British Honduras was a British Crown colony on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, from 1862 to 1964. British Honduras was the last continental possession of the United Kingdom in the Americas.
The colony grew out of the Treaty of Versailles (1783) between Britain and Spain, which gave the British rights to cut logwood between the Hondo and Belize rivers. The Convention of London (1786) expanded this concession to include the area between the Belize and Sibun rivers. In 1862, the Settlement of Belize in the Bay of Honduras was declared a British colony called British Honduras, and the Crown’s representative was elevated to a lieutenant governor, subordinate to the governor of Jamaica.
British Honduras became a self-governing colony, renamed Belize in June 1973, until September 1981, when it gained full independence as Belize.
- West Indies Philatelic Study Group – @WIPSGroup
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