Marshall Bennett (born before 1775 – 1839)[1] was a British merchant and plantation owner with interests in sugar and mahogany, entrepreneur and company promoter, active on the east coast of Central America.
[8] In April 1823, Edward Codd, incoming Superintendent of British Honduras, sent Bennett in his capacity as chief magistrate, with his clerk, on the Mexican Eagle to investigate conditions at the settlement.
[12] The major sugar estate at San Jerónimo came to Bennett, purchased by a consortium including local interests, and the mahogany rights to his London vehicle the Eastern Coast of Central America Commercial and Agricultural Company.
His main interest there was mahogany logging, while the ostensible reason for the grant was colonisation, and by 1836 Bennett was in trouble with the Guatemala government of Mariano Gálvez for lack of compliance.
[14] The Mosquito Coast mahogany concession was held by Bennett with the politician Francisco Morázan, at this period president of the Federal Republic of Central America.
While Bennett made efforts to perfect the hold on mahogany cutting in the region, opposition rose, in the form of protectionism at Belize, which the Board of Trade ruled out, and illicit logging.
Bennett decided to back off from enforcement of the monopoly there, partly because the current Miskito king, Robert Charles Frederick, had given permission, and the eastern boundary of the Federal Republic of Central America was hardly clear there.