February 18, 2025, by lzzre

Historical Records and Extreme Climate Events in Colonial Belize: Challenges and Limitations (ICARUS, Belize)

Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah Metcalfe and the ICARUS team

 

Navigating historical archives in search for extreme climate events presents a range of challenges and limitations, stemming both from the broader complexities of historical research and the unique context of the specific country under investigation. As part of the Integrated Climate Resilience Understanding (Belize) project, the group has analysed an extensive collection of published and unpublished historical records housed in repositories across the UK, Belize and Spain. The aim was to identify extreme climate events, such as droughts, hurricanes, and floods that occurred in Belize from the second half of the 18^th century until its independence in 1981, and to assess their impacts on the local population and environment.

Belize has a peculiar and complex history. Inhabited by independent Maya groups in the northern region, the country was first visited by the Spaniards in the 1530s. Although Belize was nominally annexed to the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Spaniards never settled permanently in the region. Rich forest resources started to attract British loggers, who by 1716 had begun settling the area around modern-day Belize City and performing regular commercial activities, raising Spanish concerns. It followed a century fraught with military skirmishes between the Spanish forces coming from southern Yucatan and the fragile British community, which eventually obtained the complete control of the area from 1798. In 1871, the settlement became a crown colony under the name British Honduras and grew heavily dependent on mahogany exports, with agriculture remaining largely secondary until the mid-20th century. The colony officially changed its name to Belize in 1973 and obtained independence in 1981.

The history of Belize as a contested space between two rival imperial powers has significantly shaped the documentation of its past. Collections of colonial Belize documents are dispersed across several countries. Records from the Spanish colonial presence, spanning the 16^th to late 18^th century, are primarily housed in Spain, with the Archivo de Indias in Seville and the Archivo Nacional in Madrid serving as the most important repositories. Historical records produced by British settlers from the 18^th century onward are mainly preserved in the UK, particularly at The National Archives in Kew and the Cambridge University Library. Additionally, a relatively small yet important collection is held by the Belize Archives and Records Service in Belmopan, Belize (BARS).

One of the main limitations experienced in studying the available historical documentation was the reduced number of sources available for colonial Belize. The country was only partially occupied by the Spaniards and by the early 19^th century, British settlers had established themselves primarily in the central-northern regions. In addition, the gradual and fragmented expansion into Belize from the mid-19th century led to a scarcity of historical sources, particularly for the western and southern areas of the country. The number of historical records produced increased dramatically from the second half of the 19^th century with the publication of local newspapers and of several annual colonial publications. However, great amounts of documentation were completely lost due to the severe hurricanes of 1787, 1931 and 1961, which destroyed large parts of Belize City, the former capital and main repository for colonial documentation. Furthermore, in 1962, a significant quantity of materials was destroyed following instructions from the Colonial Office in 1961. These directives, sent to all colonies undergoing independence processes, mandated the disposal of documents from the colonial administration that could be perceived as reflecting racial prejudice. This explains the gaps in colonial records from certain decades within the collections in Belmopan.

Such limitations have made our search for weather anomalies even more challenging. Climate related information can potentially appear in every kind of historical record, from private letters to official records, newspapers, illustrations and financial reports. However, reliable insights on extreme events, particularly prolonged anomalies such as droughts, typically come from long-term settlers, whose extended presence in specific regions allowed them to recognise which events were abnormal. The scarcity of European settlers living in Belize during the Spanish colonial period hampers the reconstruction of historical weather events for the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The permanent British settlement established from the 18^th century provides the environmental historian with a larger amount of historical records. Official letters of colonial administrators and British newspapers from the late 18^th century documented the occurrence of severe hurricanes and flooding at the end of the century. Reports on mahogany logging activities from the mid-19^th century offer valuable climate-related insights, as logs were transported by river floods during the wet season, and any hydrological changes caused by weather anomalies were typically documented in newspapers or colonial reports. Long droughts began to be reported from the mid-19^th century, as prolonged dry spells increasingly stressed the fragile water supply system, which was already barely sufficient to meet the needs of the growing urban population even in normal conditions.

However, challenges exist also in the reconstruction of climate anomalies of the 19^th century. As colonial Belize was largely dependent on forestry resources, agriculture was still limited by the early 20^th century. The scarcity of agriculture-related documentation for this period is a major drawback, as reports of agricultural and farming activities typically provide lengthy descriptions of weather anomalies and their impacts on plantations. The increasing economic importance of agriculture in the first half of the 20^th century coincides with the appearance of important records for historical climate reconstruction. The annual colonial reports of the Department of Agriculture, published from 1935, documented numerous extreme climate events across the country and highlighted agricultural adaptations and strategies to respond to challenges such as the droughts of 1949 and 1955. In a similar way, starting from the 1930s, a growing number of meteorological stations were established across the country, recording monthly precipitation. These records, which complemented the first instrumental data collected in Belize City since the 1860s, have proven essential for studying rainfall variability and identifying the duration of exceptional droughts and wet periods.

For more information on ICARUS and our latest activities, please check our Twitter @ICARUS_Belize and our website https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/icarus/. See also the previous blogs https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/2023/03/27/integrated-climate-resilience-understanding-icarus-belize/ and https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/2023/08/08/climate-change-and-agriculture-in-tropical-countries-integrated-climate-resilience-understanding-icarus-belize/.

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