The Bay settlement, earliest predecessor state of modern Belize, is commonly thought to have been surreptitiously founded by British buccaneers, who thereby became the first Baymen, in the 17th century, during the Spanish or Precolonial periods of the country's history. Since the 19th century, however, historians have sought but failed to locate primary sources for said founding, resulting in a myriad competing narratives of said event in scholarly and lay literature, and in the mythicisation of the same, part of the broader romanticisation of pirates in popular culture. Traditionally, the settlement has been credited to Peter Wallace, and dated to 1638. Recently, though, this traditional account has been deemed a founding myth, such that scholars now mostly favour a circumspect account of a clandestine settlement by unnamed British buccaneers, dated to the 1630s to 1670s, located near the mouth of the Belize River, and brought about by participants' piratical acts or aims. The founding encroached upon Maya and Spanish territory, the latter of which led British and Spanish authorities to deem it illicit, and further displaced the indigenous Maya population.
Background
The south-western waters of the Bay of Honduras, off the south-eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, now encompassed by Belize, lay within Spanish (Bacalar district) and Maya (Mopan and Manche Chol polities) jurisdiction in the late 16th and throughout the 17th centuries. They are thought to have first served as a haven for Caribbean pirates in the late 16th century, possibly by the 1570s. The intricate, secluded geography (for safe haven), and proximity to Spanish ports (for easy booty), may have been the area's primary attraction for them.
Pirates first entered said bay in late 1544, when a patax of 22 French corsairs, Pedro Braques captain, were discovered off Honduras-Higueras by the Spanish. British pirates first did so in early 1573, when Francis Drake (in the ) or John Oxenham () cruised the bay and watered at Guanaxa. Elizabethan sea dogs are thought to have first made their way to Yucatan's south-eastern shores in late 1577 to early 1578, when some 60 British pirates sacked Bacalar, a deed attributed either to Francisco de Acles or John Barker. Once begun, British piracy in the bay extended to the 17th century more or less unabated, becoming infrequent only by the early 18th century.
Smuggling
The arrival and continued presence of pirates in the Bay of Honduras afforded Spanish merchants the opportunity to evade duties and taxes on the purchase and sale of goods at port. British and Dutch vessels were especially noted for being keen on this surreptitious trade. Spanish demand for smuggling in the bay is thought to have been paltry up to the 1620s though. According to Murdo J. MacLeod, "the situation altered significantly after 1630 as it became obvious that the flota system was decaying and the Spanish economy declining". In the 1630s and ensuing decades, then, official flota vessels became ever more infrequent in the bay, thus forcing Spanish merchants into increasing dependence on British and Dutch pirates to dispose of their goods. By the middle and late 17th century, smuggling in the bay had become "sporadic but fairly frequent", especially in indigo and logwood (for textile dyeing), "large quantities" of which found their way to British and Dutch markets without first entering Iberian ports, despite Spain's formal monopoly of said commodities.
Logwood, native to Yucatan and first used to dye textiles by the Maya, was recognised as a valuable good and so monopolised by the Spanish in the late 16th century, when the encomendero Marcos de Ayala Trujeque of Valladolid began cutting and shipping it in 1562. By the 1570s, Spain was receiving an annual average of some 200 tonnes of logwood from Spanish Yucatan, principally shipped from Campeche. The booming market is thought to have not long gone unnoticed by British sea dogs, who increasingly sought to loot the exclusive good. The rate and volume of logwood smuggling is, naturally, difficult to quantify, but is thought to have been substantial enough in England to warrant legislation there in the early 1580s. As the Spanish economy declined though, so too did the ready availability (to pirates) of Spanish-cut logwood. But as British demand for the stuff did not abate, pirates were ever more required to cut the logwood themselves. When, where and by whom exactly this was first done is debated, though it is generally thought to have become the norm for British pirates near Yucatan in or by the mid-17th century.
Political opposition In the Bay of Honduras and Yucatan, pirates posed a threat to Spanish people and property soon after their first arrival in the mid-16th century. By the mid-17th century, though, they (and others) would additionally threaten the Spanish state itself, by resisting or challenging Spanish claims to exclusive dominion in the region.
As regards Postclassic Maya polities that survived the conquest of Yucatan (most notably the Peten Itza kingdom and neighbours, like the Mopan and Manche Chol territories), these would not accede to Spanish authority until the decisive conquest of Peten in the 1690s. As regards those which did not (annexed by Spanish Yucatan), their former Maya residents would at times successfully defy Spanish rule, as was the case from the 1630s to 1690s for participants of the Tipu rebellion in the southern Bacalar district. Such resistance is thought to have drastically diminished what little power the Spanish had been able to project in the south-western bay.
As elsewhere in the New World, the British likewise challenged Spanish authority in and around the bay (within the western Caribbean). The earliest such instance is most often attributed to British and Dutch pirates who surreptitiously settled in said region (most notably in north-western Hispaniola, including Tortuga) in the early 17th century, thereby becoming buccaneers proper (pirates resident in the Caribbean). The first British settlement in the area, though, was Old Providence, off the Mosquito Shore (Miskito territory then). The proprietary colony was chartered in 1630, but the coast and islands had been frequented by pirates since the 1610s or earlier. In 1631, Old Providence made Anthony Hilton's settlement in Tortuga a dependency of theirs. In 1633, they had Sussex Camock establish a mainland outpost on Cape Gracias a Dios for trade with the Miskito. By 29 January 1636, they were granted letters of reprisal against the Spanish, and despatched privateers from May 1636 to July 1638. On 8 June 1638, they granted William Claiborne letters patent to settle Rattan. The Spanish captured the colony on 17 May 1641, but some residents may have sought refuge in Gracias a Dios or Rattan.
Founding
The Bay settlement is traditionally said to have been founded by British buccaneers in the 17th century. According to Boston University archaeologist Daniel R. Finamore, "the romantic but commonly held view of the history of Belize begins with a haven of free-spirited and adventuresome pirates occasionally sneaking out of hiding amid the cayes and reef system to perform piratical acts of independence against Britain's economic oppression and Spain's cultural conceit. They eventually become attached to the place so they find legitimate livelihoods, prosper, form a government, and are eventually rewarded with the status of a colony of the British Empire".
This general account is sometimes further specified, most often by identifying the founding Baymen's captain as Peter Wallace, naming their ship (the Swallow), tallying their number (circa 80 men), locating the site of their landing (near the mouth of the Belize River), or dating their arrival (to 1638). Versions of both the general and specific accounts remain common in lay literature on Belize, and in the country's popular culture. The latter, however, are now deemed founding myths by historians, as no primary sources for such particular details have been identified.
In scholarship Like their brethren the buccaneers, early Baymen are not thought to have been assiduous record-keepers, leaving historians with scarce few primary sources on the Bay settlement in the 17th and 18th centuries. As said gap in the historical record has been filled with local myths and legends, the work of distinguishing fact from fiction has become a vexing proposition, leading some scholars to characterise the problem of Belize's founding as . According to Amherst College historian Mavis C. Campbell, "when, then, did the British begin to settle in the part of Yucatan we call Belize today? This is an even more stubborn question than that of Spanish settlement of the territory, and we will probably never be able to answer it precisely. We may have to rely on Sir Harry Luke's proposition that 'as a British Colony British Honduras, like Topsy, never was born but just grow'd.' This is in contrast to the more regularly established British colonies in the region, which were acquired either by royal patents or by conquest and settlement". According to London University historians Barbara and Victor Bulmer-Thomas, "all Caribbean countries, with one exception, can document the date of first permanent settlement by Europeans with some accuracy ... The one exception is Belize, whose British origins have been shrouded in a mixture of fact, myth, legend, naivety and dishonesty ... we will never know with certainty who the first settlers were [but there is] a certain justice in this, however, since we will also never know who were the first Palaeo-Indians or Maya in Belize".
Nevertheless, the aforementioned general account (British buccaneers in the 17th century) enjoy widespread support in current scholarship. Most often, contemporary historians date the founding to some decades within the mid-century (1630s to 1670s), locate the event to the mouth of the Belize River or thereabouts, and propose that the founding Baymen sought a haven, logwood, or had been shipwrecked.
Historical Accounts of the Bay settlement's founding were first proffered in literature in the 18th century. In the ensuing centuries, dozens of competing theories arose in anglophone and Hispanic historical literature on Belize. The following table lists these.