Guinea Grass is a village in the Orange Walk District of the nation of Belize. It is 38 metres (127 feet) above sea level. According to the 2000 census, Guinea Grass had a population of 2,510 people, and by 2010 the figures showed a population of 3,500. The population is made up of mostly Mestizos, Creoles, and East Indians. There are a number of Mennonites, Taiwanese, and Central American immigrants living near or immediately in the village.
Origin of name There are two stories that explain the origin of the village's name. The first is that, after the emancipation of slavery in the British Caribbean, indentured labourers from India, known as "East Indians", settled in the area and began to plant and cultivate bananas for a British estate. The locals knew the bananas as "Guineo", from there it morphed into "Guineal", and the then settlement became known as "Guinea Grass". The other version is that there was an English agent for the Belize Estate Company known as "Chichiri" Price, relative to the Rt. Hon. George Price who lived on a farm on the northern outskirts of the village and raised livestock. In order to feed the livestock, he had grass imported from England and Mexico. The grass that he imported was Guinea grass (Megathyrsus maximus). The locals then began to call the community Guinea Grass after the imported grass scattered and spread beyond the farm and into the community. The grass can still be seen on the outskirts of the village's main road towards the Philip Goldson Highway.
History The area presently known as the village of Guinea Grass, the Tower Hill area, and the San Juan Corridor were inhabited by the Maya in a number of linked Mayan settlements known as "Posito", or wells, because of the vast number of wells built by the Mayas in the area, especially along the San Juan Corridor and the bank of the New River by the Guinea Grass main road. Some wells can still be seen today and are used by farmers to water crops. Villagers of Guinea Grass have also spotted a tunnel, made by the Mayas, that runs from near the Catholic church to a hilltop going to Ship Yard village where the Pech family resides. As in most cases, after the Europeans came to the Americas the population of the indigenous people declined and many settlements were abandoned which is what happened in Posito.
Based on oral history passed down from older generations, the village started when a few runaway slaves from Crooked Tree and Belize River Valley and many light-skinned (red-skinned) children of slave owners or Englishmen ran away and settled by a stem of the New River (not the main river, which is presently Guinea Grass Village) so as to not be found, as marriage with a dark-skinned person was not allowed. They settled in the community with the remaining Maya of the area returning to the location. Later, the Waiika and Mosquito people from the British-owned Nicaraguan coast arrived, and a few families settled in the village, along with a British farmer from the Belize Estate to cultivate the land.
In the 1800s, after slavery was abolished in the British West Indies, the British recruited indentured servants from China and India to work in agriculture in British Honduras. A British man opened a banana plantation and brought Indian labourers to cultivate and work on the plantation at Guinea Grass. After a short period of time, in 1847, came the mestizos (mixture of Spanish and Maya), the Yucatec Maya, and the Yucatecos (Spaniards born in Yucatán Mexico to Spanish parents or grandparents) to the north of Belize, to escape La Guerra de Castas (the Caste War) of Yucatán, Mexico. The settlement then included multiple ethnicities, and speakers of different languages had to find ways to communicate. They settled on English creole as a means to communicate with each other.
The Mestizo population soon grew to outnumber other cultures through intermarriages and with a high fertility rate. Although presently the number of households is lower in the village, the Mestizo population is still the largest ethnic group followed by those identifying as mixed race. The community had no official administration, so it took justice into its own hands. Many white Spanish "Yucatecos" were feared because of this, and many altercations arose due to cultural and economic differences.
Colonial days, WWI and WWII In the mid-1880s, the settlement was officially recognized by the colonial Governor of British Honduras as Guinea Grass. A representative of the crown, Mr. Price, of the Belize estate, and the Ayuso and Disus families were relocated to the village along with a militia and Edward Alamilla from Corozal. A primary school, with a teacher Mr. Martinez, along with a Catholic church, and a Carib/Garifuna from Silk Grass were established. The villagers did subsistence farming in order to have food as they were only paid BZD $10–12 per month as chicleros (gum extractors) and log-wood cutters and had to camp in the Yalbac Hills for months. The job and ways to have an income were based on a complex scheme, since in order to live on and farm the lands, they had to pay taxes to the crown. To afford and maintain the household and be able to pay taxes, they had to get a job. It was a complex scheme used by the colony's government in British Honduras to keep subjects in debt with leased land. Desiderio Perez described his time working on the forest: while at camp, they received weekly rations from the colonel, seven quarts of flour and four pounds of pork meat.
The river served as the main route for exporting and importing from and to the village. The colonial area of the village was only three blocks from the riverbank. Going through the lush forest, especially at night, was dangerous, as wild animals such as jaguars, pumas, and snakes roamed freely. On the northern side of the village was a banana plantation owned by an American, Mr. Mason. On the southern end of the village lived the East Indians and the Waiikas who, after working on the banana farm, would collect cohune nuts to extract their oil. There was a small cohune oil factory with an industrial machine. Florencio Garcia and Donatilo Bustillos recalled that at the small plant the East Indians crushed the kernel and extracted the oil to be sent to Belize City for exportation. The plant was later abandoned, and the metal ruins were removed and used by Mennonites from Shipyard in the 1960s.
After World War I, yellow fever and influenza epidemics struck the north of Belize, which killed 2/3 of the then-Orange Walk District capital of San Esteban. As a result, the district capital was relocated to present-day Orange Walk Town. The death rate outran the pace of coffin-making, and a large hole was dug to bury the dead. Many recount the times when they were playing with friends who dropped dead in the middle of the game with their ears, nose, and mouth bleeding. Women dropped dead while cooking and infants, while being breastfed, started bleeding and died. It was a catastrophe in the community and across Belize. This, along with the devaluation of the Belize Dollar after WWII, and the scarcity of food caused by the war delaying food shipments to the West Indian territories, brought on economic distress and a greater need for self-sustainment, as England was going through an economic crisis. In the 1950s, a new group of people, fleeing religious persecution, came to Belize. The Mennonites, after various consultations and agreements with the governor, had their first settlement approved in Shipyard Village about 4–5 miles from the village. This brought employment to the people of Guinea Grass.
After Hurricane Hattie hit Belize, many Belizeans were granted residency to the United States. In the 1960s and 70s, people from Guinea Grass migrated to the US, along with other Belizeans. In the 1960s, during the rebuilding of the colony, Guinea Grass constructed a road connecting it to the present-day Philip Goldson Highway. In the early 1980s, Guinea Grass, along with San Felipe, August Pine Ridge, and San Lazaro, got electricity thanks to the newly elected Area Representative Onesimo Pech, who resided in the village at the time.
Climate Guinea Grass has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen: Am).
Demographics
Population
In the 2010 census, Guinea Grass had a population of 3,500. Of these, 87.9% were Hispanic, including the 79.9% of Mestizo, and the estimated 12% of Central American immigrants and refugees, 6% mixed, 3.7% Creole, 1% white (including Mennonite and Caucasian), 0.8% Mopan Maya, 0.3% Ketchi Maya, 0.2% Asian and 0.1% Yucatec Maya.Population & Housing Census 2010
There is a sizeable Guinea Grass Villagers diaspora population of about 100–350, mainly in the United States (California, Miami, Texas, Illinois), Mexico, United Kingdom (East London, Edinburgh), Canada, and the Anglo-Caribbean islands.
Language The village is predominantly a Mestizo community. About 80% of the population are Mestizo and Hispanic Belizeans. Spanish and English are the predominant languages of the community with Spanish and 'Spanglish' spoken mostly at home; English, taught at the primary schools, is used to access public services and on television. English Creole, along with Spanish, is used for trading with locals and other Belizeans. 89-92% of Guinea Grass residents can have a conversation in Spanish, but may tend to add English words along with it. 72% can have an conversation in English, while 80% of the population understands English. 52% of the population understands or can speak English Creole, which is a language on the rise in the village specially among the younger population. Spanglish, probably the most widely spoken language in the village, is a combination of Spanish and English.
Religion
Examples:
Excuse me, where is the police station located? - Scuse, donde esta located el police station? What was your grade on the Spanish test? - Que fue tu grade en el Spanish test? What time does the bank open? I want to make a loan appointment. - Que time hace open el bank, porque quiero hacer un loan.
More than half of toddlers born from 2008 to 2018 understand both Spanish and English before entering school.
89% of the populations identifies with the Christian faith, while the other 11% have no religious affiliation. The high proportion of Christianity, specifically Catholicism, was influenced by the strong Spanish and Mestizo culture. Until the late 1950s, British and American missionaries along with Belizeans of Creole descent, brought to the village the Protestant Christian movement under the religious organization Full Gospel Church of God, which still stands today and is the oldest Evangelical denomination in the village. Soon after the Seventh-day Adventists came to establish a church in the village. In the early 1970s, the Full Gospel Church split.
A new Evangelical church and mission, called the Pentecostal Church of God (PCG) "Rock Of Ages", was established in the village. This was the pioneer church for the PCG World mission in Central America, and Belize specifically. Its church in Guinea Grass is the mother church of the PCG denomination in Central America and parts of the English West Indies. Although the PCG started in 1957 in Belize, it was not until the late 1960s to early 1970s that its first official church was established in Belize at Guinea Grass. At that time, the country was called British Honduras, changing its name to Belize in 1973. Until recently the Evangelical churches, which presently are 7 congregations, have grown to the extent that one out of two villagers is either a Roman Catholic or Evangelical Christian.
Politics