In Search of Maya Sea Traders

CHAPTER 3. Trips to Town and Visitors to the Cay

part from an occasional visitor to the island or our infrequent trips to Punta Gorda for provisions, our only contact with the outside world was the evening news from the “Voice of America” on Frank’s radio. We listened with some interest as the British military responded to the crisis in the Falkland Islands. Frank, Adel, and other local people in Punta Gorda and Punta Negra believed that if the British lost the Falklands’ war, then the Guatemalans would regard the British military as weak and would invade Belize. Because Guatemala was involved in a lengthy civil war, this was an unlikely scenario , but there had been frequent border skirmishes between British and Guatemalan soldiers. With its independence from Spain in the nineteenth century, Guatemala had inherited a legitimate claim to Belize.1 The economy of Punta Gorda was fueled by the presence of the nearby British army base at Salamanca. An additional economic boon to Punta Gorda was provided by the Voice of America’s Central American relay station, located on a 600 acre tract of land outside of Punta Gorda. Many of the town’s small stores and businesses were supported by regular purchases by the British army and the Voice of America. Over the years, I learned to buy my supplies from a variety of stores around town. Initially this strategy was aimed at distributing what money I had since most of the stores carried the same, limited array of canned and dry goods. In time, moreover, I learned which stored offered interesting or different foods, and I sought them out in order to vary our rather predictable diet. With a population of around three thousand, Punta Gorda was both the largest community in Toledo and its 24 CHAPTER 3 TRIPS TO TOWN AND VISITORS TO THE CAY A capital. Unfortunately, despite its regional importance on market days, Punta Gorda was a backwater in the larger Belizean economy. The Toledo district was agricultural, with Maya settlements on reservation land, as well as a medley of Creole, East Indian, Chinese, Black Carib, Confederate descendants, missionaries, and foreign-aid workers. Although originally a Black Carib community, over the years Punta Gorda had become dominated by East Indians, who owned many of the ubiquitous, small grocery stores in the town. In 1868, after the U.S. Civil War, American Confederates from the South arrived at Cattle Landing, immediately north of Punta Gorda.2 The Toledo and Young Company, who had purchased a tract of land in southern Belize, had offered former Confederates an opportunity to leave the United States. The company had already been logging mahogany in southern Belize, landing cattle for hauling the trees at Cattle Landing . The Confederates brought with them indentured servants from India to work the land. Faced with the daunting task of clearing the tropical rainforest to build new homes and plant crops, many of the Confederates returned to the United States after only a few years, leaving their indentured servants and their land. The government eventually reallocated the land.3 The East Indians and Caribs had fared well in Punta Gorda. The Texaco gas station was strategically located at the entrance to Punta Gorda from both the sea and the land (figure 3.1). With the only public dock in town, the station provided boaters the entrance to the town as well as boat gas. Otherwise, this coastal community was oriented toward land activities. The station faced north to welcome vehicular and pedestrian traffic from outside the community, either from the surrounding Toledo district or from points farther north. From the Texaco station, people follow either Front Street along the sea or Main Street, which is removed from the sea. People in town take little notice of the sea. Of course, we stood out as among the few foreigners in Punta Gorda, especially since we came by dory. Apart from foreign aid workers, foreigners usually arrive by ferry or bus and leave as soon as they can find transportation. Punta Gorda is on the tourist route but is not often a tourist destination. Everyone arriving in Punta Gorda, leaving town, or living there comes to the Texaco station for gasoline, kerosene, car batteries, or various other services , such as air travel arrangements. Truck-buses from the outlying Maya villages stopped at the Texaco station in Punta Gorda on Wednesdays and Saturdays, bringing the Kekchi and Mopan Maya Indians to sell their produce in the Punta Gorda market and to buy dry goods from...