y imported from and through the West Indies were engaged for the next century in the felling and shipment of logwood, cut from campeachy wood trees prized for the crimson dye which could be extracted from them.
The initial settlers known as Baymen were a rowdy and fractious lot, who treated slaves inhumanely and resisted outside control from colonial authorities in Jamaica and London.
The foreign presence in the middle of the Spanish Main was an irritant to Spain which on a number of occasions, in 1717, 1730, 1754 and 1779, ejected them. However, Waddell says although the Spanish "regarded English logwood cutting as illegal, [they] were never strong enough either diplomatically or militarily to suppress it altogether" (9). The settlers' presence was acknowledged within certain limits (but not legitimized) by the Treaty of 1786. The last Spanish military attempt to drive the settlers out failed in the Battle of St. George's Key in 1798.
By the late 18th century as the campeche forests were exhausted, the timber cutting industry of the Honduran coast shifted to mahogany which proved to be an even more lucrative trade which flourished until about 1847 when it, too, lapsed due to lack of timber. As it wrenched grudging concessions from the Spanish, the English Colonial Office found it necessary to impose some degree of order on the settlers. In 1765, land titles and other laws were codified in Burnaby's Code named for a British admiral in Jamaica. In the late 1780s Bolland says the first Superintendent, Colonel Edward Despard together with troops of a West Indies Regiment, were sent to Belize to ensure compliance with the treaty arrangements with Spain. Setzekorn says that Despard's efforts "were met with opposition and resentment" (147).
Toward the turn of the century, the small white settler oligarchy, which had been electing magistrates since 1738 began electing a Public Meeting to run their affairs. Bolland says that ab...