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The Human Aspect of Aves Diplomacy: An Incident in the Relations between the United States and Venezuela

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

William H. Gray
William H. Gray*
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State College
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Extract

Veracity, Cupidity and Amity were important factors in the dispute between the United States and Venezuela over the guano on little Aves Island. Less than a mile long and only a few hundred yards wide, the islet caused a war of words out of all proportion to its size. The United States wanted to protect its citizens in their right to gather the residue of bird droppings on that bit of land in the tropic Caribbean which apparently belonged to nobody, while Venezuela considered the same mite of oceanic desert, which is located some three hundred miles north of Margarita Island, as a part of its patrimony inherited from Spain.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , July 1949 , pp. 72 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1949

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References

1 Gaceta de Venezuela (Caracas), Oct. 16, 1842; Nov. 14, 1847. Wilgus, C. A., ed., Modem Hispanic America (Washington, 1933), chap. XX,Google Scholar “Latin American Guano Policy.”

2 Shelton, Philo S., Venezuelan Outrage upon United States’ Citizens and Property (Derby, Conn., 1855).Google Scholar This pamphlet gives the American side of the story. It was reprinted in 1861.

3 The letters concerning the Aves Island controversy from 1854 to 1858 are printed in U. S. Senate Executive Document, No. 25, 34th Congress, 3rd Session, and No. 10, 36th Congress, 2nd Session.

4 Venezuela, Memoria de hacienda, 1856 (Caracas), 72-74.

5 Corporaal, Karl Hendrik, De international abrechtelijke betrekkingen tusschen Nederland en Venezuela, 1816-1920 (Leiden, 1920), 168-190.Google Scholar

6 The Netherlands kept the United States informed of its plans: A. Belmont to W. L. Marcy, Jan. 19, 1856, Despatches from the Netherlands; Rudolph C. Burlage to the Secretary of State, Jan. 30, 1856, Notes from the Netherlands. These manuscripts and others listed later are found in the Department of State files of the National Archives, Washington, D. C, unless otherwise noted.

7 United States Statutes-at-Large, XI, 119.

8 Nichols, Roy F., “Navassa: A Forgotten Acquisition,” American Historical Review, XXXVIII (April, 1933), 505-510.Google Scholar

9 Diario de Avisos (Caracas), Sept. 9, 1857. Florencio Ribas to Lewis D. Cass, July 17 and Sept. 4, 1857, Notes from Venezuela.

10 Jacinto Gutiérrez to Cass, Oct. 31, 1857, Miscellaneous Letters Relating to Guano. Cass to Mariano Briceño, Feb. 22 and 26, Mar. 4, 1858, Notes to Venezuela.

11 Diario de Avisos, Sept. 6, 1850.

12 Páez publicly thanked James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald as the motivator of the ceremonies. The reception was considered to be the first great honor paid publicly in the United States to any of the other American republics (Herald, Aug. 3, 1850).

13 Fortoul, José Gil, Historia constitucional de Venezuela (3 vols., Caracas, 1930),Google Scholar II, chaps. IV and V.

14 Sanford to Cass, Caracas, May 22, 1858, Miscellaneous Letters.

15 Eames to Cass, Mar. 10, 16, 23, 28, 1858, Despatches from Venezuela. Lisandro Alvarado, Historia de la revolución federal en Venezuela (Caracas, 1909), passim. José Santiago Rodríguez, Contribución al estudio de la guerra federal en Venezuela (Caracas, 1933), Vol. I, passim.

16 Eames to Cass, May 6, 1858, Despatches from Venezuela.

17 Richard Bingham to the Governor of Jamaica, March 30, 1858, Great Britain Foreign Office 80, Venezuela, 128. Manifiesto de los encargados de negocios de Francia y de la Gran Bretaña (Caracas, 1858). Cuestión promovida a Venezuela por los agentes de Francia y de la Gran Bretaña (Caracas, 1858; 2nd ed. Valencia, 1858). Facts Speak for Themselves, or Documents Relating to the Proceedings which Have Recently Taken Place between the Representatives of Great Britain and France and the Government of Venezuela (London, 1858).

18 Gaceta de Venezuela, Mar. 16, 1859. Wm. M. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols, and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers (Washington, 1933), II, 1843 ff.

19 Acting Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes to the Secretary of the Navy, No. 71, June 9, 1863, Navy Department, West India Squadron, September, 1862-July, 1863.

20 Venezuela, Memoria de hacienda, 1865, 39-68. Memoria de relaciones exteriores, 1867, 71.

21 Rafael Seijas in his Derecho internacional hispano-americano (Caracas, 1884), IV, 210, interprets the decision as being a vindication of Venezuela’s position.

22 A. de Lapradelle and N. Politics, “Affaire de l’île d’Aves,” Recueil des arbitrages internationaux (Paris, 1905), II, 404-421.