[5] As the British consolidated their settlement and pushed deeper into the interior in search of mahogany in the late 18th century, they encountered resistance from the Maya.

The Legislative Assembly had given large landowners in the colony firm titles to their vast estates in 1855 but did not allow the Maya to own land.

One group of Maya, led by Marcos Canul, attacked a mahogany camp on the Bravo River in 1866, demanding ransom for their prisoners and rent for their land.

Early in 1867, more than 300 WIR troops marched into the Yalbac Hills and destroyed several Mayan villages, provision stores, and granaries in an attempt to drive them out of the district.

The European minority exercised great influence in the colony's politics, partly because it was guaranteed representation on the wholly appointed Legislative Council.

Much of the gum was tapped in Mexican and Guatemalan forests by Mayan chicleros who had been recruited by labour contractors in British Honduras.

A short-lived boom in the mahogany trade occurred around 1900 in response to growing demand for the wood in the United States, but the ruthless exploitation of the forests without any conservation or reforestation depleted resources.

The mahogany trade remained depressed, and efforts to develop plantation agriculture in several crops, including sugarcane, coffee, cocoa, cotton, bananas and coconuts failed.

Men such as Robert S. Turton, the Creole chicle buyer for Wrigley's, and Henry I. Melhado, whose merchant family dealt in illicit liquor during prohibition, became major political and economic figures.

The Legislative Council resisted but eventually passed a resolution agreeing to give the Governor reserve powers to obtain disaster aid.

[5] Meanwhile, the Belize Estate and Produce Company drove Maya villagers from their homes in San Jose and Yalbac in the northwest and treated workers in mahogany camps almost like slaves.

In 1931 the Governor, Sir John Burdon, rejected proposals to legalise trade unions and to introduce a minimum wage and sickness insurance.

A group calling itself the Unemployed Brigade marched through Belize Town on 14 February 1934, to present demands to the Governor and started a broad movement.

For the next few weeks, Soberanis and his colleagues in the LUA attacked the Governor and his officials, the rich merchants, and the Belize Estate and Produce Company at biweekly meetings attended by 600 to 800 people.

But when the new constitution was passed in April 1935, it included the restrictive franchise demanded by the appointed majority of the Legislative Council, which had no interest in furthering democracy.

The Citizens' Political Party and the LUA endorsed Robert Turton and Arthur Balderamos, a Creole lawyer, who formed the chief opposition in the new council of 1936.

Working-class agitation continued, and in 1939 all six seats on the Belize Town Board (the voting requirements allowed for a more representative electorate) went to middle-class Creoles who appeared more sympathetic to labour.

Employers among the unofficial members at the Legislative Council defeated a bill to repeal these penal clauses in August 1941, but the Employers and Workers Bill passed on 27 April 1943, finally removed breach-of-labour-contract from the criminal code and enabled British Honduras's infant trade unions to pursue the struggle for improving labour conditions.

The General Workers' Union (GWU), registered in 1943, quickly expanded into a nationwide organisation and provided crucial support for the nationalist movement that took off with the formation of the People's United Party (PUP) in 1950.

[5] Before the end of January 1950, the GWU and the People's Committee were holding joint public meetings and discussing issues such as devaluation, labour legislation, the proposed West Indies Federation, and constitutional reform.

Belize Billboard editors Philip Goldson and Leigh Richardson were prominent members of the PUP and gave the party their full support through anti-colonial editorials.

The colonial administration, alarmed by the growing support for the PUP, retaliated by attacking two of the party's chief public platforms.

In July 1951, the Governor dissolved the Belize City Council on the pretext that it had shown disloyalty by refusing to display a picture of King George VI.

By 1961, the United Kingdom was willing to let the colony become independent and from 1964 controlled only defence, foreign affairs, internal security, and the terms and conditions of the public service.

The stalemate in the protracted negotiations between the UK and Guatemala over the future status of Belize led Belizeans after 1975 to seek the international community's assistance in resolving issues associated with independence.

[5] The territorial dispute's origins lay in the 18th-century treaties in which Great Britain acceded to Spain's assertion of sovereignty while British settlers continued to occupy the sparsely settled and ill-defined area.

In February 1948, Guatemala threatened to invade and forcibly annex the territory, and the British responded by deploying two companies from 2nd Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment.

As a result, in 1965 the United States President Lyndon Johnson agreed to mediate and proposed a draft treaty that gave Guatemala control over the newly independent country in areas including internal security, defence and external affairs.

Exports of mahogany continued as an economic mainstay, as commercial agriculture remained unprofitable due to unfavourable colonial tax policies and trade restrictions.

The Confederate settlements in British Honduras introduced large-scale sugar production to the colony and proved that it could be profitable where others had previously failed.