Roatán is an island in the Caribbean Sea. It is a part of Honduras, located about fifty miles from the north coast of the Honduran mainland. Roatán has a colorful past that weaves together stories of Indians, invaders, pirates, buried gold, as well as a mix of races and languages.
When Columbus found a neighboring island called Guanaja in 1502, the islands were already populated. Artifacts and caves left behind by these early inhabitants remain today. Other Spanish explorers came after Columbus. The Spanish began mining gold and silver on the Honduran mainland.
They enslaved the native Indians and brought slaves from the African continent to work in the mines. The Spanish established cattle ranches to produce food for the miners.
Both Spanish and English settlers came to Roatán. William Claibourne of Virginia received a patent from the Providence Company authorizing him to establish a colony on the small island in 1638.
There were quite a few Spanish ships moving through the Bay of Honduras and there were Spanish settlements on Roatán. The pirates attacked the ships and raided the settlements.
Van Horne, a Dutchman, raided Spanish-Indian settlements in 1639. English and French pirates also terrorized the area. In 1642, English raiders from present-day Belize occupied the old Port Royal on Roatán, which lies slightly to the east of present-day Port Royal. Many white descendants with English names and heritage live on the small island these days.
The Spanish, seeking to rid the area of pirates so they could transport gold from the New World to Spain in peace, attacked Port Royal with four warships under the command of Francisco Villalva Toledo in 1650. The pirates successfully defended Port Royal, Roatán, which forced the Spanish to return to the mainland in search of reinforcements. With the pirates completely outnumbered and with fierce fighting, the pirates were conquered. The Spanish rounded up the remaining Indians on the island and resettled them in Guatemala.
In 1742, the English once again settled Roatán. Major Caulfield was in control of the island. His letter to Mr. Trelawry, Governor of Jamaica, documents the Spanish efforts to recapture Roatán. The English settlements that were sketched by Her Majesty’s geographer Thomas Jeffreys included settlements that still bear the same names to this day. Calkett’s Hole was shown, but today it is called Coxen Hole. Coxen Hole is the largest town on Roatán. Falmouth Harbor is now called Oak Ridge.
The English lost Roatán in March 1782. The Spanish positioned troops and cannons against the forts and defeated the English. The Spanish destroyed about 500 men. The English abandoned the island entirely in 1788. In 1797, the English expelled some 5,000 Black Caribs from the small Windward Island of St. Vincent, moving them from island to island, eventually leaving them on Roatán. Black Caribs are a mix of people of African descent, as well as Carib Indians and Arawaks.
Europeans began to settle Roatán again with the return of the English between 1827 and 1834. With the prohibition of slavery in the English colonies in 1833 and with the depletion of soil on Grand Cayman Island due to cotton cultivation, some families British left Grand Cayman and settled on Roatán and neighboring Utila. Many of the descendants of Joseph Cooper, one of the Utila settlers, still live on Utila.
The Jackson family, a wealthy and influential family on Roatán today, originated in the American South in the 19th century, descending from a Confederate soldier who refused to surrender to the Union. A southern accent is still perceptible in her vocabulary.
Somewhere around 200 white people lived on “Coxen’s old kay” in 1840. Ten years later, the island’s population had grown to 5 or 6 thousand people. In 1852, the British authority appealed to Her Majesty Queen Victoria to establish Roatan along with other islands to become a British colony. The United States of America objected, citing a treaty signed to create the Panama Canal that prohibited the United States of America and Great Britain from establishing new colonies in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1859 England relinquished power over the Bay Islands. The Republic of Honduras accepted the Bay Islands as the “Department of the Bay Islands”, officially making the islands part of Honduras. For several years after coming under Honduran rule, islanders of English descent continued to claim English citizenship, despite the fact that those born in Honduras after 1861 are Hondurans by law.
Although Spanish is the national language and is spoken on Roatán, the English language also lives on Roatán. Roatán is a colorful mix of people, languages, and culture. Today, tourism is the main business in Roatan. Cruise ships and planes bring thousands of visitors each year. Roatán is known worldwide for its diving.
Ghost legends from a bygone age continue. Many local people have reportedly seen ghosts, or “duppees.” They say that men who bury gold would kill a man, leaving his body with the gold to “guard” the gold. After generations, the ghost is reportedly tired of looking and will give someone specific instructions on how to find the gold. If these instructions are followed exactly, the prospector is said to be able to locate the gold. A local recounts that a ghost blew into his ear when he was in a remote area of the desert hunting for crabs after midnight.
Roatán’s history is rich, spanning from the days of the Indian inhabitants to the days of piracy and plunder, the struggles for the nation that owns the island, freedom, and modern times.
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