Bay Islands Department
The Bay Islands is a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Collectively, the islands form one of the 18 departments of Honduras. The departmental capital is Coxen Hole, on the island of Roatán.
Geography
The Bay Islands consist of eight islands and 53 small cays lying to off the northern coast of Honduras. These islands have been administered as a department of the Republic of Honduras since 1872. Located on the Caribbean Sea, not far east of the entrance to the Gulf of Honduras, they are clearly visible from the mountainous mainland.Islands
The total surface area of the islands is. In 2013, they had an estimated population of 71,500 people. The islands comprise three separate groups:- Swan Islands are the northernmost island group of the three.
- Islas de la Bahía are to the south.
- Cayos Cochinos are the southernmost island group of the three.
The island of Saint Helena has been described as a virtual extension of Roatán, since it is separated only by a long stretch of mangrove swamp. This island has a small elevated hill at its center, and is characterized by a large number of caves, most of which are located along a cliff on its western end.
Guanaja is the second largest island and is even more mountainous than Roatán. Geographically it features a series of hills, the highest of which rises to over 350 m above sea level, which is the highest elevation present in the Bay Islands. Alluvial plains characterize the areas between the hills.
Utila is third in size and is characterized by low mangrove swamps and a few small, low hills on its eastern end. The soils on this island are uncharacteristically fertile, perhaps owing to the islands's flat topography as well as volcanic tuffs and basalt lavas through coralline limestone.
Barbareta, Morat, and the Hog Islands are all small and rugged. Barbareta can be distinguished by the fact that it contains numerous hills, the tallest one reaching a height of, above sea level. Approximately one-third of Barbareta is covered by serpentinite, making it the island with the largest deposit of serpentine among the Bay Islands. Morat, the smallest and flattest island, consists of just one ridge with two hills, which are composed mainly of sedimentary rocks, with some serpentinite intrusions.
The Bay Islands have no rivers and a small number of streams, which usually end at mangrove swamps. There are, however, a large number of cool water springs in the Islands. Roatán features an intricate system of waterways on the south of the island, formed by the salt-water lagoons and drowned valleys on the island.
Environment
The archipelago has been designated an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it supports significant populations of white-crowned pigeons, chimney swifts and yellow-naped amazons.History
Pre-Columbian era
It is unknown exactly when human presence arrived on the islands, but archaeological studies find an organized presence on the islands long before European colonization. Archaeological sites such as Plan Grande in Guanaja show a level of sophistication and hierarchical organization of these towns throughout the archipelago. The islands served as a bridge between the intermediate area and the Mesoamerican world, since in addition to the presence of Intermediate peoples such as the Pech, evidence of Mayan presence and native Nahua speaking has been found.European arrival and early history
The islands were anciently known as Las Guanajas, from Guanaja, first seen by Christopher Columbus in his fourth and last voyage to the New World, on July 30, 1502. The Admiral named it 'Isle of Pines', and claimed it for Spain. It was from this island that he then encountered the coast of the American continent, on which he landed on the 14th of August following, at the point now called Punta Castilla de Trujillo.Pech Indians inhabited the islands, and they used boats to trade with Honduras, Yucatán, and Jamaica.
Notwithstanding Spanish laws prohibiting slavery, governors interested in the slave trade labeled the Pech Indians cannibals, hostile, and opposed to Christianity. Based on this information, Queen Isabella I of Spain issued a decree granting license to the Spaniards to capture and sell the islanders. Under this decree, Spanish slave traders from Cuba raided the Bay Islands continuously from the time of their discovery for the next 20 years. As a result, the population of the islands rapidly declined.
Diego Velasquez, governor of Cuba, in 1516 formally authorized several companies to trade in Indian slaves. In 1526, Hernán Cortés, who had conquered Mexico, marched to Trujillo to depose a rival conquistador from Cuba. The remaining Pech sought his protection, which Cortés provided. He drove away the slave traders, despite their licenses from the authorities in Cuba.
William Claiborne was the first non-Spanish European to attempt settling the Bay Islands, after being granted a patent in 1638 to begin a colony on the island of Roatán. The English would be involved in the Bay Islands for the next two hundred years.
Around this same period, Dutch, English, and French freebooters were leading raids on the Spanish in the Bay of Honduras. These raids largely avoided Claiborne's settlement.
In 1642, English settlers from British Honduras invaded and occupied Port Royal on Roatán. These same settlers also raided the Spanish, provoking an attempt by the Spaniards to drive them out of the colony. This attempt was initially unsuccessful, but in March 1650, the Spanish finally succeeded in retaking Port Royal.
English settlers in the Bay Islands
The events which followed, so far as they concern these islands, are thus narrated by the Bishop Pelaez: "On the 24th of September 1781, advices reached Truxillo, which were immediately communicated to the government at Comayagua, that certain Negroes and others, to the number of about 300 men, had constructed three forts at the entrance of the principal port of the island of Roatan, armed with 50 guns, and that three armed. Vessels cruised in the neighborhood, the object of the whole being to intercept the ships plying between the kingdom of Guatemala and Cuba. It was reported that these freebooters had 3000 barrels of provisions for their support, and that their object in holding the port was to make it a refuge for their vessels, which were no longer allowed to go-to Jamaica… When this information reached Guatemala, Viceroy Galvez, "made arrangements to expel the intruders."Colony of the Bay Islands
The English seem to have made no other demonstration on the islands during the 18th century. They remained in the undisturbed occupation of Spain. "In 1821, when the Central American provinces achieved their independence, the islands were under the jurisdiction of the state of Honduras. This state of things continued until May, 1830, when the superintendent of the British establishment of Belize, as a measure of coercion against the republic, which had refused to surrender certain runaway slaves, made a descent on Roatan and seized it on behalf of the British crown. The federal authorities remonstrated, and the act was disavowed by the British government.""The superintendents of Belize, however, seem to have kept a longing eye on the islands, and to have watched for a pretext to place them under their own jurisdiction. In 1838 their wishes were in part gratified. A party of liberated slaves...of the Grand Cayman islands, came to Roatan to settle. Col. Loustrelet, the commandant, apprised them that they could not do so without the permission of the state government of Honduras."
"A number applied for and obtained the requisite permission, and received grants of land. But another portion, incited by one or two white men among them, appealed, as British subjects, to the superintendent of Belize, Col. Macdonald, who immediately visited the island, in the British sloop-of war Bover, ran down the flag of Honduras, and, seizing Col. Loustrelet and his soldiers, landed them near Truxillo, and threatened them with death if they ventured to return."
The republic of Central America had meantime been dissolved, and the feeble state of Honduras was left alone to contest these violent proceedings. Her government remonstrated energetically, but without obtaining redress; and finally, in 1844, the British government instructed Mr. Chatfield, consul-general, to apprise the Honduras authorities, that "when Col. Macdonald hauled down the flag of that state in Roatan, it was by order of the British government... no act of sovereignty followed on the proceedings of Macdonald. Meanwhile, the Cayman islanders continued to emigrate to Roatan, and, in 1848, the population numbered upward of 1,000.
In 1850, the British organized the islands Roatan, Guanaja, Barbareta, Helena, Morat, and Utila into a colony under their rule, called the Bay Islands.
A small party in the island favourable to British interests, was active in their efforts to secure English protection. "When visited by Capt. Mitchell, E. N., in 1850, he describes them as "electing their own magistrates, by universal suffrage," and "quite ignorant under what government they are placed." A Mr. William Fitzgibbon was chief justice, and acting chief magistrate. Some time in this year, a petition was drawn up by the British party, addressed to the governor of Jamaica, asking him to name magistrates and assume supreme authority in the island.
Acting on this petition, Capt. Jolly in HMS Bermuda was sent to the islands. He called a meeting of the inhabitants, and declared them under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. Chief Justice Fitzgibbon protested against the whole proceeding... In spite of this protest, however, and backed by the guns of Bermuda, the authorities appointed by Sir Charles Grey were duly installed in the islands. Two years after this occupation, on March 20, 1852, a royal warrant was issued, constituting the islands a colony, under the title of "colony of the Bay islands," of which proclamation was made in Roatan, by Col. Wodehouse, superintendent of Belize, Aug. 10, 1852.