Painting of Fort George looking across to Belize City, long ago...
"Government House, Belize From Fort St. George, British Honduras". The Creator Was I. H. Gascoigne, Active 1830s-1840s
HERE IS THE PROOF WHY FORT GEORGE WAS NAMED "FORT GEORGE" because there was a British Fort. See the Cannons at the FORT protecting the Belize City Harbor?
Belize City owes its existence to the harbor at the mouth of Haulover Creek, a branch of the Belize River, down which the Baymen (early British woodcutters) floated lumber from their inland camps.
It had little significance until the Spanish briefly captured St. Georges Caye, the Baymen's first main settlement, in 1779. 'Belize Town' then became and remained the British headquarters in Belize. The settlement, at first just a few huts surrounded by mosquito-ridden swamps, grew on a landfill of mahogany chips and rum bottles deposited by the Baymen, who would come to the coast after the rainy season to dispatch their lumber overseas and spend most of the proceeds on rum.
During the 19th century the town grew on both sides of Haulover Creek, with the British merchants' homes and buildings of the ruling elite clustered along and near the southern seafront. African slaves and their descendants lived in cabins inland of here. By the 1880s the town had a population of around 5000; the great majority being Creoles descended from the British and their slaves — though whites still held all the power and wealth.
Painting courtesy Noel Escalante
Click here to comment on this picture.
Belize Slideshow