Roraima and British Guiana, With a Glance at Bermuda, the West Indies, and the Spanish Main

by J. W. Boddam-Whetham

Nobody at present disputes with the Republic the exclusive domination over that river which involves the vastest and grandest future. The day in which it must be divided with any other nation, it will decline under all its aspects, principally if we treat with a foreign power with institutions contrary to ours. Its internal and external security will be in a great measure compromised, the first military line of its defence exposed. Under a commercial aspect it seems superfluous, writing in Venezuela, to call to mind the advantages of the navigation of the Orinoco. It will be sufficient to consider it from the western confines of our territory, serving as a base to the future prosperity of these districts, and carrying its waters to the provident Casiquiari to open a way for us to the regions of the Amazon. To descend then in its course to receive from the territory of Granada powerful affluents like the Meta, the Arauca and others that put us in communication with the industrious States of Colombia, so effectually helping to the prosperity of both nations. Later, by its right bank to promote with astonishing facility the industrial and mercantile development of the extensive State Guiana—one might say maritime at the same time as continental—very fecund in natural wealth. By the left bank, and by numerous affluents that form an immense network of water communications, to foment the agricultural and commercial growth of important States to the South and West of the Republic—Apure, Guárico, Zamora, Portuguesa Cojedes y Záchira. Afterwards to run over the Eastern States where all its banks have easy and secure ports, with navigable tributaries that penetrate extensively into those same States running over immense belts as suitable for agriculture as for stock-raising. Then to descend majestically to the ocean by an infinity of canals that fertilize the fruitful lands of its beautiful Delta.

Such is in a general way the course of the Orinoco, such is that immense water-way of four hundred leagues of navigation, whose exclusive domination the Republic must never share with any other nation. And it is not that we are partisans of that selfish and retrograde policy that Rosas maintained in Buenos Ayres, nor that we aspire for our Orinoco, to the restrictions which Brazil maintains over the Amazon. No, ours are other designs. What we do not want, is that our territory upon that river should be invaded as by alluvion, slowly but surely, for the want of a settlement by boundaries.

What we do not want is that on those banks populations should be encouraged that may have another spirit, other interests and other tendencies that are not essentially Venezuelan. What we do want is that no nation may be able to allege any right, of whatsoever nature it may be, over the banks of that river that may disturb our exclusive domination, and give rise sooner or later to questions about territorial limits, nor about any regulations restrictive of our free traffic and commerce like those which disturbed Paraguay and the Argentine Republic—whose inhabitants live on the banks of the La Plata—and which served as a pretext for a prolonged as well as a disastrous and bloody war. We wish that our maritime ports, like our interior rivers, may be open as they are to all the nations of the world, as becomes a civilized people; but we wish also above all that the territory of the Republic may remain integral, and that its rights may be properly respected.

Entering now into the question of boundaries, we maintain the following conclusions:—First: Our limits extend beyond the Essequibo up to the limits of French Guiana. Second: Spain, as the first discoverer and first occupier, and of whose rights we are the legitimate successors, always maintained her boundary lines beyond that river. Third: The occupation in fact, first by the Dutch and afterwards by the English does not give a right to the exclusive domination of the Essequibo. Fourth: The Dutch possessions never went beyond Cape Nassau. Fifth: The boundaries proposed by the British Minister must be rejected as invasory of our Guiana territory.

For greater clearness let us invert the order of these propositions. That Spain, as the first occupant, always maintained her boundaries beyond the Essequibo, in spite of the Dutch possession, which it always considered but as an occupation in fact, different documents of indisputable authority evidently prove. In the general map of the province of Cumaná sent to Spain by the Governor Don José Dibuja in 1761, and which was properly approved, it said that the province of Guiana is bounded on the East by all the coast in which are found situated the Dutch colonies of Essequibo, Berbice, Demerara, Corentin and Surinam; from which it is clearly deduced that Spain considered these possessions as Dutch colonies established on territory belonging to her. So certain is this, that on tracing in the same map the Southern boundaries, it says: by the South the dominions of the very faithful King of Brazil. Here exists a true acknowledgment of territorial domination which does not occur with the Dutch possessions.

With such boundaries was erected the province of Guiana by Royal Decree, June 4, 1762, under the command of Don Joaquin Moreno de Mendoza. In proof of this right, always maintained by Spain, may be cited the Royal Decree of May 5, 1768, confirming the arrangement that the Upper and Lower Orinoco and Rio Negro should remain in charge of the Governor of the province of Guiana, in which is given, as the Eastern boundary of this province, the Atlantic Ocean. It may also be adduced, in proof of the assertion, that we are maintaining the Royal Decree of September 19, 1777, describing the boundaries of the province of Guiana incorporated already, as was also Upper and Lower Orinoco. In it is also given as the Eastern limit, the Atlantic Ocean. From these antecedents, deduced from official and authentic documents, the truth of what we have stated is evidenced, that Spain, as discoverer and first occupant, maintained her boundaries beyond the Essequibo, and did not consider the Dutch possessions but as an occupation in fact. Such was undoubtedly the character of the Dutch colonies to which we are referring.

Two acts came afterwards to modify that occupation. The Treaty of Munster, ratified in 1648, and that of Aranjuez in 1791. By the first, Philip IV. recognised the sovereignty and independence of the Netherlands, and agreed that the high contracting parties should remain in possession of the countries, forts and factories which they occupied in the East and West Indies. By the second, bases and conditions were established for the extradition of the deserters and fugitives in the American colonies. These agreements considered in the light of the principles of the Law of Nations, it cannot be put in doubt that Spain recognised the possession of the Dutch colonies, since, in regard to them, she undertook to treat with Holland as one power with another. However, if this is true, if that possession was recognized, it is also true that Holland, by virtue of those very treaties, was subject to the common condition of conterminous and subordinate nations, in consequence of the established rules and prescriptions of the Law of Nations for the territorial division between bordering nations.

It is not in accordance with the principles of that Law, neither has it ever been so, nor will it ever be, that the occupation of the mouth of rivers in undivided territories between conterminous nations, should confer any right for acquiring the exclusive domination of those rivers, or of the territories which surround them. Such a principle would be equivalent to a justification of the invasions, and to proclaiming the right of force as a legitimate title to territorial property. The Law of Nations prescribes the contrary. It establishes that for the demarcation of boundaries between nations who are joint holders, natural boundaries are to be preferred, such as rivers, mountain chains, &c., and that if those rivers have great volumes of water, each one of the contiguous nations has the domination over the half of the breadth of the river, or all the bank which it occupies. Such are the conditions of the Essequibo.

The territories of our Guiana and of British Guiana are naturally of curved boundaries. So that even raising the right of Holland to the height of that of Spain, which is ours, there is no kind of reason whatever for the supremacy which is claimed over the Essequibo. In almost all its course we dwell on the bank, and it may be said to rise in our territory. We have then, at least, an indisputable right to the domination of one half of its width and to its free navigation. The doctrine that we have explained is so generally acknowledged and accepted that we think ourselves that we can dispense with the production of the authorities on which it is supported. It is among those points on which there is no divergence in the Law of Nations. The occupation in fact, then, first by the Dutch, and lately by the English, does not give any right to the exclusive domination which is claimed over the Essequibo. That the Dutch possessions never passed beyond Cape Nassau, and that Spain repulsed with force every invasion toward the Orinoco, among other and conclusive proofs, the Royal Order of October 1st, 1780, clearly demonstrates. In it instructions are given to Don José F. Inciarte to destroy a fort which the Dutch had constructed on the right bank of the Moroco. Incontrovertible as is the right of the Republic to maintain its boundary beyond the Essequibo, it cannot forego that line without exposing itself to grave perturbations in future. Every other demarcation compromises the integrity of our territory which should be defended on its Eastern flank with the basin of that river. The demarcation proposed by the British Minister since 1841, offers the gravest difficulties besides injustice.