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NOTES OF SOME HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. 73

Notes Concrernine Some HistoricaL AUTHORITIES.

Besides general histories, certain books are usually resorted
to for Guayana.

Earliest chronicles.

Nothing is more important than the voyages of two early
adventurers.

Cabelian sailed from the Amazon along the coast, and up Capelian,
the Orinoco to the mouth of the Caroni. On his return,
in 1599, he submitted to the States-General a long report of
what he had seen and learned. Wetscher quotes very freely
from it, and praises it very highly for clearness, intelli-
gence, and apparent accuracy.

Sir Walter faleigh sailed up the Orinoco to the Caroni Pe ety lae
in 1595. The next year his most trusted lieutenant, Keymis,
sailed’from the Amazon along the coast and up the Orinoco
to the Caroni. The next year Berrie again sailed along the
sea-coast of Guiana. In 1616, Raleigh made his great and
fatal expedition which ascended the Orinoco to Old Guayana
fort. Reports of these, and other writings by Raleigh about
Guayana, were published at the time and are in Hakluyt.
Raleigh’s own accounts were edited for the Hakluyt Society,
with much valuable additional matter, by Schomburgk in
1847. Raleigh’s accounts were, in part, those of an adven-
turer and promoter, and, as Schomburgk points out, must
be read with some allowance for the usual coloring given by
such a person. But these four reports contain accounts of
what able and intelligent men saw, did, or, upon trial, found
themselves unable to do; accounts written and published by
them contemporaneously with the events they record.

We shall cite the Goldsmid edition of Hakluyt of 1890,
and Schomburgk’s edition of Raleigh.
Simon; Gu-
milla; Caulin.

Alcedo, 1787.

Hartsinck,
1770.

Netscher,
1888, 1896.

74 NOTES OF SOME HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES.

Spanish Histories. Father Simon, Cuenca, 1626 (Bogota
ed., 1882) ; Father Gumilla, Madrid, 1741; Father Caulin,
written in part about 1759, published 1779. These books
have nothing of the critical work of modern histories, and
their accounts of periods previous to the writer’s time must
be read with great allowance. But as chronicles of matters
within the personal knowledge of these fathers, all of whom
spent many years in or near the Orinoco, or of matters which
they learned directly from the accounts of those who were the
actors in them, or as to facts and dates extracted from the
original papers in the archives of the various religious orders
to which they had access, they have always been esteemed
of high value, Caulin’s map is our map No. 2.

Alcedo is an alphabetical Gazetteer of America andthe West
Indies, written by Alcedo, a Spanish officer, and published
in 1787. In 1812 it was translated and added to by Thomp-
son, whose work was dedicated to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. It is chiefly made from the works previously
mentioned, but it serves to show what was generally
accepted in England at the period of its translation.

Histories of the Dutch and English Colony.

Hartsinck. Beschryving van Guiana, Amsterdam, 1770,
2 vols. The value of this book consists in its early date.
It is not a critical history, and Netscher points out that it
contains a great deal of second-hand gossip, little from the
archives, and must be used with very great allowance.
Hartsinck states that the boundary is not settled; and his
map, which we reproduce, puts the line at a stream, now
nearly silted up, not far beyond the Moruca.

Netscher. Geschudenis van de Kolonien Essequibo,
Demerary, en Berbice. The Hague. 1888. This is a
careful history based on an elaborate study of the Dutch
archives. It notices the boundary dispute in the body of
the work, and contains a “ Postscript ” devoted to it,
NOTES OF SOME HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. 75

In 1896 General Netscher published an article on the
boundary dispute. He considers that the English claim to Div. vi, injra.
the mouth of the Orinoco is entirely indefensible.

James Rodway. Mr. Rodway is a native of, or has long Rodway,
been a resident of, Demerara. He published an article on
the boundary question in the West Indian Quarterly for
July, 1887, reprinted as a pamphlet at Demerara in the
same year, and in the Port of Spain (Trinidad) Dazly
News of February 10, 1896. He stated in this that the
Spaniards, having from the earliest times possessed the whole
Orinoco and its basin, must be deemed to have possessed its
mouth; and that the proof of a Dutch occupation of the
Barima, by a “post” or otherwise, was, at best, altogether Div. vi, injra.
vague and feeble.

In 1888, he published in connection with Mr. Watt, a
publisher of Demerara, “ Chronological History of the Dis-
covery and Settlement of Guiana, 1493-1668. By James
Rodway, F. L. §S., and Thomas Watt. Georgetown,
Demerara, Royal Gazette Office, 1888.” This proceeded
as far as p. 96 of vol. ii, at about the year 1712, where it
was stopped by the financial troubles of Mr. Watt. It is
written in the somewhat dry style of chronological annals,
but is enriched with copious extracts from documents
from the archives of Holland, chiefly through Netscher, and
from the archives of the colony which Mr. Rodway ran-
sacked. It also contains much about the Raleigh period.

It is therefore a valuable work.

After the failure of this enterprise Mr. Rodway published
his History of British Guiana, 3 vols., 1891-94. It treats
the period of his former work very lightly, and only by way
of introduction, and brings the history down to the present
day. The attempt to adopt a more attractive style has led
Mr. Rodway to somewhat embroider his narrative not to the
advantage of correctness. Nevertheless, the book contains
Documents.

Documents
filed by
Venezuela.
Ven.Off. Hist.

Ven. Sp.Docs.

Explorers.

76 NOTES OF SOME HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES.

many documents, and has the advantage of being written
by a person so familiar with the country that he can reject
as impossible much which writers foreign to the colony
would accept.

Timehri for December, 1895, contains an article by Mr.
Rodway on the boundary controversy.

From the works we have named, the general current of
history can be learned with sufficient accuracy. But when
it comes to precise matters on some of the disputed ques-
tions, they are of small value outside of the documents they
offer. The research which has been made by Great Britain
and Venezuela for this case, and that made by the Commis-
sion itself, has produced original documents, bearing espe-
cially on the Cuyuni basin and the Barima region, which
make the speculations of previous writers of no importance.
To these documents must be added a certain number relating
to the early history of the Spanish Missions, printed in the
“Documents for the Life of the Liberator, Bolivar,” which
was prepared by order of President Guzman Blanco, and
published in 1875 and subsequently.

Venezuela has printed for the use of the commission
“ Official History of the Discussion Between Venezuela and
Great Britain on their Guiana Boundaries.” This consists
mainly of diplomatic notes exchanged between the two gov-
ernments; but these contain many learned historical and
legal discussions. We shall cite this volume as Ven. Of.
fist. It has also printed, in three volumes, translations of
certified copies of Documents from the Spanish Archives.
We shall cite them as Ven. Sp. Docs. ,

The reports and writings of recent English explorers and
surveyors give much that is of value for the geography and
also for the history of the region. For when these gentle-
men report that a tract of country is practically inacces-
ACCOUNTS OF EXPLORERS. 77

sible, or that to-day not a trace or tradition of civilized
occupation can be found, it is useless to contend that Dutch
settlements covered it during the last century.

The earliest of these scientific explorers is Humboldt, who Humboldt.
explored and mapped the central part of Venezuela in 1798-
1804. His results are found chiefly in his Atlas and his
Personal Narrative, our citations of which are to Miss Wil-
liams’s ix-volume edition, London, 1826. That published by
Bohn was much cut and “edited” for the sake of economy.
Humboldt did not actually penetrate the disputed territory ;
but he travelled along its borders, and lived with those who
had personal knowledge of its condition.

Robert H. Schomburgk’s work has been spoken of at length Schomburgk.
on p. 29, supra, and will he also noticed in divisions iv

and vi. English
‘ . Cc ial
In 1867-72 Brown and Sawkins made an official survey sntreye and

maps.

of the British Guiana. Their report was published by the piv. xi,
Government in 1875, with a large map based on a tracing Co ies
of Schomburgk’s original map of 1844. A more popular ey
account of this survey was published by Mr. C. Barrington ag
Brown in 1876, as “Canoe and Camp Life in British Gur- Cane are
ana.” These books give the positions and altitudes of a large
number of points, especially in the region which Schom-
burgk did not visit, and show that he had laid down some of
the rivers of that region forty to sixty miles away from their
true position, thus in effect, obliterating ranges of mountains
which Brown visited, and which are of much importance as
natural boundaries. The Schomburgk map, thus corrected
by Brown, constitutes in substance the great map of 1875,
published actually by Stanford but in effect by the Colony.
The decidedly peculiar changes which the British Govern- p. 29, supra.
ment made in this map in 1886 have been noted.

Mr. E. F. im Thurn is an educated Englishman who gz, F, im
went to Demerara in 1877 as a naturalist, under the auspices pate
My. im Thurn.

Div. vi, infra.

Timehri.

Gold Notes.

Maps.

78 ACCOUNTS OF EXPLORERS.

of Sir Joseph Hooker. He was curator of the museum at
Demerara, made a number of long expeditions into the inte-
rior, and was the first to ascend Mt. Roraima. His reports
are admirably clear. They are published in the Pro. R. G.
Soe., August, 1880; November, 1884; August, 1885;
October, 1892; and also in his book “Among the Indians of
Guiana,” London, 1883. These publications are accompan-
ied by several maps, all of which were furnished or paid for
by the Royal Geogr. Society. In 1879 he published at Dem-
erara, first in the “ Royal Gazette” for July 26 and 31, 1879,
and afterwards in pamphlet form, an article on The Bound-
ary Question. It declared the British claim to Barima Point
untenable. In 1883 he was made magistrate of the Pome-
roon district; and when the English took forcible posses-
sion of the “Northwestern District,” up to the Orinoco
mouth, he covered that also. Of late his time has been
entirely devoted to that district, and he is reputed to have
used with great good sense the almost absolute powers in-
trusted to him. His annual reports are of much value.

Timehri is a magazine published at Demerara by the Royal
Agricultural and Commercial Society, a large and rather
wealthy organization, aided by the Government, and of which
the governor is officially the head. Mr. im Thurn and Mr.
Rodway have been among its editors. A number of articles
relating to the colony have been published in it by competent
writers. Among them are some reports of recent surveys
by Mr. Henry I. Perkins, of the Land Department, who
also wrote, in 1895, Notes on British Guiana and rts Gold
Industry, a semi-official Blue Book, distributed by the Land
Department.

Various other works will be referred to.

Maps are, for the most part, of no direct value as to the
location of the boundary ina case like this. They are gener-
ally constructed by men whose judgment upon the questions
MAPS, AND THEIR VALUE. 719

here presented is of no value, and, as a rule, the indolence of Maps.
one editor simply perpetuates the ignorance of a predecessor.
Humboldt, v, 773, expresses his opinion with considerable
sharpness on this point. Twiss, The Oregon Question, p.
228, says, “ Maps, however, are but pictorial representations
“of supposed territorial limits, the evidence of which must
“be sought for elsewhere.” Even as to physical features, he
says, “it is to be regretted that maps of unsurveyed districts
“should ever have been introduced into diplomatic discus-
“sions.” Page 806: “ Maps, as such, that is, when they have
“not had a special character attached to them by treaties,
“merely represent the opinions of the geographers who have
“constructed them, which opinions are frequently founded
“on fictitious or erroneous statements.”

There are a few cases, however, where maps are of real
value. The boundary marked on a map put forth under the
authority of one nation must be taken as a definition of its
claim, so that a later enlargement of it is strictly barred as
by estoppel or judicially deemed to be speculative. A map,
also, made by a person who has actual knowledge, even
though a mere unscientific sketch, may express facts of
topography or of settlement. And sometimes a map, how-
ever erroneous, may be needed to interpret contemporaneous
writings.

Papers from the Spanish Archives, The archives in Spain
appear to contain certain great bundles of papers relating to
Guayana, of which both Venezuela and Great Britain long
ago obtained copies. Like most archives, which are loaded
with the reports of officials, they contain material of great
value, and material of no value. The first Blue Book (March,
1896) presented translations of certain extracts which at once
startle the reader because they run counter to perfectly
well-known facts. Venezuela thought that the proper course
was to present the whole to the Commission, which it did by
Papers from
Spanish ar-
chives.

80 PAPERS FROM SPANISH ARCHIVES:

filing with it three large manuscript volumes of copies certi-
fied by the keepers of the archives. It was afterwards
thought best to make these accessible by translating and
printing the whole; and this constitutes the three printed
volumes of “Documents.” The British Government, also,
independently perceived the objection to supplying merely
such extracts as their first Blue Book furnished, and the
Supplemental Blue Book (July, 1896) printed what were
intended to be, and substantially are, translations of com-
plete files.* We are thus enabled to know what is really
valuable in them, and to appreciate the misleading character
of the first Blue Book extracts, if taken by themselves.

In these files there are many reports of the various
Spanish expeditions through the territory now in dispute,
such as those which destroyed the Cuyuni post, seized
Dutchmen in the Barima district, etc. These reports, by
the actors in what is described, in most cases made under
oath and shortly after their return, are of the highest value ;
and it is satisfying to find that the contemporaneous accounts
given by the Dutchmen who were present, or by the Dutch
governor, substantially agree with them.

There is another set of papers in these tiles, of a very
different character and of a very different order of value.
A governor who wanted reinforcements of money or troops,
or desired the Home Government to sanction an important
change in the affairs of the colony or in its own unexecuted
orders, would send a long report in which the condition of
the province was depicted in such terrible colors as he
thought most likely to rouse the sluggish bureaucracy of
Madrid. Among the means employed to stir the officials at

 

* The present writer, while not always agreeing with the version
of the Blue Books, cannot but express his appreciation of the admir-
able and nervous English of their translations, with just enough of
the idioms of the original to add quaintness and life.
AND THEIR VALUE. 81

home, the most common seems to have been to hold out to Papers from
; 3 3 ; i Spanish ar-

them the prospect of ruin by foreign invasion. The most chives.

aggressive, ferocious and impossible designs were attrib-

uted to Dutch, English and French, according to the state

of international relations at the moment; but the revolted

and heretic Dutch were especially hated, and therefore es-

pecially held up in terrorem. The true character of these

representations, and that they can have no effect on the

Guayana question, is shown by the fact that they refer to

Cumana, Trinidad, etc., as much as to Guayana. They re-

lated to threats of war and not to boundary aggressions.

Now, we have no concern with avowed war or threats of it,

for there is no pretence that the Dutch acquired Spanish

territory in Guayana by conquest.

There are some amusing instances of absurd exaggera-
tion on this topic. In 1637, during the War of Indepen-
dence, a fleet from Holland sailed up the Orinoco and set Blue b., 56.
on fire the town of San Thomé. The chief official of Trin-
idad at once conceived the notion that this attack represented
the force of the Dutch colony alone, — with which in truth it
had nothing to do, —and so wrote, saying that the design
was “to make themselves masters of all these parts, the
“whole of Orinoco, as well as this island, and put us all to
“death”; to which is appended a report of an Indian, remind-
ing us by its character of the stories of the “ reliable contra-
band” of the civil war. For the Dutch never had such
designs, and never attempted to carry them out.

A report of 1676 with regard to the plans of the Dutch is yen. gp,
quite useful, because it enables us to appreciate the value of P01) 178-
the talk current in Holland, as wild and delusive as any
modern prospector’s pamphlet. They are about to send
from Holland, says the writer, such a number of colonists
that at the end of four years they will have in the colony,
from Holland alone, “ 2,600 persons, without counting those
Blue b., 52.

Ven. Sp.
Docs., iii, 217.

Supp.
Blue b., 332.

82 THE SPANISH DOCUMENTS 5

“procreated and coming from other places,” together with
three hundred soldiers for the garrisons. Of course, noth-
ing of the sort was ever attempted. Sixty years later the
colony barely numbered 150 whites, including “ soldiers ”
and officials.

An official at Trinidad, of clearer perceptions than many
others, writes, “The reports sent [to the court of Spain]
by parties therein interested, all prepared for their own
special ends . . . are grossly exaggerated, and merit little
confidence.”

On another occasion the prefect of the missions, combat-
ing disparaging remarks as to their success, says:

‘¢In truth we also know that they emanate from a purely venom-
ous inclination; they are not founded on any true grounds; but
on false grounds, destitute of every justifiable reason, as, when-

ever it may be advisable and necessary, we shall prove, not only
to Y. H., but also to any other person in the world.”

Much valuable information can be got from archives,
properly used; but there is no greater mistake than to sup-
pose that because a paper is old it is therefore true. The
historian, or the lawyer accustomed to weigh evidence, can,
however, readily separate the wheat from the chaff.

The long report by Diguja, of 1763, from which the first
Blue Book gave some extracts, which vol. i of the Ven-
ezuela Spanish Documents prints in full, and the Supple-
mental Blue Book gives the documents enclosed in it, affords
good illustration of what we have just noticed.

Before and about 1600 the Spaniards had built and forti-
fied, on the Orinoco, San Thomé at the mouth of the Caroni,
with some military works at the island of Faxardo opposite ;
and had also established the rather strong place of “ Old
Guayana ” as it is now called, a fortification still garrisoned
to-day, about thirty miles below. But some officials early
concluded that, for the strength of the cnterior, there ought
AND THEIR VALUE. 83

to be a fortified town at the rocky narrows of the Orinoco,
called the “ Angostura” (narrows), about sixty miles above
the Caroni; and, supposing that the Madrid Government
would not keep up two garrisons, a local governor proposed
to make the establishment of the future at Angostura, and
abandon everything lower down. So he proved that unless
his plan were followed, the province would go to ruin, and
would lay open and exposed to the foreigner.

But the next governor showed, by equally good proofs
and arguments, that the change would ensure the destruction
of the province; and that all that was needed was some
expenditure on the existing towns and forts. Then the next
governor proved something else. Then, when in 1734, the
lower part of the river was assigned to the Catalan Capu-
chins for their missions, and the higher portion to the Jesuit
Fathers, new elements of contention came in. Father Gu- ven. sp.
milla, the historian, a Jesuit, wrote a paper in which he ae rita
proved that the principal capital must be moved up to An- a
gostura, in the Jesuit territory; but, under the next gov-
ernor, he stated that he believed at the time that conclusion
to be wrong, and that he had written the paper at the
dictation of his superiors.

Tn these discussions about the erection of Angostura, pro-
longed by the device constantly resorted to at Madrid, of
sending the matter back for further reports, almost seventy
years were consumed. Orders for the change were made;
then suspended ; then revoked; then made again. ‘The re-
port of Governor Diguja is well summed up by its heading:

‘“« Cumana, December 15, 1763. Governor Don Joseph Diguja ven. sp.
calls attention to the irreparable injury which will be done to relig- ¢! sae Oe -
ion, to your Majesty, and to the subjects of your Majesty in these a

provinces, if Guayana is transferred to Angostura del Orinoco.”

Two hundred and fifty printed pages are devoted to show- 1b.,7, 117-121,
ing this. He “ proved” that the change would require thirty
Caulin, 2.

Ven. Sp.
Docs., i, 30.
Supp. B. b.

P. 104, infra.

Div. iv, infra.

84 THE SPANISH DOCUMENTS ;

years’ time and $300,000 in money; that the site for the new
town was so unhealthy that no one could survive u residence
there, and was ina territory too barren to afford subsistence.
But before this report reached the Madrid authorities, the
removal had been made. Soon Diguja, stricken with paraly-
sis, retired, and his successor built the new town. Father
Caulin, a resident of Guayana, whose history was pub-
lished in 1779, describes it then as a fine town, with paved
streets, a large and handsonie church, a hospital, primary
school and Latin school. It has ever since been the capital of
the province. and is now a handsome Spanish-built city of ten
thousand inhabitants, and a great shipping place for cattle.

But when we came to the matters which are really material
for this case, Diguja is clear and emphatic. Guayana is
not impregnable; he would like to see it stronger and more
flourishing. But in the long run it is stronger than its
enemies. He writes in this report:

‘¢1, In the year 1579, when, according to Father Gumilla, old
Guayana had been plundered and burnt down, some of its inhab-
itants, showing a good deal of sound judgment, considered that
the place where the city now stands was the most adequate to
build it anew. As it was possible for them to fortify the rock on
which the San Francisco Castle was erected, they and their suc-
cessors were enabled, although with almost incredible persever-
ance, to maintain themselves in exile in such solitude. Jt was due
to these pioneers that no foreigners could come and take possession
of the Orinoco, because, although the resistance which they could have
made was not very great, it was sufficient, however, not to allow

strangers to dislodge them from their position. This rendered them
strong and respectable to the eyes of the enemies.”

The history of the attempted invasions and their fate,
from the attacks and defeat of Raleigh about 1600, down to
the expulsion of the Dutch “ posts” in 1758 and 1769, show
this to be the case; and that is decisive. A nation of which
Diguja’s statement rs true holds dominion over the country.
AND THEIR VALUE. 85

A man who kicks a burglar out of his house is certainly in
possession ; and none the less so if he be an invalid.

In other places Diguja shows that he is merely drawing
inferences, and those false ones. He found an order of
1719 to erect fortifications on the island of Faxardo, and
concluded that it had never been fortified before. But in Pp. 101,106,
1596-97 both Keymis and Cabelian sailed up the Orinoco to oe
Faxardo, looked at the works which then existed, and deemed
them too strong to be attacked. Schomburgk, referring to
this, says ina note to his edition of Ralegh, p. 79: “To
“judge from Keymis’s relation, the Spaniards possessed for-
“tifications on this island as early as 1596.”

Diguja indulges in what seems to be a curious use of lan-
guage, possibly due to some local and special meaning of the
words used for “town ” and “ settlement.” San Thomé, he tbs De

bays is “the capital and only settlement of this unknown Daas 153.

“province.” On p. 204 he said that “the province of
“Guayana, the capital of which is the fortress of San Thomé
“de la Guayana, although the largest in territory, is totally
“unpopulated.” But on p. 46 he had said that, at the time
of his personal visit not long before, there had been twenty-
four Catalan missions in its neighborhood alone; eight were
closed at that moment chiefly on account of sickness, but
sixteen were in activity. Lists of the sixteen are given, Yen. Ss

showing 4,391 domesticated Indians, and 1,081 men capable Be 0,289

, Supp.
59.
of bearing arms, and in 1761 were continually increasing.
The eight had contained 1,440 souls. In addition to them
there was the Spanish civil town of San Antonio de Upata ;
and he had asserted that to build at the Angostura a town qp,, p, 31.
large enough to hold the people of San Thomé alone, would

cost $300,000. It will be seen, therefore, that the extracts

which the Blue Book picks out, as in this instance, are in

effect incorrect representations, not only of the facts, but of pine b., 10.
the statements of the writers cited.
Humboldt
Pers. Narr.

~

Missions, p.
115, infra.

86 VALUE OF THE SPANISH DOCUMENTS.

It is to be noted also that the organized missions had
what, in effect, were Royal Charters. They held themselves
independent of the civil authority, though they looked to
the secular arm to furnish military guards. They very early
became imperium in imperio; and thus much jealousy and
friction arose between them and the civil officials, and is
reflected in the reports of the latter.

One must also avoid the errors about Spanish mis-
sionary work which a perusal of some of these papers might
lead to. In 1724, and soon after, an entire reorganization
was effected, and the plan of specific missions, each with a
definite foundation, was established, and soon after the
territory was divided up between the different religious
orders. It thus happens that the “ missions ” are commonly
spoken of as dating from 1724; which is literally true; but
missionary work among the Indians was then more than a
century old.

There are in some of these papers reports by Indians,
sent in as mere rumors, for investigation. Thus the prefect
of the missions reports what some Indians had told him
about the presence of the Dutch on the Cuyuni, about the
middle of the last century. But the commandant, having
satified himself that much of this was false, sent an expedi-
tion which swept the whole river, found one set of traders
merely, captured them, and ascertained that there were no
others except it might be that a Dutch slave-trader occasion-
ally accompanied the Caribs on their slave raids. Yet the
Blue Book refers to the first part of these papers as proof of
actual and permanent occupation by the Dutch.

Papers from the Dutch and Colonial Records. The Dutch
officials were less prolific writers, but equally dismal pic-
tures can be drawn of the Dutch colony. Until about 1733
it was actually on the verge not only of ruin but of abandon-
ment. Again and again the Company (of which it was the
THE DUTCH AND COLONIAL RECORDS. 87

smallest and poorest possession) became insolvent, or voted

that the Essequibo settlements should be abandoned. In

1733, after more than one hundred years of struggle, there P.118, injra.

were but 150 whites and 3,000 slaves. In 1829, after two gchomburgk,

hundred years, there were only 614 whites at Essequibo. ee
The despatches of the Dutch governors from the early

part of the last century to its close (printed in the Supple-

mental Blue Book) show that a sort of territorial contest or

boundary dispute was actually going on; that the Spaniards

were continually exercising sovereign rights and dominion

over the region between the actual settlements; repressing

the pretensions of the Dutch; driving them back whenever

they ventured beyond their narrow line of coast settlement ;

that the Dutch appreciated all this, saw its inevitable legal

consequence, but submitted.

It is not, however, with the wealth of these colonies of
Spain or Holland that we are concerned, but with the facts
of their existence, their occupation of the land, and their
ability to exclude others from taking possession. Now, in
both the Dutch and Spanish archives we find here and there
a set of documents which are real proofs of actual facts ;
and in these the value of the mass of papers lies. The facts
which thus emerge are briefly these :

Spain held its territory so strongly that no foreigner ever
made a permanent lodgement on it, except along the distant
seacoast which the Spaniards had once occupied, but had left.
The Dutch settled on that shore; and they showed, on the
whole, no disposition to acquire the interior. When, under
a governor more energetic than discreet, they announced a
claim to the interior, the Spaniards expelled their traders
(for there were no Dutch seétlers there), and the Dutch,
blustering at first, subsided and submitted.

The archives papers, cited by the Blue Book, contain many
Blue b., 68-9.

Rodway &
W.., ii, 46.
Rodway, 33.

Rodway, i,
103, 148.

88 THE DUTCH AND COLONIAL RECORDS.

statements about the locations of the Dutch colonies. They
are spoken of as between the Amazon and the Orinoco ; some-
times as approaching the Orinoco, but never, when anything
definite is mentioned, nearer to the Orinoco than the Pomeroon
or Moruca. For example, the paper, an extract of which is
given in Blue Book, 68-9, begins by a statement which, as
translated, is that the Dutch “stretch from the Orinoco to
the Surinam.” But the paper gives the two limits expressed
in terms of latitude and longitude, specifically referring to
Delisle’s map; and ¢his shows that the Essequibo was the
western limit defined.

It will be readily understood from these remarks that we
shall endeavor to consider this case upon the actual facts of
geography and history, and not upon anybody’s misstate-
ments of them.

As to the value of the selection from the Dutch and Colonial
Papers in the Supplemental Blue Book.

The instructions of the Dutch Company to the Command-
eur directed him to
“Keep a correct daily journal of everything that takes place,
and send a copy every year; .. . to further... let us know
the state of trade in general in the country, and in what condition
the goods are, also the state of the warehouses, fortifications,
logies, boats,” etc.

A list of those employed by the Company is to be sent by
every ship. Finally it was established that nothing of any
considerable importance could be done without leave or
orders from the Company.

The Supplemental Blue Book (p. 37) states that de-
spatches are written accordingly, containing such a diary
and detailed accounts. In addition to that, detailed reports
were made at the frequent meetings of the Court of Policy,
some samples of the minutes of which are given by Rodway.
It is therefore certain that any facts of settlement, establish-
VALUE OF DUTCH PAPERS IN SUPP. B. B. 89

ment, or discontinuance of posts, or anything which can be
called occupation, would find full proot in these despatches
and records. It appears, also, from the preface of the
Supplemental Blue Book, that Great Britain not only pos-
sesses the records kept at the colony, but upon the treaty of
1814, by which Dutch Guiana, conquered by it as early as
1796, was formally ceded by the Dutch, England also
received from Holland much of the Company and other
records kept there. Since, therefore, every important fact
would find its place in the records England owns or has
searched, it is certain that what the Blue Books do not prove
by them, or leave uncertain, does not exist.

These natural presumptions have been adopted in the law
as rules of decision. Lord Mansfield said, “It is certainly Cowp., 6s.
“a maxim that the evidence is to be weighed according to
“the proof which it was in the power of one side to have
“produced, and in the power of the other to have contra-
“dicted.” Of the failure of a party to call witnesses
peculiarly within his control, who obviously would have
personal knowledge of material facts, the Supreme Court of M44 U. 8.
the United States said, “It is to be presumed that they knew
“nothing which would tend to substantiate its claims.” And
here, records which show all that the colony did, and which
do not substantiate the claim of occupation, disprove it.

We know, in fact, that this presumption is a sound one
in this case; for in some instances where the Blue Books
are significantly silent, we find from other sources that the
Dutch records destroy the conclusion the British argument
tries to make out.

Without meaning to impute to the selection in the Blue
Book the slightest intention to be unfair, we may also point
out that we should undoubtedly find much in the colonial
records which would help our case, but which the editor of
the Blue Book would not see the value or the pertinence of.
P. 77, supra.

90 MAPS APPENDED TO THIS ARGUMENT.

The argument of the Blue Books will be particularly
noticed in Division XI of this brief.

Maps appended to this argument.

About eighty maps have been lodged with the Commis-
sion, and many more pointed out in various accessible pub-
lications. We have expressed our views about the value of
mays generally, and have appended to this argument some
which seem of special value.

Nos. 1 (Hartsinck) and 2 (Caulin) show that about 1770
Spanish and Dutch historians of Guayana agreed that Hol-
land did not have a title to Barima, or the mouth of the
Orinoco.

Nos. 3, Bouchenroeder ; 4, Hadfield, published by Parlia-
ment; 8, Schomburgk, were originally made to show the
extent of land taken up and land actually occupied at the
close of the last century and middle of this.

The Schomburgk maps (Nos. 5-11, inclusive, and also 14,
15) show the Schomburgk lines and illustrate the varying
claims made by Great Britain.

Maps 12, 13, which embody Mr. Brown’s surveys, are the
first which are fairly accurate as to the disputed territory,
Schomburgk having visited only about one third of it. The
line to which the British government now attaches his name is :
about four hundred and forty miles in length, in the part most
material here, which extends from the Orinoco to Mt.
Roraima. Schomburgk passed over only one hundred miles
of this. About two hundred and fifty of the four hundred
and torty have never been surveyed or even traversed by
English or Dutch. These maps also show the Schomburgk
line taken by their authors from Schomburgk’s original maps
or a colonial office copy.

Nos. 16 and 17, with the sketch maps in this volume, will
be found most useful to the general reader.
91

PART SECOND: THE CASE AT LARGE.

General History of Guayana and Nature of the Questions
here raised.

1. The first century, say from 1499 to 1620, is filled with Spanish dis-
covery and

the discoveries of the Spaniards who, touching first at Trin- poeession
idad, passed along the Atlantic coast as far as the Amazon, 1499-1620.
discovered the principal streams of that shore, and ascended
the Orinoco. They made settlements at several of the land-
ings, and from the Orinoco penetrated the interior. Sub-
stantially all that was known of the country was made known
by them. Towards the end of that period various foreigners
sought to touch for trade or for gold. But what we learn
from them—chiefly from the interesting accounts of the
Dutch voyage of Cabelian and the English voyages of Raleigh
and his men —is that everywhere they found the Spaniards
before them, and in such strength that these foreigners
always came away foiled or defeated. The fact of discov-
ery, and the fact of general and strong possession, at least,
were with the Spaniards.
The Indians also, though not entirely subdued, had been
subjugated. That is to say, the fiercer tribes among them
would still massacre defenceless settlers, or small detach-
ments, especially when incited by other whites, as the savages
did in New York and Massachusetts down to the middle of the
last century, and in the western United States until a gener-
ation ago. But as early as 1600 Keymis and Raleigh found
the Indians so beaten that they would not rise as a body pp. 107, 112,
against the Spaniards unless the foreign invaders were strong mune
enough to protect them ; and that never was the case.
2. So well was the strong possession of this country by
the Spaniards recognized, that the foreigners who went there
went as to a war with Spain. The Dutch West India Com-
Div. v, infra.

Dutch W.I.
Co., 1621, p.
124, infra.

Ib., 1674,
p. 131, infra.

Charter in
Rodway, W.,
i, 59.

2 GENERAL STATEMENT OF

pany, a belligerent corporation intended to harass the Span-
iards during the War of Independence, made a lodgement
about 1621 at or near the Essequibo, which the Spaniards,
who had previously held it in force, seem at that moment to
have left. This settlement, so feeble that for a hundred
years it barely kept alive, did not extend more than five
miles from tide-water, nor did it ever, even in the eighteenth
century, stretch along the coast west of the Pomeroon River,
which is about twenty miles from the Essequibo. At the
close of the war, the Dutch, by the treaty of Munster (1648)
took a quitclaim from Spain of what Holland then actually
possessed in America.

Two historical monuments of this century establish that
the Dutch settlements were on the Essequibo, and that the
Orinoco was Spanish.

a. The charter of the first Dutch West India Co. (1621)
gives no light as to what the settlements were, because it
preceded them ; noras to what particular place was intended,
because the company was authorized to operate all the way
from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan. But the
charter of its successor (1674) named as the then existing
settlements on the main land those of the Hssequibo and
the Pomeroon, and none others, and did not specify the pos-
sibility of any territorial acquisitions beyond them. Indeed,
from this time on, the title of the colony was “ Essequibo and
dependencies’: “ Essequibo cum annexis.” It would be
doing violence to language to include the mouth of the
mighty Orinoco by those words.

6. James I, King of England, proposed to give Har-
court a charter for all the land between the Amazon and the
Orinoco — which was simply an act of spoliation, whether it
was Spain or Holland which owned that region. But James
hated the Dutch, and was most anxious to gain favor with
the Spaniards. Upon the matter being brought to his atten-
THE HISTORY OF GUIANA. 93

tion he limited the patent actually granted in 1613, to the
region east of the Essequibo.

Every other authenticated fact agrees with the limits of
the Dutch colony which these papers indicate.

3. Atthe end of another hundred years, say about 1730, Fecond period
the condition had not materially changed. The Spaniards gpain neta
held the Orinoco. By holding that, they held the only ae eo
practicable entrance to the interior, namely, that from or oh:
near San Thomé on that river southwards. Before 1600 they and dae
were building a road along that route ; and where colonists oe
build a long road running back from the coast, one may be
sure that they are already in considerable strength, and that
there already is, or soon will be, a very substantial occupa-
tion at the inland end of it.

This gate and this way to the interior the Spaniards held.

By holding it they kept others out; through it they them-
selves penetrated, first by expeditions and then by settle-
ments. Mission work beganin 1576. From 1600 to 1700
this work increased. By 1730, and indeed by 1700, the
missions had become flourishing ; as early as 1700 the Dutch
' established a house of trade among the Spaniards in the
Cuyuni basin, where horses, not a native animal, but intro-
duced from Spain, were bought from them for the Dutch
plantations. There can be no better proof of the considera-
ble size those inland Spanish settlements had then attained.
But while the Spaniards were thus stretching and had puten ana

stretched into the interior, the Dutch never got beyond the fee as

smell of salt water. Twenty-five years ago official reports 224 te
say that the English settlements are still entirely confined ** 8‘
to a narrow strip on the sea-coast, and that the “interior”
is in the same state as in the time of Raleigh.

4. Now we come to the exact question of the title to
and sovereignty over the one hundred and fifty miles of land

between the solid Spanish settlements, penetrating from the
Div. iv, infra,

Dutch
despatches.

Expulsion of
the Dutch
therefrom.

Div. iv, infra.

Div. vi, infra.

94 EXPULSION OF THE DUTCH.

Orinoco, and the Dutch squatters on the alluvial strip of
the Essequibo estuary.

Before 1740 the Dutch had bought Indian slaves from the
Caribs, who stole their victims in preference from the quieter
tribes at or near the Spanish missions. As the demand grew
and the traffic became more active, a few Dutch slave-
traders would live among the Caribs — generally two Dutch-
men and two or three freed negroes together — to direct
the business and receive and pay for the slaves.

Moreover, this took place preferably, if not entirely, among
the tribes reckoned as Spanish, and distant from the Dutch
settlements ; for the Dutch feared that similar outrages on
Indians within their own territory would result in an Indian
war. So the coionists might not have red slaves unless they
were brought from the Orinoco, said some of the command-
eur’s proclamations; and “the Orinoco” meant Spanish
territory for which that phrase was the common expression.
That was not an occupation of the land as sovereign, nor
even an act of dominion. It was the act of a thief; of a
freebooter.

But the Spaniards heard that the Dutch governor gave
out that he did these things of right. Thereupon, on several
occasions, once about 1758 in the Cuyuni basin, and several
times during the next’ fifteen years in the Orinoco delta
between the Moruca and the main mouth of the Ori-
noco, the Spaniards swept away all these establishments,
and captured those occupants who did not escape by
flight. Complained of by the Dutch governor and the
States-General, the Spaniards justified on the ground of
territorial sovereignty, and gave no redress. The Dutch
desisted from pushing their complaints and never sought to
re-occupy. They were expelled forever. That settles the
question of title and sovereignty.

5. We shall also point out natural lines of demarcation
ACTUAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE OCCUPATION. 95

between the Spanish and Dutch settlements, and shall show ao aa
that these natural lines agree with the history of the country ;

to wit, that on one side of them the Dutch settlements were

rather populous; but on the other, neither Dutch nor English’

ever attempted settlements; when they sought to main-

tain slave-traders’ huts on the Spanish side, they were ex-

pelled and remained expelled; and the lines referred to

were practically regarded as divisional lines.

6. A plain statement of the bare facts will perhaps make
the nature of the British claim clearer.

The Spaniards were the first discoverers, the first ex-
plorers, and the first who occupied any part of Guayana.
The British have no rights except such as can be based on
subsequent occupation by the Dutch. Their actual cultiva-
tion and settlement has been entirely confined to the coast
line; which gives, as actually occupied land, a strip,
including the settled banks of the estuaries, about 300 miles
long and seldom five miles wide — say 1,500 square miles.
Schomburgk complains that if Venezuela and Brazil estab-
lished the boundaries they assert, then British Guiana
will have only about 14,000 square miles. The claim as
made during the last few years covers an area estimated by
the British as 109,000 square miles. A physical occupation
of 1,500 square miles is therefore what is relied on by Great
Britain to give a litle by occupation to 109,000 square
miles — say seventy-five times the area of actual occupation.

There are conditions under which the material occupation
of a part may amount to legal or constructive prosession of
a much larger area; though such conditions do not exist in Div. v, infra.
favor of the British in this case. But it is evident that ther
whole case is built upon a constructive possession and not a real
one. Now, there is one rule about such legal fictions, the
justice and the binding force of which every layman wiil
recognize; and that is, that such legal fictions vanish in
One effect of
the treaty of
Munster,
1648,

96 ACTUAL AND

the face of an inconsistent fact. Such is the case at bar.
For whenever the Dutch pretended to exercise a territorial
claim outside of their actual settlements, as by setting up
and maintaining slave-traders’ huts, the Spaniards, as soon
as they knew of it, forcibly expelled the Hollanders, who
remained expelled ; and Spain did this upon the avowed claim
of territorial right. Thatis to say, not only didthe Spaniards
exercise the highest act of sovereignty and dominion, —-— the
exclusion of the rival claimant, — but they continued in the
permanent exercise of the sovereign right of exclusion ; and
the Dutch, though they grumbled, actually continued in
permanent acquiescence therein.

This conclusive fact lead to another observation. It has
been argued for Great Britain that it was enough to leave
Venezuela in possession of its actually cultivated lands,
and that England had a right to everything not materially
occupied by Venezuela. But it is obvious that a nation
which invokes the doctrine of constructive possession to
expand the settlement of 1,500 miles into a title to 110,000,
or, more exactly, if we consider the region west of the
Essequibo which is alone subject to dispute, undertakes to
expand an actual occupation of less than 300 miles into a
title to over 50,000, cannot deny the benefit of the rule of
constructive possession to its adversary also. And in such
a contest it is plain that the right to the territory intermediate
between the cultivated settlements belongs to the nation which
has forcibly excluded tts rival therefrom, and not to the nation
which is excluded.

Another consideration which bears with great weight upon
this topic, we shall elsewhere dwell upon (Diy. v, infra).
The treaty of Munster closed the war of Independence, and
defined the rights and interests which thereupon rested with
Holland. It allotted to her what she then actually possessed
in Guayana, and if she then had any occupation west of the
CONSTRUCTIVE OCCUPATION. 97

Essequibo (which we deny) it was at best nominal in charac-

ter and absolutely insignificant in extent. If, in the face of

that treaty, Holland could acquire any more by hostile occu-

pation, that occupation must be judged by the strict rules

which prevail where, the parties having defined their boun-

daries by deed, one of them claims an extension by alleged
subsequent disseisin. Such a claim cannot extend beyond Div: v infra.
the subsequent, substantial and actual occupation.

Thus the parties stood until 1840, when Schomburgk’s
ill-advised zeal induced the English to claim the land now
in dispute.

We now propose to tell this story at length and, as far as
may be, out of documents contemporary with the events
which they relate.
Hakluyt.

Schom-
burgk’s edi-
tion of
Ralegh’s

“ Guiana.”

Tb., p. 149.

Rodway &
W.,i, 14.

98 SPANISH DISCOVERY,

I. Spanish Discovery AND PossEssIon.

Guayana is the name which, from the earliest period, has
been given to a large region in South America, bounded on
the north by the Orinoco, on the south by the Amazon, on
the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by a continuous
water-way formed by the great bend of the Orinoco and its
affluent, the Casiquiare,-the southern end of which also con-
nects with the Rio Negro, a great affluent of the middle
Amazon.

Spain discovered this country. Its captains were the first
who sailed along its coast; the first who ascended the
Orinoco; the first to penetrate the interior entering with
many expeditions from that river; and the first to bring
back reports of its wealth of gold. All that other nations
attempted was to follow them; for it was Spanish reports
which started the foreign adventurers.

Of these, the most noted was Sir Walter Raleigh, whose
voyages were from 1595 to 1616. He went with heavily
armed expeditions, for he knew what he had to encounter.
Immediately on his first return, and planning for a second ex-
pedition, he wrote : “ For wee are not to goeas Cortez, Pisarro,
“or the other conquerors against a naked unarmed people
“(whose warrs are resembled by some to the childrens play
“called Iogo de Canne). Butt we are to encounter with the
“ Spaniards, armed in all respects, and as well practised as
“ ourselves.”

Whenever and wherever he or his lieutenants landed,
they found the Spaniards confronting them. They burned,
as Jansen an earlier freebooter had done in 1579, the Span-
ish town of San Thomé; they sometimes overcame the
Spaniards in fight; but in the end they retreated, bafiled,
because the Spaniards held the country too strongly.
AND SPANISH POSSESSION. 99

Such has been the fate of every expedition which sought eatons Was

iscovered

to penetrate the interior of Guayana. We find that, save and first
settled by

for the strip along the Atlantic coast presently to be men- Spain, and,
- except for a

tioned, the country is a Spanish country; that is to say, coast siti pis

its language, its religion, its architecture, its habits, the
names which cover its maps, even the mixture of blood
with the native race, are all Spanish. It received European
civilization from Spain; and there is not a trace in the
whole of South America north of the Amazon of any other
European nation, save on the narrow coast strip which the
Dutch and the French have planted.

Spain did all this with intent to become the possessor and
sovereign of the entire country. Columbus, who touched
the corner of South America in 1498, was sent by the
Catholic Kings to “ subject” to their power all the lands he
might discover; and this purpose was both announced and
sanctioned by the authority which the whole Christian world
(then a Catholic world) recognized as competent.

Spain followed up this work with persistency and vigor.
Soon after its first discovery there came innumerable Spanish
expeditions for exploration, for conquest and for settlement.
Spain did not confine its attentions to Guayana alone; they
embraced the whole northern part of the continent, and,
while laboring on each part, it also tded together as one whole
all that now constitutes Venezuela and Columbia.

Early dates and names are not very important, but it
may be convenient to give a few.

In 1498 Columbus saw the main land opposite Trinidad.
In 1499 Alonzo de Ojeda sailed along the coast from Suri-
nam to Trinidad, entering the mouths of the Essequibo and
the Orinoco ; and on this voyage the name of Venezuela or
“Little Venice ” was given to the main land, in consequence
of the islands and lagoons of the Orinoco delta. In 1500
Pinzon discovered the Amazon, and coasted the shore

panish land.
1500-1600.

Hakluyt, xv,
93, copied in
Rodway &
Watt, i, 12.

Schomb’s.
Ralegh, 16
et seq.

Tb., 26, 39.

Ib., 123.
Rodway &
Wey 123:

Schom-
burgk’s
Ralegh, 79,
123.

100 SPANISH POSSESSION:

to the Orinoco, where he took in a cargo of Brazil wood. In
1530 Pedro de Acosta founded a settlement at the mouth of
the Orinoco, but was not long afterwards driven off by the
Caribs. In 1531 Cornejo sailed up the Orinoco. Soon
afterwards Diego de Ordaz was formally appointed governor
of Guayana and sailed up the Orinoco to the mouth of the
Caroni. The most important consequence of this expedi-
tion is due, perhaps, to the adventures of one of its petty
officers, Martinez, who, falling into the hands of the natives,
was carried far inland. Returning after some years, he told
wonderful stories of the wealth of gold he saw, and of the
gilded king — El Dorado —who dwelt at Manoa, on the
great inland lake Parimé. This story excited the greatest
enthusiasm and was followed up by many and strong
expeditions.

The account of Keymis, Raleigh’s lieutenant, written in
1596, enumerates twenty expeditions down to 1560, all
Spanish, taken from “Primera Parte de las elegias de
Varones Illustres de Indias,” by Castellanos, and Raleigh’s
“ Discoverte of Guiana” adds more. These expeditions
were often of great size. The accounts of them mention 200
men; 400 men; 600 men.

For Spain continued its efforts. Not to speak of others,
Berreo in 1582 started from New Grenada with 700 horse-
men, 1000 head of cattle, and a horde of Indian slaves,
reached the Orinoco, went down to its mouth, and subdued
or received the peaceful homage of the Indians of that
region. This is related for the most part by Raleigh, who
knew Berreo personally, while a later expedition by Berreo
is proved by original Spanish letters from Guayana, captured
at sea in 1594 and published by Raleigh. Berreo followed
this up by a colonizing expedition which started from Spain
in 1585 with 2,000 colonists, though only a small part of
these finally settled in Guayana.
EXPEDITIONS AND SETTLEMENT. 101

Spain was settling Spanish America generally ; Guayana, 1500-1600.
the scene of so many expeditions, formed no exception. The
confluence of the Caroni and the Orinoco was pointed out,
by the nature of the land and by its position, as a place
fitted for settlement ; for both the river and the easy open
savannas which stretched far back from it marked it as the
natural entrance to the interior of Guayana; such, indeed,
it has always proved to be, and is to-day. In 1531-32,

Ordaz here found a settlement of Indians, and about
1571 the Spanish town of San Thomé was here regularly
established.*

The Jesuit fathers Llauri and Vergara began their mission- 7p,, 79,
ary work here in 1576. In 1579 Spanish San Thomé was aw. Yaa.

already of such importance as to attract the Dutch free- Eee ta Be

booter, Jansen, who in that year plundered and burned it. Cal tes
It was rebuilt by Berreo in 1591. Raleigh, writing in 1596 N°?
the account of his first expedition, calls it “the port of Ralegh, 39.
Guiana,” and says that “from thence by the help of

“ Carapana [an Indian chief] he [Berreo] had trade farther

“into the countrey, and alwaies appointed 10 Spaniards to

“reside in Carapanas towne,* by whose fauor, and being
“conducted by his people, those ten searched the countrey
“thereabouts as well for mines as for other trades and

“ commodities.”

Keymis, Raleigh’s lieutenant, in his ‘report printed by maxiuyt, xv,
Hakluyt, says that he saw this San Thomé in 1597, and found ae 79,
that on an island in front of it (Faxardo) the Spaniards had Hae
erected fortifications which protected the town and closed
the river. On the approach of the English, the Spaniards
stationed themselves at the mouth of the Caroni, says Key- Haktuyt, xv,
mis, “to defend the passage to those mines from whence e

 

* Which Schomburgk, loc. cit., identifies as San Thomé, now Las
Tablas. A town much lower down the Orinoco now bears the name
Carapana.
Ib., xv, 80.

Pp. 106-7,
infra.

Hakluyt, xv,
69.

Ralegh, 92.

Ib., 149.

102 SPANISH POSSESSION AND STRENGTH

“your Oare and white stones were taken the last yeere; wee
“all not without griefe see ourselues thus defeated and our
“hungry hopes made voyde.”

Keymis concludes his account: “Sorry I am that where I
“sought no excuse, by the Spaniards being there I found my
“ defeat remediless.”

In 1598 the Dutch Cabelian sailed up to this point, and
reports that the Spaniards held it in strength.

Keymis also says:

‘: That the Amapagotos haue images of gold of incredible big-
nesse. and great store of unmanned horses of the Caracas breed :
and they dwell five dayes iourney up the River about Caroli. Wee,
with our fleete of Canoes, were now not farre from Carapanas
Port, when our intelligencer returned and informed us that tenne
Spaniardes were lately gone with much trade* to Barima, where
these Indians dwelt, to buy Gassaui bread; and that within one
day two other Canoes of Spaniards were appointed to come by the
River Amana, to Carapana his Port.”

It is well known that, as this statement implies, the horses
of this country were entirely of Spanish introduction. It is
plain also from the last sentence that the Spaniards had a tre-
quent intercourse with Barima, where only Indians dwelt.
Cassave, here called Gassani, bread is the native staple food
of the country, and still forms the chief support of the
poorer classes outside the larger cities.

In 1595, Raleigh, being already on the Caroni, was unwill-
ing to go far into the interior because, having only fifty
soldiers, “the rest being laborers and rowers,” he could not
leave a sufficient guard with proper equipment on the river ; for
that “without those things necessarie for their defence, they
“shoulde be in daunger of the Spaniardes in my absence.”

Because, he says, besides what Spaniards might be near at
hand, Berreo expected reinforcements from New Granada and

 

* “ Trade” or ‘‘ negotie” means goods for barter.
DESCRIBED BY RALEIGH AND CABELIAN. 103

Valencia (in Venezuela) as well as from Spain. Raleigh an the span-
several times shows that he had to count with reinforcements Hel tact:
the Orinoco Spaniards would draw from the other provinces. * °"* ae
Keymis also, speaking of another place where there were Hakluyt, xv,
only ten Spaniards, was afraid to pass it, for they “might e
“well before wee could do anything and returne cause some
“others of Berreo his men to ioyne with them in the way to
“intercept vs.” Evidently the Spaniards had so knit to-
gether all their possessions that the strength of the whole was
available for each part, and thus even a oaaly settled place
was strongly held.
Raleigh describes the rich savannas, “some sixty miles in sop
“length, east and west, as fair ground and as beautiful fields Ralegh, 98.
“as any man hath ever seen, with divers copses scattered here
“and there by the river’s side, and all as full of deer as any
“forest or park in England.” Schomburgk ina note says that
these are “the plains of Upata and Piacoa, formerly the site
“of numerous missions.” It was across these savannas, open
for travel as compared with the cataracts and impassable
jungle between them and the actual Dutch settlements, that
the real approach to the interior of Guayana ley and still
lies. By the easy slopes which Schomburgk indicates on the
mup in his edition of Raleigh, the traveller makes his way
up the Piacoa, as the western part of the range parallel to the
Orinoco is called, and reaches Upata, ina fertile valley, about
sixty miles from the mouth of the Caroni and one thousand
feet above the sea. An hour or two’s ride further carries
one to the top of the water parting between the Orinoco
Valley and the Cuyuni basin, and from this point there is g,, gescrip.
spread out to the south an expanse of savannas, as far as the #0" yilpeiel
eye can reach, inviting both the traveller and the settler.
The history of the Raleigh expeditions has for us a Importance
special and altogether controlling value. That extraordinary eee tis

5 a Raleigh
man — courtier, writer, adventurer, speculator, promoter — expeditions.
Printed in
Schom-
burgk’s Ral-
egh, 121; and
Rodway &
W., i, 23.

Raleigh
tested and
proved the
Spanish
strength in
Guayana.

104 SPANISH POSSESSION AND STRENGTH

had been excited by the reports the Spaniards brought home
of the wealth of the interior of Guayana. Some letters
written from Governor Berreo’s Orinoco and Guayana ex-
peditions in 1593-94, captured at sea and carried to Eng-
land in 1594, served to fan the flame. Thereupon Raleigh
devoted twenty years of his life and all his fortune to the
attempt to reach that country ; and he was defeated.

No man could excel him in ambition, in daring, in fer-
tility of resource, in ability, energy and enterprise; nor in
means for fitting out expeditions; nor in resolute and
devoted friends and followers. What could be done he
could do, and he would do. He knew the Spaniards, for he
had often fought them, and if he respected their strength in
Guayana, or hesitated before it, it was not because he was
faint-hearted, but because they were really strong. That,
finally, they foiled all his efforts is a fact and a proof of
their presence and of their strength before which discussion,
inference, conjecture and argument must be dismissed as
worthless.

Two things are clear from the Raleigh writings and from
his experience: His object was to reach the interior of
Guayana. But he found two facts; one was that the Span-
iards, by their establishments at the landings, held every ap-
proach ; and the other was that they held them too strongly
for the largest expedition he could send out — an expedition
which, starting with fourteen ships, actually carried 400 men
to the point of conflict. Now, this being true, it is clear
that the Spaniards not only permanently occupied the land
which they had discovered and had overrun with their expe-
ditions, but held it so strongly as to exclude all others. That
made them its sovereigns and gave them a perfect title to the
whole.

There are, in Raleigh’s writings, some intimations that the
Spaniards had oceupied in force only certain spots, and that
PROVED BY THE RALEIGH EXPEDITIONS. 105

he could avoid or evade those and reach the interior without Raleigh tested
a conflict. Upon these the accusation was made upon his ihe area
last return to England, after his defeat, and has been repeated aa
since his death, that he deceived his co-adventurers and his

king into that belief. But no one has ever pretended that

he believed that himself, and Schomburgk has well pointed

out that he so often stated that a fight with the Spaniards

was to be expected, and made so much preparation for it,

that everyone knew the truth. In fact, during the reign of
Elizabeth, and still more under James, England and Spain,
nominally at peace in Europe most of the time, were always

at war at the West Indies and the Spanish main; and just

such pretences were used by both monarchs, and by the
adventurers under them, as a cloak which concealed nothing

and deceived no one.

Raleigh sent out four expeditions. First, in 1594-95, he
went himself, and with several ships he sailed up the Ori-
noco to the mouth of the Caroni, landing there and at various
points lower down. He brought back reports of wealth,
but found the Spaniards too strong to allow him to accom-
plish anything. In the next year, 1595-96, he sent his
second in command, Lawrence Keymis, on what must be
considered chiefly a reconnoitering expedition. Keymis
struck the coast near the Amazon, and sailed up before the
trade wind to the Orinoco, and then up that river to the
Caroni, and on his return wrote a careful account of what
he learned, published by Hakluyt. He found that the
Spaniards had everywhere been before him. He inquired
about access to the interior directly from the coast, but ap-
parently found that way impracticable, as in fact it is; and
on the Orinoco the Spaniards were so strong that he had to
retreat.

The next year Berrie, another lieutenant of Raleigh, sailed
again from the Amazon to the Orinoco, and the report of
Cabelian, in
Netscher,
Hist. of
Guiana, c. 3.

Supp. B. b.,
109.
Th., 154.

106 SPANISH POSSESSION AND STRENGTH

this voyage is also published by Hakluyt. Then Raleigh
wrote various articles and proposals for further and stronger
expeditions, and finally led his great and final one in 1616.
We have quoted enough from the reports of the earlier
Raleigh expeditions to show that Spanish force was found
everywhere, and was found too strong for those expeditions
to encounter.

The clear and intelligent report of CaBELian, submitted
to the States-General in 1599, and quoted by Netscher, is an
independent confirmation of what Raleigh shows to be the
persistency and the strength of Spain in Guayana and its
progress towards the interior. Netscher says that with one
of his smaller ships and two armed launches Cabelian went
up the Orinoco,

“to the spot or place where the Spaniards dwell, called San
Thomé, of which Don Fernando de Berreo is governor; and they
numbered there about sixty cavalry and one hundred musketeers
who do not cease attempting to conquer Guiana rich in gold.” *
The Caribs, he says, still stubbornly resist the Spaniards,
but the latter persist in the efforts which finally partly sub-
dued and partly exterminated those savages. The white
men, says Cabelian (the words seem to be Netscher’s), “in
“order better to penetrate the interior, had begun making a
“road through the mountains, about six days’ journey
“south of the Orinoco.” This means from San Thomé across
the easy slopes of the Piacoa range, by Upata, to the sa-
vannas of the Cuyuni basin. Such a road has existed as far
back as records or tradition go, and is to-day the used
entrance to that basin and to the great Venezuelan mines

 

* A contrast is useful. In 1758, 7. e., one hundred and sixty years
later, Commandeur Gravesande wrote that he only had fourteen sol-
diers fit for duty. In 1768 he wrote that there really ought to bea
hundred for both the Dutch colonies together; but he despairs of any-
thing like that.
PROVED BY THE DUTCHMAN CABELIAN. 107

within it. Six days from San Thomé would carry a foot.
traveller to Guacipati, and would carry a horseman, over a
saddle-path which was doubtless what was opened, to near
the confluence of the Yuruari and the Cuyuni. We may be
sure that the construction of a road six days’ journey inland,
to the points which Raleigh at the same time described as a
rich pasture land, meant that the interior was already well
occupied or was about to be so. Cabelian continues :

‘*To sum up concisely, up that river [the Caroni] there Cabelian’s

undoubtedly is much gold in the kingdom of Guiana, but for foe me aah

tradesmen it is not very well possible to expect any geod to come strength in
thervfrom, except in case some considerable forces were available regen be
to attack the Spantards, which would be the only way to get Loc. cit.
information from the Indians concerning gold mines. For those

who are enemies and hostile to the Spaniards are friends to the

Indians, who always hope that they will be delivered from the
Spaniards by the Flamingos and Angleses.”

In other words, no foreigner can penetrate except at the
cost of a war; and even the Indians, though some tribes
still fight, are so subdued that they do not expect deliver-
ance unless by the strength of a European nation.

These are neither the boastings of one Spanish governor
vaunting what he can do, nor the back-biting of another
insinuating that his predecessors had done nothing ; they are
the judgments of able and resolute men, of the two nations
most hostile to Spain, who, from the testimony of their own
eyes, reported the Spanish strength in Guiana.

Such were the facts and the known facts in 1600. Then Raleigh's
Raleigh held out the lure that perhaps he might turn the ae ie
flank of the Spanish stronghold and reach the interior with-
out a conflict; or, more exactly, the idea he suggested was
that he might slip by the Spaniards and then they would have
to attack him; so that he could say that he did not mean
to attack them. But nevertheless he knew that he must fight
108 SPANISH POSSESSION AND STRENGTH

them; and that, for this, a heavy force was needed. He
knew this not merely from what he and Keymis had learned,
but from later adventurers who had visited the spot.

He seems to have dismissed from his mind all hope of
reaching the interior except by the Orinoco; and here was
his final plan for the advance by way of that river:

In his “ Proposals ” of 1611 he undertook to send Keymis
with such men

Schom- ‘* as should be able to defend him against the Spaniards inhabiting

Reber ies, Upon Orenoke if they offered to assaile him (not that itt is meant

Hata to offend the Spaniards there or to beginne any quarrell with them
reso except themselves shall beginne the warre). To knowe what
number of men shall be sufficient may itt please your Lordshipps
to informe your selves by Captaine More, a servant of Sir John
Watts, who came from Orenoke this last spring, and was oftentimes

ashore att St. Thome, where the Spaniards inhabite.”

This expedition, however, never took place. It was
merged in the final one of 1616,

Raleigh’s choice of the Orinoco route for 1611 and 1616
has much significance. His objective point was the supposed
golden region of the interior of Guayana. The Spaniards
had always penetrated from the Orinoco, going in usually
from San Thomé. They had recently, says Cabelian, writing
in 1599, begun to make a road from San Thomé across the
Piacoa to the upper Cuyuni basin — still the best approach
to that interior. But the Spaniards guarded that entrance ;
Raleigh found them there ; so did Keymis; so did Cabelian ;
and found themin strength. When Raleigh planned bis later

Motley, Jobn, expeditions, at a when King James was in love with
Feldt, i, 35-4; the Spaniards and infatuated with the hope of the Spanish
eee marriage, any attack on the Spaniards was at the risk of his
life. If that interior could be reached by any other road

Raleigh would take it. He knew what there was to be known

on the subject. For Keymis, in his first voyage, came to the
PROVED BY THE RALEIGH EXPEDITIONS. 109

river Essequibo and was told by the Indians that the natives
could go up that river to the golden lake “ whereon Manoa
standeth.” But he also heard of the difficulties of that
country. When, therefore, in the face of all this, Raleigh,
like everyone else, sailed up the Orinoco to go to the golden
interior, we know that it was because he found that San
Thomé and not the Essequibo was the door to the great basin
and region within. Spain held this Orinoco shore as the
gateway to the interior; that is, held it as a part of the
interior, and as the controlling part.
Raleigh’s expedition of 1616 carried one hundred and gopom-

twenty-one pieces of ordnance in one squadron of seven eer

vessels, joined presently by seven more vessels, and he sent 1” 1"
four hundred men up the Orinoco to San Thomé. He notes
that a part of the Spanish strength lay in the ease with
which the commandant of Guiana could draw reinforcements
from Cumana and the other provinces.

He directed his officers “to send into Dessekebe, for 1 yy, oo9,

“assured them that they could not want pilots there for

Ib., 211.
Ib., 92, 149,
v5.

“ Orenoke, being the next great river* adioyning vnto it, and
“to which the Spaniards of Orenoke had dayly recourse.”
Then the expedition started up the Orinoco.

San Thomé, and a stronghold twenty-five miles below it
marked on the maps as “Old Guyana,” were the keys to the
whole interior, including the Cuyuni basin now in dispute. ..¥ 0...
The San Thomé which made Keymis retreat in 1596, and burgk’s

Ralegh, 115,
discouraged Cabelian in 1598, was such of itself. Raleigh, 24 note.

 

* Schomburgk’s note to this is:

“The River Essequibo. The Dutch were here established as early
as 1580-90. They were, however, driven from their settlements by
the Spaniards, assisted by the Indians.”

If, iustead of saying ‘‘ established,’’ he had said touched there for
trade, the statement would have been correct. Netscher points out ¢. 3.
that there is no authority whatever for asserting any settlement at
that date.
Tb., 210-6.

Fray Simon.

Schom-
burgk’s
Ralegh.

Hartsinck ;
Rodway &
W., i, 49.

Hartsinck ;
p. 211.
Rodway &
Wo, 008.

110 SPANISH POSSESSION AND STRENGTH

in 1595, also pointed out that two small forts on and near
the bluff twenty-five miles below, at the place where Old
Guayana castle still stands, would close both the river and
the country to all comers, no matter how strong ; and Schom-
burgk confirms this. When he started on his final expedition
in 1616 Raleigh believed that the Spaniards had not occupied
the latter place. His plan was to land at the lowest available
point on the river, which was near it, and thence push for the
mine, thus avoiding San Thomé. But his forces found there
a town of one hundred and forty houses, a church and two
convents, defended by fifty-seven men, well armed and with
some ordnance, commanded by the governor of the province,
assisted by a most valiant officer, Captain Geronimo de
Grados. The English had four hundred men. They took the
place at the cost of young Raleigh’s life; held it twenty-six
days; heard that Spanish reinforcements were approaching ;
plundered it, burned it, and retreated. The expedition was
ruined. Keymis, who commanded for Raleigh, committed
suicide, and Raleigh went back to England and the block.

It is impossible to overlook or to belittle what this
history proves. The most brilliant commander of Eng-
land had tried for twenty years to penetrate Guiana. He
had failed because the Spaniards held it already, and held it
too strongly for him.*

Both Blue Books hold out the view — and this is their main
argument on this branch of the case — that as to Guayana
the Spaniards, at this period, were but as a feeble folk;
with no settlements, and no strength; unable even to hold

 

* Too strongly for the Dutch also. We have seen what Cabelian
found in 1599. Dutch vessels, authorized by the States-General,
attempted trade up the Orinoco in 1602-3, ‘* but were prevented by
the great number of Spaniards who were located there.”

In 1629, a Dutch fleet of a dozen ships, fitted out for a raid,
destroyed San Thomé, but attempted no invasion.
PROVED BY THE RALEIGH EXPEDITIONS. 111

their own against the natives. In a latter part of this brief
we shall point out the absurd misstatements of the Blue
Book, and on p. 36, supra, we have noticed the unreliable
character of the authorities it relies on. But there is a
simpler answer to its positions.

They are indeed only a leaf taken out of the Raleigh liter- Schom.
ature. In his account of his voyage of 1595, in the account Beep nen
by his lieutenant, Keymis, of the next voyage, in Raleigh’s
proposals for his later expeditions, and elsewhere, we find
assertions that Spain is very weak in Guayana; that the na-
tives are ready to join the English against the Spaniards ; gcnomp.
that “four or five hundred men” would be amply sufficient 151°
to seize the whole country. This matter, scattered through
his account of his expedition of 1595, and through the ac-
count of Keymis’s expedition of 1596-97, is summed up and
set forth with great ingenuity in Raleigh’s proposals of 1611. gonomp.
Four or five hundred men, he said, would be ample. In Se we
his later “ Letter to Lord Carew touching Guiana” he also
declared that all the Spaniards had done had been,

“To set up a towne of sticks, covered with leaves of trees* upon ye19,
“the banke of Orronoque which they call St. Thomé; but they have lag
neither reconciled nor conquered any of the Cassiques or natural
Lords of the Country, which Cassiques are still in armes against
them, as by the Governour’s letter to the King of Spaine, may ap-
peare.”

But presently he put the argument to a test which left no
room for false report, for exaggeration, for inference; we
mean the test of actual experiment; and upon this the “four
or five hundred men,” the actual number which went up the
river under Keymis and Raleigh’s son, returned, baffled and

 

* The native fashion of building houses, with unhewn corner posts
and rafters, thatched with the troolie palm, is still used to an enormous
extent in British Guiana and elsewhere.
Rodway &
W., i, 9.
Hakluyt, xv.

Ralegh, 8.

Hakluyt,

xy, 77.

Hakluyt, xv,
60.

112 SPANISH POSSESSION AND STRENGTH

ruined by the Spaniards, and the leaders went to death in
despair.*

No other expedition reversed this answer of cold fact;
none produced any change in the sovereignty or the possession
of the country. They did not attempt to. They went be-
cause they heard of the wealth of the country from the
Spaniards who had already been there. It was the report
made by Martinez, an officer of the expedition led in 1531 by

 

* The Indians were ready to receive favors, but had been so sub-
dued by the Spaniards that they would not lift hand against them,
except by secret murder, etc. On Raleigh’s visit, in 1595, a chief was
ready to guide him to the mines of Guayana, if Raleigh would leave in
his own men enough to protect it against the Spaniards, which Raleigh
could not do because it would require more than his entire force.

Of another Indian town he says that ten Spaniards dwelt there, and
that the chief was therefore afraid to have anything to do with the
English.

On Weymis’s visit, in 1596, he talked with the Indian chiefs, and
heard how they hated the Spaniards; but the Indians refused further
intercourse than a little secret talk, ‘‘least perhaps some Spie might

inform thereof, whereby danger would grow to Carapana. ... By
this I perceived that to stay longer for him . . . would be purpose-
lesse.”’

Raleigh never got help from the natives; in the last expedition he
did not even try to. A couple of Englishmen whom he left, in 1595,
to foment friendship for England and hatred towards Spain, were
seized by the Spaniards; and, as Mr. Scruggs has well pointed out,
this proves the presence and the power of the Spaniards.

Down on the Atlantic coast Keymis found proof of the power of
the Spaniards over the Indians, and of the fear the former excited. He
says:

“It was long time before we could procure them [the In-
dians]to come near us, for they doubted lest we were Spanish.”
Their captain “at large declared unto us that he was lately chased by
the Spaniards from Moruga [the Moruca], one of the neighbor rivers
to Raleana or Orenoque”’ ; and that the Arwaccas, who are still the
most numerous tribe in northeastern Guayana, ‘‘ do for the most part
serve and follow the Spaniards.”

On page 66 he speaks of ‘‘the Indians of Moruga being chased
from their dwellings,” and ‘‘ these Arwaccas, who serve the Spaniards.”
So that the Spaniards were then strong on the coast.
PROVED BY FAILURE OF ALL ATTEMPTS AT INVASION. 113

Diego de Ordaz, governor of Guayana, that fired men’s minds
about El Dorado, and in 1594-95 the captured Spanish letters
already referred to renewed the excitement and started
Raleigh’s first expedition.

Thus these foreign expeditions came, not for settlement
nor for sovereignty, but to take what the Spaniards said their
land held, or to plunder what the Spaniards had already col-
lected. Jansen, Raleigh, Drake and others left no permanent
mark. They robbed the coast towns and destroyed them ;
but they neither settled, nor built, nor intended to. Their
attacks were a recognition that the territory they despoiled
was Spanish territory; they found it so; they went there
because it was so; they left it so. A good writer of seventy
years ago, after pointing out the many defects in Spanish
rule and Spanish administration, well said:

‘¢ But, notwithstanding all these defects, the Spanish colossus Mollien,

was firm and unshaken ; its coasts were ravaged, its seaport towns Grampian”

burned, and its fortresses besieged; but its territory was still P- 124.
intact.”

The Spanish soldiers had beaten off the invaders. San 1629. Rod-
Thomé was afterwards attacked by freebooters, but invasion rps my
had come to an end.

The statements in the introductory part or argument of the
Blue Book concerning the history of this period (and of the
later period also) must be the result of haste which left no
time for accuracy. Mr. Scruggs’ pamphlet, “Fallacies of
the British Blue Book on the Venezuelan Question,” exhibits geo also div.
many of them. The brief prepared at Caracas shows many *) '/"4-
more. We give a few samples.

The Blue Book says: “In 1595, the English explorer,
“Captain Charles Leigh, found the Dutch established near
“the mouth of the Orinoco, a fact which is confirmed from
“Spanish sources”; citing Purchas, 1250-1255. The pas-
sages cited contain not a word about the Orinoco, nor about

Blue b., #,
Schomb’s
Ralegh, 30.
Caulin, 175.

Spanish
settlements.

114 SOME MISSTATEMENTS IN THE BLUE BOOK.

a settlement. What Leigh writes is that he found Dutch
ships on the Amazon.

The Blue Book (7b.) says that the first settlement made
by Spain in Guayana was the foundation of St. Thomé in
1596, and that “a despatch from Don Roque de Montes,
“Treasurer of Cumana, to the King of Spain, dated the 12th
“ April, 1596, shows that the Spaniards did not then hold
“any part of Guiana.”

Yet St. Thomé had been built before 1579, for in that
year the freebooter Jansen destroyed it: and Berreo rebuilt
it in 1591; and in 1595-96, Raleigh and Keymis found the
whole region so strongly hela by the Spaniards that they
were forced to retreat.

The Blue Book, p. 5, gives as a quotation —
‘¢* The Dutch Settlements in Guayana extend from close to the
river Amazones to the Orinoco.’ ”’

The document cited contains no such statement, nor any-
thing which can suggest or be tortured into such a meaning.

Other misstatements of the Blue Book will be noted here-
after. We assume that they are due to a certain haste of
preparation. But one cannot rely on an argument where
they are so plentiful.

The next stage of Spanish settlement was helped, and
finally, in the region we are particularly concerned with,
was largely controlled, by the mission fathers.

Spanish Settlements in the Second Period — 1620-1730.

Settlement spread inward from the very scene of Raleigh’s
defeat. Along the Orinoco shores, for fifty miles below St.
Thomé, between the river and the Imataca range, stretch
great savannas. The lay of the land affords an easy pas-
sage from San Thomé (now Las Tablas*) and also from the

 

*To be exact, ‘‘ Puerto de las Tablas”’ is at the corner of the
Caroni and the Orinoco; San Thomé was a trifle up the Caroni.
SPANISH MISSIONS. 115

eastern bank of the Caroni, to the Yuruari and other upper

waters of the Cuyuni basin, which is also a region of sa- The missions.
vannas ; and these have always been and are to-day the lines

of travel to the interior. Along them settlements crept.

Three pieces of proof are enough for the moment.

Caulin and Schomburgk say that the missionaries began Caulin, p. 9.
their work in Guayana in 1576. sia

In 1761 Governor Diguja visited the missions, and the
result was a report by him as to their history and condition yen. sp.
and a corresponding report by the Prefect, Father Fidel de 3{° » 7%:
Santo. A register of baptisms then existing went back to
1664, showing that the “ pacification and conversion ” of the
Indians was then going on, and the names of various early
missionary fathers of the different religious orders are
preserved. In 1681 the Jesuits solemnly renounced the eee a
Guayana missions in favor of the Catalan Capuchins, “more pleas
economical and active than the other missionaries,” says Rodway &
Humboldt (v, 769). Royal decrees of 1686-87 confirmed ssi
this, and sent a considerable number of these Fathers to Trini-
dad and Guayana, where in fifteen years they baptized five
thousand Indians and founded five towns in Trinidad and

three in Guayana.

One of the things relied on by Great Britain is a letter yetscher,o1-2,
of Gov. S. Beekman, dated June 14, 1703, in which he says Feray
that the Dutch had a trade-house on a savanna in the upper yy, 5s,
Cuyuni, for the purpose of buying horses from the Span- S2P: B- >
iards. This proves aconsiderable and long established Span- ®: &% 7ra-
ish, settlement there.

In 1717 more Catalan missionaries were sent to Guayana. Ven Sp.
Many suffered matyrdom from the Caribs; but they perse- Genuh’s o
vered. In 1728 they introduced cattle raising on a large ce B.b.,
scale. In 1724 there wasa formal foundation of “ missions,” ;
by a sort of charter for each.

In 1734 the mission had become so important that the Biueb., 66.
Ven. Sp.
Docs., i, 225.
Supp. B. b.,
259.

Supp. B. b.,
270.

Tb., 319, 334.

Tb., 355.
Tb., 356.

Liberator

Docs.
Canlin, p. 12.

Supp. B. b.,
269.

116 SPANISH MISSIONS.

prefects and the governor met at Old Guayana and definitely
and legally apportioned the territory among the different
religious orders. The agreement gave the south bank of
the Orinoco, from Angostura to the sea, to the Catalan Capu-
chins, and, in effect, states this to be Spanish territory.

In 1761 sixteen missions were flourishing in that region.
Diguja, who visited them in that year, gives their names
and states that they contain 4,392 souls, with 15,000 head
of cattle. The prefect gives a list of eight others which
had been lost through small-pox, raids by the Caribs. etc.

Later lists show :

1788. 29 or 30 missions. 14,012 persons. 180,000 cattle.
1799. 28 “ 15,908 *
1816. 29 “ 21,246 *

Seven of these missions, in 1761, were among the Caribs.

There were also civil towns. Caulin (who lived in Guay-
ana) says that at his date of publication, 1779, “the settle-
“ments which the Spaniards hold to-day in the province
“of Guayana are 80 villages and 18,000 inhabitants.”

The Prefect, Father Fidel de Santo, in his report of 1761,
says that from the great progress made by the missions, in
1724, “it may be said that their true foundation dates from
“that time”; but he points out that missionary work began

 

* The editor of the Blue Book, in a note to p. 66, intimates that
in a historical sketch of Guayana entitled ‘‘ Apuntes Estadisticas,”
published by order of General Guzman Blanco, in 1876, the descrip-
tion of the territory assigned to the Catalan Capuchins is misquoted,
and that Venezuela bases a claim on a phrase which it has inter-
polated. Suchis not the fact. The phrase which the Blue Book
objects to is what we here put in italics:

‘el terreno comprendido desde la costa del mar (que corre desde la
boca grande del Orinoco hasta las Colonias del Esequibo) hasta la Angos-
tura del Orinoco... .” ;

The phrase which disturbs the editor of the Blue Book appears to
be that in the parenthesis. It is undoubtedly in effect a statement
that the coast from the great mouth of the Orinoco to the Colonies of
SPAIN NOT WEAK IN GUAYANA. 117

earlier. The intimations of the Blue Book, that 1724 is to
be taken as the date of the earliest Indian missionary work,
is founded on a misunderstanding of their history.

It must be observed that such mission work as the Spanish
Fathers always engaged in, both in North and South America,
aiming at and resulting in the establishment of villages of
domesticated Indians, recruited at a distance from the settle-
ments, governed, quite stringently, by the Fathers, is of
itself a possession of the country where their labors are
carried on. But the Dutch never made a pretence of mis-
sionary work. That of the English has been within the last
twenty-five years, and, with one insignificant exception,
on the Brazilian frontier, has been confined to the Indians
who were already in contact with white men at the edge of
the plantation settlements.

It is useless for the Blue Book to argue from the complaints Documents
cited to show

of a governor or a father, that there was no Spanish power that Spanish
Guayana was

and no Spanish growth in Guayana. It grew until it could Roskare
_ illusory.

not only stand without aid from home but could shake off
the mother country. But the Essequibo colony, on whose
life and progress the whole British case depends, was gener- Rodway & W.

; é ii, 12, 86, 88.
ally moribund. Its owners became insolvent; they voted Div. vi, infra.

 

Essequibo is Spanish, and itis in effect a statement that the Dutch
colonies are on the Essequibo and some distance from the Orinoco.

That phrase, it is true, is not in the division agreement of 1734, Blue b., 66.
and Apuntes Estadisticas does not put it in quotation marks. But
it is exactly copied from Caulin, p. 10; and Father Caulin, living
in Guayana, wrote it in 1759 and published it in 1779. Venezuela
may well assume as a fact that which he so carefully states, and
certainly cannot be charged with dishonest invention of a clause
which it copied from a history a century old.

The phrase of the indenture of 1734 is ‘‘ el territorio y distrito que
ay desde la Angostura para abajo hasta la boca grande de dicho Ori-
noco,’— a description which would be untrue unless the Spaniards
held (as they did) the south bank of the Orinoco from Angostura to
the sea. So that Caulin’s phrase means exactly the same as the origi-
nal document does.
P. 129, infra.

Parl P. 1887,
vol. 57.
Reddan’s
report.
Schomb.
Br. Guiana.

Blue b., 49.
Supp. B. b.,
2038.

Ib., 204,

118 SPANISH POSSESSION:

to abandon it; its governors wrote that it was on the verge
of ruin. Its principal growth was toward the close of the
last century, when Dutch and English had practically ceased
the attempt at territorial expansion, and given up territorial
pretensions.

In 1691 it had not over 100 Europeans and “several hun-
dred” negro slaves; in 1735 only 150 Europeans and 3,000
slaves. In 1789 Georgetown, the capital, had only 780 per-
sons, of all colors. In 1829 Essequibo had only 614 whites.
New York,owned by the same West India Company, was larger
after twenty years than Essequibo after a hundred and fifty.

The Blue Books have nothing which essentially varies or
adds to the account we have given of this period. The
Supplemental Blue Book gives the Dutch West India Com-
pany’s charter (1621) and some papers relating to it, but the
first letter from Guiana is in 1683. The treaty of Munster
(1648) is in Blue B., 57.

Various Spanish papers are given in a very fragmentary
form in the Blue Book, and somewhat more completely in
the Supp. Blue Book. They show that chronic war, con-
sisting chiefly in attacks from ships or illicit trading from
them, prevailed all along the coast from the Isthmus to the
Amazon. If this proved anything it would prove that the
Spaniards lost title to the Spanish main as much as to
Guayana, which of course it does not. But Spain on the
whole backed up its colonies, sent men and munitions where
most needed.

But this was war, and general war ; there was no peaceable
and continuous settlement by the foreigner which could give
title; and the Spaniards in the long run got the better of
their enemies. The Spanish letters about Raleigh are per-
haps the most dismal of all; but the outcome of his twenty
years of work was Ais destruction.

On the whole the Flemish appear to have suffered most.
EFFORTS OF THE BLUE BOOK TO DISPROVE IT. 119

Some of their vessels were taken and the crews hanged. The Ib., 213.
landing parties suffered heavily before they could re-embark.

The Dutch had settled on the Corentyn, but a Spanish ex- 1p., 204.
pedition, between June, 1613, and June, 1614, attacked

them, burned their fort with its occupants, and laid waste

their settlement. “What was done on this occasion made Ib., 205.
“avery great effect,” says the narrator; and of another piece

of destruction he says that the Flemings got “such ill-1p., 204.
“welcome . . . that they have never returned.”

One passage, in an abstract of a letter of May 30, 1614 1., 204.
(the letter is not given), says that the Flemings “have pos-
“sessed themselves of the mouths of these two rivers,” the
previous sentence naming the Amazon and the Orinoco.

But if this really means that they settled firmly on those two
rivers so as to hold their mouths, it is not true. It may, in
the original, refer to the Essequibo and the Berbice. But
there is something wrong about the document. For the
Blue Book gives a letter from the same writer, which though Blue b., 52.
dated June 25, 1613, contains several sentences identical
with the letter of the Supplemental Blue Book; and this
does not state or imply any settlement on either of those
rivers, but a strong attempt to trade from ships. Moreover
there is no trace in any history or elsewhere of any such
settlements. The Raleigh history makes no allusion to
such a thing and is totally inconsistent with it.*

The claim of the Dutch historians is that the first aétempt Roadway &
at settlement was about 1613, and on the Essequibo. The ee
Company was chartered in 1621. The first authenticated 1., 6s.

date of any settlement, according to Rodway and according ao

 

* Guayana, it must be remembered, was the name given by the
Spaniards to the entire coast from the Amazon to the Orinoco. A
settlement by a foreigner ‘‘in Guayana”’ does not imply that it
touched the territory west of the Essequibo, which is what is here in
dispute.
Supp. B. b.,
209.

Blue b., 56-7.

Ps

, infra.

120 LIMITS OF DUTCH OCCUPATION IN 1658.

to Netscher, who examines this matter with much care, is
1624, when Kyk-over-al, at the confluence of the Cuyuni
and Essequibo, is said to have been established on the foun-
dations of an older Spanish fort.

On the suggestion zn the title yiven by the editor to one
paper, dated 1621, that Raleigh had“ taken” Guayana, in
such a sense as to be a menace to the interior, it is needless
to comment.

The only really valuable Spanish paper of this period is
an anonymous report in which the writer says that “all he
“has described, he has seen and examined during one year
“and a half he passed on that coast.” The Blue Book only
gives a brief extract or abstract, but the title sufficiently
expresses the contents. Itis “ Description of the islands
settled by Holland and the position she holds on terra firma
Srom the Island of Carpoy* TO THE RIVER POMEROON.”
This, of course, absolutely excludes the notion of any set-
tlement beyond the Pomeroon. The date of this unfortu-
nately is not given. The Blue Book puts it interrogatively
“1640 (?)”.

But its contents fix the date to be after 1658. For it
states that on the Demerara the Dutch “have a very impor-
tant factory,” and that “in the river Paumaron, is the town
“of New Calandia [Zelandia], whichis very large and rich in
“all kinds of fruits, being the best settlement they possess in
“the whole of this coast; and on this account they carefully
“guard it, for this is already very near the river Orinoco.”

Now, the first attempt to make plantations on the Pome-
roon was in 1658, under De Jonge, who built the fort and
little settlement of New Zeelandia after that year. This
extract absolutely excludes the idea of any settlement be-
yond the Pomeroon, at the time to which it relates.

* Described as at the mouth of the Wiapoco.
THE DUTCH COLONY. 121

Il. Tue Durcw Conony; irs Generat History.

It was at least a century after the Spaniards held Guayana
when the Dutch first attempted a settlement. One or two
Dutch ships touched on “ The Wild Coast,” as they called it,
to trade with the Indians, and after some years the captains
would leave a few men at the landing to collect a cargo for
the next year, and put up some huts for them and their
goods.* It has been alleged that this began about 1580, but
clearly this is not the fact. Rodway’s first book stated the Roawayg w.
building of a block-house on the Pomeroon in this connec- Rodway, i, 2
tion, but in his later work he omits this; it was not built
until after 1659. Keymis, Raleigh’s lieutenant, sailed along Supp. B. b.,
this coast in 1596 carefully enough to make a list of all the
streams, including the Pomeroon and Moruca; and Berrie in
1597; but neither heard anything of a Dutch settlement.

In 1599 Cabelian made an elaborate report to the States-Gen-

eral of his exploration in the same region; De Laet pub- netscher,
lished in 1624. From these and other sources Netscher and eae &
Rodway conclude that the Dutch had not then got beyond ty ae
touching to trade. Both incline to think that it was the Reet
report of Raleigh’s voyage which started the Dutch; and it
was the older reports of the Spaniards which started Raleigh.

The Blue Book says that “In 1595 the English explorer

Blue b., 4.
“Captain Charles Leigh found the Dutch established near

 

* The Supp. B. b., p. 57, states that ‘‘ The Wild Coast was the origi- ,, Wild coast.”
nal name of the coast between the Orinoco and the Essequibo”’;
implying that the phrase referred to that particular part of the coast,
to the exclusion of the portion south and east of the Essequibo.
Such is not the fact. The name was applied to the whole coast of
Guayana, from the Amazon to the Orinoco. A place on ‘‘the Wild
Coast” was not therefore necessarily west of the Essequibo.
Instances of this use, both by historians and in documents of the
seventeenth century, are in Rodway and Watt, i, 99, 104, 184, 145, 147,
172 ; ii, 5, 44, 49.
R. & W., i, 88,
114.

Ib., i, 89.

Charter in
Jameson’s
Usselinx &
O’Callaghan’s
New Nether-
lands, i, app.
United Neth.,
iv, A
Supp. B. b.53.

Bancroft,
Hist. U.5S.,
il, 37.

1624.
Rodway &
W.., i, 91.

Arrival of
the Dutch.
Rodway &
Watt, 63.
Rodway, i, 3.
Netscher, c. 3.
Hakluyt.

122 THE DUTCH COLONY:

“the mouth of the Orinoco,” etc., citing as sole authority
Purchas Pilgrims, pp. 1250-5. What is said at the place
cited is that Leigh found a Dutch ship trading with the
natives at the mouth of the Amazon. Nowhere in Leigh’s
relation is there any statement about any Dutch settlement,
nor about the mouth of the Orinoco.

Lhe Dutch West India Company, abortively attempted in
1607, was really chartered in 1621, at the close of the twelve
years truce between Spain and Holland. Its main expecta-
tion of profit was from plundering the Spanish plate ships,
but by its charter also all other Hollanders were forbidden
to touch, trade, and settle over a territory of no less extent
than the southern half of the Atlantic coast of Africa, and
the whole Atlantic coast of America from Newfoundland to
the Straits of Magellan. This, however, as both Jameson
and Motley point out, was not and did not purport to be a
grant of land, nor the exercise of sovereign dominion over
that vast region, but merely a prohibition to other subjects
of the States-General — “the inhabitants of these countries ”
— called an octrot.

Under this charter, and therefore after 1621, the historians
agree, the first attempt at colonization took place.*

It consisted in the erection of the small fort “ Kyk-over-al”
on an island at the junction of the Cuyuni, Mazeruni and
Essequibo, which fort itself was constructed upon the
remains of an older Spanish fort. Keymis reported the
Spaniards there in force in 1596-97.

The colony, however, was so feeble and worthless that in
1632 the directors decided to give it up, but afterwards deter-

 

* Netscher makes a critical examination of the matter. The story
of an earlier settlement rests, he says, on an account given by inter-
ested colonists in a memvir one hundred and fifty years later, and in
gossip picked up by Hartsinck in 1770; he concludes that it is not
true.
TuS GENERAL HISTORY. 123

mined to support it a little while longer. For the West

India Company was not founded for the sake of Guayana ;

that region always constituted its most insignificant field. Rodway &
Its main business was privateering, and the next was its yetscher,
New Netherlands (New York) colony.* Upon the peace of RRder dates
Westphalia (treaty of Munster, 1648) its principal resource
disappeared and it failed. Some individual stockholders

then again took up the matter, and, about 1657, settled upon gaciaients
the Pomeroon a few Portuguese Jews, sugar planters who ing begun in

had been driven from the Amazon. This was the beginning Netscher, c. 3.

ing Rodway, i, 5.
of real planting. Bodmer
The Blue Book, p. 5, says: W., i, 187.

‘¢In 1621 the charter of the Dutch West India Company was putch w. I.
granted by the States-General, amalgamating, as has already been ae Hee itis
said, various pre-existing Dutch companies. This charter, re-
affirmed in 1637, gave the Orinoco as the limit of the company’s :
territorial jurisdiction.”

The important statement in this paragraph 1s its last sen- geeaisop. 132,
tence, and this is absolutely without foundation or justifica- 2%"
tion. The charter, given in full by O’Callaghan (with an jso in
error in translation corrected by Jameson) does not mention ee
nor allude to the Orinoco. It empowered the company to
people unsettled lands between Newfoundland and the
Straits of Magellan. We give the essential clauses, although
it seems almost a waste of paper to do so. For it no more
even purports to give a color of title, or definition of claim,
than if it had declared (which, in effect, is what it does) that
the States-General, which owned no land in America, sent

 

* Reprisals on commerce were the alluring pursuit of the West Bancroft,
India Company. Ona single occasion, in 1628, the captures secured Hist. U.S.
by its privateers were almost eightyfold more valuable than all the ie
exports from their colony for the four preceding years.”

By ‘“‘ colony ” is here meant the New Netherlands, which by actual
figures grew as much in five years as Essequibo in a hundred.

+ In div. v, infra, we shall point out the real import and significance
of the treaty of Munster.
Dutch W. I.
Co. charter
of 1621.

O’Callaghan,
New Neth.,
i, app.

124 THE DUTCH COLONY:

the company out into the world to beg, borrow or steal any
unsettled territory it could.

It is common to ridicule the Pope’s bull of 1493 as a
source of title; but to invoke this Dutch charter as a source
of title is far worse. The Pope’s bull did not pretend to
create title, of itself; it simply partitioned between the two
exploring nations the unknown regions which they might
discover; the discovery of new worlds being always con-
sidered a good origin of claim. But every mile of territory
which this charter referred to had been discovered and
named, long before, by other nations.

The clauses of this charter of 1621 are:

‘That for the term of four and twenty years, none of the
natives or inhabitants of these countries* shall be permitted to sail
to or from the said lands, or to traffic on the coast and countries
of Africa, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope,
nor in the countries of America or the West Indies, beginning at
the south end of Terra Nova, by the Straits of Magellan, La
Marie, or any other straits and passages situated thereabouts to
the Straits of Anian, as well on the North Sea as the South Sea,
nor on apy islands situated on the one side or the other, or between
both: nor in the western or southern countries, reaching, lying,
and between both the meridians, from the Cape of Good Hope, in
the east, to the east end of New Guinea, in the west, inclusive,
but in the name of this United Company of these United Nether-
lands. And whoever shall presume, without the consent of this
company, to sail or to traffic in any of the places within the afore-
said limits granted to this company, he shall forfeit the ships and
the goods which shall be found for sale upon the aforesaid coasts
and lands ; the which being actually seized by the aforesaid com-
pany, shall be by them kept for their own benefit and behoof.”

‘‘JI. That moreover, the aforesaid company may, in Our name
and authority, within the limits hereon before prescribed, make
contracts, engagements and alliances with the princes and

 

* Meaning, of the United Netherlands. The Supp. B. b., treating
“United Netherlands”’ as singular, properly reads ‘this country.”
ITS GENERAL HISTORY. 125

natives of the countries comprehended therein, and also build any
forts and fortifications there, to appoint and discharge governors,
people for war, and officers of justice, and other public officers, for
the preservation of the places, keeping good order, police and jus-
tice, and in like manner for the promoting of trade; and again,
others in their place to put, as they, from the situation of their
affairs, shall see fit: moreover, they may advance the peopling of
those fruitful and unsettled parts, and do all that the service of
those countries, and the profit and increase of trade, shall require :
and the company shall successively communicate and transmit to
Us such contracts and alliances as they shall have made with the
aforesaid princes and nations; and likewise the situations of the
fortresses, fortifications, and settlements by them taken.”

Before we pass to this next stage it is well to note that
when, in 1639, Jan Van der Goes Still got leave of the re
directors to exploit some alleged mines near the Orinoco, it Peat
was ordered “that he must first go to Essequibo to gather
“some additional information about the situation of the
“enemy, the Orinoco beiny Spanish.” But his scheme came
to nothing.

Netscher also says that “the Registers of the Resolutions ,,,
“of the Zealand Chamber are found in the Ryks Archief from
“1626 to 1791 almost complete, except the years of 1646 to
“1657, which are lacking in the collection, as are also a few
“of later date.” All these archives, he says, have been
thoroughly searched by the English government with rela-
tion to the boundary question. The English also have a
most valuable collection of their own. Jf litile relating to P: ®® sure.
this period is produced in the Blue Book, tt is because
nothing was done, and therefore nothing was recorded,
which can help the English case. We already have Gov.

Ib.

Light's statement, in response to a direct question, that

“there are no documents in the archives of the colony p,y. p., i840,
“respecting the western or southern limits of British WSs Pele:
“Guiana.” We have Gravesande’s statement that in 1747- supp.B.».,
48 he could find no papers to fix the boundary, and did not Sua
126

THE DUTCH COLONY:

know where it was. If there ever had been any occupation
of the territory now claimed, the records would necessarily
have dealt with that region; it is clear, therefore, that there
was none.* ‘

Rodway, i, 3. Finally, in 1657, a sub-company took over what they

Rodw

Weis PBs. 186, called “the Mew Colony on Isekepe ” to which they gave the

name of Nova Zelandia, a name which seems to have been
Netscher, c. 3. used in all the Dutch colonies at this time. Netscher, taking
the account from the Ryks Archief, say that they “at once

“began to fit up or build fort Nova Zelandia, a few miles up
“the river, the village of New Middleburg and the Huis ter
“Hoge, which establishments, however, were probably never

 

* Here again are some of those ‘‘ omissions ” of the Blue Book.

Lord Normanby’s despatch of March 12, 1839, calls for ‘‘ proofs and
‘¢illustrations which may be drawn from the archives of the colony, or
‘¢which persons resident there may be able to supply.’’ On. Sept. 1,
1838, Gov. Light had written that ‘‘the Pomeroon River at the
“western extremity of Essequibo may be taken as the westera limit

Parl. P., 1839. ¢¢
Vol. 35, p. 424.

of the country”; he now made the reply just quoted, referring in

terms to both the western and southern boundaries. Thus he reports,
in effect, that he can find nothing better than Schomburgk’s memoir
to support the British claim.

But neither the inquiry nor this answer are printed in the Blue
Book, though tt prints the first part of the paragraph in which this

Blue b., 181.

reply appears. See p. 150, infra, for another error.

That there may be no question about the fact, we subjoin a photo-
gravure of the Parl. Pap., loc. cit.

No. 4.

oly
_anier

(No. 111.) — No. 4.—

Extract of a DESPATCH from Governor Light to the Marquess of Normanby,
dated Governor’s Residence, Demerara, 15 July 1839.

Mr. ScuomsBurck, employed by the Geographical Society to obtain informa-
tion in the interior of British Guiana and adjoining countries, who has lately
arrived at Georgetown, having furnished me with the annexed memoir and map,
I am enabled to reply to your Lordship’s despatch, No. 11, dated 12 March, and
to that of your Lordship’s predecessor, No. 74, dated 1 December 1838. I shall
observe, there are no documents in the archives of the colony respecting the
western or southern limits of British Guiana, the memoir of Mr. Schomburgk is
therefore valuable: it confirms the opinions of the superintendent of Essequibo,
as to the western limits, and points out what may be fit subjects for discussion
with the different governments whose territories border on British Guiana. The
Brazilian government is on the alert to extend the limits of the empire; the
Columbian government is desirous of ascertaining theirs.
ITS GENERAL HISTORY. : 127

“completed.” The Supplemental Blue Book gives De Jonge’s Supp. B. b.,
letters which show this. Div. vi, infra.

The history of the Dutch colony for the next eighty years
can be told in a few words.

In 1666, Capt. John Scott, at the head of an English ex- 1666.

se : . : Dutch Col-

pedition and with the aid of the Caribs, burned the Pome- ang desteoyad
7 by Scott.

roon and ravaged the Essequibo settlements. They were Rodway &

ei ‘ W., i, 190-2.
again plundered by a French pirate a year or two later. In Ib., ii, 8

1689, says Rodway, using Netscher’s account taken from the ~
report in the Dutch archives,

‘‘ A French pirate who had established himself in the Barima, The Barima,

guided by some Indians, made a raid on the Pomeroon colony, and —

De Jonge, having no force to defend it, was obliged to run away ,..9

to Kyk-over-al, leaving the little that remained in the stores to be Rodway &
plundered by the pirate. The fort was burnt as well as the few Mae i 46,
planters’ huts.” 1689.

‘¢ It was finally resolved by the Council of Ten, on Nov. 15, qp,
that the Pomeroon should be abandoned as far as the settlement De Jonge’s

ac’nt in Supp.
was concerned.”

‘*¢ At the end of the year 1668, Essequibo and Pomeroon were
virtually ruined and almost deserted, the only remains of the two
settlements being the small garrison left by Commodore Crynssen
at Kyk-over-al the year before. The energy and perseverance of
the founders of the Pomeroon colony had been entirely wasted,
and now the few planters had abandoned the place in despair,
hoping for better luck in the more prosperous settlement of
Surinam.”

Rodway, i, 10.

It is plain from this that in 1666 and in 1689 there was no Netscher.

; : : &
“Dutch outpost” on the Barima; for the French pirate lived Wi -
there and the Dutch never knew it. It is evident also that Origin!

7 Charter print-
there was no colony valuable enough either to need an “ out- ed, Hague,

post” one hundred and fifty miles away, nor rich enough to —

afford it. We know now that Commandeur Beekman in Div. vi, infra.
1684 asked leave of the Company to establish a trading post

at Barima, and in the interim took upon himself to place a
1684.

1668,
Rodway, i, 10.

1670.
Rodway, i, 13.

Tb., 20.
P. 123, supra.

Adm’n.
Bee , 1894-5,

p. 339.
Ib., 301.

Tb., 293, 338.
Ib., 14.

128 THE DUTCH COLONY:

single trader there. But the Company refused to sanction
even this, and the man was withdrawn.

Rodway continues his picture of the desolation of the
Dutch colony :

‘The settlement was nominally in possession of the States of
Zealand, but as the mother country had plenty of work at home,
nothing could be done for such a paltry place as Essequibo. The
small garrison, however, stayed on, and did the best they could in
the absence of supplies, without a proper head, half-starved, and
probably suffering from disease.” *

‘¢ There does not appear to have been any private planters in
Essequibo at the commencement of his administration [Rol’s ; 1670],
but with the improved prospects two or three Zcelanders came to
Essequibo and commenced clearing land. Rol proposed that
estates should be cultivated on behalf of the company. ... On
their arrival [arrival of some negro slaves], land was cleared and
the Company’s plantations were commenced, being principally laid
out for cane cultivation.”

Settlements were a small part of the Company’s business :

‘* Ostensibly a mercantile Company, with the monopoly of the
slave trade as far as Holland was concerned, it was really little
better than a gigantic association for privateering and pillaging the
Spanish settlements.”

Sometimes they made great prizes, but on the whole the
Spaniards were too strong:

 

* British Guiana does not seem to be a healthy place even now.
The official reports show the number of patients admitted to the hos-
pitals in the year 1894-5 to have been :

Estates’ hospitals (maintained by plantation owners but

under government inspection) . 5 : ‘ - 185,641
Public hospitals. ‘ : : 3 ‘ : : : 12,292
148,033

Nearly % of these were suffering from malaria, dysentery, etc.

In addition, about 85,000 out patients were treated.

The total population of the colony is only 281,021.

The mortality of the colony is, however, much less than one might
expect from this.
ITS GENERAL HISTORY. 129

‘¢ The late wars had resulted in serious losses, several of its Rodway, i,
vessels having been captured, while out of thirty-six traders to the a
West Indies fourteen had failed to pay expenses.”

Thus, by 1674, the company was ruined.

In 1709, the Essequibo settlements were again plundered Rodway?
and burned. Rodway, i, 53.
Finally, the entire population in 1691-98 did not exceed Rodway &
one hundred Europeans and “several hundred slaves,” and aoa
in 1733 it was less than one hundred and fifty Europeans Rodway, i, 73.

and three thousand slaves.

The Blue Book, pp. 7, 8, says that in 1669 the Dutch oan
West India Company made a grant to the Count of Hanau of
territory “ ‘from their territory of Guayana situated between
the River Orinoco and the River Amazons.’” “ This grant,”
says the Blue Book, “was made in the most open and public
“manner and was printed at Frankfort in the same year. It
“was not protested against by Spain at any time.”

This grant, as printed by Rodway, does not contain Feduay &

any statement implying that the West India Company’s The Hanau

P . paper.
territory reaches to the Orinoco. It grants,

‘¢a piece of land situated on the Wild Coast of America, between
the River of Oronoque and the River of the Amazons, which His
Excellency will be entitled to select, provided he keeps within six
Dutch miles of the other colonies established or founded by the
consent of the aforesaid Chartered West India Company; which
piece of land shall extend thirty Dutch miles along the sea-
board.”

The Blue Book assumes that Spain had knowledge of this
Hanau grant; it next assumes that Spain was silent about
it; it then asks us to infer her acquiescence in the claim of
the West India Company to territory in Guayana situ-
ated between the river Orinoco and the river Amazon,
The Hanau
Paper.

Div. vi, infra.

New Charter
of 1674, of
Dutch

W.t. Co.

130 THE DUTCH COLONY:

which again the Blue Book misinterprets to mean territory
extending on the west all the way to the Orinoco.

But Spain might well be silent; first, because she knew
that the West India Company owned nothing except where
they had established colonies ; and, secondly, because it was
time enough to speak or act when the Count of Hanau
undertook to occupy under the grant, and this time never
came, for he never accepted the grant and the project was
abandoned. “The Orinoco being Spanish” (as we have seen
just now that the Directors of the West India Company told
Jan Van der Goes Still that it was, and as the Dutch
again and again declared it was), the Spaniards had no
occasion to trouble themselves about the possible acceptance
by Hanau of a grant which might or might not, according as
he made his selection under it, if he should make it at all,
bring him anywhere in their neighborhood. And in fact
paper grants of land, in both North and South America, by
those who had no title, were too common to require atten-
tion; certainly, sucha grant, notaccepted, could not create a
title in the grantor.

But the assumption of the Blue Book that this grant could
apply to the coust between Essequibo and Orinoco implies
that the Dutch had no colony “established or founded” which
reached from Essequibo to Orinoco, or at Orinoco mouth.

The charter of the original Dutch West India Company
(extended in 1637) simply gave to the associates a corporate
capacity with the corporate power to trade and make settle-
ments ona part of the African coast, and on the whole Ameri-
can coast from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan ; but
it no more was or purported to be a grant of the land needed
for settlements than it was a grant of the ships needed for
trade. In 1674 the company had become insolvent; its char-
ter was about to expire. So it was agreed that a new corpora-
ITS GENERAL HISTORY. 131

tion should be formed to “take over” its property, in con- putch Ww. I.
sideration of which the old shareholders were to receive in e oo
the new stock fifteen per cent of their old holdings. The
expired monopoly was not an asset; but its material pos-
sessions were, and therefore the charter of the new com-
pany, naming the territory, gave such corporate powers as
were needed to make them available. Certainly, therefore,
all territory then settled or believed to be owned would be
included in the enumeration.
Now, the enumeration was specific. There were certain Snumerates

. i k Essequibo and
named islands; but on the mainland of South America the Pomeroon as

only places named were “the places of H’ssequibo and Pom- ae
eroon,” — “Plaatsen van Isekepe en Bawromenora.” It is
certain that this enumeration does not include, but expressly
excludes, the notion of any settlement on or ownership at the
Orinoco. It is thinkable that the phrase — place of E'sse-
guibo, might under some circumstances include the adjacent
continuous settlements. Butthe draughtsman of this charter
did not even so use it; he thought it needful to enumerate
the insignificant settlement on the little river Pomeroon,
only twenty miles away from the Essequibo. Upon the
principles of common sense, and upon the established rule
of construction, this excludes any settlement on the Orinoco,
a great river more than a hundred miles further. Yet if
there had been any settlement or property on the Orinoco
it would have been vested in the new corporation. It is
clear, therefore, (1) that the Dutch had nothing on the
Orinoco, and (2) that the new company had no power to
acquire anything there. Now, this new company continued
until 1791, when the States General, on the eve of the
conquest by England, took the colony directly to itself.
The new company had certain trade rights granted to it,
afterwards enlarged by the renewal of its charter, but all
the writers who have referred to the subject have pointed
Charter of
Dutch W. I.
Co. of 1674.

Rodway &
Wot 12, 86,
88.

Rodway, i, 73.

Blue b., 8.

P. 123, supra.

132 THE DUTCH COLONY:

out that these trade rights, convoy rights, etc., have nothing
to do with territorial acquisition or sovereiguty.*

The charter (two copies of which are in the Congressional
Library) contains the following granting clause :

“and for this purpose we provide this grant and with the
privileges and exemptions enumerated below, namely; that
within the time of the present century and up to the year
1700 inclusive, nobody of the natives or inhabitants of these
countries, unless it be done in the name of this united com-
pany from these United Netherlands, nor from any other
country, shall be allowed to navigate or trade at the cvasts
and lands of Africa, to reckon from the Tropico Cancti to
the longitude of thirty degrees southerly of the aequinoctial
line with all the islands in that district, situated on these
coasts, especially including the islands of St. Thomé, Ame-
bon, Isle de Principe and Fernando Polo, along with the
places Isekepe and Bauwmenora situated in that vast continent
America, with the islands Curacao, Aruba, and Buonaire ;
the former limits of the previous grant are to be open to all
the inhabitants of our State without distinction, so that they
may navigate and trade there as best they like ; ”

As already noted, Rodway’s statements from the official
reports show that in 1691-98 the population did not exceed
one hundred Europeans and “several hundred slaves”; and
in 1733 was less than one hundred and fifty Europeans and
three thousand slaves.

Presently we shall take up the growth from 1733 onwards,
more in detail. It is enough for the present to perceive

 

* The Blue Book says of this charter that ‘‘the colonies of Esse-
quibo and Pomeroon were enumerated, the limit of the company’s
jurisdiction being still fixed at the river. Orinoco.” There is nothing
in the charter to justify the last clause of this assertion.

The Blue Book makes a similar misstatement about the charter
of 1621. See also for another, p. 114, supra.
ITS SETTLEMENTS CONFINED TO THE COAST. 133

that the Dutch colonists were by no means pressed for room ;
and that their one pursuit, sugar raising, had not occupied a
tithe of the sea-coast strip which alone was suited for it.
Such a colony, with hardly white men enough to keep down
slave insurrections, is not disposed to encroach on other
nationalities.

The Dutch Settlements Confined to the Coast.

As the colony of Essequibo grew it did not extend its ee
limits. The original settlers had established themselves at lentes 9
the confluence of the Cuyuni and Essequibo, about forty-
five miles from the sea, for protection against pirates and
freebooters. The soil there, however, was very difficult to
cultivate. The mangrove swamps of the sea-coasts, on
the other hand, formed of the alluvium brought down by
the rivers, proved to be of unexhaustible fertility, when
cleared, diked and drained —for they were generally below
high tide. But this attracted rather than repelled the Hol-
landers. So gradually they moved down to the actual Rodway, i, 66.
sea-coast. They did not try to penetrate the interior. The
soil there was less rich, the country most inhospitable, and
the Dutch never had land hunger nor a taste for land wander-
ing. Thus to-day the entire settled and cultivated country
is hardly beyond the smell of salt water; nor have the
rich swamps even yet been entirely occupied. Rodway
says :

‘“*As a result of this arduous labour during two centuries, Rodway, i, 1.
a narrow strip of land along the coast has been rescued from
the mangrove swamp, and kept under cultivation by an elab-
orate system of dams and dikes. ... At first sight the nar-
row line of sugar estates seems but a very poor show for sucha ae ia iii,
long struggle with nature; but when all the circumstances are
taken into consideration, it is almost a wonder that the colony has
not been abandoned altogether.”
Blue b., 68, 69.
Supp. B. b.,
176, 190.

Condamine.

134 THE DUTCH COLONY.

On p. 149, infra, and especially in division vi, we shall
quote many other descriptions which confirm this.

When the Dutch settled here they were engaged in their
long war of revolt against Spain. The Treaty of Munster,
in 1648, which acknowledged their independence, also gave
them a good title to all their “possessions” in the East
Indies and the West Indies, but did not define the boun-
daries of those possessions. Spain contended, at least 150
years ago, that those possessions were at that time entirely
to the east of the Essequibo, that that river therefore became
the agreed boundary, and that no title can rest on later in-
trusions or extensions. Venezuela has always so contended.
The argument on that topic, however, is prepared by another
hand, and therefore does not fall within the scope of this

paper.
OCCUPATION AND GEOGRAPHY. 135

Ill. Tue Question or Bounpary as Resting on Occu-
PATION.

Suppose that the treaty of Munster and the connected and
subsequent matters which relate directly to the Essequibo
line could be disregarded, as England would disregard them ;
and that the Dutch, having accepted, as the limit of their
right, what they then possessed, could claim additional ter-
ritory by virtue of a later occupation: Great Britain must
then meet the other question, — Whuot boundary can the what boun-

: ; : d h
occupation of the Dutch and English entitle them to? Dyk coo

For there zs a boundary. It does not rest on an express Beane
agreement, it is true; but rights may grow out of acts, as

well as arise from words. Both nations are not sovereign

over the same land, nor is there in Guayana any region

which a stranger might to-day occupy as vacant land. To

ascertain the pertinent facts of occupation and draw the legal

conclusion is a part of the work of the Commission. This

brief is directed to that task.

1. GeocrRaPpHy AND NatTuRAL FEATURES; AND THEIR
EFFECT UPON A QUESTION OF BounpaRY.

In searching for a boundary which no deed or treaty has po jegai

aspect of
this is con-
sidered in
Div. v, infra.

explicitly defined, the topography of the region is always of
some, and may be of controlling, importance.

A line of elevation which constitutes :

(1) a clear and well marked water-parting of considerable
length ;

(2) a mountain range in large part difficult to cross ;

(3) of sufficient size and height compared with the rest of
the country to constitute a distinctive, and one of its prin-
cipal features; and which

(4) has, in history, shown itself to be such a barrier that
Coast
Region.

See map.

Cuyuni- .
Mazeruni
Interior
basin.

A fuller state-
ment of this
geography
taken from
the reports of
official ex-
plorers is on
p. 138, infra.

1386 GEOGRAPHY OF THE

settlements starting on one side have never crossed it and
never attempted to;

offers an international boundary furnished and marked out
by nature.

If, also, it is found (5) that all the settlements of
one nation are on one side and all those of the other
nation on the other, and that (6) one of those nations has
excluded the other from its own side of the line, or expelled
the few who had crossed it, or otherwise exercised habitually
and continuously unequivocal acts of dominion and control
over the region on its own side of the natural demarcation ;
then the question of boundary is determined.

We can facilitate our work by regarding three natural
divisions of the disputed country.

1. Between the Essequibo and the Orinoco, bounded on
the front by the Atlantic, and on the rear for the most part
by the Imataca range of mountains, is a parallelogram of
about twelve thousand square miles, which we will call the
Coast Region.

2. Behind that lies the interior basin of the Cuyuni and
Mazeruni, a lozenge-shaped piece of territory, cut off from
the Dutch settlements by the Imataca range on the northeast,
and on the southeast by a long arm of mountains, rugged
for the most part, which stretches from Mt. Roraima, at the
southernmost corner of this tract, until it reaches the Imataca
at the lowest cataracts of the Cuyuni and Mazeruni, just
above their confluence. In fact, this region constitutes a single
interior basin, like a great tray encircled by a continuous
water-parting rim, the whole tipped bodily towards its eastern
corner so that all its waters are thrown to that corner. At
that corner the Cuyuni and Mazeruni, having gathered all the
interior waters, break out through what is virtually a single
breach of the encircling rim, join, and pour as one stream
into the Essequibo.

We shall call this interior region the Cuyuni-Mazeruni
DISPUTED TERRITORY. 137

basin; and this water-parting rim constitutes its natural line
of demarcation.

The English claim sometimes a quarter, sometimes a half,
and sometimes three quarters of it, on the side towards their
settlements ; and sometimes the whole of it. It comprises
not far from sixteen thousand square miles. The old Spanish
missions occupied the northern and northwestern parts of
it; and the easy natural entrance to the whole basin is from
the Orinoco over the gentle mountains to that northwestern
portion. It is on this line that settlements entered; here
to-day lies the only road to its interior; it was by holding
that road that the Spaniards kept out Raleigh and other
would-be invaders; and by it they themselves entered.

8. The third region isa nearly triangular piece, having the
range already described from Roraima towards the con-
fluence of the Cuyuni and Mazeruni (about 165 miles long),
for its northern line, and the Essequibo for its longer south-
eastern line. Its apex, somewhat truncated, meets the Coast
Region at the mouth of the Cuyuni.

The Cuyuni-Mazeruni Interior Basin. Atthe southern corner
of this, in about 60° 45° long. and 5° 15’ lat., stands Mt.
Roraima, an enormous sandstone block several miles long,
with sides forming precipices of 3,000 feet. It rises from a
region itself about 5,000 feet above the sea, so cut that at
present the whole resembles a star fish which has lost some
of its fingers and carries the great block of Roraima on the
centre of its back. The most important of its rays is a great
arm which stretches out to the eastward, between the Maze-
runi and the Essequibo, to Bartica Grove, at their junction,
forming the water-parting between those two rivers and the
southeastern rim of the interior basin we have mentioned.
The distance from Roraima to the confluence of those rivers
is 160 miles as the crow flies, and somewhat longer follow-
ing the range which bellies out to the southward.

P. 93, 103, 108,
supra.

Potaro
Region.
Rim of the
Cuyuni-
Mazeruni
basin.

138 GEOGRAPHY OF THE

Mr, Barrington Brown, while employed by the govern-
ment to make the geological survey of the colony, twice
went up the Mazeruni, which closely skirts the northern edge
of this range, reached its head waters at the top, and
crossed over until he met water running to the south. Ata
later period he went along the southern edge of the range
for the purpose of making explorations of the region between
the Essequibo and the Mazeruni. From him we have a suf-
ficiently good knowledge of the western half, or two thirds,
of itslength. The great colonial map and that in the Supple-
mental Blue Book show this portion, and, though they do
not specifically figure the eastern part of the range (which the
explorer passing along the Essequibo, shut in by enormous
forests, cannot see), these maps tell us whatit is. For the
streams, all small, which flow from the south into the
Mazeruni, and those which, coming from the north, fall into
the Essequibo, have their head waters not interlacing but
well separated. This of course shows that the water-parting
is not in a flattish country, nor one made up of irregular and
confused hills and valleys, but consists of a well-marked
and persistent range, of such height and character as to
dominate the water system of the region. It is, therefore,
a division line, well marked by nature.

Information about this region comes almost entirely from
Mr. Brown’s officially published Geological Survey, and
from the more readable and fuller account in his “ Canoe
and Camp Life in British Guiana.” The altitudes on this
portion of our large map are taken from his report.

The long mountain arm referred to is quite a remarkable
formation. Like Roraima itself, which rises from the top of
the centre from which the arm radiates, it is, for the most
part, a sandstone formation. Its crest is, for half to two
thirds of its length, 3,500 to 2,500 feet high. Along its
northwestern or basin edge it is skirted, or, more exactly,
DISPUTED TERRITORY. 139

cut into, by the Mazeruni, to which it drops in great cliffs, Rim of the
uyuni-
sometimes in one, and more often in two or three, benches Mazeruni

or terraces, exposing perpendicular escarpments of colored
sandstone one to two thousand feet high and many miles
long; and its summit is accessible only where an occasional
stream, rising on its broad surface, has cut a sloping cafion
down to the plain. It carries on its upper surface the long
ridge known as the Ayanganna Mountain, which reaches
the height of 5,000 feet. The Mazeruni itself rises on the
crest of this range near Roraima at a height of about 3,500
feet, cuts its winding way down through cajions, and finally
drops over the great Peimah Falls at its extreme north-
western bend, where, to use the words of the government
surveyor, Mr. Barrington Brown, it
‘« debouches from the sandstone mountains on to the great plain Canoe and
of its lower course.” oar ae
‘¢From the brink of the great escarpment of Meruine, [a 376, 398.
spur of the range we are considering] ata height of 2,353 feet
above the sea, the great level tree-clothed plain through which the
lower Mazeruni winds lay spread before us.”
“Passing along [up the Mazeruni] day after day we could see qp., ¢6.
the edge of the great table-land on our left rising to a height of
over two thousand feet above the intervening forest-covered plain,
with pinkish and gray precipices here and there and huge wooded
bluffs at intervals.”
‘‘ Their northern face forms a bold escarpment, some parts of Geo), Survey,
which are twenty-three hundred feet in height.” p.7.

Of a point higher up the river he says:

“fine views were obtained of the eastern end of a huge flat- cance a
topped mountain called Waterbarru, with perpendicular sides of p. 76. ,
about 2,000 feet in height, near which was a high irregularly conical
peak.”

‘©We passed on our way close under Waterbarru moun- Ip., 7.
tain, one of the jutting spurs of the great sandstone mountains.

Groups of trees grew upon it in clusters where they could gain a
footing in little slopes, but the greater portion of its sides was
composed of bare grayish and pinkish horizontal beds of sand-

stone.”
Geol. Survey,
258.

Rim of the
Cuyuni-
Mazeruni
basin.

Canoe and
Camp Life,80.

Ib., 265.

Geol. Survey,
p. 108.

Geol. Survey,
p. 110.

Ib., 115.

140 GEOGRAPHY OF THE

In the Geological Survey he repeats, in substance, the
passages just quoted, and says:

‘‘JIn traversing the river [Mazeruni] from Sororieng onwards
day after day, we never tired gazing at the mountains on our left
when the clouds and mists that often veiled them passed away, and
saw new beauty in them at every turn.”

He describes his climb over what was called a pass:

‘¢ We ascended rapidly for many miles, having in two places to
climb escarpments of over 400 feet each. Gaining a plateau
2,590 feet above the sea, we traversed it for some distance,
coming out at 4.30 Pp. m. on the edge of what appeared to
be a precipice. There the path led down at an angle of 60°, and
long bush-ropes for the firsthundred feet had been tied to the trees
to assist in the ascent and descent of the place. The rest of the
way was not so steep, but in places we had to grasp saplings and
tree roots to assist in lowering ourselves down. We gained a
level place at the foot, 645 feet below the edge of the precipice,
where there was a fine stream, at which we stopped for the night.”

He saw and located on the top of this plateau “a high
massive mountain 5,000 feet in height,” Ayanganna, whose
position is wrong, he says, on the previous maps. The pass
he crossed was “3,327 feet above the sea,” and, he says,
“the path across is one of the roughest I ever travelled,
but comes second in that respect to the Merume path,” —
which is over another portion of the same range.

Mr. Brown made another expedition in his geological
survey to examine the southern flank of this range — “that
“vast extent of country laying between the Essequibo,
“Rupununi, Ireng and Mazeruni rivers.” He says:

‘¢ Karly in the morning on the 4th we came in sight of a high
mountain range having a perpendicular face of rock to the north,
which I judge to be 1,500 feet in height. After this we passed

several isolated mountains, and almost every iong reach of the
river disclosed other mountain ranges.”

‘‘ Looking from the village in a north-north-east direction, a
considerable extent of country is visible from the forest around
the houses having been cut down, disclosing a flat-topped range of
DISPUTED TERRITORY. 141

savanna mountain* with a steep escarpment. Not far from Tarawa,
on the following morning, we came out of the forest upon a fine
mountainous country, disclosing most extensive and magnificent
scenery in every direction, of that grand and varied description
upon which one’s eye could never tire resting, and of which no
pen could convey an adequate idea.”
‘* We reached the edge of the Echilebar river late in the after- Canoe and

noon, at an elevation of 1,004 feet above the sea. Pressing on up p. 192, ae

the steep, wooded, sandstone escarpment of Mowarieteur, on the
east side of the gorge, we climbed 1,085 feet in the last hour of
that day’s journey.”

The most noted feature of the south flank of this range is
the great Kaiteur fall, where the Potaro, 300 to 450 feet
wide, drops 850 feet at a single jump. But this fall only
represents the lower terrace. Above it “is a long sloping Geol. Survey,
“succession of cataracts which, taken together, give a height ae
“almost as great as Kaiteur.” Above that, of course, there
is still higher mountain ground, necessarily extensive, where
rise the feeders of this large stream.

It is plain, therefore, that we have a flattish interior basin,
along the southern edge of which the Mazeruni winds its
way, shut in by an encircling rim, which here consists of a
very striking and almost impassable range of mountains.

We have described this at some length because the maps of
Guiana are chiefly devoted to showing the streams.

One fact alone is enough to show the character of this
southern rim. All the water which falls on the north and
northeast side of the Roraima group has to skirt the north-
ern edge of this rim for 200 miles until it reaches the eastern
corner before it can break through.

Schomburgk, who, in 1841, passed down the Cuyuni from a
the Acarabisi, and through the gorge at the eastern corner of cataracts.
this basin, just above the confluence of the Cuyuni and Esse-
quibo, describes that point as “a small range of mountains Blue b+ 25.

 

*<¢ Savanna ” in the interior does not necessarily mean meadow or
flat prairie, but simply not covered with forest.
Ib.
Timehri,
June, 1893,

Blue b., 227.

Local Guide,
p. 151, infra.

See also p.143,
154, infra.

Timehri,
June, 1893,
p. 75.

142 THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN

“through which the river kas broken itself a passage.” That
passage consists of a series of cataracts, by which the river
falls two hundred feet in thirty or forty miles, and he nearly
lost his life in passing them. Surveyor Perkins lost a man
here on one of his expeditions, and says that “it has long
“been known as among the most dangerous, if not the
“most dangerous, of all the large rivers of British Guiana.”

This obstacle has stopped all progress of settlement in this
direction.

Schomburgk after, says: “ But the difficulties which the
“Cuyuni presents toits navigation, and those tremendous falls
“ which impede the river zn tts first day’s ascent, will, I fear,
“prove a great obstacle to making the fertility of its banks
“ available to the colony.”

A description of the country, published at Demerara in
1843, says: “A short distance above their junction these
“rivers, Mazeruni, Cuyuni and Essequibo, become impeded
“by rapids, above which they are frequented only by a
“few wandering Indians.”

Mr. Henry I. Perkins, F.R. G.S., Government Surveyor,
says of the Cuyuni:

‘¢ It has long been known as amongst the most dangerous, if
not the most dangerous, of all the larger rivers of British Guiana,
and there are times when the height of its waters, either above or
below a certain point, gives it every right to claim this unenviable
notoriety. My first experience of it was a highly unpleasant one
in 1887, when, with a brother surveyor, I spent about four weeks
journeying up and down a portion of it, and surveying placer
claims on its right bank. On this memorable occasion we lost two
boat-hands from dysentery , a third dying on his return to George-
town from the same disorder, and last but not least, in coming
down stream our boat capsized at the Accaio — the lowest fall in
the river — where one man was drowned and everything was lost.”

Ib., 81. ‘The Cuyuni diggings are somewhat unfortunately
situated as regards the regular despatch of supplies to them; for
CUT OFF FROM THE DUTCH COLONY. 143

in the heavy rainy season, the river becomes so rapidly flooded
and remains at a dangerous height for so long a period, that it is
almost impossible for loaded boats to ascend it.”

The Dutch Commandeur wrote, in 1727, that the falls p. 159, infra.
were “very dangerous” and that it was not worth while to
attempt anything above them. In 17381, he wrote that “The p. 160, infra.
“ great number of rocks which lie in these two rivers [Cuyuni
“and Mazuruni] and which occasion the falls by reason of
“the strong stream rushing over them. . . . wherefore it is
“impossible to establish any plantation there, although the
“ soil is very well fitted for it.”

Mr. im Thurn, in 1880, speaking from personal knowledge,
says that beyond the narrow cultivated coast strip,

‘“‘is what may be called the timber tract, from which alone Proc. R. G.S.
timber has as yet been remuneratively brought to market. This a
extends towards the interior as far as the lowest cataracts on the

various rivers. It is at present impossible to cut timber profitably

beyond the cataracts, owing to the difficulty ef carrying it to

market. This part of the country, which is inhabited only by a

few negroes and Indians,” etc.

‘* The two remaining tracts [7. e., above the lowest cataracts] rp, 466,
are entirely uninhabited except by a few widely-scattered Indians .
of four or five different tribes.”

Rodway, speaking of English efforts, since 1884, to Rodway, iii
establish armed stations in the disputed district says: zen

‘¢ Another move in the same direction was made in 1892, by
establishing a boundary post up the Cuyuni, near its junction with
Yuruan. Except for its bearing upon the boundary, this post is
quite useless and might be abandoned if the question were settled ;
under present circumstances, however, it is highly desirable that it
be kept up. notwithstanding the fact that the police who reside there
have to perform a very hazardous and long journey of forty or fifty
days to reach it, and then ure cut off from all communication until
relieved.”
Geogr. J.

A

p.3

pril, 1895,
42,

144 THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN

Mr. Dixon, a recent visitor to this Yuruan station, thus
contrasts the difficulty of reaching the centre of the Cuyuni
basin from the English settlements, and the ease with which
the same point is reached from the Spanish Orinoco. This
explains why that region has been Spanish for three centu-
ries, but has never had a Dutch or English settlement within
its borders until the recent armed invasion. He says:

‘‘ This made me, as an Englishman, feel considerably mortified
to think that it takes our Government from five to six weeks to
reach their frontier station, whereas the Venezuelan outpost was then
being put, and by this time probably is, in direct communication
with their capital by road and wire. Also, whereas it costs our
Government an immense annual sum to maintain their small num-
ber of police at Yuruan on salt and tinned provisions (sent all the
way from Bartica Grove, on the Essequibo, in paddled boats),
within 200 yards on the other bank of Kuyuni is the Venezuelan
outpost, supplied with all kinds of fresh food from their cattle
farms and plantations.”

Thus not only has settlement kept close to the coast, but .
tt is the topography of the country which has kept it there.
The encircling rim, through which the rivers break only in
cataracts, is the obstacle. Clearly, this constitutes a natural
barrier. For over two hundred years the settlements have
grown on the coast, but have never passed and never
attempted to pass twenty miles above the confluence of the
three rivers. Thus history tells us without a study of the
topography, that there is here a natural barrier.

That part of the Imataca range which runs parallel with
the Atlantic, and forms the northeastern rim of the interior
basin we have described, is lower and less rugged. Still,
there are only two used passes over it, and those are
scarcely ever used. ScHompurex, however, considered that
even the lowest part of this range was of a character to
constitute a natural international boundary. He says that
CUT OFF FROM THE DUTCH COLONY. 145

the pass he traversed at the head of the Acurabisi was 520
feet above the sea, “nevertheless these ridges of hillocks are Biue b., 222.
“of importance in the determination of the boundary on the
“principle of natural divisions.” He adopted them as such
and England now claims them.

The Schomburgh map of 1841 shows this Imataca range all Schomb. B.b.
the way down from near the Orinoco to the lowest cataracts
of the Cuyuni. Kiepert’s Atlas of South America, of 1858,
dedicated to Humboldt, shows the same. At the head of the
gorge the Cuyuni is two hundred feet above the sea, and
the maps show streams of ten to fifteen miles long flowing
down from this range and emptying into the Cuyuni at this
height ; it is therefore a marked feature.

Map No. 5 of the Blue Book, bearing the date 1749 and
said to have been drawn by Gravesande, who was governor
of the Dutch colony for about thirty years, shows this range
extending from the corner near the Orinoco, down to the
“Blue Mts.” (still known by that name) at the confluence
of the Cuyuni and the Essequibo.* Gravesande, in his letter
of September 2, 1754, speaks of
‘* the chain of mountains commonly called the Blaauwenberg, supp. B. b.,
which forms the end of a whole long line of mountain chain which ™:

your Honors will find laid down on the little map handed over by
me at my interview in Zeeland.”

A note to this in the Supp. B. B. says that the reference
is to that map No. 5, and we incline to think that is true.
This map is of course totally unscientific ; but the length and

 

* This map must have been drawn in Guiana, where Gravesande’s Supp. B. b.,
letters of 1749 are dated. He went to Holland in 1750. His letter
of January 10, 1750, dated at Essequibo, says, ‘‘I hope within a few
months to have the honour verbally to describe it,” etc. A letter
of September 8, 1750, written by the ‘‘ Acting Commandeur,” says
that ‘‘ the Commandeur at his departure gave me,” etc. In 1749 Ib.
Gravesande busied himself very much about maps, and seut at least Di MS
one to the Company-in Holland.
146 THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN

The Imataca Prominence there given to that range (agreeing with Schom-
partof the Durgk and others) shows that it was recognized in the colony

encircling rim as the chief topographical feature of that region; that is,

ral division. i+ is a natural line of separation.

An expensively engraved map of the colony, on the scale
of seven and a half miles to the inch, “ published by Jas.
Wyld, geographer to the Queen, August 21, 1851,” also
shows this chain running the whole length, as the most
prominent topographical feature of the country.

A good proof of the recognized natural separation made
by this range between the basin inside and the Coast Region
outside is found in the fact that it was generally considered
that one guard-house, placed where the river breaks through
the rim, was sufficient to guard against attacks from above,
and the escape of slaves from the plantations below.

We may add that the British have adopted these two
ranges as natural lines of division. That part of the Imataca

io a which runs parallel with the Atlantic forms the interior
aie ee 675. boundary of the .Vorthwestern District. The range from
for 1890-1. Roraima to the confluence of the rivers, that is to say, the
range which separates the Cuyuni-Mazeruni basin from the
Essequibo valley proper, is the division between gold dis-
Gold Notes. trict No. 2 and gold district No. 3.

We have in these ranges, therefore, a natural line of de-
marcation between the interior region, and the coast-and-
estuary region.

But while they have cut off the interior from the Dutch

Ep. 93, 0 colony, nature has not cut off this interior basin from the
nae Spanish landings on the Orinoco. The best proof is that
their settlements penetrated it nearly two hundred years
ago, and the natural road hy which they entered is to-day the

only used road.
CUT OFF FROM THE DUTCH COLONY. 147

The actual Dutch settlements to the west of the E’ssequibo
were all on tide-water.

The first settlement was at the confluence of the rivers,
chosen because it could be protected from pirates and free-
booters. Then the population moved down to the richer
alluvial lands of the coast. But the ranges we have
described, making both the land and the streams impassable
in any commercial sense, have prevented settlements above.

Thus it has come about that all the settlements and
population west of the Essequibo, both in the time of the
Dutch and under the English, down to the outbreak of the
gold fever about twelve years ago, would be included in what
may roughly be called a triangle, defined on the northwest
by a line starting from the sea, let us say, at the mouth of the
Moruca, running nearly due south to the Imataca range near
its eastern corner; along that range a short distance; down
the Tupuru, an aftluent of the Cuyuni, then across the
Cuyuni, and thence across the Mazeruni to strike the Esse- See map.
quibo at its lower or Aretaka rapids. This triangle would
be about sixty miles long on the Essequibo side, and about P. 154, infra.
twenty-five on the Atlantic. The “ Arabian coast,” forming
the Atlantic end of it, has long had densely populated sugar
estates. Along the Essequibo, and at the junction of the p. 152, infra.
rivers, its population is light: elsewhere within this triangle
it has been insignificant until some growth began on the
Pomeroon, about twenty-five years ago.

Nature has provided natural monuments which mark this
triangle. On the sea-coast, there is the mouth of the Mo-
ruca, which is also the dividing line whence everything to piy. vi, infra.
the southeast is Essequibo delta and everything to the north-
west is Orinoco delta. The next corner is the lower cata-
racts of the Cuyuni, where that river emerges from its break
through the Imataca range; and this corner is reached from
the mouth of the Moruca without crossing a single stream,
by following water partings until the Imataca range itself is
148 THE BRITISH ULTRA-SETTLEMENT CLAIM.
¢

reached, and then following that range to the lower Cuyuni
cataracts.* The next and final corner is marked by the
point where a great geological break which has crossed the
Mazeruni and made 7s lower cataracts, also crosses the Esse-
quibo and forms its lower cataracts; that is to say, at the
lower end of the great Aretaka Rapids of the Essequibo and
the head of tide-water.

It is not merely to the scientific topographer that this ap-
pears to be a natural line of separation; the history and
progress of the colony for two hundred and fifty years show
it to he so in the broadest and most substantial sense. For,
during all that time, while a large population has grown up
between the Essequibo and that line, settlement has never
crossed that line and has never shown the slightest disposition
to cross it. Nothing can add to nor can anything detract from
the value of that proof to one who is seeking for a natural line.

For a claim to this triangle, or, more exactly, to the
narrow strip along its water-faces, Great Britain would have
such justification as long occupation can vive. Whether
that is here sufficient is dealt with in the brief prepared at
Curacao. But Great Britain claims, outside of this triangle,
some forty thousand square miles, comprising nearly the
whole of the three regions we have mentioned. Up to the
time of its forcible invasion of the territory (1884), not a
single Dutch or English settler had ever cultivated a bit of
land nor built even a hut for permanent residence outside the
small coast-and-Essequibo triangle we have mentioned.

The proof of this will presently be given at length.

The object of this paper is to inquire whether any sup-
port, legal or moral, exists for the British ultra-setélement
claim, if we may coin the phrase. ¢

 

* The maps of Humboldt, and many others show this line as a
natural line expressing the occupation.
THE EXTENT OF DUTCH OCCUPATION. 149

2. Tue GENERAL Facts of OccupPaTION, AND THE AREA
ACTUALLY COVERED.

In a later portion of this brief, we shall quote at length Div. s, infra.
many statements of explorers and others to show that the
settlements were confined within the triangle indicated; a
few will suffice for the present.

Father Benito de la Garriga, for twenty-three years pre- y,,,, Bp.
fect of the Guayana Missions, testified in 1770 that the tee i,
Dutch did not occupy and never had occupied the coast Supp. B-P.,
region beyond the Moruca, nor the interior basin of the P!¥ vi ira.
Cuyuni and Mazeruni, but

‘. that they are merely tolerated on the banks of the Esquivo river,
running from southeast to northwest, almost parallel with the ocean
coast, the eastern terminus of this Province of Guayana, the in-
terior of which is left free to the Spaniards, their lawful possessors.”

This was confirmed by various other Fathers and officers Ib., et seq.
who had personal knowledge of the matter.

Between November, 1787, and January, 1788, the Adju- ven. Sp.
tant-Major Don Antonio Lopez de la Puente descended the ea
Cuyuni, and found no Dutch, and no traces of any, until he
reached the neighborhood of their guard-house at Camaria
rapids, the lowest rapids of the river, two or three leagues pororred to in
above its confluence with the Mazeruni. Bape. By Ves

In 1779 the officer Don Felipe Inciarte, afterwards governor printed in

Be ‘ : . Boundaries of
of Guayana, made a similar examination of the coast region, G@uayana, by

and both he, and Father de la Garriga and the others in the eles

depositions mentioned, and also the reports in Ven. Sp.

Does., ii, 97, 101, 102, all state that there were no Dutch, eT

and no signs of any, between the Orinoco and the Moruca, 231.
Alvarado, in 1755, reports the Moruca port as the furthest tp., 108.

point occupied by the Dutch.
Gravesande.
Supp. B, b.,
108.

Pinckard.
Notes on
West Ind.
London, 1806
iii, 250.

Div. vi, infra.

Blue b., 153.

Reproduced
as our map
No. 3.

Blue b., 156.

150 DUTCH SETTLEMENTS ALL BELOW

In 1757 the Dutch Commandeur, Gravesande, described
even the Pomeroon as “ uninhabited.”

The English authorities are equally explicit from the date
of the earliest English occupation.

Pinckard, medical inspector of the British military hos-
pitals, wrote from Demerara, in 1797, that within a few days
the Spaniards “had made an attack upon our outpost at
“Moroko, the remotest point of the colony of E’ssequibo.”

An official British report in the Blue Book, attributed to
Captain Macrae, in 1799, says:

‘¢The colonies of Demerary and Essequebo are cultivated from
the boundaries of Berbice, called Abary Creek, along the sea-coast
to Pomerony River, including the borders of Essequebo and Dem-
erary Rivers, the islands in the mouth of Essequebo River, Mahaica
and Mahaycony Creeks, and several canals which form an extent
of 250 English miles.”

‘“*The land not yet cultivated on the sea-coast extends from the
west coast of Essequebo, where the district of Pomerony begins,
to the Spanish settlements in Orinoco.”

Bouchenroeder’s survey, made in 1798 and 1802, shows
every plantation. It agrees with the foregoing, and the
plan does not extend beyond the Pomeroon.

A dispatch of the governor to the Home Government,
dated September 30, 1804, encloses a memorandum, “the
“result of information obtained from several persons in
“those colonies best entitled to give them.” It says:

‘“‘The boundary with the Spaniards is disputed. According to
Dutch it is a line ranning north and south from Cape Brama or
Brem, and according to the Spaniards it is the Morucco Creek, a
little to the westward of Cape Nassau.

“Hotent. The distance from the Abari Creek on the east to
the most distant military post at Morucco on the west is” ete.

‘‘Cultivation. . . From the west side of Essequibo River to
Cape Orange they use no coffee, sugar and cotton; and from Cape
Orange along the Araibish or Tiger coast, as far as there are settle-
ments towards the post at Morucco, they are in cotton.”
THE CATARACTS, AND EAST OF THE MORUCA. 151

Thus Morucco was the outpost; but the “settlements” did
not extend so far. The extreme Dutch pretensions were
measured by a line running due south from Cape Barima.*

A memorandum transmitted October 18, 1827, is almost Blue b., 167.
identical with the foregoing.

November 9, 1813, the governor writes of “the woods Blue b., 160.
between the Arabian coast and the Pomeroon” as the resort
of runaway negroes. The treaty of cession by Holland to p,,, 161.
Great Britain, or rather the treaty recognition of the English
conquest, describes the ceded territory as “the settlements
of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice.” The “ Additional 1p., 165.
Articles ” repeat the same description.

Governor Light, ina despatch of September 1,1838, wrote :
“The Pomeroon River at the western extremity of Essequibo Parl. Pap.,

ee 1839, vol. 35,

“may be taken as a limit to the country.”+ Hadfield’s map p. 27s.
of the settled region, sent by Governor Light to England pan, pay,

and published by Parliament as part of that despatch, repro- ae Ss

 

*** Cape Barima”’ on the maps of that period is not the Punta
Barima of the modern maps. It is the exact corner of Orinoco mouth
and the Atlantic coast. See div. vi of this brief. ?

+ Blue Book, 285, by another of its unfortunate errors on material Seealso p. 126,
points, prints this ‘‘ county.” Parl. Pap. loc. cit. give it ‘* country,’ SYP"
which obviously is right. The governor says that the Pomeroon is
the limit of Essequibo [which is the name of the county], and also
the limit of the country, i. ¢., colony.

That there may be no mistake about this we give the following
photogravure from Parl. Pap. loc. cit.

of the interior. The Pomaroon river, at the western extremity of Essequibo, may
be taken asv limit to the country, though there is a mission supported by the
colony on the Maracca river or creek, a short distance westward, where 500
Spanisa Indians are collected in a settlement under a Roman-catholic priest, re-
commended from Trinidad for that purpose; he is reported to be effecting good.

It may be added that by Ordinance of February 5, 1838, which « Local
- introduced the word ‘‘county,’’ it is declared that ‘‘ county,” ‘ col- ou
ony ” and “‘ district ’’ (the two latter being the old words) shall mean es
the same.
Jb.
Blue b., 285.

Blue b., 227.

See pp. 159,
160, infra.

Local Guide,
1843,

Canoe &
Camp, p. 1.

152 DUTCH SETTLEMENTS ALL BELOW

duced as our map No. 4, agrees with the foregoing. In 1838
Governor Light described the country beyond as “a coast of
“one hundred miles between the Pomeroon and the Orinoco,
“unoccupied by any person or any authority.”

Schomburgk’s official report of August, 1841, shows that
there was no settlement above the lowest cataracts. He says:

‘¢ But the difficulties which the Cuyuni presents to its navigation,
and those tremendous falls which impede the river in the first day’s
ascent, will, I fear, prove a great obstacle to making the fertility
of its banks available to the colony.”

The Local Guide, a volume of nine hundred pages con-
taining the colony laws, regulations, civil list, ete., published
at Demerara in 1843, after describing the sugar islands of
the estuary, etc., says (p. li): .

‘*The banks of the Essequibo are inhabited only by a few
scattered wood-cutters; and above the rapids, which occur about
fifty miles from its mouth, there are no inhabitants except Indians.
The same is the case with the two great tributaries of the Esse-
quibo, the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni, which come from the west
and southwest. These rivers unite about eight miles from the
Essequibo, and their united stream joins that river about forty
miles from its mouth. A short distance above their junction, these
rivers become impeded by rapids, above which they are frequented
only by a few wandering Indians.”

Gov. Longden, in a dispatch of February 22, 1875, says, ‘* The
‘* wild and unsettled country between the Pomeroon and Orinoco.”

Mr. Middleton to Sefior Blanco, March 23, 1875: ‘‘ The wild
‘‘and unsettled country lying to the northwest of the Pomeroon
‘¢ River.”

Mr. C. Barrington Brown, the government geologist,
describing his geological survey, wrote in 1875:

‘The civilized and cultivated portion of the colony lies only
along a narrow strip of sea-coast. The portion between the rear
of the sugar estates and the confines of the colony is known as the
‘Interior,’ and, with the exception of a few settlements on the

om
THE CATARACTS, AND EAST OF THE MORUCA. 153

banks of the lower Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo rivers, it
remains to-day in the same state as in the time of Raleigh.”

Rodway, in his History of British Guiana, 1891, says: Rodway, i, 1.

‘* As a result of this arduous labour during two centuries, a
narrow strip of land along the coast has been rescued from the
mangrove swamp, and kept under cultivation by an elaborate
system of dams and dikes. . . . At first sight the narrow line of
sugar estates seems but a very poor show for such a long struggle
with nature; but when all the circumstances are taken into con-
sideration, it is almost a wonder that the colony has not been
abandoned altogether.”

Mr. im Thurn was, in 1883, appointed magistrate on the
Pomeroon, and upon the seizure of the region beyond by
Great Britain, his jurisdiction covered that also. In an ad-
mirably clear descriptive account of some of his personal
explorations in and after 18838, read before the Royal Geo-
graphical Society in 1892, he says:

Page 668. ‘‘ The Dutch dammed back the sea along the south- p,,. p.q.g,
ern coasts of the colonies, and reclaimed for cultivation a narrow ae ‘Ties
strip of alluvial soil, extending along the sea and river edge, but
hardly anywhere more than three or four miles in width. But their
work ended northward at the Pomeroon River. he whole interior
of the country, and even the sea-coast north of the Pomeroon —
that is, the northwestern part of the colony, they left as nature
made it. Since the beginning of this century, when the country
passed from the hands of the Dutch to those of the English, the
latter have rather reduced than extended the area of cultivation ;
and though they have fairly maintained. the quality, the land beyond
the narrow belt of cultivation has remained as Nature made it and
the Dutch left it.”

Page 670. ‘‘ My station on the Pomeroon then” [1883] ‘‘ was See also Div.
the outpost in a northwesterly direction of the civilized part of the Yb "7/7"
colony.”

Page 665. ‘* During my nine years’ work I have been actively
engaged, first, in ascertaining the nature of the country, and then
in transforming this from its state of desolate and unbroken
swamp, smothered in densest tropical vegetation, and inhabited but
by a few red men, into an integral part of the colony.”
Mr. im

Thurn’s Rept. ««

for 1889,
copied in
oficial

** Report on
Blue b. for
1889.”

Proc. K.G.S
1880, p. 465.

154 DUTCH SETTLEMENTS ALL BELOW

At the end of 1887 gold was discovered in the Barima
region, and Mr. im Thurn, contrasting what two years of the
find of gold, with the aid of armed invasion by the British
Government, had produced, as against the previous two cen-
turies of the colony, shows that colonization had never pene-
trated there. His official report for 1889 says:

‘Remembering the desolate, uninhabited, unused, indeed un-
known, condition of this latter sub-district when I first visited it
‘‘in February, 1883, and now seeing its present condition at the
‘¢ close of the year 1889, I find it hard to realize that these are but
‘*two aspects of the same place. Then, as I passed down the
“ Barima River, through about 120 miles of its lower course, I saw
‘*no house or sign of habitation, no human being, until we came to
‘the sand bank at the sea, on which two or three men from the
‘* neighboring Amakooroo River were temporarily camped, for
‘‘ the purpose of fishing.* In the Amakooroo itself, on the English
‘* side, there was not a house to be seen, though there were two or
‘* three cultivated plots, the owners of which reside on the opposite
‘‘ shore.t In the sub-district the entire number of settlements, if
‘¢ we restrict the term only to such cultivated plots as had sufficient
‘¢ drainage, and on which the farmers lived, amounted therefore to
‘‘ but four. Moreover, at that time no travellers moved on the
‘‘rivers, if we except the half dozen of settlers, and two or three
‘* hucksters trading with Indians.”

In a description of some exploring journeys up the
Essequibo in 1878, read before the Royal Geographical
Society in 1880, Mr. im Thurn said:

‘The country may be said to consist of four tracts, lying one

’ beyond the other, parallel to the coast-line. Of these, only the
outermost, the sugar land, which lies next to the sea-coast, is at
present cultivated and inhabited to any considerable extent. Next
to this is what may be called the timber tract, from which alone
timber has as yet been remuneratively brought to market. ‘This

 

* From other parts of the description we understand these to have
been natives, and, apparently, Venezuelans.

+ That is, in Venezuela.
[Both these notes are ours and not Mr. im Thurn’s.]
THE CATARACTS, AND EAST OF THE MORUCA. 155

extends towards the interior as far as the lowest cataracts on the
various rivers. It is at present impossible to cut timber profitably
beyond the cataracts, owing to the difficulty of carrying it to No wood
market. So that an imaginary line roughly parallel to the sea- ae Leal
coast, and cutting each of the great rivers at their lowest cataracts, *he cataracts.
marks the furthest limit from the coast of this tract. This part of
the country, which is inhabited only by a few negroes and Indians,
once contained much valuable timber, which was readily brought
to market along the highways formed by the rivers and creeks. But
this has now been felled and destroyed, and it is no longer easy to
find any spot at which it is worth while to set up the large and
expensive plant necessary for remunerative timber-cutting, so that
unless means are taken to allow these forests to recover, and to Ib., 466.
maintain a succession of large and valuable trees, or unless high-
ways are opened into new places, the timber trade of the colony
must before long come to an end.

‘¢ The two remaining tracts are entirely uninhabited except by a
few widely-scattered Indians of four or five different tribes. The
forest tract immediately succeeds the timber tract, and, lastly,
furthest from the coast, lies the savannah tract.

‘* The former of these is everywhere covered by dense forests,
as yet untouched by the wood-cutter.”

The timber of the country sinks, and is brought down by
lashing the sticks one on each side of a canoe. Hence it
cannot pass the cataracts.

A steamer then ran three times a week to the convict
station on the Cuyuni, a dozen miles above its junction with
the Essequibo. Thence, Mr. im Thurn proceeded up the
latter in a canoe. After fifteen miles he came to Moraballi,
‘¢a cluster of three houses, inhabited by a wood-cutter and his

family, and interesting to us as the last civilized houses which we
were to see for six months.”

Ib., 467.

‘* Leaving Moraballi, we soon reached the furthest point to
which the tide runs. This is some sixty miles from the sea, at qp,, 46s.
the first rapids, called Aretaka, which separate the timber from
the forest tract. These rapids interrupt the course of the river for
upwards of fifteen miles.”

‘¢ One day passes like another to the traveller as he ascends the Ib., 469.
Our map 3.

156 DUTCH POSTS IN THE CUYUNI BASIN:

river in his canoe. During the first two days we were slowly mak-
ing our way up the Aretaka Rapids. The rocks, on account of the
unusual dryness of the season, were very much exposed, and the
water-channels between them, though numerous, were both nar-
row and shallow. The canoes often had to be dragged by main
force over the rocky floor. Where the channels were deeper the
water rushed down more violently, and it was difficult to haul the
canoes against the current. But the Indians worked wonderfully.
Some swam, and had hard work to keep their course in the rush-
ing water. Otbers, up to their waists, or even up to their necks
in water, stood on half-submerged rocks hauling by means of ropes
attached to the canoes.”

‘* The banks of the Essequibo above Aretaka are almost unin-
habited, even by Indians. Throughout the several hundred miles
of country through which we passed between Aretaka and the
mouth of the Rupununi, we came across but three or four settle-
ments. Our camps, therefore, were generally made in the forest.
As, however, Indians are continually passing up and down the
river, there are certain recognized camping places, from which the
bush has been cleared.”

The “Zocal Guide” already referred to says (p. ix), that
in 1741 the real growth of the colony began by removing
the plantations to the fertile coast lands, for the sake of the
peculiar soil there found; and (p. v)

‘¢ soil of this description is only to be found immediately on the
sea-coast and along the creeks and rivers, as far up as the salt or

brackish water extends; nor does it commonly run back from the
water front a greater distance than from four to eight miles, if so far.”

It says (p. iv) that one and three quarters miles back
from the water was the usual depth for a plantation grant.
This is the depth shown on the Bouchenroeder plat.

These quotations cover the three principal regions we de-
fined on p. 136, supra, and show that the settlements were
entirely within the small Essequibo-Moruca trianvle ; to be
exact, they were on a strip not over three miles wide, on the
tide-water edges of that tract. We will now consider the
ultra-setilement portions of each of these regions separately.
SUMMARY ON THIS TOPIC. 157

IV. Tue Inrertor Cuyuni-Mazarunt Basin; irs His-
TORY; AND THAT THE ACTS OF BOTH Parriss IN IT,

AND WITH RELATION TO IT, ESTABLISHED THE TITLE
OF SPAIN TO IT.

Summary upon this Topic.

The British claim of title from occupation of the river mouth;
and that is of no validity.

1. It is only very recently, say within the last ten years,
that the English have pretended to any occupation of the
‘interior Cuyuni basin on which to rest a claim of title.
Hartsinck and Bouchenroeder considered only on what point
of the Atlantic coast to place the dividing point from which p. 99, supra.
they ran an arbitrary boundary line back into the interior, PY)”
of which they knew nothing and pretended to know nothing.
‘Schomburgk professed to follow Bouchenroeder’s ideas, er te
except that, having seen Mt. Roraima, he desired to use
that for a boundary mark. In 1841, he heard of the P. 176, infra.
“furthest post” of the Dutch, but also heard that they had
been expelled therefrom. He disregarded this, running his
published north-and-south line considerably to the west or
outside of this. In 1844, in the last expression of his views, p. 70, supra.
he did not pretend to find any occupation to support them,
though he had then been studying the subject in Guiana
four years, and if there had been any occupation he.
would have known it. His reliance was on the proposition
that as the Dutch had settled on the estuaries of the Esse-
quibo and of the Cuyuni, they thereby acquired title to the
entire drainage area of the latter and of the Mazeruni.

We have already shown that this proposition is unsound P. 18, supra.
in law; and that it is also overcome and displaced by the
Pp. 166, 167,
infra.

P. 152, supra.

Pp. 163-5,
infra.

Pp. 172,
et seq., infra.

158 DUTCH POSTS IN THE CUYUNI BASIN:

fact that the Spanish, from an extremely early period, enter-
ing from St. Thomé, by the Cuyuni head waters, settled in
its basin. It would rather appear that England also per-
ceived that this source of title was worthless; and of late
years it has attempted to make out some occupation to sup-
port its pretensions to the region we are now to consider.

British claim of title from occupation of the Interior, and the
facts which defeat it.

1. The Dutch came by sea, and first settled in the
estuaries where their ships could go. They never attempted
to settle the intertor Cuyunt-Mazeruni basin. Such is the
fact ; and one recognized reason for it is found in the moun-
tain rim encircling that basin which prevented land travel,
scarcely possible even on comparatively level ground on
account of the tropical forests, and which, by the cataracts,
where the river broke through it, made the rivers practically
or at least commercially impassable. In 1727-31, the
Dutch governors wrote that these obstacles rendered it
useless to think of carrying the settlements above them;
in 1841 Schomburgk wrote that they were and must always
continue to be such an obstacle. Explorers and historians
all state that no colonist has ever settled above them, and
that even the Indian population is insignificant until the
savannahs of the far interior are reached. The savannahs in
the Cuyuni basin have always been held by the Spaniards.

2. The Dutch and English title to this interior region
has, therefore, never had any material occupation to support
it. Their claim to this vast region, which, according as one
or another of the varying British claims is taken, includes
from 14,000 to 25,000 square miles, rests on the allega-
tion that in 1702-73 the. Dutch had in it a trading post
maintained for two or three vears: in 1755-58, at another
part of it nearer the Dutch sea-coast settlements, a trading
SUMMARY ON THIS TOPIC. 159

post maintained for three years and then destroyed by the
Spaniards. In 1766-67, at another point still closer to the P. 202, infra.
sea-coast settlements, the Dutch had another “post” main-

tained for about three years until the conduct of the
Spaniards forced this out also. From then until after 1886,

there was never so much as an attempt by Dutch or English

to settle, to maintain a “post” or even to exercise any
sovereign power whatever within that region.

3. Not only was each of these posts insignificant in size
(two white men and two or three negro servants, with a
few Indians in the case of the last) and ephemeral in its
duration, but there was no continuity of occupation, of situ-
ation, or even of effort, to connect them. Each was, in
fact and in law, at most an isolated attempt, promptly ter-
minated either by abandonment or by expulsion. Spain
during all this time claimed the entire basin, and the Dutch
knew that it did. Regarding, therefore, the action of the
Dutch merely on its own merits, it plainly had no one of
the characteristics essential to give title.

4, The action of Spain with regard to them was such as
to deprive the Dutch of all pretence of title, and to assure
title in Spain, even if the efforts of the Dutch had heen
vastly greater than they were. It consisted in a perpetual
claim of title, and in an exclusion and expulsion of all
intruders, including the Dutch.

5. The hold of Spain over this interior, which was to he Pp. 98-114,
reached, practically, only through their settlements, and on
which has received settlements through, and only through,

a natural expansion of the Spanish Orinoco settlements, and
this exclusion of others therefrom, has already been noted.

6. Before 1700, all that the Dutch did in this region was
to send, occasionally, a negro to attempt to trade; but little p. 469, inyra.
could be got, and could scarcely be brought to the Dutch
settlements by reason of the natural obstacles.
P. 163, infra.

Pp. 166-7,
infra.

P. 168, infra.

P. 185, 187,
infra.

Pp. 172;

et seg., infra.

160 DUTCH POSTS IN THE CUYUNI BASIN:

7. The“ Post” of 1702-03 was merely a house for friendly
trade with the Spaniards or with the domesticated Spanish
Indians, and was situated at the edge of the Spanish settle-
ments, by permission. When, shortly after it was started,
Spain prohibited the trade, the “ post” was given up.

8. This attempt was not followed up. The Dutch Gov-
ernor’s letters from 1703 to 1755 show it to have heen recog-
nized that the natural barriers made it not worth while to
attempt settlements or even houses of trade above the cata-
racts. The plantations spoken of as“ in Cuyunt,” etc., were
below or at the lower edge of the cataracts. The interior
region remained untouched and unattempted by the Dutch.

9. Towards 1755, say soon after 1740, the demand for
Indian slaves became great, and the Dutch bought them of
the Caribs. The latter procured them by slave-raids among
the more peaceful tribes outside of as well as inside of
Guayana, especially among the Indians, near or at the
missions on the Orinoco, in territory not as yet claimed by
Great Britain, and in the Cuyuni basin, in parts lately
claimed by Great Britain. The Dutch slave-traders, dis-
guised as Indians, followed the raiding parties, sometimes
near them and sometimes with them, to take the captured
Indians and pay for them. Of course this gave no title to
the region where this man-stealing was carried on.

10. Asa part of this system the Dutch slave-traders, who
were appointed and licensed by the Dutch Governor, because
the West India Company had a monopoly of the trade both
in red slaves and black slaves, sent, in 1755, a party consist-
ing of two Dutchmen and two or three negroes, who, on an
island in the Cuyuni, built two or three Indian huts (con-
sisting of a palm-leaf roof and no walls), where they
received the slaves. The Spaniards heard of this; sent an
armed force which destroyed the huts and took the occupants
prisoners. Thereupon the Dutch Governor demanded their
SUMMARY ON THIS TOPIC. 161

release, with damages, asserting title to the region. The
Spanish Governor refused, asserting title in the King of
Spain. The States-General demanded redress of the Court
of Spain. The latter investigated the matter ; and concluded
(after many years) that the Dutch pretensions were un-

founded. Holland never pressed the claim, and never got
the slightest redress.

11. The Dutch made no other attempt at occupation Pp. 202,

until 1765, their avowed reason being that they did not dare
to do it in face of the Spanish opposition. In 1765
they established a new post, much lower down the river,
and really only an outpost of their actual settlements. But
the Spaniards acted as sovereigns of the whole interior region,
their parties coming down close to the tide-water settle-
ments of the Dntch, without hindrance or any attempt at
any; and finally the pressure was such that even this last and
lowest post disappeared about or soon after 1768.

12. As to the location of the “posts” of 1758 and 1768,
and some incidental matters.

13. Since 1768 there has been no attempt whatever by
Dutch or English to acquire or to hold title within the interior
Cuyuni-Mazeruni basin. When the English, in 1886,
declared their intention of occupying by force, and soon
afterwards did so, it was almost a hundred and twenty
years, and we think somewhat more than that, since a Dutch-
man or an Englishman had so much as built an Indian hut or
dwelt for three consecutive nights at any point within that
basin ; and since either Dutch or English had attempted to
exercise any sovereign powers over it; or to translate into a
single act their territorial pretensions if they had any.
Such conduct is an abandonment of claim (for no right
had ever been acquired), and a confirmation and de facto
admission of Spanish title. It is a bar to any subsequent
pretensions.

et seq., infra.
1

Pp. 193,
et seq., infra.
162 DUTCH “POSTS” IN THE CUYUNI BASIN:

Tue Proors IN DETAIL ABOUT THE INTERIOR CuYUNI
BastN; AND ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE DUTCH POSTS, THE
EXPULSION OF THE DuTCH BY THE SPANIARDS AND THE
CONTINUED AND UNINTERRUPTED EXERCISE OF SOVEREIGN
POWERS BY SPAIN, THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE REGION.

1. Before 1700.

Dutch records : ‘ ; :
about Cuyuni = The little mention in the Dutch records of anything beyond

before 1700.

June 2, 1686.

Supp. B. b.,
62.

Ib , 60.

Ib., 60.

Rodway &
W., ii, 82.

Netscher, {7

Supp. B.b.,
60, 66, quote

p. 127, supra.

the actual coast settlements at this period shows that little
was done outside of them. A letter of 1686, announcing
that the Commandeur had sent one negro up the Cuyuni for
trade, and that after six months he had brought back virtu-
ally nothing, proves that there were then neither establish-
‘ments, traders, nor trade, by the Dutch in that region. The
letter says:

‘¢ Immediately after closing this, came Daentje, the company’s
old negro, from the Savannah of the Pariakotte [Indians] above
on the Cuyuni River. He has been away for fully seven months,
and was detained quite three months by the dryness of the river.*
All that he has been able to obtain is a little marzn oil and

hammocks, because the French are making expeditions through
the country up there in order to buy everything.”

Indeed, the French, who were then at war with Spain,
seem for the moment to have been strong on the Orinoco,
and as hostile to the Dutch as to the Spaniards. In 1685
they had captured old Guayana fort, but the Spaniards soon
drove them out. They then retreated to Barima. That place
seems to have become a haunt of French freebooters, and,
possibly, sometimes of royal ships. From thence, in June,
1689, a party of French with three hundred Caribs came

‘ through the inside bayou passages to the new settlement at

 

* This shows how practically impassable the river was found in the
last century.
THE “POST” OF 1703. 163

Pomeroon, and destroyed it before 1700.* Evidently there
is nothing here to help the Dutch to a title by occupation.
They had not then attempted the first step towards it.

2. The ‘ Post”’ of 1703.

All that is known of the 1708 post is that Governor Beek- Rodway &
man, who was a planter and an old resident of the colony, in his Rodway, 1 i, 49.
first report, dated September 8, 1691, enumerates two “ posts,”
one on the Demerara and one on the Pomeroon, and in his Sa
letter of June 14, 1703, writes that the posts have been in-
creased by two, namely one on the Mahaicony (which is far
to the southeast of the Essequibo, and not near the territory
here disputed), and one so far up the Cuyuni that it took
six weeks’ paddling up that river to reach it; and, to copy ao piso pine,
Netscher’s paraphrase of the original, which he examined
“near a savanna, where horses were often bought from
“merchants from Spanish Guiana.”

This clearly proves that the Spaniards were already long
before established there as permanent settlers; + and this
agrees with what we know of the savannas on the Cuyuni,
which are, in fact, four to six weeks’ paddling from the p y43 4
Dutch settlements at the mouth of the Cuyuni— the river *#?"%
being full of cataracts and rapids. It is obvious, also,
that it was a “ post” (whatever that may mean) on entirely

 

*The sojourn of the French in the Orinoco was purely temporary,
It was the custom of the sea-rovers of the West Indies from time to
time to spend the bad season in some anchorage where they could
repair their ships, and land some of their men ; and probably royal
ships engaged in wars, which were chronic in the West Indies, some-
times did the same. There is reason to believe that the Barima was
occasionally used for this purpose. But no claim of title was ever
made in consequence of such acts.

+ Cabelian, in 1596, says that the Spaniards already raised in the
country back of St. Thomé ‘‘ horses of the Caracas breed,” 7. ¢., from
imported stock.
Div. ¢v, infra.

Rodway &
W., ii, 88.

Blue b., 210.

Blue b., 87.

Rodway, i, 49.

Supp. B.b.,68.

Blue b., 208.
P. 102,supra.

164 DUTCH POSTS IN THE CUYUNI BASIN:

friendly terms with the Spaniards. In short, it was evi-
dently maintained by the Dutch as a house of trade or shop
in the midst of an older Spanish settlement, and was not in
any way an exercise of, or asigu of, hostile sovereignty over
the land. Indeed it is settled law that a mere trading post
does not give rise to sovereign rights. It is certain, also, from
the geography of the country, that it would have been, and
to-day is, an impossibility to bring horses from here overland
to the Dutch settlements, with commercial success, and con-
sequently Rodway intimates his disbelief in the story ; for by
land there are one hundred and fifty miles of impassable jungle
covering much broken country ; while the river can be navi-
gated only by canoes small enough to be portaged around the
worst cataracts.* Horses could, however, readily have been
driven to a Spanish post on the Orinoco, where it appears
from nearly contemporaneous evidence the Dutch went in
schooners to trade. Finally this “post,” whatever and
whenever it was, was soon abandoned. For, after the
mention of it in 1703, there is not an allusion to it, nor
is even a tradition of a later existence of it to be found.

The Blue Books do not give either of the letters of 1691
or 1703 which we have cited from Netscher. A letter of
September 28, 1702, which the Supplemental Blue Book does
give, encloses a muster-roll, an extract from which there
printed enumerates “posts” at Demerary, Mahaicony,
Pomeroon and

“From the fortt six weeks’ Postholder in River Cayouni — Allart
journey by water. Lammer, from Meenen, Postholder.”’

 

*In Gravesande’s time, and again in this century, it was prqposed
to cut a road for the purpose of a horse and cattle trade ; but it has
never been done. To say nothing of the very difficult character of
the surface, it is well known that the tropical jungle obliterates a clear
track in two or three years.

+ ‘‘ Fort’? means Kykoveral at the junction of the Cuyuni and
Mazeruni.
THE “POST” OF 1703. 165

There is another similar mention in the muster-roll of
June 19, 1703, the marginal note being “ Up in the Savannah,
six weeks’ sail.”
The letter of September 28, 1702, says that horses of the Supp. B. b.,70
colony are dying very fast, to the great distress of the
planters ; that the Spaniards have forbidden the sale of them
to the Dutch, so that he will have to get an English vessel *
to go and buy horses for him. He writes of the loss:

‘“¢ That truly is a great loss to the colony, more so since the Ib., 69.
Spaniards will no longer permit any trafficking for horses on their
territory, so that I shall be perforce compelled to make use of an
English barque, or other vessels such as those which came in this
river to go and fetch horses, or else Y. N. will be obliged to send
out the same to me from the mother-country, because it is impossi-
ble to deliver sugar without horses.”

Evidently the trade of that “post” depended upon the
permission of the Spaniards. There is no mention of this
post in the Blue Books after 1703; naturally the prohibition
by the Spaniards led to its withdrawal. Plainly, here was
no exercise of sovereign dominion by the Dutch, or any
pretence of any; but the contrary.

3. Period between the Savannah trading ‘‘ Post’ of 1703 and
the Cuyuni slave-trading ‘‘ Post”’ of 1758.

The modern accounts which we have quoted show that p. 149-4,
there were no settlements above the cataracts which obstructed “0 °”"*
the Essequibo, Cuyuni and Mazeruni. Early despatches
prove the same fact, and show that the breaks in the land
which caused these cataracts were from the outset consid-
ered, as they always proved to be, natural barriers. The
Commandeur writes, September 26, 1727:

‘“‘Turning now, my Lords, to the matter of the River Esse- gupp. B. b.,
quibo, it is now about two years since I myself, with Mr. van der 80.
Kaey, proceeded up the river to find out whether it was not in any
way possible to successfully set on foot some enterprise up above

 

* Vessels from New England and Nova Scotia came frequently to
Essequibo.
1727.

Supp. B. b.,83

Ib., 83.

166 NO DUTCH SETTLEMENTS

the falls, but we found the river very dangerous, so that in some
places we were obliged to be drawn up in a corrial through the falls,
with great danger to our lives. It is absolutely impossible to
navigate the river with large boats, such as canoes, and it is
equally impossible with barques, because above the plantation
Nieuw Cortrijk there is fall upon fall. With regard to the land
out there, it seems to me very good, but having inquired how high
the water rose in those parts, it was pointed out to me in different
places that it rose in the rainy season between twenty-five and
thirty feet, so that nearly all the land is then under water, and
there are also many great hills there which are nearly all rocky and
very steep at the river side.

‘¢T have also carefully inquired, my Lords, what kind of trade
might be done there with the Indians, and have up to the present not
been able to discover any other trade but a little marzen which is
brought thence, and sometimes a few red slaves. To this end,
two creoles went up the river only last year, who, having been out
for seven or eight months, brought very little home. The only
profit that this colony derives from the River Essequibo is that the
latter is very rich in fish, and is therefore visited annually both by
the Company and by the private colonists for the purpose of salt-
ing, to which end two boats have again been prepared for your
Lordships, which will be ready to depart in the month of October.
I see no profit for your Lordships in sending any man up the river,
because I can discover nothing of the savage nation.”

We quote one more, dated June 14, 1731:

‘¢ Concerning the advantages of the trade in the rivers of Mas-
seroeny and Cajoeny for the Honourable Company alone, this con-
sists only in red slaves, and the order has been renewed because
the veto was one kept up by all former Commandeurs.* But most
of the Indians having left those parts, that trade is now of less
profit, except for the orange dye.t The plantation Poelwijk, lying
up in the first-mentioned river, sometimes buys one or two red
slaves in a whole year, but they are mostly children of about eight
or ten years old, who are bought for about twelve or thirteen axes
and choppers, together with a few provisions. The red slaves, too,
cannot work togethir with a black slave, and are mostly used on
the plantations for hunting and fishing, the women looking after

 

* The order was that no colonist should trade there for his private
account. + Annatto.
IN THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN. 167

the cassava for the daily consumption of the plantation. The great — 1731,
number of rocks, which lie in these two rivers, and which occasion

the falls by reason of the strong stream rushing over them, makes

these rivers unnavigable for large vessels, wherefore it is impos-

sible to establish any plantations there, although the soil is very

well fitted for it.”

A hundred and ten years later Schomburgk said the same P.152, supra.
thing. Thus, there were no plantations above the lowest
cataracts, the trade up the rivers amounted virtually to
nothing, and even the Indian slaves who could be procured
there by the Dutch were insignificant in number.

There seems to be an effort in the Blue Books to show
that there were plantations on the Cuyuni and Mazeruni,
which might amount to some sort of occupation on those
rivers. The actual fact is that there were a few plantations
on the lower or tide-water reaches of those rivers, but not
in the interior basin, above the cataracts. This is shown 5,. ae
by the quotations already referred to; by Bouchenroeder’s N°: 3 4; 10.
plan of all the land granted; by the letter of July 14, 1731,
just quoted ; and indeed by the letters of the Supp. BI. B.,
which specifically refer to plantations. For example:

Letter of January 23, 1708, says that the planters will not Sane) Be Bis
buy slaves because their plantations are where “the enemy
“can at all times enter the river and set fire to and ruin the
“oreatest part of the plantation . . . because . . . the fort
“is too far off.” The Commandeur says that he means to
break up one of the Company’s plantations, and asks whether
he shall not make the new one “in Cayuni or Mazeruni . .

“as then I should come to have it under my protection.”

All this means that the existing plantations were on the
river Jelow the fort, but he wants them under the guns of the
fort, which was on an island a trifle inside of the Mazeruni at
its confluence with the Cuyuni. A letter of May 13, 1710,
says that he has placed the “new plantation, named Duinen- supp. B. b.,
“burgh, here, right opposite the fort and towards Cuyuni.”
March, 1724.
Ib., 77.

Rodway, i, 49.

Ib., 82-3.

Rodway, i, 68.

Supp. B. b.,
117.

1740.

Events of
1740-1770.

Rodway, i,
104, 110.

Rodway, i,
100, 111, 123,
126, 233.

168 THE DUTCH CUYUNI POST,

The other letters conform to this. Two coffee plantations
were made, “Cajoeny and at Baratique [Bartica is exactly at
the corner of the Essequibo and the Cuyuni].” The Cuyuni
one is “half an hour above the Cassava plantation,” which
plantation was at Cartabo, directly opposite the fort. Land
was also granted fora private plantation “half an hour above
that of your Lordships.” This agrees with the grants on the
Bouchenroeder plat, which run about five miles above the
fort, and with the account given by Rodway of an insurrec-
tion on one of the plantations in 1731, on a Sunday morn-
ing, while the master had gone down to church at the fort.
This attempt at coffee raising and indigo raising was a
failure. A letter of August 28, 1761, speaks of “the lowest
“fall, where your Lordship’s indigo plantation is situated.”
These notes show that the phrases “ Cuyuni,” etc., designated
the planted region, along the t¢de-water reaches of those rivers.

4. The growing Indian slave trade.

The next paper relating to Cuyuni is a letter of 1746.
The transactions from this time, which include the matter
of the “post” of 1758, on the Cuyuni, and the occurrences
of the next ten years at the Barima, require a reference to
the history of this period.

The energetic Storm van ’sGravesande reigned as secretary
and governor from 1738 to 1772.* Under him the colony
had its first real growth. The particular feature we are con-
cerned with was the great demand for Indian slaves, very
much increased by the facts that Gravesande in 1739 induced
the Company to throw the colony open to all comers, and
that the Company, which had the monopoly of trade in
negroes, did not supply enough. This led to habitual raids,
by means of the Caribs, imto Spanish territory; for the
Dutch did not think it safe to enslave their own Indians.

 

* Rodway remarks upon Gravesande’s vigorous plans, always
thwarted by the cautious, slow, timid and economical directors.
AND ITS DESTRUCTION IN 1758. 169

But at the same time the Spaniards asserted themselves stave raids
with the resolution and courage which belong to their race. Pete ty
The mission fathers, as well as the governors, made their veer
complaints reach the ears of the king, and this led to orders
from him to put a stop to the outrages, while the feeling
these wrongs naturally excited against the horrid practices
of the Dutch ensured the vigorous execution of the king’s
authority. Thus it happened that the issue of territorial
dominion was presented; the result was that the Spaniards, Spain expels
upon the assertion of right, expelled the Dutch from the Baal
territory which forms the subject of this paper, had their pasin and the
will of it ever after, and the Dutch and English have never
since attempted to occupy it nor even to control it until
the armed invasion of a dozen years ago.

These occurrences are the more striking from the fact that,
on the part of the Spaniards, at least, there was nothing
wanton nor inconsiderate about them. The authorities in-
variably respected the actual Dutch settlements; they did
not mean to complicate their case by any nice questions of
law. But beyond where the Dutch were settled (all their
settlements were east of the Moruca and Jelow the cataracts
of the rivers) the Hollanders should not be permitted to
show themselves, unless it might befor mere friendly trade ;
when they attempted to do so they were sharply rapped over
the knuckles ; the States-General complained to the king ; got
no redress ; and then subsided.

We are left in no doubt about the facts. We have the
original papers, the orders, the complaints, and the reports,
and, save for a few details, these papers, whether by Span-
iards or by Dutch, do not differ. Inquests were held at the
time; the persons who participated were examined under
oath, — including such Hollanders as the Spaniards could
reach. All these papers went to Spain, and Venezuela has
produced, from the Seville Archives, full copies, certified
P. 165, supra.

P, 115, supra.

Supp. B.b,
86.

Ib., 87.

Spanish
guard-house
on the
Cuyuni.

170 THE DUTCH CUYUNI POST,

by their official custodian. Both parties appeal to these
files. The Supp. Blue b. prints most of them.

The Dutch papers in the Supp. B. b. furnish some informa-
tion about the condition of the interior Cuyuni region before
the “post” which was established in 1756 and destroyed
in 1758.

The quotations already given show that from the Esse-
quibo, on which post Arinda was situated, only an insignifi-
cant number of slaves could be procured. They came,
therefore, mostly from the Caribs of the Orinoco. The
Spanish mission settlements, on the lower Orinoco and in
the savanna country of the upper Cuyuni, had domesticated
a large number of Indians and had attracted to their neigh-
borhood many more, naturally of the more peaceful kind.
This was the fruitful field for the Carib slave raids. But
the Spaniards began to stop this. They strengthened the
neighborhood of the missions, and they attacked the Caribs
in their own villages. Gravesande writes :

July 20,1746. ‘* A nation of Indians from above, from Oro-
noque, have come away and have attacked the Caribs subject to us
in the River Wayne, have killed different persons, and have threat-
ened that they would extirpate them all, which would entail very
bad consequences for this Colony.”

December 7, 1746. ‘‘ IT have the honour to inform your Honours,
via Rio Berbice, of a Mission erected with a little fort by the Span-
iards above in the Cayuni, in my opinion on your Honours’ territory,
and that I had information from a certain source that they were
thinking next year of founding yet another, lower down, whereat
the inhabitants are very much aggrieved, and the Carib Indians a
great deal more so, since it perfectly closes the Slave Traffic in
that direction from which alone that nation derive their livelihood.
They are also all wishing to surprise the mission and level it to the
ground, which I, not without trouble, have prevented, because
they belong to our jurisdiction, and all their trade being carried on
in the Dutch Colonies, such a step would certainly be revenged
upon us by the Spaniards. It is very perilous for this Colony to
have such neighbours so close by, who in time of war will be able
AND ITS DESTRUCTION IN 1758. 171

to come and visit us overland, and especially who make fortifica-
tions in our own land, in breach of all custom.

“‘T say upon our own land — J cannot fix this, however, with
full certainty, while the limits west of this river * are unknown to
me.”

The Spaniards became more and more decided in their
conduct every year, and caused much apprehension to the
Dutch governor. Rodway says, of the year 1747: “ What Roaway, i,
“with the fears of a raid from Spanish Guiana and the
“jmpediments to the journies of the postholders, the Indian
“trade had dwindled to very little.” The Spaniards started
an expedition towards the sources of the Cuyuni and Maze-
runi, of which Gravesande writes, “ Their intention was to March 23,
“estublish a permanent settlement for themselves near the Scat b.,
“origin of the rivers mentioned, and to fortify it, so that is
“we then should he hemmed in by a cordon.” t

December 2, 1748. “The Spaniards begin to approach yy. 99,
“above in Cayuni more and more as time goes on.” Their
chief said “that the whole of America belonged to the
“King of Spain, and that he should do what suited himself,
“without troubling about us.” But the Caribs, enraged
that their slave-trade is interfered with, say that they will
shortly drive the Spaniards out of Cuyuni. They seem to
be Gravesande’s real, and indeed only, reliance. In reply to
his request what to do, the Company told him to “try to 4). 99,
“hinder it, but without appearing therein,” which meant
setting on the Caribs to murder the Spanish. Gravesande qp,
did not like this, but he refrained from overt acts. He,
however, wrote to the Spanish governor, threatening violent
measures, to which Gravesande says (for the Spanish let-
ter is not produced and probably does not now exist ), the
Spaniard, with apologies, declared that the mission should
not be established. But the “polite reply” of the Spaniard

 

* The Essequibo. +‘* Weg Des Span. 1747” on Blue b. Map No. 5.
Supp. B. b.,
99.

Oct. 12, 1754.
Supp. B. b.,
100.

Tb, 103.

Cuyuni Post
established.

Supp. B. b.,
104.

Ib., 109.

P. 185, infra.

Blue b., 115.

172 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

was probably as insincere as Gravesande’s threats, for in
1754 Gravesande writes that “the Spaniards (apparently in
“order to facilitate their undertaking* ) have established
“two missions above in Cayuni and garrisoned them with
“men.” These, he says, are on the Cuyuni itself, and lower
down than the mission formerly spoken of. “This, taken
“in conjunction with the other reports, makes the matter
“very serious, and a very weighty one; and I shall with
“much impatience await your Honor’s orders.” Presently,
he writes, the Caribs “surprised the missions, massacred
“the priest and ten or twelve Spaniards, and demolished
“their buildings. . . . This sad accident for the Spaniards
“has covered us on that side.”

May 31, 1755, “ They (the Spaniards) will try to creep in
“softly, and, as far as possible, to approach and surround
“us; another is certain, that they have taken in complete
“ possession the Creek Iruwary, which flows into the Cayuni,
“which indisputably is your Honours’ territory.”

5. Dutch Cuyuni ‘‘Post’’ established in 1755, expelled in
1758.

The muster-roll of June 1, 1755, contains the first men-
tion of it. “Johannes Neuman, Postholder at the new post
“in Cajoeny.”

The list for August, 1758, enumerates: “ At the Com-
“pany’s Post in Cuyuni, Johan Stephen Iskes, Postholder.
“Guilliem Baptist de Bruyn, assistant.”

The names show that these are the men who were captured
by the Spaniards upon the destruction of the post in the
same month. We call attention to the dates because some
of the Spanish papers speak of the post as established in
1747, evidently a clerical error tor 1757; for in one place
the paper says that it was established in 1747 and destroyed

 

* The paragraphs of the letter which apparently must state what
the ‘‘ undertaking’’ was, are unfortunately omitted in the Blue Book.
SPAIN ADVANCES AND EXPELS THE DUTCH. 173

the next year. Now we know that the destruction was in
1758. The Spaniards learned of it probably in 1757.

This “ post” of 1758 was a slave-traders’ house, kept by The Cuyuni
two Dutchmen and two or three colored men, on the Cuyuni, poe eine
for the purpose of buying Indian slaves whom the Caribs, in-
cited by the Dutch, carried away from the Spanish mission
settlements. The Caribs had long done this, the Dutchmen
staying at a distance; and it had been difficult to protect
the peaceful Indians against these sudden savage raids. But
when the prefect of the missions heard that an establishment
for the purpose had been set up on the Cuyuni, he informed
the Spanish commandant, who at once sent a force of one See the origi-

nal reports,
hundred men, which swept the river from its source down, including the

depositions of
destroyed the post, and carried its inmates away as prisoners ; the Dates.

. 178-
searched for other establishments, but found none; and was 185, 18 194, ie ra.
told by the prisoners that there were no others.

Governor Storm van ’sGravesande complained to the

Spaniard in arrogant terms, asking how he could “ dare” to

Supp. B. b
109, 111, D8.

do this, demanding the immediate return of the prisoners

with an indemnity, intimating reprisals, and declaring that

the matter would be reported to the States-General and Blu b 98.
redress demanded of the King of Spain. To which the jj Dosa, aie 137,
Spanish governor replied that the place was

‘¢a part of the domains of His Catholic Majesty, my Master. . . - Blue b., 104.

This being so, and our action being a justifiable one, I cannot con- ee 138

sent to the restitution of the prisoners whom you demand until I
know the will of my master to whom I have made report. In the
meantime,” he adds, ‘‘ I offer you my services and pray God to
preserve you many years.”

This was a dispatch of defiance, based on sovereign right, Bive b., 100.
without a symptom of apology. The States-General char-
acterized it as “ in every respect haughty and unsatisfactory,”
and complained to the King. But they got no redress.

The Dutch made no attempt to re-establish their post, but
Schom-
burgk’s map.
Humboldt,
Pers. Narr.,
v, 755.

Spain in
possession.

Supp. B.b,
130.

Ib., 136.

Ib., 161.

174 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

maintained their furthest outpost about fifteen miles only
from the mouth of the Cuyuni, and on the Dutch side of
the line which we have indicated as the utmost line of settle-
ments. Some years afterwards the Spaniards built an armed
stronghold on the south side of the Cuyuni, opposite the
mouth of the Curumu and held it. Humboldt states the
position of each of these final posts.

Observe the precise issue. The Dutch had no paper title ;
the writings were all against them, for there is no pretence
that they had any possession of this region when, in 1648,
they accepted by the treaty of Munster a quitclaim of what
they then possessed as the detinition of their territory.
England is trying to make out a title by Dutch occupation.
Most clearly, when the Spainards, under an assertion of
title, expelled the Dutch as intruders, the former were, for
a moment, at least, in possession, and the latter were not.
Unless the Dutch reversed this condition, they and their
successors have no title. What, then, did they do?

They complained, but got no redress; their complaints
were hardly listened to. They acquiesced. Anticipating
for a moment a series of quotations by which we propose tu
tell the story at length, we find three which are enough.

In August, 1764, after referring to the destruction of the
Cuyuni post in 1758, Commandeur Gravesande writes :

‘‘The Spaniards spread themselves from year to year, and
gradually come closer by means of their missions, the small parties
sent out by them coming close to the place where the Honorable
Company’s indigo plantation stood,* and being certain to try to
establish themselves if they are not stopped in time.”

August 13,1765: ‘‘It is certain that so long as no satisfaction is
given by the Court of Spain concerning the occurrence of the post
in Cajoeny, the Spaniards will gradually become more insolent,

and will enroach upon our ground from year to year.”
March 15, 1769: ‘* My opinion has always been that they would

 

* This was at the lowest fall of the Cuyuni (p. 166, supra).
THE DUTCH EXPELLED; SPAIN IN POSSESSION. 175

gradually acquire a foothold in Cuyuni and try to obtain the mastery gpain in
of the river, as they now have practically done at the end of the Possession.
past year.”’

About these facts there is no doubt. There are three
parcels of proof which put them beyond discussion.

(1.) In 1841, pcecanan ts, exploring the country in order Sing alts
to locate a boundary line, heard a story of the occurrence Eonombung
just related, though he does not appear to have known that oe

7 : uyuni post.
the post was merely for slave trading. This story, related by
him, is the only alleged fact of occupation on which he pre-
tends to base his claimed line through the Cuyuni basin.

This story, which did not even amount to a general tradi-
tion, would be of no sufficient value in itself, but it is told
by Schomburgk and put in evidence by Great Britain; and
it conforms in general fact to the contemporaneous papers.

(2.) The Dutch having complained of this expulsion, the o¢:0:41 con-
Spanish commandant prepared a full report of the matter, temPporaneous

> accounts of
containing the complaint of the Prefect of the Missions, his the expulsion

of the Dutch

own orders and instructions to the expedition, an account of ™1%*-
what the expedition did furnished by the sworn statements
made immediately on their return by the officers and several
of the men and by the Hollanders captured at the “post,”
and the papers seized on the prisoners. These documents,
together with the complaint of the Dutch Governor, the
reply of the Spanish Governor, the “resolutions” of the
States-General, and the complaint of the Dutch Ambassa-
dor to the court of Madrid, are all now in existence in the
archives at Seville. Both parties invoke this proof and
have printed translations of it.

(3.) About ten years later the States-General complained 6:9)
to the court of Spain that the Spanish Governor of Guayana Contempory

neous account

was interfering with what the Dutch alleged to be their oe

< a : : * e i Barima in
rights in the Barima region. The Spanish Governor was tie7; andl pur:

thereupon ordered to make a full report of the facts, The vey ot Cuyunt
Blue b., 216,

Ib., 224.

176 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

Dutch complaint also made a slight allusion to the events
in the Cuyuni basin, and therefore the Spanish Governor
enclosed in his report a complete copy of the papers we
have above referred to, with similar proof as to what had
taken place in the Cuyuni basin during the intervening ten
years. *

1. The story of the Cuyuni slave-trading post of 1757,
as told by Schomburgk from an Indian.

Schomburgk was undoubtedly an intrepid and indefati-
gable explorer; but nothing can better show his complete
unfitness to judge a question of boundary, than the naive
innocence with which he accepts, as proof of title by occu-
pation, a story that seventy-five or a hundred years before,
the Dutch for a while occupied ground from which they were
kicked out as intruders and to which they never presumed to
return. His use of this “ post” puts him in a still more un-
favorable light asa judge of boundary. He originally undeyr-
stood from some Indians that the Dutch post he heard of, and
heard of as the “farthest outpost,” was on Tokoro, an island
in the river Cuyuni, “much further to the west than that
“part of the Cuyuni where” he proposed to have his line cross
that stream. When he arrived near the spot he found,
he says (speaking from what an Indian told him),

‘¢the island, Tokoro (Tokoro Patti) where, towards the close of
the last century, the farthest outpost of the Dutch was situated.
Although generations have elapsed, the circumstance that a Dutch
post-holder once resided here has remained traditionary ; and our
guide, an old Waika, assured me that his father had frequently
mentioned it to him, and that the post-holder’s name was Palm-
steen. The post was afterwards destroyed by the Spaniards and

the post-holder withdrew nearer towards the cultivated part of the
colony.”

 

* In actual fact it is this file of papers which both parties have
used.
NEVER OCCUPIED BY THE DUTCH. 177

It will be observed that this is not even a tradition ; it is only
a story told by a single Indian. The postholder’s name was
Stephen Iskes in Dutch, Stephen Hiz in the Spanish papers.

This island which Schomburgk accepted as the site of the
destroyed post, instead of being to the west of a boundary
mark he had made, was twenty miles to the east of it. But he
would not let that trifle affect the boundary; so he kept his
line twenty miles west — and according to Great Britain’s
new version of Schomburgk, one hundred miles west —
of the “farthest out-post” which he had ever heard of as
attempted, and which even he knew the Dutch were not
able to continue to occupy.

It is certain that an Indian hut, occupied for three years
by slave-traders, destroyed by the Spaniards and the occu-
pants carried off and held by them as trespassers as soon as
discovered, is neither a material occupation nor a political
occupation for the Dutch such as can give a pretence of title.
On the contrary, it proves that Spain exercised sovereign
control and excluded the Dutch; whichis conclusive proof
of political dominion, and of that title to the soil which ac-
companies political dominion in countries not actually settled

Div. v, infra.

by civilized men.

It is evident that Schomburgk, in the Cuyuni basin, at least,
did not pretend to find any occupation to support his line.
So far as can be discovered from his various memoirs,
substantially his sole documentary authorities and sources of
knowledge as to where the boundary line should run between
the sea and the far interior is found in Hartsinck’s history,
and in a little inset sketch map by the land surveyor Bou-
chenroeder. These are as follows:

Hartsinck’s Dutch history, published in 1770, says that yartsinek,
some consider the boundary point on the coast to be the grb PP HS
Barima, and some consider it to be the river Waini; his
map takes the Waini as the point. His text says nothing Our map
about the inland dividing line, but his map, which we repro-
Tb., 257.

Tb., 258.

Tb., 263.

See his map
which we re-
produce as
Map No. 1.

Div. vi, infra.

178 THE CUYUNI BASIN

duce, runs the boundary back approximately at right angles
to the shore, showing that it is a purely arbitrary line.
“We formerly have had a post,” Hartsinck says, “on the
river Barima.” He says that in 1757, at the mouth of the
Pomeroon, “a post was placed to prevent the flight of the
“slaves over-sea; but this post has since fallen into decay.”
The furthest “colony” he mentions is near the mouth of the
Pomeroon or the Moruca — which two rivers empty into the
sea close together. As to the interior he speaks of the
“Cajoune” (Cuyuni) on the islands at the mouth of which
he says the Dutch have a settlement (which is true), while
the Spaniards have missionaries higher up; and higher up
still, he says, this river joins the Yuruari. So that accord-
ine to Hartsinck, the Dutch were on the islands at the
mouth of the Cuyuni, without any pretence of occupation
higher up, while the Spaniards had missionaries on the river,
but below the confluence with the Yuruart. Hartsinck must be
accepted by the successors of the Dutch as pretty good
authority for the condition tn his own time, — 1770.

Thus, Hartsinck knows of no Dutch occupation beyond
the Moruca and the lowest cataracts of the rivers, except so
far as the “ post we formerly had ” at the Barima might con-
stitute an occupation. But he in effect declares that this
post cannot constitute an effective occupation, for, by his
map, he puts the boundary at the Waini, there shownas eighty
miles east of the Barima, and outside the Orinoco mouth.*

In saying that the question is between the Barima and
the Waini, he speaks of the question as between different

 

*The present mouth of the Waini is outside of the Orinoco great
mouth, and in effect is the sea mouth of the Barima pass. There was
another mouth of the Waini, near the Moruca, now so silted up that
it only flows in freshets. Hartsinck’s map seems to take that as the
boundary point.

The discussion of this belongs to division vi, infra; but Hartsinck is
better appreciated by considering his statements together.

It was only among Dutchmen that the question was between Barima
and Waini. Spain never assented to either.
NEVER OCCUPIED BY THE DUTCH. 179

Dutchmen ; the Spaniards never suggested the Waini; they
always insisted upon the Essequibo de jure, and the Moruca,
as in fact the outpost of Dutch settlement.

The Bouchenroeder map is even of less value. Bouchen- gouchen-
roeder was a surveyor employed to make an elaborate plan ae _
of the settlements, which was afterwards engraved by Wyld, ee sing Pr
the English map publisher. This plan did not go beyond Maps ”P:
the Pomeroon nor the cataracts of the rivers. But in con-
nection with this he gave a little inset sketch map of that
part of South America (dated 1798), and on this he marked,
at what is really the mouth of the Barima, “Ancien* poste
Hollandais.” From this point he drew a straight line
with a ruler a little west of south, till it struck the Cuyuni,
where it stopped. But, as Netscher points out, Bouchen-
roeder knew nothing of the geography of the country where
this line was drawn, and Netscher utterly rejects this line vei
as without any justification. This line would include in
Dutch territory substantially all the ancient Spanish mis-
sions; which of course is absurd. Indeed, although Lord
Salisbury has proffered exactly that claim, the Blue Book,
in a note on map No. 9, says that it “is not pressed.”

Schomburgk’s remaining authority was the story of his
Indian. He was so bada judge of the law as to suppose
that a short-lived post from which the Dutch had been ex-
pelied by the Spaniards, and to which, according to the story
he heard, they had never returned, could support a claim of
title, but he had at least the grace, at the outset, to propose
to mark the line on the Dutch side of it. But when he
found that the “post” was far east of where he expected
to run the line, he did not change his determination.

P. 177, supra.

 

* The reader will remember that ‘‘ Ancien’’ in such a connection
does not mean old and still continuing, but signifies that which no
longer is. ‘‘ Ancien Ministre,” for example, means ex-minister,
and not an old minister still in office. #. g., the title-pages of the
histories by Duruy, ‘“‘ Ancien-Ministre,” etc.
P. 48, supra.

P. 23, supra.

Div. vi, infra.

Blue b., 93.
Ven. Sp.
Docs., ii, 3.

Blue b., 95.
Vens. Sp.
Doces., ii, 8.

180 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

The truth is, all that Schomburgk at first undertook to do
or was employed to do was to locate along the nearest natural
features the line which he found on the Bouchenroeder sketch
map. The justification for that line, z. e., the establishment
of tts terminz, he knew was not a surveyor’s work; and in
the passage which the Blue Book omits, he expressly left
that to diplomatic negotiations.

Destruction of the Cuyuni Post, from the Seville Archives.

The file opens with a long and touching report from
Fray Benito de la Garriga, Prefect of the Missions, dated
June 9, 1758, stating the evils inflicted by the Carib slave-
raiders and the Dutchmen who instigate them.

“Tt will not be too much to say,” he writes, “that the
“ Caribs sell yearly more than 300 children, having murdered
“in their homes more than 400 adults, for the Dutch do not
“like to buy these last, as they well know that they will not
“yemain with them.”

He describes the attacks on the missions near the head
waters of the Caroni and the Caura, and on the upper waters
of the Essequibo, with which we have no concern except to
note that the evil was not contined to the Cuyuni basin, but
extended to regions which neither Dutch nor English have
ever pretended to claim; that alone is enough to dispose of
any suggestion that raids by the Caribs for the benefit of
the Dutch would give a title. One Dutchman had been caught
quite near to the Miamo mission, from which he thinks that
they will now be found further off.

‘‘This slave trade has so completely changed the Caribs that
they give themselves no other occupation than a constant going to
and returning from war, selling and killing the Indians of the
nations already mentioned.”

‘Tt is very sad to see the Indians settling about the Yuruary
DESTRUCTION OF THE DUTCH POST IN 1758. 181

carried off for slaves. Indeed, it appears to me that the Dutch 1758.
were never so eager in their pursuits after slaves as they are at
present.”

Two things, he says, should be done to put an end to all
this: the Dutchmen should be seized, and a strong post
established on the Cuyuni at the mouth of the Curumu.
Both of these were ultimately done.

An expedition of one hundred men under Captain Bonalde, July 27, 1758.

with Luis del Puente as lieutenant, was at once started, ay
x : “ ” Ven. Sp.
ordered to sweep the river, capture a specified “post” and Docs. ff 10-13.

its occupants, ascertain whether there were any other “ posts ”
on the Cuyuni, and, if there were, proceed against them
likewise. They performed this duty, destroyed the post,
and brought back as prisoners its occupants, two of whom
were Dutchmen, the two others being negroes. Shortly
afterwards the depositions of the officers, several’ of the Ib., 15.
soldiers, and the two Hollanders were taken, and are printed
by Venezuela from the Seville Archives.* From them the
following facts appear :
The place consisted of merely a native hut, made with a qp, 47.
palm-leaf roof and no side walls, as is still to-day the prac-
tice of the forest Indians: “Said hut was covered with palm
“leaves without any walls.” The Hollanders said that they eae
had bought no slaves, but were making “ collections ” for their
predecessors; and among their papers was found a list of y,, 97, 99.
“ debts ” due their predecessors from various named Indians,
the “debts” consisting of twenty-seven slaves and fifty
hammocks. The substance of it was that the trade goods
were given to the Caribs partly in advance, and the post-
holder was to get the slaves in return. f

 

* Translations of nearly all of these papers are also printed in full
in the Supplemental Blue Book, 235 et seq.

+ Father Gumilla, writing in 1745, says: ‘‘ To procure these [Indian supp. B. b.,
slaves] some Dutch introduced themselves among the fleets of these “7:
Ib., 137.
Blue b., 99.

Blue b., 103.

Blue b., 119.
Ven. Docs., ii.
ols

* Collec-
tions.”

Blue b., 117.

P. 172, 177,
1s7, supra.

182 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

Then the chief Hollander told a story which was a false
pretence. He was placed there, he said, with a guard of
one other Hollander and two Indians, to catch runaway
negroes and “to restrain the Carib tribes, so as to prevent
“them from making any mischief, either to said Colony or
“to the neighboring Spaniards or to the domestic Indians,
“as shown by the chapter of the instructions that was seized
“from him by the chief of the Spaniards who apprehended
“him.”

Governor Gravesande’s letter to the Spanish commandant
makes the same assertion, and says that if the papers of the
post- holder have been seized, such instructions will be found
among them. The Dutch ambassador at Madrid permitted
his imagination to enlarge upon this, saying that the place
captured was “a wooden station, to serve as an outpost, as to
“which the Spanish Governors have never raised any objec-
“tion or made the least complaint, understanding that such
“outposts are absolutely necessary to us for the peace of the
“colony against the raids of the savages, and are constructed
“with no other object.”

And in fact “Instructions” of the tenor thus indicated
were found at the post seized and are copied in the report.*

 

Indians [Caribs], painted according to the custom of the said savages,
by which they encouraged them and add boldness to the lamentable
destruction with which they work. .Added to which many Caribs
receive a great supply of arms, ammunition, glass beads and other
trifles, with the understanding that they are to be paid for within a
certain time with Indians, which they must take prisoners on the
Orinoco. And when the time has elapsed, the Dutch creditors en-
courage and even oblige the Caribs to their bloody raids against the
defenceless Indians of the Orinoco.”’

Father Benito de la Garriga writes in 1769, that ‘collecting old
debts’’ means slave-buying.

* The date of these instructions is November 29, 1757, as given in
the Blue Book ; the year 1758 in the Ven. Sp. Does. is a misprint.

The names of the postholders in the Spanish papers identify them
with those given by the Dutch muster-rolls.
DUTCH POST DESTROYED BY THE SPANIARDS. 183

But these assertions and “instructions” do not fit either 1752.
the character of the“ post” destroyed nor the occupation of its
people ; and Governor Gravesunde’s instant reference to them
gives rise to the impression that the “instructions” were
placed there for the purpose of giving a false color in case
the place was seized. For the structure itself was not a
strong house, but a mere Indian logie consisting of a palm-
leaf roof supported on poles, without side walls; the
“ouard” which was to “ protect” the peaceful Indians and
the settlements against the savages consisted of two Dutch-
men, two or three colored men, and one or two women and
their children; the place, if Schomburgk’s tradition repre-
sented the truth (though it does not), would require fully
two weeks’ journey to reach it from the settlements, the
intervening country being inhabited solely by Indians. In
fact it was essentially, if not entirely, a slave-buying place.

The instructions themselves provide :

‘© 7, The Post will be bound to collect all debts due to the Ven. Sp.
previous old Post, and it will be likewise paid at the rate of ten 20S #32
florins a head and aflorin for each hammock, and of everything
purchased notice will be given to the Governor.”

It is obvious that this refers to the “ collections” of Indian
slaves and hammocks above alluded to.* “Collections”
seems to have been the common phrase with the slave-traders
for slave buying.

 

*In the Blue Book, this paragraph is twisted as if it meant that
the post-holder was to collect what was due to his predecessor for
catching fugitive slaves, by virtue of a previous paragraph. Of
course that was not meant; the new postholder was not sent up the
Cuyuni to collect what was due from planters at the settlements
to his predecessor, who had himself returned to the settlements.
The Blue Book gives the article in question thus :
“ Art. 7. That the official is obliged to collect all outstanding Blue b., 120.
debts remaining due to his predecessor, the former official of that
post, for as 10 fl. will be paid for every fugitive slave, and 1 fl. for
184 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

The “ post” was, therefore, a mere native hut, such as the
Indians will put up in a couple of days, and its essential if
not sole business was slave-trading. It was not an “out-
post” to protect the settlements; and the most complete
acquiescence by the Spaniards in the maintenance of pro-
tecting outposts, close to the Dutch settlements, if there
had been such acquiescence, could give no justification for
the slave-trader’s hut in question.
The slave- Now, it is settled law that a mere trading post — certainly

trader’s hut oye ” ;
onthe Cuyuni When it is not a great “factory ” such as was used in the

could not con- < : a 5 :
stitutean East Indies — cannot constitute an “ occupation ” which will

wonere give rise to sovereign rights. It is ephemeral in its nature ;

and, moreover, its existence does not require sovereign rights

and, therefore, is not an assertion of them.

Twiss. The All this was maturely considered in the case of the Oregon

a boundary. A fur-trading establishment, flying the Ameri-
can flaz, had been set up at the mouth of the Columbia. The
United States asserted that it gave them a sovereign title
by occupation. The English contended for the principles
just stated, and their correctness was finally conceded, tacitly
at least, though there was considerable question as to the
actual facts.

Whatever might be the rule as to a large and permanent
establishment out of which a settlement is obviously likely
to grow, this slave-trader’s hut has not a single element on
which to rest such a claim. It was not only insignificant and
temporary in its nature, but the intention to make it any-

 

every hammock, the Governor must be informed of all the sales and
purchases.”

The word “ fugitive” is an interpolation which changes the whole
meaning.

The Spanish, in the certified copy lodged with the Commission, is:

7. La Posta estard obligada 4 cobrar todas las deudas que se le
quedaron deviendo 4 la otra Posta antesedente por que tambien se le
pagaron los diez florines por cada cabeza y un florin por cada jamaca
y asi todo lo que compraré lo deve manifestar al Senor Gobernador.
THE DUTCH POST DID NOT CONSTITUTE OCCUPATION. 185

thing different is negatived. The Dutchman testified that ans. s, 12,
he had begun to prepare a small bit of ground for yucca for pose 28,
his own use; that not far above his place there was ground

fitto plant, “but the governor does not allow it to be tilled,

“nor permit any one to stay there.” And, in fact, no

attempt at settlement ever grew out of it. It would be

absurd to say that the slave-traders’ Kraals scattered over

Africa could make the scene of their raids the territory of

their foreign sovereign; yet that is exactly this case. This
conclusion is also emphasized by the fact that the Dutch Blue b., 93-5.
pursued exactly the same conduct in taking slaves through

the Caribs at other places, as on the Caroni and north of

the Orinoco, which they have never pretended to claim.

The careful sworn depositions of the actors, taken at the
moment as to exactly what this “post” was, enables us to
dispose of much for which the historians have drawn on
their imagination, and which the English rely on to make
out their case.

Netscher, for example, speaks of the “ posts” as small netscher,
trade houses, “which posts appeared on some maps, some- as
“times under the improper and exaggerated name of ‘forts.’” °"es4™
Yet even he says that they generally consisted of a block-
house, surrounded by a mud wall or a stockade, and the
people hoisted the flag of the West India Company; and
that they generally had two or three Europeans, mostly sol-
diers, and some Indian and negro slaves.

Rodway, evidently borrowing from Netscher, enlarges poaway @
this. Speaking of this Cuyuni “post” he wrote, in 1888, W~¥: 5%
“ At all the posts the company’s flag was hoisted at intervals,

“and it may, therefore, be fairly considered that sovereignty
“was claimed, not only at the post, but also for some dis-
“tance beyond, as they were centres of districts.”

In his second work Rodway somewhat embroiders even Rodway, i, 50.

his first account: “At all the posts the company’s flag was
Ven. Docs.,
ii, 25, 30.
Supp. B. b.,
247.

Ven. Sp.

Docs., ii, 17.

Supp. B. b.,
242,

186 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

“hoisted at intervals, as a mark of sovereignty over the
“districts of which they were centres,” — and he gives quite
alist of what he says they traded in, but does not enumerate

slaves.

Now, it is perhaps true that there were military outposts
of this sort, or guard-houses, if one pleases, erected by the
colonial authorities, on the outskirts of the settlements, to
protect the settlers from raids and to catch runaway slaves.
We know that such a one existed not far from 1770 on the
Moruca, and one on the Cuyuni about ten miles above its
mouth. But the Indian hut on the Cuyuni, inhabited by
an ex-miner and an ex-tailor, with their Indian women, for
slave trading, cannot be magnified into the military centre
of a district, maintained as an act of sovereignty by Holland.

Indeed, each of the two Hollanders testified “ that he does
“not know whether it [the place] is or is not under the
“jurisdiction of Esequivo.” The careful inventory shows
that no flag was found there.

The papers are given in full in the Ven. Sp. Docs. and
in the Supp. B. b., to which we refer the reader; we here
quote a few.

Captain Bonalde testified :

‘¢ He got some of the Caribs who infest those places to befriend
and lead him, without being noticed, until he reached a place, the
name of which he does not bear in mind, where a white Hollander
was found at noon and made no resistance nor attempt to run
away when he was apprehended. From that place they continued
their march, in company with the Indians, as far as the hut where
said Hollander lived. Said hut was covered with palm leaves,
without any walls. They spent two days in reaching the same,
going down the river. When they were near the said hut they
stopped until it was dark, as he thought the darkness favorable for
an advance; that he disposed his men in the best possible order at
the time suggested by the Caribs, and at about eight o'clock in the
evening, or it may have been seven o’clock, he undertook the

1
EXPULSION OF THE DUTCH POST IN 1758. 187

assault with his men on the said hut, and found one Hollander,
who seemed to be lying on a hammock, and warned by the barking
of a dog he arose, and they all fellon him so as to prevent him
from reaching any arms that he might have had there.”

“5, As to the fifth chapter, he followed his instructions and
found out that there were no other huts or ranches up or down the
river.”

**¢ that in a little box he found certain papers having the appear-
ance of instructions, and that he delivered them on his arrival to
this city in the hands of the Ensign of Infantry, Don Felix Fer-
reras; that from the place where they found the ranch on the
river Cuyuni, to the Mission, wherefrom they had departed, the
journey took twenty-two days.”

The chief Hollander “Stephen Hiz” stated his purpose in Bp ven oe
the passage just quoted and: ar
‘©9. Asked whether they had given him goods for the purchase BLED B.b.,
of Poytos, and how many had he sent to the Colony of Esquivo, ”°
be answered: That in the short time that he had been there he
had not made any such purchases, nor had he been given any ran-
soms” [goods for the purchase of slaves] ‘‘ for them; that he had
only in his charge the collection of what was due to his predeces-
sor, as it will appear by the said papers.”

The other Hollander “ Juan Bautista Brunn” testified to Seabee #4,
the same effect and said: ‘

‘¢11. Asked whether that site is fit for farming, he answered: Supp: B.b.,
No, on account of its being swampy land; but that j in the upper

part there are found portions of good Jand, but the Governor does
not allow it to be tilled nor permit any one to stay there.”

We may as well here notice one or two other matters
which are referred to in, ahd which explain, some passages
in the archives.

For many years the missions and the more peaceful Indians
suffered from the raids of the Caribs; and these raids were
instigated, and sometimes accompanied by, Dutchmen who
bought the slaves which were the real object of these expedi-
tions. In some cases the Dutchmen stained their hodies and
188 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

Pp. 179-180, Went in savage costume. The Fathers, writing to the com-

a mandant or governor, and the governor writing to Madrid,
continually dwelt on these outrages, on their inability to
prevent them, and asked for increase of soldiers for protec-
tion. But these facts do not show and do not tend to show
occupation by the Dutch which can become a source of title.
The massacres at Deerfield and at Saratoga, about the same
time, and the massacres in Vermont still later, were by

For thissub- savages, instigated and led or accompanied by French offi-

ira.’ cers. But no one will pretend that they made the French
the occupants of New York or New England.

RESULTS AND SEQUENCES OF THIS EXPULSION OF THE
DutcH FROM THE INTERIOR Cuyutnr Basin 1n 1758.

No Dutch occupation before (755. The Dutch most clearly,
up to this time, had had no occupation of the interior Cuy-
uni basin capable of creating a title. In 1702-03 there was
a house of trade close to the Spanish settlements; it was
substantially the first attempt to penetrate that basin even
Sor trade. When the Spaniards prohibited trade, it was
given up after, at most, two or three years’ duration. There
was no pretence of occupation from 1703 until 1755, when an
Indian hut was set up for slave-trading.

In 1755 a slave-trading Post was started ; but in 1758 the Dutch
were expelled, and never afterward entered. When the Span-
iards heard of this hut they destroyed it (1758) and impris-
oned the occupants as trespassers on their land. It did not
last so long as would bar a petty debt by the shortest
statute of limitations. Moreover, this expulsion left Spain
in possession; in the strongest possession known to the
law, namely, that in which the party, under claim of

Pp. 173-4, title, has expelled the adversary who had attempted to
os occupy. Unless the Dutch reinstated themselves, they had
no longer even a pretence of title. There must be a real
SPAIN IN POSSESSION; THE DUTCH EXPELLED. 189

reinstatement, — or to put it legally, a beginning of occu-
pation, for up to 1758 there had been nothing which could
rank as such, — followed either by an explicit admission of
title, or by an open, notorious, and long-maintained, effec-
tive and substantial occupation by the Dutch, and exclusion
of the Spaniards. An attempt, followed by a failure, would
be worse than no attempt; for it would accentuate the
condition. Complaint to the Spanish Government, not
listened to or followed by no redress; the re-establish-
ment of the post, followed shortly by a second expulsion,
or by abandonment for fear of expulsion; would only con-
firm the condition. Yet both of those things ensued.

The two governors, Dutch and Spanish, defined the posi- Bive b., 112.
tion. Gravesande demanded restitution and indemnity, on Seg
the ground of right, and in the most peremptory terms. Toon ft 137.
If the territory was Dutch, he was entitled to it. The Span-
ish governor, in clearer terms, and with less unmeaning
bluster, replied that the trespass was “in the dominion of the Pi =e
King my Sovereign,” and involved violence used by the 219. ° ”
Dutch towards “the persons of the Indians belonging to the
“ settlements and territories of the Spaniards.” The post had
been established by the Dutch governor. It was destroyed 1p.
by formal order of the commandant of Guayana; the gov-
ernor of Cumana (of which Guayana was then a depend-
ency) wrote Gravesande that he approved the act. The
States-General took up the matter, and in July, 1759, de-
manded redress of the court of Spain, incorporating these
papers in their memorial.

(() Diplomatic Results. Apparently no attention was
given to this complaint. In 1769 another complaint was
made to the court of Spain by the States-General respect-
ing the aggressive acts of the Spaniards in the Orinoco-

Moruca coast region. This paper also referred to the Cuyuni
post matter, and the Spanish Government having sent to
Supp. B. b.,
314.

Ven. Sp.
Does., ii.

Aug., 1774.
Ven. Sp.
Does., ii, 291,
iii, 203.
Supp. B. b.,
314.

Ib., ii, 292.

Ib., iii, 203.
Supp. B. b.,
315.

Blue b., 13.

190 THE CUYUNI BASIN

Guayana for a report, all the papers relating to both occur-
rences were forwarded.

These reports, says the “ Fiscal” of the Council at Madrid,
are “a mountain [crecido cumulo} of papers, despatches,
“letters, and documents” (they fill three hundred pages of
print) ; they would, he says, “consume uselessly ” the time
he needs for important affairs, and so, after he had kept
them five years, he was inspired on one hot summer’s day to
“ refer” them to a Relator for examination and report.

They remained thus pigeon-holed for eleven years, and, on
May 27, 1785, the Relator added his contribution. Where-
upon the Fiscal, noting these facts, wrote :

‘¢ Under this understanding it is observed by the exponent that
to-day no resolution is required or any further step taken after the
long lapse of over fifteen years, without any further mention of
the subject by the Minister of Holland, leading to the belief that,
after having been better informed, the Republic realizes the want
of justice for the claim made, and has already desisted.”

The Council voted that the papers “show the want of
foundation for the complaint of the vassals of Holland” ; and
that the Council will do nothing.

Twenty-six years had elapsed. The Council declined even
to read the papers, for the Dutch claim of title was reported
and seemed to them frivolous; Holland did not press it.
If diplomacy could emphasize the expulsion by adding
contempt, it had done so.

The first Blue Book affected to treat the whole matter of
this Dutch complaint and the result of it as a confession by
Spain that the Dutch complaints and the Dutch claim of
title could not be answered. It said:

‘¢ This remonstrance was delivered at Madrid in August, 1759,
with a demand for reparation; it never received a formal answer,
nor were the Dutch claims ever repudiated.”

Could anything be further from the fact than the inference
REMAINS IN THE POSSESSION OF SPAIN. 191

attempted to be drawn! The Dutch were expelled by force ;
the Dutch governor demanded reparation on the ground of
title ; it was curtly refused by the Spanish governor on the
ground of title in his king. The complaint was treated with
such contempt that it never had a formal answer; but it had
a real one; for the Spanish, as Gravesande says, kept
possession. And now the order, which the first Blue Book
did not publish, tells us exactly why there was no formal
answer: the claim of title was deemed little better than
frivolous, and Holland did not press it.

(2) Results and Sequences in the Conduct of Affairs at Guayana.
The consequences in pays are also conclusive.

Commandeur Gravesande, who remained governor until
1772, perfectly appreciated the situation. Unless, by vigor-
ous measures, Holland entirely repressed the conduct of
the Spanish, of which the affair at the post was only one
sample, all its claims to territorial dominion beyond its
actual plantations were gone, and even the existence of the
colony was imperilled. He would have preferred the use
of force. But he had no force. The Spanish expedition
was estimated by him at one hundred men, though prob-
ably a considerable part of these were armed civilians and... 608)
Indians. Immediately after the occurrence twenty-five
additional soldiers were brought from another province, and
indeed Guayana was always within reach of reinforcements.

But the Dutch colony was very weak. The two rivers
together had nominally sixty to seventy soldiers, but the
actual number capable of service was insignificant. May

Supp. B. b.,
28, 1761, Gravesande writes that he only has two soldiers i.
at Demerara and seventeen at Essequibo. When he has to
send out a party in consequence of trouble with the Indians
or among the negroes, there are none left. The soldiers pi Gen aunt

generally are the refuse of Europe, picked up by recruiting
192 ‘é THE CUYUNI BASIN.

Dutch preten- agents, deserters from European armies, for the most part

sions aban-

doned in law Catholics, who desert to the Spaniards, so that he does not

unless en-

forced in fact. dare to employ them against the latter. He is therefore,

he writes, far too weak to think of using force. The
Company must give hima large force, or they must push
their complaints at Madrid so as to secure speedy redress.
The failure of the court of Madrid to give redress, is equiva-
lent, so Gravesande writes, to an order to the Spanish
governor to continue his course. This is the burden of
his letters for fifteen years. The Company will not send
soldiers; force, they write, must not be used. Perhaps,
they write to him, he can do something without being
known; which means deliberately incite the Caribs to
attack the missions, but, to his credit it must be said, he
hesitated at that. The States-General are appealed to.
They take up the matter which is thenceforth between the
two sovereigns; and what they do or submit to must settle
the question of title.

Holland lacked neither strength nor courage. Two
courses were open to her: firm and persistent representations
at Madrid; the manifestation of a resolute purpose not to
wait twenty-five years for an answer but to use the strength
it had in defence of its rights, if it believed it had any rights ;
or a practical acquiescence in the Spanish claims. Holland
took the latter course. Whether it took this course because
it believed it had no right or because it thought the property
not worth vindication of a right is not material; its conduct
was a submission. That is conclusive.

Thus it came about, as Gravesande wrote the Company
it would, that the Spaniards grew more and more aggressive,
and every year strengthened their possession of the territory
between the actual settlements of the two nations. In the
Cuyuni interior basin there was not much more for them to
do, tor the Dutch had been put out; their activity was then
LOCATION OF THE DESTROYED DUTCH POST. 193

turned to the Barima region, and we shall quote Grave- Div. vi, infra.
sande’s letters very fully in connection with that.

What took place in the Cuyuni basin after the expulsion
of 1758, must be read as a part of a definite plan by the
Spaniards, well persisted in and successful.

Location of the Cuyuni Post destroyed in 1758. In a direct
sense its precise location is not material; the more of a
central position it held in the Cuyuni basin and the more
strength it would have given toa title by occupation if it
had been maintained, the more complete was the discomfi-
ture when it was destroyed. But the Schomburgk Indian
story is that, after its destruction, the subsequent post,
set up in 1766, was placed nearer the settlements ; and we
should like to know the position of that.

The first post was destroyed in 1758. There is no pre-
tence that any remains, either of this one or its successor,
exist to indicate the sites. In 1841, eighty-three years later,
an Indian young enough to go on an expedition told Schom-
burgk what he heard from his father about it. His grand-
father must have been the nearest to him who ever saw it;
and such testimony, with the proverbial difficulty explorers
have in fixing locations by savage reports under the best of
circumstances, is quite worthless to identify the exact place
as against any proof of substantial value. But the deposi-
tions, taken at the time, of the Spanish officers who went
down from above, describe the length of their journey, and
those of the Hollanders captured there state how long a trip
it was between the destroyed post and the settlements.
Some geography is needed to apply this proof.

Fort Kykoveral, onan island just inside the river Mazeruni
at its junction with the Cuyuni, had been abandoned long
before this, in favor of a new fort nearer the mouth of the
Essequibo. Kykoveral stood eight or ten miles from the
Essequibo. The first rapid, to the foot of which tide-water
1758."

See small
map at end of
this div.

See map in
Supp. B. b.

See p. 214,
infra.

Geol. Survey,
py 22.

Ih.

194 ; THE CUYUNI BASIN.

ran at low tide, was about eight miles further. Then came
a slope in the river bed of some miles in length.* About
the head-of this, the creek Tupuru comes in from the north-
east. ‘This is about twenty-five miles above the junction
of the Cuyuni and Mazeruni. The tide, which in the mouth
of the Essequibo rises eight or nine feet in springs, flows
back so far that, what with the backing up of the river water,
it causes some of the lower rapids to be lessened at high tide.
Above it is a long stretch reaching to Tonoma Rapids, with
mountains at its side, marked in one of Schomburgk’s maps,
and in the great Colonial map (Stanford), “Large falls not
passable.” Evidently that is physiographically a true gorge,
zt. e., a place where the river has cut through a range of
mountains, as Schomburgk describes it, though, of course,
not an Alpine gorge. The head of Tonoma Rapids is
forty to fifty miles above the Mazeruni, say fifty-five to sixty
above the lower corner of the Cuyuni and Essequibo. Above
it; Schomburgk says, there is a long reach of flat water ;

 

* The Penal settlements stand on a bluff of granitic formation,
about fifty feet above the water. Thence there is tide-water for five
or more miles. Then a stretch of rapids. The uppermost of these is
Camaria cataract on the maps, and Brown and Sawkins give this as
fifty-nine feet above the sea. Then ten miles of flat water; then a
short run of flat water ; then a short run of falls, which brings the
traveller to the old abandoned mine, Warerié, at the foot of the long
island marked Suuraima on the maps. Alongside of this is the place
marked not passable for canoes. The channel is on the other side of
the island, but of course the actual height to be surmounted is the
same on both sides. A few miles above this are Tomoma Rapids.
Brown and Sawkins give this as two hundred and sixteen feet above
the sea, though there is some reason for thinking that it is a trifle less.
Above this is forty miles of flat water, broken only by a few small

‘rapids, and then comes the great cataract Wakapang. Above that is
‘a long stretch of flat water.

There are more cataracts below Tonoma Rapids than in the whole
distance from those rapids to the mouth of the Yuruan. Brown and
Sawkins’ table of heights show more than twice as: much fali in the
lower forty miles as in the upper hundred and sixty.
LOCATION OF THE “POST” DESTROYED IN 1758. 195

obviously, it is the head of the gorge, with a flattish, basin-
like country, upstream from it.

One of the well-known gold diggers’ landings on the Pap Island
Cuyuni is “Pap Island Landing ” shown on the large map in peat
Surveyor Perkins’ Gold Notes, where meridian 59° 28/ crosses Gold Notes,
the Cuyuni. This, he says, is six days from Bartica Grove, ates uid
the junction with the Essequibo. But that is quick modern ond minis
travelling, with a bad portage cleared out; for in 1887 he “
rather boasted of having made the distance in five and one Timehri,
half days with one day additional to rest on the way. Now, cea
on Perkins’ large map, Tonoma is nine thirteenths of that
distance from Bartica, and the worst rapids are below it.

Four days, therefore, is the time for going up toTonoma,

just at the head of the gorge. Good travellers get down

in two, with favorable weather and tides. The latter are

quite important, both because high tide helps out the lower

rapids, and because on tide-water of that country everybody Roaway, i,
travels with the tide and then ties up to wait the turn. ae

So that on the lower river, “one tide” or “ two tides” was Bue b., 176.
the usual way of reckoning distances.

From the Essequibo, by the Cuyuni, to the mouth of
the Yuruari is about 240 miles. From the Cuyuni up
the Yuruan and Yuruari to the mission of Cura on the
latter is about 30, and to Angel Custodio about 45 miles. Supp. B. b.,
It is one day by water from Cura to the Cuyuni. From oe
the Essequibo to the mouth of the Yuruan now takes four p. 143, 141,
to five weeks usually. Mr. McTurk, the magistrate of ”"”
that region, an extraordinarily able and energetic man,
very familiar with the rivers, has recently made it in four- 4am Rep’t,
teen days, styling it the quickest on record. ee

In the testimony taken in October, 1758, about the
destruction of the Cuyuni post, Don Luis Lopez de la
Puente testifies that they were eight days going down by ,

pp. B. b.,
water, from the mission on the Yuruari, where they took us
Th , 242.

Ven. Sp.

Does , li, 28.

Ib , 30.

Supp. B. b.,
246.

196 THE CUYUNI BASIN.

boat, to a place where they captured the assistant post-
holder; and Captain Bonalde says it was two days more
down stream to the post. They spent twenty-two days
rowing up stream, besides some land travel, to get back to
the mission.

The two Dutch prisoners say of the captured post:

Hiz. ‘© 10. Asked how far is said post from the Colony of Ese-
quivo, he answered: Jt is only a short distance, although they
take three natural days to make it, as it is only navigable in keep-
ing with the tides, and the navigation is performed through creeks.”

Brun. ‘*9,. Asked how far is it from that site of Cuiba to the Ese-
quivo Colony, he answered: Three days, more or less, being under-
stood that the navigation depends on the tide, and is made through
the creeks and swamps.”

The Supplemental Blue Book translates this:

‘* Asked what the distance was from that place to the colony of
Essequibo, he answered that it was very short, although three
whole days were necessary for the journey, as the rivers could only
be navigated when they were high, and then only in the channels.”

This translation is not correct. The original Spanish is —

Hiz. ‘Que es muy corta, sin embargo de que se gastan tres dias
naturales, por razon de que solo se navega con las mareas, y su
navegacion es por canos.”

‘¢ Thatit is very short, in spite of which they spend three natural
days, for the reason that they travel only with the tides, and the
navigation is by creeks.”

Brun. ‘* Responde que tres dias poco mas, bien entendido que
solo se navega con las mareas por ser cafios anegadisos.”

‘¢ He answers, three days, little more, it being well understood
that one navigates only with the tides because then the creeks are
flowed,” —

—anegado being a word usually applied to land or creeks
more or less drowned out by high water.

Both witnesses used the word mareas (tides), and mean
that there are not three days of actual travelling, but
that three days are consumed on account of having to wait
LOCATION OF THE “POST” DESTROYED IN 1758. 197

for the tides. It is clear, therefore, that the post was rather
near the settlements (which were at the junction of the
rivers), and so far down the river that tidal navigation formed
a considerable part of the journey. Thus the original post
must have been near Tonoma, ‘and certainly not at Tokoro
Patti, the place designated by Schomburgk, which is more
than twice as far, the distances on Schomburgk’s and
Perkins’ maps being, —confluence of Cuyuni and Mazeruni
to Tonoma Rapids (head of gorge), 45 miles; confluence to
Pap Island, 65 miles; confluence to Tokoro Patti, 100
miles.

In 1788, De la Puente was eleven days from the mission Supp. B.b.,
of Cura going down stream to about Tonoma. on

The depositions taken in 1770 state, in a general way, 1p., 282, 233.
that the destroyed post was “70 leagues” from the missions Deu 189.
founded by the Capuchins on the Yuruari in 1757 and 1761.

From Guacipati, the most northern of those two, to Tonoma
Rapids, by the Cuyuni, is about 240 miles, and to the
Essequibo about 300 miles.

Now a place shortly above Tonoma Rapids agrees quite
well with all these figures. Tokoro Patti Island, about 60
miles further up stream, does not agree with any of them.

These different estimates also hang together as well as
unmeasured distances can be expected to, and thus confirm
each other’s correctness.

Plainly, Gravesande’s statement that the new post was May 31, 1755.
“not more than ten or twelve hours from the Spanish SUPP B- >»
“dwellings,” is utterly wrong; and this and some other
errors shake all faith in Gravesande’s statements of location.

The importance of all this is that, since the post destroyed
in 1758 was at most a little way inside the interior basin,
above the inner edge of the encircling rim, its successor,
placed nearer the settlements, must have been outside the
rim and quite near to the settlements. Now that is where
other proof also shows it to have been.
198 PROOFS IN THE BLUE BOOKS.

Proors Propucep By GREAT BriraIN FOR THE PURPOSE
oF SHowine DutcH OccUPATION OF THE INTERIOR
Curunt Basin.

Lord Salis- It is to be remembered that the Supplemental Blue Book
Bayard, May is prepared under the direction of the Attorney-General of
England, a year after the attention of Great Britain had
been freshly drawn to the boundary question, six months
after President Cleveland had appointed the Boundary
Commission, and nearly as long after the somewhat hastily
prepared first Blue Book had shown that the question
required careful treatment. The effort was to make outa
title by occupation. The writer and his learned assistants
knew the fate of the Cuyuni post of 1755-58. The Dutch,
at that date, stood expelled in fact and in law. The con-
dition in which this left them continued for eight or nine
years at least. The conditions must be radically changed ;
the Dutch must be put back, in fact, or they could never be
there in law.

To make out a case, therefore, England must show, after
that, a substantial occupation of the Cuyuni basin. An occu-
pation to be of any value to England must be substantial in
character, long and continuous in duration, and of suitable
location. There were plantations at the confluence of the
rivers, and for a dozen miles up; a “post” at the outskirts
of the settlement, say below the cataracts, could establish no
more extensive title than these plantations did; it is not
enough, therefore, to show that there was a post somewhere
on the Cuyuni; it must be shown to be above the rapids, and
in the interior, or else it cannot help to hold the interior.

It rests upon Great Britain to show all these things by
substantial proof, (1) because whoever alleges a title
depending upon a change must prove it; (2) because Great
Britain, in possession of all the colonial records, has the
ABOUT THE DUTCH CUYUNI POSTS. 199

means of proving what the facts are; (3) because other
evidence in the case, produced by or coming from Great
Britain itself, goes to prove that the new “ post,” of 1765,
was at the ower rapids of the Cuyuni, and that, a few years
after that date, at least, no “post” existed, or ever after-
terwards existed, as high as these rapids.

Merely technical rules of evidence must not, indeed, be
applied with strictness to sucha case as this. But what we
have referred to are not technical rules of evidence. They are
principles of sound reasoning always applied to discussions
about facts; and applied because goud sense and experience
both show that they must be observed, if reasonable certainty,
instead of mere conjecture, is the object to be reached.

We turn first to the Dutch Records, premising that their Proof in the
: ‘ ‘ : 7 Dutch records
real value is appreciated only by considering, with the papers as to a later
; . A . Post on the
which refer to the conduct of the parties in the Cuyuni Cuyuni after
2 < " the destruc-
basin, those which refer to their contemporaneous conduct tion of the,
3 : 2 ‘ ost in i
and attitude with relation to each other on the other lines

where they disputed territory, to wit, in the Barima coast
region. This is set out fully in Division VI of this brief.

July 20, 1759, a year after the expulsion, Gravesande Supp. B. b.,
notes that the States-General have taken charge of “the ~
matter of Cajoeny,”

‘* and, therefore, the case would have to be decided by our respec-
tive Sovereigns. The matter is of very great importance to the
Colony, because if the Spaniards remain in possession of Cajoeny,”
ete. ...
‘‘ The Spaniards continue to stay where they are, and to entrap
and drive away all the Caraibans living there.”

Plainly, to borrow a well-known phrase, the Spaniards are
there, and they stay. They exercise dominion, expelling
Indians employed by the Dutch.

Next, he says that the Dutch have ceased to occupy :
200 THE CUYUNI INTERIOR BASIN.

Tb., 115. October 24,1760: ‘* The road to Cajoeny was open to them
[runaways] because since the raid upon the Post there by the
Spaniards the river has not been occupied. . . .” —i. e., not occu-
pied by the Dutch.

Tb., 114. The Spaniards kept coming further down. On May 2,
1760, Gravesande enclosed a copy of D’Anville’s map, and
marked on it, “your Lordships’ plantation of Duynenburg ;
situated partly in Masseroeny and partly in Cajoeny.”*

Again:
Spanish ex- August 28, 1761: ‘*‘ Everything in the upper part of the river
aoe [Essequibo] is in a state of upset, the people who live there

Cuyuni to the bringing their best goods down the stream. This is because a
plantations. party of Spaniards and Spanish Indians in Cajoeny have been
ea down to the lowest fall where your Lordships’ indigo plantation is
situated, driving all the Indians thence, and even, it is said,
having killed several.”
February 9, 1762. ‘‘ They [the Spanish] are not yet quiet, but
send detachments from time to time, which come down as far as
the lowest fall, close to the dwelling of your Lordships’ creoles... .” +
‘*. . . I trust that your Lordships will not lose sight of the
outrage in Cajoeny. That matter, my Lords, is of the utmost
importance for many very weighty reasons, and more than any one
in Europe could imagine. Neither my true zeal nor the real inter-
est I take in the welfare of the Company or Colony, nor yet my
oath and duty, will allow me to sit still or to neglect this matter,
and even if there were no important reasons which compelled the

 

* This plantation is at the junction of therivers. Seep. 161, supra;
also:

Ib., 87. “The River Cuyuni... falls into the River Essequibo at the
place where the old plantation Duynenburg used to stand on the one
side, and where M. Van der Cruysse dwells on the other, half a cannon
shot below Fort Kykoveral.’’

This makes clear not only the situation of that plantation, but also
that ‘‘in Masseroeny” and ‘‘in Cajoeny” do not mean up those
rivers, but oftener signify the settlements close to the junction and

eae 87, 88, Fort Kykoveral.

mt The phrases, ‘‘ Upper Cayoeny”’ “above in Cayuni” are phrases

sometimes used to signify the region we have to consider.
+ Creole Island is shown on various maps not far above Kykoveral.
See our map No. 3, and Rodway i, 107.
SPAIN RECOGNIZED AS IN POSSESSION. 201

Honourable Company to take a real interest in the possession of
Cajoeny, I cannot see why we should permit the Spaniards to
disturb and appropriate our lawful possessions.”

We must disregard Gravesande’s views of legal right ; but
could anybody put more clearly that the Spaniards were zn
. possession of Cuyuni, and that the land would never be
Dutch land unless a vigorous change was made, and that the
company took no real interest in the matter ; but acquiesced.

April 83,1762. ‘*I hope their High Mightinesses will be pleased
to arrive at a favourable Resolution respecting the affairs of
Cajoeny, and receive justice in this matter from the Court of
Spain.”

May 17, 1862. ‘‘From the reports received from the upper
part of the river, I learn that the Spanish Indians of the Mis-
sions continue to send out daily patrols as far as the great fall
(just below which your Lordships’ creoles live) .”

August 29,1762. ‘* The Indians have also informed me that the
Spaniards up in Cajoeny are engaged in building boats. What can
all these things mean, my Lords? I fear that this may lead to the
entire ruin of the Colony (which God forbid) unless rigorous meas-
ures are taken. Our forbearance in the matter of Cajoeny makes
them bolder and bolder. At the time of that occurrence the Carai-
bans were full of courage and ready for all kinds of undertaking ;
now they are all driven away from there and have retired right up
into Essequibo.”

In 1763, five years after the destruction of the former post,
suggestions begin about a new one. But it must be a real
post, well garrisoned, or the Spaniards will sweep it away :

February 22, 1763. ‘* But do your Lordships not think that we
might, meanwhile, and without exercising the least violence, again
take possession of the Post Cajoeny, and place a subaltern officer
there with ten or twelve men as a guard, against which I do not
think the Spaniards would dare to undertake anything?”

September 27, 1763. ‘‘the still abandoned Post in Cajoeny.
abandoned since the raids of the Spaniards, a Post of the very
greatest importance.”

1762.

Ib., 119.

Ib., 120.

Ib., 121.

Ib., 123.

Ib. , 126.
Ib., 126.
1763.

Tb. 130.

At the lowest
fall; p. 198,
supra.

Ib., 134.

Ib., 136.

Ib., 187.

202 THE CUYUNI INTERIOR BASIN;

October 18, 1763. ‘It is certain, your Lordships, that this is
not the time to think of the re-establishment of the Post in Cajoeny.
That matter will give us plenty of work to do when, with the bless-
ing of God, all is at rest and in peace, because, the Spaniards
having driven all the Indians out of the river, it will be no small
matter to get all the necessary buildings in readiness there.”

There is no mistaking this. The Dutch had been expelled ;
they had “abandoned” the place; the Spaniards are in pos-
session and in actual control and exercise control, expelling
Indians friendly to the Dutch. If Holland is not to lose its
claim its must “again take possession.” That is good law and
good sense.

August, 1764. Gravesande speaks of the importance of
the destroyed Cuyuni post, and adds:

‘¢ In addition to this, there is also the fact that [the bend of] *
this river is a tract of land along which the Spaniards spread
themselves from year to year, and gradually come closer by means
of their missions, the small parties sent out by them coming close
to the place where the Honourable Company’s indigo plantation
stood, and being certain to try and establish themselves if they
are not stopped in time.”

Deceinber 28, 1764. Is not yet able to take any steps towards
reestablishing the post in Cuyuni.

August 15, 1765. ‘* This is certain, that so long as no satisfac-
tion is given by the Court of Spain concerning the occurrence of the
Post in Cajoeny, the Spaniards will gradually become more insolent,
and will encroach upon our ground from year to year.”

September 19, 1765. Directors of the Company to the Comman-
deur: ‘‘ We are perfectly at one with your Honour that the restora-
tion of the Post in Cuyuni is of the highest necessity, and
accordingly it was most acceptable to us to learn finally that Indi-
ans had been found to offer a helping hand, provided an assurance
of protection against the Spaniards was given them, which it was
easy to promise.

 

*[Note in the Blue Book]: ‘‘ There is an erasure here in the
Director-General’s own handwriting which makes it rather doubtful
how he finally intended these words to stand.”’
DUTCH POST OF 1766. 203

‘* We fully concur with the ideas of Director Van der Heyden,
communicated to us by your Honour, concerning the just men-
tioned Post in Cuyuni, both with relation to the opening of a pro-
vision garden, and also to the segregation of some of the creole
slaves of the respective plantations, and we shall be pleased if the
necessary orders be drawn up by your Honour on this basis.”

Unfortunately, the Blue Book does not give us the two let-
ters referred to, which might probably indicate where the post
was to be. At any rate, we know that the plan then was
to have it where there would be provision grounds, cultivated
by slaves. That means near to the existing settlements. It
was a new plan and implied a new location; for Grave-
sande’s letter of December 28, 1764, referring to the loca- 1p.,134.
tion he proposed, said that “with slaves it is not only too
costly but too dangerous.” Van der Heyden and his son 1p., 144, 155,
had a plantation close to old fort Kykoveral, at the junction 7
of the Cuyuni and Mazeruni.

January 18,1766. Has engaged a postholder, and means Ib., 138-9.
to give him six soldiers to begin with, but cannot yet find
any to trust, as French Catholics will desert, and more than
half the garrison are French.* Will begin to construct post
at once. But he did not begin “at once.”

October 1, 1766. The postholder will go up river directly In., 141.
in order to build the post and “lay out bread gardens.”

December 8, 1766. He is at work. He will have two
assistants, but, “I dare not trust any of the soldiers here to In.
go there.”

 

* The letters often mention this source of weakness:

June 1, 1768. ‘‘ Roman Catholic soldiers ought not to be sent Ib., 154.
there, and we have, so to say, no others.”’

“The garrison of the two rivers ought to consist of at least a hun- Ib., 155.
dred men (as it does in Berbices), but if they are to be Catholics it
would be better to remain as we are, and even less, since the prox-
imity of the Spaniards is a standing danger of desertion, and if the
opportunity were embraced by many at once it would have fatal
results for some plantations. This was very much feared when those
Ib.

Tb., 142.

Ib., 143.
Ib., 144.

Ib., 144.

Ib., 147.

Ib., 156.

Ib., 157.

204 THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN;

So the proposed garrison of an officer and twelve soldiers
had vanished.

Then the postholder fell very sick.

March 7, 1767. Company to Commander Gravesande.

“ We think the erection of the post in Cuyuni continues to
be slow.”

March 20, 1767. The postholder is “fairly well again.”

March 23, 1767. A report has come that the Spaniards
have made a raid upon the post. The Blue Book does not
give any letters stating what they did.

As neither soldiers nor negroes could be trusted, the plan
now was to get Indians to do the work of the post. But they
were rather controlled by the Spaniards.

June 27,1767. ‘I received a report from the Post in Cajoeny
that the Indians are being bribed and incited to such a degree that
they are unwilling to do the least thing for the Postholder, and
that when he orders them to go alongside the passing boats to see
whether there are any runaways in them, they obstinately refuse
to do so, and when he threatens to shoot upon them they reply
that they have bows and arrows with which to answer.*

‘‘ The fortification of these two Posts, Cajoeny and Maroco,
becoming a matter of greater necessity every day (there being,
indeed, periculum in mora). I hope that some good soldiers, and
especially Protestants, will be sent by the ‘ Laurens en Maria.’”

September 6, 1767. ‘* There is a rumour here that the Post in
Cajoeny has again been raided. Ido not know whether it is true.”

 

seven deserted together, and we do not dare to send anyone after
them, not only on account of the smallness of our numbers, but
because it is feared that those who are sent would join the runaways,
especially if they have a good boat and provisions.”’

September 15, 1768. A corporal and three soldiers have deserted to
Orinoque.

November 9, 1768. ‘In the night, between the 5th and 6th of
October, four French soldiers ran away from the fort here to Orinoque,
as I had expected.”

See also letter on p. 208, infra.

* Certainly this region did not contain the ‘‘ protected Indians,”’
on whose supposed subjection the Blue Books would build a Dutch
title. See also letters on p. 208.
SPAIN IN ACKNOWLEDGED POSSESSION, 205

The Blue Book does not tell us definitely whether the 1767.
rumor was true ornot. It seems, however, that it was true:

December 9, 1767. ‘After the raid upon Cajoeny by the Ib., 148-9.
Spaniards, Essequibo swarms with Caraibans, who have all flocked
there, after having asked for permission to do so.”*

Speaking of the bad character of the postholders generally,
he writes in the same letter :

‘¢The one in Cajoeny is no better than the rest, because he is Ib., 149.
asking to be placed elséwhere, saying that he cannot live there
because the place is unhealthy. This is only a-pretext, because
he looks very well indeed, and there must be something else behind
it which I have not yet been able to find out;”

April 9, 1768. The postholder has left. Ib., 152-3.

‘IT have no one there now but the two assistants. ... In
Cajoeny it is now quiet so long as it lasts; I wish I had a com-
petent Postholder for that river.”

The two assistants figured in the muster-roll of December, Ib., 157-8.
1768.

And now Gravesande saw that the inevitable end was in Spain in
possession of

near sight, and told the directors that they must fight if they the Cuyuni
Region.
wanted the land:

February 21,1769. ‘It is finished now, my lords; neither Post- Ib., 159.
holders nor Posts are of any use now. The slaves can now pro-
ceed at their ease to the Missions, without fear of being pursued,
and we shall in a short time have entirely lost possession of the
river Cajoeny.

‘* Must we allow ali this to go on before our eyes? The natural
result of this must infallibly be that the river Essequibo will grad-
ually be ruined and abandoned. If we had shown our teeth when,
contrary to the law of nations, they attacked and destroyed the
Post Cajoeny, and when we had the power in our hands, it would
never have gone so far as this, but all action was then forbidden
me. The proverb says, ‘ Whoever turns himself into a lamb will
be eaten by the wolf.’ I have thought it well to give your Hon-

 

*Evidently these Indians were not ‘“‘ protected” in their homes by Div. v, injra.
the Dutch.
1769.

Pp. 203, 205,
supra.

Supp. B. b.,
160.

The Span-
iards in firm
possession of
the Cuyuni
region.

Supp. B. b.,
161.

206 THE CUYUNI INTERIOR BASIN;

ours notice in haste of this occurrence, so untoward for the
Colony.”

Next, Gravesande points out the absolute weakness of the
post. He could trust there neither soldiers nor slaves, but
hoped to conciliate the neighboring Caribs to help. But the
Caribs were afraid of the Spaniards. He had at first got
some to work on the post, but on December 9, 1767, he
wrote that “after the raid upon Cajoeny by the Spaniards”
they had all gone over to the upper Essequibo. The repeated
visits of the Spaniards kept them away. In plain English
the Spaniards held and policed the entire river in their own
interests, and captured or drove out the Dutch, and those
Indians who were inclined to be friendly to the Dutch. That
as the exercise of polrtical dominion and sovereign authority.
Gravesande writes :

March 38,1769. ‘* Norcan we be warned in any way by Indians,
there being no more of these in that river. They did begin to
settle there again when the post was re-established, but the raid
made by the Spaniards last year, when a large party of Indians
were captured and taken away, has filled the rest with terror, and
they are gradually drawing off.”

And now, whether the post lingered a while longer or not,
the end of what we are concerned with had come; the Span-
iards were in effective possession of the Cuyunt River.

March 15, 1769. ‘*In my previous despatches I had the honour
from time to time to inform your Honours of the secret doings of
the Spaniards, and especially in my second letter by the ‘* Vrouw
Anna,” and in my letter by the ‘‘ Geertruida Christiana,” did write
circumstantially concerning the fatal and, for the Colony, most
highly-perilous news of the River Cayuni. My opinion has always
been that they would gradually acquire a foothold in Cayuni, and
try to obtain the mastery of the river, as they now practically have
done at the end of the past year.”’

This was only a part, but aconsistent part, of the complete
course of events between the two nations. Gravesande’s
SPAIN IN RECOGNIZED POSSESSION. 207

letter refers to the contemporaneous affairs in the coast 1769.
region, and concludes:

‘¢ Your Honours can now see what consequences indulgence and Supp. B. b.,
patience have; this causes me no surprise. I have long foreseen

and expected it; however, I could not presume that they would
have dared to undertake so bold a deed.”

‘¢ May I ask once more whether all this must be borne quietly,
and whether your lordships’ patience has not yet come to an end?
With me it is Patientia lesa tandem furor fit.

‘¢ What can I do with such a small garrison? The burghers are
not yet ready for service — the letters to the burgher officers calling
them together on the last day of March have been sent off — the
general meeting is at hand, and there is periculum in mora — three
clerks are continually at work writing commissions, instructions,
and orders, but everything is so spread about that it will take
twelve or fourteen days before everyone can be warned.”

Certainly, itis most futile for the Blue Book to attempt to
maintain that all through this period Spanish Guayana was
weak — too weak to assert its territorial rights against the
Dutch colony; or to pretend to a Dutch possession or a
Dutch control of the region Gravesande refers to.

The British ministry has been painfully misled as to the
real facts. The Foreign Office wrote on March 19, 1890:

‘¢ the claim of Great Britain to the whole basin of the Cuyuni and pive b., 413.
Yuruari is shown to be solidly founded ;”

for, it says:

‘¢ the greater part of the district has been for three centuries under
continuous settlement by the Dutch, and by the British as their
successors.”

It is most unfortunate that the Foreign Office should
have been so misinformed. If half a dozen of Gravesande’s
letters had been laid before the writer of that despatch, he
would have seen that the whole foundation for the assertion
and for the claim was an error; neither would ever have
been made; or if inadvertently made they would have at
once been withdrawn.
1769.

Ib., 165.

Ib., 166.

P, 205, supra.

208 THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN ;

Did the Company or the States-General do anything?
Gravesande lashed them with the pen, trying to make them
send him soldiers; for by no other means could he get pos-
session of the outside land.

May 12,1769. ‘‘ Things have now actually reached such a
stage that we can return violence with violence, but is it not a sad
thing, my lords, that we have such a weak garrison, and not six
men among them upon whom we can place the least reliance? To
send a small detachment of twelve or sixteen men down would
really be to risquer le tout pour le tout, for if they were all disloyal,
as is only to be expected from Frenchmen and Catholics, and went
over to the Spaniards, all would be lost, because not the least reli-
ance is to be placed upon the citizens.”

In this letter he enclosed the following from the assistant
in charge of the Cuyuni post :

May 5,1769. ‘This is to inform your Excellency that I have
heard from a Caraiban that the Caraibans of the Masijoen”
[Massaruni] ‘‘ were coming down with this tide to carry off the
Caraibans of Cajoeny to the Masijoen, and were also coming to
the Post to kill me and Gerrit Van Leuwen; they will come down
in large numbers, according to what I heard from the Indian.

‘(It is my intention, your Excellency, to remove the Post to the
island Toenamoeta, lying between two falls, and on that island
the Post will be better and healthier, and I have already com-
menced to make a clearing there.

*‘ HerewithI beg to request your Excellency for the goods which
I have laid out for the Honourable West India Company. I beg to
ask your Excellency for three guns and two blunderbusses, and
powder and shot and some flints.”’

What did the Company and Holland do?

Ffolland was not weak ; it had always held its own against
Spain when it wanted to. Soldiers were not sent; Grave-
sande was forbidden to use force. The authorities at home,
strong enough to make a contest (the Company was perhaps
poor, but Holland was not) elected to submit; and elected to
do this after warning of the consequences. Gravesande
again writes that now he would like to fight in self-defence ;
may he not do that?
SPAIN IN RECOGNIZED POSSESSION. 209

On July 26, 1769, the Company wrote to Gravesande that Supp. B. b.,
they had lodged a remonstrance with the States-General, ,
‘“‘and the result and effect thereof must provisionally be
awaited...”

‘¢ Not that we wish that all undertakings of the Spaniards in
the Colony may be looked upon contentedly, and only suffered to
be perpetrated. On the contrary, we are of opinion that outrage
ought to be repulsed with outrage, and all hostilities, as far as
possible, prevented ; so we therefore will put up with the orders
your Honour gave to the Caribs of Barima. But to make use of
direct reprisals we consider as not yet advisable for more reasons
than one, but also certainly principally on account of the weakness
of our garrison.”

Governor Gravesande appreciated the situation. The
Company and the States-General read his letters and under-
stood what must be done, if they meant to really assert and
to maintain a claim. But they did not doit. In August,
1769, the States-General forwarded the Company’s remon- qp., 169.
strance to Madrid, where their first remonstrance had
already slept ten years; and, after fifteen years more of
“reference ” to the proper pigeon-holing officials, and on a 1p.,315.
report by one of them, the Fiscal and the Council of the Does. fy
Indies concluded and voted that the complaint was frivolous, Ze
that Holland was convinced that it was, and did not press
it, and that nothing need be done about it.

That was “the result and the effect thereof” which the
Dutch awaited. But the Spanish governor did not wait.
The delay, Gravesande wrote, was, in effect, an order to the
Spanish officers to continue their course :

August 13,1765. ‘* This is certain, that so long as no satisfac- gupp. B. b.,
tion is given by the Court of Spain concerning the occurrence of 156.
the post in Cajoeny, the Spaniards will gradually become more
insolent, and will encroach upon our ground from year to
year.”

November 30, 1769. ‘*Had the insults offered to our Post of Ib., 174-5.
Ib., 176.

Ib., 180.

The attempt
of the Dutch
to occupy
Cuyuni after
their expul-
sion in 1758
was @ com-
plete failure.

210 THE INTERIOR CUYUNI BASIN;

Cajoeny been punished as they deserved, the later ones would
most probably never have been committed; but what is done is
done.”

A letter from the assistant postholder (no new man hav-
ing been sent up as postholder) dated June 1, 1770, con-
firms further what Gravesande had already written. It
says:

‘‘The greater part of the Caraibans have departed from

Cajoeny to Masseroeny to make dwelling places there, and some
have gone to Upper Siepanamen to live there.”

That is the last allusion to the existence of the post in the
Dutch correspondence, except the names of the two men in
a muster-roll of December, 1771.

The attempt of the Dutch to establish themselves in the
interior Cuyini region after the expulsion of 1758 amounts
therefore to this:

They knew that it was essential that they should occupy
the interior Cuyuni region, but it was seven years before
they ventured to attempt it. Then the plan which Grave-
sande thought essential was to have a post garrisoned by an
officer and twelve soldiers. But there were no soldiers.

Next Mr. Van der Heyden proposed a simple post of two
or three Dutchmen, and to form around them a settlement of
Caribs, with cultivation of provision grounds to feed them.
But the Spaniards came so often and so strong that the
Caribs were driven away and livedelsewhere. Gravesande
wrote that he had no force to supply; that the Spaniards’
possession increased from day to day ; and finally, that they
now had “ complete possession of the river.”

In 1767 the post was built; in 1770, or 1771, 125 years
ago, all vestige of it disappeared.

It is useless to contend that the Dutch had, by this, a
firm, unbroken oceupation even of this post itself, still less
SPAIN IN RECOGNIZED POSSESSION. 211

of the region, long enough continued to give a title by
possession. On the contrary, all those elements are on the
side of Spain.

Location of the Cuyuni ‘‘ Post” of 1765.

But one question is not yet answered — the location of pee ee
the “post.” That Hngland does not clearly answer it is Easvor lie
proof that rt cannot be answered in its favor. Yet we have
some proof, from three sources, which is satisfying.

Gravesande’s first idea was to establish a real garrisoned Proof from
guard-house ; that might, perhaps, have been placed high up Danae)
the river with some safety. But that planw as, perforce,
givenup. Then there was the plan of planter Van der Heyden.

This is not given to us; but it involved the use of slaves,

whom, Gravesande said, could not be safely sent up the river. p. 203, supra.
There were to be provision grounds also. All this unmis-

takably points to lands near the actual settlements. Not a

historian or an explorer has ever known of a plantation or

provision grounds in the upper river above the cataracts.

It was placed where Caribs lived, and presently, when the
Spaniards raided it, the Caribs moved over to the Mazeruni.

Now, Wylde’s map puts the Caribs between the Cayuni and map in Div.
Mazeruni, quite near their fork; undoubtedly they moved ee
over from one river to the other in that lower part of their

courses. This left the post quite unprotected.

The description of the Spanish raids show that they fre- p. 200, supra.
quently came down to the edge of the plantations, or nearly
to Creole Island, about six miles above Kykoveral. Yet
the post did not stop them, nor did they come in actual
conflict with it. J¢ must, therefore, have been quite low down
the river. It is certain also that a post held by only two or
three Dutch civilians could not have survived those repeated
raids if it had been far up in the interior. It was clearly a

post near the settlements, to be a watch-house for them.
Supp. B. b.,
165.

Rodway, i,
232.

Supp. B. b.,
166.

See maps 3, 4,
17.

Ib., 167.

P. 195, supra.

212 LOCATION OF THE CUYUNI POSTS;

There is another piece of proof of a more direct nature.

Gravesande’s letter of May 12, 1769, shows -by its date
that it was written from Demerary, where he was in the
habit of living with his daughter, wife of Van den Heuvel,
Commandeur of Demerary. Many of his letters are simi-
larly dated from there.

Tn this letter of May 12, he writes, “ Yesterday I received
“a letter per express from Commandant Backer, which I take
“the liberty of enclosing.” Backer was commandant at Fort
Zelandia, on Fort Island, in the lower estuary of the Esse-
quibo, where his letter is dated, on May 7. This gives us
the measure of time for a letter to come “per express” from
the fort to Demerara.

Gravesande’s same letter of May 12 encloses one from the
Cuyuni assistant postholder, dated May 5. Supposing it to
have reached Gravesande on May 12, at Demerara where he
was staying, it cannot have reached Fort Zelandia (Grave-
sande’s official residence) later than May 8. Now, Fort
Zelandia is, according to the maps, about thirty-five miles
below Kykoveral, and about fifty to sixty below the mouth
of Tupuru Creek at the lower rapids of the Cuyuni. The
letter came by Indians, who are proverbially slow travellers
when there is no white man to drive them. Its contents
show that it was not a message sent in a hurry, but that
the Indians had come down to get the supplies it wrote for.
In that region boats travel with the tide, and tie up and wait
for the turn.

It ts certain, therefore, that the post was not high up the
Cuyunt or in the interior basin. Tf the letter was written
on the afternoon of the 5th, and the Indians started on the
morning of the 6th, and reached the port at the noon of
the sth, stopping at the Kykoveral settlement on the
way, as Indians will, the distance must have been quite
short. At most it was three days from Fort Zelandia,
LOCATION OF POST OF 1766-71. 213

In this letter of May 5, 1769, from the assistant postholder Supp. B. b.,
in charge,*he wrote that he had heard¥

“That the Caraibans of the Masijoen” [Mazeruni] ‘‘ were
coming down with the tide to carry off the Caraibans of Cajoeny to
the Masijoen, and were also coming to the post to kill me and
Gerrit Van Leuwen ; they will come down in large numbers.”

It is clear that the region was one where travelling was
done with the tide: and that the post was near the confluence
of the Mazeruni and Cuyuni.

In the same letter the postholder writes :

‘“‘Tt is my intention, your Excellency, to remove the Post to the
island Toenamocto, lying between two falls, and on that island

the Post will be better and healthier, and I have already com-
menced to make a clearing there.”

On March 15, 1770, Gravesande writes of this:

‘‘He ought not to have removed the Post without my permis- y, 175-6,
sion, but fear often leads us into mistakes. He is once there, and
is much better protected against surprises, but the position is not
in accordance with my wishes, because for very good reasons I
would have liked to move the Post gradually higher up the river.”

It is evident (1) that the post as established in 1767 was
not high up the river, nor where Gravesande wanted it to
be; and that (2) in the spring of 1769 the postholder,
through fear of the Spaniards, moved it rather lower down;
and (3) that it was about at the lower cataracts.

In the same letter Gravesande wrote :

‘“‘T charged this man to proceed up the river with all possible
caution, and to make an ocular inspection as well as he could, and
to collect reports from the nations up above. Up to the present
this has not been done; but what shall I say, my lords—he is a
creole.”

Ib., 176.

He could not have written thus respecting a post far away
on the upper river.
Proofs from
the Spanish
Archives.

Ven. Sp.
Docs., ii, 182.

Blue b., 109.

Rodway &
W., ii, 60.

Rodway, i
104.

214 PROOFS FROM SPANISH ARCHIVES

Proofs from Spanish Archives relating to the location of the
Cuyuni Post of I766 and subsequently.

The Dutch West India Co. and the States-General sent
tothe Court of Madrid, in 1769, a complaint which had more
special reference to troubles in the coast region, but which
also referred to the Cuyuni post, for whose destruction in
1758 Spain had, so far, refused all redress. In this com-
plaint the Dutch say that they have long been in possession
of the Cuyuni River, and
‘‘ from immemorial time, on the bank of the said river Cayoeny
considered as part of the State, a wooden Barrack or Guard Post
has been kept, like many others of this Colony, on the part of the
Company, protected by a small vessel served by several slaves and
Indians.” *

If this meant to refer to Aykoveral, which was a small
eroup of buildings defended chiefly by palisades ; or even if
it referred to a later post within a few miles of it, as a con-
tinuation of it (Kykoveral fell into decay and was given up
in 1742, the seat of government being moved down the
Essequibo to Fort Island), it would be true. But to read
it as referring to the“ post” destroyed in 1758, — an Indian
logie with palm-leaf roof and no side walls at all, far up
above the cataracts and maintained only three years; or to
read it as referring to a post only four years old, right far up
the river, whichis what Great Britain now alleges of the post
of 1765-71, makes every statement in it a falsehood. It
can only mean, therefore, that there was a post at the con-
fluence of the rivers; and that gives no more title to the
interior than the settlement at the confluence of the rivers
does.

Depositions were taken by the Spaniards on this subject

 

* The Blue Book translation is wrong. The Spanish is: ‘*. . . una
barraca de Madera, 6 puesto guardado de la misma suerte que otros
muchos de esta Colonia de la parte de la Compaiiia por una embar-
cacion pequefa montada de algunos esclavos @ Indios.”’
ABOUT LOCATION OF DUTCH CUYUNI POST. 215

in 1770. The witnesses to whom this memorial was read

appear to have treated the Dutch assertion of possession of

the Cuyuni as an assertion of possession of the real interior.

They absolutely denied that the Dutch had a post or pos-

session in the interior, and we now know this to be true.

Thus, in his deposition of 1770, Fray Benito de la Garriga, ven. Sp.
already mentioned, who was prefect of the Guayana mis- peor
sions from 1747 to 1769, deposed, —

‘¢ That it is not true that the Hollanders had had, nor have now,
possession of the Cuyuni River (called by them, Cayoeny), because
when they established a Guard and Barrack, like that of Maruca,
in the year seventeen hundred and forty-seven (1747), to facilitate
the inhuman traffic and capture of Indians, whom they surrepti-
tiously enslaved, within the dominions of the King our Lord, for
the culture of the plantations and improvement of their Colony, as
soon as it came to our knowledge, in the year seventeen hundred
and fifty-seven (1757), they were dislodged from there, so that
neither in the Cuyuni, Maserony, Apanony, nor any other rivers
emptying into the Esquivo, have the Hollanders any possession.”

‘“* That they are merely tolerated on the banks of the Esquivo
River, running from southeast to northwest, almost parallel with
the ocean coast, the eastern terminus of this Province of Guayana,
the interior of which is left free to the Spaniards, their lawful pos-
sessors.””

Father Thomas de San Pedro, twenty-three years mission- yy, 199,
ary in the province, deposes to the same effect. So does
Don Felix Ferreras, lieutenant, who has served thirty-three tp, 209,
years in the province, and appears from his name to be the
commandant who sent out the expedition of 1758. So Dont, a2.
Santiago Bonalde, who commanded that expedition.

They also fix the location of the post destroyed in 1758.
Besides what they said in their depositions of 1758, they

now refer to certain missions Ven. Sp.
Does., ii, 188.
‘Con the northern margin of the Yuruari River, a tributary of [These depo-

the Cuyuni, seventy leagues distant from the Dutch Barrack, which Sip, Be b..

was destroyed.” 281, et seq.]
Pp. 193, et seg.

Pp. 200-6,

supra.

Ven. Sp.
Does., iii, 247.

Tb., 249.
Supp. B. b.,
338.

216 PROOFS FROM SPANISH ARCHIVES

This agrees with what we have stated of the 1755-58
post; the distance would be entirely wrong if that post had
been high up the Cuyuni.

These witnesses, at least the Father Prefect, had good
means of knowledge on the subject ; for expeditions starting
from Fray Benito’s missions were constantly coming down
the Cuyuni so low as to alarm the actual Dutch settlements.
They prove clearly, therefore, that there was no Dutch post
in 1769-70 far up in the interior.

Proof in 1788. Dela Puente’s diary of his expedition
down the Cuyuni to the actual Dutch settlements gives
conclusive proof of the condition in 1788.

He started from San Thomé Nov. 7, 1788, and reached
there on his return, Feb.5,1789. The diary gives his prog-
ress day by day, and contains the following:

‘On the tenth [of December, 1788] we left Capachi, and after
passing five rapids (not of the largest) we camped at the mouth
of the Tupuro channel, having traveled ten hours, at the head of
the Camaria rapids, which are two leagues long, and which end at
the mouth of the Cuyuni, a short distance — about a quarter of a
league — before the Cuyuni disembogues into the Masurini, at
which fork a Dutchman named Daniel lives with four companions,
many negroes and Poytos belonging to him. From the mouth of
this Tupuro channel there is a road to the foot of the rapids, where
the Carib Manuyari has his house; he being the one who watches
this road. In front of Daniel’s place the tide comes up to this rapid,
to the up-stream of the rapid. From this rapid to the fort of
Esquivo there are only two tides. From the southern part of the
Cuyuni River there is a road coming out at the Masurini, where
are some Dutchmen with a Carib settlement. Day broke upon
us at the mouth of the said Tupuro.*

 

*In the certified Spanish copy filed by Venezuela, the word there
written marcas (marks) is doubtless a clerical error for mareas
(tides), which is the translation of the Supp. Blue b. We have
slightly altered the translation of the last lines of this paragraph.
The Spanish, in which punctuation is generally lacking, is, with this
word corrected:
ABOUT LOCATION OF DUTCH CUYUNI POST. 217

‘*On the eleventh I sent the corporal, three militiamen, and
fifteen Caribs to arrest the Indian Manuyari, and the rest of us
remained to guard the boats, and at twelve o’clock at night they
returned with the said Manuyari, who was found in his fields,
about three leagues distant from the port, having also taken the De la
Panapana Indian woman named Josefa, and ten more souls. cae
“¢On the twelfth we left the said Tupuro channel on our return, beyond the
. z settlements
as we could not delay longer at this point, for, by reason of the in 1788.
capture of this Indian and the frequent fishing of the Dutch, Aura-
cas, and Caribs on the Cuyuni River, our presence might be dis-
covered. Wecamped at the Tosquene rapids.
‘¢ On the thirteenth we left Tosquene, and in twelve days, which,
with the day at Tupuro, make thirteen, we arrived at the mouth of
the Curumo on the twenty-fourth of December, where we remained
two days, strolling, hunting and resting.”
A report of De la Puente of April 13, 1788, says, “the Ip., 228.
Supp. B. b.,

mouth of the Masarini where are situated the first habita- 331°
tions of the Dutch,” etc.
Another paper, dated Caracas, April 2, 1789, says, “up Ip., 238.
to the mouth of the Masuruny where are located the first S4P?:B- >»
Dutch plantations.”*
A report not dated, but apparently made soon after 1785,
which is the latest date mentioned in it (p. 203), says:

‘©23. That on the Cuyuni River, called by the Dutch, Cayoeni, Ven. Sp.
the latter had no possession other than a plantation where it empties PS» M4 1%-

 

‘“ de la voca de este caiio tupuro hay camino hasta el Pie del Raudal
donde tiene el carive Manuyari su casa y es el que cuida de este cam-
ino enfrente del sitio de Daniel hasta este raudal llega la marea para
arriba del raudal: deste raudal a la fortalesa de Esquivo solo hay dos
mareas 4 la parte del Sur del Rio Coyuni hay un camino que sale al
Masurini donde estan unos olandeses con un Pueblo de carives, en la
voca del dicho Tupuro amanecimos.”

A “tide,” i. e., as far as a boat goes with one tide, tying up at the p, 195, supra.
turn to wait for the next tide, is the common measure of distances.

We suspect that the Spanish, which has gone through a number of
copyings before it reached Spain, has a word or two misplaced, and
means that the tide flows up to the rapid.

*“ First’? and ‘“‘ up’’ are used in the sense of one who, starting as
the Spaniards did from near the Orinoco, went ‘‘ up country,’’ until
he reached the ‘‘ first’? Dutch settlements he came to.
P. 195, supra.

Supp. B. b.,
180.

218 PROOF ABOUT LOCATION OF CUYUNI POST

into the Esquivo; for, although in the year 1757 they attempted
to establish themselves fifteen or twenty leagues higher up, for the
purpose of euslaving Indians through the Caribs, the Command-
ant of Guayana, being informed thereof, sent a detachment which
dislodged them, burning the trading post, and bringing prisoners
the Dutch, one negro, and some Caribs, with the instructions and
original statements, which fully proved the infamous trade, which,
by order of the Director of Esquibo, and to his vile interest, the
Guard of the trading post carried on.”

“ Fifteen or twenty leagues” above the Essequibo would
be at the head of the heavy falls through the hills where we
have shown that the post destroyed in 1758 was.

Most certainly, therefore, whatever “ post ” existed in the
later period, after 1758, and at the date of these depositions,
was close to the settlements which were at the junction of
the rivers. Thus these depositions agree with all the other
proof.

Modern proofs about the Cuyunt Post.

The last mention of the Cuyuni post in the Dutch papers
of the Supplemental Blue Book is in 1771. Those papers
come down to 1790; andas, down to that vear, they contain
frequent allusions to the other posts, it is quite clear either
that no Cuyuni post existed after 1771, or that the later
papers show the post then existing to be so close to the
actual settlements at the mouth of that river that it could not
support, but would impair, the British pretensions to the
interior. Some facts indicate the latter.

The First Blue Book gives English colonial documents
from 1799, but we find in them no allusion to any Cuyuni
post, a fact which confirms the observation just made. In
1831, and until it was given up about a dozen years later,
however, the Cuyuni post was on the Cuyuni tide-water,
where or about where the Penal Settlement now is; and
the Mazeruni post was a few miles up that river, far below
the lowest cataracts.
IN THE PRESENT CENTURY. 219

Mr. William Hillhouse, who long lived in this neighbor-
‘hood and has long been famous in the Colony for his knowledge
of the Indian country and the Indians among whom he often
lived, made, in 1831, the first exploration of the Mazeruni.
His account says that they started from the “ post,” and

‘We halted the first night to increase our stock of bread at Jour. R.G.S.

Caria Island, about three hours above the post... . Caria was ug B82t

once @ Dutch post; and several plantations were formerly on the
adjacent banks of the river, but the only traces of them now left
are a few cocoa trees on the east shore. Above Caria, on a small
island, is a Caribisee settlement of one family, which is the only
one of that nation now left on the Massaroony. Here begin the
rapids, the fourth of which, Warimambo, is the most remarkable
in this day’s progress.”’

Thus the highest Dutch post was at Caria Island, below
the lowest fall; and the English post, in 1831, was three
hours below that.

A letter by Schomburgk in the Government Secretary’s
office, Demerara, published by Mr. Rodway in Timehri, for
June, 1896, is dated “ Post at Cuyuni 25th September, 1835.”
He had stopped there on his way up the Hssequibo to procure
acrew for his boats; and in the same letter he mentions that
a “schooner is expected here” from Georgetown. A letter
of five days later, October 1, 1835, evidently written from
the same place, calls it “Post Essequibo.” It was there-
fore in the great bay formed by the junction of the rivers,
accessible to schooners from the ocean.

Schomburgk’s report to the Royal Geographical Society de- Jour. R.G.S.,
scribes this post as standing on the granite bluff, where the oa a
Penal Settlement soon after replaced it. His map which forms
part of that report also shows, quite near to the existing
post, a place marked “ Old post in ruins.” Undoubtedly
that was an old Dutch post. The extent of Schomburgk’s
up-river expedition was, he says, five miles up the Cuyuni,
in tide-water, and fifteen miles up the Mazeruni to the
lowest falls, just above Caria Island.
* Local
Guide,” p.
427.

Blue b., 176.

P. 176, supra.

bo

20 LOCATION OF THE DUTCH CUYUNI POSTS.

The Ordinance establishing the Penal Settlement, passed
April 9, 1842, begins:

‘¢ Whereas it has been deemed expedient to erect and establish
a penal settlement at the o/d Post, near the juoction of the Massa-
roomy River with the River Essequibo,” etc.

At a trial held in February, 1832, William Playter,
“assistant Postholder at the Mazarooni,” assistant to Mr.
Richardson, testified. The post, he said, was a considerable
distance below Marshall’s Falls in the Mazeruni, which fallsare
shown on the official maps as the lowest falls and about eleven
miles above the confluence of the Mazeruni and Cuyuni.

We have found no indication of any post on the Cuyuni
or Mazeruni, since the English occupation began, higher up
than these which are thus shown to be at or close to the
confluence of the rivers; nor any indication that there ever
was a Dutch post on the Mazeruni higher up than the loca-
tion below the falls named by Hillhouse.

There is another fact of some value. Codazzi’s map of
Venezuela (1840-41) marks an old Dutsh post on the
Cuyuni, at the mouth of the creek flowing in from the
northeast, which creek is named Tupuru on his map, and is
at the Jovrest cataract of the Cuyuni. Schomburgk says
that after the destruction of the post which he locates at
Tokoro Patti Island, a postholder was next established
nearer the settlements; and his map also locates this later
post just below a creek which flows into the Cuyuni from
the northeast, and to which his map also gives the name
Tupuru. But Schomburgk’s map puts this creek and its
post at the head of the gorge of the Cuyuni.

Schomburgk and Codazzi got their information independ-
ently, and therefore one can hardly escape the conclusion
that a somewhat wide-spread memory or tradition connected
the post and the creek bearing the name Tupuru. But
which of these maps is right in its location of them?
CONCLUSION ABOUT CUYUNI INTERIOR BASIN. 221

Codazzi is right. In 1788, De la Puente, descending the P. 216, supra.
Cuyuni, went to a creek called Tupuru, and which he says is
at the head of the Camaria Rapids, the lowest on the river.
He stayed there two nights, without the Dutch being aware
of his presence. Clearly, therefore, there was then no “post”
either at that point or above it. Now, the large map in the
Supplemental Blue Book shows this creek and gives to it
the name Tupuru.

It seems impossible from the proof collected in the last
two pages to avoid the conclusion that the “ withdrawn ” post,
that is, the post of 1765-71, established after the destruc-
tion and expulsion of 1758, was at the mouth of the Tupuru,
at the Camaria or lowest rapids of the Cuyuni, a place where
the river is full of islands; that, in 1788, when De la Puente
went there, that post no longer existed, and that from the
time when it was given up, about 1771, the furthest Cuyuni
post was close to the junction of the rivers where in 1842 was
one post in ruins, and a later one called “old post.” This
agrees with the result of every other line of inquiry, espe-
cially that based on the Gravesande letters.

Conclusions as to the Interior Cuyuni Basin. At the com-
mencement of this long examination we stated the gist of
the whole matter; we state it again in briefer form.

The English claim, that settlement at the river mouth gave
title to its whole water-shed, has been disposed of in our P. 18, supra.
introduction. Next, as to occupation.

The Spaniards began on the Orinoco before 1600, and the
Cuyuni basin was both controlled, held, entered and settled
from the Spanish establishments on the Orinoco. Nature
made it, and history has proved it to be, the region of natural
expansion for their settlement; that is, the settlements of
those who first discovered the country, first claimed it, first
explored it, and, holding the gateway, kept all others out,
Pp. 142, 166,
supra.

222 THE CUYUNI INTERIOR BASIN — CONCLUSION.

have also, from the very earliest times, expanded into this
interior.

But exactly the contrary of this is true of the Dutch and
their coast establishments in respect of this region. They
were cut off from it by natural barriers; they never
attempted to settle within it; from their governor, about
1700, to Schomburgk and others in 1840 and since then, they
have declared that the mountain rim, and the cataracts it
caused in the rivers where they passed through it, must pre-
vent settlement from entering it; and for two hundred years
it has proved so. Not only did they never enter, but they
never kept any one out, for the simple reason that they
never occupied it, and the Spaniards held the only practi-
cable entrance.

So England is forced to give up all pretence of actual and
material occupation, and rests its claim on the “posts.” One
in 1703 was probably north of the Cuyuni, fairly well up on
the Yuruari. It lasted three years and was givenup. The
next, with no connection of place or continuity with the
first, was started more than fifty years later. The English
on the Cuyuni allege that it was about one third as far from
the Dutch settlements as the 1703 “ post” was; we have
proved that it was only about one fifth or one sixth as far;
such was the shrinkage or withdrawal of the “posts” up to
that time. That “post” of 1755 lasted three years; and
then it was expelled by Spain. The next was still nearer
the Dutch settlements; they say just inside the interior
basin; we have proved just outside of it. It lasted perhaps
five or six years, in two different places, the second lower
down than the first. From that time on, the only Cuyuni
post was at the confluence of the rivers.

The Dutch efforts were a continually receding tide; it
never swelled again; that ends the question.

But we must add to that, that what drove the Dutch back
THE BRITISH POSITIONS WERE TAKEN IN ERROR. 223

and kept them out was the sovereign power of Spain; assert-
ing title ; continually pressing the Dutch ; following up each
prohibition or expulsion with continual expeditions which
were in effect the exercise of sovereign power, and the
exclusion of the Dutch, under a claim of right.

It is needless to pursue the subject further; had it not
been for a duty to exhaust the proofs once for all, a few
pages could have pointed this out and left the case.

The positions long taken by Great Britain in its discussion
about the interior are shown to be founded on misinformation and
are now virtually abandoned.

To focus the discussion about the interior Cuyuni-Mazeruni
basin, let us contrast the facts with the positions taken by
Great Britain.

On March 19, 1890, Sir Thomas Sanderson wrote :

‘‘The claim of Great Britain . . . to the whole basin of the Biue b., 413.
Cuyuni and Yuruari is shown to be solidly founded, and the
greater part of the district has been for three centuries under con-
tinuous settlement by the Dutch, and by the British as their
successors.”

The Foreign Office was most painfully misled. Of the
300 miles or more of the course of those two streams the
Dutch and English had settled on the lowest 10, and had
never made an attempt to settle above. But the Spaniards
had long settled the upper part and had excluded both Dutch
and English from the lower, down about to tide-water.
Thus the supposed facts on which this British claim rests
disappear; the claim based on them must disappear with
them.

The Supplemental Blue Book speaks the matured English
view, shaped by the highest English legal adviser. Zt makes
no pretence to Dutch settlement or material occupation of
the interior Cuyunt region. Its claim is that the Dutch
“controlled” it. It declares that title may sometimes
Supp. B. b., 2.

P.18, supra.

Ib., 7.

224 THE RULE OF POSSESSION.

extend beyond actual settlement, and that the extension
beyond a settlement

‘¢ depends upon a number of considerations. Regard must be
had to the physical features of the country itself, and to the ques-
tion whether the situation and character of the areas occupied
would enable the nation to which the occupants belong to control
the adjoining district, and to prevent, if necessary, hostile aggres-
sion.

‘* A familiar instance is afforded by the claims which have fre-
quently been put forward by various nations to the water-sheds of
particular rivers of which they controlled the mouths and passage.”

The legal rule alluded to is a sound one. But the facts
relating to the interior Cuyuni basin prevent its application
to that region, for the Dutch never held the entrance to it:
the Blue Book in terms recognizes this, with its conse-
quences. It alleges that the Dutch had such control of the
coast rivers, Pomeroon, Moruca, Waini and Barima as
‘‘enabled the Dutch effectively to resist any aggression in the
territory intersected by these rivers; this was not the case with
reference to the district of the Cuyuni, inasmuch as the presence of
the Spaniards at the Missions extending southward and eastward

from San Thomé de la Guayana afforded a base from which the
Dutch and their territory might be attacked.”

The real entrance is thus recognized to be, as we know
nature made it, and history has shown it to be, from the
Spanish settlements on the Orinoco. The entrance is not from
the Dutch settlements, which geography shows and history
proves to be effectively cut off from it by natural causes.

But the British argument does more than give up the
attempt to apply the rule in its own favor; it leaves it
where the facts make it a muniment of title for Spain and
Venezuela.

Possession of the controlling entrance to a wild and
vacant interior will generally, this Blue Book asserts, con-
stitute possession of that interior; the rule is sound unless
ow

GIVES THE INTERIOR TO SPAIN. 225

some other fact comes in to override it. For when two
things are inseparably connected, be who is the first to
possess eather, the other being unoccupied, may justly
be deemed to possess both, until displaced from one or
the other. Now, before the Dutch began to settle at all,
Spain possessed the real entrance to this region, which
it had also discovered and somewhat explored. The rule
therefore attributes to Spain the possession of the interior
also. Spain, moreover, not only held the entrance but used
it; for all the settlement within that basiu is the expansion
of the Spanish settlements starting from the Spanish
entrance. The result was that of this interior tract, Spain,
expanding step by step, settled the more desirable portions,
while the Dutch occupied none, and attempted to occupy
none. Not only was Spain in fact the only occupant, but
under assertion of title it excluded all others, especially the
Dutch.

Thus the four considerations which are the most weighty
to give title to new lands all centre in Spain: Discovery ;
possession and continuous possession of the real entrance by
settlement at it; expansion of that settlement step by step
into the interior, no other nation ever attempting to settle
therein ; continued exclusion of all others, by an adequate
force, with an assertion of title.

Pp. 103, 107,
108, supra.

The Supplemental Blue Book then falls back for its title supp. B. v.,7.

upon the “ posts ” in the Cuyuni; and here, to maintain its
argument, it has to fly in the face of facts. It speaks of
the post destroyed in 1758 as if it constituted an occupation
from time immemorial, briefly interrupted —“ though, for
“a brief period, they were driven out of their advanced post
“upon the upper part of the Cuyuni, they re-established
“themselves there.” Yet the fact is, that from 1703 to 1755
there was no pretence of a “post” on the Cuyuni; that of
1755 was destroyed by the Spaniards in 1758, upon an
Th, pe OF.

226 THE SPANISH POST AT THE CONFLUENCE

assertion of sovereignty by them; redress was refused ; and
that post never was re-established. The later one, much
lower down the river, started in 1766, lasted only until
1771, and was in turn driven back by Spanish pressure.
These posts, unless possibly the last which was close to the
settlements, were mere houses of trade with no political
significance.

The Supplemental Blue Book asserts that the last post,
started in 1765-66, remained at least until 1788. That is not
the fact. The last mention of it in the Dutch records pro-
duced isin 1771; yet it would have been mentioned every year
if it had continued ; mentioned at least on the muster-rolls.
For its assertion the Blue Book cites only a supposed allu-
sion to it in a report of the Spanish governor, Marmion,
who is entirely mistaken, as will appear when we come to
that report on p. 233 et seq., infra.

The Spanish Curumu Post. The matter is unimportant;
but the Supplemental Blue Book for the first time denies its
existence.

This post, established just before the close of the last
century on the south bank of the Cuyuni, opposite the mouth
of the Curumu, is mentioned by Humboldt, by Schomburgk,
and shown on all the accredited large scale maps, including
all those of Schomburgk’s which are based on his boundary
explorations in the course of which he visited its site, arid in
the large (Stanford) Colonial map of 1875. The Supple-
mental Blue Book asserts that it never existed ; this is, so far
as we are aware, the first time such an assertion has been made.
For this assertion, which contradicts all these writers, no
authority is cited, and we can find no suggestion of any.

The history of the establishment of the post is as fol-
lows:
OF THE CURUMU AND THE CUYUNI. 227

In 1758, Fray Benito de la Garriga, prefect of the Guay-
ana Missions, wrote the letter already referred to, about the
slave raids. The two remedies, he said, were to root out
every Dutch slave-trader who could be found; which was
done at once ; and to establish a Spanish post where it would
intercept future raiders. For this he pointed out the con-
fluence of the Curumu and the Cuyuni as the best place;
the reason being that the Curumu was the best of the Cuy-
uni affluents for navigation, and the savannas sought for by
the Missions were all north of the confluence. The post was
not thus built, nor does its construction appear to have been
further urged at that time; for the vigorous and continued
action of the Spaniards against the Dutch and the Carib
slave-traders, both in the Barima region and the Cuyuni
region, drove them back to the Dutch settlements, and
before many years put an end to the trade in Indian slaves.
The Dutch formally abolished it in 1793, but it had practi-
cally ceased much before that. In 1788 the officer De la
Puente was able to descend the Cuyuni to tide-water, and
then seize and bring away the principal Carib chief em-
ployed by the Dutch, without encountering any Dutch post
or a single Dutchman, and without serious resistance from
the Indians, so thoreughly had they been cowed hy the
Spaniards.

In the same year (1788) the Fathers resolved to found a
new mission at Tumeremo, for the sake of reaching the rich
grazing savannas of the Curumnu, and they perceived no dif-
ficulty or risk in doing so. They announced their desire to
Marmion, governor of Guayana, asking for the authority
which it was customary for the governors to give. It is a
matter of history, mentioned by Humboldt and other writers,
that at this time the relations between the civil authorities
and the Fathers, who governed their missions entirely them-
selves, had become strained. The correspondence on this
occasion showed it, and showed the results of it.

P. 180, supra.

P. 216, supra.

Supp. B.b.,
328.
s8.B

Ven.
Docs., iii, 214.

S. B.
Ven.

b., 328.
Sp.

b., 829.
s.D.,

iii, 222.

S.B.
Ven.

b., 332.
8.'D.,

iii, 216.

S.B.b., 337-8.

Vv
246.

P. 216, supra.

Ps

D., iii,

, supra.

228 THE SPANISH POST AT THE CONFLUENCE

February, 1788. Governor to Prefect. Does not know enough
about the matter to approve, but will send Adjutant-Major de la
Puente to examine the Cuyuni and its neighborhood.

March, 1788, De la Puente reaches Cura, but the river will not
be fit to navigate until August, near the close of the rains; and he
returns.

May 31,1788. The Father Prefect to the Gorernor. We have
a right to found missions without your consent, but we should take
your approval in order to enjoy certain royal grants for bells, etc.,
etc. But he does not understand ‘‘ the object with which you put
these difficulties in the way when none of your predecessors had
any difficulty in the matter.” The remarks made against us by
certain persons ‘‘ emanate from a purely venumous inclination ;
they are not founded on any true grounds,” as we are ready to
prove.

August 4, 1788. Governor Marmion to Captain-General at
Caracas. The Prefect’s letter is ‘‘in a style which was very
objectionable to me”; and the proper reports have not been made.
Will send De la Puente again. But the officer does not go.

August 20,1788. The mission has been founded, and the Pre-
fect requests the governor to send church bells, vestments, ete.

February, 1789. De la Puente’s report already referred to.
From Cura he went down the Yuruari and Cuyuni to the edge of
the Dutch settlements at tide-water. There he seized and brought
away as prisoner a certain Carib who was understood to be a spy
in pay of the Dutch, and had committed a murder. De la Puente
met no Dutch post nor Dutchmen, and had notrouble. He returned
up the Cuyuni and the Curumu, and thence on foot to Tumeremo,
Tupuquen, and Upata. Ho spoke favorably of the navigation of
the Curumu, and of the excellence of the country near it.

Very plainly this showed that there was nothing whatever
to apprehend from the Dutch nor from Carib raids. The
Caribs were so afraid of the Spaniards that they could not
be induced to stay even on the lower Cuyuni, and had gone
to the Mazeruni or Essequibo. The Dutch were almost
trembling for their settlements. There was no possibility of
araid on the missions, a month or six weeks’ journey up
stream. The Fathers knew that, and the missions had been
founded. But Governor Marmion still found difficulties.
OF THE CURUMU AND THE CUYUNI. 229

February 25, 1789. Governor to Prefect. The very capture of this ae Doak
Carib will probably excite his friends to revenge. He must con- 242.
centrate his soldiers, and ‘* regrets” that he must withdraw the
usual escort from the more advanced missions — which meant
Tumeremo. Hereafter he will advance only by forming a settle-
ment of Spanish families, etc.

March 10, 1789. The Prefect replies, in substance, that the $ Bt. 30.
plan proposed by Marmion is needless; that, however, it would he 244. i
desirable to establish a post at the place which De la Puente has
shown.

Finally, Marmion advises the Captain-General to have the post S- B.b.,342-8.
established at once.

1789-90 Governor Marmion reports that the post ought to be Bt Be eine
established ; the Captain-General approves it and writes to the Pre- 262, 265.’ ’
fect: ‘‘ I bave arranged that a fort he constructed which may defend
them . . . the execution of which I have confided to the charge
of the Adjutant-Major . . . Don Antonio Lopez de la Puente.”

July 9, 1791. Finally a Royal Order, approving the orders g pp, 346.
‘¢ that a fort or watch-house is to be built at, the junction of the
Rivers Curiamo and Cuyuni.”

The documents of the Supplemental Blue Book thus bring
us down to the final and peremptory order for the construc-
tion of the “post” and there leave it. Upon which theg x »,,9,
argument asserts that this post never was built. For this it
cites no authority ; and we can find none. The only possible
inference from the papers cited is that it was built; but we
are not left even to that inference.

Humboldt says : Humboldt
ers

Pers.
‘©. |. The confluence of the Curumu with the Rio Cuyuni N#™) ¥ 74

where the Spanish post or desta-camento de Cuyuni was formerly
established.”

‘¢ Guacipati, Tupuquen, Angel de la Custodia and Cura, where
the military post of the frontiers was stationed in 1800, which had
been anciently placed at the confluence of the Cayuni and Curumu.

Again, ‘the old Spanish post (detachment of the Cuyunt) on
the right bank of the Cuyuni, at the confluence of the Curumu.”

Ib , 764.

Ch. xxvi.

Humboldt was in Guyana in 1803, in intercourse with the
Our map 13.

Our map 10.

230 THE CURUMU AND CUYUNI.

governor and the prefect of the missions. Certainly he did
not manufacture this story of the Curumu post; and those
he talked with must have known about it, for it was a
matter of the last dozen years.

Schomburgk makes the same assertion. His map of 1841,
given in the Schomburgk Blue Book, puts at the mouth of
the Curumu, “Cartya, site of the former Spanish Desta-
camento de Cuyuni.” The Hebert map gives the same,
placing it on the sowth, or left bank of the Cuyuni. So
does the great Colonial (Stanford) map of 1875, and its
reduction published by the Royal Geographical Society.
So the map in the German (1847) report of the explorations
of the Schomburgk boundary commission. Schomburgk
also made a journey from Mt. Roraima to the Cuyuni, shown
on the map of that German book, but not described (though
alluded to) in any report given in the Schomburgk Blue
Book. In the account of this trip given in the German book,
vol. 11, under date of the first week of January, 1843, it is
said :

‘* Towards evening they spread their camp at the mouth of the
Curumu, which flows through the savannas which stretch to the
north of it and where great numbers of cattle find pasture.

Opposite the mouth of the Curumu used formerly to stand the
Spanish post, Cordiva.”

Very likely Schomburgk got his first information about
this Spanish post from Humboldt, who certainly was good
authority. But on the trip described in the quotation he
was engaged on boundary work; the existence of “posts”
was a material matter for him to ascertain. He mentions,
as a source of title, the story he heard about the Dutch
post destroyed in 1758. Here, journeying past Curumn,
with local Indians for guides, he must have inquired about
that more recent Spanish post of 1790-1800, the existence
and location of which he thus stated, and if there had been
SOME ERRORS OF THE BLUE BOOK ABOUT THE CUYUNI. 231

any adverse tradition he would not have made the positive
statement he did.

Whether this Curumu post was actually built or not is im-
material for this case, because long before the orders were
given the Dutch and Caribs had been so effectively subdued
or expelled that it was needless; and that it should have been
given up before 1800 was, therefore, natural enough. The
Indian slave-trade, which was the origin of trouble to the
Spanish missions, was abolished in 1793, and upon the ad-
vent of the more human actual British rule in 1796, all
danger of the revival of that horror, or of the deliberate in-
citing of Caribs to attack the missions, had passed away for-
ever. The Curumu post became simply a useless expense.

The Supplemental Blue Book seems to intimate that the
Dutch prevented Spain from occupying beyond Cura and
Tumeremo. There is no foundation whatever for this sug-
gestion. The Spaniards settled in the Cuyuni basin north of
the main stream because that was the region of savannas, and
the country south of the main river was unbroken forest.
Long before Tumeremo was founded the Dutch governor,
Gravesande, wrote that the Spaniards had the mastery and Fp, 199-209,
control of the whole river, traversed it without a hindrance, supra.’ ”
and drove the hostile Indians —the Carib friends of the
Dutch — to seek the protection of the settlements.

The Dutch never attempted to resist this, or do more than
endeavor to protect their plantations.

We have quoted Raleigh’s description of these savannas. P. 103, supra.
Every traveller has admired them. We give some extracts
from “ Venezuela: a Visit to the Gold Mines of Guayana,
etc., during 1886. By William Barry, C. E. London,
1886.”

Mr. Barry was an engineer sent out by Englishmen in-
terested in the mines. He went in by the usual road from
1886.

232 THE SAVANNA REGION

Las Tablas, on the Orinoco. He rode back on horseback
from the Callao mine, south of Guacepati, to Las Tablas,
in three days of ten hours each (p. 128). That is the
usual length of journey. Mr. Barry’s book says:

Page 76. ‘In the district of Upata, which forms a part of this
great belt, the fertility of the land is said to be inferior to no part
of South America, while the climate is deliciously temperate,
at a height of 1400 feet above the level of the sea. The traveller
through this delightful 1egion is perpetually meeting new beanties
each time he passes through a belt of forest, where he is sheltered
by overhanging trees, full of color; and, regaled with a hun-
dred various perfumes of flowers, he emerges on open tracts of
moderate extent, not bare, but diversified by clumps of trees dot-
ted abvut, while the rolling ground reminds him of the most beauti-
ful parts of English country scenery. Park, as it were, succeeds
park, till he is at last fairly puzzled where to select to encamp,
among so much contended and rival loveliness, and here, at a nom-
inal rent, the cattle breeder may come and establish himself, with
the certainty of realizing thirty per cent per annum on his outlay,
and the possibility of very much more. Always on horseback, in
a most lovely climate, and with pure air and clear blue skies, is it
a wonder if I felt tempted to leave civilization, and remain in such
a spot for ever?”

Page 98. ‘*Upata is a considerable town standing in a plain
surrounded by hills, and is 1,000 feet above the level of the sea.

‘* Here the climate is delicious. the air pure and cool, and the
temperature perfectly endurable to Europeans.”

Page 99. ‘* Leaving Upata, on Saturday at five a. u., we rode
through a delicious country, always ascending, until we reached
the highest point of the range, 1,400 feet above sea level. On
crossing this, a magnificent view burst upon us. Away below, as
far as the eve could reach, stretched vast undulating plains of way-
ing grass, dotted at intervals with clum)s of splendid trees. Some
in bloom, others in leaf. and of every tint of flower or leaf, from
deepest crimson to palest yellow. Occasionally a thin belt of
forest marked the course of a stream. or a denser mass of trees
shewed where lay a lagoon, while in the extreme distance, grey
against the crimson dawn, rose the peaks of the distant mountains.
This does not open by degrces, but, on turning a corner of the
NORTH OF THE CUYUNI. 233

road, the whole panorama suddenly lies spread before you in all its
impressive beauty. I can never forget it.”

‘It is at this point that the water-shed changes. On the Upata
side, all the streams and rivers run to the north, and empty into
the Orinoco ; on the other side all the mountain streams run to the
southward, emptying into the Yuruari, and eventually into the

Essequibo.”
Here also are the great gold mines of which the Callao
has been the most productive. This is the region which the
Spaniards have not only held but settled from the earliest
times. Cabelian, in 1596, spoke of the road then building p, 106, supra.
into it. Raleigh’s description, when compared with Mr.
Barry’s, shows that Raleigh must have seen the edge of it.
But it was always Spanish land.

The Supplemental Blue Book asserts that the Dutch post Bape: Hs bes 9
set up in 1766 remained at least until 1788. For this it pie oe.
cites as sole authority a report of the Spanish governor
Marmion, dated July 10, 1788. The date and the
contents show that report to be in effect one of the
set of papers we have just cited. Governor Marmion’s
language is:

‘*The Government of Essequibo keeps a detachment in a fort
called the Old Castle, situated where the Masuruni discharges
itself into this river, and an advanced guard at twenty or twenty-
five leagues up the river; in between they have plantations of cane
and other products, as seen in the year 1858, and it is to he pre-
sumed that they have since further advanced and increased their
possessions, according to information from the Indians who fre-
quently traverse these districts.”

The citation of this paper alone for this allegation of fact
is a confession that the allegation is unfounded. For it is
an admission that the Dutch records contain no proof of the
existence of the post after 1771, the last date when it is
mentioned in the Supplemental Blue Book. Of course that p. 910, supra.
is conclusive against its existence after 1771, considering
P. 228, supra.

P. 218, supra.

234 MARMION’S SUPPOSED REPORT.

the fact that every detail of colonial life was described in
those records, and that, at least once a year, a muster-roll
was sent home to the Company.

Marmion’s report quoted does not profess to be based upon
any knowledge, and every statement in it is wrong. His
other reports and letters of the same year contain exaggera-
tions about the Dutch, which, whether believed or feigned
on his part, were not shared by the mission Fathers. This
report was in July, 1788; the Dutch letters show that for
thirty years the Spaniards had been going down the Cuyuni,
driving off Indians and threatening the Dutch, without the
slightest resistance. A few months later De la Puente
descended to tide-water without encountering any post or
any Dutchman. Marmion’s report was evidently only the
re-echo of 1758, the date when the advanced post did exist
and was destroyed. It contained mistakes as to that; but
the phrase “it is to be presumed that they have since” etc.,
shows that he was not writing from any knowledge but was
rehearsing somebody’s mistaken recollection of a story
thirty years old. The “Old Castle” (Kyk-over-al fort)
had long before been abandoned, the fort and seat of gov-
ernment being at Fort Island, near the sea-mouth of the
Essequibo. The advanced post referred to as twenty or
twenty-five leagues up the Cuyuni was unquestionably a
reminiscence of the post destroyed in 1758, the distance
from the Essequibo to the place marked Tonoma Rapids, at
the head of the gorge, being about fifty-five miles. Another
Spanish report of the same period, presumably by Marmion’s
authority, mentions the post of 1757 as “ fifteen or twenty
leagues” above the Essequibo. But it is needless to specu-
late as to the precise source of Marmion’s errors; for the
Dutch papers and De la Puente’s diary show that, in 1788,
there was no post above tide-water.

Marmion’s statement about plantations has also no founda-
THE REAL AUTHORITIES. 235

tion in fact, unless limited to the short distance between the
confluence of the rivers and the lower cataracts.

The main information must come, not from reports of
distant stay at-homes, but directly from those who had
actual knowledge. Fortunately we have all this in abun-
dance, in the original documents.

On the Spanish side ave the clear-written reports of Fray
Benito De la Garriga, for a long time prefect of the mis-
sions, in reading which, however, one must distinguish be-
tween what he professes to know, and what he gives generally
with avowed doubts, merely as Indian rumors. Also,

The depositions taken in 1758 and 1770, of the Fathers
and the officers concerned in the destruction of the Cuyuni
posts, the Barima slave-traders’ temporary places, and in the
seizures in the Barima region. Also,

The diary of dela Puente, who, in 1788, descended the
Cuyuni to the Dutch settlements.

On the Dutch side are the letters of the Dutch governors,
presenting an almost daily picture of the fortunes of the
colony. Perhaps more of these would have made some
matters clearer ; but with a few additions from Netscher and
other sources, and the just presumptions from the absence
of what the case called for, if it existed, we may feel that we
have the actual situation of affairs before us.

The convenience of the great pages of the Blue Books for
the display of such documents makes one almost wish that
the same size could be more generally used.

In modern times the accounts of Humboldt, and more
especially the later writers, together with occasional letters
of the English governors, leave no possibility of doubt as to
-the utmost limits to which any attempt at settlement has
ever extended.
Jour.R.G.S.,
1836, vi, 7.

236 ROY. GEOGR. Soc. IN 1834, says

Testimony from the Royal Geographical Society in 1834.

One part of the history of Schomburgk’s employment and
work has been pointed out by the brief prepared at Caracas ;
and it is of such importance that we quote from the original
sources a more full account of it.

The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1836,
vol. vi, p. 7, prints the instructions given to Schomburgk,
dated November 13, 1834. They contain the following :

‘\1. The expedition is to have two distinct objects, viz :
first, thoroughly to investigate the physical and astronomical geog-
raphy of the interior of British Guiana; and, secondly, to connect
the portions thus ascertained with those of Mr. Humboldt on the
Upper Orinoco.”

Page 9. ‘* You will observe that the objects of the expedition
are specific, and more limited than were originally contemplated in
your sketch. This arises partly from the extreme desire of the
Society, in return for the patronage extended to the expedition by
his Majesty’s government, to do full justice to the physical geog-
raphy of the Colony of British Guiana.”

The expedition was to a large extent a government expe-
dition. The instructions inform Schomburgk that he will
receive his orders directly from the governor of the Colony.
The contributions made by the Home Government and the
aid hoped for from the Colony made the delineation of British
Gutana of prime importance in every sense, the connection
of its longitudes with those fixed in Venezuela by Humboldt
being only secondary. It was therefore quite essential to
indicate to Schomburgk, at least in a general way, what
territory was officially deemed to be included in British
Guiana. That was done sufficiently for his guidance in the
following paragraph :

‘* Your proposed expedition up the Cuyuny to explore the Sierra
Imataca would be interesting, if practicable with a due attention
to the other objects of the expedition. But as this district is not
CUYUNI BASIN NOT IN BRITISH GUIANA. 237

within British Guiana, and a minute knowledge of it would not
further your ulterior views — besides which, it is easily accessible
at any time, and its investigation now would cause an expense
which might be inconvenient, — it must not be made a first object.
With regard to it you should be guided entirely by the opinions

and advice which you may receive, particularly from Sir Carmichael
Smyth, at Demerara.”

To apply this paragraph, it must be remembered that the
Jmataca was the name given in the old maps existing when
these instructions were written, to the range which we have
described as constituting the eastern rim of the interior
Cuyuni basin, and which are shown on the old maps as fol-
lowing the left or easterly bank of the Cuyuni down quite
close to the Essequibo. See Gravesande’s sketch map of
1749, in Blue Book; Father Caulin’s map of 1779 (our map
No. 2). Schomburgk’s “ sketch map ” of May, 1840, published
by himself and by parliament, shows the same; so does his
map of 1841, ‘in the Schomburgk Blue Book, and his map of
1841, in the German edition of his travels. These are later
in date than the Jnstructions, but they certainly express the
geographical understanding of the person to whom they were
addressed, and whose action they were to guide, and of those
who, after conference with him, prepared the instructions.
The range directly north of the Cuyuni basin, between it
and the Orinoco, is called the Piacoa range.

We have contended that to cross this range and enter the
Cuyuni basin within it was to pass out of British Guiana into
Venezuela, even if the line be not passed before that; and
such is the explicit statement which the Royal Geographical
Society made to Schomburgk, and which he accepted.

Undoubtedly the opinions of geographers cannot settle a
question of boundary. But this certainly shows the com-
monly accepted views. of England, expressed by the body
which was best qualified to know, and which was a partner

Pp. 23, 41,
supra.
Jour. R.G.S.,
1836, vi, 225.

Ib.

238 ROY. GEOGR. SOC. IN 1834 SAYS

of the government in the very subject-matter of these in-
structions. The Jnstructions went also to the governor of
the colony, who was to give all orders to Schomburgk ; and
as Schomburgk never went up the Cuyuni or Mazeruni
beyond tide-water in the whole course of this four years of
exploration, we must assume that they met with the govern-
or’s concurrence.

The paragraph which we have quoted was not an incon-
siderate utterance. Schomburgk evidently urged scientific
exploration of that region.* The Society refused, because
they hesitated to spend government money outside of govern-
ment territory except for the international purpose of con-
necting longitudes. But if Schomburgk had some spare
time and was willing to risk using up his grant, and the
governer did not think it “imprudent,” he might go there.
But Schomburgk evidently seemed to them, as he afterwards
proved to be, a person indiscreet in his zeal, and they
warned him against “precipitating his measures.” This
passage of the same letter is:

‘¢ The expedition into the interior cannot be begun till August
consequently, in so far as regards it, your arrival at Demerara
before June is of little importance. But if you attach extreme
value to Imataca yourself, and think that you can accomplish a
journey to it between the time of your earliest possible arrival at
Demerara and the month of August, then you are at liberty to pro-
ceed thither earlier;—- always remembering, however, that the
expense of such a journey, even if sanctioned by Sir Carmichael
Smyth, must be deducted from the entire funds provided, — and
also, that if deemed imprudent or otherwise inexpedient by him, it
will not be allowed at all.

‘*‘ Other circumstances connected with the present state of the Col-

 

* His proposals are not, so far as we know, published, and we do
not suppose that he based his plan, of crossing the Imataca upon any
suggestion of boundary. If he did, then, of course, the action of the
Society would be of greatly increased weight.
CUYUNT BASIN NOT IN BRITISH GUIANA. 239

ony of Demerara seem to offer additional reasons against your
precipitating your measures. But having thus fully explained the
views of the Society on the subject, something must necessarily be
eft, in conclusion, to your own judgment and discretion.”

The views of the Royal Geographical Society thus con-
form to the whole course of history. From the time of the
pugnacious Gravesande (1738-1772) down to Schomburgk’s
memoir of 1839, we are not aware of any official or unofiicial
assertion of Dutch or English claim to the interior Cuyuni
basin; for the line drawn with a ruler on Bouchenroeder’s
map does not amount to that.

Sixty-five years of acquiescence in the Spanish ite Facto
refutation of Gravesande’s paper pretensions cannot well be
overcome.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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