James Brodie
“In early November, 1872 the Royal Mail Steamer, “Belize”, arrived from Jamaica in the harbor of Belize Town to unload passengers and general cargo.
The Belize shuttled back and forth between Kingston and British Honduras with monotonous regularity. It was not nearly so gran as the great steamers which sailed from Liverpool to the rest of the Caribbean, but it was adequate and the Colony’s only link with Great Britain.
Once in the open roadstead at Chor, the lighters came alongside, their sails flapping, to receive cargo. The gangway was lowered and the passengers descended into the British Honduras Corporation’s (later the Belize Estate an Produce Company Limited), Steam Launch.
Among then on that 12th day of November was a young man from a small village in Scotland, coming to see if he could make his was in the world in Britain’s newest Crown Colony, British Honduras. His name was James Brodie.
The world he found himself in on the streets of Belize Town was indeed a strange one, nothing like the little place he came from.
Coming in on the ship he has seen the town rise gradually out of the sea, red roofs, two or three church spires, then the white buildings. Belize town emerged as if by magic, and from three miles off-shore, seemed an enchanted place.
The first thing he noticed on the launch was the colour of the water, As the boat neared the Fort George Island, the blue water of the harbor disappeared and turned into a dark and ominous river. The water was filled with sailing dories, fishing smacks, a raft of mahogany logs and several barges of logwood.
The smell surrounded him even before he landed. It was impossible to sort them out. There was wood smoke from cooking fires, molasses ad raw rum; there was a fresh fish smell and the rancid oil smell of copra combined with the stench of untreated sewage.
It was all too confusing to analyze in the first hour.
The streets were jammed with mule carts, drays, horses, carriages and people; laughing , smiling, happy people. Had he ever seen so many black people at one time? It was bewildering for young Brodie.
There were soldiers on the streets; black soldiers of the First West India Regiment. Brodie has never seen a black man in the Queen’s uniform before now.
Only ten weeks before his arrival, he learned, a band of Mexicans under the notorious bandit, Marcus Canul, had attacked Orange Walk Town, The attack was repulsed by the soldiers, the townspeople, and a couple of American immigrants and Canul had been killed, but fear now stalked the North and some of it rubbed off on the people of Belize Town.
Brodie was welcomed by his fellow Scots, a good number in the town now. (and in ten years the Scots would be in control of the commerce of the Colony and heartily disliked by their competitors), and by the English, the Germans, the Jews, the French, Portuguese and the Americans who make up the White Population of the community.
The creoles no doubt saw him as a just another backra man coming to make money. Or the law, or to be a missionary. But that is the way the world works, no true?, they said to themselves. Poor man can’t vex. They were prepared to like him if he was likeable or ignore him if he wasn’t”
Source: 100 years of Brodie in Belize by Emory King.