O. Nigel Bolland – författare

Independent from Britain only since 1981, the new nation of Belize is situated at the intersection of two cultural spheres: the English-speaking Afro-Caribbean countries and the Spanish-speaking Central American republics. Its scanty population of about 150,000 is culturally heterogeneous, and its various ethnic groups coexist in a complex pattern

This profile of Belize provides an introduction to the historical background and the contemporary culture, economy, and society of this microstate in light of the country's internal politics and regional relations with other Commonwealth Caribbean nations and the Central American republics.

The social history of Belize is marked by conflict; between British settlers and the Maya; between masters and slaves; between capitalists and workers; and between the colonial administration and the Belizean people. Belize shares many features with other parts of the Caribbean Central America, including a long history of colonialism and slavery, a dependent economy in which the ownership of land is highly concentrated, and the population which is largely poor. In this collection of essays, Boland analyzes the most import topics during three centuries of colonialism. Part One examines the early British settlement, the nature of slavery in Belize, and the development of Creole culture in the nineteenth century. Part Two analyzes the relations of between the Maya and the British in the nineteenth century. Part Three considers systems of labour control after Emancipation and discusses the origins of modern politics in the labour movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Part Four considers the complex issues of ethnicity and politics in the contemporary arena.