Rachel Lesner-Garvin Collection

Belize, which was known as British Honduras until 1973, was the last British colony on the American mainland and gained its independence from the United Kingdom on September 21, 1981. Abigail Annette Hedman came from the land of the Mayan, Yucatec, Mopan, and Q'eqchi Maya. She immigrated from Belize to the United States in the 1920s.