11 - Situating Public Archaeology in Crooked Tree, Belize

Summary

Introduction

In north-central Belize, less than one hour from the Caribbean coast, is the village of Crooked Tree. Tropical trees of bright yellows, pinks and purples line the two-lane highway from the airport to the village ‘roadside’, where a sign marks the only way of accessing the community by ground transportation: a 3.5 mile bumpy, dirt and loose-stone causeway crossing the Crooked Tree lagoon. Crooked Tree is an Afro-Caribbean community located on an island surrounded by seasonal lagoons. These lagoons are part of a complex wetlands environment that includes rivers, creeks, savannahs and logwood thickets and is home to a diversity of plants and animals, including unique waterfowl that are major tourist attractions.

One version of local folklore states that Crooked Tree was established by three resourceful men who settled in a remote spot ideal for logwood cutting near a beautiful crooked tree. Historical documents suggest that the earliest non-Maya settlers (logwood cutters of African and British descent) arrived in Crooked Tree in the mid to late 1700s and more formalised settlements developed in the mid-1800s (Johnson 1998). Many African peoples were brought to Belize against their will and enslaved in the logging industries that flourished from the early to mid-1700s until the late 1800s. The descendants of African and European peoples in Belize became known as Belizean Kriol. Most Crooked Tree residents identify as ethnically Kriol, even though many have diverse ethnic backgrounds (including Mestizo, Maya and Garifuna). According to some scholars, the Kriol language and other unique Kriol cultural practices originated — and have been preserved — in small, rural, Kriol villages like Crooked Tree (Johnson 1998). Today, people fish in the lagoons, hunt wildlife in lush areas around the village and make Kriol bread in large mahogany bowls passed down for generations.