Santo Tomás de Castilla

Santo Tomás de Castilla, also known as Matías de Gálvez is a port city in the Izabal Department, Guatemala. It lies at Amatique Bay off the Gulf of Honduras and is administratively a part of Puerto Barrios.Belgian colonyIn the 1840s Santo Tomás was settled by Belgians in a colonial enterprise after the European nation supported Rafael Carrera in his drive for independence of the country. The territory was authorized in 1843 "in perpetuity" by the Guatemalan parliament to be administered by the Compagnie belge de colonisation, a private Belgian company under the protection of King Leopold I of Belgium. It replaced the failed British Eastern Coast of Central America Commercial and Agricultural Company. Many of the Belgians who settled there died of yellow fever and malaria, which were endemic to the region. Most were buried in a Belgian cemetery near Matias de Gálvez, which still existed in the 1960s. In 1854 the Belgian company withdrew because of financial losses.After 1960In the early 1960s the port became the primary base for the new Guatemalan Navy. Admiral Manuel Sosa Avila, of the Navy of Guatemala, was the first port commander for the newly founded Navy, which consisted of a frigate and two fast attack boats. The fast attack boats were donated to Guatemala by the United States. The frigate was purchased by the government of Guatemala in Sweden. The purchase was conducted by Ian Moon, an Irishman who was the son-in-law of the then-President of Guatemala Idigoras Fuentes. The frigate was delivered to Guatemala by a Swedish crew.