Belize, a small, newly independent country in Central America, has recently garnered a great deal of the world's attention with its commitment to the protection of the environment and its promotion of eco-tourism. This book presents a full and diverse picture of such a unique country and its history. It contains some of the best research presented at the Second Interdisciplinary Conference on Belize. The conference has succeeded in building a scholarly community for Belize scholars and in promoting the study of a country that has perhaps been unjustly understudied. The conference papers gathered in this book serve as an introduction to Belize and to current scholarship taking place in the country. Papers and their authors include: International Migration and the Ruralization of Belize, 1970-1991, Louis Woods, Joseph Perry, Jeffrey Steagall and Ronald Cossman; A History of Banking in Belize, Anthony Gabb; Predicting the Past and Preserving It for the Future: Modeling and Management of Ancient Maya Residential Sites, Scott Fedick; Population and Ethnicity of Belize, 1861, Michael Camille; The Festival of Arts: British Hunduran, Belizean, and National, Michael D. Philips.

British Honduras (1951) examines this most neglected of the British colonies, from the early days of settlement by the logwood-cutters and buccaneers up to the post-war period. It examines the first occupation by British adventurers, consolidation by buccaneers and the early quarrels with the Spanish, up to the more recent disputes with neighbouring Central American republics. It ends with an analysis of the modern colony, its economic and commercial status and proposals for development by the British government.

This book identifies over 7,500 persons who lived or came to Belize (British Honduras) from the mid-18th century to the early 19th century. Mrs. Murray has added lengthy annotations to the source materials that shed light on the events and persons who figure in the sketches. Belize's population comprised Spanish, Scottish, English, Irish, African.

The Sisters of the Holy Family, founded in New Orleans in 1842, were the first African American Catholics to serve as missionaries. This story of their little-known missionary efforts in Belize from 1898 to 2008 builds upon their already distinguished work, through the Archdiocese of New Orleans, of teaching slaves and free people of color, caring for orphans and the elderly, and tending to the poor and needy. Utilizing previously unpublished archival documents along with extensive personal correspondence and interviews, Edward T. Brett has produced a fascinating account of the 110-year mission of the Sisters of the Holy Family to the Garifuna people of Belize. Brett discusses the foundation and growth of the struggling order in New Orleans up to the sisters' decision in 1898 to accept a teaching commitment in the Stann Creek District of what was then British Honduras. The early history of the British Honduras mission concentrates especially on Mother Austin Jones, the superior responsible for expanding the order's work into the mission field. In examining the Belizean mission from the eve of the Second Vatican Council through the post–Vatican II years, Brett sensitively chronicles the sisters' efforts to conform to the spirit of the council and describes the creative innovations that the Holy Family community introduced into the Belizean educational system. In the final chapter he looks at the congregation's efforts to sustain its missionary work in the face of the shortage of new religious vocations. Brett’s study is more than just a chronicle of the Holy Family Sisters' accomplishments in Belize. He treats the issues of racism and gender discrimination that the African American congregation encountered both within the church and in society, demonstrating how the sisters survived and even thrived by learning how to skillfully negotiate with the white, dominant power structure.

Clare Anderson provides a radical new reading of histories of empire and nation, showing that the history of punishment is not connected solely to the emergence of prisons and penitentiaries, but to histories of governance, occupation, and global connections across the world. Exploring punitive mobility to islands, colonies, and remote inland and border regions over a period of five centuries, she proposes a close and enduring connection between punishment, governance, repression, and nation and empire building, and reveals how states, imperial powers, and trading companies used convicts to satisfy various geo-political and social ambitions. Punitive mobility became intertwined with other forms of labour bondage, including enslavement, with convicts a key source of unfree labour that could be used to occupy territories. Far from passive subjects, however, convicts manifested their agency in various forms, including the extension of political ideology and cultural transfer, and vital contributions to contemporary knowledge production.