What Caused The British To Settle In Belize?

February 21, 2023
by denidimchev@webohub.com +

The British Empire didn’t get that way because of a lack of ambition or interest in colonizing new lands, but South and Central America in the 16th and 17th centuries weren’t favorable to British interests. The Spanish had already established a presence in the New World so great that they essentially exercised uncontested control. Apart from a few colonies belonging to Portugal, Spain had staked claims to the entire continent — although their conquest and the diseases they carried decimated local indigenous populations.

It’s not that Belize was an unknown and uncharted territory. The Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Guerrero shipwrecked off the coast of Belize in 1511. By the time that Herman Cortes directed his conquests south from Mexico and into Central America, Guerrero had already lived the life of a slave, married among the indigenous people, and earned a position as a trusted warrior and advisor to a regional leader. He would ultimately die assisting a neighboring tribe defending against a Spanish assault. But in the short term, the Spanish were just passing through.

Early British Settlements in Belize

While the Spanish functionally controlled the bulk of Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, the reality was significantly more complicated. Squabbling between different conquistadors who had led the invasion left these colonies fractured and often in conflict. And while they might have publicly recognized Spanish claims to the continent, other European countries weren’t willing to give up the opportunities there entirely. British privateers harried and harassed Spanish patrols and merchant ships, and many of these buccaneers imagined a life for themselves beyond one of simple sea piracy.

Nestled as it was along the Caribbean Sea but largely overlooked by the Spanish, Belize made a perfect settlement for launching attacks on Spanish ships. English buccaneers first settled in Mexico along the Yucatan Peninsula, finding potentially lucrative work in the logging industry but always on the run both from the competition of new settlers and unhappy Spanish officials. The location of current-day Belize City became the first settlement for English interests in 1638. The buccaneers who set shore here were led by a Scotsman named Peter Wallace, a name that the Spanish interpreted as “Balles” — and that served as the origin for the naming of both the Belize River and eventually the entire country. The promise of lucrative job opportunities in the logging business was enough to attract a growing group of former pirates — and the settlement would soon have its own system of governance. By the 1650s, the English in Belize had abandoned raiding Spanish ships altogether in favor of full-time logging operations.

Slavery and Persecution in the English Colonies

English interests in Belize would thrive for over a century thanks to the high demand for lumber for creating contemporary fabrics. Unfortunately, others suffered while the English emigrants thrived. Before the logging industry had been fully established, many of the future settlers made their fortune by raiding Maya settlements along the coast. Selling indigenous men and women into slavery constituted a bulk of that income, and Jamaica served as a recognized marketplace for such traffic.

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But as they began to settle into a more rooted life, many of these settlers saw the appeal in exploiting the labor of slaves rather than selling them directly. A new method of slavery modeled off of the British model was established in Belize, and landowners began importing African slaves to fulfill the exhausting tasks of gathering and transporting lumber. A plantation system didn’t exist as it did throughout much of America — but that had everything to do with the differing labor practices and nothing to do with a more humane perspective on the rights of a slave. While their actions might have been technically illegal under the European understanding of Spanish ownership, the legitimacy of these settlements would be established by the end of the 17th century.

18th Century Conflicts

A more formal sense of legitimacy came with the signing of the Godolphin Treaty in 1670. Designed out of a mutual desire to reduce the impact of piracy, it involved the Spanish recognizing English rights to land in the Caribbean that they already occupied. Unfortunately, neither the English nor the Spanish seemed to recognize what could be formally recognized as a colony. While the English settlements in Belize got more support from their home country, the physical conflict between the Spanish and English over land rights continued throughout the 17th century. A particularly vicious melee in 1779 actually forced the English to leave the country — but they’d return when the Spanish failed to settle or develop the land themselves.

The treaty ending the Seven Year War in 1763 would add a bit more clarification while still leaving the situation muddy. The Spanish recognized the British right to logging while still claiming their own sovereignty over the region. Eventually, the sheer aggression and productivity of the lumber industry in Belize would force a shift in positions. Mahogany eventually outstripped lumber as a valuable industry in Belize, and it would become even more important as the British continued to tighten their control over the region.