Hooking on the Edge in Guatemala and Belize: Prostitution in a Colonial Context

The place of the prostitute in colonial society was often ambiguous, and colonial Guatemala and Belize were no exception. This paper examines how the people in those colonial societies considered prostitution from a moral perspective. Indigenous, African and European cultural influences combined into a unique social structure. Each group had differing opinions and ideas about prostitution, and these attitudes combined to create the overall moral attitude within the culture. The place of the female prostitute within society, as well as how others viewed her in context of the ethnic and class structure of the colonies during the long eighteenth-century, is the focus of the presentation.