Part 3: The Appeal's May 22nd, 1897 paper on the Bay Islands

Did you know England referred to the Bay Islands as the "Garden of the West Indies", the "Key of Spanish America" and "The New Gibraltar"?

Carrying on with the stories found about the Colony of the Bay Islands in The Appeal's May 22nd edition of 1897, here is how those names came about.

To this day, 1897, England claims some rights over the islands in connection with her very questionable rights in Belize, based upon nothing but an ancient treaty with Spain, which simply gave her license to cut wood in Honduras. After their discovery of gold in California, the consequent rush across the Isthmus and the revival of talk about an interoceanic ship canal, a project three centuries old, England set foot on negotiations with the United States for the formation of a treaty intended to restrain our country from appropriating all the advantages of such a waterway across the continent.

The result was the Bulwer-Clayton Treaty of 1850 between Honorable John M. Clayton, then Secretary of State, and the right Honorable Sir Henry Bulwer, Minister and Envoy Extraordinary of Great Britain at Washington.

The remarkable document announced to the world that disputes were settled for all the time to come as far as the pretensions of Great Britain and Central America were concerned and the welfare of mankind assured by the gracious consent of Her Majesty, (which by the way had not been asked) to the proposed interoceanic canal.

The only part of the treaty in which the United States was directly concerned (English aggression in Central America), is contained in Article 1, which stripped off its high-sounding phrases, amounts to little more than a play upon words, and can be read backwards or forward, as interest may dictate. However, it was blindly accepted by the United States, and only about a year later, a British man-of-war sailed into the harbor of Ruatan, and its commanders, Captain Jolly, proceeded to organize the island as a dependency of Belize, British Honduras. And presently, the astonished people of Ruatan and the disgusted statesmen of the United States were made acquainted with the following proclamation issued from Belize.

"Office of the Colonial Secretary, Belize, July 17, 1852. This is to give notice that her Most Gracious Majesty, our Queen, has been pleased to institute and make the Bay Islands of Ruatan, Guanaja, Utila, Barberette, Helena, and Morat, to be a Crown Colony. To be forever known and designated as the Colony of the Bay Islands by command of Her Majesty. Superintendent Augustus Frederick Gore, Colonial Secretary, God Save the Queen."

Desiring to have a glimpse of these celebrated islands, we retracted our state steps from Tegucigalpa to the coast and waited two days at Trujillo for a vessel to convey us to Port MacDonald, the largest settlement on Ruatan. The Great Bay of Honduras is as notable for its general placidity as for the purity of its waters. Besides the great number of coral cays and reefs along its borders, which stretching far northward encircle the peninsula of Yucatan, as with the belt, they also completely girdle the Bay Islands, leaving only small openings in the rocky barriers through which vessels may pass to deep and commodious harbors beyond the narrow channels.

Ruatan has 14 of these hidden harbors, Port Royal, Dixon's Cove, Coxen's Hole, and others, all very large and safe but with extremely narrow entrances between coral reefs. The island is singularly beautiful from a distance, its hills seeming to rise in gradual slopes to the height of a thousand feet, intersected by valleys all luxuriantly wooded with palms and coconuts fringing the shores. You cease to wonder why it would be English processors held on so long and wrote of it as the "Garden of the West Indies", the "Key of Spanish America", and "The new Gibraltar".

Its handbore are natural defenses in themselves and easily fortified. And the sun, when adapted to the cultivation of coffee, cotton, and other tropical products. Cocoanuts with wild figs and excellent grapes are among its spontaneous productions. And in a few cultivated patches, yams, bananas, pineapples, coffee, and garden vegetables are grown by the few small planters. There are between 3,000 and 4,000 people on the island, mostly colored, with here and there a sturdy Scotch farmer or an English younger son trying his needy hand at coffee raising or cotton planting. A large portion of the population are liberated slaves from the Grand Cayman near Jamaica, and among them are many slave owners, also negroes and natives of that island, who were ruined at home by emancipation.