dugout canoes destined from the mainland to the Bay Islands. These
vessels were filled with cotton cloth, maize, cacao, beans, copper goods and
wooden swords with sharp flint edges, and on this meeting one dugout canoe
carrying 25 men, women and children was captured. On land, Columbus encountered
a fairly large population of Paya whom he believed to be cannibals. In 1516, licensed
slavers were sent to the Islands under the authority of Diego Velasquez and
captured 300, killing others who put up resistance. The slaving vessel returned
to Havana harbor, Santiago de Cuba, where it was taken over by the Paya who demanded
repatriation. On hearing that the Paya had been repatriated, Velasquez
commissioned two ships back which then captured 400 Paya on Utila and on one of
the other islands, and during this raid 100 Paya were reported to have been
killed. After their capture, this and future shipments of Paya slaves were
forced to work in mines, farm sugar cane plantations and tend livestock on
Santiago de Cuba, and were also sent to work in the gold and silver mines of
Mexico.
Later on, English, French, and
Dutch pirates established settlements on the islands and raided the Spanish
cargo vessels laden with gold and other treasures from the New World. The Welsh
buccaneer Henry Morgan established his base at Port Royal on Roatán, about 30
kilometers from Útila, in the mid-17th century; at that time as many as 5,000
pirates were living on that island.
Colonization by the Spanish began
in the early 16th century. Over the next century, the Spanish plundered the
island for its slave trade and eliminated the island of its natives by the
early 17th century. Britain, in its aggressive attempt to out-colonize the
Spanish in the Caribbean, occupied the Bay Islands on and off between 1550 and
1700. During this time, the buccaneers found
