First occupations and Spanish expeditions in Belize In 1494 the
Treaty of Tordesillas was signed, claiming the entire western
New World for Spain, including what is now Belize. Then in the mid-16th century Spanish
conquistadors explored this territory, declaring it a Spanish colony incorporated into the
Captaincy General of Guatemala on December 27, 1527, when it was founded. In 1530 the conqueror
Francisco de Montejo attacked the Nachankan Maya and Belize but failed to subdue the Maya to Spanish rule, The first Spanish settlers that emigrated in Belize was in 1544, in
Lamanai. It was there where the first church was built, in 1570. So, this city reflects considerable European influences. Spanish missionaries arriving in 1550 evangelized the area's population of
Ch'ol people (a language group belonging to ethnic group
Q'eqchi' people), reaching the
Amatique Bay (present Province Verapaz, in the southern half of the current Belize). However, few Spanish settled in the area because of the lack of the gold they'd come seeking and the strong resistance of the
Maya people. Between 1638 and 1695, the Mayans residing in
Tipu enjoyed autonomy from Spanish rule. But in 1696, Spanish soldiers used Tipu as a base from which to pacify the area, with the support of missionary activities. In 1697 the Spanish conquered the
Itzá, and in 1707 forcibly resettled the inhabitants of Tipu in the area of
Lake Petén Itzá.
The struggle between Spain and Britain over control of Belize In 1717, after the British settlement in Belize between the sixteenth and the seventeenth, the Spanish army led by Marshal Antonio Silva Figueroa and Lazo, governor of the Yucatan Peninsula, expelled the English from the
Belize River delta area.
19th and 20th centuries Around the 1840s, thousands of
Maya people and
mestizos were driven from the area of Bacalar during the
Caste War (1847–1901), They settled in the
Corozal,
Orange Walk Town, and
Cayo District, as well as in the city of
San Pedro in
Ambergris Caye. About 7000 Mexican mestizos immigrated during these years. In the 1870s-1880s, the
Kekchi emigrated from
Verapaz, Guatemala, where their lands had been seized for coffee plantations and many of them enslaved. They settled villages in the
Toledo District, living mainly by maize farming and fishing the streams. The
Mopan originated in Belize but most were driven to
Guatemala after the British assumed control of Belize in the late 18th century, after the Battle of St. George's Caye. They returned to Belize around 1886, fleeing enslavement and taxation in
Petén. After 1958,
Mennonite groups in
Mexico emigrated to Belize, settling in the north and west of Belize (
Mexican Mennonites may have intermarried with native-born mestizos and Mexican mestizos). Then between 1980 and 1990 thousands of undocumented migrants moved to the central and western parts of the country. Approximately 40,000 Salvadorans (including
Salvadoran Mennonites), Guatemalans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans immigrated to Belize in this decade of strife in neighbouring countries. Some 25,000 were from
El Salvador and Guatemala. == Demography ==