FORBIDDEN HISTORY OF BELIZE IN 1937 & 1867

** Yalbac hills, 8 miles away to the North from my third floor verandah, across the Belize River Valley.


The massacre of the Maya, the Yucatec, the Tipuans and Itzas and Icaiches in 1867 in what was then AN IMPERIAL COLONY UNDER THE BRITISH.

This is a FORBIDDEN HISTORY in a country dominated by a government of CREOLE Jamaican descendants, from the coastal port here.

75 years ago, the small BRITISH GOVERNMENT decided to spread inland in what was then called British Honduras. The year was 1937, 75 years ago in 2011. There are still people who remember from their grandparents who experienced this MASSACRE of the indigenous MAYA in the YALBAC hills, which I can see across from the verandah of my house, 8 miles away back in 1867. They would have been very young children and today, those alive would only have the stories of their parents and grandparents, to describe the MASSACRE IN THE YALBACK HILLS of the CAYO DISTRICT of 1867 and the displacement of Mayan remnants in 1937.

It so happened, that maps of the BRITISH, identified huge sections of the interior of Belize as uninhabited, unmapped terrain. Ignoring the many paths, and river routes used by the indigenous Maya residents. The maps were more big BLANK SPACES.
I myself played a part in getting the newer maps of then British Honduras. At the time in the late 1960´s, during the revolutions in Guatemala, British military personel were forbidden to go into Guatemala. I then was encouraged by the British Military Intelligence officer at Airport camp to SPY on trips to Guatemala, to gather troop movements and information. As a civilian, I was expendable and deniable and freelance, with no strictures on what I might do, to gain intelligence. Looking back now, I realize how foolish I had been in my middle 20´s. Youthful and less fearful of torture and being killed. So many of my Guatemalan friends at that time died violent deaths. On one trip, I succeeded by a ruse, in penetrating, the Guatemalan Military Headquarters. Posing as an American oil geologist, I managed to penetrate through the many circles and layers of external and internal armed security guards to the very well guarded map division. Here I purloined a modern map, made by jet plane photography. The detail was like nothing ever seen by the British Army then in British Honduras. The map was so new, it had houses on there, in the Stann Creek road, that were built in the last three months. I was scared a lot when in there, but by the time I had got through the first gate and sentries it was too late to turn back. The Airport Camp British Intelligence Officer was amazed at the intricate detail and accuracy of the map in elevations. All they had were maps of the 1800´s in which vast areas of British Honduras were BLANK, marked as unknown territory. He sent the map back to WHITEHALL and the reaction was immediate. A Brigadier General flew out in a military HERCULES to interrogate me. Subsequently the British spent several years making their own high altitude maps of British Honduras from aerial photography. I myself did not get any recognition, for intelligence services rendered. I was a civilian and didn´t count. My patriotism was misplaced and the chances I took then make me shudder today in my old age at my youthful foolishness.

A British company, the Belize Estate and Produce Company, decided they wanted to acquire vast tracts of land, throughout, this unmapped by Europeans, imaginary empty spaces of British Honduras. This to further a mahogany business, chicle extraction and such things. To do so, they needed a GRANT of land in the tens of thousands of acres. This particular area, encompassed the YALBACK HILLS on the Western frontier, which was only accessible by PIT PAN ( a flat boat that was paddled and poled,) up the rivers, or by mule train, along bush tracks. This was just before World War 2, and the IMPERIAL WRIT OF GREAT BRITAIN, ruled vast areas of the world, by force of arms and a British colonial office, using local people. Local people back then and even today, are not considered to be the Maya, but the descendants of Jamaican, invading, military Creole regiments and imported indentured workers. The local people used by the small British Colonial office, administrative detachment here, were descendants of slaves, Creoles imported from Jamaica and were CREOLES, the mixture of Africans and other races found then in Jamaica. Even today, there is an unreasonable bias toward Jamaica and the olden British speaking colonies of the West Indies by a dominated CREOLE Belize government.

To evict the residents of the YALBACK HILL farms, or milpas of communal village properties, a policy of forced evictions was implemented at the request of the British owned Belize Estate and Produce Company. This was only 75 years ago. The MAYA were considered savages, unredeemable and despite previous treaties, both before and after the WAR OF THE CASTES, which reached inside British Honduras vague boundaries found on maps of blank spaces. Marked UNKNOWN territory by the British Colonial Office, a policy of GENOCIDE, MASSACRE if you will, was implemented against the Mayan homes and villages throughout the YALBACK HILLS on the Western remote frontier. The massacres actually started earlier in 1867, using the Jamaican Creole, Third and Fourth West Indies Regiments to commit the GENOCIDE. This was some time after the ending of the defending Mayan clans, WAR OF THE CASTES, wherein, the MAYA had signed treaties of peace with the invading, conquering, BRITISH IMPERIAL COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION EXPANSION, using Jamaican descended CREOLES, for natural resources, to supply Britain with fancy lumber, mostly mahogany, and previously had been LOGWOOD. The treaties were signed between the Maya clan groups, though different, but sharing the same Mayan language of the Yucatan, the Peten, and included what was then demanded by the BRITISH COLONIAL OFFICE of the British Empire, as a piece of land, on the coast of Central America. The Icaiche Maya had lost the war, at the battle with the West Indian Regiments in the small fortress, and town of Orange Walk. Marcus Canul, the Mayan War chief was killed by a musket shot and according to Mayan custom, ( rules of engagement ) the battle was over once the WAR CHIEF was killed. In 1853 the British Colonial Office had signed agreements with the Maya residents of the land, that the interior lands were theirs. The current CREOLE governments of a now independent Belize, changed from a British Colony called back then British Honduras, play the same game, of duplicity, with the MAYA of the Toledo District today, in the 21 st century. On the maps of the British Colonial Office, the lands of the interior were blank, of rivers and streams, of bush tracks, and villages. They did not know, or even respect that a resident population of milpa farmers and small villages existed in the countryside.

Jamaican West Indian Regiments were used to conduct the scorched earth policy of GENOCIDE of the Mayan residents living in the YALBACK HILLS on their milpas, in 1867. Native indigenous Mayan savages were not considered entitled to be considered human beings, with land rights, by the British Colonial Office, nor the British merchants and traders, who came to exploit the forest lumber, to ship to the Queen´s Imperial England. The Maya families were shot, or bayoneted, their thatched homes and crops burned. The remnants were evicted and transplanted later, to more remote areas further North. Or fled there. These areas have since been GRANTED to NGO´s as forest reserves, until somebody can figure a way to make money out of them, other than the milpa farming system of the Maya. Somebody has to pay somehow, for the bureaucracy of a modern state of a salaried CREOLE domination. The Maya are not industrial by culture. So imported immigrants, are used to generate the cash taxation flows, to pay for a government made of CREOLE politicians and bureaucrats on salaries. A new form of slavery as far as Mayan culture is concerned. The conflict between Maya and the CREOLES continues, even though the country has become INDEPENDENT guaranteed by the United Nations. In the end, it is all about exploitation, salaries, taxes and money. The Maya are adapting to European methods, in this new century, though the CREOLES for the most part are not, here. They prefer to migrate to industrial countries, with salaried jobs. It is the MAYA and the Mestizos who are turning to entrepreneurial methods, so far limited to agriculture based industry.