Title: Belize : a concise history /
Authors: Thomson, P. A. B.
Publisher: Macmillan Caribbean,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Belize History.
Abstract: "The small Central American state of Belize has an unusual history. It was an important part of the pre-Columbian Mayan civilisation, which also embraced most of Guatemala, northern Honduras, and southern Mexico. Having fallen between three early Spanish colonial jurisdictions, Belize was then settled in the seventeenth century by British adventurers, many of them ex-buccaneers. They were in search of logwood, a tropical softwood the heart of which was in demand in Europe as a vegetable dye."--Cover.
Contents: 1: The original inhabitants -- 2: Spanish conquerors and British adventurers -- 3: External rivalry and internal dissent : the eighteenth century -- 4: The settlement at the beginning of the nineteenth century -- 5: Slavery and emancipation -- 6: Land -- 7: Constitutional development -- 8: Mexico and the Maya -- 9: Disputes between Britain and Guatemala -- 10: Development of the economy in the nineteenth century -- 11: The colony at the beginning of the twentieth century -- 12: Wars, a hurricane and a global slump : the first half of the twentieth century -- 13: The economy after the Second World War -- 14: The road towards independence -- 15: The dispute with Guatemala in the twentieth century -- 16: The nation state at the beginning of the twenty-first century.