XHE 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Vol. XI APRIL, 1900 Xo. 4 



THE ANGLO-VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE 



By Marcus Baker, 

 Cartographer, U. S. Geological Survey 



Introduction. — For nearly three score years Great Britain and Vene- 

 zuela had wrangled over their boundary. No dividing line had ever 

 been drawn by them, acting together. Venezuela always claimed to 

 the Essequibo River. Great Britain, successor to the Dutch, claimed 

 all the Dutch had had. The Dutch never established their limits on 

 the Venezuelan side, and their indefinite western limit did not shrink 

 in the hands of the British. In the course of a long diplomatic cor- 

 respondence, proposals and counter-proposals were made and rejected. 

 Thus for fifty-five years the squabble dragged on and on, from the 

 days of Schomburgk, in 1841, to the day of Cleveland, in 1895. Cleve- 

 land's now famous message has been called harsh, but, as has been 

 well pointed out and as the sequel shows, it made for peace. Some- 

 times a frank, blunt word, like the surgeon's lancet, hurts cruelly, l)ut 

 cures. 



Already the story of this dis})ute is ancient history. It requires 

 some imagination to recall the tension which, only four years ago, 

 strained, almost to the breaking point, the friendly relations of the 

 two greatest world powers. War between Spain and America ; war l)e- 

 tween Great Britain and the South African Dutcli ; Venezuela torn 

 and rent by civil war; and in tlie midst of it all a peace conferen(!e 

 of the nations at the Hague striving, working, hoping for perpetual, 

 universal peace. 



Boundary disputes, whether between individuals or nations, are 

 wont to be long and bitter ; and, oftener than otherwise, changes of 

 V)oundaiy result from war. Sometimes the result is direct, sometimes 



