1university of california

In 1642 pirates invaded Roatan and Guanaja with the objective of setting up a seat of operations in this part of the Spanish Main:

The depredations of the invaders were such that the supreme authority of Guatemala, together with the governors of Havana and the president of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo organized an expedition to expel the English from Roatan where their defenses were already strong. The expedition was composed of four ships of war under the command of Francisco Villalba y Toledo. Having found that the principle ports of the island were well fortified, he quietly withdrew to get reinforcements. He returned with these in March 1650, and after a fierce fight dislodged the pirates and left only ruins and some already enslaved Indians which the Captain General of Guatemala had transported to the mainland to the region between the rivers of Polochic and Motagua (Valladares 1939:26).

the temper of the London court was well represented by the statesman, William Pitt, who defined English objectives in the West Indies as commercial supremacy, which must be attained by English industry, not by English military power. He recognized correctly that the main enemy was not Spain, but France, and believed friendliness toward Spain would be rewarded with commercial privileges. He gave substance to this conciliatory policy by ordering the evacuation of the Bay Islands in 1748. . . .

His Britannic Majesty shall cause to be demolished all the fortifications which His subjects have erected in the Bay of Honduras, and other places of the Territory of Spain in that part of the world, four months after the ratification of the present Treaty; and His Catholic Majesty shall not permit His Britannic Majesty's subjects, or their workmen, to be disturbed, or molested, under any pretense whatsoever, in the said places, in their occupation of cutting, loading and carrying away logwood; and for this purpose they may build without hindrance, and occupy without interruption, the houses and magazines which are necessary for them, or their families, and for their effects; and His Catholic Majesty assures to them, by this Article, the full enjoyment of those advantages and powers on the Spanish coasts and Territories, as above stipulated, immediately after the ratification of the present Treaty (quoted in Floyd 1967:117).

Conflicts between Spain and Great Britain continued intermittently until 15 September 1821 when Central America proclaimed its independence from the mother country. Spain had been in the weaker of the two European contestants for some time; but the independent Central American Federation was weaker still; and Britain, unhindered, expanded its influence all along the Caribbean littoral from British Honduras to the Bay Islands to the Mosquitia. Characteristic of much of its imperial expansion, British advances into the Bay islands took place in leisurely fashion and without official sanction, through efforts of British subjects simply squatting wherever they were inclined to settle.

Utila, from the material above, appears to have led a quiescent existence during the years of Spanish and British hostility, quite unlike the islands of Roatan and Guanaja. Perhaps for this reason, early in the nineteenth century Utila attracted people who were basically farmers interested in good, free land that they could cultivate for subsistence crops. No doubt several motivations were at work to bring the first permanent settlers to Utila, but for whatever reasons the early 1830s found nearly a dozen people located in the Utila Cays.
The Agricultural Phase
Joseph Cooper, his wife and nine children--two boys and seven girls--came to Utila from the Caymans by way of Belize. He was apparently one of the many land hungry British subjects of peasant or working-class extraction that found the British isles too constricting. The Cooper family and an American named Samuel Warren who had been born in Massachusetts and served with Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie formed the nucleus of Utila's future population. Warren and another American surnamed Joshua (who early dropped out of the historical picture) were already cultivating small plantations in the Cays. Cooper also settled there to avoid the clouds of mosquitoes and sandflies that infested the bush-covered main island.

Within a few years other Cayman families had heard about Utila and established branches in the Cays (i.e., in Howell and Suc Suc Cays): Thompson, Morgan, Bodden, Diamond (or Dimon), Howell, Gabourel. Initially, settlement was made by white families intent on cultivating individually owned plantations in the nonresidential Cays. The fact that they were of lower class British background, influenced by their stay in Cayman, is in part attested to by a linguistic peculiarity still found in Utila. Doran (1954:83) says that

. . . common to all Caymanians is the almost invariable substitution of w for v at the beginning of syllables. . . .John Woodhead, of the University of Leeds, states (personal communication, 1951) that the substitution is characteristic of Elizabethan Cockney and was recorded in vulgar London speech up to about 1870.
Sometime around 1870 the first black Utilians settled in the island; like their white predecessors, they too were primarily from the Cayman Islands--Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, or Cayman Brac--near Jamaica, and were also interested in farming. Some of these immigrating black families bore the same surnames as white Utilian families, testimony either to a slave heritage whereby slaves names had been adopted in Cayman or to having (at least in one known case) been raised in white families and taking the names of foster parents.

Subsequently, settlers from the United States, British Honduras, and places as far afield as Germany and Sweden took up residence in Utila, adding their several influences to Utilian society and culture.

Like the other Bay Islands, Utila very largely took care of its own affairs, appointing its own officials, creating its own ordinances, etc. On occasion the islanders looked to British Honduras, the closest British outpost, for advice or--since no churches existed in Utila until 1852--to make use of the religious establishment for marriage rites.

Toward the end of 1849, the close intercourse between British Honduras and the Bay Islands that had sprung up--primarily commercial in nature though it was--produced a petition by Islands residents that they be included in the British Empire. Evans states (1966:19) that

on September 21, 1849, a letter was forwarded to Belize from the Clerk of Courts and three Justices of the Peace on Roatan, in which they asked to be placed under the protection of the British Government. . . . This letter is the first of a series of pleas from the islanders for British protection and status for the Bay Islands.
He also says that when no help from Belize was forthcoming the islanders turned to Jamaica and subsequently realized their objective of colonial status. In June of 1852

. . . the Governor of Jamaica sent the Superintendent a commission under the 'Great Seal', which appointed the Governor of Jamaica Governor of the Bay Islands, and the Honourable P. E. Wodehouse, Superintendent at Belize, as Lieutenant Governor (Evans 1966:20).

British governance rested lightly on Utilians, and islanders enjoyed the benefit of receiving actual British land grants to the properties that they claimed; likewise, as a British island Utila escaped duties and the like that were imposed at nearby Honduran ports.

The official British aegis over the Bay Islands was, however, of short duration. The United States had entered into the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain on 19 April 1850, and dignitaries of the Republic of Honduras pressed both parties to that treaty to abide by its conditions; i.e., they wanted an end to illegal British intrusion in the Bay Islands through application of U.S. pressure on the latter.

Regarding the violation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, Scroggs (1916:382-383) says that in the United States this action evoked much resentment, and the Senate passed a resolution declaring it a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. The Dallas-Clarendon Treaty of 1856 was ammended in the Senate by the insertion of a clause restoring the Bay Islands to Honduras. The British government rejected this and suggested in turn that the disposition of the colony should be fixed by a treaty between Great Britain and Honduras. The American government would not concede that Honduras should dispose of any of her territory by treaty with a European power.

For their part, Utilians and the other Bay Islanders were little affected by this last shift in official governance. By the terms of the treaty Islanders were allowed to retain all rights inland and chattels that they had claimed as British citizens. They were assured religious freedom. Local people were still appointed to municipal posts. In fact, life for the Bay Islanders went on virtually unchanged since none of the (disdained) Spanish authority was truly exercised in these maritime possessions; disaffected Islanders had the additional option of accepting free Crown land grants in British Honduras and free transport there if they should so desire. Scroggs does point out, however (Ibid.), that a large portion of the British subjects in Roatan were not happy about losing their citizenship, and "early in the spring of 1860 one of the discontented Bay Islanders visited New Orleans and sought to invite (the filibuster [soldier of fortune] William) Walker to Ruatan to aid them in resisting the Hondurans." Through fast political maneuvering by British and Honduran authorities, Walker--who was interested in Roatan as a base for launching an attack on Nicaragua where he had been the sometime "elected" president--was foiled and ultimately captured and executed at Truxillo on the mainland. No retaliation was taken against the Islanders, and political conditions in the islands remained little changed for the next half-century.

In Utila, the major development of the next few years was the birth of the fruit trade with U.S. cities. According to a diarist's information, this trade was inaugurated in 1868 when two schooners from Portland, Maine, came to Utila to buy bananas and coconuts that would be carried to New Orleans.

Rose (1904:56) claims that there were some 177 persons living in Utila the preceding year (i.e., 1867), and most of these were then resident at East Harbor on the island proper. A growing trade between Utila and Belize (as well as coastal towns and villages) had apparently stimulated the bulk of the population to quit the Utila Cays and settle on the larger island where land for plantations was plentiful. Thus, Utilian farm production and U.S. fruit buying interests coincided nicely.

Utila enjoyed a veritable boom time during the next quarter century. Thousands of bananas, coconuts, limes, etc., were exported to Boston, New York, Tampa, and New Orleans. Rose (1904:110) claims that ". . . Utilla reached the zenith of its prosperity, as a fruit port, in 1876" and provides the following table:
Exports 1876
Bunches of

Bananas Plantains Cocoanuts Limes
52,926 753,600 1,073,100 86 Bbls.
Mangos Oranges Pineapples Shaddocks
15 Bbls. 13,700 55 dozen 2 Bbls.
All of the "old heads" in Utila swear, in fact, that it was Utila and the Bay Islands that gave start to the gigantic United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company operations on the mainland of Honduras. This assertion is not, however, supported by historical evidence provided by such sources as Wilson (1968) or May and Plaza (1958). The actual situation appears to have been that the newly born tropical fruit trade of the mid-nineteenth century relied on a system of "pickups" which involved many places like the Bay Islands. Wilson, talking about this system as it operated even into the 1920s says (1968:197-198): "typical of the 'pickup' system was the run from Livingston Harbor in British Honduras to the Indian farms along the Golfete Estuary and Lake Izabal." In the early years of the trade all fruit was supplied by "pickup" until companies like United and Standard had planted their own farms; in the interim the independent producers attempted to supply any buyer whenever one appeared. By the early 1900s, the "pickup" system had all but ended insofar as the Bay Islands were concerned; Standard Fruit had planted large farms in back of La Ceiba and United Fruit was entrenched at Tela. The fruit companies no longer had to engage in the time consuming practice of running from port to port having no control whatsoever over the quantity or quality of the fruit available at any given time.
The result of decreasing purchases by the large companies, plus the outright competition they gave to Utila and the other Bay Islands, led to economic recession in these latter. The Bay Islands were ripe, so to speak, for setbacks on another count. On 14 May 1872, the Bay Islands had been formed into a Department of the Republic of Honduras.

Various governments . . . in vain decreed laws and regulations to harmonise [sic] the rights and interests of the islanders with those of the Republic. They continued to govern themselves more or less according to their customs and earlier statutes, whose documentation, in greater part, is conserved in the National Archives, until the energetic hand and intelligence of the government, the 14th of May 1872 made the Bay Islands a true Department of the Republic, subject to its laws and particularly of all the betterments that have established modern legislation. . . (Valladares 1939:32).

. . . the (ensuing) change of laws gave a crippling blow, for some time, to the industries in the islands and to the hopes of the people. There was general discontent chiefly on account of the high import duties imposed under the new laws. And this discontent was perhaps excusable, because the people had always been accustomed to a very low tariff. Many of the people began to think seriously of leaving the islands, and some did so; but the majority loved too well the land which had been their home for many years, so they remained.

Rose (1904:167) quotes the Captain as saying,

All British subjects that were living in the islands in 1861 when the latter were delivered to Honduras, are subjects of Honduras, they and their children, while they remain in this country; but beyond the limits of Republic they are British subjects. All British subjects, who settled in the islands after the latter were ceded to Honduras, are British subjects still; and as such are entitled to the privileges of British protection in or out of the country.
The creation of the Department and the effect of the Psyche's visit were connected with the economic slump starting circa 1900: the Islands were not to enjoy the boom (referred to above) brought about by the fruit trade; incursions made by United and Standard Fruit saw to that, but in addition they were not to be able to import commodities, own land, et cetera, exempt from "outside" taxes and duties.

From the turn of the century until the Second World War, Utilians strove to reverse blows received to their economy and morale. Life styles assumed during more affluent days were modified: less trade and contact with the United States resulted; consumer products (e.g., luxury goods in household furnishings, and the very lumber from which houses were built) were no longer purchased; varied emphases on plantation crops were tried in order to fit available markets (e.g., a shift from bananas and plantains to coconuts), and the like.

Despite attempts to "regroup," Utilians had become too enmeshed in social, political, and economic systems that directed their course. The World Depression effectively killed the possibilities of continuing the comfortable plantation life; produce, at times, could not even be given away.

The years from 1929 to 1939 are referred to locally as "the Coconut Oil Years." With no market for agricultural commodities, no wage labor available since job specializations had never developed (and with too small a population to support specialists in any event), and with shipping defunct, householders were reduced to rendering out coconut oil in order to survive. This was an arduous way of making a living. Two hundred select coconuts (four inches in diameter or larger) were husked at a time, shells chipped off, the meat grated and mixed with water. After standing overnight the coconut "milk" would be skimmed off (oil that had risen to the top) and this would then be boiled down to the final coconut oil: five gallons in all. The tin of oil was then taken to a local merchant who paid for it by giving the maker fifty cents (U.S.) worth of goods from his store!

events in particular at the beginning of this period color the sociocultural system in Utila today. Initially, the market in coconuts improved, and planters who had maintained their cocals in good condition reaped the rewards which ultimately affected the entire island. Companies such as Peter Paul demanded large quantities of coconut for its candy manufactures, and according to informants, throughout the 1940s as many as 350,000 coconuts at a time were exported to Company factories in Tampa. The bleak, dreary Depression years were apparently quickly supplanted by the anticipation of prolonged prosperity: aspirations to travel, foreign education (in the U.S.), and the like rose concomitantly. By the 1950s, however, another bubble had burst and coconuts were worth only five cents apiece; it was time for the second important event of the decade to take effect.

According to Wilson (1968:288), "during 1940 the United States government had begun to lease some of the larger and better equipped banana ships for emergency defense duty." In 1941 United Fruit Company sent representatives to Utila to sign up would-be seamen for its steamship line. The score or so of local men to join the company, having become experienced in one or the other of its two training ships, rapidly found themselves working in U.S. merchant shipping. Whether United Fruit was involved in the emergency leasing in this instance or was simply training a reserve of sailors for its own use is not known, but what is significant is that male Utilians were being given marketable skills as merchant mariners at a time when the coconut bubble was expanding to its bursting point and the need to avoid return to the "Coconut Oil Years" was paramount.

Utila's heritage of men going to sea in order to fish or carry things to market, coupled with islander attachment to Anglo-American ancestors and culture, made it logical for Utilian males to find their way quickly into maritime service. Nor did the close of the war bring a return of men to island agriculture and fishing, for subsistence or otherwise. Laboring in tick-infested bush under broiling sun or on sun-reflecting brine would, perhaps, have had a more favored alternate in merchant mariner service in any event, but post bellum market conditions worsened and neither agriculture nor fishing would return more than a pittance for labor expended. Likewise, disease and hurricanes laid waste to many coconut and banana plantations. Utila, rounding the corner of the Second World War, became a remittance economy.

Since the Second World War a custom, born of necessity, has taken hold: the adult males between ages 18 and 55 regularly and repeatedly leave their home island to wander the globe. For nine months, ten months, or a year at a time, men work for various shipping lines and send home a monthly allotment to their families. The dependability of income from the ships--salary, fringe benefits, free room and board while at sea--has continued to induce men to turn away from Utila as the source of support for their dependents. The orientation of Utilians has consequently, once again, shifted toward the United States as the figurative pot of gold and font of all that is culturally good. Children, for example, are sent to high school in New Orleans; relatives head north to "Big America" for visits with emigrant Utilians; increasing numbers of native islanders stay in the U.S.--or seek to--as permanent residents. Few islanders pin their hopes on carving out a living in Utila or restricting their lives totally to the island, and as far as former circumstances go they are realistic. On July 23, 1961, hurricane Anna struck, perhaps, the death knell to hopes of any islanders who wanted to remain locally self-sufficient through agriculture, to provide at least subsistence for himself and his household. Although Anna did not strike Utila head on, accompanying winds from the storm blew down an estimated 75,000 coconut trees alone, approximately a third of the island's cocal. It was reported that for fully two years afterward, not a single locally grown plantain could be had. Few men were inclined to repair the damage. Today Utila can boast perhaps two farmers, a dozen fishermen, a handful of merchants. All other male bread-winners look to the United States, the merchant marine, and the remittance in order to perpetuate life in Utila.