Bay Islands History ‘thumbnail’……..

 I was recently asked by my chum and fellow scribbler to write him a brief history of the Bay Islands as a foreward to his new book ‘Life On Roatan’ ( LifeOnRoatan.com ) and he thought it came out quite well . I enjoyed writing it anyway !  Reading about History can be tiresome and end up being a tedious littany of dates and names , I think , if it is not brought alive and given geographical relevance…… Anyway here it is :  It should come as no surprise really to any Historian , Geologist or Anthropologist that recent Bay Islands history ( 1990’s to the present ) is consistent with its overall story ever since the Caribbean tectonic plates pushed against the North American plate at the long Sierra de Omoa faultline to push the edge of it out of the sea millions of years ago to form the Bonacca Ridge , the Bay Islands as we know it today. This convergence of Latin American , North American , European and Caribbean influences has been a constant throughoutour history here.           I jumped at the chance to write about Bay islands History , of course , when Chas asked me to write a forward to his latest book. Besides writing , I derive great pleasure from researching and sharing my findings. There have been many academic papers written about our Anthropology and Geology but much remains unknown or unsolved thus far ; we don’t know exactly when the Bonacca Ridge was formed , we still don’t know if the Paya Indians were indeed the only Indians to have lived here before. Besides being a long time resident here for the past 17 years Chas shares my curiosity of our History among other things and having lived here since the relative beginnings of the development boom has seen much change and has a lot to share from his experiences and local knowledge.        The original inhabitants prior to the Europeans were most likely the Payan Indians ; a conclusion disputed by many archeologists during the 10 known expeditions to the islands since 1924. There is evidence of the presence of Maya , Lenca and Jicaque aborigines in the Bay Islands however the strongest evidence points to the Payas , specifically a group originating south of Trujillo. Evidence unearthed by Islanders in recent history point to mostly residential sites but also offertory , burial and some ceremonial ( interestingly the largest and most significant being on an 40 acre site on Utila and several acre site in Plan Grande , Guanaja ) . Yaba Ding Dings ( Indian artefacts ) being a common find throughout the Bay Islands drew amateur archeologists as well as looters to the aboriginal sites. Sadly, the first Bay Islander’s idyllic lifestyle of fishing , farming and turtling started its decline with the arrival of the first Europeans , from Spain , with Christopher Columbus’s first voyage in 1504.       Slowly the Spaniards began to take control of the Indian’s lives and they were subject to the same treatment as other indigenous peoples in accessible locations the world over for around 136years , first being raided and enslaved , Christianized and then exploited as labourers. Their legacy today are the old pieces of pottery jars strewn around the hills of the Islands , a few interesting monoliths in Guanaja and their names which could be where the 3 islands names originated ; Wa-nak-ka ( Guanaja ) modern Payan word for ‘cloud’ , Arroa or Roata ( Roatan ) modern Payan for ‘Pine’ and Uu-tia ( Utila ) meaning ‘sand-water’. It was not until 1638 that another European Imperial power , the English , challenged Spanish control of the region when the Puritan settlement of the Providence Company under William Claiborne and a group of English and Scots emigrants from Virginia and Maryland settled in what is Old Port Royal today. The colony , however , was short-lived ,lasting just 4 years . Besides Claiborne’s cousin , Captain Butler making a nuisance of himself by burning down the four Indian towns in the islands and creating strife with them , England was in the midst of a civil war and as a result there was no protection available in the Caribbean . By the end of 1642 most of the settlers were evicted and the Islands remained sparsely populated with the only inhabitants being the few remaining Paya who had not died , ran away to the continent or been enslaved. A few English settlers who remained turned to darker ways and joined in the wave of Piracy that was sweeping the Caribbean filling the power vacuum left by the Spanish and English .      There is much commercialization of the fact that the Islands were once frequented by Buccaneers ; the name of the infamous Henry Morgan is used frequently but it is disputed that The Bay Islands were his base of operations , more likely he just passed through to collect water or victuals or careen his vessels on more than one occasion. Two of the most notorious Pirates who were known to have used the Islands ( Guanaja being a favourite because of its deep protected harbour ) were Blackbeard ( Edward Teach or Thatch ) who would careen his vessel Queen Anne’s Revenge at a shallow bar east of the Airport called Thatch Point , named after him ; the other notoriously violent Pirate who made Roatan his sanctuary was Edward ‘Ned’ Lowe whose ghastly cruelty was documented by Philip Ashton who escaped Lowe on a victualing and water supply trip to Port Royal and was subsequently marooned , escaping certain death . The young Ashton spent 2 years in between islands until rescued and his story is included in Edward Leslie’s , Lost Journeys ,Abandoned Souls. Many other Buccaneers were rumoured to have passed through , since the islands were ideally positioned as a refuge after attacking Spanish ships carrying Indian treasure looted by the conquistadors from the Spanish Mainland . Names like John Coxen ( after whom Coxen’s Hole is named ) ,