The British Honduras Forestry Unit
In 1941, 900 Belizean lumberjacks were recruited by the British government to fell trees in Scotland as part of the Ministry of Supply’s World War II war effort. The lumberjacks became known as the British Honduras Forestry Unit. These men were part of the Belizean logging history, which for almost 200 years had used slavery and then slave descendants as a labour force in a profitable industry.
Axemen arrive from British Honduras
Will work in South Scotland
evening Telegraph and Post, august 23 1941
Child’s Play
All the volunteers had been used to felling mahogany and hardwood trees. Some of these trees had a trunk six or seven feet in diameter, so that the work they would be called upon to do in this country would be like child’s play to them.
Evening Telegraph, August 23 1941
Tree Fellers (2004)
The story of the 900 Belizean lumberjacks who in 1942 left the tropical rainforests of British Honduras to help Britain fight fascism by felling trees in Scotland. Sam (93), Eric (87) and Amos (86) were among those who stayed on after the war to make new lives in a country where, for better or worse, the colour of their skin marked them out. Newly discovered archive, long cherished memories and a last reunion are intertwined in this lyrical and moving documentary testament.
Reactions to the BHFU Lumberjacks
As illustrated by the documentary some members of the BHFU continued to live in Scotland after the end of WWII and became a part of the community. This is a reminder that the BHFU were not a self-contained group during their secondment, but engaged with the surrounding Scottish communities, influencing the social landscape. Newspaper articles of the 1940s show that the unit actively took part in Scottish social life forming their own cricket and football teams and playing against local Scottish teams. The BHFU also formed a band with instruments they brought from Belize, as well as those which were donated by local communities and provided entertainment in and out of their camps.
However, the arrival of the Belizeans and their subsequent presence amongst the locals, prompted concerns amongst some Scots which highlights racist ideologies that harken back to slavery and persist today. These ideologies are illustrated by the Duke of Buccleuch, a leading Scottish aristocrat and landowner in the Borders in a 1942 parliamentary session; “I would urge the Government that they should watch very closely the delicate social problems which inevitably arise when you settle in this country number of Creoles and Carib Indians from the Tropics….the people in the neighbourhood [Kirkpatrick Fleming] were encouraged to be friendly to them and the girls have interpreted this rather widely…personally, I dislike this mixture of colour and regret that it should be allowed with no discouragement. There are already sufficient births of foreign extraction in the country without the additional complication of colour…I feel that unsophisticated country girls should be discouraged from marrying these black men from Equatorial America.’