At this point, the Bishop took one of the penitents by the hand, forming a chain out of all those who were expelled from the church. And showing his own emotion, cum lacrymis, he said: (…) today you are expelled from the confines of Holy Mother Church because of your sins and wickedness, just as Adam, the first man, was expelled from paradise because of his transgression. Meanwhile, the choir sang an antiphon that recalled the words of the Book of Genesis (Gen 3:16-19). To the penitents who remained kneeling and weeping before the Cathedral portal, the Bishop urged them not to despair of the Lord’s mercy, but rather to dedicate themselves to fasting, prayer, pilgrimages, almsgiving, and good works. Finally, he invited them to return no earlier than the morning of Holy Thursday. The church doors were then closed before Mass began. (…)

In the contemporary world—particularly since Vatican II—those who once would have been considered public sinners are now welcomed and encouraged in their deviations, even by popes, by prelates and members of the clergy who are most unworthy, whose sins are equally public and scandalous to the faithful, who in turn are led into sin. But it is precisely this that constitutes the ultimate offense to the Divine Majesty: not so much and not only the evil committed, but rather its denial, indeed its legitimization, and at the same time the condemnation of the good that opposes it.

For this reason, dear faithful, the earth is still cursed today; nor could it be otherwise. The horrors and heinous crimes brought to light in recent days with the publication of Jeffrey Epstein’s files cry out to Heaven for vengeance, all the more so because of the silence surrounding them and the impunity ostentatiously granted to the guilty. Our skies are sprayed with poisons that spill over into crops and aquifers; carcinogenic substances in food; the destruction of crops and livestock for the benefit of multinational corporations’ intensive production; diseases caused by deliberately harmful and sterilizing pseudo-drugs; the imposition of “sacrifices” and “penances” for the so-called protection of our “common home”; the minute control of our every action, no longer under the gaze of God but under the eye of surveillance cameras: all these outrages, the infernal parody with which an elite, intoxicated with power and literally thirsty for human blood, seeks to replace God in legislating, in deciding what is good and what is evil, in declaring its “saints” and its “damned,” in promulgating its “rites” and its “excommunications.” This elite also has its “public penitents,” who are ostracized by the system until they convert to the infernal ideology of globalism.

Let us return to the Lord, dear faithful. Let us return to Him in sackcloth and ashes, and may the Church return along with us to condemn sin and encourage virtue, without pretense or hypocrisy, without compromise, without culpable indulgences that offend Divine Justice and nullify Divine Mercy. This is the meaning of the prayer the Bishop used to recite before the penitents dressed in sackcloth. (…) Lord our God, you who are not overcome by our offenses, but are appeased by penitential satisfaction, look, we beseech you, upon these your servants, who confess that they have gravely sinned against you. For it is yours to grant absolution from crimes and to grant pardon to sinners, you who have said that you prefer the sinner’s penance to his death. Grant, then, O Lord, that they may keep vigils of penance for you and, by the correction of their deeds, rejoice in receiving from you eternal joys. And so may it be.

In the Summer 2024 issue of Paya Magazine, a piece titled “Island Planting Grounds” begins with the following: “Early on a windless Saturday morning in the 1980s, with the sea so calm that it is flat at the reef line, it occurs to you to feed the fish that collect around the gazebo at Fantasy Island. Many of you know the place.”

“Many of you know the place.” That sentence is equally applicable to all of Fantasy Island, particularly in the minds of Bay Islanders who have known the place since July 1989, where Sunday afternoons were spent on the Fantasy Island beach with a shrimp boil in full force beneath the coconut trees, and Saturday nights were spent beneath the giant circular palapa listening to live music. Now it is gone. At the same time, it somehow remains.

Fantasy Island was built by Albert Jackson, a native of French Harbour and a prominent Roatan businessman. Jackson also owned Mariscos Agua Azul, a seafood processing company. D.V. Woods, also of French Harbour, was charged with overseeing construction. Woods later became one of the island’s many avid participants in the annual fishing tournament now known as the Roatan International Fishing Tournament, a well-regarded and popular event that began at Fantasy Island. It was originally called the Roatan Fishing Tournament, and for the first 11 years, it was sponsored by the Fantasy Island Dive Resort and Marina and Texaco.

The resort hosted Roger Moore of James Bond.

The main structure of the original Fantasy Island Dive Resort and Marina was an L-shaped building. The lobby, reception and restaurant were located at the right angle of the L. The resort was initially geared toward visitors from the United States, and bookings were all-inclusive. Breakfast and lunch were buffet-style, with dinners served à la carte. The lunch buffets were served in the circular palapa instead of the restaurant, since patrons would usually have just come in from scuba diving. The lunch buffet options included standard fare and island staples, including fried fish, barbecued chicken, and beans and rice.

The resort’s first workers were locals, including kitchen staff. Many members of the original staff had relevant experience in the service industry, especially on cruise ships.

The resort opened to the public on Sundays. Folks came from around Roatan to enjoy the day on the beach and at the beach bars. These days centered around a boil of either shrimp, Spanish lobster caught in Honduran waters, or blue crabs caught in the Roatan bush. Thursday and Saturday nights featured special events under the palapa. A local band called Joseph and the Boys played live music. The favored music was country and western, calypso, reggae and soca. The lobby bar hosted weekly karaoke nights.

In the early years, most visitors to the resort were scuba divers from the United States. Over time, a steady clientele from mainland Honduras also developed. The Fantasy Island dive shop and marina were built along the west end of the key, with the dive shop originally run by Ben, a Garifuna from Punta Gorda.

The resort’s success led to later construction that added a marina and new rooms. During this time, the resort hosted Roger Moore, of James Bond fame, and Julio Iglesias. Those were the golden days of Fantasy Island for many of us.

In 2026, around 11 million Hondurans live in the country, and another 900,000 live abroad, primarily in the U.S. and Spain. About 154,000 Catrachos are born each year, and while the Honduran median age has fallen drastically, it still stands at 25. Both Honduras and Roatan have a youthful, energetic population.

Several demographic models project that by 2050, Honduras will have around 17 million people. That population increase, especially in an aging developed world, will give Honduras significantly more clout and geopolitical influence.

With 2.4 children per Catracha, Honduras stands in stark contrast to the collapsing native populations of Europe, the U.S., Japan and South Korea. South Korea now has a birth rate of 0.8 children per woman. The average in Spain is now 1.1 children, and U.S.-born women have an average of 1.7 children. These numbers are well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.

Also the divergence in birth rates dynamics is staggering. An average age of a first time mother in Spain is 32, while in Honduras it is 20. Western World birth rate implosion phenomena created an opportunity for Honduras and Roatan. At the same time the island grew, developed and has become an attractive place to live.

The definition of a “native” Roatan islander has evolved.

Roatan has relied on migrants and immigrants for economic growth and to maintain the skill sets necessary to do so. The proximity to mainland Honduras, with its 11 million people, created coast-to-island migration from departments of Atlántida, Colón and Yoro. The higher-skilled management positions on the island are filled by natives of Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba. That is where the majority of the island’s service-sector managers, doctors and lawyers hail from.

While historically islanders have been looking for job opportunities in the U.S. or at sea since the early 20th century. Many have left the island and settled in the U.S. or worked for banana companies on the mainland. That has changed. Roatan will likely continue demographic trends that have appeared here over the past 25 years and have strengthened in the past five.

Given wage disparities and job opportunities, mainland Hondurans have been moving to Roatan in significant numbers since the 1990s. The boom in the construction sector, tourism and service industries, security companies employing thousands of workers, and even seafood processing plants has attracted mainlanders to Roatan with the prospect of a better economic future.

What Roatan’s population will look like in 2050 is starting to emerge. The growth will continue, or more likely, it will oscillate, much as it has over the past 25 years. Roatan had three periods of stagnation this century: the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, the 2009 Honduran presidential coup and its aftermath, and the 2020-21 COVID-19 lockdowns. It also suffered under some incompetent, corrupt mayors in both Roatan municipalities who made many poor policy decisions and practically brought the island economy to a standstill.

I estimate that around 115,000 people live permanently on Roatan for six months or longer. This estimate is based on observations of RECO peak power demand, overall business trends and population shifts. The estimate is not scientific, but it is meant to be an educated guess. Since the government does not conduct such surveys, and its once-a-decade censuses are tragically inaccurate, I did my best to provide a rough estimate.

The island population will likely continue to grow by around 2.5%, or 2,870 people a year, or eight people a day. That would put Roatan’s population at 190,000 by 2050, assuming growth barely one percentage point above Honduras’ national average of 1.5%. If that percentage rises to a realistic 3%, we are looking at 210,000 people living on Roatan, Santa Helena and Barbareta. By that time, the currently uninhabited island of Morat might even have a few residents.

The ethnic demographic trends will likely continue as they have over the past years. The number and percentage of mestizo mainlanders will continue to grow, and they probably account for about 50,000 to 60,000, or half of the island’s current population.

The Garifuna population, now about 4,000, will grow slightly but lose its percentage share of the island’s total population. The Black, English-speaking islander population, currently about 30,000, will likely continue growing slowly. The White native islander population, now about 3,000, will likely maintain its numbers.

Roatan had three periods of stagnation this century.

The populations moving to Roatan in the greatest numbers are from the Honduran mainland. While Hondurans from all 17 mainland departments live here, some departments and populations are heavily over represented. The population of about 7,000 Miskito Indians living on Roatan, also known as Waikna, will likely double. That is due to two factors: Miskito birth rates of about three to four children per woman, which exceed those of other ethnic groups, and continued migration from Gracias a Dios Department to the island.

The Miskito live in Honduras’ most economically challenged and undeveloped department. They are also hardworking, skillful workers. They work in security, service and construction. They do not expect high living standards, as they come from very basic circumstances on the Miskito Coast. They also help one another and readily offer a place to stay to cousins who come to Roatan looking for work. In fact, the Miskito language on Roatan surpassed the prevalence of the Garifuna language several years ago and is now the third-most widely spoken language on the island.

The foreign population residing on Roatan will likely grow due to migration from the U.S., Canada and, increasingly, Europe. These island residents of European descent currently number around 6,000, but that figure will likely double. Their numbers are growing by a couple hundred each year. As life in many parts of Europe and North America becomes increasingly uncomfortable, and life on Roatan more comfortable, that migration trend should accelerate.

The “retirement” and “adventure” immigrants come here in their 60s. The vast majority of them don’t have children on the island and return to their country of origin in their late 70s and 80s. While many will likely eventually return to their country of origin, Roatan will increasingly offer hospice and home hospital care for those who decide to live out their old age here.

The definition of a “native” Roatan islander has evolved for centuries. From about 1,000 AD to around 1650, native islanders were the Paya Indians. Today, most people living on Roatan do not even know who Paya were.

Then, for about 50 years, from 1797 through the 1840s, the “native” islanders were the Garifuna. From the 1840s to the 1990s, Roatan’s “natives” were island-born White, Black and Garifuna residents. In the 1990s, mestizo migration from the Honduran mainland took off, and by around 2015, “native” islanders had become a minority. One thing that never changes on Roatan is that the island constantly evolves.

The trick was to first grab both sides of the dory and launching oneself out of the water with a firm kick of the flippers (fin-foot) while swinging your rear-end (bonke) on to the seating plank (thwart – pronounced ‘tort’). An experienced diver or dory man could perform this movement without his companion even feeling a shift in the equilibrium of the craft! Of course there were those that could never master dory skills and who would be forever teased and berated by the experts. I made sure to practice and become skilled but it wasn’t after being called marble-bonke and crankey a few times.

The freedivers made hay while the sun shined but of course with the demand for lobster tails and more and more boats out on the banks and more divers around the islands (Bonaccians had jumped on the bandwagon and were producing some very talented young divers as well as Calabash Bight, Fiddler’s Bight and Punta Gorda down the shore on Roatan), lobsters became scarcer and were living even deeper.

Only very skilled and experienced freedivers who had memorized their special holes could come up with a decent payday. There were special quirks and inside knowledge to lobster diving; A diver looking down at coral rocks from above would see the sand whiter and cleaner with maybe a few shell fragments at the mouth of a rock crevice where a lobster was living; of course if a lobster was in a crevice and fending off small fish it would wave its antennae (whips) to reveal its location to the diver who would be snorkeling above.

There were fatalities and injuries.

Tanking started to be practiced by the Helenians in the 1990’s following the Miskito Indians (Waikna’s) lead. But this was barebones tank diving, no buoyancy compensator (BC), no depth guage and no pressure guage! I learned to tank dive like this and was taught, just like I was taught to freedive by the best Helenian divers and the critical advice was 1. When the tank started to make a ringing sound it was getting empty and it was time to come up. 2. Never ascend faster than the speed of your bubbles and 3. If the air in your tank finishes on your way up don’t hold your breath but exhale as you float (not swim) to the top.

Needless to say there were fatalities and injuries with a few young men left to live the rest of their lives, bedridden or in wheelchairs, if their families could afford it.

Diving on Helene is still a way of life, both freediving and tanking; in fact there are a few small locally owned boats that venture out to the banks and do quite well nowadays with the implementation and observance of a Lobster season. Freedivers do well at places like Alligator Reef and Half Moon Reef (located about 70miles East of Barra Patuca) where the lobsters are in relatively shallow waters. Rich lobster producing banks and reefs like Quita Sueño (150miles east of Puerto Cabezas), once frequented by Bay Islands boats and Miskito and Helene divers are now too far to travel to with the cost of fuel and fuel range of small boats prohibitive, not to mention the advanced technology of GPS surveillance which limits Honduran vessels to remain in national waters.

I was fortunate to have lived this life for a couple of years living in Saint Helene, I was accepted by this community and my curiosity was rewarded by these humble yet very tough folk who taught me, unselfishly, all the skills I needed to survive and live the very basic life of a Helenian. I did a few trips out on the fishing banks, the first of which was on a small 60ft wooden hull called the Lady Hilda skippered by the owner Charles Tatum (popularly known as ‘Uncle Pete’) who confidently navigated his vessel hundreds of miles from these islands placing the boat at exact points with just a compass, an old maritime chart yellow with age and a VHF radio. No Loran, no Satnav, quite incredible but we trusted him implicitly. But that’s for another story!

In the 1950s, Larry’s father moved his family to Tampa, Florida. The move provided better educational opportunities than those available in Roatan at the time. Larry graduated from the University of South Florida and went on to serve in the U.S. Air Force. He was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base and also served in Alaska. After completing his service, Larry had many career paths open to him. In the end, his love for his native Roatan was stronger than any opportunity abroad, and he chose to return home.

Shortly after returning, Larry met an American named Paul Adams, who purchased land and developed Anthony’s Key Resort. Larry helped build the hotel and served as the resort’s manager for several years. He played a key role in helping many foreign investors who came to Roatan develop tourism-related projects. Larry also became a founding member of the Rotary Club.

In 1980, Larry opened McLaughlin Lumber and Supplies, a hardware store and lumberyard in Coxen Hole. His store became a well-known local business and operated successfully until 2010.

Larry also was deeply involved in politics. He was a proud member of the National Political Party and eventually became president of the National Party in the Bay Islands from 1993 to 2018. He was respected by government officials from both parties.

Larry also served as head of customs for four years and was a personal friend of President Rafael Callejas. On one of our campaign trips to Utila in the spring of 1992, at about 7 p.m. that night, on the return trip to Roatan, we broke down halfway between the two islands. We were adrift sideways in choppy seas with 6- to 8-foot waves. We could see the lighthouse on West End Point, and I took a bearing on the compass using that position. We were radioing for help on emergency Channel 16 when someone unidentified came on the radio and told us to get off that channel because it was for emergencies only.

Julio Galindo was advised that we were radioing for help, and he was on his radio when he heard this remark. Julio told the unidentified person that if this was not an emergency, he didn’t know what else would be: a boat that had broken down at sea with five of the leading men from French Harbour, plus the vice president and acting president of Honduras at the time, Jacobo Hernández. Using the bearing that I took on the compass from the lighthouse, I could tell John McNab, Carl McNab and Jerry Hynds exactly where we were, and they came to render assistance and towed us back to Roatan.

In 1989, when Fantasy Island Beach Resort launched its annual fishing tournament, Larry served as the principal judge. He was assisted by Bobby Gough and Clint Bodden. Larry helped organize and judge 10 tournaments from 1989 to 1999, contributing greatly to their success.

Personal friend of President Rafael Callejas.

Larry was a lifelong bachelor and very popular with the ladies. His next-door neighbor, who had watched him grow up, often teased him about finding a wife, getting married and having children to take care of him in his old age. Larry would laugh and reply that there would be no wife for him, but that he was “working on the children” and hoped to save enough money so they could take care of him later in life.

In the end, his wish came true. When Larry became too ill to manage his affairs, his brother, Luey, stepped in to handle his finances. His daughter, Lakisha Wood, took responsibility for his care and hired a wonderful woman, Corina Martínez, who treated him with kindness and dedication. Larry was lovingly cared for by his family and had the means to live comfortably in his later years.

I have many fond memories of my friend Larry: campaigning, fishing and partying across the three main Bay Islands. One weekend stands out clearly in my mind. We started partying at Fantasy Island on Friday, then traveled on to Bonacca and Utila, finally returning home late Sunday night.

That weekend, Ole Lar had a beautiful lady with him. The following Tuesday morning, I went to Coxen Hole with my friend Blanco, who needed to conduct business at the bank. Afterward, Blanco said, “We can’t come to Coxen Hole without stopping to see Ole Lar.” I admit I was curious to see the beautiful woman again — this time sober — to find out whether she was as beautiful as I remembered.

Ole Lar came downstairs dressed in white shorts and a blue shirt, looking as bright as a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. I asked him, “Ole Lar, where is the beautiful lady you had with you over the weekend?” He smiled and replied, “She’s gone. I don’t want any woman around me for more than three days.”

Whenever Ole Lar left his house to go partying, he was always well-prepared. He carried a bag with a couple of bottles of his favorite drink — but just as important, he carried another bag filled with toiletries. Before getting out of his truck, he would “freshen up,” as he called it. He always said he never knew whom he might meet, and he wanted to look good and smell even better.

Larry spent his last years of life with family and friends at home in Coxen Hole. He died on December 22, 2025, in La Ceiba. He was buried in the family grave at the Sandy Bay Cemetery.

Hatred of the Latin language is innate in the hearts of all the enemies of Rome: they see in it the bond of Catholics in the universe, the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit, the most powerful weapon of the Papacy. The spirit of revolt, which induces them to entrust universal prayer to the idiom of each people, of each province, of each century, has moreover produced its fruits.

Latin language shall be preserved.

We should ask ourselves with what wretched thoughtlessness the Council Fathers – and today’s continuators of the so-called conciliar “reform” – allowed a handful of anti-Roman heretics to carry out within the Church, and with the force of the Church’s own authority, that attack on Romanitas that four centuries earlier was at the origin of the Lutheran schism; and how illusory is it to believe that article 36 of the conciliar Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium – Linguæ latinæ usus in Ritibus latinis servetur – The use of the Latin language shall be preserved in the Latin rites – could have been sufficient to prevent the demolition of the Latin Liturgy – when it was obvious that the first and fundamental purpose of the reform was precisely that of abandoning the Roman language in favor of the vernacular idiom.

Today we ought to and want to hope that the multiplication of appeals from the ecclesial body for a return to Tradition will induce Leo to abandon Bergoglian “synodality” – an evolution of the conciliar “collegiality” of Lumen Gentium – and to exercise the Papacy without adulterating its authority with contaminations of an antichristic matrix that deny the Universal Lordship of Christ in the spiritual and temporal sphere. And Christ’s mandate to Peter – Pasce oves meas, pasce agnos meos (Jn 21:17) – must once again be exercised in the guarding of the Depositum Fidei and in the faithful transmission of immutable Catholic doctrine, without yielding to the spirit of the world that Peter, at the Council of Jerusalem, had already believed he could legitimize in the name of inclusion – as we would say today – of the Jews who wanted to maintain the rites of the Old Testament.

The Helenians have had a hard time making a living from farming since they first arrived in the 1830s, much like the island’s earlier inhabitants, the Payan Indians. Fishing, turtling, lobstering and conching at a subsistence level were—and still are—an integral part of Helene culture. Each man had his small holding, or “ground,” where he would grow a couple hundred plantain suckers, dozens of holes of cassava and watermelons in season.

Much of this economic activity and these survival methods were commonplace across the Bay Islands. Two exceptions were lobstering and conching, which were developed extensively in St. Helene, mainly due to the island’s proximity to the extensive reefs surrounding Barbarat, Morat and Helene itself.

In the 1950s and ’60s — and long before that — lobsters and conchs were abundant. A short walk along the shallow bar at any given time could provide a family-sized meal. Wealthy people in the thriving city of La Ceiba, a six- to eight-hour sail away, learned of this and opened a window of opportunity for the Helenians by buying all the conch and lobster they could get.

There was one problem — the lobsters had to be kept alive. Catching them was the first task. Scuba diving was not even mainstream in the First World, let alone on a small, Third World island. Rudimentary diving equipment — mask, snorkel and fins — was unheard of, so small, open wooden boxes with glass bottoms were built and inserted into the water, allowing the lobster fishermen to see the antennae, or “whips,” of the lobsters extending from the rocks.

Once the lobster was spotted, a long wooden pole with a wire snare on it was slowly lowered. The lobster was carefully teased out of its hole and snared. This sounds easy, but imagine doing all of this while holding the small wooden dory steady over the rock in question

Lobster was carefully teased out of its hole.

The struggle didn’t end there. To keep the lobster alive, instead of pulling it into the dory, they were placed in onion sacks that allowed water to circulate and were towed alongside the dory. It was not worth making the odyssey to La Ceiba for just a handful of lobsters, so a trip there would represent several days’ worth of lobstering.

Where were the lobsters kept after they were snared and towed alongside the dory, you might ask? They were kept in a pen, or corral, that was built using palmetto logs. The lobsters traveled over to La Ceiba in onion sacks. Imagine all this work, and the lobsters used to fetch 10 cents. In those days, a single dollar could buy quite a bit. The lobster fishermen bought goods with the proceeds. Those included small luxuries like yellow cheese that they could bring to sell back home.

In the 1970s and 1980s, enterprising islanders who had gone to work on shrimp boats in the Gulf of Mexico with U.S. fleets came back with investors. They started seafood packing plants, and the Bay Islands’ shrimping and later lobster-trapping and diving fleets sprang up.

A couple of enterprising Helenians, Norin and Iverson Bodden, followed by Victor James, obtained kerosene-powered freezers and began purchasing lobster tails for export to the U.S. market. That made the process much easier. With demand rising, the lobsters slowly moved deeper to avoid the increasing number of eager divers. Lobsters could no longer be reached with the old wooden pole and snare.

The free diving era began in earnest and general stores in Oak Ridge— such as Gough’s and Lem Ebanks — started carrying masks, snorkels and fins. Those who had relatives working on steamships overseas would have diving equipment brought down. Hook sticks became a popular tool for catching lobster, and free diving became increasingly popular. Besides being a way to make a living, it was also a sport. Helenians developed techniques to expand their lungs before diving, allowing them to go deeper and stay down longer.

Islanders learned ear-clearing techniques to allow the divers to go deeper without having to pause to equalize. At the height of the freediving subculture in the mid-1980s, successful freedivers were capable of diving to depths of 12 to 14 fathoms, with ‘fathom’ being the popular term used by Helenians to gauge depth.

Islanders would dive on Honduran banks or reefs such as Alligator Reef, Coxcomb Reef and the Hobbies, and farther away in Colombian waters. These were magical places, days away from Helene, such as Quita Sueño, Serranilla and Serrana banks, and farther south into Sandinista waters to the Martínez Reefs.

As the Civil War ended in April 1865, orders came down the line: All Confederate officers and soldiers were to surrender their arms at a Union depot. This did not sit well with the Southerners, and many of them chose to hide their arms rather than surrender them.

The period between 1867 and 1869 saw the largest influx, with an estimated 300 to 1,000 Confederate refugees arriving in Belize alone. Many of those refugees continued on to the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, as all were under British rule. The Bay Islands were a less common choice.

The Bay Islands were no longer a British colony by that time. In 1859, the British signed a treaty with Honduras for that country to take over the Bay Islands in 1861. English speakers were allowed to remain without the threat of removal. They were permitted to keep their possessions and land, and they could continue their lives with the understanding that they would submit to Honduran law.

The Bay Islands were no longer a British colony by that time. In 1859, the British signed a treaty with Honduras for that country to take over the Bay Islands in 1861. English speakers were allowed to remain without the threat of removal. They were permitted to keep their possessions and land, and they could continue their lives with the understanding that they would submit to Honduran law.

Basically, the Bay Islanders were left to govern themselves. They were guaranteed freedom of religion and had few Hondurans to contend with. In the decades that followed, they built a remarkable society and established communities where many of their descendants still reside today.

Jackson left on a schooner from Charleston.

Joseph A. Jackson left on a schooner from Charleston, South Carolina, sometime in 1866. He sailed to the Bahamas and then continued on to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. Jackson arrived in French Cay in the Roatan Bay Islands in late 1866 and took up residence on Big French Cay. He met a woman from Grand Cayman, and they were married. Their first son, William Jackson, was born in 1868. Their second son, Oliver Jackson, was born in 1871. Their third son, Joseph A. Jackson Jr., was born in 1874.

Joseph A. Jackson was wounded in the Civil War. He suffered a head wound that was treated with a silver plate fixed to his skull. One of his prized possessions when he arrived in French Cay was a military sword. Jackson died in 1878, and his widow returned to Grand Cayman with their three sons.

When they became young men, the paths of the three sons of Joseph A. Jackson diverged. While William stayed in the Cayman Islands, Oliver and Joe returned to Roatan. The two Roatanians married, had children of their own, and lived on Big French Cay.

Some years later, after a hurricane, Oliver moved across the bay to the main island. This is where the main town of French Cay is today. Joe remained on Big French Cay, where he raised several children. One of his sons was Darwin Jackson, who, as a young man, built a schooner and opened a store on Big French Cay. Schooners at the time were commonly used to bring supplies from the Cayman Islands and Belize to French Cay. Darwin Jackson was Albert Jackson’s father.

Albert Jackson worked hard as a young man. He built and owned many boats. He became a shrewd businessman and built a shrimp packing plant called Agua Azul. Early on, he saw the potential of tourism on the island and went on to build a resort with scuba diving tours called Fantasy Island Beach Resort. This resort put Roatan on the global tourism map and became popular with Central American presidents and U.S. government officials for hosting reunions and meetings.

Joseph A. Jackson’s Civil War sword was passed down through the generations and came into Albert Jackson’s possession in the 1990s. Albert was the great-grandson of Joseph A. Jackson, making him a direct descendant. Albert showed me the sword that same year in his office. I held the sword and removed it from its sheath. It was in perfect condition. As I held the sword, I couldn’t help but think back to all those Civil War battlefields that the sword was likely a part of. I wondered how it found its way, 130 years later, into the small town of French Harbour. Albert left his great-grandfather’s sword in good hands, and I will ensure it passes into good hands after me.

Upon closer inspection of the sword, it bears inscriptions on both sides of the handle. One side is engraved with the words “Mansfield and Lamb, Forrester, R.I.” An engraving on the other side reads “U.S.,” followed by the initials “C.E.W.” and the year “1865.”

Further research into Civil War-era weapons revealed that Mansfield and Lamb were manufacturers of swords and other military weapons from the 1840s to the 1860s. They sold these weapons to the U.S. Army and private buyers. The initials C.E.W. represent Charles E. Wilson, the person who inspected the sword.

I hope whoever possesses the sword in the future decides to unsheathe it on April 9, 2065, and remembers the history it represents 200 years later.

While you and I would have a bit more noise to contend with than the narrator in picking up these sounds, thankfully there are quiet moments when we do. Quiet island moments when we hear what we otherwise would not. Imagine yourself on a wharf at the lagoon in French Harbour at dawn. What is that sound? Imagine wild pigeons cooing in the mangroves, their gentle calls carrying over the dark water.

Since you have taken the trouble to be at the wharf on the lagoon at dawn, listen some more. Hear that sound? That little racket compared to the pigeons? Those are the ching-chings, roosting in mangroves as well, fussing as they begin to take on the day. Then, in the pause between the ching-chings’ racket and the pigeons’ cooing, a sudden, violent splashing erupts in the middle of the lagoon—the sound of a school of mullet escaping a barracuda.

Before taking the pathway to the lagoon, walk along French Harbour Road up the point. In the quiet, you will hear little rippling waves silently and smoothly brushing the white sand just feet from the edge of the seaside road. You may not see them, but there will be small periwinkles clinging to rocks that are half in, half out of the water and green with thin moss. Shiny sharks, each only inches long and with oversized heads and mouths, lie motionless with their stomachs on the sand. They lie hidden between the moss-covered blades of turtle grass in the shallows.

The island abounded with wild hogs, pigeons, parrots and other wild birds.

As a child growing up in French Harbour in the 1970s, quiet could also be found in the middle of the day when the sun was high in the sky. While standing in the mangroves along the canal, you felt your feet gripping the mangrove roots as you steadied yourself, watching a man from the Hill clean a fresh catch of conchs. He had returned from the lagoon and the green and blue waters beyond and had tied his dory in the shade of the mangroves. There, he finished his work before paddling to his home only minutes away.

First, he uses the back end of a carpenter’s hammer to poke a hole at the top of a conch shell. Then, using a butter knife, he expertly pushes the conch from the shell. As he dresses the conch meat with a butcher’s knife, the man carefully checks each slippery, de-shelled conch. You are not certain why he is looking so closely at and poking the de-shelled conchs. Then it comes to you — he is looking for conch pearls. Having had no luck finding pearls, the man completes his work. He then throws the conch waste into the middle of the canal — five heaping mounds in his large, cupped hands. You watch the light-colored conch waste slowly descend in the dark canal water. Your stare intensifies. You know what will soon come.

Tarpon suddenly descend to eat the trash in frenzy. The canal water boils from their sudden turns beneath the surface. Water splashes as tarpon jump above the surface. A few large dog teeth snap, joining in the melee. The smaller and more timid fish eat the trash that settles on the muddy canal bottom.

Those are some of the sounds one hears on a quiet day in Roatan. I look forward to the next time I am in the Bay Islands. For one night, surely, I’ll go to sleep early just to be in French Harbour before dawn.

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws,” wrote Plato, a Greek philosopher, 2,400 years ago. In 2025, Roatan municipality installed 400 CCTV cameras in an effort to identify the so-called “bad people.” These cameras are likely to become part of a much larger surveillance infrastructure. At the cost of losing personal privacy and spending millions of dollars in taxes, the island is on its way to building a 21st-century panopticon prison.

I guarantee there will be numerous unintended negative consequences of installing extensive CCTV cameras on the island. Here is a short list of possibilities: an increase in our taxes, a loss of our privacy, a shift from self-reliance to reliance on government assistance, the future selling of CCTV and other data to bad actors, the creation of a false sense of security, and the unleashing of a never-ending need for more surveillance.

Here is one more reason: Once a serious crime is committed by the Honduran national police —and sadly, that does happen— and it is recorded on a CCTV system, the municipality will be placed under pressure from the police and likely become a party to the cover-up.

The high-trust society that Roatan once was has gradually been replaced by technology and a false sense of trust in government institutions. Put simply, the island’s social capital is being replaced by technocracy. Once that capital is lost, it is extremely difficult to regain.

Security has two aspects: true security and the perception of security. While claiming to provide safety for citizens, security systems often serve to maintain state control and enforce conformity among the population. The carrot is not the goal, but an excuse to impose a surveillance system for the benefit of those in control. While we might argue about who those controllers are, we can all agree—the controllers are not us.

Systems often serve to maintain state control.

In other words Roatanians might be suffering from a case of collective illusion. They may be going along with the idea of creating a “smart city” that could erode the precious freedoms they may not realize can be taken away. The unfortunate truth is that by surrendering your privacy in hopes of gaining security, you could end up with neither freedom nor security. Freedom comes with risk. If you want 100% security, you would need to check yourself into a maximum-security prison with 24/7 camera surveillance—and you’d better hope your cellmate isn’t Jeffrey Epstein.

So let’s not make the mistake other already have. There are places all over the world that have already become surveillance zones ridden with nightmares. They are not in any way safer—in reality, they are unsafe for citizens. The state monitors those spaces and decides which actions it wants to prosecute. Not wearing masks in public, possibly praying near an abortion clinic, jaywalking —you name it— are all offenses that have recently been punished in Great Britain.

Great Britain has arrested tens-of-thousands of individuals for posting memes and criticizing government policies. Every day, around 30 people in Britain are arrested, tried and sent to jail for media posts deemed “offensive,” not even “hateful,” as well as for silent prayers near abortion clinics. The number of people arrested for simply making statements has grown to 12,000 a year.

This persecution of its own population is only possible thanks to media monitoring by thousands of state agencies and 6 million CCTV cameras—21 million surveillance cameras in total—monitoring 70 million British residents. Many of those cameras have one-way or two-way audio capability.

Freedom for individuals in China is even more restricted. China’s Skynet control system—a combination of the social credit system and a state-operated CCTV facial recognition network — has created an open-air prison. The 1.3 billion Chinese citizens and 70 million British citizens can no longer make that claim without the risk of being visited by police or having their lives affected. Let what took place in those so-called smart cities serve as a warning.

Roatan should be and can remain free from government aspirations to constantly surveil us and treat us as poetical criminals. The irony is that this island has a long history of people who chose to come here choosing freedom over security. Whether it was Roatan-based pirates or Puritan colony settlers, they came here in search of freedom, not security.

Also the Garifuna were brought here because they fought to keep their freedom in two Carib Wars they fought against the British on Saint Vincent. Settlers from the Cayman Islands who came here in the 1830s and 1840s were also seeking freedom and new opportunities. While security is a very important part of life on Roatan, freedom has always been more important.

Living next to the sea and living from its bounty, islanders have been accustomed to assume risk as a part of their lives. Many Roatanians died doing what they loved and supporting the families they loved. Living on a remote island in the path of hurricanes came with an understood risk — fishing on commercial boats, moving cargo, toiling in the bush.

Let’s not make the mistake others already have.

When I moved here in the early 2000s, the island was simple and still homogeneous. The vast majority of people were born on the island and knew one another, at least casually. The innocence that Roatan once had —maybe just 20 years ago— is gone.

Gone are the days when islanders were related by two degrees of separation: If you didn’t know someone, you knew someone who did. That connection brought a sense of security, trust and comfort. Today, the island is based on three degrees of separation and is a much less comforting place.

The island’s CCTV program is a large, complex and expensive and Roatan has an unfortunate history of poor government decisions. To mention just three of these white elephants: the abandoned Coxen Hole desalination plant; the José Santos Guardiola garbage dump, inaugurated by President Mel Zelaya in 2009 and still not operational; and the Roatan public hospital building, which was constructed for $3 million and will require $52 million to finish.

While those expensive failures don’t mean the municipality should stop trying, they should encourage skepticism toward new ideas. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” the saying goes.

There are alternatives to CCTV government run surveillance. There are already plenty of private security camera systems that are used efficiently when needed. The other sad truth is that our computers, smartphones, and even smart devices like internet-connected cameras, refrigerators, and smart electric meters are already tools of surveillance used against us. These are employed by security agencies in the US, Israel and other bad actors. Let’s not allow the government to take control of our lives more than it has already.