years?....
What the Garifuna and Creole have not fully realized is that they are products of a British colonial system that inflicted on them the original sin of hating blackness and the source of that blackness, mother Africa....
At the community level the responsibility lies for all peoples of African ancestry to heal the cultural divide that has separated them. The principal actors are the Garifuna and the Creole. The aim would be to identify and retrieve the common African elements that they share in language, food, traditional medicine, religious beliefs, aesthetic culture, abiding sense of kinship, etc.
Closely related would be to extend to Africans and West Indians some sort of preferred immigrant status that Latinos have taken for granted during the past three decades.' (1996, 34, 35, 44)
One of the difficulties of appealing to primordialism in race issues in a multicultural society is deciding which identity to consider primary.
Thus, in spite of calls for Creole/Garifuna unity as African brothers, the Garifuna, as often as not, are concerned with their indigenous roots and identity more than with their African ancestry (Kearns 1983; Foster 1986). According to Godsman Ellis, the founder of the Garifuna Cultural Council, the Garifuna see themselves as an oppressed indigenous group.” – (Anne Sutherland, The Making of Belize: Globalization in The Margins, ibid., pp. 82 – 83).
The division, differences and mistrust which exist between the Creole and Garifuna communities who, in some respects, are supposed to share a common African identity, clearly show the complex nature of the phenomenon of ethnicity in the Belizean context.
Here are two communities which are supposed to have a common ancestry, a common experience, and a common destiny. Yet they see themselves as different from each other in spite of the rhetoric from some of their leaders advocating solidarity.
Compounding the problem is the mistreatment of the Garifuna by the Creole, an experience which has become an integral part of Garifuna history and that is invoked by many Garifunas to reinforce their identity as a separate group different from the Creole.
Some of the Garifuna may use this history of suffering at the hands of fellow “blacks” – not all Creoles are really black – merely as a clarion call for solidarity among their people. But, inadvertently or not, it also reinforces the belief that they are different from the Creole as a people in spite of their common African heritage and history of slavery:
“Furthermore, the Garifuna – primarily located in Dandriga and Punta Gorda – have not forgotten their not-too-distant treatment by Creoles as social and political inferiors, an attitude fueled by the British, who portrayed the Garifuna as cannibals and kept the two black groups separated by making it necessary for the Garifuna to obtain permits to travel from Dandriga to Belize City.
It is not surprising that the Garifuna have thus developed a strong cultural resurgence and political action movement to elevate their status as an indigenous, rather than an African, people.
Cultural pride among the Garifuna has been heightened b the Garifuna Cultural Council, as manifested in the resurgence of Punta Rock, Garifuna dances, Settlement Day celebrations on November 19, and the effort to revive traditions such as language (Carib/Arawak), rituals, foods, the crafts, most of which are based on indigenous identity (Haug and Haug 1994, 8).
The entire Garifuna nation from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Belize has become linked on the Internet, and they jointly celebrated their bicentennial on April 12, 1997, marking 200 years since leaving St. Vincent.” – (Ibid., p. 83).
Ethnicity has also been a factor in politics, although experience has at the same time shown that voters have been able to transcend ethnicity and have voted for candidates outside their ethnic communities.
Still, ethnic loyalty and solidarity is a factor to be reckoned with, especially when some communities feel that they are being ignored or marginalised. As Sutherland goes on to state in her book The Making of Belize:
“This recent resurgence of ethnic and cultural identity issues has spilled over into the politics of the two parties – UDP and PUP – that alternately hold power in Belize.
In contrast with the colonial period, in which power was controlled by the British government and the British-appointed local elites, mostly Creoles, today the two Belizean political parties compete for votes partly – but increasingly – by appealing to specific ethnic groups. Many politicians are concerned about ethnicization of the parties, conscious of the inherent dangers in the increase of such cleavages.” – (Ibid., pp. 82 – 83).
So, while the ethnic configuration of Belize may reflect a harmonious whole, there is also the perception and the reality that in every group, there is a consciousness of “who and what we are” even if this does not necessarily lead to hostility towards other groups with whom they collectively constitute the nation of Belize.
Ethnic interests have now become a factor in national politics – in fact they always have been although in latent form in many cases – but not to the extent that they threaten national unity.
However, ethnic solidarity may cause some problems in the future if it is promoted at the expense of other groups, as it indeed is, sometimes. Not everybody believes that the interests of the nation are paramount.
But even among those who believe that the interests of the nation should take precedence over group interests, there is a level of ethnic and cultural consciousness that can not be ignored. And it goes to the core of the problem involving conflicting interests between the various groups which collectively constitute the nation of Belize.
There is the question of survival including economic security.
When members of one group feel threatened by another group, or by other groups, in one way or another, there is a tendency to close ranks for their survival. It's a siege mentality which is encouraged even when there is no real threat.
But even when the threat is more apparent than real, the people who feel threatened or victimized or marginalised feel the same way as if they were in real danger.
When this fortress mentality takes over, the level of ethnic or group consciousness and solidarity also increases sharply.
And when there is clear evidence that a group that once had a dominant position in society has lost that position, group consciousness not only increases; it can also lead to hostility towards others, especially those who are perceived to be their biggest competitors.
This happened in Belize when the Creole community lost its position as the largest ethnic and cultural group in the country after immigrants from other countries of Central America entered Belize in the 1980s and 1990s in very large numbers.
Besides conflicts in their countries, these immigrants were also economic refugees who chose to live in Belize where wages were much higher than they were in their home countries.
Economically, Belize is more developed than all the other countries in Central America, perhaps with the exception of Costa Rica in some areas. And the Central American immigrants came from countries where wages were at least half the wages in Belize. So, to them, life in Belize was some kind of paradise.
This has fuelled tension because native Belizeans complain that the immigrants lower wages. Employers are willing to hire them for their cheap labour, making it very difficult for Belizeans to get the same kind of jobs at higher wages.
The tension has also led to stereotypes, with many native Belizeans such as Creoles calling them names including racial slurs similar to what desperate illegal immigrants from Mexico experience in the United States. They are called “wetbacks” – for swimming across the Rio Grande to get into the United States – and other names including “tacos” and “enchiladas.”
Some have even been attacked physically, a form of ethnic intimidation which can lead to death, even though Belize tries to project itself as a country where ethnic harmony is the norm rather than the exception.
Another source of tension is acculturation. Most immigrants send their children to English schools so that they can learn the country's main language and become integrated into the society, but not to stay in Belize permanently. They want the children to immigrate to the United States eventually.
When native Belizeans find that out, they become even more hostile towards the immigrants whom they already don't see as Belizeans. They see them as opportunists who simply want to use Belize for their own benefit, including getting jobs and preparing their children, at Belize's expense, to immigrate to the United States.
That's one of the areas of ethnic tensions where Belizeans of different ethno-cultural groups agree on the menace of Central American immigrants whom they see as nothing but economic refugees and opportunists thriving at Belize's expense.
Among Belizeans themselves – including the new immigrants from the Central American countries – ethnic consciousness is sharpened for other reasons as well.
Ethnic consciousness is also very strong as a matter of pride even when members of a group don't feel threatened. All groups in Belize are proud of their heritage. And no amount of nationalist sentiment is going to overcome or replace that.
Some of the most nationalist-minded people in Belize – or anywhere else in the world – are also some of the most ethnically conscious. Again, the Creole provide a good example in the case of Belize.
It was the Creole who led the independence movement in British Honduras, creating a sense of national consciousness that did not exist before. This consciousness took shape when the struggle for independence gained momentum across the country especially since the 1950s. Yet it was the Creole themselves who also remained as some of the most ethnically conscious people in Belize even after the country won independence about 30 years later.
They were even accused of practising discrimination against other groups in terms of employment since they dominated the civil service and other areas of national life to the “detriment” of non-Creoles; the Garifuna, to whom they're closely related in terms of African roots, are prominent in the educational field. But the two groups are not as close as they could be. Even intermarriage between them is not common.
As descendants of slaves, Creoles themselves complained about discrimination in a society they felt had always discriminated against them as a people of African heritage.
In fact, the counter-charge of discrimination against the descendants of African slaves has played a major role in fuelling ethnic and group consciousness among the Creoles – and among the Garifunas – even during the best of times when the people who complain seem to be doing relatively well in this multi-racial and multi-cultural society.
There is a perception that ethnic and cultural consciousness in Belize is not as high as it may seem. It's seen as a relatively mild phenomenon because of the harmony that exists among the different groups which collectively constitute the nation of Belize.
But there is also the perception that such consciousness has always existed even if in latent form. And there is also plenty of evidence to show that such consciousness rises sharply in times of crisis when some groups feel threatened by others including new arrivals.
Professor Ralph Premdas of the University of the West Indies has provided another perspective on this phenomenon in the Belizean context in the following terms:
“Is Belize a place where ethnic group consciousness is strong?
Are members of the eight ethnic communities in Belize deeply immersed in their group so that much of individual behaviour can be explained from their membership?
Does their ethnic membership make them rivals or even antagonists to other communities?
As subjectively held constructs, are these Belizean identities malleable and opportunistically worn and discarded depending on the situation?
Is there an overarching Belizean identity that subordinates ethnic membership to a national idea?
Many persons that I spoke to at first declared themselves Belizean. Especially, this was the response from Creole and Garifuna persons in Belize City.
On probing however I did discover the existence of an ethnic map, a consciousness of one's own group identity and an awareness of similar identities among compatriots.
Everyone in Belize that I spoke to had a mental ethnic geography that located him or her comparatively with others. With little prodding, it quickly came out for discussion.
The group that most quickly called itself by its symbolic ethnic marker was the Mayans in Punta Gorda. In fact, at one point I thought that they had arrogated to themselves the sole title of the authentic inhabitants of the country claiming indigenous status.
This however was only a 'mask of confrontation' in relation to their claims for a Maya homeland.” – (Ralph R. Premdas, “Belize: Identity and Ethnicity in a Multi-Ethnic State,” a paper presented at the Belize Country Conference, University of West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, 21 – 24 November 2001).
He goes on to state:
“What is however important in ascribing to oneself an identity is often it subsumes a claim.
Clearly, some of these designations can be dangerous when ascribed collective identities assume the form of hegemonic cultural claims that omit or marginalise the interests and self-definition (of) other communities.
Whether this is done by Mayas in relation to their claims of indigeneity and a homeland or Creoles in relation to their self-ascribed heroic role in founding the Belizean state, it all underscores the point that identities are potentially dangerous constructs in multi-ethnic states. They can be manipulated against other groups for material and symbolic gains, even promoting oppressive ends as Edward Said pointed out.20
Many issues in Belize have become ethnicized and racialised.
Writing an article entitled 'Towards An Understanding of Racism in Belize' in the SPEAR newsletter, IDEAS, Garifuna Kathrine Mendez argued that the legacy of colonialism and slavery in creating a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society had reverberated in widespread prejudice and discrimination. She said:
'One of the legacies of this system is racism, which we deny exists in Belize. Inter-ethnic and cross-racial hostility also exists in Belize. What we try to do is convince ourselves that we live in peaceful coexistence with each other or that racism is relatively mild in Belize.'21
She continues her argument about the impact of the colonial past saying 'those systems continue to be perpetuated today in different forms and with different levels of sophistication.'22
She gave several cases in her experience to illustrate her position of which two will be cited.
Case 1: 'A Mestizo teacher in Orange Walk explaining to his Standard IV students that his children are not accustomed to black people and if a black person stayed at his home and woke up in the nite, his children would run.'
Case 2: 'My Mestizo neighbour in Orange Walk whose home I used to visit telling a Mayan man in Spanish not to be afraid of her dog because it would bite only people of colour.'23
Ms. Mendez went (on) to describe her own experience with being called by ethnic derogatory epithets pointing to the larger picture of ethnic groups in their own privacy referring to others by uncomplimentary slurs. She said that she was called 'kerub,' 'negrita salmbambu,' 'caribita' etc.” – (Ralph R. Premdas, ibid. See also, cited by Premdas in his essay, Edward Said, "East Isn't East", Times Literary Supplement, February, 1995, p. 3; and Kathrine Mendez, "Towards an Understanding of Racism in Belize", IDEAS (SPEAR), Vol. 6, No.1, July, 2001, p. 6).
Professor Premdas himself witnessed some of this stereotypical characterisation and racism during his study tour of Belize in April 2001. As he states in his essay:
“While travelling through Belize, I did run into the use of many derogatory ethnic names apart from 'coolie.' They included 'pania' for Mestizos, among others.
Stereotypes are often found as part of the package in ethnic name calling.
None of this is surprising in practically any multi-ethnic society. What is interesting about Belize is the 'hush hush' way it is articulated and practised. It may well be much more insidious than the appearance of open inter-racial cordiality may suggest.
The charge by a major newspaper editor of Belize that society is marked by an ideology of 'colourism' is as disturbing as it is suggestive.
Probably the issue that has drawn most commentary along ethnic and racial lines is migration.
Like a hydra-headed monster, it has assumed many forms.
In relation to the issue of citizenship and belonging, while it was repeatedly asserted that Belize was 'a country of migrants,' a statement found everywhere in schoolbooks and tourist literature alike, the problem of priority in migration has become contentious.
No ethnic community is prepared to take a back seat to the claims for priority and status by another community, each seeking instead to indiginise itself in its own historiography.
Migration has taken a severe toll on the fate of the 'alien' Central American community. Anthropologist Mark Moberg had described the impact of the entry of cheap Central American workers on the attitude of Belizean workers:
'Conflict between ethnic groups which originated in many instances from displacement of high-paid Belizean workers by immigrants has increasingly assumed a phenotypic, cultural and linguistic dimension.'24
The workplace in the production of bananas and citrus is now marked by ethnic stratification and stereotypical rigidities with Creole, Garifuna, and Maya employees likely to be found in supervisory roles while the 'aliens' serve as manual field workers.25
But the Central American presence has taken a larger societal toll. While those who seek to defend the migrants underline their contribution to the development of farming expertise and skills in Belize, the rest of the Belizean population and the media lambaste them as unwelcome criminals:
'Given daily recitations in the media of the alleged criminality, violence, and racism of the Central American migrants, it is not surprising that the newcomers have not been well received.'26
In a report by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Belize, it was observed that 'there are unfortunately numerous stories of refugees who have been objects of racial harassment, assaults by Creole youths, or mistreatment at the hands of the police.'27
In public places, the harassment has been described in more detail:
'In public, Belizean youths often relish humiliating jokes at the migrants' expense; in shops central Americans may be pushed aside and told frequently by Belizeans to wait; on buses they lose their seats to Belizean passengers. Entering a bar, frequently migrants may be loudly greeted with 'Go home, Paisa, we do not want aliens here.' Paisa, short for paisano, alternates in private speech with such overly derogatory references as 'Yellow-bellied Pania' (Spaniards).'28
The harassment and assaults in turn have been met by similar racial epithets and stereotypes in which Afro-Belizeans are described as indolent, obstreperous, and primitive.” – (Ralph R. Premdas, ibid. See also, cited by Premdas in his paper, Mark Moberg, Myths of Ethnicity and Nation: Immigration, Work and Identity in the Belize Banana Industry (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997); Mark Moberg, Citrus, Strategy and Class in Belize (Iowa: University of Iowa, 1992); Tommie Sue Montgomery, “Refugees in Belize: Belize 1991.” Report of the UNHCR, Belmopan).
Even though the use of such crude language is not an omnipresent phenomenon, it's disturbing nonetheless and remains a daily occurrence in different parts of the country without always being noticed by the larger society.
Then there is the perennial problem of immigration, even if the country is no longer “inundated” by waves of immigrants from other parts of Central Africa as it was in the 1980s and sometimes even in early 1990s. As Ralph Premdas states:
“The language of insult and counter insult has today gone underground but the underlying attitudes persist making this a sore area of inter-ethnic relations in Belize.
As central Americans adopt Belizean permanent residence and citizenship, relations have moderated with the testimony of several cases of inter-marriages between the Black community and them. The stigma persist nevertheless kept alive by the continued entry of Central Americans into Belize albeit at a lesser pace than the 1980s.
Migration has also become a perennial issue in the general elections of the country with ethnic overtones entangled. This is indisputably a sensitive site where the ethnic factor has periodically merged with political campaign rhetoric as a strongly articulated force.
Specifically, the influx of 'aliens' from Central America and the fears that it has triggered has been capitalised upon by the United Democratic Party against the People's United Party which has been accused as sympathetic to Guatemala.
While both parties are multi-ethnic, it is generally perceived that the UDP has a hard core of Creole support and the PUP a similar level of Mestizo adherents.
Generally, however, the two parties are not ethnically based formations and they have each taken power winning and losing the same constituencies in different elections.
In the 1984 elections, the UDP openly charged the PUP regime with encouraging Central American migration as a method to 'Latinise' the electorate. Anthropologist Nigel Bolland articulated these points:
'In fact one of the most important consequences of Guatemala's persistent claim to Belize has been the perception of internal disunity and mutual suspicions with Creoles in particular fearing recolonisation.
The Guatemalan threat encourages Creole Belizeans to continue to think of the Spanish-speaking Maya and Mestizo Belizean as the British thought of them, namely as representatives of an alien culture.
Many Creoles feel that Belize is and should remain a predominantly English-speaking country and fear that the 'latinization' of Belize will displace them.'29
The PUP was defeated and again in the 1993 elections with the same result. Even today, some still make the same argument alleging that the PUP had registered the 'aliens' for political gain.
There is the stigma that has stuck that the PUP is pro-'aliens' and pro-Central American with the subterranean subtext that it is also a Mestizo-dominated party that has defined Belizean identity not as Caribbean but Central American.
There is an ethnic shadow involved in these associations. Echoes of this perceived ethnic polarisation at election time is now heard in the view that Dean Barrow as a Creole leader of the UDP will not be elected as Prime Minister in the next elections.
The two occasions when the UDP wrested power from the PUP occurred when its leader, Manuel Esquivel, was a Mestizo.
The larger point however suggests that there is for political purposes an alliance between the Creole and Garifuna community versus the Hispanics and Mayas. This is yet to be proven decisively but there are suggestive intimations outlining this ominous (trend).
The instigator of this alignment of ethnic forces into the political partisan realm would clearly be assigned in part to the two migratory processes of Central American influx and Creole-Garifuan outflow resulting in Mestizo ascendancy.” – (Ralph R. Premdas, ibid. See also, cited by Premdas in his essay, Nigel Bolland, "Ethnicity, Pluralism, and Politics in Belize", in Identity, Ethnicity, and Culture in the Caribbean edited by Ralph R. Premdas (Trinidad: School of Continuing Studies, University of the West Indies, 2000), p. 11).
When Professor Premdas wrote that in 2001, Dean Barrow was the leader of the opposition party. The People's United Party (PUP) was then still in power.
And the sentiment expressed by some Belizeans that he would not be elected prime minister of Belize in the next elections was a reflection of the political climate in the country during that time. But he proved them wrong when he later won and became the country's first black prime minister in 2008. It was an important milestone in the history of the country.
But that does not mean ethnic rivalries don't exist in the political arena which has accommodated players from all ethno-cultural groups with varying degrees of success through the years.
What it demonstrates is that when there are issues which affect all groups, and when different groups share interests in a number of areas, the people can transcend ethnic loyalties and pursue common goals united by a common agenda.
The people of Belize have also succeeded in covering up ethnic rivalries and tensions, which continue to bubble under the surface, in a way many people in other countries have not been able to.
But that does not solve the problem; nor does it mean that all Belizeans share the perception that their country is an island of tranquility in a sea of turmoil in the Central American region; although it is comparatively.
There are many who are vocal and make it clear that racism and ethnic rivalries and even hostilities are a problem in Belize even if it's not a major one as it is in some countries. And as Ralph Premdas states:
“Overall, it is safe to infer from the materials that I have been exposed to that ethnic consciousness is pervasive evoked in some situations more than others.
The raw materials of ethnic consciousness are visible but not dense and overwhelming so as to define every situation or crisis.
Ethnic identity in Belize, embedded in aspects of language, religious and regional differences, is not a badge that appears to be always worn so that it dominates every action and inspires every plan.
In some ethnically inflamed societies such as Guyana and Northern Ireland, and Sri Lanka, ethnic symbols as an emblem of identity are inscribed in practically all spheres of life and in individual choices. This is not the case in Belize.
In negotiating life's daily challenges, other parameters assume salience such as economic interests.
Most Belizeans seem to operate on the basis that socio-economic standing determines life chances more so than membership in an ethnic community.
They are found in many inter-ethnic associations and workplaces together sharing space and camaraderie. Families expend monies to improve their children's educational preparation so that they may acquire decent jobs.
While certain groups may feel disadvantaged because of historical background or cultural practices such as the Mayas, there appears to be a sentiment that education and training can overcome these barriers towards individual betterment.
All of this is not to gainsay the argument that there is a greater incidence of poverty among some ethnic groups than others. What it argues is that there is no overt system of closure that creates rigid ethno-economic compartments like a caste order. There is more classism than ethnicism at some levels of life in Belize.
There may be silent prejudices against those who are not Black or Central American, but there is upward mobility everywhere and large concentrations of middle class Blacks as well as large concentrations of Poor Whites. In effect, there is little consistent correlative coincidence between colour and economic wellbeing in Belize.
Do ethnicity and colour matter in Belize then? In some ways for some persons suggesting structural bottlenecks in mobility for some but not a universal practice that pigeonholes people into rigid stratified ethno-economic compartments.
In a society that is multi-ethnic and derived from a colonial system that espoused a hierarchy of races and ethnicities, it would take time for all the accretions of the past in terms of prejudice and racism to be completely jettisoned.
However, it is quite conceivable that in place of colour and ethnicity especially among the well off, a new order of hierarchy can emerge based on clientelistic practices having very little to do with race and ethnic category.
New forms of colour blind oppressions can emerge out of clientelistic, family and clan networks cutting across ethnicity and race. Some of this is already evident in Belize.” – (Ralph R. Premdas, Ibid.).
Although there are people in Belize who have transcended ethnicity and ethno-cultural loyalties, there is also a reawakening among some Belizeans in terms of cultural revival and pride in their ancestral roots. One very good example of this is the increasing interest in Africa among Belizeans of African ancestry.
There is also very strong interest in Maya culture and history among the Maya, a consciousness that sometimes borders on racism against black Belizeans who have always been stigmatised as an inferior people because of their origin and history as descendants of African slaves.
Groups of relatively new immigrants such as the Chinese and East Indians also have shown a degree of ethnic and cultural consciousness that's manifested in a number of ways including pride in their heritage and ancestral homelands even if some of them don't know much about China and India just as many black Belizeans who show great pride in Africa know very little about their African motherland.
It is a consciousness that will probably always exist in Belize because, as a multicultural society, the people are expected and expect to cherish their identities not as members of a society which wants to dilute or abolish those identities and their cultures but one that respects them on the basis of unity in diversity.
In fact, there is evidence everywhere showing that the different racial and ethno-cultural groups in Belize are determined to preserve their identities and promote their cultures. As Professor Irma McClaurin states in her book Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America:
“In different communities throughout Belize, efforts at cultural preservation are occurring – not just among the Garifuna, who have established their own cultural council and hold an annual conference on Garinagu life and culture, but also among the Maya, who attempt to transmit to their children the music, dances, foods, and lifeways that make them culturally unique.
Increasingly, Creoles have joined in to preserve their own distinctive culture, especially with regard to language, food, and music.
The central aim of all these ventures is to document the elements that embody Belize's cultural heritage.” – ( Irma McClaurin, Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America, Newark, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1 August 1996, p. 34).
There are different perspectives on this subject, some different from mine. And there are those which are not much different from what I have stated in this book. Professor Ralph Premdas is one of the people who have addressed the subject of ethno-cultural consciousness in Belize and has reached his own conclusion after answering a question he has raised here:
“How much ethno-cultural consciousness exists in Belize? Is there a cultural revival in progess today?
Anthropologist Dr. Joseph Palacio has observed that with the improvement of economic conditions in Belize, there is a cultural revival in part aimed at procuring access to opportunities and resources. Said Palacio:
'The prevailing spirit of tolerance, the opening up of roads, the availability of wage labour and improved facilities for education and health together created opportunities for ethnic groups to re-evaluate their status as Belizeans. Among the Maya, Garifuna, and Mestizo, there has been a process of ethnic revivalism and even ethnogenesis.'31
By ethnogenesis, I assume that he means the attempt by each community to write its own experiential narratives and record its historical memory.
History is often deployed as a tool of re-constructing a community's image of itself especially if it had been colonised or placed in a position of subordination and exploitation. Its narratives define the image of the group and asserts its demand for dignity and recognition.
Mythmaking is important to identity formation, and in Belize, intellectual leaders of the ethno-cultural associations construct their own version of historical reality with a view to promoting not only their symbolic representation but to advance their claims for material resources.
There is a veritable historiographical war in progress as witnessed just recently by an editorial headline in the Amandala newspaper entitled: "The Battle of Belize".32
The editorial discussed versions of Belizean history which are being promulgated by different groups. Apart from these symbolic roles, it also serves instrumental claims as Palacio underscores in the Belizean ethno-cultural revival underway:
'Particularly in the case of Belize, the Garifuna and Maya are using ethnicity as a method of inserting themselves into the new Belizean nation thereby being able to extract socio-economic benefits for themselves and their progeny.'33” – (Ralph R. Premdas, ibid. See also, cited by Premdas in his essay, Joseph M. Palacio, "May the New Creole of Belize Please Rise", IDEAS (Spear), Vol. 6, No. 1, August 2001, p. 3; and “The Battle of Belize,” Amandala, 12 August, 2002, p. 10).
Even groups which have completely lost their original cultures from their ancestral homelands show a remarkable degree of cultural pride and ethnic consciousness. Descendants of immigrants from India are a typical example of that in Belize.
Black Belizeans are not very much different in that context. They also lost their African cultures and ethnic identities through slavery. Yet many of them show great pride in their African ancestry and cultural heritage as much as East Indians in Belize do.
Professor Ralph Premdas himself is a descendant of those Indians although they settled in another country, British Guiana, now Guyana, where they were taken by the British colonial rulers to work as indentured servants and on sugar plantations.
And he is proud of his identity as a descendant of coolies even though the term is often used as an insult. It has derogatory connotations which have nothing to do with its original meaning.
Cultural revival and consciousness has become a national phenomenon in Belize even if it's not strongly expressed in all cases. But there are people in every ethnic group who take the matter very seriously. As Professor Premdas states in his paper, “Belize: Identity and Ethnicity in a Multi-Ethnic State”:
“The group that was most curious in terms of attachment to an ethnic community was the East Indians.
Having lost practically all their old values in religion and rituals including the loss of traditional Indian names, food, and attire, they still seemed to think that they were Indians but only in a secondary sense of belonging to Belize first.
One young Indian from Corozal told me that when his secondary school put up a program to highlight Belize's ethnic diversity, he was chosen to exemplify East Indians but that he knew practically nothing about them and wanted to know about 'his culture.'
The East Indian Cultural Council has made it as part of its program to learn more about Indians in the Caribbean and to recover something of their lost Indiannness.
In a sort of cultural revival that is currently going on in Belize, they will literally have to invent their Indianness.
When I met the representative of the Kreyol (Creole) Cultural Council in Punta Gorda, they took me into her little museum of Creole artefacts indicating to me that this was an important project that was necessary for the survival of Creole memory.
Similarly, Garifuna leaders such as Roy Caeytano had lamented the increasing loss of their language and way of life and were keen about reviving it.
The Garifuna with whom I had contact articulated and affirmed a Garifuna identity not necessarily superimposed on their Belizean identity but parallel to it.
While it would be an exaggeration to say that there was an ethno-cultural war going on at low key in Belize, it was clear that the different ethnic communities had come to realise that unless they get organised and mobilised as in their respective cultural associations, they would get little of the rights, resources, and power to which they feel entitled.
The struggle over the land claims of the Maya and over the control of the Toledo Development Corporation illustrate the mobilisation of ethnic identities for protection and profit.
I had expected to discover a full-blown ethnic struggle between Creoles and Mestizos over the demographical change of their relative numbers especially protestations from Creoles over their dramatically diminished standing. What I found instead was a symbolic one-way war in which the Creole group continues to celebrate in the mythology of the battle of St. George's Quay their priority over others (sic).
In response, there is a remarkable quiet among Mestizos about their identity or numbers to the point of being defensive. In fact, I could not find an exclusive Mestizo Cultural Association but instead a tiny regional Maya-Mestizo Cultural Council which has little to do with the main body of Mestizos. It seemed that they were the least overtly organised as a cultural community.
The Mestizos however were very strongly represented in politics and commerce and a number of prominent Mestizo names crop up among the wealthiest families in Belize.
They do resent being misidentified as Maya or Central American, and as one educated Mestizo woman told me, they go about in their daily existence denying their part-Maya identity.
They are very quietly educating their children in the best schools in Belize and, as one Creole newspaper editor remarked, they do not like the Creoles go into classical subjects but into commerce and science. I was told that St. John's College, the finest secondary school in Belize, is where they all go.
It is clear that the Mestizos are very much conscious of themselves as a community specifically descended from the Yucatan in the mid-1980s and have as much right as anyone else to be called 'indigenous' to the land and in building Belize.
Mestizos are mindful that they have overcome the demographical pre-eminence of the Creoles but seem unwilling to flout this fact into an assertive claim for rights or resources.
They are however slowly 'encroaching' on the public bureaucracy which has been dominated for so long by Creoles so that as one person remarked to me 'they are now found everywhere in the civil service.'
Clearly, there was an unevenness in attachment to their groups, with some wearing their ethnic sub-national identity very lightly while others very strongly.
There were some forces and factors that appeared as unifying towards establishing a commonly shared Belizeanness which Andy Palacio described well as Punta Rock, fear of Guatemala, rice, beans and stew chicken, and the English language.
I suspect that there are some issues which tend to arouse ethnic assertions and others which do not.
On the question of Creole supercession by Mestizos, I gather that Creoles as Creoles are galvanised around their loss of status and power.
Generally, ethnic labels are not overtly exhibited and not turned into a symbol of collective mobilisation suggesting that other factors are at work qualifying the role of ethnicity in daily life such as crime, drugs, unemployment, HIV-AIDS, corruption, etc.
Is there a hierarchy of ethnic groups? What is the structural nature of the mosaic? Are ethnic boundaries being erased and a melting pot being fashioned?
With self-determination in self-government and the departure of the British, Belizeans were put in charge of their own homeland. Already, many old hierarchies built around European dominance were modified and old economic structures that maintained disparities were removed. A new economy was being fashioned with private business and the public service offering employment and income.
While in the past the public service had become the carrier of status and respect, in the contemporary period it faced challenges from new industries and economic endeavours.
Skills and training were becoming the definers of economic wellbeing for most of the population. A good deal of this was determined by non-ethnic criteria.
There is extensive inter-racial mixing in Belize creating a population that is increasingly becoming 'brown.'
It is easy to imagine that there is a melting pot in the making in the creation of a new Belizean person. This sort of optimism must be tempered by the Caribbean experience where new forms of racism and ethnic formations have evolved in the context of new mixes.
One needs to remember that ethnic groups as self-conscious collective communities are created from fictive diacritica. Colour and race are only one set of data that entire the construction of the ethnic mix (sic).
Region, religion, values, language, etc can contribute to a differentiation of people of the same colour or race into separate ethnic formations.
The racial mixing therefore cannot mean more tolerance and less racism.
Is there an overarching Belizeanness and a Belizean nationalism? If it exists, it has little to do with racial mixing and more to do with shared experiences in sacrifice and suffering.
The Guatemalan border and its inherent fears offer a shared dimension of life. So does the English language and extensive bilingualism. Some food such as rice and beans and stew chicken as well as some musical forms like Punta Rock offer uniting strands.
Against the unifying factors are many disuniting ones such as poverty and inequality which divide citizens.
The political system seems to be a commonly shared arena of collective debate and decision making but it is suspect by too many citizens. While election turnout has been very high by any standards, it does not point to a sense of citizen efficacy and participation.
Race and ethnicity have not asserted themselves in the political process so that political mobilisation is cleaved around these factors. This is a good thing in so far as it points to a fluid situation in which citizen partisan loyalty cannot be taken for granted.
Political discourse however seems to be very strident. Radio talk shows have emerged along with a proliferation of civil society groups pointing to a measure of citizen engagement in influencing governmental decision-making.”
Belize is a mosaic. It is a tapestry whose various strands have been intricately woven to create one of the most tantalizing pieces of the human fabric.
At the core of its success is its ability to avoid ethnic conflicts which have wreaked havoc in other societies in spite of the fact that ethnic tensions do exist in Belize and will probably continue to be a way of life in a society that has not achieved full integration.
It is not a melting pot but one of the best examples of unity in diversity. There is a national consciousness and it supersedes ethnic loyalties even though the existence of these ethno-cultural entities is an integral part of Belize's national identity and life.
Belize and Its People: Life in A Multicultural Society
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 220 pages
Publisher: Continental Press (20 June 2010)
ISBN-10: 9987932215
ISBN-13: 9789987932214