INFLUENCES AND ENVIRONMENT: THE FORMING OF MODERN BELIZE

Belize has always struggled to find its own national identity. Surrounded as it is by strongly defined and developed cultures, modern Belize has been shaped as much by external forces as by its own internal dynamics. While nationalist politicians, especially the father of modern Belize, George Price, seized on a romantic Mayan cultural ideal in an attempt to unite different population groups around one single cultural theme, the reality was far different. Since the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century the Maya have been a disadvantaged and declining part of Belize's population, and the country's identity is marked more than anything by its ability to absorb other people and cultures into a loose-knit national community.

Early History

Belize was part of the great Mayan civilization that spread throughout the Central American region. When the first Europeans arrived in the early sixteenth century they encountered a Mayan society that had undergone a dramatic transformation since its heyday some six hundred years earlier. Contact with the Europeans was to have a devastating effect on the remaining Maya through disease, slavery and fighting. Many died and many fled, seeking refuge in more remote areas, especially in Guatemala.

Spain and Britain set out the boundaries for modern Belize in the 1700s in the form of logging concessions given to British settlers by Spain, which claimed sovereignty but did not settle the land. These settlers were mainly ex-pirates who were gradually being forced out of their old trade as European governments abandoned their support for their own national privateers and sought to stamp out piracy.

British involvement in Belize grew as the settlers called for protection from attacks by the Spanish and the remaining Mayan population. British armed forces were sent on a number of occasions, including the most famous of Belize's battles, the Battle of St. George's Caye in 1798, which marked the end of Spanish claims to the territory.

Belize's People

In 1871, some two centuries after the settlers first landed and fifty years after Belize's Mexican and Central American neighbors had achieved independence from Spain, Belize was officially declared a British Crown Colony.

By this time the population had grown significantly and the colony's economy had developed almost exclusively around forest products, mainly mahogany, chicle and Iogwood. A large number of Africans were brought as slaves by the settlers from other British territories in the Caribbean, and as part of an agreement with Spain, more than 2,000 people had relocated to Belize in 1787 from the English-speaking settlement of Mosquito Shore on the Nicaraguan/Honduran coast.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Garifuna – the so-called "Black Caribs" deported in 1797 by the British from St. Vincent to Roatan off the Central American coast – began settling along Belize's southern coastline, and in the mid-nineteenth century, there was an influx into northern Belize of thousands of mestizo (of mixed Spanish and Maya descent) and Maya refugees fleeing the Caste War in Mexico's Yucatan peninsular. This war (in Spanish known as the Guerra de Castes) began in 1847 during the Mexican War between Mexico and the U.S., and was fought between the Maya of the Yucatan against non-natives who threatened the traditional Mayan way of life. Many Maya and mestizos fled south as a result of the war and settled in Belize and in the southern Yucatecan state of Quintana Roo.

Following the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, a small number of Indian and Chinese indentured laborers arrived in Belize, and in the early twentieth century Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian Arabs also began arriving, fleeing political unrest in the Middle East.

Further significant population expansion occurred in the mid-twentieth century with the arrival of Mennonites from Mexico. These skilled farmers quickly established "colonies"- small self-contained farming communities – in the west and north of the country.

Political Development

As the population expanded, and with the increased political involvement of non-whites, political power passed from the handful of original settlers and their descendants – the "forestocracy" – to the British colonial administrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These administrations were dominated by the colonial and business elite, particularly the Belize Estate and Produce Company (BEC), which had grown to be the major force in the colony. These colonial governments also gave a growing class of professional educated Creoles- Belize's colored and black elite – their first taste of political power.

The rise of nationalist politics in the 1930s mirrored developments elsewhere in the Caribbean and was given further impetus by a terrible hurricane that hit Belize in 1931 and a fire that swept through the capital city in the same year. A currency devaluation that halved the value of the country's economy was the event that led to the creation of Belize's first political parties, including the party that was to dominate political life in Belize until the 1980s, the People's United Party (PUP).

Formed in 1950, the PUP was led by George Price, and emerged to spearhead, the campaign for Belizean independence. Self-government for Belize was achieved in 1964, at the same time most of the other British Caribbean Crown Colonies were gaining their full independence. It was the unresolved problem of Guatemala's territorial claim on Belize, and the issue of its security that delayed full independence until 1981. Since Guatemala appeared to be serious about taking over Belize as soon as the British left, and since Belize itself had no armed forces, it needed outside protection. So after independence, the British agreed to maintain a full-time army base in Belize, which remained until 1994. Some suspect that both countries knew that Guatemala never really intended to attack, and that this continued British military presence was actually part of a wider regional strategy worked out with the U.S.

Central American Crises

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw modern Belize's greatest demographic change when as many as 40,000 Central Americans crossed into the country in search of refuge from civil war, oppression and economic hardship. Belize's recent history has been one of coming to terms with this population explosion – new Central American immigrants account for about 25 percent of the total population- and its economic, political and social consequences.

The impact of absorbing so many so quickly was partially offset by increases in foreign aid being made available to Belize in the 1980s. The international organization which provided most assistance to Belize during the crisis years was the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Belize was also central to the...