I
There is no better illustration of the truth that nations and
individuals are affected in the same manner by like causes than is
often furnished by the beginning, progress, and results of a national
boundary dispute. We all know that among individuals, when neighbors
have entered upon a quarrel concerning their division-line or the
location of a line fence, they will litigate until all account of
cost and all regard for the merits of the contention give place to
a ruthless and all-dominating determination, by fair means or foul,
to win; and if fisticuffs and forcible possession are resorted to,
the big, strong neighbor rejoices in his strength as he mauls and
disfigures his small and weak antagonist.
It will be found that nations behave in like fashion. One or the other
of two national neighbors claims that their dividing-line should be
defined or rectified in a certain manner. If this is questioned, a
season of diplomatic untruthfulness and finesse sometimes intervenes
for the sake of appearances. Developments soon follow, however, that
expose a grim determination behind fine phrases of diplomacy; and in
the end the weaker nation frequently awakens to the fact that it must
either accede to an ultimatum dictated by its stronger adversary, or
look in the face of war and a spoliation of its territory; and if such
a stage is reached, superior strength and fighting ability, instead of
suggesting magnanimity, are graspingly used to enforce extreme demands
if not to consummate extensive conquest or complete subjugation.
I propose to call attention to one of these unhappy national boundary
disputes, between the kingdom of Great Britain and the South American
republic of Venezuela, involving the boundary-line separating Venezuela
from the English colony of British Guiana, which adjoins Venezuela on
the east.
Venezuela, once a Spanish possession, declared her independence in
1810, and a few years afterward united with two other of Spain’s
revolted colonies in forming the old Colombian federal union, which
was recognized by the United States in 1822. In 1836 this union was
dissolved and Venezuela became again a separate and independent
republic, being promptly recognized as such by our Government and by
other powers. Spain, however, halted in her recognition until 1845,
when she quite superfluously ceded to Venezuela by treaty the territory
which as an independent republic she had actually owned and possessed
since 1810. But neither in this treaty nor in any other mention of
the area of the republic were its boundaries described with more
definiteness than as being “the same as those which marked the ancient
viceroyalty and captaincy-general of New Granada and Venezuela in the
year 1810.”
England derived title to the colony of Guiana from Holland in 1814,
by a treaty in which the territory was described as “the Cape of Good
Hope and the establishments of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice.” No
boundaries of those settlements or “establishments” were given in the
treaty, nor does it appear that any such boundaries had ever been
particularly defined.
It is quite apparent that the limits of these adjoining countries thus
lacking any mention of definite metes and bounds, were in need of
extraneous assistance before they could be exactly fixed, and that
their proper location was quite likely to lead to serious disagreement.
In such circumstances threatening complications can frequently be
avoided if the adjoining neighbors agree upon a divisional line
promptly, and before their demands are stimulated and their tenacity
increased by a real or fancied advance in the value of the possessions
to be divided, or other incidents have intervened to render it more
difficult to make concessions.
I shall not attempt to sketch the facts and arguments that bear upon
the exact merits of this boundary controversy between Great Britain and
Venezuela. They have been thoroughly examined by an arbitral tribunal
to which the entire difficulty was referred, and by whose determination
the boundary between the two countries has been fixed--perhaps in
strict accord with justice, but at all events finally and irrevocably.
Inasmuch, however, as our own country became in a sense involved in the
controversy, or at least deeply concerned in its settlement, I have
thought there might be interest in an explanation of the manner and the
processes by which the interposition of the United States Government
was brought about. I must not be expected to exclude from mention
every circumstance that may relate to the merits of the dispute as
between the parties primarily concerned; but so far as I make use of
such circumstances I intend to do so only in aid and simplification of
the explanation I have undertaken.
This dispute began in 1841. On October 5 of that year the Venezuelan
minister to Great Britain, in a note to Lord Aberdeen, Principal
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, after reminding the secretary
that a proposal made by Venezuela on the 28th of January, 1841, for
joint action in the matter of fixing a divisional boundary, still
awaited the acceptance of Great Britain, wrote as follows:
The Honorable Earl of Aberdeen may now judge of the surprise of
the Government of Venezuela upon learning that in the territory
of the Republic a sentry-box has been erected upon which the
British flag has been raised. The Venezuelan Government is in
ignorance of the origin and purport of these proceedings, and
hopes that they may receive some satisfactory explanation of
this action. In the meantime the undersigned, in compliance
with the instructions communicated to him, urges upon the
Honorable Earl of Aberdeen the necessity of entering into a
treaty of boundaries as a previous step to the fixation of
limits, and begs to ask for an answer to the above-mentioned
communication of January 28.
Lord Aberdeen, in his reply, dated October 21, 1841, makes the
following statement:
Her Majesty’s Government has received from the Governor of
British Guiana, Mr. Schomburgk’s report of his proceedings in
execution of the commission with which he has been charged.
That report states that Mr. Schomburgk set out from Demerara in
April last and was on his return to the Essequibo River at the
end of June. It appears that Mr. Schomburgk planted boundary
posts at certain points of the country which he has surveyed,
and that he was fully aware that the demarcation so made was
merely a preliminary measure, open to further discussion
between the Governments of Great Britain and Venezuela. But
it does not appear that Mr. Schomburgk left behind him any
guard-house, sentry-box, or other building having the British
flag.
With respect to the proposal of the Venezuelan Government
that the Governments of Great Britain and Venezuela should
conclude a treaty as a preliminary step to the demarcation
of the boundaries between British Guiana and Venezuela, the
undersigned begs leave to observe that it appears to him that
if it should be necessary to make a treaty upon the subject of
the boundaries in question, such a measure should follow rather
than precede the operation of the survey.
In a communication dated the 18th of November, 1841, the Venezuelan
minister, after again complaining of the acts of Schomburgk and
alleging that he “has planted at a point on the mouth of the Orinoco
several posts bearing Her Majesty’s initials, and raised at the
same place, with a show of armed forces, the British flag, and also
performed several other acts of dominion and government,” refers to
the great dissatisfaction aroused in Venezuela by what he calls “this
undeserved offense,” and adds: “The undersigned therefore has no doubts
but that he will obtain from Her Majesty’s Government a reparation for
the wrong done to the dignity of the Republic, and that those signs
which have so unpleasantly shaken public confidence will be ordered
removed.”
No early response having been made to this communication, another
was addressed to Lord Aberdeen, dated December 8, 1841, in which the
representative of Venezuela refers to his previous unanswered note and
to a recent order received from his government, which he says directs
him “to insist not only upon the conclusion of a treaty fixing the
boundaries between Venezuela and British Guiana, but also, and this
very particularly, to insist upon the removal of the signs set up,
contrary to all rights, by the surveyor R. H. Schomburgk in Barima
and in other points of the Venezuelan territory”; and he continues:
“In his afore-mentioned communication of the 18th of last month, the
undersigned has already informed the Honorable Earl of Aberdeen of
the dissatisfaction prevailing among the Venezuelans on this account,
and now adds that this dissatisfaction, far from diminishing, grows
stronger--as is but natural--as time goes on and no reparation of the
wrongs is made.”
These two notes of the Venezuelan minister were answered on the
eleventh day of December, 1841. In his reply Lord Aberdeen says:
The undersigned begs leave to refer to his note of the 21st
of October last, in which he explained that the proceeding of
Mr. Schomburgk in planting boundary posts at certain points
of the country which he has surveyed was merely a preliminary
measure open to future discussion between the two Governments,
and that it would be premature to make a boundary treaty before
the survey will be completed. The undersigned has only further
to state that much unnecessary inconvenience would result from
the removal of the posts fixed by Mr. Schomburgk, as they
will afford the only tangible means by which Her Majesty’s
Government can be prepared to discuss the question of the
boundaries with the Government of Venezuela. These posts were
erected for that express purpose, and not, as the Venezuelan
Government appears to apprehend, as indications of dominion and
empire on the part of Great Britain.
In a reply to this note, after referring to the explanation of the
purpose of these posts or signs which Lord Aberdeen had given, it was
said, in further urging their removal: “The undersigned regrets to be
obliged to again insist upon this point; but the damages sustained by
Venezuela on account of the permanence of said signs are so serious
that he hopes in view of those facts that the trouble resulting from
their removal may not appear useless.” The minister followed this
insistence with such earnest argument that on the thirty-first day of
January, 1842, nearly four months after the matter was first agitated,
Lord Aberdeen informed the Venezuelan minister that instructions would
be sent to the governor of British Guiana directing him to remove the
posts which had been placed by Mr. Schomburgk near the Orinoco. He,
however, accompanied this assurance with the distinct declaration
“that although, in order to put an end to the misapprehension which
appears to prevail in Venezuela with regard to the object of Mr.
Schomburgk’s survey, the undersigned has consented to comply with the
renewed representation of the Minister upon this affair, Her Majesty’s
Government must not be understood to abandon any portion of the rights
of Great Britain over the territory which was formerly held by the
Dutch in Guiana.”
It should be here stated that the work which Schomburgk performed
at the instance of the British Government consisted not only in
placing monuments of some sort at the mouth of the Orinoco River,
upon territory claimed by Venezuela, but also in locating from such
monuments a complete dividing-line running far inland and annexing to
British Guiana on the west a large region which Venezuela also claimed.
This line, as originally located or as afterward still further extended
to the west, came to be called “the Schomburgk line.”
The Orinoco River, flowing eastward to the sea, is a very broad
and deep waterway, which, with its affluents, would in any event,
and however the bounds of Venezuela might be limited, traverse a
very extensive portion of that country’s area; and its control and
free navigation are immensely important factors in the progress and
prosperity of the republic. Substantially at the mouth of the Orinoco,
and on its south side, two quite large rivers, the Barima and the
Amacuro, flow into the sea. The region adjacent to the mouth of those
rivers has, sometimes at least, been called Barima; and it was here
that the posts or signs complained of by Venezuela were placed.
The coast from the mouth of the Orinoco River slopes or drops to the
east and south; and some distance from that river’s mouth, in the
directions mentioned, the Essequibo, a large river flowing for a long
distance from the south, empties into the sea.
After the correspondence I have mentioned, which resulted in the
removal of the so-called initial monuments of the Schomburgk line
from the Barima region, there seems to have been less activity in
the boundary discussion until January 31, 1844, when the Venezuelan
minister to England again addressed Lord Aberdeen on the subject.
He referred to the erection of the Schomburgk monuments and the
complaints of Venezuela on that account, and stated that since the
removal of those monuments he had not ceased to urge Lord Aberdeen “to
commence without delay negotiations for a treaty fixing definitely
the boundary-line that shall divide the two countries.” He adds the
following very sensible statement: “Although it was undoubtedly
the duty of the one who promoted this question to take the first
step toward the negotiation of the treaty, the undersigned being
well aware that other important matters claim the attention of Her
Majesty’s Government, and as he ought not to wait indefinitely, hastens
to propose an agreement which, if left for a later date, may be
difficult to conclude.” It is disappointing to observe that the good
sense exhibited in this statement did not hold out to the end of the
minister’s communication. After a labored presentation of historical
incidents, beginning with the discovery of the American continent,
he concludes by putting forward the Essequibo River as the proper
boundary-line between the two countries. This was a proposition of
such extreme pretensions that the Venezuelan representative knew, or
ought to have known, it would not be considered for a moment by the
Government of Great Britain; and it seems to me that a diplomatic error
was made when, failing to apprehend the fact that the exigencies of the
situation called for a show of concession, the Venezuelan minister,
instead of intimating a disposition to negotiate, gave Great Britain an
opportunity to be first in making proposals apparently calculated to
meet the needs of conciliation and compromise.
Thus two months after the receipt of this communication,--on the
thirtieth day of March, 1844,--Lord Aberdeen sent his reply. After
combating the allegations contained in the letter of the Venezuelan
representative, he remarked that if he were inclined to act upon the
spirit of that letter, it was evident that he ought to claim on behalf
of Great Britain, as the rightful successor to Holland, all the coast
from the Orinoco to the Essequibo. Then follows this significant
declaration:
But the undersigned believes that the negotiations would not
be free from difficulties if claims that cannot be sustained
are presented, and shall not therefore follow Señor Fortique’s
example, but state here the concessions that Great Britain
is disposed to make of her rights, prompted by a friendly
consideration for Venezuela and by her desire to avoid all
cause of serious controversies between the two countries. Being
convinced that the most important object for the interests
of Venezuela is the exclusive possession of the Orinoco, Her
Majesty’s Government is ready to yield to the Republic of
Venezuela a portion of the coast sufficient to insure her the
free control of the mouth of this her principal river, and to
prevent its being under the control of any foreign power.
Lord Aberdeen further declared that, “with this end in view, and
being persuaded that a concession of the greatest importance has been
made to Venezuela,” he would consent on behalf of Great Britain to a
boundary which he particularly defined, and in general terms may be
described as beginning in the mouth of the Moroco River, which is on
the coast southeast of the mouth of the Orinoco River and about two
thirds of the distance between that point and the Essequibo River, said
boundary running inland from that point until it included in its course
considerably more territory than was embraced within the original
Schomburgk line, though it excluded the region embraced within that
line adjacent to the Barima and Amacuro rivers and the mouth of the
Orinoco.
This boundary, as proposed by Lord Aberdeen, was not satisfactory to
Venezuela; and soon after its submission her diplomatic representative
died. This interruption was quickly followed by a long period of
distressing internal strifes and revolutions, which so distracted and
disturbed her government that for more than thirty years she was not in
condition to renew negotiations for an adjustment of her territorial
limits.
During all this time Great Britain seemed not especially unwilling to
allow these negotiations to remain in abeyance.
This interval was not, however, entirely devoid of boundary incidents.
In 1850 great excitement and indignation were aroused among the
Venezuelans by a rumor that Great Britain intended to take possession
of Venezuelan Guiana, a province adjoining British Guiana on the west,
and a part of the territory claimed by Venezuela; and the feeling thus
engendered became so extreme, both among the people and on the part of
the government of the republic, that all remaining friendliness between
the two countries was seriously menaced. Demonstrations indicating that
Venezuela was determined to repel the rumored movement as an invasion
of her rights, were met by instructions given by Great Britain to the
commander of her Majesty’s naval forces in the West Indies as to the
course he was to pursue if the Venezuelan forces should construct
fortifications within the territory in dispute. At the same time, Mr.
Balford Hinton Wilson, England’s representative at Caracas, in a note
addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Venezuela, indignantly
characterized these disquieting rumors of Great Britain’s intention
to occupy the lands mentioned, as mischievous, and maliciously false;
but he also declared that, on the other hand, her Majesty’s Government
would not see with indifference the aggressions of Venezuela upon the
disputed territory.
This note contained, in addition, a rather impressive pronouncement in
these words:
The Venezuelan Government, in justice to Great Britain, cannot
mistrust for a moment the sincerity of the formal declaration,
which is now made in the name and by the express order of Her
Majesty’s Government, that Great Britain has no intention to
occupy or encroach upon the territory in dispute; therefore the
Venezuelan Government, in an equal spirit of good faith and
friendship, cannot refuse to make a similar declaration to Her
Majesty’s Government, namely, that Venezuela herself has no
intention to occupy or encroach upon the territory in dispute.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Venezuela responded to this
communication in the following terms:
The undersigned has been instructed by His Excellency the
President of the Republic to give the following answer: The
Government never could be persuaded that Great Britain, in
contempt of the negotiation opened on the subject and the
alleged rights in the question of limits pending between the
two countries, would want to use force in order to occupy
the land that each side claims--much less after Mr. Wilson’s
repeated assurance, which the Executive Power believes to have
been most sincere, that those imputations had no foundation
whatever, being, on the contrary, quite the reverse of the
truth. Fully confident of this, and fortified by the protest
embodied in the note referred to, the Government has no
difficulty in declaring, as they do declare, that Venezuela
has no intention of occupying or encroaching upon any portion
of the territory the possession of which is in controversy;
neither will she look with indifference on a contrary
proceeding on the part of Great Britain.
In furtherance of these declarations the English Government stipulated
that it would not “order or sanction such occupations or encroachments
on the part of the British authorities”; and Venezuela agreed on her
part to “instruct the authorities of Venezuelan Guiana to refrain from
taking any step which might clash with the engagement hereby made by
the Government.”
I suspect there was some justification on each side for the accusations
afterward interchanged between the parties that this understanding or
agreement, in its strict letter and spirit, had not been scrupulously
observed.
As we now pass from this incident to a date more than twenty-five years
afterward, when attempts to negotiate for a settlement of the boundary
controversy were resumed, it may be profitable, before going further,
to glance at some of the conditions existing at the time of such
resumption.