History of Ambergris Caye
May 4th 2007 Edition
There is a Great value in Mr. George Parham’s account of The History of Ambergris Caye and its being published in the San Pedro Sun. Mr. Parham’s history and his family’s history are major parts of Ambergris Caye’s Past and present. Thanks to all involved in getting it recorded for historical record published in print and on the world wide web. So many parts of history are lost forever when not recorded by those who experienced and witnessed it. History is like an opinion in that it has more than one point of view, such as an historical famous battle will differ greatly when told by those who won rather that the historical account of the same battle as told by those who lost.
It seems fair to mention, "Ambergris Caye, Paradise with a Past" by Glenn Godfrey, Cubola Press. This book offers a slightly different account of the birth of San Pedro. I wouldn’t want to even insinuate that either account is untrue, the two accounts are both valuable accounts and in some respect compliment one another, they are different views of the same event.
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/mayan/history.html
Godfrey depicts the story as ‘The wealthy empire of Blake/Alamilla/Parham held the poor indigenous Indians in an indentured /slave situation to pick the coconuts on there plantation (Ambergris Caye) and when Belize became self-governing in 1964 when The father of our country, George Price and the Peoples United Party intervened and came to their assistance by purchasing the land that is now San Pedro, having it surveyed and issuing lots to the poor and mistreated people. A much more romantic story as told by the liberator of oppressed peoples rather than the affluent son of the oppressor.

Yeah, i have George's version and Godfreys version on the site. George is pretty emphatic about his version being correct. The Godfrey version is not very nice to the Parham's.

In the Southern United States after Slavery was abolished ,the cotton still was picked. plantation owners continued but used another system, one that indentured the workers buy over extending credit for food and necessary supply's at the company store. workers lived on the property and owed rent to the property they worked for, they where paid with credit vouchers instead of money that ran totals of indebtedness . Godfrey's book depicts this same situation on Ambergris except with coconuts instead of cotton and Mayan instead of Negro.

Godfrey has a law degree and also sounds like some Title Abstracting and Document Research experience. His version sounds much more objective.
I'm expecting a rebuttal from Mr. Parham in the San Pedro Sun coming out on Thursday.
Who writes history? I like that question.

Marty, what was the other story, from Danny Nunez maybe? I forgot the name.

A book called 'The little World of Danny Vasquez, by Emory Kingor was it 'The World of little Danny Vasquez'?

The Little World of Danny Vasquez

http://www.emoryking.com/dvasquez.htm