Becoming Belize: A History of an Outpost of Empire Searching for Identity, 1528-1823

by Mavis C. Campbell

Overview

Belize, formerly British Honduras, had a different beginning from most other British Caribbean colonies and was not dependent on sugar production but on the exploitation of the forests for timber. Unlike most books on Belize, this study explores in some detail the early Spanish attempts to colonize the area called Belize today and identifies many of the problems Spain encountered.

Campbell persuasively posits that Belizean history can be pushed much further back from the traditional starting point of either the mid-seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The book provides a compelling thesis on the alliance between the British logwood cutters (the Baymen) and the Miskito Indians who together formed the major counterbalance to Spain’s power. The work also explores how social relations under forestry slavery were marked by less outward resistance and violence than that which obtained under the British sugar/slave economies of the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789766402464
Publisher:	The University of the West Indies Press
Publication date:	08/31/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Mavis C. Campbell is Emerita Professor of History, Amherst College. She is the author of several books and articles, including The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society: A Sociopolitical History of the Free Coloreds of Jamaica, 1800–1865; The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal; Nova Scotia and the Fighting Maroons: A Documentary History; and Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Maps

Part 1 Spanish Belize, 1528–1708: Attempts at Settlement
Early Belize: Spaniards and Maya in a Bloody Encounter
Tipu, or Negroman: An “Outpost of Christianity”
A New Phase of Resistance: Tipu in the Vanguard

Part 2 British Belize, 1708–1823
Early British Settlement in Belize to 1763
“English Lutheran Corsairs” and the Miskito Indians: An Odd Relationship
Spanish Attacks on Belize to the Treaty of Paris, 1763: Flight to the Mosquito Shore
Post-Treaty Attacks, Despite Recognition: 1763–1787
The Mosquito Shore Settlers in Belize: The Establishment of Civil Government
The Belize Settlement up to the Battle of St George’s Cay
Aftermath of the Battle of St George’s Cay: Slavery in the Timber Industry
Epilogue

Appendix A: Inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras Subscribing to the Articles of Regulations, 1765
Appendix B: Accounts of Loss Sustained by the British Settlers at the Capture of St Georges Key, 1779

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This work should appeal to scholars in the fields of Central American/Belizean history, Mexican history, Caribbean history, and studies on slavery and slave societies.”

—Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University

From the Publisher