After a heated debate and facing the danger of obstructions to the proposed law, the law's supporters accepted the creation of a public fund to compensate slave owners. The law incorporated another point that was then controversial: citizens' rights recently acquired by the inhabitants of the newly independent territories 'would be immediately lost by those who owned or trafficked slaves' (AGCA B, Leg 91, Exp. 2473, F 14V, 6 January 1824). This rule also applied to foreigners.  
It is in this context that the Honduran delegation called attention to the 'irritation' that this could cause in the neighbouring regions of Cuba and Jamaica, which continued to employ enslaved people (AGCA B10 Exp. 4042, Leg 185, f5, 1824). Omens became a reality in 1825 when one hundred people fled from British Belize, and subsequently were granted asylum. According to Martínez and Contreras (1962), the traditions in Petén recall this episode and argue that a large part of the inhabitants of San Benito are descendants of this population. During this year, the same authorities also reported a slaver leaving the region by way of the Caribbean coast, forcing some of his enslaved workers onto boats heading to Cuba, where slavery was still legal.  
After a year of debating, on 24 April 1824, the National Constituent Assembly declared the freedom of all enslaved people a right enshrined in article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Central America, under the section titled 'On the Citizens': 'All men are free in the Republic. No one who abides by these laws can be a slave, and no one who traffics in slaves can be a citizen'.