Peter Wallace: “To Be, Or Not To Be”

April 20, 2022
by Larry Waight +

The Caribbean’s Golden Age of Piracy is often equal parts myth and history, and it can often be difficult to know where the legend ends and the truth begins. Such is the case with Peter Wallace. Depending on what historian you ask, he could be anything from the very founder of Belize to a complete myth altogether. But his existence is tied intrinsically with the earliest days of British colonial interest in Belize, and the common consensus credits him with the origin of the country’s name. Here’s everything you need to know about the dubious but fascinating history of Peter Wallace.

Peter Wallace and the Buccaneering Baymen

While the Belize of today was once a critical lifeline in the trade empire of the Mayas and would eventually become both an agricultural breadbasket and a vacationer’s delight, William Wallace and his crew’s initial interest in it solely came from its value as an ambush spot. The most popularly recognized account of Wallace claims that he was initially based out of the popular pirate port of Tortuga and traveled with a crew of English buccaneers 1,000 miles west to the coast of Belize. The barrier reef — which today draws vacationers, divers, and fishers from all over the world — offered plenty of cover for his ship, the Swallow. Swallow Caye, which is believed to be the island on which Wallace’s ship was docked, is now a wildlife sanctuary.

Since this island sat along the north of the Bay of Honduras but sat across from territory that nominally belonged to the Spanish Empire but was functionally untamed, it provided optimal positioning for waylaying Spanish ships leaving and arriving at the lucrative Spanish colony of Honduras. The men that sailed with Wallace were hardened sailors, pirates, and buccaneers, but they found themselves being constantly encroached upon by the Spanish Empire. While the British and French developed meaningful presences throughout the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico were almost entirely under the control of the Spanish with the Portuguese holding a small amount of territory as well.

Peter Wallace and the Birth of a Colony

Popular legend claims that Peter Wallace would help form the first European settlement in Belize in 1638. Positioned at the mouth of the Belize River roughly where modern-day Belize City stands, it began as a simple hub for buccaneering until Wallace and his crew recognized that they could make a lucrative career out of the lumber industry there. The international legitimacy of English settlers setting up camp in this territory was questionable, and buccaneering didn’t end immediately. Conflicts were inevitable, and the Spanish who most often clashed with Wallace and his Baymen are believed to have pronounced both his name and the settlement he had formed as “Belize”, giving us the origin of the river and eventually the country’s name. There are even historical Spanish documents from the Bay Islands that seem to reinforce this theory.

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While pirate legends often present them as heroes of liberty and universal freedoms, the truth is often far more complicated. As English buccaneers operating out of the Caribbean Sea, Wallace and the Baymen often captured and sold slaves in the British settlement of Jamaica. And as they begin to settle along the Belize River, they quickly recognized that exploiting the labor of enslaved people could make their foray into lumber harvesting far more lucrative. While Wallace’s legacy may be cited as the origin point of Belize as a nation, it’s also intrinsically tied with the generations of exploitation as well.

The Ambiguous Uncertainty of Peter Wallace’s Existence

The tale of Captain Peter Wallace is one of the most ubiquitous in Belize’s history, but historians can’t agree on how true it actually is — or even whether it’s true at all. That’s because there are few historical records that can provide us with a definitive origin for the story. The earliest written historical records about Belize don’t appear until roughly 200 years after its alleged formation, and the theory that the country’s name comes from a Spanish mispronunciation of Wallace is founded almost entirely in anecdote. And there are plenty of other credible origins for the country’s name as well. It could have come from the French word for lighthouse — balise. Others have posited that it’s derived from Mayan words: either belakin or belix. These two words roughly translate to “land facing the sea” and “muddy water” respectively.

Despite that, the story of Wallace continues to capture the popular imagination in Belize. Various legends told throughout the centuries position Wallace as an important lieutenant to Sir Walter Raleigh or as a former governor of Tortuga. Like much of the history of the time, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the full truth of Peter Wallace. But whether or not he ever actually existed, he’ll continue to cast a shadow over the country’s entire history.