File talk:British Colonies in North America c1750 v2.png

British Honduras did not exist circa 1750

The inclusion of British Hondura on a map of British Colonies c 1750 is wrong; it was not formally passed to Britain from Spain until 1802 (although it had been under effective Britsh control since 1796), and not made a colony until 1862 (although the use of "colony" to describe its status from about 1786 onwards would be reasonable even though not technically conforming to the specific constitutional status of the territory at that time).

Although Spain permitted some British settlements (but officially no British agriculture) in the area from 1736, and these settlers had instituted some local goverment (not recognised by anyone but themeslves) Spanish permission for British settlers to cut and export wood in a small part of what later became British Honduras was not formalised until the treaty of Paris (1763) and British recognition of the local government was limited to assistance provided by the British CinC Jamaica in 1765 in codifying the settlements' rules/regulations. The settlement declined, and by 1779 was extremely small, and thie remained true for about 4 years until settlers began drifting back and 1784 a "superintendent" was appointed by the Governor of Jamaica to keep the settlers in line. There was no move to establish any sort of British sovereignty, and indeed the Convention of London (1786) explicitly recognised Spain's ciontinuing sovereignty. This convention also extended the area in which British settlers were permitted to cut wood and export it, denied them the right to construct any form of fortification or undertake agricultural projects, and said that Spain would inspect the area to ensure the terms were observed every two years. It also required the British settlements in Western Honduras and in Nicaragua to be abandoned, resulting in 1787 a massive influx of new settlers to eastern Honduras (partly to the extended area in which the 1786 convention permitted them, partly to the original area designated in 1763), and these new settlers were much more strongly in favour of the area becoming British territority than the existing British settlers (perhaps because they didn't want to risk being moved again). In 1789 the settlers (or rather the local aristocracy, not most of the settlers) succeeded in deposing the superintendent (they didn't actually want the British telling them what to do) and a new one was appointed. British soveriegnty was not asserted untiil the outbreak of war between Britain and Spain in 1796 (a bizarre twist to the Napoleonic wars). The Spanish decided to get the British out of the area, and the British decided to support the settlers (which involved appointing a new superintendant and providing him with the means to whip the settlers into line) and after a short (1 week) battle in september 1796 the Spanish were driven off.Michealt (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2011 (UTC)