History

In the 1880s, landless peasants fled from the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala and settled in Pueblo Viejo because the Guatemalan government was giving native lands to large coffee plantations.^[1]

In 1888 the colonial government proposed establishing 3 Indian reservations, with the southern one covering Settlement 224 and Settlement 201.^[1]

In January 1962, Francisco Sagastume, a political opponent of President Ydigoras Fuentes and unsuccessful candidate for the constituency of Petén, arrived with 19 Guatemalan followers and one renegade Belizean at the village of Settlement 201. There he announced that liberation was at hand. On receiving the news 10 of the party discreetly returned to Guatemala in the rain, whilst the leader and the others went on to Settlement 224.

In Settlement 201 he had solemnly burned photographs of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, together with a Union Jack. Having thus symbolically destroyed the British Empire, he should not have been surprised that the Indians in Settlement 224 were hostile. Their ancestors had left Guatemala three generations ago to avoid conscription by press gang methods and the forced loans that were then common in Central American politics.

The party was requested to leave town, and the local policeman provided them with a truck to do so. They went to within three miles of Punta Gorda Town, and abandoned the vehicle, having run out of petrol.

The leader and three others were rounded up the next day by the police of Punta Gorda Town, which were backed up by a detachment of the Royal Hampshire Regiment. One of the men had already given himself up, and the rest were captured a day later.

In March 1962 they were tried in the Stann Creek Town Assizes of the Supreme Court before the Chief Justice. Sagastume and his Belizean accomplice received sentences of 10 years' hard labour. Two of the Guatemalans were bound over to keep the peace and seven were acquitted. The leader and his aide served about nine months of their sentence, and in December 1962 petitioned the Governor of British Honduras for pardon, which was granted.

The prompt movement of troops and the complete serenity of the people of Belize, who made no manifestations outside the Guatemalan Consulate, did not pass unnoticed in Guatemala, where the Government maintained a correct attitude of detachment from the whole affair.^[2]

Pueblo Viejo was referred to just as Pueblo in the 1980 census. Some other documents I’ve read also only referred to them as Pueblo.^[3] And sometimes it was called San Antonio Viejo, because the villagers from San Antonio made a second settlement there.