Today, about 12% of the population of Belize are Maya. At the peak of the vast Mayan empire, archeologists estimate that 1 to 2 million Mayans lived within the borders of Belize.

Colonial history
The Spanish were the first to lay claim to the area now known as Belize, having colonized the area now know as Belize in the 16th and 17th centuries. The British, however, were the first to actually settle in the territory. Pirates sheltered inside the reef, using the small cayes as a base for attack against Spanish ships. By the late 1600’s many British settled along the coast, making their living cutting logwood. These British settlers came to depend on slave labor for the harsh logging work in Belize.

Many skirmishes between the British Baymen and the Spanish arose, for the Spanish still claimed control of the area. The showdown came on September 10, 1798, at St. George’s Caye when Baymen chased Spanish ships away from what had come to be known as British Honduras. The date is still celebrated as a national holiday in Belize.

Ethnically diverse culture
In the days of the Baymen, work crews of slaves accompanied their owners to the logging camps in the interior of Belize. According to a 1790 census, 75 percent of the territory’s residents were slaves, 10 percent were whites, and the rest were free blacks. Ignored by the census were the Mayan Indian communities.

Belize society today is ethnically diverse and culturally rich. Historically it is a country of immigrants, with even most of the Mayan tracing their roots to Mexico or Guatemala. The ancestors of the mestizo population lived at one time in the Yucatan. Both groups of Belizeans – the Creoles and the Garifunas – trace their origins to Africa by way of the Caribbean.

During most of this century Creoles were the largest ethnic group, followed by mestizos, Garifunas, and Mayas. As of the 1991 census mestizos outnumbered the Creoles. This multi ethnic country is also home to communities of German Mennonites, Chinese, East Indians, and immigrants from the Middle East.

Creoles
Belizean Creoles are the descendants of slaves brought from Africa and the West Indies. Generally to be Creole means to have some African ancestry, but is now used primarily to identify non-Indian, non-mestizo ways of life, with a set of social values derived from the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Garifuna
In the early 19th century the Garifuna created a niche in Belizean society. Scattered along the Caribbean coast, the Garifuna people initially came to Belize from Honduras. The Garifunas are a cultural and racial fusion of African slaves, Carib Indians, and a sprinkling of Europeans. It is traditionally claimed that they arrived on the shores of British Honduras on November 19, 1802.

Maya
Mayan communities are found in many parts of Belize. The Mopan Maya, of the southern districts, were historically a lowland group that inhabited Guatemala. Culturally, these Maya have much in common with the traditional Maya of northern Belize. Their economy is a mixture of subsistence crops and cash crops.

The Kekchi Maya also migrated to Belize from Guatemala to escape enslavement by German coffee growers. Clustered in the south, they are Belize’s poorest and most neglected ethnic group. Their language has few similarities with that of other Mayans. The Kekchi maintain contact with their ancestral communities in Guatemala.