Roatán, the largest of Honduras’s Bay Islands, is home to enduring Afro-Indigenous Garífuna and Afro-Caribbean Creole communities shaped by exile, migration, and resistance. In 1797, the British forcibly deported over 2,500 Garífuna from St. Vincent to Roatán; while many later moved to the mainland, a significant community remains in Punta Gorda on the island’s north shore. In the 19th century, free Black migrants from the Cayman Islands and other parts of the British West Indies settled across the island—particularly in Coxen Hole—establishing English-speaking Protestant Creole communities tied to regional maritime economies and kinship networks. These Afro-descendant populations have long challenged efforts to subsume their histories within dominant national narratives. Today, intensified tourism, real estate speculation, and internal migration threaten the political and cultural life of these communities, yet both Garífuna and Creole residents continue to defend collective memory and territorial claims. From the organizing of OFRANEH to the cultural work of local centers and the late musician and former congressman Aurelio Martínez, Roatán remains a site of ongoing struggle for Black sovereignty in the western Caribbean.
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.
