Latin American perspectives; British Honduras

Latin American perspectives a program of comment and analysis about current Latin American problems and their historical setting. The commentator for these programs is Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Here now is Dr. Gardner. We turn south today and look at some real estate. It's not that real estate to be found in Florida. It's not that real estate in the land of enchantment in the southwest. This is real estate entitled British Honduras. British Honduras you may recall is jammed in against the Caribbean south of Mexico and adjacent to Guatemala. British Honduras has been termed by one author writing about it recently and I refer to Wayne M. Cleghorn a colonial dead end. It may or may not be a dead end. But here are some of the prospects. A few days ago that letter came to me suggesting that I needed a vacation

retreat and the acreage ideal for same was in British Honduras that same letter suggested that I needed a place to retire to and the ideal landscape was awaiting me in British Honduras. In fact that letter to me suggested that if I would put a sign on the dotted line and of course the dotted line was to take the form of a check. I might even have that landscape that would be heaven on earth for retirement. But what about this place has been called Colonial dead end and now it becomes a heaven on earth for the retired as some promoter would at least have a seat. British Honduras has been replete with boundary disputes Indian Wars constitutional crises. Depressions all of these have been characteristic of it in 18th century years 1000 century years the 20th century years that suggests that yesterday today and maybe tomorrow will

be pretty much the same. Except of course tomorrow will not be quite the same because British Honduras falls into that category of crumbs of empire that Britain finds itself willing and eager to liquidate. You've seen the name Odan or Aden as it is sometimes pronounced in the news suggesting that Britain is getting out of a trouble spot with trouble all over the spot as it gets out of it in Asia. You have read of course recently of the conversion of British Guiana to Guyana and now the constitutional makers of London who would like to liquidate a liability. I would suggest that British Honduras is about to become independent. Of course we'll begin at once to see whether or not Castro is going to take over whether or not he is going to be a haven for the retired one form or another. It will probably get British Honduras within the range of our vision and so it's a bit about this

area that I would speak today. From 1859 when plainly it had its confused boundaries established until the end of the century. It was basically an agricultural settlement there had been those years prior there too when mahogany was very important but the hog and he was cut out. And it doesn't grow very rapidly I remind you and just about the time they even thought of growing more of a hog and they faced the realisation that shipbuilding which had used a lot of mahogany had turned to iron and steel and so the industry that was was no more. But about the time of the American Civil War and those unhappy souls who couldn't reconcile themselves to defeat of the South began to look elsewhere for places to live. British Honduras decided that well this is precisely what these expatriates out of the American

south meet. This incidentally was not the beginning of their contact with the American South during the days of the Confederacy. The port of British Honduras Bay lease by name had been the nearest British port to the American Confederacy that permitted running of arms through foreign territory. As you may know a lot of arms were landed in northern Mexico and then moved across the Rio Grande it to the Confederacy. The blockade of the Lincoln government could take care of the coastline of the United States and the Confederacy but couldn't do a thing about Mexico and South the arms would be run into Billy's say and then up to Matamoros in Mexico and then across the Rio Grande to the Confederacy. But this had been profitable during the days of the Confederacy. But the Confederacy did. There were lots of people in the South who didn't want to live in the changed United States. And so.

British Honduras offered itself as a place of settlement for a one time plantation owners. A number of them went to British Honduras and lo and behold soon learned that you couldn't raise cotton in Honduras and so the chief reason why they had gone no longer existed. And most of them departed quickly came back to the United States. The area has been one of perpetual disappointment or rather I should say recurring disappointments because other groups have been brought in on occasion and have found that what was supposed to be ideal was less than that. And so they packed up and went away. The number of efforts made by the government to lure people from the United States did not start then with that letter that I received in this year 1967. There was for example a great cotton exposition at New Orleans in 1884 and British Honduras inveigle the

London authorities into setting up a great booth display cost tens of thousands of dollars and the effort was of course to lure trade to lure settlers to this area. If you're wondering what's wrong with the area. Let me speak a bit about its topography and about some of the climatic conditions. A river cuts across the middle of the landscape divides it effectively into a Northern and a southern zone. In part of the country you can receive a 60 or 70 inches of rain a year in the rest of the country you may receive 160 or 170 inches of rain of course. Very few people want a half inch of rain a day. That's what it averages when you're getting 170 inches. But the worst part is of course you don't even get it without regularity. You sometimes get six seven inches at a time. And this day after day. Needless to say then a lot of the landscape may at first blush appear to be attractive

but you have to take into account the cycles of rainfall and they are at times devastating. I don't the thing that deserves attention is the low lying coastal zone. The interior is such a dense jungle that almost all of the people all of the 100000 in the country do live in this narrow coastal zone but the entire city of belief he is within two feet of sea level. Any time a tidal wave comes in baby say gets its underpinning washed out from under it. When I say underpinning I'm referring to the type of housing that they've necessarily had to build because it lies so low. A great deal has been put on stilts and this takes care of some of the rainfall. It enables you to move around by canoe. It gives you a certain primitive approach to life that suggests that maybe Venice has come to America replete

with mosquitoes and alligators. But this isn't exactly a kingpin tourist attraction I might say on that final score that there's only one restaurant worthy of the name in Baileys say. And of course Billy's say that capital is the prime spot in the entire country. That one restaurant is in the one hotel. And if you venture out of the one hotel and the one restaurant you may grow weary and hungry simultaneously and with a great air of despair. I seem to suggest then that British Honduras is not a jewel in the imperial crown of a dying British Empire. I seem to suggest that I'm not going to fill the blank form that invites me to pick up an acre and well maybe wonder whether or not I could transport it back to Illinois. Are some more favorable bit of world landscape. But British Honduras nonetheless is on the map and it's the kind of thing to which with all

the joking that I seem to poke fun at it whether it is going to deserve a little more attention in the future than it has received to date. I have said that Britain will soon cut the ties that cause it depend upon London will enable it to the degree that it is able to stand on its own feet politically and economically. This means that it will possibly appeal for membership to the Organization of American States. Of course that appeal comes shortly after it is appealed to the United States Congress for a loan. But. British Honduras is here to stay in one form or another and when the political vacuum that the removal of the British represents takes place we will then begin to wonder how about those dissident Indians in Guatamala who are even now causing trouble for that government. We'll be joined by dissident Indians and Blacks and whites and mulattoes

in the British Honduras. Is this not under-privileged area. Is this that poverty stricken zone which is going to spawn more Western Hemisphere communism. We're going to have our fears and our doubts and our headaches and our awareness of the area in the not too distant future. I would remind you that for some years when a communist was head of the British colony a British Guiana. We as a government officially induced the British to de leddy the independence of the area until there was a more favorable democratic capitalistic prospect. And when that man Jagan was voted out of power in British Guiana finally Britain gave the green light to the natives and said You may now have independence. You may now establish Guyana. I raised this parallel issue because we may be

concerned about the economy our lack of economy the social stability or lack of it. In the near future in reference to British Honduras are there safeguards. Is there a measure of interest to be bestowed upon this area that it is not receiving from us at the present time. There was a moment back in the 1890s when a bit of trouble occurred a boundary question in part. And when it was referred to the British government a British cabinet official plagued with the thought of putting more money into this distant pinpoint of empire said it's not worth a gunboat. Which meant that you would sink or swim on its own at the moment. Well in the usual fashion it did muddle through and stay with the British Empire. But today muddling through is not enough. And the muddying of the water is

further with more that it just is disquieting. It is not welcome as the United States has its unfinished problems with the Panama reference to the Panama Canal Zone. Are we going to allow increasingly this thin area that is Central America to become a problem area for us because in turn we have not given it enough attention. British Honduras deserve some. This was a Latin American perspectives with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Join us for our next program on Dr. Gardner We'll examine another aspect of life in Latin America. Latin American perspectives is produced and recorded by station WFIU Af-Am at Southern Illinois University and is distributed by the national educational radio network.