by Joe Jackson
205. that nearly doubled production every five, then every three years Henry Hobhouse, Seeds of Wealth: Four Plants That Made Men Rich (London: Macmillan, 2003), p. 134.
206. More than half of these were Henry Ford’s Model Ts Hobhouse, Seeds of Wealth, p. 131.
207. They pitched it John R. Millburn and Keith Jarrott, The Aylesbury Agitator: Edward Richardson: Labourer’s Friend and Queensland Agent, 1849-1878 (Aylesbury, Queensland, Australia: Buckingham County Council, 1988), pp. 28-31. Archives of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.
207. the violence in the Australian frontier claimed the lives “Statistics of Wars, Oppression and Atrocities in the Nineteenth Century,” http://users.erol.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm.
208. Carl Lumholtz, a Norwegian anthropologist Carl Lumholtz’s Among Cannibals (London, 1890), is quoted in G. C. Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away: A History of North Queens to 1920 (Sydney: Australian National University Press, 1970), p. 95.
208. “There is nothing extraordinary in it” The Queensland Figaro is quoted in Raymond Evans, “ ‘Kings’ in Brass Crescents: Defining Aboriginal Labour Patterns in Colonial Queensland,” in Indentured Labour in the British Empire, 1834-1920, Kay Saunders, ed. (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 196.
208. “These children are brought in and tied up” Ibid., p. 196.
208. “a runaway black child could be hunted and brought back” Ibid., p. 199.
209. “in spite of the restrictions on board” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 6.
209. his real hope was to cultivate the leaf Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part V—Pioneering in North Queensland” (Jan. 2, 1954), p. 17.
209. It cost about £110 J. C. R. Camm, “Farm-making Costs in Southern Queensland, 1890-1915,” Australian Geographical Studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (1974), p. 177.
209. “Dear Land,” as they called it Geoffrey Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 165-167. The Crown Land Act of 1868 and the Homestead Act allowed the selection of 80- to 160-acre homesteads, and records show that about 3 million acres were taken. But about half of this went to 267 people, which translated into vast sugar plantations and, in the north, cattle ranches.
209. “assured him if he could produce that quality” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 7.
210. “once more there was the old work of cutting down the site for the house” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 7.
210. “which rather amused his neighbors” Ibid.
210. “When the dew was off I set fire to it” Ibid.
210. “Saddles, flour, etc., might have been saved” Ibid., p. 9.
210. “leaked the whole way” Ibid., p. 10.
211. “Rain does not express it” Ibid., p. 9.
211. “After having burnt out, it seemed necessary for me to try the water cure” Ibid., p. 10.
211. “I fell asleep” Ibid.
212. “cutting off the leaves and young shoots . . . even on the other side of the creek” Ibid., p. 9.
212. farmers discovered that if they could get the victim drunk on rum Charles H. Eden, My Wife and I in Queensland: An Eight Year’s Experience in the Above Colony, with Some Account of Polynesian Labour (London: Longmans, Green, 1872), pp. 146-147.
212. “You may imagine I slipped out of it as quickly and quietly as I could” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 9.
213. “The fowls are just having bad dreams” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 8.
213. “Directions for Tobacco Growing and Curing in North Queensland” Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part V—Pioneering in North Queensland,” p. 17.
213. “I did not need anyone with me” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 8.
213. “though I expect I considerably scandalized those neighbors” Ibid.
214. a number of government commissions The regulations enacted for Kanaka labor can be found in the following sources: Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part V—Pioneering in North Queensland,” pp. 17-18; G. C. Bolton, Planters and Pacific Islanders (Croydon, Victoria, Australia: Longman’s, 1967), pp. 22-23; G. C. Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away: A History of North Queens to 1920 (Sydney: Australian National University Press, 1970), pp. 79-83; “Queensland Sugar Industry,” MacKay Mercury, Sept. 25, 1878; and the Royal Commonwealth Society Archives, Cuttings of the Queensland Sugar Industry, GBR/0115/RCMS 294.
214. “The Kanaka is at best a savage” “The Labour Question,” The Queenslander, May 14, 1881. Royal Commonwealth Society Archives, Cuttings of the Queensland Sugar Industry, GBR/0115/RCMS 294.
214. “A favorite device . . . was to hold up two or three fingers” Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, p. 79.
214. “breaking in” Ibid.
215. From 1883 to 1885, nearly seven thousand people were kidnapped or duped Kay Saunders, “The Workers’ Paradox: Indentured Labour in the Queensland Sugar Industry to 1920,” in Indentured Labour in the British Empire 1834-1920, Kay Saunders, ed. (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 226.
215. “The chief Magistrate of the district” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 7.
215. “[W]e found them trustworthy” Ibid., pp. 7-8.
216. “I have often wondered . . . whether it was not a plot” Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part V—Pioneering in North Queensland,” p. 19.
216. “probably little more than sufficient for the fares home” Ibid.
Chapter 11: The Talking Cross
217. “agreed to join a friend in journeying to British Honduras” Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part VI—Pioneering in British Honduras,” India Rubber Journal, vol. 126 (Jan. 9, 1954), p. 17.
217. “I let him go back some six months in advance” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 11.
218. a world record The James Stafford’s passage across the Pacific was a record for sailing ships that would stand until 1995.
218. the origin of Belize City Sir Eric Swayne, “British Honduras,” Geographical Journal, vol. 50, no. 3 (Sept. 1917), p. 162; John C. Everitt, “The Growth and Development of Belize City,” Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 18, no. 1 (May 1986), p. 78.
219. logwood sold for about £100 a ton Swayne, “British Honduras,” p. 162; David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1995), p. 150. Cordingly puts the trade in perspective. Logwood was profitable, but not the most profitable trade of the time. During the same period, the colonies of Virginia and Maryland were together exporting seventy thousand hogs-heads of tobacco annually worth £300,000 each year. “Log cutting was always a minor industry carried on by a few hundred ex-seamen and pirates in a remote corner of the globe,” Cordingly said (p. 150), but in British Honduras at the time, it was the only game in town.
219. By 1705, the British shipped most of their logwood from the Belize River area According to a government report, some 4,965 tons of logwood were exported to England from 1713 to 1716 at no less than £60,000 per annum. By 1725, the production had increased to 18,000 tons a year.
219. mahogany exports climbed to twelve thousand tons Robert A. Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism: The Mosquito Shore and the Bay of Honduras, 1600-1914, A Case Study in British Informal Empire (London: Associated University Presses, 1989), p. 103.
220. the white population dropped from 4 percent in 1845 to 1 percent in 1881 Everitt, “The Growth and Development of Belize City,” p. 93, file folder 85.
220. “monied cutters” Ibid., p. 90.
221. the colony’s treasury, which had a £90,000 surplus Everitt, “The Growth and Development of Belize City,” p. 96. Actually, the public works improvements that cast Goldsworthy as the villain had been conceived before he arrived. Known as the Siccama Plan of 1880, named after Baron Siccama, the engineer who devised it, this was a comprehensive and ambitious scheme for municipal
improvements that proposed filling in low-lying lots, increasing water-storage facilities, building a pier, and dredging the canals, which had not been cleaned since the 1860s. It is easy to see why the government had a surplus. It had never addressed these major problems, which ran quickly through the surplus when the Siccama Plan was begun. Because of the controversy, the plan was abandoned, and Belize returned to its old pattern of squalor and decay through the rest of the century.
221. “never for one moment ceased to be a friend of the least reputable portion” Wayne M. Clegern, British Honduras, Colonial Dead End, 1859-1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), p. 80, quoting the October 4, 1890 Colonial Guardian.
221. The governor was fond of the rubber thief Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part VI—Pioneering in British Honduras,” p. 17.
221. Goldsworthy may have prayed that he’d never have to return When he left the Colonial Offices at Government House, he received a military salute from an honor guard, but as his barge steered past the breakwater, the crowd collected there hissed and jeered. Goldsworthy responded with a “sardonic” gesture, and that unleashed a storm. Some women and children tried to throw stones from the roadside, but the police prevented that, so they rushed into the lagoon, plucked rocks from the bottom and began chucking them at the barge. The crew of the barge pulled for all their worth to escape being pelted; when they reached the steamer, a lighter passed and on it a citizen held up a white banner with the words “Catfish Still Uneaten” in red letters, a reference to Goldsworthy’s comment that “he’d make the people eat catfish before he was done with them.” The steamer took an hour to get under way: the crowds at the wharf jeered and hooted; the lighter circled and circled, dipping its flag. Clegern, British Honduras, Colonial Dead End, 1859-1900, p. 78, quoting the October 23, 1886, Colonial Guardian.
221. “Whether it was simply a matter of completing a routine tour of duty” Ibid., p. 80.
222. “A friend and I persuaded him to take a Government post” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 12.
222. Henry did a little of everything National Archives, Kew, Honduras Gazette, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1893. CO 127/6,7, & 8: Honduras Gazette, May 7, 1887, p. 78; Honduras Gazette, Dec. 17, 1887; Honduras Gazette, May 12, 1888, p. 81; Honduras Gazette, Dec. 15, 1888, p. 215; Honduras Gazette, May 4, 1889, p. 75.
222. In 1890, he became inspector of forests Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part VI—Pioneering in British Honduras,” p. 17.
222. “Being in contact with the Governor I was invited” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 11.
223. “Mr. Wickham is a large-framed idealist, dreamy, sympathetic” Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part VI—Pioneering in British Honduras,” p. 17.
224. “I believe [Peck’s] errand to be somewhat fanciful” National Archives, Kew, Colonial Office: British Honduras, Register of Correspondence, 1883-1888, CO 348/10. Despatch No. 5: “Mission of Mr. J. B. Peck of New York to British Honduras,” Sir Roger Goldsworthy, January 17, 1888. What follows is the text of Goldsworthy’s dispatch to the Foreign Office, showing his amusement and naming Wickham as the dig’s watchdog:Sir:I have the honor to inform you that a schooner-rigged yacht the “Maria” arrived at this port in the 28th Ultimo from New York, in charge of a Mr. John Benjamin Peck, said to be a special Treasury agent of the United States.
On the day of his arrival the mails from America brought news that Mr. Peck’s journey to Belize, though supposed to be in search of hidden treasure, was in reality connected with some filibustering expedition against the neighboring friendly republic of Honduras.
Mr. Peck’s action, on arrival, in endeavouring to enter into a business agreement with the Belize Estate and Produce Company in relation to his intention to search for treasure on lands belonging to that company and his subsequent steps to secure my approval, subject to such conditions as I might wish to impose, appeared sufficient proof to me, apart from the visit of two Customs House officers on board the “Maria” to ascertain whether he was armed, that Mr. Peck’s object was seemingly what he represented it to be, and that there was, at least at present, no hostile intentions to be apprehended.
I informed the Consuls of Guatemala and Honduras accordingly, letting them understand that any news I might receive contrary to these convictions should be at once communicated to them, and they have expressed themselves gratified by the courtesy shown to their governments by my action.
I enclose a copy of the agreement that I entered into with Mr. Peck in the event of his finding another “Solomon’s Mines” and you will observe that it has been drawn up so as to meet the possible case of treasure trove being found on Crown Lands when I would claim the whole on behalf of the Crown under the common law of England, subject to surrender in part or whole under subsequent arrangement—Mr. Wickham accompanies the expedition on behalf of the Government as a precautionary measure.
I enclose herein copy of a despatch which I have addressed to Sir Lionel Sackville, British Minister at Washington.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
Roger Tuckfield Goldsworthy, Governor
224. eight hundred thousand dollars in gold specie A list of shipwrecks along the Belizean coast is found in “Overview of Belizean History,” www.ambergriscaye.com/fieldguide/history2.html.
224. An iron human skeleton Lindsay W. Bristowe, Handbook of British Honduras for 1891-1892, Comprising Historical, Statistical and General Information Concerning the Colony (London: William Blackwood, 1891), p. 46.
224-25. “[Henry] believes they really were on the spot” . . . with all hands during a gale Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 18; Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part VI—Pioneering in British Honduras,” p. 18.
225. “[W]ild tales are told of men” Swayne, “British Honduras,” p. 167.
225. jumped in the channel and swam home Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham: Part VI—Pioneering in British Honduras,” p. 18. Author’s note: Lacking Violet’s thoughts, I asked my wife, Kathy, what her response would be. “Being gone a night is a lot better than dead,” she replied.
225. “Strange as it may seem in a colony so old” J. Bellamy, “Report on the Expedition to the Corkscrew Mountains,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, vol. 11, no. 9 (Sept. 1889), p. 552. Original in Royal Geographical Society Archives, JMS/5/73.
226. “congested state of the mother country” Ibid.
226. “impossible . . . to recover lost ground” Swayne, “British Honduras,” pp. 164-165.
226. “Mr. Wickham continued the ascent” Bellamy, “Report on the Expedition to the Corkscrew Mountains,” p. 549.
226-27. “the final ascent became in sensation very like crawling over the edge of a great sponge” Bristowe, Handbook of British Honduras for 1891-1892, p. 24.
227. “returning with the good news of his success” Bellamy, “Report on the Expedition to the Corkscrew Mountains,” p. 549.
227. “having recovered sufficient breath” Ibid., p. 550.
227. “During the night one of the Carib porters” Ibid.
228. In 1850, the Mayan insurgents were on the brink of defeat Information on the Caste War of the Yucatán, Chan Santa Cruz, and the Talking Cross comes from a variety of sources: Nelson A. Reed, The Caste War of Yucatan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); “Chan Santa Cruz,” www.absoluteastronomy.com; “Caste War of the Yucatan: Information from Answers.Com,” www.answers.com; “Northern Belize—The Caste War of the Yucatan and Northern Belize,” www.northernbelize.com; “Historic Folk Saints,” http://upea.utb.edu/elnino/researcharticles/historicfolksainthood.html; J. M. Rosado, “A Refugee of the War of the Castes Makes Belize His Home,” The Memoirs of J. M. Rosado, ed. Richard Buhler, Occasional Publication No. 2, Belize Institute for Social Research and Action, (Belize: Berex Press, 1977); A
rchives of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London; Swayne, “British Honduras,” p. 164; Jennifer L. Dornan, “Document Based Account of the Caste War,” www.bol.ucla.edu/~jdornan/castewar.html; Jeanine Kitchel, “Tales from the Yucatan,” in www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/yucatan/tales; “Statistics of Wars, Oppression and Atrocities in the Nineteenth Century,” http://users.erol.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm, quoting “Correlates of War Project,” www.correlatesofwar.org.
228. The Talking cross was not God Himself, but Santo Jesucristo, God’s intermediary Spanish “testimonials” from the Cross were written for the Chosen. The most famous and important promised that the whites would lose and the People of the Cross would win.
229. “We are . . . a people living under our own laws” National Archives, Kew, Colonial Office: British Honduras, Register of Correspondence, 1883-1888, CO 348/10. Despatch No. 11, Enclosure 2: “A Statement by the Santa Cruz Indians,” January 8, 1888.
