Sunday, September 9, 2012
Dear Editor,
Please allow me some space in your newspaper to give a history lesson to one Hakeem Bush.
Mr. Bush’s letter to the editor was featured in Amandala’s Sunday, September 9, 2012 issue and had the title, “Creoles now a minority.”
There are five major points I want to share with Mr. Bush; these are the following:
1. The Mayas were the first persons to inhabit Belize.
2. Mestizos have Maya descent.
3. The first Mestizo was born in Belize.
4. Creoles were imported from Jamaica.
5. Mestizos have been the majority of the population ever since the Caste War of Yucatan.
According to Shoman (2000, p. 3), the Mayas have been in Belize since 1200 B.C. Is that before the Creoles? As a well educated student from Orange Walk said, “Go to Lamanai to learn about the Mayas.” Mr. Bush can visit the Altun Ha, Xunantunich, Cerros, Caracol and other Maya sites in Belize to know that the Mayas have been in Belize before anyone else.
The Mays were “discovered” by the Spaniards around 1508. For many years the Mayas were ruled by the Spanish before the British arrived in Belize. During the 16th century there were battles between the Mayas and the Spaniards.
Intermarriages also occurred. Gonzalo Guerrero was the father of Mestizos. He was born in Spain in 1470’s. He was sent to the New World, but his boat was shipwrecked. He was captured by the Belize Maya and lived in Chaktemal, which is present day Corozal Town. He was the Mayas’ adviser and married the chief of Chaktemal’s daughter and thus, the Mestizo race began.
Noted archeologist Dr. Eric Thompson calls him (Gonzalo) the first European to make Belize his home (http://www.belize.com/belize-facts#ixzz260iqrNWX).
When it comes to the Creoles, you are way off thinking that your race is the first and true Belizeans. In fact, most Creoles were imported from Jamaica. Shoman (2000, p. 40) noted, “The first British settlers cut their own logwood, but by the 1720’s they had begun to import enslaved Africans to work for them.”
It is also important to note that Mestizos have been comprising the majority of the Belize population for a very long time. According to Shoman (2000, p. 92), in the census of 1861, 13,547 residents, 5,883 of them females, were counted in the northern district, well over half of the total for the country.”
(In the 1991 census, Mestizos made up 44% of the total population. (Shoman, 2000, p. 279)
Sincerely,
Juan Carrillo
A well-educated Orange Walkeño