The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936 Page: 310

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

States, especially in Louisiana. In the eighteen fifties owners of
large quantities of land in the British colony kept on display in
New Orleans and other southern cities sugar cane and other
products grown on Honduran soil. After the lands had been
denuded of the mahogany forests, the woodcutting companies
became willing to dispose of them to planters. The sugar plant-
ers of the United States seemed to be the logical purchasers.
Furthermore, it was to the interest of the merchants in British
Honduras and the United States, especially to those of Belize and
New Orleans, to promote southern immigration to the British
colony.
The Civil War in the United States strengthened the position
of the bourgeois in the two countries. The war fought ostensibly
to save the Union but in reality to impose the economic system of
the more populous section upon the entire country brought a
despotism to the South that caused many of the southern people
to resort to the extremity of expatriation. A thousand or so of
the discontented fell for the bourgeois propaganda emanating
from Belize and New Orleans. It seemed to offer more for the
future than the program of terrorism then emitting from the
vindictive souls of Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner. In
1867 the choice made by those who decided upon British Hon-
duras for future homes did not seem ridiculous. The highest
officials in the British possession were then saying: "We want
some of your practical and active Southern men to come to this
Country and settle it up." They were told that if they would
do so, "so soon as they are strong enough for self Government,
we will give up the Country to them, as the policy of the English
Government now is to lessen the number of her Colonies, as they
create the necessity for too large a Military force for their pro-
tection."2
Just how much faith the southerners imposed in this gratui-
tous remark regarding the future political status of the British
colony is unknown. It is quite probable that they saw greater
assurance in the tariff act, which, as amended in 1867, made it
possible for immigrants to take personal property into the colony
free of duty. It is certain that they were attracted by the terms
2Charles A. Leas, American consul at Belize, to his government, Febru-
ary 3, 1865, consequent upon a conversation with the lieutenant governor
of British Honduras, in Belize Dispatches, III.

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