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Hispanic and Latin American Belizeans are
Belizeans Belizeans are people associated with the country of Belize through citizenship or descent. Belize is a multiethnic country with residents of Ethnic groups of Amerindian, African, European, Asian and Middle-eastern descent or mixed race with any ...
of full or partial
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
and
Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...
descent. Currently, they account for around 52.9% of
Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...
's population. Most Hispanic Belizeans are self-identified
mestizos ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to ...
. Most mestizos speak Spanish, Kriol, and English fluently. The mestizo should not be confused with the Yucatec Maya who are also known as "Yucatecos" in Belize.


History


First occupations and Spanish expeditions in Belize

In 1494 the
Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian (geography) ...
was signed, claiming the entire western
New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...
for Spain, including what is now Belize. Then in the mid-16th century Spanish
conquistadors Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...
explored this territory, declaring it a Spanish colony Johnson, Melissa A. (October 2003). "The Making of Race and Place in Nineteenth-Century British Honduras". Environmental History 8 (4): 598-617. incorporated into the
Captaincy General of Guatemala The Captaincy General of Guatemala (), also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala (), was an administrative division of the Spanish Empire, under the viceroyalty of New Spain in Central America, including present-day Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras ...
on December 27, 1527, when it was founded. In the second half of that century it was integrated into the government of Yucatan in
Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...
.BELICE - Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación
/ref> In 1530 the conqueror
Francisco de Montejo Francisco de Montejo (; 1479 – 1553) was a Spanish conquistador in Mexico and Central America. Early years Francisco de Montejo was born about 1473 to a family of lesser Spanish nobility in Salamanca, Spain. He never documented his parentag ...
attacked the Nachankan Maya and Belize but failed to subdue the Maya to Spanish rule, The first Spanish settlers that emigrated in Belize was in 1544, in Lamanai. It was there where the first church was built, in 1570. So, this city reflects considerable European influences.Historia de Belice
(in Spanish: Belize's history). Consultado el 28 de noviembre de 2012.
Spanish missionaries arriving in 1550 evangelized the area's population of Ch'ol people (a language group belonging to ethnic group Q'eqchi' people), reaching the Amatique Bay (present Province Verapaz, in the southern half of the current Belize).III. Belice, otra cuña británica en iberoamérica (in Spanish: BELIZE, another british wedge Iberian America
However, few Spanish settled in the area because of the lack of the gold they'd come seeking and the strong resistance of the
Maya people Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...
. The Spanish colonists living in Belize often fought against the Maya, who were affected by slavery and disease carried by the Spanish. In 1618 there is evidence of evangelization in Pucté, northern Belize, and in 1621 at Tipu with the Mopans, in the central part of the territory. After the mid-16th century, there is little evidence of Spanish evangelization. An exception is the journey undertaken by a Dominican priest Father Jose Delgado in 1677. Delgado traveled to Belize from Bacalar, Quintana Roo. He was captured and stripped by some English near Rio de Texoc - probably the present Mullins River. Between 1638 and 1695, the Mayans residing in Tipu enjoyed autonomy from Spanish rule. But in 1696, Spanish soldiers used Tipu as a base from which to pacify the area, with the support of missionary activities. In 1697 the Spanish conquered the Itzá, and in 1707 forcibly resettled the inhabitants of Tipu in the area of Lake Petén Itzá.Bolland, Nigel. "Belize: Historical Setting". I
A Country Study: Belize''
(In English: A Country Study: Belize. Tim Merrill, editor).
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
Federal Research Division The Federal Research Division (FRD) is the research and analysis unit of the United States Library of Congress. The Federal Research Division provides directed research and analysis on domestic and international subjects to agencies of the Unite ...
(January 1992). '' This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
.''


The struggle between Spain and Britain over control of Belize

In 1717, after the British settlement in Belize between the sixteenth and the seventeenth, the Spanish army led by Marshal Antonio Silva Figueroa and Lazo, governor of the Yucatan Peninsula, expelled the English from the Belize River delta area. But the British returned, prompting a series of Spanish incursions to expel them. On 20 January 1783, shortly after the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
, Britain and Spain signed a peace treaty in which Spain ceded to Britain a small part of Belize, about 1.482 square kilometres located between the Hondo and Belize rivers. British settlers obtained a further concession. By the London Convention of 1786 Spain ceded Belize another 1.883 km square (reaching the Sibun River or Manate Laguna, south of the Belize River). Then, sometime between 1786 and 1796, the English Baymen from Belize Town cut logwood also in
Campeche Campeche, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche, is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, make up the Administrative divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. Located in southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the sta ...
, near a town of Spanish population. The Spanish Crown ordered that the British settlers of Belize be expelled from that area. There ensued a confrontation between Britain and Spain on the coast of Belize in September 1798. This Battle of St. George's Caye ended with the Spanish defeat. The British were able to continue their harvesting of logwood in Belizean territory, even in areas that remained officially Spanish.Battle of Saint George's Caye: English Settlers and Spanish Invasion in Belizean Foil
Retrieved on December 1, 2012, at 18:22 pm


19th and 20th centuries

Around the 1840s, thousands of
Maya people Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...
and
mestizos ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to ...
were driven from the area of Bacalar during the Caste War (1847-1901),My Belize adventure: People of Belize
Accessed February 14, 2008.
They settled in the Corozal, Orange Walk Town, and
Cayo District Cayo is a district located in the west part of Belize, and it contains the capital, Belmopan. It is the most extensive, second-most populous and third-most densely populated of the six districts of Belize. The district's capital is the town of S ...
, as well as in the city of San Pedro in Ambergris Caye. About 7000 Mexican mestizos immigrated during these years.belice - Prolades.com
/ref> In the 1870s-1880s, the Kekchi emigrated from Verapaz, Guatemala, where their lands had been seized for coffee plantations and many of them enslaved. They settled villages in the Toledo District, living mainly by maize farming and fishing the streams. The Mopan originated in Belize but most were driven to
Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
after the British assumed control of Belize in the late 18th century, after the Battle of St. George's Caye. They returned to Belize around 1886, fleeing enslavement and taxation in Petén. After 1958,
Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...
groups in
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
emigrated to Belize, settling in the north and west of Belize ( Mexican Mennonites may have intermarried with native-born mestizos and Mexican mestizos).Belice - Icex www.icex.es/staticFiles/Belice_6779_.pdf Then between 1980 and 1990 thousands of undocumented migrants moved to the central and western parts of the country. Approximately 40,000 Salvadorans (including Salvadoran Mennonites), Guatemalans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans immigrated to Belize in this decade of strife in neighbouring countries. Some 25,000 were from
El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...
and Guatemala. This, along with a high fertility rate, dramatically increased the number of Hispanics in Belize, causing concern over the rapid growth of the Spanish language in a country where the official language is English.El Español en Belice
(in Spanish: The Spanish in Belize). Writing by Christina Mudarra Sánchez.


Demography

According to a 2022 survey, 52.1% of the Belizean population is Hispanic: 37% Mestizo and 15% Latin American. According to the 2000 census, Belize has 106,795 Hispanic people. In this figure can be added another 21,848 people who can speak Spanish as second language. In total, there are 128,243 people who speak Spanish in Belize. Although English is the official language, Spanish is spoken by the majority of Belize's population. Also, according to the 2000 census, about 50% of the Belizean population declared themselves Catholics. Hispanics in Belize are mainly concentrated in the central and western parts of the country. The Yucatec Mestizo best known as Mestizo are mostly found in the North of Belize and on the Northern Cayes, Corozal,
Orange Walk Orange walks, or Orange marches, are a series of parades by members of the Orange Order and other Protestantism, Protestant Fraternal organization, fraternal societies, held during the summer months in various Commonwealth of Nations, Commonw ...
, as well as San Pedro town in Ambergris Caye. Both the people of Corozal, as people from Orange Walk, descended from the Yucatec Maya and Mestizo who found refuge in Belizean soil fleeing the Caste War in the 1840s, while most hispanics from Belize City, Cayo and down South, descends from GCentral American Migrants. The Belize District and the Districts down have Spanish-speaking populations to a lesser extent. In addition, the Mopan indigenous live now in the Cayo district and San Antonio (Toledo district). Some of the Kekchi and Mopan have mixed. However, this groups are not strictly Hispanic because they speak their own Maya dialects, but they do come from Hispanic countries. On the other hand, bilingualism in Spanish is encouraged, as the nation is surrounded by Spanish speaking countries. AAccording to the 2022 C Population Census, Central American Migrants makeup 15% of the population. the people from Guatemala make up the largest group (42.9%) of the immigrant population in Belize, followed by nationals of El Salvador and Honduras. But according to the data from the 2022 census there has been a decline in people who were born abroad migrating to Belize.


See also

* History of Roman Catholicism in Belize * Spanish period of Belize


References


External links


El Diario de Hoy: Belice, territorio guanaco (in English: The today diary. Belize, Guanacan territory
{{Spanish diaspora Ethnic groups in Belize Hispanic and Latino Mestizo Spanish diaspora in North America