Late Colonial Era, and Independence
Guatemala declared its independence from Spain in 1821, and the UK did not accept the Baymen of Belize as a crown colony until 1862, 64 years after the Baymen's last hostilities with Spain. This colony became known as "British Honduras".
Under the terms of the Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty of 1859, Guatemala agreed to recognize Belize and Great Britain promised to build a road from Guatemala to the nearby Belize city of Punta Gorda. In 1940, Guatemala claimed that the 1859 treaty is void because the British failed to comply with economic assistance provisions found in Clause VII of the Treaty. Belize, once independent, claimed this was not a treaty they were bound by since they did not sign it (and that an International Court of Justice ruling and international laws demand that Guatemala honour the boundaries in the 1859 treaty even if the UK never builds the road as promised).
Read more about this topic: Belizean-Guatemalan Territorial Dispute
Famous quotes containing the words late, colonial and/or independence:
“If a liberal policy towards the late Rebels is adopted, the ultra Republicans are opposed to it; if the colored people are honored, the extremists of the other wing cry out against it. I suspect I am right in both cases.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.”
—Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755)