Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE LIFE OF A BAYMAN
Life in the logwood camps was uncomfortable. Though the wood was mainly cut in the dry
season, it was too heavy to float, and the men had to build rafts to float it down to the river
mouth in the rainy season, where it awaited shipment. The Baymen lived in rough huts
thatched with palm leaves (known as “Bay leaf” - still used today in tourist
cabañas
), and
survived on provisions brought from Jamaica. These ships also brought rum, which the
Baymen drank with relish. An English merchant (writing in 1726) reported: “Rum Punch is their
Drink, which they'll sometimes sit for several Days…for while the Liquor is moving they don't
care to leave it.” Though many of the woodcutters “voluntarily” gave up buccaneering, raiding
of Spanish ships still occurred throughout the seventeenth century; punished by Spain
whenever it had the opportunity.
European powers rarely rested long upon the humid and insect-ridden swamps where
the logwood cutters, who were becoming known as
Baymen
, worked and lived. The
British government, while profiting from the trade in logwood, preferred to avoid the
question of whether or not the Baymen were British subjects and left them to their
own devices.
As gangs of woodcutters advanced further into the forests in search of valuable
mahogany
(which overtook logwood as the principal export by the 1760s) for
furniture making, they came into contact with the Maya. Although they had no wish
to colonize or convert them, records show that early buccaneers took Maya captives
to trade in the slave markets of Jamaica, and they also enslaved people to work in
Belize. The Maya were so weakened by disease and depopulation that they only
offered limited resistance.
Spanish attacks
There were Spanish attacks throughout the eighteenth century, with the Baymen driven
out on several occasions. Increasingly though, Britain - at war with both Spain and
France during the period 1739 to 1748 - began to admit a measure of responsibility
for the protection of the settlers. In 1746, in response to requests, the governor of
Jamaica sent troops to aid the Baymen, but this didn't stop the Spanish decimating the
settlement in both 1747 and 1754. The
Paris Peace Treaty
of 1763 allowed the British
to cut logwood, but since it did not define boundaries the governor of Yucatán sent
troops from Bacalar to ensure that the cutters confined themselves to the Belize River.
In 1765 Admiral Burnaby, the British commander-in-chief at Jamaica, visited Belize to
ensure that the provisions of the treaty were upheld, finding them “in a state of
Anarchy and Confusion”. The admiral, recognizing that the Baymen would benefit
from some form of regulation, drew up a simple set of laws concerning the
maintenance of justice in what was a remote and uncouth area where the British
government was only reluctantly involved. Known as
Burnaby's Code
, it gave authority
to a bench of magistrates, supported by a jury, to hold quarterly courts with the power
to impose fines. The Baymen attached a grand importance to the Code (though only
sporadically obeyed it), and voted to increase its scope a year later.
A century of antagonism, boundary disputes and mutual suspicion between the
Spanish and the Baymen meant that relations were never secure. The Spanish feared
1718
1724
1746
Famous pirate Blackbeard
roams the coast and camps
on Turneffe Atoll
First record of African slaves
in Belize; they cut logwood
and do domestic and farm
work
Tensions simmer between Baymen
and Spanish; Jamaica sends troops to
aid Baymen, but Spanish decimate
Baymen settlement in 1747
