Chapter 2: Establishing British

dominion- 13 Chapters
 Topics
• Spanish attacks on the British
• British woodcutters meet the Maya
• Logwood and mahogany
• British dominion
 Establishing British dominion
• In the 17th and 18th centuries the Caribbean was a war zone with naval and land
battles being fought among the rival European
• The middle of the 17th century Spanish hegemony had effectively been ended,
mostly due to Dutch naval successes against the Spanish Fleet. The weakening
of Spain also allowed British and France to score significant successes, and
Caribbean possessions began to change hands as one or other European
power gained dominion over them
• The Treaty of Madrid of 1670 committed the imperial European powers to
suppress piracy, and British began to look for places where they could extract
logwood.
• The first settlements in Belize probably occurred after Britain took Jamaica
from Spain in 1655, and they were part of a series of such coastal settlements.
• The British congregated in Belize by the early 18 th century the area around the
Belize River mouth
 Spanish Attacks on the British
• Spanish forces from Yucatan sought to dislodge the British from the
coasts of Belize at different times (at least 6 attacks b/w 1716 and
1754)
• As a result The Treaty of Paris of 1763 gave the British the right to cut
logwood in the area later known as British Honduras, although Spanish
sovereignty over the area was acknowledged.
• Spanish government would ensure that the cutters were not
“disturbed or molested under any pretence whatsoever in the said
places, in their occupation of cutting, loading and carrying away
logwood”
• September 1779 the Spaniards from Yucatan attacked and captured St.
George’s Cay, a small island east of the Belize River mouth where the
cutters had their homes.
 Spanish attacks on the British
• The Treaty of Versailles of 1783 recognized the right of the British settlers to cut logwood and this
time defined limits: between the Hondo and the Belize rivers. The baymen complained that this
area was smaller than that which they had previously occupied [the 1763 Treaty had referred
vaguely to the ‘Bay of Honduras’] and by a further Convention of London of 1786 Spain agreed, in
return for the British evacuation of the Mosquito Shore in Nicaragua, to extend the limits
southward to the Sibun River. They allowed the cutting of mahogany, which by then had become
more important than logwood
• Another European war Broke out in 1796 which affected the Caribbean (in-fighting among Spanish
force delayed the attack until 1798)
• In 1796 Colonel Thomas Barrow sent from Jamaica to plan the defense of the settlement and he
was joined the following year by Captain Moss commanding the war sloop Merlin.
• Fortifications were built; Jamaica sent artillery, ammunition and 200 soldiers: Irish and West Indian
troops in 1797 and 3 companies of the Black west India Regiment in January 1798; Barrow bought
illegal military and civilian supplies from the US and benefited from British intelligence smugglers
trading in Havana
• Historical records indicated that the Spaniards intended to take over the settlement. The army was
a mulatto company stationed in Bacalar(most were descendants of slaves from Belize). But the
Spanish force was ill prepared; ships were not suitable for the water; was poorly led and disunited,
and commander abandoned the armada before the attack (Richard Buhler pointed out that when
the Spanish force reached Cay Chapel they lacked firepower and had no military leader)
 Spanish attacks on the British- Battle of St
Georges Caye
• In September 1798 the expected attack came.
• Captain Moss Stated that on the 4th – he saw 31 Spanish vessels; on 5th
– he set out for the Cay since he thought they planned to attack Saint
George’s Cay and chased away 12 of the heavier vessels; they
continued working and anchoring among the shoals until 11 th , at the
distance of three or four miles; 9 came towards his position and 5
windward out of gunshot range; while the remainder of their
squadron waited at Long Cay.
• The Spanish vessels anchored and Moss signaled the attack nearing 2
hours; then they cut their cables and rowed and towed off in great
confusion over the shoals. At dark they regained their other vessels at
15th night they moved off with a light southerly wind.
• That was the extent of the battle .
 The myth surrounding the “Battle of St. Georges Cay”

• The myth developed a century later when the

white settlers used the incident to claimed
that the slaves loved them and were willing to
die for them.
• Writings in 1832 refute charges made by the
superintendent
 Spanish attacks on the British
• During the 1820’s Spanish colonies in Central
America won their independence; Britain
continued to recognize Spanish sovereignty
over Belize into 1840.
British woodcutters meet the Maya
• As early as 1701 the British and Miskito mercenaries
were taking Mayas and selling them as slaves
• 1779 the Mayas attacked the settlement and in 1802
the British requested for troops to punish them;
• In 1817 Mayas broke up work in wood cutting camps
• 1839, Walker and Caddy describe Duck Run near San
Ignacio and the Guatemalan border as the highest
inhabitants of British wood cutters engaged with the
Mayas.
 Logwood cutters
• From the accounts of Nathaniel Uring, who
sailed from Jamaica to load a cargo of
logwood but was forced to live among the
cutters for some months after being
shipwrecked, “The wood cutters are generally-
a rude and drunken crew, whose chief delight
is drinking, little else to be heard but
blasphemy, cursing and swearing.”
 Logwood Operations
• The process of logwood cutting and exporting was
simple: (the average tree was 2 ft in girth and 20 ft
high and found near coast and river bank); The
cutters worked in group of 6. They cut the logs,
chipped off the sap, sawed them into convenient logs.
Logs that were too thick were blown up with gun
powder. They were then shipped down river in dories
or ‘bark logs’ – floating cradles made of cabbage –
palm to central storehouses known as barcadares.
Visiting merchants approached these houses to trade.
 Rules for Claiming Land(location laws)
In 1765 the cutters agreed among themselves on the following simple
rules for claiming land:

1. When a person finds a spot of logwood unoccupied, and builds his hut,
that spot shall be deemed his property; and no person shall resume to
cut a tree, or grub a stump, within less than 1000 paces or yards of his
hut, to be continued on each side of the hut, with the course of the
river or creek on both sides;
2. No inhabitant whatever shall occupy two works at any one time in any
one River;
3. No inhabitant shall claim a double portion of logwood works, under
pretence of a partner, except that partner is, and deemed to be, an
inhabitant of the Bay
 Rules for claiming land
• These rules were clarified the following year in a
resolution stating that the method of measuring
logwood works shall be “a straight line of two
thousand yards or paces, to be begun and ended at
the river side, and that the division line be run
parallel to the general course of the river; and that
no logwood work shall be deemed to be evacuated,
as long as the owner lives in the Bay, except he
occupy some other work in the same river.”
 Logwood and mahogany
• In 1786 Spain allowed British to cut mahogany
• In 1787 the principal inhabitants passed a new set of resolutions
to regulate their claims to the mahogany works; only those who
possessed 4 able negro men slave were entitled to a mahogany
work
• It was agreed: three miles in a straight line be considered a
Mahogany Work; and that each and every ten able negro men
slaves or servant, indented for two years or upwards, be a gang
sufficient to establish such Works, which, however, if not actually
possessed, occupied and worked…within six months from the
time of its location, to be deemed an unoccupied and dormant
work to all intents and purpose
 The Resolutions
• On 4th august 1787 a further declaration was
made that ‘no person shall posses more than
two Mahogany work in any river, let him be
possessed of what number of negroes so ever’
• The Public meeting at which these resolutions
were passed were controlled by a few wealthy
male cutters
 The Mahogany Revolution
• The shift in the 1770s from logwood to mahogany
altered the entire nature of the settlement . New
synthetic dyes in Europe had replaced logwood dye.
• As the mahogany tree was much bigger than the
logwood, and was scattered over a larger area, it
could be exported in chunks and required more
capital, and more labor. Slaves were needed. Thus,
Belize became a majority black society with African
rooted cultures as slaves were bought from Jamaica.
 The Mahogany Revolution
• In the Caribbean islands, the change from
tobacco to sugar production was identifies as
the sugar revolution. Similary in British
Hoduras, the change from logwood to
mahogany was called the Mahogany
revolution.
 Mahogany Operation
• Mahogany grew at a height of approximately 75 ft. and a
width of 6-17 ft.
• The baymen worked in groups of 10-12. The woodcutters
would work from January to June and August to December.
• The most important slave was the huntsman. The axemen
worked in pairs and built a platform called a barecue 12-15 ft
above ground. The slaves cut off the branches and the logs
were pulled by cattle to the riverside where they were
floated down during the rainy season to a boom(huge chains
stretched across rh river to stop them)
• The logs were squared to be shipped to England.
• The mahogany revolution resulted in
agricultural activities being suppressed.
Agriculture was discouraged . The population
increased as more slaves were brought in.
another result was deforestation. Trees were
cut but not replanted.