British Logwood Extraction from the Mosquitia: The Origin of a Myth

Hispanic American Historical Review 80.1 (2000) 113-135

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Research Notes

British Logwood Extraction from the Mosquitia:
The Origin of a Myth *

Karl H. Offen

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Fundamental to the historiography of Central America is the assertion that Englishmen began settling along the Mosquito Shore in the early seventeenth century in order to procure logwood for Europe's emerging textile industry. Indeed, according to Troy Floyd, "the most important event for Central American history was the English occupation of the coast at Cabo Gracias a Dios" in the 1630s. Attracted by the abundance of logwood and other dyewoods, so the story goes, Englishmen from the failed colony at Providence Island initiated the first of several Anglo settlements along the Caribbean coast of Central America (see figure 1). Logwood's alleged role in shaping regional dynamics only grew after European nations began to restrict privateering in the second half of the seventeenth century. At this time, Mary Helms claims, dozens of retiring pirates established logwood encampments "at virtually every cove and river mouth" along the Mosquito Shore. After the Belizean logwood merchant William Pitt moved to Black River along the coast of northeastern Honduras in 1732, the purported significance of logwood in directing Mosquitia developments increased dramatically. Writing in the HAHR some 15 years ago, Frank Griffith Dawson implicitly assumed that logwood had attracted the Belizean woodsmen to the Mosquitia because, as he put it, "logwood grew in abundance" around Black River. Likewise, in his influential study of the logwood trade, Arthur Wilson stated that the Mosquito Shore "figured prominently in the production of logwood from about 1740, when British logwood cutters first settled along that littoral." ¹ In short, scholars have identified logwood as the principal reason for initial English settlement in the Mosquitia and, correspondingly, have assumed that logwood was an important factor in sustaining British interest in the region.

The trouble with this historiography, and the nature of this commentary, is that there is no compelling evidence that Englishmen, or any other Europeans, actually acquired or shipped logwood from the Mosquitia, or for that matter from anywhere south of Belize. Indeed, the historical record explicitly shows that logwood was unavailable in the Mosquitia, and that other dyewoods, acquired from trade with the Spanish and originating from outside the Mosquitia, constituted only an insignificant fraction of regional commerce. Perhaps more troubling still is the fact that the Mosquitia's flora contains no logwood, nor any appreciable quantity of any other commercial dyewood. In actuality, there never was logwood in the Mosquitia, and Englishmen never procured any from there. In order to trace and dismiss the myth of logwood extraction from the Mosquitia, this article reviews the natural and humanized distributions of Mesoamerican dyewoods, outlines the commercialization of these woods, and reevaluates the historical evidence.

To be sure, the myth of logwood extraction from the Mosquitia is only one of many regional misunderstandings that have impeded a more critical and geographically sensitive assessment of social and environmental history along the Mosquito Shore. Unfortunately, our complacency with this myth has affected people's lives in concrete ways. Within Nicaraguan and Honduran historiography, for example, the myth of logwood extraction from the Mosquitia has symbolically anchored the tragic narrative of Anglo transgressions against Spanish sovereignty. ² Predictably, logwood underscores popular [Begin Page 116] understandings of British colonialism in the region and, in the case of Nicaragua, inaugurates a calamitous history of territorial violations and colonialist incursions. As such, a cornerstone of Nicaraguan national identity is indirectly riveted to the logwood myth. During the 1980s, when heated interpretations of Anglo influences informed Sandinista policies in eastern Nicaragua, logwood became a polemical symbol of European and capitalist expansion in general and Anglo imperialism in particular. ³ Dislodging the myth of British logwood extraction from the history of the Mosquitia is an indispensable first step toward a reevaluation of the cultural, ethnic, and ecological processes that British colonialism did instigate. Unfortunately, the myth of logwood extraction from the Mosquitia is so pervasive and self-replicating in...