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Ethnic groups, nationalities... |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to the latest census, the country's population is close to 300,000. The Maya are the most established of all ethnic groupings, having been in Belize and the Yucatán region since the 500s AD. However, much of Belize's original Maya population was wiped out by disease and conflicts between tribes and with Europeans. Three Maya groups now inhabit the country: Yucatecs (who came from Yucatán, Mexico to escape the Caste War), Mopans (indigenous to Belize, but were forced out by the British; they returned from Guatemala to evade slavery), and Kekchi (also fled from slavery in Guatemala).
White English and Scottish settlers entered the area in the 1630s to cut logwood for export and began settling down. The first African slaves began arriving from elsewhere in the Caribbean and Africa and began intermarrying with whites and each other, to create the Belizean Kriol people ethnic grouping. After 1800, Mestizo settlers from Mexico and Guatemala began to settle in the North; the Garifuna, a mix of African and Carib ancestry, settled in the South by way of Honduras not long after that. During the 1860s a large influx of American Civil War veterans from Louisiana and other Southern states introduced commercial sugar cane production to the colony and established eleven settlements in the interior.
The 1900s saw the arrival of Asian settlers from Mainland China, India, Taiwan, Korea, Syria, and Lebanon. Central American immigrants and expatriate Americans and Africans also began to settle in the country, presenting an interesting potage. However, this was balanced by the migration of Creoles and other ethnic groups to the United States and elsewhere for better opportunities. Estimates have generally placed the number of the Belizean diaspora, consisting mainly of Kriol and Garifuna, at a number roughly equal to the current residents of Belize.
Belize has a relatively young and growing population. Its birth rate is among the highest in the world and there are indications that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. |
