In 1863, the treaty "games" continued between Great Britain and Guatemala; in August of 1863 an additional Convention was signed. This convention committed Britain to ask its Parliament to approve £50,000 which would be paid to Guatemala for a road that would be constructed over a four year period. Guatemala agreed to accept the £50,000 as a full discharge of Britain’s obligations under Article 7 but final rectifications were to be completed within six months.
It happened that Guatemala was at war with El Salvador and no further steps were taken to ratify the additional convention. Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell was asked whether the ratification could be postponed for a year. It appears that Lord Russell had given Guatemala’s Foreign Minister the impression that the time would be extended and it was. In 1865, slight changes were made to the Convention’s wording and in 1866, Martin wrote to Lord Clarendon who had then succeeded Lord Russell and informed him that Guatemala had ratified the Convention. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office was now in the hands of one Lord Stanley who agreed with the Colonial Office and the British Treasury that the Convention should be allowed to "lapse".
In response to Guatemala’s Foreign Minister, Martin, Lord Stanley informed Martin that his British Government considered that Guatemala failed to ratify the Convention within the specified time. Stanley also cited Britain’s other reason being Guatemala’s decision to add new declarations to the Convention. It is also known that Britain’s Permanent Under- Secretary at the Foreign Office, one Hammond felt that if Article 7 of the 1859 Treaty were set aside, Guatemala would be justified in holding that the whole treaty fell to the ground, thus reopening the boundary question.
In December, 1866, an official letter from Guatemala declared that Article 7 had been included as compensation to Guatemala for the abandonment of the territorial rights to Belize and it suggested that a new Convention could be signed by Martin. This led Lord Stanley to immediately deny Guatemala’s claims, that it made any cession to Britain and added that the 1863 Convention had merely engaged the British Government to ask Parliament for £50,000. There had been no guarantee that the British Parliament would have granted this in 1864 and there was still less reason to believe that it would in 1867. This statement by the British Foreign Secretary was somewhat extraordinary and did not bear close examination although it remained the official view for seventeen years!
It was clear that the British Government had contracted a moral obligation by accepting Article 7 of the 1859 Treaty and that she had not thoroughly tried to implement its conditions. Moreover, although the treaty was not and never could be regarded as a treaty of cession by the British Government, Guatemala understood it as cession and the British negotiator certainly regarded Article 7 as the inducement which persuaded Guatemala to sign it.
(What will the ICJ consider it to have been?)
By 1869 the Guatemalan Government had raised a loan which it was prepared to use for its share of the road construction and the question of building the road was reopened. Lennox Wyke insisted that the additional Convention had not been ratified because Guatemala had never had the funds or the intention of carrying out its obligations and that Guatemala was in a weak position.
(Can we trust what Wyke is saying by knowing what he has said in other discussions with Guatemala’s ambassador?)
The Foreign Office refused to move from its position adopted by Lord Stanley in November, 1869 and it repeated that the Convention had failed through Guatemala’s fault alone.
(Having read all articles, do you believe Britain’s Foreign Office that Guatemala alone was at fault?)
Guatemala renewed its claim to the territory of Belize but the claim was not seriously raised again until some 50 years later. And let’s not forget that in 1862, the British Government made Belize a British Colony under the authority of the Governor of Jamaica. On May 12th, 1862, Frederick Seymour became Lieutenant –Governor of the colony of British Honduras.
Some funny business: Palmerston told the Ambassador at Madrid that if any objection were raised it would be stated that Britain had held the settlement by right of conquest since 1798 and that Spain no longer had any rights on the American continent. The Colonial Office was hesitant about Palmerston’s strategy and Palmerston agreed not to communicate with Spain but to wait and see if Spain would make any objections to the constitutional changes for the colony. Spain did not!
The haunting question is who was more right than the other – not who was right because it is clear that the British were sloppy in handling the 1859 Treaty and Article 7 with Guatemala. Even if its engineer felt that the road was going to cost some £145,000, wasn’t that a drop in the bucket to pay in consideration that the British had raped the colony of all its timber from as early as the 1700s and made millions of Sterling Pounds? Also, what about the mere £50,000? The British had the opportunity on more than one occasion to own the settlement in the 1700s and later in the 1800s and they screwed up.
Next week I will share my opinion with you based on the history of British and Spanish rule in the Caribbean and Central America.
The Controversial Article 7:
This article was introduced by Wyke – without the knowledge and approval of the British Government. Wyke framed it in such an ambiguous way that it has been the subject of argument ever since. This article proposed that the two contracting parties should arrange for a road to be built between the Atlantic coast near the settlement of Belize and Guatemala City. This road would add to the prosperity of both England and Guatemala by increasing trade, and, since it would divert some trade from the Pacific ports, it would also restore some of the former prosperity of the Belize settlement.
Here are the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ that obstructed the construction of the road:
Lenox Wyke is on record as stating, “We have no legal right beyond that of actual possession to the tract of country between the rivers Sibun and Sarstoon which formerly belonged to the ancient kingdom of Guatemala; this position was the more difficult to overcome, without agreeing to give them some compensation.”
The Colonial Office was extremely skeptical about the value of the proposed road and was of the opinion that since the road would not pass through British territory, it was no concern of the Colonial Office.
Lenox Wyke wrote to the Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell stating, “It is impossible to help smiling at the naivete of this declaration which expresses in set phrases the desire of ‘eating the kernel of the nut’ without taking the trouble to break the shell which contains it.” He added that it is permissible to suggest that had there been more cooperation the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office the long drawn out dispute with Guatemala might have been avoided all together.
In December, 1859, Lord John Russell informed Hall, the acting Consul-General at Guatemala that Captain Wray of the Royal Engineers had been sent to mark out the boundary line between British Honduras and Guatemala and to survey the proposed route for the road.
Hall was told to make certain that the Guatemalan Government did not expect Her Majesty Government to incur any expense whatever in the actual construction of the road. Hall received the letter as the treaty was being debated and both he and Wyke feared that if its contents were made known Britain might be accused of lack of good faith and the treaty might be cancelled.
Wyke informed Russell that his understanding had involved more than paying for a survey. Wyke thought that Great Britain and Guatemala would construct a roughly made and practical cart road with both governments working together, Guatemala furnishing the materials, The British the scientific direction of the works with both parties equally paying the labour force to build it.
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| Charles Lenox Wyke |
Wyke and Guatemala’s Foreign Minister, Pedro de Aycinena had estimated the total cost to be at approximately £100,000. Wyke had also informed the Foreign Office that the British Engineer’s estimates were far too high and were based on proposals for a much more elaborate road than he and Aycinena had envisaged.
Lord John Russell informed Hall that the clause (or Article 7) was an unusual one and furthermore the Treaty had been ratified and the British Government would fulfill its obligations.
Captain Wray arrived in Guatemala to carry out the survey for the road. The survey was completed in 1860, one year after the 1859 Treaty was ratified. Engineer Wray had worked out a route from Guatemala City to the Port of Izabal. The road was to be 157 miles and would take four years to build at a cost of £145,000. However in his report, Wray stated that the road would be of no benefit to the British Settlement of Honduras. Wray also felt that the Guatemalan Government could not be relied on to carry out their obligations and should not be entrusted with the monies for the construction of the road. By the time the British Foreign Office received Wray’s discouraging report, it had already become aware of the ‘disadvantages’ in Article 7.
The British Foreign Office felt that it had been deceived as to the whereabouts of the proposed road, about its costs, and about its value to British Honduras. Lord Russell also raised the question as to whether the Government could discharge its obligations by the payment of a lump sum. The Colonial Office under the Duke of Newcastle was convinced of the futility of the road and even suggested that the trade through Belize might be hurt by it.
The Colonial Office further stated that there was no advantage in the 1859 Treaty and was prepared to see it cancelled but this idea was seen as a most inadvisable by Russell. In 1863, Aycinena formally stated that by signing the Convention of 1859, Guatemala had made a definite sacrifice of ‘the rights which it had reserved to the territory of Belize’. Aycinena also argued that it was clear from the wording of the original Article that Britain was to pay a greater share of the cost than Guatemala. He also stated that Article 7 was included by Lennox Wyke as compensation by Britain to Guatemala.
The wording had been deliberately vague in order to prevent any challenge by the United States on the grounds that Britain had acquired new territory and thereby infringed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
The weakness of this argument lay in the fact that British Honduras had been specifically excluded from the terms of the 1850 Treaty. Although the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty of 1856 remained unratifed, the United States had already recognized the southern boundary of the British Settlement as the River Sarstoon.
It becomes much clearer that Great Britain which was a super power displayed such poor wisdom in finding a solution to end the dispute over the construction of a road that would have ended the Anglo-Guatemalan Dispute over a century ago.
Part 2
“The Dallas-Clarendon Treaty failed when the President of the United States, Buchanan refused to rectify it because of a technicality affecting the Bay Islands. At no time however, did the United States Senate question the clauses relating to British Honduras. In my opinion this will be a matter on the table of the ICJ.”
Question: Why did the United States President, Buchanan refuse to rectify the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty of 1856?
While America and Britain had signed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 to reconcile their interests in Central America, the gradual extension of British influence in Central America did not indefinitely pass unremarked by the United States. But the United States was no exception to land grabbing and aggression; during the 1840s the US’ own expansionist policy had been at its height, leading to the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the war with Mexico (1845-1848) which resulted in New Mexico, Arizona and California coming under the American Flag.
Although the US had interest in the possibility of a trans-isthmian canal for some time, it was the opening up of California and the discovery of gold there in 1848 which prompted United States interest in the Central American region. The American government had appointed a Consul to Belize in 1847 and had ignored events on the Mosquito Shore and the Bay Islands; but America could not accept the fact that Britain appeared to be establishing herself right along the Caribbean coast of Central America and in particular around the mouth of the San Juan River which was the most likely terminal point on the Atlantic for a canal.
In June 1849, the second of two American agents, E.G. Squier, arrived in Nicaragua with instructions to frustrate British designs and to start negotiations with Nicaragua for the construction of a canal. A private company had already been formed for this purpose and had signed a contract with the Nicaraguan Government only to be opposed by Frederick Chatfield who made it known that since San Juan belonged to the Mosquita it was under British protection. While the American agent tried to undermine the British, the British made it clear that they had no desire to monopolize a canal or to do anything more than carry out the commitments which already existed.
The Bay Islands were formally made a British Colony without adequate consultation between the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office. Back in the U.S., the Whig administration which had signed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was defeated by the Democrats in 1853.
Note: Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States (1850–1853) and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the office of president. As Zachary Taylor's Vice President, he assumed the presidency after Taylor's death.
The Democrats had already shown signs of hostility to the treaty which it regarded as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. The Doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved independence from the Spanish Empire (except Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the Portuguese Empire. The United States, working in agreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee no European power would move in. James Monroe was President of the United States from 1817 to 1825 and part of the Democratic-Republican Party.
The Hypocrisy of the United States Government must be exposed since they were the aggressors against Mexico and took Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California in the 1840s. A lot can be said about America’s imperialistic influence in Latin America and Central America; we just have to remember Papa Doc in Haiti, Batista in Cuba, the fall of Allende and the rise of Pinoche, the fall of Anastasio Somoza and more. Perhaps the Monroe Doctrine should have been ignored and other influences from Great Britain, France and Portugal would have made the Western Hemisphere a different region. I must repeat from my contributor who I believe make a very accurate statement regarding European Nations’ invasion of the New World. He said: “The so called “New World” belonged to the peoples who lived here. But the Europeans came and killed them out and stole everything they had and established “ownership”. Then they used their archaic laws to create borders.”
The creation of the Bay Islands colony added fuel to the flames and the new American Government took the line that British Honduras belonged to Guatemala and that Britain had only limited rights to the areas originally granted by Spain. In 1853, the new Minister in London, James Buchanan, was instructed to persuade Britain to withdraw from Central America and British Honduras if possible.
James Buchanan was considered a very distinguished diplomat who had already served as Secretary of State during the expansionist era of President Polk (1845-49). After Buchanan left London, he returned to the United States to become President and remained very hostile to the British. Palmerston who had become Prime Minister of Britain in 1855 distrusted Buchanan and the breakdown of the Dallas Clarendon Treaty seemed to have placed Anglo-American relations in the ‘melting-pot’ once again.
During 1859 to 1860, Charles Lenox Wyke was put in charge by Palmerston. He succeeded in arranging the treaties with Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala which met with the approval of the American Administration. The Anglo-Nicaraguan Treaty signed in 1860 gave Nicaragua sovereignty over most of the Mosquito Coast but safeguarded the position of the Indians and made Greytown a free port. The treaty which was signed with Honduras in 1859 gave Honduras the Bay Islands despite the wishes of the inhabitants, and also part of the Mosquito Shore.
It will be recalled that Buchanan failed to rectify the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty of 1856 because of a technicality of the Bay Islands.
Finally the Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty of April 30, 1859 defined the boundaries of British Honduras along the lines which had been suggested as early as 1825.
It must be noted that prior to Wyke’s successful achievement of breaking down the barriers between Buchanan and Palmerston, the rumbling had reached a troubled level. Here are those rumbling events:
- Although Buchanan views and instructions were clear he seemed at first to have been on amicable terms with the new British Foreign Minister, Lord Clarendon.
- Buchanan appeared fully and firmly convinced that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty meant to him that the United States was to turn out ‘bag and baggage’ from South America.
- It was said that the opinions which Buchanan expressed on paper were much more forceful than in his interview with Lord Clarendon. They produced strong reactions from diplomatic officials and members of the British Government.
- Palmerston wrote to Clarendon, “I have seldom read a paper more full of false assertions and bad arguments than those of Buchanan” Although opinions in the British Cabinet varied as to the validity of Buchanan’s lengthy arguments, no one was prepared to abandon the Mosquito Indians entirely.
- On the issue of the Bay Islands, Lord Aberdeen told Clarendon that its establishment was ‘an imprudent act’ and that British right was questionable. It appeared to be the one area in which the Americans could accuse Britain of violating the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
- No matter how Palmerston asserted that that Ruatan (part of the Bay Islands) had from ancient times been held to be a dependency of Belize and occupied as such, he was definitely on weak ground.
- Palmerston never had any intentions of yielding to America on the question of the boundaries of British Honduras.
- Lord Aberdeen still maintained in 1854 in spite of everything that British tenure of Belize reserves the rights of Spain. Palmerston insisted that ‘these Yankees’ are more astute bullies and and are always trying how far they can go’.
- While the international situation was already inflamed, Britain was not prepared to go to war against the United States over questions of diplomatic niceties in remote parts of Central America.
- While discussions were in progress in London and in Washington events in Central America move swiftly. The controversial American agent, E.C. Squier was again in the region and it was reported from Washington that ‘he takes all his hopes of future success in life on the prospect of annihilating all vestige of British influence in Central America’.
- More seriously, Greytown which was still in British and Mosquito hands, was bombarded and destroyed by an American warship in 1854. Even though a section of American opinion was outraged by this unprecedented act the Administration declined either to disown it or to compensate the victims.
- The following year Central America became the scene of virtual anarchy with expeditions of American filibusters. The most notorious, William Walker attacked Nicaragua which was already engaged in civil war and set up a provisional government at Grenada which was even recognized by the United States Government.
- The Central America Republics were so unnerved that suggestions were made for Britain and France to protect them. Buchanan was again demanding British withdrawal from Mosquita, the Bay Islands, and British Honduras south of the River Sibun.
- Diplomatic efforts to obtain a compromised agreement were eventually made.
William Walker (May 8, 1824 – September 12, 1860) was an American lawyer, journalist and adventurer, who organized several private military expeditions into Central America and Latin America, with the intention of establishing English-speaking colonies under his personal control, an enterprise then known as "filibustering." Walker became president of the Republic of Nicaragua in 1856 and ruled until 1857, when he was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies, principally Costa Rica's army. He was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.
The British statesman George Hamilton Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860), was noted for his work in the area of foreign affairs. He was prime minister of Great Britain at the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853. Aberdeen could not withstand the parliamentary attack and resigned in January 1855 to be replaced by his rival, Palmerston.
