St. George's Caye Day

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 In the 1700's, the Spaniards made repeated attempts to invade the colony of British Honduras. Their final attempt at conquest was on September 1798, beginning on September 3 and lasting 7 days until the 10th. This battle decided the fate of the small British colony. British soldiers and a mixed group of Belizean settlers, slaves, buccaneers and timberjacks fought side by side and defeated the much bigger and stronger Spanish army. The battle took place off the coast of St. George's Caye. On the 10th, the Spanish finally sailed away and never again attacked Belize. Today Belize is the only English-speaking country in Central America due to the victory of the Belizeans and British on that historic day.
  Belizeans nowadays commemorate the event by holding a variety of festivities and parades. However, the autonomous and conservative Mennonite colonies such as Shipyard and Springfield do not observe the holiday. In the modern communities of Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek, the non-traditional and non-conservatives have recently begun observing the holiday not so much out of patriotism but due to the fact that a large percentage of the employees in their companies are non-Mennonite Mestizos and Creoles entitled to government-paid holidays. The same thing with their schools; since they have quite a number of non-Mennonite students, they not only keep the holiday but now even hold parades for Independence Day, which falls on the 21st of this month, amost 2 weeks away.
  The traditional Kleine Gemeinde of SL and BC still do not observe any national holidays. Their schools and businesses remain open all day.

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