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The
Baymen of St. George's Caye and a group of free slaves
were the first true colony calling themselves
Belizean. They were self ruled by freely elected
magistrates during town hall like gatherings were
everyone, including the freed slaves, were allowed to
vote. Everyone except the women. In a
somewhat modest attempt, they had created a free
ruling colony. Many who visited the small island
just east of modern day Belize City reported a group
of former pirates exploding in wild times and constant
drinking. They enjoyed having camps of slaves on
the main land cutting logwood and farming chicel gum
which sold for trade to England at Belize Town.
The parties, many reported, would last days with
continuous carousing. Many would wake were they
fell and their first moment of near sobriety would be
to find the bottle of Santa Rita rum from Jamaica that
had fallen nearby as they stumbled to their
location. One official from England said,
"I have never known such a drunken bunch of
buffoons who's first inklings when they awaken is to
find another dastardly drink." Yet a number
of richer aristocratic elite emerged as leaders and
church followers. These "Old Families"
attempted to place more tight rules on these wild
times by enforcing Presbyterian practice on the colony
and force church going days on Sunday. This
despite the fact that the black freed slaves were
secretly holding their own traditional religious
practices and former pirates still drank heavily deep
into the evenings. Life of self rule seemed to
be developing into a full culture of self
determination to create a colony state called
Belize. But the struggle would be difficult when
troubled times from Spanish domination turned to
outright war to exclude the British from the area.
The
small British colony was a black eye for England and the
Baymen would be cutoff from the empire. No outside
aide of any kind would be available when the Spanish
attacked the colony. The American struggle for independence,
of which the Baymen were unaware of until the American Navy
landed just offshore, prompted Spain to attempt to force out
the British entirely in the region. The Spanish
attacked St. George's Caye first in 1779 burning down every
house and building. They even attacked nearby Belize
Town also burning down the entire port town including the
recording dock where slaves were sold and exports were
recorded. Most of the Baymen escaped into the nearby
forest both on the island and in Belize Town. They
would return to utter ruin to find everything they had built
and put together laid to waste. Some of the Baymen
were captured and later, after being held in dungeon like
settings in Cuba, were ransomed to the British for money
which was used to campaign another attack. Though the
settlement at St. George's Caye was greatly reduced from
its' earlier stature, the colony did continue. In a
treaty of which the Spanish nearly declared war to enforce,
many British and former British self ruling settlements,
including the Garifuna, were driven from the mosquito coast
of Honduras and Nicaragua. These people settled at
Belize Town and on St. George's Caye. The population
swelled to over 3,000 people on the tiny island. The
British in the region now had this small island as their
last bastion of self determined rule. On the island,
the expatriates of Britain held a meeting to vote whether to
stand and fight impending attack or to abandon the region
for the Americas and a return to England. The
Americans had told them of the greatness to fight for independence
and declare themselves as a self ruling state. In a
very close vote, the colonist elected to stay and fight for
self rule. Though the vote was close no one left when
the report came that a sizable armada of Spanish ships were
poised to attack.
On
September 3, 1798, the Spanish attacked with 32 ships and
3,000 heavily armed troops. The Baymen had a single
ship sent by the British Navy called the HMS Marlin, a small
feet of 5 schooners out rigged with canons, and several
barges also made to hold a single canon each. But the
Spanish advance went poorly. Three ships were caught
on the coral and others ran into mud flats as they
approached. The small British Navy circled the stranded
ships and blew them out of the water. As the battle to
expel the British from the region continued the Spanish
began taken heavy loses as the ships that were laid to
waste blocked easy entrance into the bay of the caye.
St George's Caye was temporarily guarded by the ruined and
half sunken ships of the Spanish Navy. On September
10, 1798, the Spanish re-grouped and pushed for a final siege.
Some 1,000 freed black slaves were armed and attacked as
they attempted to make landfall. The sight of huge
black men with machetes and armed with pistols and rifles so
scared the Spanish, many of the troops refused to depart the
ships to fight. Those that did were devastated by the
Baymen with a technique called "poke and go",
where the Baymen hide behind trees and used sharp pointed
bamboo sticks to stab the Spanish men-o-war as they
approached . The Americans who used knifes instead of
bamboo sticks to stab advancing British troops during the
American Revolution had bragged about this type of
defense. The remaining Spanish who landed were soon
captured. By days end the Spanish withdrew their ships
never to attack St. Georges Caye or Belize Town again.
For the first time since the Baymen had established their
outpost colony, the settlement at St. George's Caye was
secure to continue self determined rule under the watchful
eye of the British Empire.
.
The battle at St. George's Caye became a legend among
the Baymen and the right of self determined rule
within the British Colonial system gave them the
freedoms they sought. The victory at St.
George's Caye is today celebrated in Belize as
National Day and is called Celebration. The date
is recognized as the most important event which would
precipitate the free and independent country of
Belize. The Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty of 1859
established the modern borders of Belize. In
1862 Belize was added as a British colony and re-named
British Honduras. Though the independence of
Belize is rooted in a political fight of later times,
the establishment of the original Belize is a direct
benefactor of that fight that was won on September 10,
1798. Most recognize that if the Spanish had
been successful during their waged expulsion of the
Baymen and British at St. George's Caye, there would
be no Belize of today.
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