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

by J. W. Boddam-Whetham

First.—Leaving out the Essequibo, it begins in the Moroco, and comes to compromise, in great part, the course of the Cuyuni. It should be borne in mind, as of the highest importance in the fixing of our boundaries with British Guiana, to preserve entire the course of the Moroco and of the Cuyuni, which belong to us exclusively, as they rise and empty in our territory. The first serves as boundary to our Eastern Delta of the Orinoco, it communicates with all its channels, is of extraordinary importance to the internal security of the Republic, and may serve as a vehicle of clandestine commerce. The second runs extensively into the mainland of our Guiana, and navigable rivers that encircle its interior are tributaries to it. To permit part of its course as a boundary would be the same as to permit foreign navigation in our Guiana territory.

Second.—The mountain ranges and the rivers to which the alluded demarcation refers not being fixed astronomically, it is exposed to further invasions and exaggerated pretensions that may compromise the tranquillity of the Republic.

Third.—The English possessions which may be established on this side of the Essequibo will open a passage to the North in order to be on the banks of the Orinoco, and then will arise complications of immeasurable magnitude. They must then reject the limits proposed by the British Ministry as invasive of our territory. Our general conclusion then may be formulated in the following terms: The question of boundaries between ourselves and Great Britain is reduced purely to a question of fact, viz. Up to where did the Dutch establishments, recognized by Spain, extend? and whose domination was transmitted to Great Britain by her treaty with the Sovereign of the Netherlands in 1814; setting out from the principle that our interior limits, founded on authentic documents, extended beyond the Essequibo up to the borders of French Guiana.

Some will say that we have lost time, that England is a powerful nation, of eminent rank among the Powers of Europe, and will not abdicate her claims upon the Essequibo, and on the territory of Guiana to which she aspires. No, we reply, the question is not of cannons or of squadrons; it is of International Right, of principles consecrated by eyes before which all civilized peoples of the world bow respectfully. Nor do we believe that Great Britain, whose historical precedents in the splendours of our Independence, give her titles to our consideration and high esteem, and who boasts of her respect and importance to the other nations, would found the solution of her boundaries with us on the preponderance of her force. But if, unfortunately, it should be so, we are in possession of indirect and legitimate means to make the rights which with such evident justice we maintain, be respected.

The importance of the demarcation of our limits with British Guiana brings us again to the arena of discussion. Supported by official documents of absolute authenticity, we have proved the most important of our conclusions in our former explanation; that Spain, as the discoverer and first occupier, had always maintained her boundaries beyond the Essequibo, that she had repelled with force every invasion from the banks of that river toward the Orinoco. We reproduce now those documents entire, no longer to prove an argument, but to demonstrate that the question of our boundaries with Great Britain is not situated—nor ought to be—in the region of controversies, but in that of consummated acts.

Let us enter into the matter. Among those authentic documents, two, above others, surpass, and are of the highest transcendency, if they be not decisive. The instruction of the Intendente-General of Venezuela to people the province of Guiana, and the exploration of the Eastern Delta of the Orinoco by virtue of that very instruction; documents corroborated by the authority of the Sovereign of Spain, who was then the Sovereign of that territory; documents that are in the fullest harmony and consequence, and are completed the one by the other.

Respecting the first, it is to be observed that, with indisputable right, Spain made her limits beyond the Essequibo up to the frontier of French Guiana. As regards the second, it is evidently proved that the Dutch possessions occupied, in that epoch, only the banks of the rivers near the sea, without penetrating far into the interior of the country. We will occupy ourselves later, in this same writing, with the legitimate consequences that emanate from those acts authentically proved. We think also of the highest importance the exploration of the Eastern part of the Lower Orinoco, carried out by the Spanish engineer, Felipe de Inciarte, and more important still the Royal approbation of March 9th, 1780, which gives to that instruction, to those traced boundaries, to that exploration, the seal of the national sovereignty which indisputably Spain was competent to do in those times in which those acts were consummated, and it conferred on them irrevocable authority within and without the Peninsular dominions.

One of the most important results of the commission confided to Inciarte is that exploration of the Eastern Delta of the Orinoco in which were comprehended the Barima, the Guaima, the Moroco, and the Pumaron the latter is designed under the authority of Bauruma. The exploration of the rivers is an act of authority of national sovereignty; so the Law of Nations has recognized it. Spain exercised that right exclusively over that territory and over those rivers without any kind of obstacle, and without the participation of any other nationality. We may then allege in all time the exercise of that right with certain and indubitable success in the question of boundaries, with Great Britain principally, as she has not desisted in her claims over the Barima. However, let us raise the question to its true height. Let us fix it in its proper place, analyzing at length the documents adduced, in order to give it its genuine significance. From this analysis will result, undoubtedly constituted on a solid foundation, the right of Spain, which is our own.

The instruction of the Intendente-General of Venezuela—in order to occupy in the province of Guiana, for its object, for the genius and character of its dispositions by the faculties with which that functionary was invested, and by the Royal approbation which it received in 1780—is not after all anything else than a Government order to occupy a territory in the possession of Spain; and as a consequence of the occupation which was ordered, the boundaries of that territory were traced. Let us demonstrate this. The instruction says: “The commissioners shall try to occupy said lands, as belonging to Spain, their first discoverer, and not ceded afterwards nor occupied at the time by any other Power, nor have they any title for it—advancing in the occupation by the eastern side as much as may be possible until they reach French Guiana.” And what were those lands which the Intendente of Venezuela was commanded to occupy as belonging to Spain? The Intendente had surveyed them before. “At the back of the Essequibo and other Dutch possessions, running east up to French Guiana and south up to the river Amazon is situated the territory, unoccupied on this part, and only occupied by Pagan Indians and a large number of fugitive negroes, slaves of the Dutch, and also from the plantations of Guiana.”

The Intendente of Venezuela speaking from Carácas, says that the phrase, “at the back of the Essequibo” means “beyond the Essequibo.” Here then in the clearest manner, in the most explicit way, is the authority of the Spanish sovereign fixing his national limits, with just and unimpeachable titles, in land of his own. Every nation has a right to trace the boundaries of the territory which it occupies, and it is the duty of the other nations to respect these boundaries, as long as they are not disputed by others with better titles. That Spain was sovereign of the territory which now belongs to us in Guiana, and that she had the right to trace its boundary lines, are asseverations placed beyond all doubt and controversy. We should rather say they are true acts consummated. And in truth, it would be superfluous, except for the claims of Great Britain, to open a discussion to sustain the titles of Spain in the disputed territory, after that for more than three centuries they were recognized by all the Powers of Europe; after having been recognized by Holland—the very one from whom England derived her right—in public treaties like those of Munster and Aranjuez; after having been recognized also in public treaties by Portugal, the only Power of Europe that could have been able, as discoverer, to compete with Spain in the regions of Guiana, but that never dared, respecting those agreements, to overpass the boundaries of what now constitutes French Guiana.