Staying a colony can be the only way to move forward. Even if the original reasons for colonization have faded. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
A profile shot of Queen Victoria in a desolate colony. How you look at it depends on who you are. A British forester involved in the mahogany trade, very comforting and who the stamp is aimed at. An African laborer in the same camp is wondering what the Queen is doing for him. The newly arrived Mayans are wondering who she is and what she has to do with them. A Jewish merchant in the town of Belize is wondering how much the next British shake down will cost him. The Philatelist, look another version of this profile from yet another British outpost.
Todays stamp is issue A8, a 12 cent stamp issued by the Crown Colony of British Honduras in 1891. This was a 9 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $3.25 mint. A 10 cent version of this stamp overprinted for revenue use but revenue misspelled “Revenu” is worth $725. I wish the frequent misspellings in my articles made them more valuable. Alas, no…
The modern independent country of Belize was founded as British Honduras. The area was under Spain but not occupied. The British desired logging camps with British foresters and African slave labour. A trading post was set up as Belize City that attracted German Jewish merchants that dealt with import and export with the camps in the interior. Spain proved unable to chase off the British and the outpost persevered through the surrounding areas independence from Spain. There was a caste war in neighboring Mexico that sent Mayan Indian refugees into British Honduras. At first, they attacked the logging camps, but after clashes with the British Army they were allowed to stay in separate communities and ended their attacks on the logging camps.
The last crisis involved American support for William Walker, the American adventurer who attempted to colonize Central America and turn them into American slave states. See this Costa Rica stamp about this period The Philatelist covered here.https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/27/costa-rica-remembers-the-the-drummer-boy-that-saved-central-america-from-an-american-manifest-destiny/ The Americans signed an agreement that set forth British cooperation in a proposed canal but banned British colonizing. The Americans felt that it meant the British should leave Belize but the British saw it as an agreement not to expand their existing colony. The Americans formally accepted the British in Belize after Honduras shot William Walker.
The colony went in a direction opposite from most. The Colony had self government but the foresters and the merchants just could not agree on things like tariff and tax rates. The solution was to send more power back to London who appointed a more powerful governor. This lead to policies more in favor of the foresters as the company engaged in that was the only entity sending money back to Britain. One policy badly affected the by now freed Africans was one that made breaking a labour contract a crime. In spite of these troubles, one Ashanti African named Isaiah Morter became himself a rich landowner by initiating the cultivation of coconuts and bananas. He was an important member of the pan African United Negro Improvement Association lead by Jamaican Marcus Garvey and tied to Ethiopia. See also https://the-philatelist.com/2018/08/09/jamaica-1970-mixed-race-leaders-try-to-graft-socialism-onto-black-jamaica/
Over time the supply of mahogany was depleted and Africans pushed for more rights and toward independence. One thing delaying it was that the military government of neighboring Guatemala, that was still pushing the old Spanish claims on Belize. The UN was not sympathetic to Guatemala and allowed Belize to get independence from Britain. Britain agreed to keep a small military presence in Belize post independence until Guatemala finally recognized Belize in the 1990s.
Well my drink is empty, so I will pour another to toast Queen Victoria. She sure had a lot of places she was expected to look after. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.