l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCF.LLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



It is not known how many Indians remained after this fighting and 

 turmoil subsided, but all that did were removed to Guatemala, where 

 they either died out or rapidly disappeared as a distinct people. (Con- 

 zemius, 1928, pp. 65-66.) So ends the Indian history of the Bay 

 Islands. 



With the ensuing history of the Bay Islands we are less directly 

 concerned. Certain phases of the buccaneer and the following period 

 are mentioned later in connection with Port Royal. The last British 

 claim to the islands was formally established in 1850. This was con- 

 sidered by the United States as being in direct opposition to the 

 Monroe Doctrine and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, and a tense 

 diplomatic situation developed. The matter was peacefully settled in 

 1859 when Great Britain negotiated a treaty by which the islands 

 were returned to Honduras. Since that time they have formed the 

 Department of the Bay Islands under the Republic of Honduras. 

 Although Spanish became the official language in 1872, English is 

 still spoken by the bulk of the somewhat heterogeneous population. 

 Indeed, it was not until 1902 that the majority of the English popu- 

 lation realized that their assumed British nationality and claims to 

 British protection were without any basis in fact. (Rose, 1904, 

 chap. 15.) 



Considering the early and close contact between the Spanish and 

 the original Bay Islanders, which extended from 1503 until 1650, it 

 is surprising that not enough of the native language survives to place 

 them linguistically. Neither early sources nor recent linguistic re- 

 search give much direct aid in this regard. The former are obscure, 

 but they do suggest that both the culture and language of the Bay 

 Islands was very close to that of certain major groups on the adjacent 

 mainland. 



There has been much discussion concerning the language spoken by 

 the interpreter whom Columbus acquired from the trading canoe at 

 Bonacca. Lothrop denies that there is any evidence of this canoe 

 having come from Yucatan and cites the early writers to prove thai 

 the province of Maia, here referred to, was actually on the Honduras 

 mainland.'* More recently, Blom has stated positively that the traders 

 were Maya, presumably from Yucatan. He bases this conclusion on 

 the term Maiaui, and the word suycn, which he says Bartholomew 

 Columbus gives as the native name for the square cloaks found in 

 the canoe. In the Motul dictionary the Maya word ziiyem is given for 



'° Lothrop, 1924, 1927. In the latter he suggests that the canoe may have been 

 en route to Yucatan with chipped stone, etc., hut there seems to be no direct 

 evidence for this. 



