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The Battle of Orange Walk took place on 1 September 1872 when a force of Icaiche Maya led by Marcus Canul attacked the town of Orange Walk in Belize. Canul had previously been involved in conflict with the British authorities over infringements of his people's land rights and non-payment of rent and one motive for the raid may have been to seize the district magistrate for ransom. Canul and his men crossed the border from Mexico the day before the battle and were able to reach the town undetected by the British. They launched a surprise attack that caught the small garrison unaware – the British commanders were in the bath at the time the battle started. The British forces – a small detachment of the West India Regiment – successfully defended their barracks building for a number of hours, inflicting heavy casualties on the Maya and fatally wounding Canul. The Maya then withdrew into Mexico.
Maya are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and westernmost El Salvador, Honduras, and the northernmost Nicaragua.
Orange Walk is the fourth largest town in Belize, with a population of about 13,400. It is the capital of the Orange Walk District. Orange Walk Town is located on the left bank of the New River, 53 miles (85 km) north of Belize City and 30 miles (48 km) south of Corozal Town. Despite the English name of the city, its residents are primarily Spanish-speaking mestizos.
British Honduras was a Crown colony on the east coast of Central America — specifically located on the southern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony — renamed Belize from June 1973 until September 1981, when it gained full independence as Belize. British Honduras was the last continental possession of the United Kingdom in the Americas.