Our houses was spacious and comfortable, made out of the natural wood from the area. She said that the men knew when it was time to cut the wood for posts for the structures of their houses, with palmetto for the siding and thatch for the roof. They would also mix white-lime with white-marl and grass to plaster the in and out siding of the walls. This scientific and cultural system gave us strong houses to last over fifty years.

We had a beautiful church with our saint San Jose Labrador. Sometime in the 1930?s a person by the name of Mr. Brown presented himself with armed men saying that they represented the Belize Estate and Produce Company (BEC), saying that the land was theirs and ordered to burn down the houses of our village and our church. Not satisfied with that, they also sent in bulldozers to destroy our milpas.

After our disgrace we were thrown out of our land and taken to a place with the name of Kaxiluinic. From there, they took us by train to Hill Bank and from there to the BEC?s warehouse that was located at the British soldiers? camp in Orange Walk Town.

The only thing we could have saved from the burning down of our village was our saint San Jose Labrador, some fowls and pigs. It was about 2000 of us. From there we were taken to the Louisiana Farm ?potrero.? They took us to a place where there was nothing to eat, no place to go hunting because there was no game. All over was filled with dung.

We were treated less than animals. The sky was our roof; the ground our bed or hammock; the stones our pillow. Our sufferings were to the limit of what a human being can support.

We decided to ask for help to the priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and we believe that the Church wrote to the Pope in Rome about our situation and he (the Pope) intervened on our behalf with the King of England.

A Crown land was given to us by King George, and here is where we settled and founded our village, giving it the name of San Jose in remembrance of our old San Jose Yalbac, where we once lived, and also in veneration to our Santo San Jose Labrador. ?Nuevo? is for ?new? and ?Palmar? is because this place was filled with palm trees.

I also met Mr. Misael Perez Tzul. He was born in 1940. His father, Maximo Perez, and his mother, Erudina Tzul, both of them from San Jose Yalbac. He said to me that he remembers his parents told him about a document signed by King George giving them a portion of Crown land about 4000 acres.

He said that sometime in 1956, Santiago Castillo?s cattle from the Louisiana Farm were entering into the San Jose Nuevo Palmar lands. To solve this problem the villagers had asked the Government of the day to survey the land, which was done. But they don?t know if the survey was done correctly, or if land was taken away from them.

I asked him if they have the document. He told me no, that a copy supposed to be in the hands of their lawyer and the original at the Belize Archives. Mr. Misael Perez Tzul told me that the today youth of San Jose Nuevo Palmar would like such document to be officially published so that their inhabitants can know how much land was given to them and if any has been taken away.

On the 19th of every March there is a fiesta on behalf of their Saint San Jose Labrador. Another person said that this same saint is also venerated in San Jose Succotz. The official celebration for the settlement and foundation of San Jose Nuevo Palmar is from the 13 to 19 of October. A region and a history of the ?sons of the Belizean soil.?

Respectfully,

(Signed) Clinton Luna

Finca Solana

Corozal Town