British Honduras

“ Ruatan, as you are aware, is the principal one of the celebrated Bay Islands, the sovereignty of which has been so long in dispute. Nor can I settle the question as to whether the British claim is just or not; I can only give it to you as I get it.
In the first place you must know there is what may be called two Honduras. That is, the State of Honduras, and these Bay Islands with a portion{143} of the Musquito coast, constituting British Honduras, of which Balize is the capital. This will relieve a great many blunders people have perpetually fallen into. ”

“ British Honduras has few modern improvements. There is not a railway in the land, and even the cart roads are only passably good. It contains within its borders possibilities of development that are hardly believable to one who has not seen these incredibly rich tropical lands. Although considered small, it is several times as large as our smallest states, and its agricultural possibilities far exceed those commonwealths. Its nearness to markets makes it especially attractive, and its stable government renders investments absolutely safe. ”

“ The Spanish-speaking people live in the table-lands, where the climate is healthful. The coast-plain of the Atlantic is forest-covered and practically uninhabited save by Indians. Guatemala is the most important state. A railway from Puerto Barrios, its Atlantic port, through its capital, Guatemala, to its Pacific port, San José, is nearly completed. British Honduras is a British territory acquired mainly for the mahogany product, which is shipped from Belize. Honduras has great resources in mines, cultivable lands, and forests, but these are undeveloped. ”

“ Although the Spaniards were loth to give up their claim to sovereignty in any part of the New World, the Colony of British Honduras became an established fact, and its boundaries have since been recognized by treaty with Guatemala and Mexico. The Spaniards had never effectively occupied the eastern side of the peninsula of Yucatan, and although from time to time they established stations at Bacalar and even further south, the Indians of those parts always regained their independence, and beyond the British border they have kept it up to the present day. ”

“ It further appeared that the honorable Senate was sadly deficient in knowledge of geography, and national boundaries; for it is matter of record, that many Senators voted for the ratification under the impression that British Honduras was included in the territory of Guatamala, and that the British settlements were in that republic; while, as a fact, Balize or British Honduras was on the easterly side of the Isthmus, never had been a part of that republic, and the British settlements were, and always had been, in Yucatan. ”

“ The population tends slowly to increase; about 45% of the births are illegitimate, and males are more numerous than females. Many tracts of fallow land and forest were once thickly populated, for British Honduras has its ruined cities, and other traces of a lost Indian civilization, in common with the rest of Central America.
Natural Products.—-For more than two centuries British Honduras has been supported by its trade in timber, especially in mahogany, logwood, cedar and other dye-woods and cabinet-woods, such as lignum-vitae, fustic, bullet-wood, santa-maria, ironwood, rosewood, &c. ”

“ This decrease is due to the policy of extermination carried out among the Santa Cruz for years by the Mexican Government, and the consequent emigration of many of the Indians to British Honduras, Guatemala, and northern Yucatan. The northern and western parts of British Honduras contain between 5,000 and 6,000 Indians; those in the north are partly indigenous and partly immigrants drawn from Yucatecan tribes who have left their homes after various political disturbances, especially after the occupancy of their towns of Bacalar and Santa Cruz by the Mexican Government. ”

“ General O'Reilly ended a tiny but poisonous quarrel of many years' standing as to whether British Honduras should become a part of the Republic of Honduras. Britain won.
In an epic tour in 1973 that left the world gasping with admiration, General O'Reilly spread lasting balm on many sores in the Middle East. The Golden Judge settled—in favor of Pakistan—her friction with Afghanistan over the long-disputed Pathan territory. Saudi Arabia won from Britain two small and completely worthless oases on the undefined border between Saudi Arabia and Trucial Oman. ”

“ The Indians of British Honduras who live near settlements do light work for the rancheros and woodcutters; they have the reputation of being improvident and lazy, and of leaving their work as soon as they have acquired sufficient money for their immediate needs, and this is to some extent true, as the Indian always wants to invest his cash in something which will give an immediate return in pleasure or amusement. ”

“ He had soon left the work on a plantation to join the buccaneers, or English, French, and Dutch pirates, who were attempting to break down the supremacy of Spain in the waters of the Caribbean Sea [149] and Gulf of Mexico. With a party of these buccaneers he established himself on the coast of Yucatan to cut log-wood, and after his return to and residence in England between 1675-9 he came back to the neighbourhood of what is now British Honduras. ”

“ The Indians are very jealous of outside interference in their affairs and do not permit foreigners to reside in their villages. An exception was made in the case of a number of Chinese coolies imported into British Honduras many years ago, most of whom ran away to the Santa Cruz country, where they were well received and married Indian wives. Among their offspring, it is interesting to note, are found a very unusual proportion of defectives. On one occasion the Mexican Government commenced to cut a road through from Peto to Santa Cruz, the Indian capital. ”

“ There is an air of Spain about all the productions of Mexico, whether it be the crude ore from her mines of gold and silver, or the richly caparisoned saddles, which in beauty and comfort are unsurpassed. Honduras, both Spanish and British, Guatemala, and Central America, add largely to the extent and attractiveness of the display. No one can carefully study the exhibits of these four last named countries without being profoundly impressed with the idea that they must possess a wealth of undeveloped resources which will, in the near future, attract the attention of the civilized world. ”

“ As the tide of Maya migration was undoubtedly from south to north, and as British Honduras stands midway between Guatemala and Yucatan, it is only reasonable to suppose that the colonization of the greater part of it by the Maya took place at some period between the abandonment of the cities of Quirigua and Coban, and the rise of Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and other Yucatan cities. ”

“ Till late at night the women may be seen spinning, embroidering, and hammock-making by the light of a native candle or a small earthenware cuhoon-nut oil lamp, meanwhile laughing and chatting gayly over the latest village scandal, the older ones smoking cigarettes, while the men squat about on their low wooden stools outside the house gravely discussing the weather, the milpas, the hunting, or the iniquities of the Alcalde. Among the Indian women of British Honduras the old customs are rapidly dying out ”

“ Inhabitants.—British Honduras is a little larger than Wales, and has a population smaller than that of Chester (England) . In 1904 the inhabitants of European descent numbered 1500, the Europeans 253, and the white Americans 118. The majority belong to the hybrid race descended from negro slaves, aboriginal Indians and white settlers. At least six distinct racial groups can be traced. These consist of (1) native Indians, to be found chiefly in forest villages in the west and north of the colony away from the sea coast ”

“ Close to Corozal, in the northern district of British Honduras, the sea in its gradual encroachment along the coast had partially washed away a small mound. On the beach, by the side of the mound, were found a few fragments of human long bones, a small triangular arrowhead or javelin head of black flint, a number of potsherds of coarse, thick, reddish pottery, and two small obsidian knives. ”

“ The power of the head chief is practically absolute over the whole tribe. Some years ago, when Roman Pec was head chief, one of the subchiefs came to Corozal, the nearest town in British Honduras, to purchase powder, shot, and other supplies. ”

“ The marriage tie is a somewhat loose one, and the more the Indians come in contact with civilization the looser it seems to become. In British Honduras, where the Indians are closely associated with Spaniards, Mestizos, Negroes, and other races, the women change their partners with the utmost facility. The Negroes are called kisinbosh, "black devils," by the Indians, a term which, however it originated, is now employed without any particularly opprobrious significance, as many of the Maya women show no repugnance to a Negro husband. ”

“ Even among the mixed breeds of British Honduras they are comparatively rare, notwithstanding the fact that these natives have come much in contact with people of many other races, especially of late years with Mexican Chicleros, nearly all of whom are affected with venereal disease in one form or another. ”

“ Loyal men who took up arms in the country's defence were also rewarded. [XVII-56] But like a wild beast maddened by its wounds, Walker was still bent on blood, if blood were necessary to subjugate Central America to his will. He fitted out a third expedition, and landing with its avant guard at Trujillo on the 6th of August, 1860, seized the funds of the custom-house, which were pledged to the British government for the payment of Honduras' indebtedness to its subjects. ”

“ As a rule they contain nothing except a few potsherds, which would naturally be picked up with the earth of which most of them are made; in some, however (especially in the straight ridges) , superficial interments have been found. These mounds were probably used as fortifications, the circular, horseshoe-shaped, and crescentic mounds being particularly well adapted to this purpose.
At Yalloch, just across the Guatemala boundary line from Choro, a small village in the western district of British Honduras, the Alcalde made a remarkable discovery a few years ago. ”

“ Few contain anything besides the stone, mortar, and earth of which they are constructed, though some of them contain superficial interments. That at Santa Rita is exceptional in that it includes stone-faced cysts. These mounds extend in a more or less regular chain along the coast of Quintana Roo and British Honduras, reaching from the top of Chetumal Bay nearly as far south as Northern River, and extending inland in a southwesterly direction along the courses of the Rio Hondo and Rio Nuevo, though many are situated at a considerable distance from either sea or rivers. ”

“ The next mound in which an eccentrically shaped flint was discovered is a very large one situated far away from any settlement, at the headwaters of the Rio Hondo, in northern British Honduras. The stone implements found in it lay near the summit, about a couple of feet beneath the surface. They were discovered accidentally by an Indian (from whom they were purchased) while digging out a halib, or gibnut, from its hole, and consisted of: (a) A spindle-shaped stone brazo 12 inches long by 93/4 inches in circumference, finely polished from grinding corn on a metate. ”

“ But the cutting of logwood and mahogany is the chief occupation of the British settlers. The banks of the river Balize have long been occupied by mahogany-cutters, even to the distance of two hundred miles from its mouth.
About thirty miles up the Balize, on its banks, are found what are denominated the Indian hills. These are small eminences, which are supposed to have been raised by Indians over their dead; human bones, and fragments of a coarse kind of earthenware, being frequently dug up from them.
Nicaragua is a Spanish province, between Honduras and the isthmus of Darien. ”

“ To obtain, however, the object at which we aim, we do not make war against the people of Honduras, but only against a government which stands in the way of the interests, not only of Honduras, but of all Central America. The people of Honduras may therefore rely on all the protection they may require for their rights, both of person and property. ”

“ They were happy as two children building forts of sand on the sea-shore. They had rescinded taxes, altered the tariffs, reorganized the law-courts, taken over the custom-houses by telegraph, and every five minutes were receiving addresses from delegations of prominent Honduranians. Nicaragua and Salvador had both recognized their government, and concession hunters were already cooling their heels in the ante-room. In every town and seaport the adherents of Garcia had swung over to Laguerre and our government, and our flag was now flying in every part of Honduras. ”

“ In Honduras there are many Caribs, still a strong race of Indians, having a strict and severe criminal law of their own. They are employed mostly as mahogany cutters, and are energetic, intelligent and thoroughly reliable workmen. Puerto Cortez in Honduras has the finest harbour on the whole Atlantic coast of Central America. ”