Like other islands in the West Indies, Jamaica was resorted to by many Tory planters from the continental colonies, and apparently had no sympathy with the struggle of the latter for independence. It was a colony having a large slave population, and after the separation of the continental colonies became, to some degree, a competitor with them. The abolition of slavery in the island (1830-1837) had a great influence on the slavery conflict in the United States.
103. British Honduras (1600-1798).
Lawless character of English settlers.
Belize, or British Honduras, on the eastern shore of the Yucatan peninsula, was not occupied by Englishmen until after the suppression of freebooting in the Spanish main,—about the opening of the eighteenth century. At that time parties of English dyewood and mahogany cutters, many of whom had been pirates, established themselves at Belize. Their holdings were frequently beset by rival Spanish logging companies, but in 1798 the latter were expelled.
English rights questioned.
Since that day Belize has existed as a prosperous Crown colony, although England's legal right to the country is still questioned by some authorities, and in 1846 this fact gave rise to serious diplomatic difficulties with the United States.
104. Newfoundland (1497-1783).
Early settlements.
Newfoundland is the oldest of the colonial possessions of Great Britain. We have seen (page [25]) that John Cabot discovered it in 1497, that Cortereal was there for the Portuguese in 1500, and that by 1504 fishermen from Normandy, Brittany, and the Basque provinces were regularly engaged on its shores. It was the nucleus for both French and English occupation of the mainland, and from the first an important fishery station.
Not until 1583 did the English take formal possession, and it was much later before any of their numerous colonizing schemes attained any great measure of success.