How can we have “National Unity” when our own leaders don’t know their own history? The information that is given out by some of our brightest intellectuals is untrue. So, how do we expect our youths to be focused when they themselves are put to shame because of not knowing their own history?
I will be 65 years old this coming 18th January, and after so many years of research I have just learnt on Sunday, September 14, 2008, published in the Amandala under the caption “At official ceremonies, Mayor Moya, Tourism Minister Heredia plead for National Unity,” that Mexico was at war against a settlement which they called “country.”
Please, leaders, if I make those kinds of comments it can be expected, because I did not get the golden spoon to get an academic education. I am my own teacher and student. But, you and those like you, there is no excuse. Teach the people the truth. In 1798 there existed no Mexico: it was La Nueva España (New Spain). Yucatan was an Independent General-Captaincy with its own Spanish Governor.
The Seven Years War resulted in a major weakening of the Spanish power. The Treaty of Peace of 1763, for the first time gave the British legitimacy to cut and transport logwood from the Gulf of Honduras.
In 1783, Great Britain and Spain signed a Treaty where Spain gave Britain a concession and the right to use approximately 1,854 square miles between the Belize, Hondo and New River for the exploitation of the “Palo de Tinte.” Three years after, in 1786, the concession was extended towards the south up to the Sibun River with approximately 727 square miles. Those two treaties are the only historical documents which explain the British presence in Belize between the Sibun and the Hondo Rivers.
In spite of the imposed limitations by the treaties, Great Britain built fortifications on the outlet of the Belize River and her Royal Marine ships patrolled the cayes from the coasts. Around the year 1796, Spain plunged into the Napoleonic war, putting herself on Bonaparte’s side and once more Spain’s possessions in America were exposed to British attacks.
As a consequence of the war in Europe, on the 10th of September 1798, an indecisive skirmish (slight conflict) was engaged in the sea in front of St. George’s Caye between the British and Spanish forces. In that epoch, it was an event without importance which later on was inflated until it reached epic proportions (The so-called winning of the Battle of St. George’s Caye by the Baymen and slaves was the British slavemasters’ sons’ epic), and it is the base to the British argument to justify their presence in Belize by the right of conquest.
Such historical event looked more like a comedy than a battle. An expedition of a certain importance set out from the General Captaincy of Yucatan under the command of the Spanish Governor, Arturo O’Neil, with the intention to destroy the fortifications built at the Belize Town. The Spanish squadron confronted on the morning of the 10th of September in front of St. George’s Caye a British fleet commanded by Captain Moss.
While the Spanish fleet was getting closer, Captain Moss remembered: “ I gave the signal of attack that started and continued for two hours.”
On the final of this lapse, both parties having fired their cannons with indifference, a few iron ball-shots, Arturo O’Neil and his squadron retired towards the north. and Captain Moss informed: “ I am happy to communicate that the encounter was carried out with no one wounded nor human loss on our side.” Neither did the Spaniards suffer any human loss or wounded persons because of the few iron-ball-shots from the cannons. Neither were any of the ships damaged, because of the same.
Slaves were slaves: they had no right to choose, not even to think. The majority of the Baymen who chose to defend the settlement were the white British; among them were a few colored-mulattos, all of them slaveowners. They ordered the tamed slaves (1,200) to set themselves in dories or skiffs between the Spaniards and their masters, the British, as meat for cannon. They had no right to dissent. They had no weapons, and even if they had, they couldn’t have done anything against the Spanish or British armada. No human loss on our side, said Captain Moss.
October 3, 2008
Finca Solana
Corozal Town