Grace Bank, formerly Barcadares, is an unincorporated hamlet 33 miles up the Belize River. It was the second settlement founded by the first English settlers of present-day Belize. It was settled in the 1650s, relocated in 1760, and resettled in 1853.
Sixteenth century residents of the area first became aware of Spaniards in 1502, with the 30 July landing of Christopher Columbus in Guanaja.[note 2] On 8 December 1526, Francisco de Montejo was named adelantado of the Yucatán Peninsula (including the territory of Dzuluinicob).[7][8] The Spanish conquest reached the area in the third quarter of 1528, during Montejo's southern entrada.[9][10] Said conquest lasted until the first or second quarter of 1544, upon Melchor and Alonso Pacheco's defeat of Chetumal and Dzuluinicob, and their subsequent founding of Bacalar.[11][12][13] Some or most of the area's surviving residents were (forcibly) relocated to reducción towns closer to Bacalar, and (forcibly) converted to Roman Catholicism.[note 3]
A secular parish was (belatedly) established at Bacalar in 1565 by Pedro de la Costa.[14] In the latter three quarters of 1568, an entrada and reducción by Juan de Garzón and the vecinos of Bacalar resulted in the further disintegration of Postclassic Mayan society in the area, thereby cementing Spanish dominion from Bacalar.[15][16][note 4]
Bacalar began to lose control over its district in c. 1615, as alcaldes ordinarios were forced to re-establish reducción towns near Tipu in 1615, to conduct a visita in 1620.[17][note 5] In 1638, Tipu lead the area into general revolt against Bacalar, resulting in the collapse of Spanish power over the region by 1642, and the relocation of a majority of the area's residents to Tipu.[18][19][20][21][22][23][note 6]
Pirates are first thought to have arrived near Grace Bank in 1617, during a raid of Bacalar by English pirates or privateers.[24][note 7] In the 1630s, pirates were further attracted to the region by the increasing willingness of Spanish residents to trade with non-Spaniards, and the possibility of abducting Mayan residents for impressment or sale at non-Spanish slave markets.[25][26][27][28][29][30][note 8]Belize City is thought to have been settled in 1638, by a crew of shipwrecked buccaneers.[31][32][33][34][note 9]
English logging, 1650s–1763
In the 1540s, Marcos de Ayala Trujeque, a vecino of Merida, is thought to have pioneered the use of logwood dyes in the Old World.[35] The early buccaneer settlers (now Baymen) turned to logging logwood in the 1650s, when they are thought to have settled Grace Bank (then Barcadares).[36][note 10]
Anglo-Spanish hostilities, 1650s–1763
Barcadares's settlers opened conflict against Bacalar on 29 May 1652, when they are thought to have lead or been involved in that villa's sacking.[37][38][note 11]Spanish Yucatan retaliated during 16 November 1694 – 28 February 1695 with a paramilitary campaign against the Baymen's camps and settlements, thereby presaging over a century of Anglo-Spanish conflict that would eventually lead to the relocation of Barcadares.[39][40] This campaign lead to the first (of many) evacuations of the Baymen's settlements.[39][40][note 12] Spanish Yucatan also tightened its control of the waters off the Belize River beginning on 2 November 1705 with the arrival of privateers or guardacostas Archibaldo Magdonel de Narión and Francisco Joseph Jiménez with 30 men aboard two goletas.[41]
The final campaign against Barcadares occurred on 25 December 1759, when 150 Spaniards aboard a 'great number' of periaguas landed in the port of Belize. This coup de grâce resulted in the imprisonment of a number of Baymen, the seizure of several loaded flats, the burning of Barcadares and nearby logging camps, and a nearly three-year evacuation of all settlements (in favour of the safer Mosquito Shore).[42][43][note 13]
^During 30 July–14 August of 1502, Columbus surveyed the coast of present-day Honduras from Guanaja to Trujillo. Alternatively, residents may have become aware of Spaniards after
^These reducción towns were held in encomiendas by Melchor Pacheco, Martín Rodríguez, Alonso Pacheco, Pedro de Avila, Alonso Hernández, Juan Farfán, and possibly Juan Pérez de Castañeda (Jones 1989, pp. 44, 59). A visita church was built in Tipu in 1543–1550 (Graham 2011, p. 224). A second was built in Lamanai in c. 1544, 1544–1550, or in c. 1568 (Graham 2011, pp. 231–232, 236–238, Rushton 2014, p. 48, Mayfield 2015, p. 20, Pendergast 1993, pp. 120–122), and a third (in Lamanai) in the 1560s or in c. 1568 (Graham 2011, pp. 231–232, 236–238, Rushton 2014, p. 48, Mayfield 2015, p. 20). A Spanish plaza was erected in Tipu in 1568 (Graham 2011, p. 228).
^Franciscan frays Francisco de Benavides, Martín de Barrientos and Alonso Toral possibly accompanied the Garzón entrada (Graham 2011, p. 160, Jones 1989, p. 85).
^Juan Sánchez de Aguilar lead the 1615 reducciones (Jones 1989, pp. 132, 192–193), Juan Alonso Díaz de Aguilar the 1620 visita (Jones 1989, p. 193).
^Tipu's efforts were likely aided by the Peten Itza kingdom, and by repeated piratical raids of the Bacalar district (Jones 1989, p. 191, Sharer & Traxler 2006, p. 774). Spanish dominion over the (nominal) district of Bacalar was not re-established until the second or third quarter of 1695, during a visita by Francisco de Hariza y Arruyo (Sharer & Traxler 2006, p. 774, Jones 1989, pp. 259–267, Molina Solís 1910, p. 350, Graham 2011, pp. 251–252).
^The use of logwood dyes in England was prohibited sometime during 21 March 1580 – 20 March 1581, per 23 Eliz. 1 ch. 9 (Raithby 1819a, p. 671). The prohibition was strengthened in 1597, per 39 Eliz. 1 ch. 11 (Raithby 1819a, pp. 911–912). It was loosened on 29 February 1620 (Green 1858, vol. 112), and finally lifted sometime during 7 January 1662 – 3 May 1662, per 14 Chas. 2 ch. 11 (Raithby 1819b, pp. 393–400, Green 1861, vol. 54 no. 12).
anon. (27 May 1701). "Hague, June 1". Flying Post. No. 944. London: Printed by A. Snowden, in Great Carter-Lane, near Doctors-Commons. p. 1.
anon. (15 May 1732a). "JAMAICA, ff". New-England Weekly Journal. No. 269. Boston, MA: Printed by S. Kneeland, & T. Green, at the Printing-House in Queen-Street. p. 1.
anon. (19 May 1732b). "LONDON". Daily Journal. No. 3548. London: Printed for J. Purser in Salisbury-Court, Fleet-Street. p. 3.
anon. (21 September 1732e). "London, June 20". Boston News-Letter. No. 1495. Boston, MA: Printed and Sold by B. Green, at his Printing-House in Newbury Street. p. 1.
anon. (9 March 1752a). "Charles-Town, in South-Carolina, February 22". New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy. No. 477. New York: Printed by James Parker, at the New Printing Office in Beaver-Street. p. 2.
anon. (10 August 1752b). "New York, Aug. 3". Boston Evening-Post. No. 886. Boston, MA: Printed by T. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill. p. 1.
anon. (14 October 1754a). "New-York, October 7". Boston Evening-Post. No. 998. Boston, MA: Printed by T. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill. p. 2.
anon. (4 November 1754b). "New-York, October 23". Boston Post-Boy. No. 1024. Boston, MA: Printed for E. Huske, Post-Master. p. 2.
anon. (11 November 1754c). "New-York, November 4". Boston Evening-Post. No. 1002. Boston, MA: Printed by T. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill. p. 4.
anon. (25 November 1754d). "New-York, November 18". Boston Evening-Post. No. 1004. Boston, MA: Printed by T. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill. p. 4.
anon. (31 December 1754e). "PLANTATION NEWS". London Evening Post. No. 4234. London: Printed by J. Meres, in the Old Baily. p. 1.
anon. (1 February 1755a). "LONDON". London Evening Post. No. 4248. London: Printed by J. Meres, in the Old Baily. p. 4.
anon. (31 March 1755c). "New-York, March 24". Boston Evening-Post. No. 1022. Boston, MA: Printed by T. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill. p. 4.
anon. (16 April 1759b). "New-York, April 9. 1759". Boston Evening-Post. No. 1233. Boston, MA: Printed by T. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill. p. 1.
anon. (13 August 1759d). "New-York, August 13". New-York Mercury. No. 365. New York: Printed by Hugh Gaine at the Bible & Crown in Hanover-Square. p. 3.
anon. (1 October 1759e). "New-York, October 1". New-York Mercury. No. 372. New York: Printed by Hugh Gaine at the Bible & Crown in Hanover-Square. p. 3.
Avery, W. L. (1900). "British Honduras". Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York. 32 (4): 331–333. doi:10.2307/197063. JSTOR197063.
Bialuschewski, Arne (2017). "Slaves of the Buccaneers: Mayas in Captivity in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century". Ethnohistory. 64 (1): 41–63. doi:10.1215/00141801-3688359.
Bialuschewski, Arne (2020). "Juan Gallardo: A Native American Buccaneer". Hispanic American Historical Review. 100 (2): 233–256. doi:10.1215/00182168-8178200. S2CID218799883.
Botella-Ordinas, E. (2010). "DEBATING EMPIRES, INVENTING EMPIRES: British Territorial Claims Against the Spaniards in America, 1670—1714". Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. 10 (1): 142–168. JSTOR23267356.
Carillo y Ancona, Crescencio (9 November 1878). "El orígen de Belice". Boletín de la Sociedad de Geografía y Estadística de la República Mexicana. 3. 4: 254–264. hdl:2027/mdp.39015008360342.
Joseph, Gilbert M. (1980). "John Coxxx and the Role of Buccaneering in the Settlement of the Yucatan Colonial Frontier". Terrae Incognitae. 12 (1): 65–84. doi:10.1179/tin.1980.12.1.65. OCLC5525852552.
Adams, Richard E. W.; Macleod, Murdo J., eds. (2000b). Mesoamerica. The Cambridge history of the native peoples of the Americas. Vol. 2 Pt. 2 (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521652049. ISBN9781139053464.
Burdon, John Alder (1931). Archives of British Honduras. Vol. 1 (1st ed.). London: Sifton, Praed & Co. OCLC3046003.
Cárdenas Valencia, Francisco de (1937). Relación historial eclesiástica de la provincia de Yucatán de la Nueva España, escrita el año de 1639. Biblioteca histórica mexicana de obras inéditas. Vol. 3 (1st ed.). Mexico City: Antigua Librería Robredo, J. Porrúa e Hijos. OCLC4660610.
Calderón Quijano, José Antonio (1944). Belice 1663 (?)-1821. Publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de la Universidad de Sevilla. Vol. 5 (1st ed.). Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos. OCLC2481064.
Chamberlain, Robert Stoner (1948). The conquest and colonization of Yucatan, 1517–1550. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication. Vol. 582 (1st ed.). Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington. hdl:2027/txu.059173008409431.
Demarest, Arthur A.; Rice, Prudence M.; Rice, Don S., eds. (2004). The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition and Transformation. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. ISBN0870817396.
García Bernal, Manuela Cristina (2018). "Francisco de Montejo". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico. Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
Jones, Grant D. (1989). Maya resistance to Spanish rule: time and history on a colonial frontier (1st ed.). Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN082631161X. OCLC20012099.
Kinsbruner, Jay; Langer, Erick Detlef, eds. (2008). "Wallace, Peter". Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Vol. 6 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Cengage. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
Raithby, John, ed. (1819b). Statutes of the Realm. Vol. 5. s.l.: Great Britain Record Commission.
Roys, Ralph L. (1957). The Political Geography of the Yucatan Maya. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication. Vol. 613 (1st ed.). Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.