La Ceiba, located on Honduras's northern coast, is a key site for Afro-Caribbean life and Black resistance. It is home to the Garífuna and Bay Island Creole communities, both with deep histories of migration, autonomy, and cultural preservation. The Garífuna arrived in 1797 after exile from St. Vincent, building matrifocal, land-based communities, while the Creoles migrated from the Cayman Islands in the 1800s and maintained ties to the English-speaking Caribbean. In the early 20th century, U.S. banana companies like Standard Fruit seized Garífuna land around La Ceiba with state support. Today, land grabs by tourism and drug cartels continue to displace these communities. Despite constitutional protections, the Honduran state often denies Garífuna territorial and cultural rights. In response, organizations like OFRANEH lead the fight for land, autonomy, and cultural survival.
The presence of African-descended populations in Honduras dates back to 1540, when enslaved Africans were brought to work in silver mines. Over subsequent centuries, many escaped bondage and formed communities with Indigenous peoples, poor Spanish settlers, and free Blacks, contributing to the development of Honduras's rural mestizx culture. A separate wave of African migration occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries under British colonial rule in the Bay of Honduras, where Africans labored on plantations and in natural resource extraction, often intermarrying with Miskitu populations along the coast. Today, Honduras is home to two distinct Afro-Caribbean communities: the Bay Island Creoles and the Garífuna.
The Bay Island Creoles, an English-speaking population, trace their origins to the Cayman Islands, arriving in the 1840s. They initially maintained cultural and economic autonomy through fishing and agriculture, with strong transnational ties to Belize. By the mid-20th century, many had transitioned into plantation and maritime labor. Despite government efforts to enforce linguistic and cultural assimilation, the Bay Island Creole community has retained a distinct Afro-Caribbean identity. The Garífuna, descendants of West Africans who sought refuge in St. Vincent before being forcibly exiled in 1797, arrived on the northern coast of Honduras and now number approximately 100,000. Known for their history of political and military resistance to colonial domination, Garífuna communities have also sustained matrifocal social structures centered on women's leadership, subsistence agriculture, and communal landholding. However, these systems have been undermined by neoliberal development, patriarchal norms, and state-backed economic restructuring.
La Ceiba, once a thriving center of Garífuna life, became a site of intense exploitation in the early 20th century with the rise of the Standard Fruit Company. With support from the Honduran government, the company acquired fertile Garífuna lands under the guise of infrastructure development, consolidating control over transportation and agriculture in the region. Today, Garífuna communities continue to confront land dispossession, state violence, and displacement linked to tourism and narco-trafficking interests. Organizations such as OFRANEH have been at the forefront of this resistance, advancing legal claims to ancestral lands and promoting the protection of Garífuna cultural and political sovereignty.
Honduran history is often framed by its ties to the banana industry, but the 1954 national strike reveals a broader narrative of labor resistance. On May 1 of that year, more than 25,000 banana workers launched a strike that spread nationwide. Factory workers, students, service employees, women's groups, and others joined in solidarity, eventually issuing a formal list of demands known as Los 30 Puntos, which called for wage increases and labor protections. The strike challenged the dominance of foreign companies and marked a significant shift in the country's labor movement.
Today, the Garífuna community faces similar forms of exploitation through tourism development. The state promotes Garífuna culture as part of an exotic tourist image while simultaneously denying their Indigenous land rights. Developments like the Indura Beach and Golf Resort in Tela Bay have displaced Garífuna communities and profited from their cultural presence. In 2009, Garífuna residents blocked a highway to protest these developments, calling attention to the misuse of their lands. State rhetoric often casts Garífuna land claims as obstacles to national growth, which has led to increased displacement and violence. Community leaders who spoke out about threats to their lives were often ignored and later killed. In cities like La Ceiba, a key tourism destination, the stories of Garífuna resistance have been obscured by commercial interests and government neglect.
● The Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) — Founded in 1978, OFRANEH is a grassroots Garífuna organization that defends ancestral land rights and promotes cultural preservation in the face of tourism, exploitation, and displacement. Rooted in a matrifocal framework, it is largely women-led and has received international recognition for its advocacy on environmental justice, health, and human rights.
● Miriam Miranda — A lifelong activist and the current leader of OFRANEH, Miriam Miranda has over 36 years of experience defending the commons and human rights of the Garífuna people. Active across Honduras including in La Ceiba, she has faced criminalization, kidnapping, and repeated threats for her work resisting land grabs, extractivist development, and state-backed violence. Under her leadership, OFRANEH has advanced legal claims for Garífuna land restitution and challenged international bodies to recognize the systemic dispossession facing Afro-Indigenous Hondurans.
● Organización de Desarrollo Étnico Comunitario (ODECO) — Based in La Ceiba, ODECO works to promote the development, rights, and visibility of Afro-Honduran communities, particularly Garífuna and Creole populations. The organization engages in advocacy, education, and community development, and has long played a key role in advancing racial justice and Afro-descendant recognition in Honduras.
● Aurelio Martínez — Aurelio Martínez is a renowned Garífuna musician, songwriter, and cultural ambassador from Plaplaya who moved to La Ceiba at the age of 14 to formally study music. Internationally acclaimed for his mastery of traditional Garífuna rhythms and instruments—especially the paranda—he is also recognized for fusing ancestral sounds with contemporary influences. Beyond his musical contributions, Aurelio made history as the first Black Honduran to serve in the National Congress, where he advocated for Garífuna and coastal communities.
● Dionisia Amaya-Bonilla ("Mama Nicha") — Born in La Ceiba, Dionisia Amaya-Bonilla was a respected Garífuna educator, activist, and community organizer. She later migrated to New York City, where she co-founded MUGAMA, Inc., an organization dedicated to supporting Garífuna women and families in the diaspora. Her legacy bridges the Caribbean coast of Honduras and transnational Garífuna communities, especially in the United States, where she became a foundational figure in cultural preservation and advocacy.
● Chambers, Glenn A. Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890-1940. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010.
● Front Line Defenders. 2015. "Miriam Miranda Chamorro." Front Line Defenders. December 17, 2015.
● Gonzalez, Nancie L. Solien. 1988. Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
● Loperena, Christopher. 2022. The Ends of Paradise: Race, Extraction, and the Struggle for Black Life in Honduras. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
● Portillo Villeda, Suyapa. 2021. Roots of Resistance: A Story of Gender, Race, and Labor on the North Coast of Honduras. Austin: University Of Texas Press.
BCA is a platform dedicated to amplifying Black Central American history, culture, and scholarship. Through curated content, innovative programming, and collaborative initiatives, we explore the collective memory, cultural and political organizing, and creative place-making practices of Black Central American communities across the isthmus and its diasporas.
