Mayan Emigration and Conflict

As the British consolidated their settlement and pushed deeper into the interior in search of mahogany in the late 18th century, they encountered resistance from the Maya. In the second half of the 19th century, however, a combination of events outside and inside the colony redefined the position of the Maya.

During the Caste War in Yucatán, a devastating struggle that halved the population of the area between 1847 and 1855, thousands of refugees fled to the British settlement. Though the Maya were not allowed to own land, most of the refugees were small farmers who were growing considerable quantities of crops by the mid-19th century. One group of Maya, led by Marcos Canul, attacked a mahogany camp on the Bravo River in 1866. A detachment of British troops sent to San Pedro was defeated by the Maya later that year.

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 Maya returned, however, and in April 1870, Canul and his men occupied Corozal. An unsuccessful 1872 attack by the Maya on Orange Walk was the last serious attack on the British colony.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Mopán and Kekchí Maya fled from forced labor in Guatemala and settled in several villages in southern British Honduras. Under the policy of indirect rule, a system of elected alcaldes (mayors) linked these Maya to the colonial administration. However, the remoteness of their settlements resulted in the Mopán and Kekchí Maya becoming less assimilated into the colony than the Maya of the north, where a Mestizo culture emerged.

By the end of the 19th century, the ethnic pattern that remained largely intact throughout the 20th century was in place: Protestants largely of African descent, who spoke either English or Creole and lived in Belize Town; the Roman Catholic Maya and Mestizos who spoke Spanish and lived chiefly in the north and west; and the Roman Catholic Garifuna who spoke English, Spanish, or Garifuna and settled on the southern coast.

Formal Establishment of the Colony, 1862-71

Largely as a result of the costly military expeditions against the Maya, the expenses of administering the new colony of British Honduras increased, at a time when the economy was severely depressed. Great landowners and merchants dominated the Legislative Assembly, which controlled the colony’s revenues and expenditures.

Some of the landowners were also involved in commerce but their interest differed from the other merchants of Belize Town. The former group resisted the taxation of land and favored an increase in import duties; the latter preferred the opposite. Moreover, the merchants in the town felt relatively secure from Mayan attacks and were unwilling to contribute toward the protection of mahogany camps, whereas the landowners felt that they should not be required to pay taxes on lands given inadequate protection.

These conflicting interests produced a stalemate in the Legislative Assembly, which failed to authorize the raising of sufficient revenue. Unable to agree among themselves, the members of the Legislative Assembly surrendered their political privileges and asked for establishment of direct British rule in return for the greater security of crown colony status. The new constitution was inaugurated in April 1871 and the new legislature became the Legislative Council.

Under the new constitution of 1871, the lieutenant governor and the Legislative Council, consisting of five ex officio or “official” and four appointed or “unofficial” members, governed British Honduras. This constitutional change confirmed and completed a change in the locus and form of power in the colony’s political economy that had been evolving during the preceding half century.

The change moved power from the old settler oligarchy to the boardrooms of British companies and to the Colonial Office in London.

The Colonial Order, 1871-1931

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. Though 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 former slaves.

Landownership became even more consolidated during the economic depression of the mid-19th century. Major results of this 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 the Belize Estate and Produce Company) emerged as the predominant landowner, with about half of all the privately held land in the colony. The new company was the chief force in British Honduras’s political economy for over a century.

This concentration and centralization of capital meant that the direction of the colony’s economy was henceforth determined largely in London. It also signaled the eclipse of the old settler elite. By about 1890, most commerce in British Honduras was in the hands of a clique of Scottish and German merchants, most of them newcomers.

The European minority exercised great influence in the colony’s politics, partly because it was guaranteed representation on the wholly appointed Legislative Council. In 1892, the governor appointed several Creole members, but whites remained the majority.

Despite the prevailing stagnation of the colony’s economy and society during most of the century prior to the 1930s, seeds of change were being sown. The mahogany trade remained depressed, and efforts to develop plantation agriculture failed. A brief revival in the forestry industry took place early in the 20th century as new demands for forest products came from the United States.

Exports of chicle, a gum taken from the sapodilla tree and used to make chewing gum, propped up the economy from the 1880s. A short-lived boom in the mahogany trade occurred around 1900 in response to growing demand for the wood in the United States, but the ruthless exploitation of the forests without any conservation or reforestation depleted resources.

Creoles, who were well-connected with businesses in the United States, challenged the traditional political-economic connection with Britain as trade with the United States intensified.

In 1927, Creole merchants and professionals replaced the representatives of British landowners (except for the manager of the Belize Estate and Produce Company) on the Legislative Council. The participation of this Creole elite in the political process was evidence of emerging social changes that were largely concealed by economic stagnation.

An agreement between Mexico and Britain in 1893 set the boundary along the Rio Hondo, though the treaty was not finalized until 1897.