Roatan Island History

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Early Settlers

The bay islands consist of three primary islands; Roatan, Guanaja and Utila (refer to map).  The first recorded history of the Bay Islands was the discovery of Guanaja island by Christopher Columbus in 1502, then named Isla De Pinos because of the numerous pine trees.  The island was claimed for Spain. Roatan Island was named for the ancient Indian town of Roa, that was located in the vicinity of what is now Port Royal on the island.  The people of this primary island village traded with the Maya as well as various Chibchan speaking groups, some of which appear to have been the ancestors of the Bribri of Costa Rica.  The village of Roa was the major village out of four Indian settlements on the island and was totally destroyed by the Spanish under the combined leadership of Villalva & Toledo from Havana and Guatemala in the year 1650. 

In the early 1600's, a Virginian attempted to establish a colony on the bay island of Roatan but abandoned the island within four or five years. In the middle 1640's, English, Dutch and French were raiding Spanish shipping in island waters and the English settled the area of Port Royal on Roatan in 1642. (During the 1600's it was estimated that Roatan was the home of at least 5,000 French, English and Dutch pirates).  Four Spanish warships attempted to drive the English from Port Royal in 1650, however the Port was well fortified and they withdrew. The Spanish recruited additional men from the mainland and returned to outnumber the English 10 to 1.  After extremely hard fighting the Spanish overtook the port and subsequently moved Indians remaining on the island to the mainland of Guatemala.

By 1742 the British regained possession of most of the Caribbean coast of Central America and Roatan.  British Major Caulfield commanded Roatan in 1745 and established a number of settlements which are still there today. In March,1782 the Spanish coordinated a heavy attack on the forts at Port Royal and destroyed 500 dwellings and the English evacuated their settlements in the Bay Islands.

By 1825, the British had again taken the island and decided there was strategic importance of re-establishing settlements on Roatan and between 1827 and 1834, English settlers began arriving there. In 1852, under the auspices of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, a regular form of government was established under the control of a British Superintendent in Belize.

The United States was greatly disturbed with the British move calling it a  violation of a Treaty signed in 1850 where neither England nor the United States would establish colonies or possessions in the Western Hemisphere. At a convention held in Guatemala in 1859, England agreed to turn over the Bay Islands to Honduras in return for freedom of action in British Honduras (renamed Belize in 1974).  A majority of islanders still speak English and history indicates stable English rule was preferred to the confusion of Honduran rule.

After the civil war, many US Confederates refused to sign the oath of allegiance and headed for Central and South America.  The Jackson family who today are very visible in Roatan are descendents of that southern heritage. 

Buried Treasure?

The reefs surrounding Roatan and mangrove swamps discouraged Spanish settlements in the late 1500's and early 1600's but conversely attracted a great number of pirate ships which were able to get through cuts in the reef and maneuver in the shallow channels to escape from the heavier Spanish ships. The most famous of these pirates was Henry Morgan known for robbing a Panama bank and carrying off all the loot a ship could carry. 

Considerable gold was being mined in Honduras and shipped through Caribbean waters. Pirates were able to raid the ships with gold and return to the sheltered waters of Roatan to hide, fix their boats and bury their treasure.

Some of the first reported buried treasure found on Roatan was in the 1920's and 1930's. A Doctor Ball using his compass on one of the keys found the compass spinning very abnormally and told his friend Mitchell Hedges who was there to explore the ruins of the pirate fortress at Old Port Royal. The two deducted only a large amount of metal would make a compass so behave and began digging and within minutes uncovered four large wooden chests loaded with golden doubloons. After re-burying their find and continuing to look for more, one of Hedges excavators reported someone had seen them digging and had gone to Coxen Hole to report them to the police. Taking no chances, Hedges, his daughter and Ball were able to hurriedly get three of the chests on their boat and quickly set sail. Anchored at sea, Hedges went in a second smaller boat into the town of Belize, the capital of British Honduras and made (or bought) three new chests for the gold. The three then went to the mainland and booked passage on a steamer going to New York with their bounty now labeled as Maya artifacts. The treasure was sold for $6,000,000 in New York and Hedges moved to England where he bought a castle.

Other treasures taken by the Spanish have completely disappeared and Roatan was thought to be an ideal location for hiding pirated items. One such item is the chain of Huascar taken from Cuzco, the Inca capital when Pizarro marched across Peru. Another was a seven foot tall golden virgin created by Spanish priests in Panama City.  Spanish records show it being shipped from Panama City to Colon in the mid 1700's but never showing up in Colon.  One individual searching the island for these items in the 1960's was Howard Jennings. He and two others looking with metal detectors were unsuccessful locating these items but found a chest of silver and gold chain at a pirate ruin named Augusta (later renamed Fort Frederick).  Shortly after their find and while heading back to Oak Ridge they spotted a small island known as the Cow and the Calf. Howard spotted what looked to be an ancient stairway going up toward the top of the rocky island and thought it strange anyone would build stairs on such a small island.  They stopped and while checking along the stairs, the detector let out a strong signal. In heavy rain, they began scraping away the mucky ground and ran into rusty metal and within minutes uncovered yet another old treasure chest. This chest was loaded to the brim with golden doubloons. Unloading the doubloons they found the chest still heavy so they smashed the wood bottom with a shovel and found a secret compartment of silver bars. Being tipped off the police were looking for Jennings, the three split the fortune in pirate loot and Jennings left the island. He and his wife later moved back where he helped build the first airport on Roatan.  

Garifuna's

The island of St. Vincent in the eastern Caribbean was inhabited by a tribe of Indians calling themselves Arawaks.  Another tribe from mainland South America invaded St. Vincent and conquered the Arawaks, killed the men and took their women as wives. The union of these two tribes were called Garifuna (Ga-reef-a-na) which means "cassava eating people".  The Spanish called them "Caribes" (Caribs) meaning cannibals from which the name "Caribbean" descended.

In 1635 two Spanish ships carrying Nigerian slaves shipwrecked on St. Vincent, and eventually the Nigerians and Caribes or Garifunas intermarried.  St. Vincent had become a British colony and in 1795 the Garifunas wanting to be independent battled the British and each side suffered heavy losses.  The Garifunas surrendered in 1796.  St. Vincent was populated by slave owning Europeans.  Free black skinned men living on the island was unacceptable so the British hunted down, rounded up and killed hundreds of Garifunas and destroyed their homes.  Thousands were  shipped to Balliceaux where many died of yellow fever and in 1797 the survivors were shipped to Roatan. Later the Spanish captured Roatan and took many of the Garifunas to Trujillo on the mainland where laborers were needed.  They were skillful farmers and some were conscripted into the Spanish army and were reported to have served with distinction.  In 1802, the Spanish took some Garifunas  to be woodcutters at Punta Gorda, Belize, (British Honduras at that time). Back in Trujillo, Garifunas now found themselves in the country of Honduras after independence was achieved from Spain. With strong Honduras sentiment against Spain who they had aligned with, large numbers fled to British Honduras. This migration is a major holiday in Garifuna communities and celebrated every November 19.  Today the Roatan village of Punta Gorda is almost entirely Garifuna.