The Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk Volume II The Boundary Survey, 1840–1844

Peter Rivière, Peter Rivière

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781351814225
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts

This is the second of a pair of volumes publishing the unedited full reports of Schomburgk's travels in Guiana between 1835 and 1844, previously available only in greatly abridged and heavily edited versions. After his explorations in Guiana between 1835 and 1839 on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society, which are the subject of Volume I of The Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk 1835-1844, Robert Schomburgk travelled to London. He was appointed Her Majesty's Commissioner for Boundaries with the duty to survey the boundaries of British Guiana, hitherto undefined. His surveys between 1841 and 1843 consisted of three journeys. The first took him to the mouth of the Orinoco River, from where he traced the boundary south-westward to the Cuyuni River, before returning to Georgetown. The second journey involved the survey of the boundary with Brazil: first, south to the sources of the Takutu River; and then north to Mount Roraima. In the third he covered the boundary with Dutch Guiana (modern Surinam), which involved an arduous trip down the length of the Corentyne River. Schomburgk returned to London in 1844 and was knighted for his services. Volume II of The Guiana Travels contains his reports of these journeys. In abbreviated form they appeared in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. Here they are published in full, including the material censored by the Colonial Office, which mainly details abuses of the native population committed by Venezuelans and Brazilians. In an 'Epilogue' an account is provided of his later career. The volume also includes two appendices: a summary of the boundary disputes which arose as a result of Schomburgk's survey and a vocabulary of vernacular plant names.

APPENDIX 1 The Boundary Dispute

In 1840 the Foreign Secretary, Viscount Palmerston, directed that the countries neighbouring British Guiana (Brazil, Venezuela and Surinam) should be informed of the boundaries claimed by Britain for its colony and if those countries had any objections to state their reasons for them. At the same time he instructed that the boundary be surveyed and permanent markers be erected along it. The boundaries presented to those neighbouring countries were those drawn up by Schomburgk and illustrated in a map of 1840 that accompanied his memorandum on the subject. Schomburgk, in drawing up the boundaries, had subscribed to the principle that they must, as far as possible, be permanent, natural physical features that were readily recognizable. There is nothing wrong with this principle, except that Schomburgk was prone to identify features that lay beyond what might reasonably be expected by the neighbouring countries. The consequences of this remain unresolved today. There is a vast and growing literature on the question of Guyana’s boundaries, and there is no intention to give here more than the most summary account of the events of the past 160 years. This is most easily done by considering each country in turn.

The main difficulties arose with Venezuela. The Venezuelans claimed, and still claim, that their boundary ran from the mouth of the Moruka River south to strike the Essequibo at its junction with the Cuyuni, and then down the left or west bank of the Essequibo to its source. By the 1840 map, the British claimed that the boundary ran from the point where the Amacuro River meets the Orinoco, along the former river and then up its left-bank tributary, the Cuyupuni, to its source. From here the line ran south so that the basins of the Barima and Barama Rivers lay in British Guiana. The boundary crossed into the Cuyuni basin at the source of the Parawayauru, cut the Cuyuni at about 59°50′W, and continued up the right-bank tributary, the Aruarua, to its source. From here the line was drawn south-westward to Mount Roraima. The major problem with this boundary, as claimed in 1840, was that the area was unsurveyed, and thus no reliable maps of it existed. When Schomburgk undertook his survey, he found that the Barima and Barama rose much further west than had been represented on the 1840 map. Accordingly the boundary was now drawn further west, thus accrediting more territory to British Guiana at the expense of Venezuela.

The Venezuelans reacted quickly to the news of Schomburgk’s erecting boundary markers at the mouth of the Barima and Amacuro Rivers in 1841, and sent that same year a delegation to Georgetown to object. There was a certain amount of back-pedalling at this point: it was argued that the markers were erected for purely scientific purposes and it was agreed that they would be removed. In fact, they were not as it was pointed out that they were located in a remote place to which it was not worth making a journey solely for this purpose. The negotiations continued and in 1844 the British offered a boundary running due west from the mouth of the Moruka River on condition that Venezuela would never cede to a third power the territory between the Moruka and Amacuro. The point about this being that the British did not want a third party gaining control over the mouth of the Orinoco. Nothing came of this offer and in 1850 it was agreed to regard the disputed territory as neutral and that neither country would occupy it; a hope dashed in the same year by the finding of gold in the area. From then on there was a steady infiltration of the disputed zone by Guyanese subjects although there were counter-accusations of Venezuelan intrusion into the area. With no progress in the negotiations, in 1876 Venezuela recruited the support of the United States of America, which country explained its intervention by the need to uphold the principle of the Monroe Doctrine. Initially the presence of the USA failed to have any effect at all and Britain responded, during the 1880s, by extending its territorial claim to include the whole of the Cuyuni basin, thus pushing the colony’s boundary nearly to the Caroni River. Then, in 1895, as a result of increasing pressure by President Cleveland, Great Britain agreed to go to arbitration. The commission appointed to look into the matter consisted of two British and two American judges with a Russian chairman, but notably lacked any Venezuelan member. A treaty was signed in 1899 laying down the boundary along its present course, which coincides with the boundary of British Guiana as represented by Schomburgk’s map of 1844. The Venezuelans were extremely dissatisfied with this outcome, claiming that it was a result of collusion between the British and the Russian chairman, and that they had been forced to sign by the United States. Indeed the Venezuelans never accepted the treaty’s legitimacy and in 1962, with Guyana’s independence pending and with that country in political turmoil, they declared it null and void. On the independence of Guyana, Venezuela recognized the new state but reaffirmed that its boundary lay along the west bank of the Essequibo. In 1966 the Geneva Agreement set up a new attempt at reaching a settlement. It resulted in the Protocol of the Port-of-Spain in 1970 under which cooperation in the economic and environmental development of the north-west area was agreed to. There matters rest, with Venezuela still claiming a vast area of Guyana.

On the Brazilian front, diplomatic negotiations in the 1840s failed to settle the line of the frontier, partly because agreement on this matter got caught up in the negotiation of a commercial treaty which, in turn, could not be separated from the question of the Brazilian slave trade and slavery. After that the matter was more or less forgotten except for occasional complaints from both sides about breaches of the neutrality of the disputed territory but nothing serious occurred and the affair was not high on either country’s agenda, partly because nothing valuable such as gold was found there. Then, spurred on by the apparent settlement of the British Guiana/Venezuelan boundary question, the two countries agreed in 1901 that the matter should go to arbitration. The arbitrator was the King of Italy who gave his decision on 6 June 1904. He was unable to accept that either country had established unquestioned right over the disputed territory and, finding that it could not easily be shared equally, he gave the major portion to Britain, fixing the Mahu and Takutu Rivers as the boundary. Brazil has never actively contested this ruling although there was (and is) a general feeling in the country that the arbitration was less than just. Perhaps the interesting thing is that today, nearly a hundred years on, as a result of events over the past decade, there are now probably more Brazilians than Guyanese in the region granted to British Guiana.

Guyana’s third boundary, that with Surinam, the former Dutch Guiana, seemed totally unproblematic. In 1840 when Palmerston sent round that abrupt communication about British Guiana’s boundaries, the Dutch replied that they were happy to accept the Corentyne River as the frontier. Indeed, in 1843, when only the survey of that boundary remained to be done, it was very nearly cancelled on the grounds that it was an unnecessary exercise, and thus entailed unnecessary expenditure. There was, however, a problem even if it did not emerge until much later. In 1838, when Schomburgk was exploring the headwaters of the Essequibo, a mountain range was pointed out to him, from which, he was told, one of the chief branches of the Corentyne River, the River Pani, flowed. This was almost certainly the New River. However, when descending the Corentyne in 1843, Schomburgk failed to describe or report it. It would not have been too surprising if he had missed it. The Corentyne here is about eight miles wide, studded with islands, and with the ration allowance down to four ounces of cassava flour a day there was no time for exploring. On the other hand there is evidence that he did observe it or learn about it as it appears on his 1844 map, joining the Corentyne in the more or less correct geographical position. Formally it was not discovered until October 1871, when the geological surveyor, Charles Barrington Brown, ascending the Corentyne and hugging its left bank, found and named it the New River. The size of the New River is such that it has given rise to a disagreement about which is the mainstream and which the tributary. It has been argued that Schomburgk failed to report it just because of this. If the New River were the mainstream the boundary would then lie much further to the west, and thus a large extent of territory would be lost to British Guiana. Because the boundary was considered so unproblematic, it was not until the 1930s that an attempt to formalize it was made. A draft agreement with the Netherlands about this boundary was reached, in which it was accepted that the Corentyne and Cutari would form the boundary. The war then intervened, the agreement was not signed and the question was not returned to until the 1960s. But when it was, the Netherlands went back on the earlier draft agreement and now claimed that the New River should form the boundary. Great Britain argued that it was too late to renegue on the earlier agreement, and negotiations got nowhere. Surinam, on independence, inherited this claim, and the ownership of the large triangle of territory between the Corentyne and the New River remains in dispute.

APPENDIX 2 Glossary of Vernacular Plant Names

Vernacular names for plants often refer to a number of different genera and species. It is normally not possible to tell to which particular species Schomburgk is referring. Accordingly all the plant species covered by the vernacular term have been listed, with the exception of the Passion flower of which there are twenty known species in the region so called. A further problem is that many of the scientific names have, since Schomburgk’s day, been revised. In order to identify plants I have relied to a large extent on E. A. Mennega et al., Check List of Woody Plants of Guyana, although various other sources have also been used, including Allsopp’s Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, and Bennett’s Arawak–English Dictionary.

The letters in parentheses after an entry refer to the origin of the term. Ak. for Akawaio; Ar. for Arawak; C. for Carib; Cr. for Creole; M. for Macushi; P. for Patamona; W. for Wapishiana; Wr. for Warao.

Ackayari, see Acourie.

Acourie or Acourie-Broot (Cr.): Licania

Akoukoua: Unidentified, but see Ikanna.

Amapaima (M.): Aniba canelilla.

Anareke (Ar.): Bromelia karatas.

Ant Bush (Cr.): Siparuna guianensis.

Ants Tree (Cr.): Cordia nodosa.

Araho, possibly Reho.

Ariha, possibly Reho.

Ayawiye (M.) same as Tshiwipa (C): Martiodendron excelsum.

Balata (P.): Manilkara bidentata.

Balsam Tree (Cr.): Clusia amazonia.

Bannia, see Banya.

Banya (Ar.): Swartzia bannia.

Barata (Ar.): Ecclinusa psilophylla.

Baromalli (Ar.): Catostemma altsonii; C. commune; C. fragans; Scleronema guianense.

Bitter Ash (Cr.): Quassia amara.

Bitter Bush (Cr.): Quassia simarouba.

Boba (Ar.): Iriartea exorrhiza.

Bouba, see Boba.

Bourra-Courra, see Letterwood.

Bullet Tree, Bastard: Unidentified, perhaps Chrysophyllum spp.

Bullet Tree, Male (Cr.): Chrysophyllum argenteum.

Bulletwood Manilkara bidentata.

Bully Tree (Cr.): Manilkara bidentata.

Bulukush Mauritia martiana.

Burra-burraro, possibly Buruburulli.

Buruburulli (Ar.): Licania divaricata; L. heteromorpha.

Cackerally, see Kakaralli.

Camiau (W.), see Cedar, Red.

Canung (M.): Unidentified species of Psidium.

Carapa, see Crabwood.

Caraveru: Bignonia chica.

Caruman, probably Karamanni.

Casami (M.): Unidentified species of Eugenia, possibly E. patrisii.

Cashew, see Ubudi.

Cauabahiracahrie: Unidentified.

Cedar, Red (Cr.): Cedrela odorata.

Cedar, White (C...