It is nearly 20 years since the first edition of this book was published under the title Thirteen Chapters of a History of Belize, and much has happened since then. Thus there was a clear need for a new edition, and Assad Shoman is to be congratulated for taking on the task. The result is an impressive journey through several centuries of Belizean history that brings the story up to date while sharpening the focus and shortening the treatment of the period before 1990 given in the first edition.
Shoman has managed to limit the new edition to 13 chapters despite adding much new material. This new content covers the internal politics of Belize up to 2008, the impact of globalisation on the country and the twists and turns of the diferendum with Guatemala. The treatment of the latter is exceptionally good and, if the dispute ever goes to the International Court of Justice, this book would be an excellent starting place for the general reader.
When he wrote the first edition, Shoman was primarily a politician. Since then, he has become a diplomat, serving his country with distinction at different levels. However, armed with a PhD from the University of London, he has also become an academic. The result is a much improved text, in which the earlier material has been subject to the author's critical gaze while gaining at the same time from Shoman's wealth of experience in public life.
It is sometimes argued that politicians should never write histories that cover years and events in which they have been involved. Often that is true. However, histories – especially national histories – are always political. The key is whether the author can demonstrate the requisite amount of objectivity in dealing with contemporary circumstances. Shoman has done so handsomely. Not everyone will be happy with his analysis, but he has always tried to be fair.
Belize, for such a small country, has had a rich historiography. Yet it is easy to forget how, until comparatively recently, it was dominated by a perspective that put foreigners first and Belizeans second. That bias has gone and Belizeans are now centre-stage. In this transformation Assad Shoman has played a leading role and the second edition of Thirteen Chapters adds a maturity to the historical debates in Belize that will serve the country well in future.
The book begins with the Maya, whose occupation of the country now called Belize did not end before the Spanish invasion, as used to be argued by British scholars. On the contrary, the Maya presence has been continuous, although it was much reduced in number after the Spanish finally defeated the Itza in northern Petén in 1697. This modest numerical presence and the lack of interest by the Spanish authorities, for whom land without labour had no attraction, created the opportunity for a permanent British presence.
These settlers may have been British, but they were still squatters on land that the British government acknowledged was sovereign Spanish land. Indeed, it was a century before the Spanish granted these settlers any rights at all and even then, in 1763, it was usufruct rights only. Not being a colony, however, had certain advantages for the British settlers, as they were not subject to the Navigation Acts and could sell their export commodities (logwood and later mahogany) anywhere they wanted.
It was another century before Belize became a colony (as British Honduras in 1862). During this period, when Belize was known as a British settlement and enjoyed a large measure of autonomy, the foundations of modern Belize were laid. Land was turned into freeholds with a highly concentrated structure, and the lands held by the British state were not rented or sold to smallholders. Shoman is very good on this period, which he has studied in great depth.
The Settlement in the Bay of Honduras, to give it its official title, was prosperous. This was due partly to the timber boom but also to the virtual monopoly that Belize enjoyed in the entrepôt trade with Central America after its independence from Spain. Almost all the region's imports of manufactured goods passed through Belize, while most of its commodity exports did so as well. This monopoly was only seriously challenged when the Panama railway opened in 1855.
The colonial period (1862–1981) was a dispiriting experience. Power was gradually taken from the settlers and handed to colonial officials; the mahogany trade entered into crisis in the 1860s; and the logwood trade started to disappear after the 1890s. When President Ubico (1931–44) repudiated the 1859 Anglo-Guatemalan treaty, putting the border in doubt, the entrepôt trade also ground to a halt. Social and economic conditions deteriorated rapidly and the ground was prepared for the rise of the nationalist movement in the 1950s.
Shoman was one of the leading actors in the nationalist movement that finally took the country to independence in 1981. Britain at first resisted, but its opposition had been overcome by the 1960s. From then on it was the Guatemalan territorial claim, still not resolved, that posed the biggest obstacle to independence. How that was achieved, despite the Guatemalan claim, is in fact the subject of another book by Shoman, Belize's Independence and Decolonization in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), so he does not spend as much time on the topic in this book as some readers might wish.
As I write this review, Belize is celebrating 30 years of independence. That is an important milestone, but celebrations are necessarily muted in the light of the relatively poor performance of the economy, the rise of domestic corruption, the excessive influence of some foreigners, the violence associated with the drugs trade, the persistence of high levels of unemployment and the unresolved dispute with Guatemala (inherited, one should stress, from the British). All this is treated sensitively and intelligently by Shoman, who does not back away from the difficulties Belize still faces and will continue to face for some time.
