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Belize History, Ambergris Caye History
Antonio Mathe for $9,000.00. Mathe later died bankrupt and the bank ordered the Caye to be auctioned. On
September 13th, 1869 Mr. James Humes Blake purchased the Caye for $625.00. Mr. Blake at the time was a
Magistrate in Corozal, northern Belize. The island was passed down to members of the Parham and Alamilla
families who married into the Blake family.

The Blake family (a family of British descent but living on the mainland of then British Honduras) were land
owners and business people. They were in the logwood business – a tree that was logged heavily in Belize and used
for die. When there was a substitute found for the dye, they moved into the chicle business. Trees (the sapodilla)
used for extracting rubbery material used for bubble gum.

In the 1870s, the Blake family bought Ambergris Caye and started a coconut business. Mr Blake and his wife from
the Alamilla family moved to San Pedro to run that venture.

For years, the island was all about coconuts. And the land owners were the Blakes, the Alamillas and later the
Parhams. Laborers grew, husked and dried coconuts (called copra) for shipment to the United States.

Throughout the next 50 years, settlers developed the island's fishing industry, planted and harvested coconut
plantations and contributed to the islands distinct beauty and history.

The economic base of the island has switched between fishing, logwood, chicle, coconuts, lobster, and tourism.

Ambergris Caye has a long dry season that extends from March through May. The other 9 months average 50
inches of rain. Average temperature is 89-94 degrees during the summer and 70-85 during winter. A few
hurricanes have hit the island, but the reef offers sturdy protection, and no lives have been lost.

The logwood on the island was useful to the European wool industry to make dies, so about 1890 contractors
employed San Pedranos to fell the huge logwood thicket on the island. Difficult work, it wreaked a toll on the
workers. Market forces served to kill this industry around 1910.

The base for chewing gum, chicle, was derived from the juices of the sapodilla tree, which were bled to get the raw
material. Around the turn of the century, Ambergris Caye began to derive income from this industry. Still the hub
in the area, San Pedro became a growth town overnight as the huge new fields in the Quintana Roo area were
opened up for production.

Wealthy individuals provided funds to hire workers to bleed chicle in certain areas. Groups of three to four men
would bleed and cook the sap. They then sold the chicle to the contractor. Effectively, it was the age-old system
where the worker works all day and owes the boss at the end of the day. And a class of involuntary servitude was
created.

Eventually, by the Depression of the 1930's, the chicle boom collapsed as a result of the general economic malaise
plus the development of synthetic substitutes for chewing gum base.

The coconut industry was central to the island economy from the 1880's through the 1930's. Brought by the
Spaniards, this crop thrived in Ambergris Caye. The Blakes, Alamillas and Parham's, the most influential families
of the times, also owned most of the coconut plantations that were established on the island. The work was capital
intensive, and San Pedranos served as the workers, not as farmers. Sometimes having to wear nets over their
entire bodies while they worked, the insects were a bad problem for the working crews. The nuts were picked,
peeled, then delivered to storage sheds where they were shipped to Belize City.

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