The Trail Of Diplomacy

In the course of the controversy over the Guiana boundary, it has been alleged (1) that the charters of the Dutch West India Company named the river Orinoco as one of the limits of its grant, and (2) that within the limits of the grant these charters gave territorial jurisdiction. Thus the British "Blue Book", "Venezuela No. 1" states (p. 5):

In 1621 the Charter of the Dutch West India Company was granted by the States-General.. This Charter, reaffirmed in 1637, gave the Orinoco as the limit of the Company's territorial jurisdiction.

And again (p. 7):

After the Treaty of Munster, fresh regulations were again issued by the States-General to the Dutch West India Company, in which the Orinoco is again treated as the limit of its jurisdiction.

And yet again (p. 8):

In 1674 the Charter of the West India Company was renewed, and in the preamble the Colonies of Essequibo and Pomeroon are enumerated, the limit of the Company's jurisdiction being still fixed at the river Orinoco.

To determine the grounds for these statements, and to learn what more in the grants to the Company might be pertinent to this question, I have, at the request of the Commission, made a careful study of the charters of the Company and of all the legislation of the States-General in its belief, so far as printed in the great official collection of the States-General's acts.

1. AS TO LIMITS

The Company received its first charter on June 3, 1621. This charter consists of forty-five articles. The only specification of limits is in Article I, whereby all outside the Company are prohibited from travel and trade . . . "to the coasts and lands of Africa, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, or, furthermore, to the lands of America, beginning from the south end of' Newfoundland through the straits of Magellan, Le Maire, or other straits and passages lying thereabout, to the Straits of An Jan [corresponding to our Bering Strait], whether to the North Sea or to the South Sea, or to any of the islands on the one side or on the other or lying between the two; or, moreover, to the Australian and southern lands stretching and lying between the meridians of the Cape of Good Hope on the east, and on the west the east end of New Guinea, inclusive."

It will be seen that there is here no mention of the Orinoco, nor indeed of any other American limit between Newfoundland on the one coast and Bering Strait on the other. The charter was meant, that is, to include the entire coast of America.

Six days later, on June 9, 1621, there was again issued, by itself, this edict of prohibition, the specification of limits being couched in precisely the same terms as in the charter. On June 10, 1622 the salt trade within the Company's limits, which had not at first been included in their monopoly, was added to it; but the limits are themselves not specified, save by reference to the earlier documents. The main objective point of this salt trade was beyond the Orinoco -- at Punta de Araya, near Cumana. On November 26, 1622, these prohibitions of June 9, 1621, and June 10, 1622, had to be renewed; but the territorial limits are not again specified.

On February 13, 1623, the charter was slightly amplified; but there was no change to limits, and therefore no mention of these. Nor were they mentioned in the prohibition of May 24, 1624, which forbade emigration or transport of emigrants save through the Company. And the form of government promulgated on October 13, 1629, for the territorial acquisitions of the Company is equally without definition of limits.

In thinking the charter "reaffirmed in 1637" the English Blue Book is in error. Granted for twenty-four years, it did not expire till 1645. Even then it was not at once renewed, for its friends sought strenuously the consolidation of the West India Company with the East, whose charter had also just run out. It was not until July 4, 1647, that the States-General promulgated the intelligence that on March 20 preceding they had prolonged for another quarter-century the charter of the West India Company. The limits were unchanged, and are not restated. When at the end of 1671 the charter again expired, it was thrice renewed for periods of eight months at a time, pending discussion, and naturally without any mention of territorial limits. The fate of the old Company had long been sealed, and on September 20, 1674, the States-General created by charter an entirely new one. Its territorial limits were vastly narrower; "To wit, that within the period of this current century, and thereafter to the year 1700, inclusive, (the legislators evidently counted the year 1700 as part of the next century) no native or subject of these lands shall, otherwise than in the name of this United Company, be at liberty to sail or trade to the coasts and lands of Africa, reckoning from the Tropic of Cancer to the latitude of thirty degrees south of the Equator, including all the islands in that district lying on the aforesaid coasts, and especially the islands St. Thomas, Annebon, Isle de Principe, and Fernando Polo, together with the places . . . of Essequibo and Pomeroon, lying on the continent of America, and also the islands Curacao, Aruba, and Buonaire..." And that is all. Elsewhere in the old domain anybody might now trade.

[. . . This charter had been long in process of creation. As early as June 7, 1669, it was under discussion in the provincial estates of Holland, the limits then suggested being precisely those later adopted. On April 2, 1674, this provincial body submitted to the States-General another draft, in which to the two places on the American mainland, Essequibo and Pomeroon, were added New Netherland (which the Amsterdamers still hoped to regain from the English), and also a provision that the new West India Company might retain "such further places and districts on the American mainland as it should take actual possession of by the creation of forts, warehouses, or established trade. . ." But in the new draft submitted to the Estates of Holland on August 13, 1674, this interesting supplementary clause has dropped out. In those earlier forms, no more than in the finished charter, is there the slightest mention of the Orinoco. . .]

On November 30, 1700, this charter was renewed for thirty years more (to date from January 1, 1701), without change or restatement of limits; and again, on August 8, 1730, for another thirty years (to date from January 1, 1781), still without change or restatement. At the end of 1760 it was again renewed for a single year without change of limits, and on January 1, 1762, for thirty years more, expiring with the dissolution of the company at the close of the year 1791.

It is thus clear that, from beginning to end of it existence, the charter of the Dutch West India Company never named the Orinoco as its limit. Yet in the renewal of 1700 there is a mention of that river which is at least of interest. Differing rates of toll had been established for cargoes to "New Netherland", to "the West Indies", and to "other places of America"; and now, "for the better elucidation of the aforesaid charter", the States-General "further explains" "that under the name of New Netherland" may be included "that part of North America which stretches westward and southward from the south end of Newfoundland to the Cape of Florida", while "under the name of West Indies are understood the coasts and lands from the Cape of Florida to the River Orinoco, together with the Curacao Islands", and that by the phrase "the other places of America", . . . whether , "in the oldest or preceding charter", "are denoted all the Caribbean islands -- Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico included -- together with all the coasts and lands from the River Orinoco aforesaid, through the straits of Magellan, Le Maire, or other straits and passages thereabouts, to the straits of Anjan", etc.

It will hardly be claimed that the Orinoco is hereby made a boundary of the colony of Essequibo, for this will carry the other frontier to Bering Strait. And somewhat the same difficulty is offered by those enactments of the fourth and fifth decades of the seventeenth century, in which alone in all the legislation of the States-General I have else found a mention of the Orinoco. It is one of these -- that of 1637 -- which the English Blue Book has in its text taken for a reaffirmation of the charter; and it is part of another which, by some confusion, it has reprinted in its appendix.

The circumstances of these enactments seem to have been as follows: The policy of carrying the war with Spain into America had proved so popular, especially after the Dutch successes in Brazil and the capture of the Spanish silver fleet in 1628, that in 1632 it was found necessary to put some restrictions on the privateers. At any rate, on May 14 of that year the States-General issued an enactment that for the space of one year (to the end of May, 1633) no armed ships "shall be free to sail to the coasts of Africa, Brazil, or New Netherland, or elsewhere where the Company may have trade . . ., on any account whatsoever, nor under any pretext that may be urged -- lack of provisions, fresh water, or whatever else -- on pains of the penalties prescribed in the charter against those who violate it: Yet shall the aforesaid ships prior to the date above named of the last of May, 1633, be free to sail to the West Indies, to wit, the river Orinoco, westward along the coast of Cartagena, Puerto Bello, Honduras, Campeachy, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coast of Florida, together with all the islands lying within these limits, in order there to carry on all manner of warfare, by sea and by land, against the King of Spain, his subjects and allies."

A month or so after the expiration of this prohibition, on July 15, 1633, it was renewed, this time without restriction as to period, but with a notable change as to territory. Brazil is added to the permitted lands, while the clause defining "on any account whatsoever" (from "nor under any pretext" to "prescribed in the charter against those who violate it") -- is stricken out. Ships of war were now, therefore, prohibited only from sailing "to the coasts of Africa, or New Netherland, or elsewhere where the Company may have trade," but may sail "to the coasts of Brazil; likewise into the West Indies, to wit, the river Orinoco westward along the coast of Cartagena, Puerto Bello, Honduras, Campeachy, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coast of Florida," etc.

It is this enactment of 1633 which is printed in part in the English Blue Book as "Regulations for the Dutch West India Company", and with the appended note that "there are some minute verbal alterations, not affecting the sense, between the text of 1632 and that of 1633." It has been pointed out that the regulations are not for the Company, but for the "armed ships" of others; and I think it will appear that the transfer of Brazil from the prohibited coasts of the one edict to the permitted coast of the other affects the sense at least enough to make it clear that the Orinoco is not meant as a limit of the Company's jurisdiction -- for Brazil, in 1633 as in 1632, was the most highly valued and the most tenaciously held of all the Company's possessions. It is not as a limit of the West India Company, but as the first term is a definition of the West Indies, that the name of the Orinoco occurs; and a glance at the maps will show with what perfect geographical fitness, for the mouth of this river is precisely the point where the long line of the Caribbean islands, terminating in Trinidad, reaches the coast. And surely there are other reasons, besides those of boundary, which could make such a landmark as the great mouth of the Orinoco, beyond which to the east there were in any case by common confession no Spanish settlements, a wise limits for ships of war. It is, alas, not quite certain, as the Guiana coast is not mentioned either among those prohibited or those permitted, that it is not in both enactments included "the coasts of Brazil."

Much more susceptible of the interpretation here urged by the English Blue Book would seem another statute of the States-General, enacted in 1635 and renewed in 1637. On January 6, 1635, "by advice and deliberation of the Directors" of the West India Company, the States threw open to all subjects of the United Provinces the trade in "wood, tobacco, cattle, and all kinds of wares or merchandise in certain parts of the limits of the charter of the said Company," namely: . . . "The ships of the aforesaid subjects shall be free to sail to the West Indies: To wit, the river Orinoco, westward along the coast of Cartagena, Puerto Bello, Honduras, Campeachy, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coast of Florida, together with all the islands lying within these limits, but they shall on no account whatsoever be free to sail to the coast of Africa; nor to New Netherland, or elsewhere where the said Company has trade. . ."

And on October 16, 1637, this edict was renewed without change of terms. In both enactments Brazil is entirely ignored; but on April 29, 1638, the trade of Brazil was thrown open by a separate ordinance, which was supplemented by others of August 10, 1648, and December 11, 1649. In these, the phrase of territorial description is "to the city Olinda de Pernambuco, and the coasts of Brazil"; . . . and the "Wild Coast", as the Dutch called the coast of Guyana, is nowhere mentioned.

Now, here at last we have the Orinoco named in such way as to suggest a limit of monopoly. But a more careful inspection shows that it is as the first Spanish point, not as the last Dutch one, that it is named. It is to be the beginning of free trade, but nevertheless lie somewhat beyond the last port closed by monopoly. And what was restricted by these enactments was not the territorial authority of the Company, which everywhere, as in Brazil, for example, remained on precisely the same footing and with the same limits as ever, but solely its monopoly of trade.

On August 10, 1648, the States-General issued yet another of these regulations as to trade. It was not, as might possibly be inferred from its date, an outcome of the Treaty of Munster. The territorial limits of this particular restriction were adopted by the West India Company itself as early as October 14, 1645, after much discussion as to the best interests of trade, and were submitted on April 9, 1647, in precisely this form to the States-General, in the report of the committee on the reform of the West India Company. It is clear at a glance that what is here thrown open to free trade is again the Spanish coasts of the Caribbean and the Gulf, and that the Orinoco serves as a point of departure for these, while what is reserved to the Company is the entire remaining coast of America, with that of West Africa. Were this a territorial claim, it would imply Dutch ownership of all America and Africa. It is in fact a trade restriction implying in itself no territorial claims whatever, though territorial possessions doubtless had their share in determining this restriction of trade. As originally drawn in 1645, and as submitted to the States-General in 1647, what was permitted by the regulation was not primarily trade, but "to attack or injure the enemy", and it was explicitly set forth that "it was not intended to license the ship or ships. . . merely to trade in or carry timber, salt, tobacco or cotton, and all other wares, . . .but it is also designed to commit offensively and defensively every hostility and damage to the King of Castile's subjects." But the peace with Spain having intervened, in 1648 it was enacted without these aggressive clauses, but without change as to territorial limits.

As the new and final charter of 1674 granted the new Company formed by it nothing else on the American mainland than "the places of Essequibo and Pomeroon", the Orinoco could hardly again come into question, even as a trade limit, unless the Orinoco were counted the boundary of Pomeroon. That it was so counted never appears in the legislation of the States-General, and seems expressly precluded by the terms ("the territory of the State, extending . . . to beyond the river Waini, not far from the mouth of the river Orinoco") of the remonstrance addressed to the States-General to Spain in 1769.

There result, then, from this review of the legislation of the States-General, the conclusions:

1. That neither in any charter of the Dutch West India Company, not in any "reaffirmation" or extension of any charter, is there mention of the Orinoco as a limit.

2. That in none of the published legislation on behalf of that Company is the Orinoco made a boundary of territorial right, possession, or jurisdiction.

3. That its second and final charter of 1674 seems to exclude the Orinoco from the territorial possessions of the Company.

2. AS TO JURISDICTION.

The original charter of the Dutch West India, in 1621, granted in its second article:

That, further, the aforesaid Company in our name and by our authority, within the limits hereinbefore prescribed, shall have power to make contracts, leagues, and alliances with the princes and natives of the lands therein comprised, as well as to build there any fortresses and defenses, to [provide] governors, troops, and officers of justice, and for other necessary services, for the preservation of the places, maintenance of good order, police, and justice. And, likewise, for the furtherance of trade, to appoint, transfer, remove, or replace, as according to circumstances they shall find proper. Furthermore, they may promote the settlement of fruitful and uninhabited districts, and do everything that the service of these lands (and the) profit and increase of trade shall demand. And they of the Company shall regularly communicate with us, and shall report such contracts and alliances as they shall have made with the aforesaid princes and nations, together with the conditions of the fortresses, defenses, and settlements by them undertaken.

The third article of the charter provides that the States-General shall confirm and commission all governors, and that these, as also the vice-governors, commanders, and officers shall swear allegiance to the States as well as to the Company.

By the fifth article the States promise to supply such troops as may be necessary -- these, however, are to be paid by the Company.

Such are the provisions creating and limiting the territorial jurisdiction of the West India Company. They were never changed. Even in the new charter of 1674 these articles were copied outright, with but one or two corrections in diction.

But as early as 1629 the States-General found it wise to prescribe more definitely for the government of the new territories. On October 13 of that year they issued an "Order of Government, both as to policy and as to justice, in the places conquered and to conquer in the West Indies," explaining that "it has been made clear to us on behalf of the West India Company that for the better direction of affairs it would be useful and serviceable to the said Company that under our authority there should be enacted by the said chartered Company a definite system of government, both as to policy and as to justice, in the place or places (with God's help) to be conquered."

The provision for the protection of the vested rights of "Spaniards, Portuguese, and natives" -- the phrase occurs more than once -- suggests where these conquests were to be made.

"The councilors," says the fifteenth article, "shall further seek at every opportunity to establish friendship, trade, and commerce with neighboring and near-by lords and peoples, also alliances and compacts, to the damage and enfeebling of the King of Spain, his subjects and allies, and to the best furtherance of the common weal of the Company, making the aforesaid treaties on behalf and in the name of the High and Mighty Lords the States-General and of the West India Company; and shall, regarding all these, take first and foremost the advice of the General and Governor." All property of the Jesuits, or of "other convents or colleges of clergy, of what order soever" is to be seized and confiscated to the profit of the Company, just as if belonging to the King of Spain. The twenty-first article provides for "any places, within the limits, situate on the Continent or on the adjoining islands" which may "come to be conquered and possessed."

Again, on April 26, 1634, the States-General, "by advice and deliberation of the Directors of the general chartered West India Company," issued an "Order and. Regulation" -- this time "regarding the settlement and cultivation of the lands and places by the aforesaid Company conquered in Brazil." In this they provide minutely for the government of all such as shall go to dwell "within the limits of the lands and places conquered or yet to conquer in Brazil by the chartered West India Company."

Still again, on August 28, 1636, they further provided for the government of the "conquered captaincies, cities, forts, and places in Brazil;" and yet again, on October 12, 1645, when the capstone was put on their structure by the creation of "the Supreme Government in the lands of Brazil already through God's blessing conquered, or yet to conquer."

For the Government of Guiana, or of any of its colonies, no enactment of the States-General is to be found. The control of its possessions in this quarter seems left wholly to the Company. And in none of these enactments of the States-General, nor yet in any of the explicit codes issued by the Company for the instruction of its servants, have I found any provision for the trade outposts which play such a part in the colonial records of Guiana, or any intimation as to the territorial claims involved in the establishment of these.

It is, however, worth adding that when in 1665, in the controversy over New Netherland, the British ambassador argued that the West India Company's charter was more limited than the patents granted by the English King, the States-General replied that "that granted to the West India Company is as ample as any which the King hath granted or can grant. And the Company is expressly authorized by the second article of its charter to plant colonies, occupy lands, and furthermore, as fully and amply as any patent from the King can extend, and such is expressly declared under the Great Seal of the State."

From this survey of the charters of the Company and of the other legislation of the States-General it appears, then, that the Dutch West India Company was charged with ample territorial jurisdiction in all districts which it should conquer or colonize within the limits of its charter. But it does not appear that this territorial jurisdiction was made coextensive with these limits, or that there was ever mention of the river Orinoco in connection therewith.

But there further exist, among the acts of the States-General, certain grants of territory on the on the Guiana coast, made by the West India Company with the concurrence of the States or by the States at the instance of the Company. It remains to ask what of territorial jurisdiction or boundary may be specified or implied by these.

Thus, in 1660, the Dutch West India Company conceded to the German Count of Hanau a strip 30 Dutch miles broad, which they have been quoted as granting "from their territory of Guayana, situated between the river Orinoco and the river Amazons." Unfortunately a careful study of this grant, whose full text is given by the Dutch historian Hartsinck, and which is translated in full by Rodway and Watt, the English historians of British Guiana, fails to find in the document any such clause as that quoted. The phrase actually used is, indeed, full of suggestion of another sort. For the grant reads: . . . "A piece of land situated on the Wild Coast of America, between the river Oronoque and the river of the Amazons," adding the condition, "which His Excellency will be entitled to select, provided that he keeps at least six Dutch miles from other colonies there established or founded by the said chartered West India Company or with its consent. . ."

That the grant implies that the whole Wild Coast was counted by the West India Company open to Dutch colonization can not be questioned. It seems to imply also that there were still on that coast unoccupied stretches of 30 Dutch miles in breadth lying at least six miles distant from the Dutch establishments of Surinam, Berbice, and Essequibo; and that such a stretch might by the Dutch be granted outright, even to a foreigner. But it does not assert an exclusive Dutch right to colonize that coast; and it must in this connection be constantly remembered that throughout most of this century the Governments of Great Britain and of France were also freely granting patents of territory on the Guiana coast, and there has been found no record of the slightest Dutch protest against it. Great Britain was, indeed, earlier in the field than the Dutch, the colonies of Leigh and Harcourt antedating any known Dutch settlement on this coast, and the patent to Harcourt covering the whole territory from the Amazon to the Essequibo. It should be added that the colony of the Count of Hanau was a flash in the pan, no attempt ever being made to establish it.

Among the published acts of the States-General I have as yet been able to lay hand on only one other grant of territory in this region. It is a contemporary impression of a "Charter from the High and Mighty States-General relating to the Colony on the Wild Coast of America, under the leadership of the Knight Balthazar Gerbier, Baron Douvily; printed in the year of our Lord 1659." It tells how, on November 15, 1658, the States conceded to the baron "as Patroon the right to erect a colony on the continental Wild Coast of America, in the district of the charter granted to the West India Company. . ." But neither in the "articles of liberties and exemptions," granted him by the Company, nor in the appended "advertisement" setting forth enthusiastically the beauties of the new land, is there any other definition of its location and limits than that it is to be "on the continental Wild Coast of the West Indies, of five miles in breadth, or along the seashore, and further so far inland as shall by the colonists come to be cultivated on the Wild Coast of America, with jurisdiction over the bays lying within the colony, and half [the jurisdiction over] the rivers on the two sides of the aforementioned colony. . ."

From the terms of these grants may unquestionably be inferred the assumption by the Dutch Government of a right to plant colonies, either directly or through the West India Company, in the district known as the Wild Coast. There is, however, in none of them anything to suggest that this was counted exclusively a Dutch right; nor is there in them any claim of sovereignty over this coast as a whole.

I hope for much more from the unprinted records of the Company, which by your instructions I am to examine in Europe.

Respectfully submitted.

George L. Burr.

GENTLEMEN: You have asked me to investigate and report upon "the history of the Dutch and Spanish settlements prior to 1648, including the Spanish missions and the Dutch trading posts and the examination of their respective characters, concluding with a succinct statement as to the actual location, extent, and character of those settlements at the date of the Treaty of Munster."

At the date on which this report is finished (June 11, 1896) I have not received from Professor Burr any information arising from the researches which he has just begun in the Dutch archives; no British "Blue Book" of documents and correspondence has appeared, subsequent to that headed "Venezuela, No. 1 (1896);" nor have I seen any documents emanating from the Venezuelan Government and relating to the above question of later date than those which in the present year were reprinted from "Senate Executive Document No. 226, Fiftieth Congress, first session." Information may soon come from any of these sources of such a character as to modify the conclusions herein expressed. The present report is based upon such printed materials as are accessible in the chief libraries of Washington, New York, Providence, and Boston.

The topic propounded may, for convenience and without injury, be divided into the five following sections or subsidiary questions:

I. The history of Santo Thome to 1648.

II. The question concerning other Spanish settlements.

III. The question of the missions.

IV. The question concerning Dutch posts on the Essequibo and the rivers to the north of it.

V. The question of Point Barima.

The accessible facts respecting these will be discussed in the above order.

I. THE HISTORY OF SANTO THOME

Though no one of the sites successively occupied by this city falls within the disputed territory, it nevertheless seems necessary to treat of its early history, in order to [do] a thorough investigation of the second and third questions mentioned above. Even the proper dating of its foundation has a bearing upon these subsequent inquiries, as has also the statement of its character at different periods.

The town of Santo Thome de la Guayana was founded by Antonio de Berrio, probably in 1591 or 1592. For this statement a sufficient authority is that of Fray Pedro Simon, whose "Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales," Cuenca, 1627, must be often cited in this report. Fray Pedro Simon was provincial of the Franciscans at Bogota, and wrote this volume in 1623 ("Noticias," p. 661), so that he is much more nearly a contemporary than any of those who have suggested other dates. His book is also of excellent quality, and rests, as we know, in part on respectable manuscript authorities of earlier date.

The various other dates stated require but a passing notice. Schomburgk, in his edition of Raleigh's "Discoverie" (p. 79, note 2), says that "Diego de Ordaz found in 1531-32 at the mouth of the Caroni a settlement called Caroao or Carao, which afterwards received the name of Santo Thomas de Guayana." Netscher, in his "Geschiedenis van de Kolonien Essequebo, etc". (p. 20), says that Ordaz founded Santo Thome about 1532. Both statements are very likely derived from a similar remark in Gumilla, "El Orinoco Ilustrado" (p. 9, edition of 1741). But what Simon says (p. 121) is that Ordaz, being at Paria, "sailed to the other bank of the river, and landed at a village called Carao, whose natives received him kindly." This is a different place, and no settlement by Ordaz is mentioned. Gumilla in the same passage places the voyages of Raleigh and Keymis in 1545 and 1546 instead of 1595 and 1596. On the next page he declares that the town was destroyed in 1579 by the Dutch captain Janson; and the assertion is repeated by Caulin in his "Historia Coro-graphica Natural y Evangelica de la Nueva Andalucia," 1779 (p. 9), by Hartsinck, by Humboldt, "Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales" (Vol. II, p. 638), and by Rodway, "Annals of Guiana" (p. 14). The reference is to the expedition of Admiral Adriaen Janszoon Pater, the date of which is certainly 1629. . ; and the whole notion of Santo Thome's existing 1579 doubtless rests, as Professor Burr conjectures, on a misreading of MDLXXIX for MDCXXIX. For the statement of Depons, "Voyage a Terre Ferme" (Vol. III, p. 254), that Berrio founded the town in 1586, I find no authority.

The settlement thus founded in 1591 or 1592 remained for some time a feeble one. Late in 1594 Berrio sent Domingo de Vera to Spain for recruits. (Keymis, "A Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana," 1596, p. 9; Simon, p. 597). Before he returned Sir Walter Raleigh made his celebrated first voyage up the Orinoco, described in his "Discoverie" of 1595. In that book he makes no mention of Santo Thome, though he sailed up the Orinoco to the Caroni. This does not prove that the town was not there, but that he had reasons for not mentioning it; for Keymis, "Relation of the Second Voyage": (p. 6), implies that Raleigh had found and destroyed a settlement when he says: "I answered him, that at our departure we left no Spaniards alive to annoy them." Raleigh himself, in his "Apology" (edition of 1650, p. 29), speaks in 1618 of the Santo Thome of that time as distant so many miles "from the place where Antonio Berro the first Governour, by me taken in my first discovery, had attempted to plant;" and "Newes of Sir Walter Rauleigh," London, 1618, says (pp.42, 43): "Now an entrance in former yeares our Generall did make, as you have read, with that successe that not many before or since hath ever equalled and displanted the first garrisons." At some time in this year 1595 Captain Velasco, who held Trinidad, for Francisco de Vides, governor of Cumana, sent Captain Felipe de Santiago with twenty men to take Santo Thome from Berrio, "taking advantage," says Simon, "of the small number of men whom Berrio had." ("Noticias," p. 600).

Santiago did not carry out his purpose. This encounter between Berrio and Santiago on the banks of the Orinoco may have taken place in the spring of 1595, as represented by Simon, or in the autumn, as represented on page 51 of the British "Blue Book", in the translation of the dispatch of Don Roque de Montes. In any case these passages, confirmed by the statement of Keymis on page 9 of his tract, show that Vides and his partisans had pretensions hostile to those of Berrio. Raleigh in his "Discoverie" (ed. Schomburgk, p. 37) says that Vides and Berrio "were become mortall enimies." Therefore the absence of all mention of Santo Thome from the dispatch of Don Roque de Montes to the King of Spain does not, as is implied on page 4 of the British"Blue Book," line 17 to 20, disprove its existence.

If the town was destroyed by Raleigh, it was shortly reenforced by Domingo de Vera, who brought from Spain a large body of settlers for Trinidad and the Orinoco (Simon, p. 600; Keymis, p. 9). The population of the place rose to 400 men, women, and children. Of 300 who set out for Manoa, nearly all were destroyed. Reenforcements came from Trinidad, but the governor, after a period of sufferings, permitted any who chose to withdraw. (Simon, pp. 606-614.) Keymis, who visited the Orinoco in April, 1596, states (pp. 15, 16) that the Spaniards then had at the mouth of the Caroni a "Rancheria of some twentie or thirtie houses," which Berrio intended to fortify with ordnance, and in which he had about 55 men.

A. Cabeliau, "commies-general" of the Dutch ship " Zeeridder", who visited Santo Thome in the summer of 1598, and whose report to the States-General is printed as an appendix to Volume I of J. K. J. de Jonge's "De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indie," 1862, found there a force of 60 cavalry-men and 100 musketeers.

That the settlement was still small in 1611 is evident from a letter of Sir Thomas Roe to the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, dated at Port of Spain, February 28, 1611, and summarized in the "Calendar of State Papers, Colonial." (Vol I, p. 11.) He says that he has sailed all along the Wild Coast (i.e., Guiana); that it is understood that the King of Spain intends to plant the Orinoco; that men, cattle, and horses are arriving daily to be employed in fortifying the place, raising a new city, and in the conquest of Guiana; but that he (Roe) thinks all will be turned to smoke.

The town had not grown in importance when Raleigh's men destroyed it at the time of his last expedition. In his letter to Carew, 1618 (Edwards's "Raleigh," Vol. II, p. 377), he says: "Her Majesties death, and my lounge imprisonment, gave time to the Spannierds to sett upp a towne of staks, covered with leaves of trees, upon the bancks of Oronoque, which they called 'St. Thome.'" In his "Apology" (pp. 29, 52) he calls it "a Spanish towne or rather a village," "a Wooden Towne, and a kind of a Forte." The leading, and contemporary, Spanish authority makes hardly more of it. Don Diego de Palomeque, says Simon, had 57 men; there was a fort, six cannon, a church, a belfry, a convent of Franciscans. ("Noticias," pp. 637, 640, 643.)

The inhabitants began rebuilding at once upon the withdrawal of Raleigh's men, at the end of January, 1618 (Simon, p. 659), constructing now more than one church, and a convent of Dominicans as well as of Franciscans. A document cited in Caulin ("Historia Coro-graphica," pp. 180, 181) relating to the latter convent shows the place inhabited in April of that year. It existed when Jan de Laet wrote the first edition of his "Beschryvinghe van West Indien," that of 1625, for he gives (p. 487) elaborate sailing directions for the voyage from the Essequibo to Santo Thome, on the authority of a journal which has come int his hands; so also in his edition of 1630 (pp. 591, 592). In both he states that the town had a large tobacco trade with the English and the Dutch, insomuch that sometimes eight or nine Dutch ships or more were in the river at one time. In his Latin edition of 1633 ("Novus Orbis," etc., p. 659) he speaks of this in the past tense, as having existed until the King of Spain forbade under severe penalties such trading with foreigners.

In December, 1629, Santo Thome was attacked by a naval force of the Dutch West India Company under Admiral Adriaen Janszoon Pater, and was sacked and burned; it then consisted of 130 or 140 houses, of slight construction, a church, and a Franciscan convent. (De Laet, "Beschryvinghe van West Indien," edition of 1630, p. 593, and his "Historie ofte Jaerlyck Verhael," p. 166.) According to Document No. 12 in the British "Blue Book," page 56, the place was again taken, sacked, and burned in 1637 by the Dutch and Caribs.

Finally, it appears from Father Pelleprat's "Relation des Missions des PP. De la Compagnie de Jesus dans les Isles, et dans la terre firme de l'Amerique Meridionale," Paris, 1655 (pt. 2, p.9), that at the time of the arrival of Father Denis Mesland in Spanish Guiana, in 1653, Santo Thome had very few inhabitants.

It is evident, then, that at no time between 1591 and 1648 was this Spanish town an important center of population, such as would naturally send out offshoots into the surrounding territory. On the contrary, it must have been, during nearly all these years, a feeble settlement, maintaining its own existence with some difficulty. It is evident also that one's search for evidence of other settlements in Spanish Guiana need not be extended backward beyond the year 1591.

It does not appear necessary to enter at length into the vexed and difficult question of the various sites of Santo Thome. Putting together the statements of Simon (pp. 596, 608), of Keymis (p. 15), and of Cabeliau (in De Jonge, Vol. I, p. 157), it seems clear that the original town was, from 1591 to 1598, at the mouth of the Caroni. Although Simon represents it as still there at the time of Raleigh's expedition of 1618 (p. 641), Raleigh's own expression ("Apology," p. 29) that it was now "twenty mile distant from the place where Antonio Berro . . . had attempted to plant," accords better with all the details which have come down to us respecting the English assault and occupation. These conclusions are also those of Mr. S. R. Gardiner, in his "Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage." (Vol: I, p. 54.) As to the site to which Fernando de Berrio removed the town in 1619, or the site or sites subsequently occupied, down to 1648, it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile or to make definite all the indications given by Simon (pp. 666, 670), De Laet ("Jaerlyck Verhael," p. 166), Gumilla (p. 11), and Caulin (pp. 59, 191), though the last two agree in placing it at the site which it occupied in the middle of the last century. It is sufficient to say that no writer places it at any time at a lower point than this, so that its occupation was never an occupation of a portion of the territory now disputed. Its history has been given for other reasons.

II THE QUESTION OF OTHER SPANISH SETTLEMENTS

There is no perfect evidence of the existence before 1648 of any other Spanish settlement than Santo Thome in the region between the Orinoco and the Essequibo, or of any other than a temporary occupation of any position in that region.

I know of no authority for the statement made by Senor Fortique (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 226, 50th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 29) that "in 1591 the enemies of Spain found towns to ruin in Guiana. The evidence regarding Spanish occupation in Guiana after that date may be stated as follows: An appendix to Raleigh's "Discoverie" contains abstracts of certain Spanish letters from the New World which were taken at sea by Capt. George Popham in 1593 or 1594, and were delivered by him to the Privy Council. Among these is an account which purports to have been sent to the King of Spain to inform him of the formal act by which Domingo de Vera, maestro de campo to Antonio de Berrio, had taken possession for Spain of lands south of the Orinoco. The document is to be found at pages 123-128 in Schomburgk's edition of Raleigh, and is summarized on page 383 of the "Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, 1591-1594". It is dated from the river Orinoco, "in the principall part thereof called Warismero, the 23 of Aprill 1593," and relates, with the signatures of Domingo de Vera and of Rodrigo de Caranca, register of the forces, how Vera had taken formal possession of the land in the name of the King and of Berrio, the governor, at Warismero; then, under successive dates extending to the 4th of May, how the same was done at three points lying inland from the river, the first two leagues inland, the second Carapana's town, the third Ropiawari's town (apparently all these lay near the mouth of the Caroni), crosses being erected and the consent of these chieftains being understood to be given. The march is then traced for a week more, 10 leagues (40 miles) inland from Topiawari's town, but with no statement as to taking possession beyond that place. The document is no doubt substantially authentic, but it indicates possession only as a formal act performed upon the line of march.

In 1595 Raleigh, in his "Discoverie" (Schomburgk's ed., p. 39) says that Berrio "alwaies appointed 10 Spaniards to reside in Carapanas towne" (see also p. 56), while Keymis in 1596 speaks of him as going to Carapana with 15 men, and also of 10 Spaniards as abiding in Winicapora (pp. 10, 18). But Carapana was no doubt very near S. Thome, and the Winicapora is probably the Cano Jose, an affluent of the Orinoco only a few miles long. These phrases, therefore, do not indicate any occupation of portions of the territory now disputed. Upon the same page with the passage just mentioned Raleigh says that the Spaniards "used in Canoas to passe to the rivers of Barema, Pawroma, and Dissequebe, which are on the south side of the mouth of Orenoque, and there buie women and children from the Canibals," but says nothing to support Senor Fortique's statement that Raleigh wrote that the Spaniards "occupied the rivers Barima, Moroco, and Pumaron" or "that their domination extended to the Essequibo." (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 226, 50th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 29.)

Simon (pp. 606, 607) represents the Spaniards of S. Thome, soon after the arrival of the reinforcements under Domingo de Vera, as proceeding to make excursions in the vicinity, trading with the natives, but not as making any other settlements. He also narrates at length (pp. 608-610) the fortunes of a body of 300 who set out for Manoa, but of whom all but about 30 were soon destroyed by the Indians, and whose expedition effected nothing.

Keymis, against a marginal date of September (1595), mentions another Spanish expedition, his account of which should be cited textually, because of the inferences which, as will be seen, have been drawn from distorted versions of it. He says (pp. 8, 9): "In Moruga it was, that they (the Spaniards) hunted Wareo and his people, about halfe a yeere since. . . They were not of Anthonie de Berreo his companie, that followed this chase, but were the Spaniardes of Marguerita, and the Caraccas." It is sufficient for the present purpose to say that this is no evidence of Spanish occupation of the Moruca.

In April, 1597, Leonard Berrie, who conducted a third voyage for Raleigh, was in the Corentyn. Thomas Masham, who accompanied him and wrote the account of the voyage in Hakluyt (edition of 1811, Vol. IV), says that he there learned from an Indian that in the Essequibo "there were some 300 Spaniards, which for the most part now are destroyed and dead" (p.193). On May 4, he says (p. 194): "It was reported that the Spaniardes were gonne out of Desekebe, which was not so. . . The next night wee had newes brought . . . that there were tenned canoas of Spaniardes in the mouth of Corintine . . . who went along the coast to buy bread and other victuals for them in Orenoque, Marowgo, and Deskebe." The phrase must probably be interpreted as meaning "for those who were in the Orinoco, the Moruca, and the Essequibo." Under this interpretation the passages cited from Masham seem to imply a temporary occupation in the Essequibo at this time. This may be the explanation of the emblem carved in stone over the gate of the fort at Kykoveral, which Hartsinck ("Beschrijvinge van Guiana," p. 262) declared to be the Portuguese arms, and to be evidence of previous Portuguese occupation, but which Netscher (p. 337), who has seen it, declares to be simply a cross, and to be more probably of Spanish origin, since the Portuguese hardly came so far west.

The occupation, if there was a distinct occupation, was temporary. De Laet, in his "Beschryvinghe van West Indien," edition of 1625, says (p. 474): "The Spaniards had here (i.e., in the Essequibo) some people in the year 1591 (he means 1597) according to the account of Thomas Masham, but they seem to have come to nothing again." In his edition of 1630 he says, more decidedly, that the settlement had come to naught (p. 577).

But of more importance are the observations of A. Cabeliau in 1598, already mentioned. His narrative is detailed, clear, and businesslike. In company with two other ships that he found on the Guiana coast, he visited all the rivers between the Wiapoco and the Orinoco; he names, among others, the Essequibo, the Pomeroon, and the Moruca. Into these rivers they did not sail, partly "because there was not much to get there, as the Indians informed us. . . ; so they only coasted along the land in this part, in order to have knowledge of it. As Cabeliau traded freely and eagerly with the Spaniards of Santo Thome, and was given the guidance of the governor's miner in searching around there for Raleigh's mines, it is extremely unlikely that when he coasted along past the Essequibo with the above-mentioned impressions of it, there were any Spaniards there. Remarks which he makes when speaking of the soldiers at Santo Thome, in a passage already adduced, have an important bearing on the question of other settlements. He says that these soldiers "daily seek to conquer the gold-rich Guiana, but can not do it by means of the forts as yet built there, not by any means of friendship, because the nation called Caribs violently oppose them every day . . . , and the Spaniards, seeing that they can not win anything there, have begun to make a road, about six days' journey south of the river Orinoco, in the mountain range of Guiana, through the rocks and hill, about 1,600 stadia long, . . . and think by these means to conquer it. . ." (The passage is on De Jonge, "Opkomst," etc., Vol. I, p. 156-159.) If a road 200 English miles long is meant, it would, if extended in certain directions southerly from the Orinoco at Santo Thome, run into the territory now in dispute.

The letter of Sir Thomas Roe, already mentioned, may fairly be thought to indicate that there were no Spanish settlements, or none of any account, on the coast of Guiana in 1611.

Raleigh, in a letter supposed to be of the year 1612 (Edwards's "Raleigh," Vol. II, p. 338), speaks of a captain "who came from Orenoke this last spring, and was oftentimes ashore att St. Thome, where the Spaniards inhabite," words which seem to imply that they at that time had but that one settlement. In his journal of his voyage of 1617 (Schomburgk's Raleigh's "Discoverie," p. 203), he says of the Essequibo that "the Spaniards of Orenoke had dayly recourse" to it. But in that journal and in the other literature of this last voyage nothing points to any settlements of Spaniards in this region except at Santo Thome, while many passages convey an implication that that was their sole town. One instance to the contrary should be mentioned. In "A declaration of the Demeanor and Cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, as well in his Voyage, as in, and sithence his Returne," which King James I published in 1618 for public justification of his course, "although Kings be not bound to give Account of their Actions to any but God alone," we read (on p. 30), "And yet it is confessed by all, that the parts of Guiana, where St. Thome was scituate, were planted by Spaniards, who had divers Townes in the same tract, with some Indians intermixed, that are their Vasslas." But it is doubtful whether great weight should be given to this testimony.

On the other hand, it is observable that Don Diego de Palomeque, on the approach of Raleigh's men, sent a man "to warn and call those who were on their estates (estancias) at more or less distance from the city" (Simon, p. 637), but that he did not send for remoter aid. Those who fled from the town had apparently no neighboring settlement to which to flee (p. 641). When the authorities of the town, Palomeque being dead, sent for aid, it was to Bogota (p. 650). Simon prints at length (pp. 651-658) the instructions which Don Juan de Borja, president of the audiencia of Santa Fe, gave to Captain Diego Martin, whom, in response to this appeal, he sent with a force for the succor of Santo Thome -- instructions dated May 28, 1618. Among all the directions which he gives him for his guidance in the performance of this remote and uncertain task, there is no hint of the existence in Guiana of any other Spanish settlements than Santo Thome, although, if there had been any such, the president would surely have been anxious for their protection also.

Late in 1619 or early in 1620, the Arwaccas having slain six Spaniards, Fernando de Berrrio sent out Captain Gernonimo de Grados from Santo Thome to chastise them. He went into the Barima and compelled the natives to submit and to give him provisions; then into the Essequibo, where he did the same; then into the "Verius." At the mouth of the Essequibo, on his return thither, he found six foreign ships . . . manned by Englishmen, who seized him and sent word to Berrio to ransom him for 30 quintals of tobacco, March, 1620. In Simon's account of this affair ("Noticias," pp. 664-666) there is no hint of any Spanish town in these rivers, and it appears most probably from the narrative that there was not. In speaking of Pater's expedition of 1629 De Laet ("Jaerlyck Verhael," pp. 165, 166) coveys the same implication, making no mention of any other Spanish town than S. Thome, though he gives a minute account of almost every day's progress of the fleet. The same is true of the various editions of his description of the West Indies, Dutch, Latin, and French, of 1625, 1630, 1633, and 1640. He mentions no settlements of Europeans from the Essequibo to Santo Thome, though he gives elaborate sailing direction for the whole route (pp. 487, 591, 659, 601 of the respective editions). Senor Fortique's statement ("Senate Executive Document No. 226," p. 29) that De Laet found the Moroco and the Pumeron occupied by Spain before 1648 is, so far as I know, quite without foundation.

In a document of the year 1633 or 1634 the Dutch West India Company, according to the translation in the "New York Colonial Documents" (Vol. I, p. 66), say: "From New Spain, eastward, . . . to beyond Trinidad . . . are all settled by Spaniards; except next to these, the Guiana country, which we call the Wild Coast; this coast and divers rivers are inhabited by free Indians, and still unsettled; . . . but . . . all the trade which exists there, can easily be carried on with two or three ships a year."

Heylin's "Cosmographie," 1652, a book which enjoyed a certain authority, speaks of Santo Thome as "the only Town of all Guiana possessed by the Spaniards."

III. THE QUESTION OF THE MISSIONS

Even if there were, within the period before the date of the Treaty of Munster, no occupation of Guiana by Spanish lay-men, it would be entirely possible that settlements of a character to give title under that treaty might have been founded by missionaries. It therefore becomes necessary to examine all the evidences of missionary activity in the Orinoco region between 1591 and 1648.

Caulin ("Historia Coro-graphica," p. 9) declares that Fathers Llauri and Vergara came into the province of Guayana in 1576 and labored there until 1579, when they were obliged to withdraw by reason of the invasion effected by the Dutch captain Janson. But the expedition of Janson (Adriaen Janszoon Pater) occurred in 1629, as has already been seen, and the mission of Fathers Llauri and Vergara, as will be shown on better evidence later, began in 1664.

Fray Pedro Simon, who 30 years later was provincial of the Franciscans in the province of Santa Fe, to which Santo Thome originally belonged, tells us ("Noticias," p. 606) that a Franciscan, Fray Domingo de Santa Agueda, accompanied Berrio in all his discoveries and in the founding of Santo Thome. Another friar, Francisco Carillo, accompanied Domingo de Vera in his march of 1593, according to the Popham document already cited. (Schomburgk's Raleigh's "Discoverie," pp. 124, 125; "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1591-1594," p. 383.)

When Domingo de Vera in 1595, or perhaps in 1596, returned from Spain with reenforcements for Berrio, he brought with him ten clergymen and twelve Franciscan friars. Two of the secular clergy and five of the friars went at once to Santo Thome, where Fray Domingo de Santa Agueda welcomed the five Franciscans into a convent which he had founded, "making six," says Simon explicitly. ("Noticias," pp. 599, 606.) It appears from this that Santo Thome had not hitherto been a center of missionary propaganda, and there is no evidence that any friars were in Guiana outside of the town. The expedition toward Manoa was accompanied by four friars, but its fatal termination precludes the thought of their having then established mission stations.

Simon, in his "Noticias Historialaes" (p. 614), describes the subsequent fortunes of eight of these ecclesiastics. Two of them, permitted by Berrio to withdraw at the time of depression ensuing upon the Manoa expedition, perished on their way in the delta of the Orinoco; two others in their voyage from Trinidad to Margarita; three others succeeded in returning to Europe, and three, all Franciscans, made their way up to New Granada. Simon would surely obtain information directly or indirectly from these, living as he did at the capital of that kingdom, and, as a good Franciscan, would not have failed to make mention of any extensive missionary labors on their part. But he makes no mention of any missions in Guiana outside of Santo Thome down to the close of this volume, which was written in 1623.

In 1617 the convent was transferred from the jurisdiction of the province of Santa Fe to that of the province of Caracas, and on April 25, 1618, the transfer was effected at Santo Thome. (Caulin, "Historia Coro-graphica," p. 180.) At the time of the attack by Raleigh's men in January of that year, Padre Francisco de Leuro, who seems to have been both parish priest and head of the convent, was slain. The authorities of the town, in their appeal to the audiencia of Santa Fe, say that they have but one priest remaining. In the subsequent rebuilding both a Franciscan and a Dominican convent were erected; but there was none but the Franciscan there at the time when the town was assailed by Pater in 1629. (Simon, pp. 650, 659; De Laet, "Beschryvinghe van West Indien," edition of 1630, p. 593; "Novus Orbis," 1633, p. 659; "Nouveau Monde," 1640, p. 601.)

I have found no other indications of Franciscan activity in Guiana than these, which carry with them no implication of the existence of other missionary stations than Santo Thome itself.

In the Jesuit literature of the time and of subsequent years ("Relations," "Litterae Annuae," etc.) I have found but one indication of the presence of a Jesuit in Spanish Guiana before 1648, and I understood Professor Burr that he had found no other, in the libraries in which he had searched, than this same one. In the "Annuae Litterae" for 1652, namely, in the portion devoted to the occurrences in the province of New Granada from 1642 to 1652, inclusive, one section (p. 185) consists of a list of those who have died. Among the entries we find this: "In the Mission of Guayana, where scarcely any harvest responds to labor, however distressing, Father Andreas Ignatius, head of that mission, a man of obedience and heroic zeal, and a professed of the four vows, fell at that glorious and most destitute post..." Of this Father Andreas Ignatius I have found no other trace in Jesuit literature.

The phrase (head of Mission) . . . above, would naturally be held to imply the presence of several Jesuits in Guiana at this time. Yet when, September 29, 1652, one who is called "Dom Frantique," an officer of the governor Don Martin de Mendoza, writes to Father Dionysius Meland (or Mesland) reinforcing the governor's invitation to him to come over from the French possessions to Santo Thome, he says: "We have here no member of a religious order. . ."

Cassani, the historian of the Jesuit province, begins the story of Jesuit activity in the regions of the lower Orinoco with the year 1659. He relates how in that year Father Antonio de Monteverde, a Fleming, came from Cayenne to the Orinoco and then made his way up the river to the mission of his order in the llanos. He persuaded the provincial authorities in Santa Fe to take religious possession of the lower Orinoco, and Fathers Vergara and Llauri were sent thither in 1664. Monteverde and Mesland, "a tried man," were in the same year assigned to the mission in the llanos. Llauri and Vergara found the Spaniards of Guiana in a condition of spiritual destitution. (Cassani, "Historia de la Provincia de la Compania de Jesus del Nuevo Reyno de Granada," 1741, pp. 81, 82, 110, 114, 128.) Gumilla, in his "El Orinoco Ilustrado" (p. 11), also a Jesuit, has no earlier origin of Jesuit missions in Guiana to suggest.

There is, then, among the accessible materials respecting the Jesuits no evidence to support the notion of settlements established by them in the territory now disputed. Of other than Franciscan and Jesuit missionary efforts in the region I have found no trace save the mention of the Dominican convent, apparently short-lived, at Santo Thome.

IV. THE QUESTION CONCERNING DUTCH POSTS

It seems susceptible of demonstration that the Dutch had no settlements in the northwestern portions of Guiana before the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Hartsinck, "Beschrijving van Guyana," says that as early as 1580 Dutch vessels traded along this coast. But the remark is no doubt due, as De Jonge has remarked ("Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag," Vol. I, p. 46, note), to a misconstruction of a remark of De Laet in his "Beschryvinghe van West Indien" (on p. 487 in the edition of 1625). It is not necessary to explain the misconstruction, as neither Hartsinck nor De Laet refers to settlement, but only to voyaging and trade.

The British "Blue Book" (p. 4) declares that "there is abundant evidence coming from Spanish sources that during the latter half of the century, prior to 1590, the Dutch had established themselves on the coast of Guiana." No such evidence is brought forward, however, and the marginal reference is a general reference to the entire correspondence of a whole province with the Spanish Government during a period of a hundred and five years. Until such evidence is adduced, the statement must, on grounds which will presently be mentioned, be regarded as of hardly more weight than that which preceded it in the sentence, that "Dutch appear to have been the first who, in the early part of the sixteenth century, turned their attention to Guiana."

Not better supported is statement immediately following upon the same page, that "in 1595 the English explorer, Capt. Charles Leigh, found the Dutch established near the mouth of the Orinoco, a fact which is confirmed from Spanish sources." The Spanish sources are neither quoted nor mentioned. The marginal reference is to Purchas's Pilgrims, pages 1250-1255. Now, the letter of Charles Leigh printed of page 1254 of Purchas is dated July 2, 1604, and relates to his voyage of that time, and not to that of 1595, from which no letter is known to have survived. It speaks of Dutchmen in the river Wiapoco, far to the eastward of the disputed territory, and not in the Orinoco. Moreover, it says simply: "At my arrival here I found a Dutch Shippe, and sithence here hath arrived another, they buy up all the Flaxe they can get." No mention of any Dutch settlement is made, either here or elsewhere in Leigh's letter. Neither is any such story to be found in the narratives of Leigh's companions. Their accounts agree with his. "This Sims," says Master John Wilson, "was Masters mate of the Holland Shippe which Captain Lee found in the River of Wiapoco at his first at his first arrivall there" (p. 1264).

Next in chronological order comes the statement, repeated in "Senate Executive Document No. 226," that in 1596 the Spaniards drove out a body of Dutch colonists from the Essequibo. This is most likely derived from Hartsinck, who says that the Netherlanders must have settled early on the Essequibo, for the Spaniards already in 1596 drove them out from there. . . The genealogy of this statement can apparently be traced. Hartsinck gives as his authority Martiniere's "Grand Dictionnaire Geographique," 1738. Martiniere probably got it from some edition of Blaeu. Blaeu got if from De Laet, and De Laet from Keymis. But what Keymis said was ("Relation of the Second Voyage," 1596, pp. 8, 9): "In Moruga it was, that they (the Spaniards) hunted Wareo and his people, about halfe a yeere since [margin, September]. . . They were not of Anthonie de Berreo his companie, that followed this chase, but were the Spaniardes of Margerita and the Caraccas." In other words, certain Spaniards drove out certain Indians from the district of the Moruca. Jan de Laet's account of the affair is, in his edition of 1625, the following (p. 475): . . "the Moruca, where the Spaniards of Margarita and Caracas drove out the savages in the year 1596, with the help of the Arwacas. " His second edition, 1630, reads the same (p. 577), save for a gloss upon the name Moruga, "Moruga, or, as our people call it, Ammegore." In his Latin edition of 1633 he gives the same account (p. 649)... .

From this harmless rhetorical addition about "the homes of their ancestors" the transition was easy to the text as we find it in the French edition of 1640 (p. 590). . . : "Moruga (which our people call Ammegore) the inhabitants of which the Spaniards from Margarita and Caracas drove out from the land of their ancestors (or predecessors) by the aid of the Arwaccas, in the year 1596." Blaeu ("Douzienne Volume de la Geographie Blavianne," Amsterdam, 1667, p. 292) copies the words of the French text exactly, save that, perhaps in order to be more impersonal, he substitutes "the Dutch" for "our people." . . . Martiniere, in his "Grand Dictionnaire Geographique" (T. IV, p. 138, s. v. Essequebe), varies the phrase still further. After mentioning the Moruga, he says: "The Dutch give to this last the name of Ammegore. In 1596 the Spaniards from Margarita and Caracas drove out from the land of their predecessors those who lived on the banks of this river, using for this purpose the aid of the Arwaccas." . . . After all these little successive modifications the passage, even as it stands in Martiniere, does not declare that the Spaniards drove out Dutch inhabitants of the Moruga. But, the mention of the Dutch once introduced, it is easy to see how an inaccurate writer might confuse them with the [French word] "predecesseurs," might, for instance, in the extract just given take "Dutch" to be the grammatical antecedent of "those," and so might suppose the sense to be that the Spaniards drove out "those Dutchmen who lived on the banks of" the Moruga. Evidently this is just what Hartsinck did. Thus the evidence of occupation in 1596 disappears.

The British "Blue Book," on page 4, says that "Ibarguen in 1597 visited San Thome; he also visited the Essequibo and reported 'white men,' who can be shown to have been the Dutch, to be settled high up that river." For this, a vague reference to the letters of the province of Cumana in the archives of the Indies during a period of one hundred and thirteen years is given, but no text.

The notion that the Dutch had settlements in the Essequibo at this time is plainly refuted by the narrative of A. Cabeliau, already described. Not only does it seem certain that if there had been Dutch settlements in that river he would have known of and visited them, but he distinctly declares, in his report to the States-General (De Jonge, Vol. I, p. 160), that in his voyage along this coast he and his companions had discovered, found, and visited more than twenty-four rivers, many islands in the rivers, and other various harbors, "which have not been known or visited by our nation, and, what is more, have not been described or discovered in any charts or cosmographies before the time of our voyage." . . . Moreover, the conscientious De Jonge found no evidence in the Dutch archives of settlement prior to the seventeenth century.

As to the Dutch settlements made in the first half of that century, much confusion has been introduced into the subject by Hartsinck, who on page 207 of his "Beschrijvinge van Guiana" describes Nova Zelandia and Fort ter Hooge as situated on the Essequibo and identifies the latter with Kykoveral, at the juncture of the Cayuni and the Mazaruni, while on page 259 he describes Nieuw Zeeland, Nieuw Middleburg, and the Huis ter Hooge as situated on the Pomeroon. But Hartsinck is not a first-hand authority for the period before 1648, nor are, apparently, his sources. It is best to go back first to such authorities as seem incontestable, and, moreover, first to consider the facts respecting the Essequibo.

There can be no doubt that the Dutch West India Company had an establishment on the Essequibo in 1626. A resolution of the Zeeland Chamber of the Company, of December 10 in that year, permits Jacob Canyn to retire from his position at Isekepe, while another, of August 23, 1627, shows Jan van der Goes as an agent of theirs in that region. (Netscher, p. 61.)

Earlier dates have been suggested, but on less solid grounds. In the years 1750 and 1751 the Zeeland Chamber of the Dutch West India Company had a controversy with the other members, claiming the colony on the Essequibo as exclusively theirs. In a memorial of the States of Zeeland and the Zeeland Chamber to the States-General, in 1750 (printed in Jacobus Kok's "Vaderlandsch Woordenboek," 1785, Vol. XIV, s. v. Essequebo), those bodies say: "The States of Zeeland are always considered and called the patrons and founders of the colonies on the mainland of America, between Cape Orange and the river Orinoco, and especially of that of Essequibo, known to your Excellencies under the name of Nova Zelandia, which colony was already known and visited by the Zeeland Chamber at the time of the granting of the charter of 1621; witness the old books and registers, and among others a journal book of 1627, in continuation of that kept by Conijn in Essequibo, giving an account of his administration to the managers of Guiana in Zeeland Chamber to the States-General in 1751 ("Tegenwoordige Staat van Amerika," 1767, p. 661); Hartsinck, p. 234, makes a similar assertion, that "at the first beginning of the West India Company in 1621 the river Essequibo was noticed as a colony already established, strengthened by a fortress then called Fort ter Hooge . . . but soon after named Kykoveral." . . . But this is assertion made long after.

Nearer in point of time, but open to objection on other grounds, is the testimony of a paper among the Sloane manuscripts in the British Museum, of which portions (apparently nearly the whole) are printed in the Rev. H. V. P. Bronkhurst's "The Colony of British Guyana and its Labouring Population," London, 1883 (pp. 45-53). It appears to be of the year 1668, and is anonymous. "The sixth colony," the author says, "was undertaken by one Captain Gromweagle, a Dutchman, that had served the Spaniard in Oranoque, but understanding a company of merchants of Zealand had before undertaken a voyage to Guiana and attempted a settlement there" (this no doubt refers to a preceding paragraph, which notes an abortive settlement of Zeelanders at Cayenne in 1615), "he deserted the Spanish service, and tendered himself to his own country, which was accepted, and he dispatched from Zealand, anno 1616, with two ships and a galliot, and was the first man that took firm footing on Guiana by the good likeing of the natives, whose humours the gentleman perfectly understood. He erected a forte on a small island thirty leagues up the river Dissekeeb, which looked into two great branches of the famous river. All his time the Colony flourished; . . . he was a great friend of all new colonies of Christians of what nation soever, and Barbados oweth its first assistance, both for food and trade, to this man's special kindness, anno 1627, at which time they were in a miserable condition; he dyed anno 1664, and in the 83d year of his age, a wealthy man, having been Governor of that Colonie forty-eight years. In this Colonie the authour had the good fortune to meet with some ingenious observations of the former Governor, of what had been transacted in Guiana in his time, to whom the world is obliged for many particulars of this story." A footnote relates how Capt. Thomas Powell, governor of Barbados from 1625 to 1628, "having understood the Dutch had a plantation in the River Dissekeeb," sent to his old friend Captain Gromweagle for aid, and how Gromweagle "persuaded a family of Arawacoes, consisting of forty persons, to attend Powell to Barbados, to learn the English to plant," etc. (Bronkhurst, pp. 46-48.)

The author of this paper can be proved to have been Maj, John Scott, somewhat famous in the history of Long Island and of New Netherland down to 1665. For he says (id., p. 50): "The same year [1665] in the month of October, the author having been commisionated Commander-in-chief of a small fleet and a regiment of soldiers, for the attack of Tobago, and several other settlements in the hands of the Netherlanders in Guiana, as Moroco, Wacopou, Bowroome, and Dissekeeb, and having touched at Tobago, in less than six months had the good fortune to be in possession of those countries." Now by reference to the "Calendars of State Papers, Colonial" (Vol. V. pp. 481, 529, 534), it will be seen, both by Scott's testimony and by that of another, that he was commander of this expedition. John Scott (see the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. VI, pp. 66-74) has not the highest reputation. Lord Willoughby writes to Secretary Williamson ("Calendars," p. 540) that Scott has perchance told Williamson some truth, but not all gospel. Netscher, to whom the document is anonymous, declares the while Aert Ariaenszoon Groenewegel (Scott's "Captain Gromweagle") was commandant on the Essequibo from 1657 to 1666, he certainly did not command there for forty-eight years. He also says, with justice, that the paper is inaccurate in other parts ("Geschiedenis," pp. 42, 43, 358). Yet it seems difficult altogether to discredit it. The Zeeland expedition of 1615 is historical. (British "Blue Book," p. 53, No. 8.) The passage regarding Barbados receives independent confirmation from a contemporary source, "The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith," London, 1630, in chapter 26 of which we read concerning Barbados: "The first planters brought thither by Captaine Henry Powel, were forty English, with seven or eight Negroes; then he went to Disacuba in the maine, where he got thirty Indians, men, women, and children, of the Arawacos."

The indications given by Netscher and, in the last century, by the Zeelanders as to what is or was in the Dutch archives, coupled with the statements of Scott and Smith, are at any rate sufficient to show that by 1627 the Dutch had an establishment, probably Kykoveral, on the Essequibo, though De Laet makes no mention of any in his editions of 1625, 1630, or 1633.

The Zeeland memorial of 1750, already cited, sets forth (Kok. Vol. XIV, p. 405) that when, in 1632, the majority of the Nineteen of the West India Company wished to abandon the Essequibo colony, the Zeeland Chamber protested, resolved to continue it, and took the necessary measures. Reference is made to the records of their meetings of April 8, June 17 and 24, 1632, February 13 and June 29, 1634. In the latter year David Pieterszoon de Vries was, in the early days of November, at the mouth of the "Timmerarie" (Demerara). While he was lying there he was visited by Jan van der Goes, who came over in a canoe from the "Isekebie" (Essequibo), where he was chief commander for the West India Company. . . (De Vries, "Korte Historiael," 1655, p. 135). This Jan van der Goes has been mentioned above, and is named by Netscher as commander on the Essequibo at this time. The Zeeland memorial of 1750 says that his actions and his plans for the development of trade and the discovery of silver mines may be seen by examining the records of the Zeeland Chamber for April 20, May 21, 1637, February 21, April 18, 1638, April 12, June 23, and October 18, 1640, but does not quote these passages.

As to the existence of the colony on the Essequibo from 1640 to 1648, the printed sources which I have examined offer no more than a probability of its continuance. Nor, unless Scott be trusted, has any evidence presented itself which would show where on the Essequibo was situated the Dutch colony -- save evidence a century later.

Nor have I, if one document be set aside, seen any evidence that the Dutch before 1648 occupied any post or posts west of the Essequibo. The documents, of date 1613 and 1614, given in the British "Blue Book" (p. 52), show only that the Dutch were reported to have three or four settlements somewhere between the Amazon or Wiapoco and the Orinoco. Hartsinck, indeed (p. 259), speaks of Nieuw Zeeland, Nieuw Middleburg and the Huis ter Hooge as situated on the Pomaroon, and as destroyed by the English in 1666. But he does not say that they were founded before 1648, and Scott, who conquered them in 1666, says distinctly that the colony "in the rivers Borowma, Wacopou, and Moroca" was settled by Zeelanders "from Tobago, anno 1650" (in Bronkhurst, p. 48). It is true that the name of New Zeeland appears earlier, according to the Zeeland Chamber, but it appears chiefly associated with the Essequibo, and as the name of a region or district rather than of a town, as is plain from a passage in this same Zeeland memorial, which also explains the origin of Nieuw Middleburg. (Kok, Vol. XIV, p. 409.) From what has been said, the memorialists declare, it will appear what pains the Zeelanders have expended on their fosterling, Nieuw Zeeland, and had it not been for the English war it would certainly have "become one of the most flourish colonies in America, for one Cornlis Goliath had, in the year 1658, made and brought over a new map of the district and formed a plan to build a town, Nieuw Middleburg, there; but New Zeeland could not obtain that fortune, but by the sword of the enemy" became desolated . . . etc." At a later time Nieuw Zeeland was, I understand, the name of a town near the Pomeroon. As for "ter Hooge," the Zeeland petition of 1751, which Hartsinck quotes (p. 234), may be right in saying that in 1621 there was a Fort der Hooge on the Essequibo, and Hartsinck himself may also be right in saying (p. 259) that in 1666 there was a Huis ter Hooge on the Pomerun.

In the British "Blue Book" (p. 56) a document is given, dated 1637, which gives information of the sacking and burning of Santo Thome by a Dutch force from "Amacuro Esquibo, and Bervis." I can only remark that, in the absence on the Spanish text, its meaning is uncertain, because in that period the names Amacura and Moruga were sometimes confounded. Thus in the French edition of De Laet ("Nouveau Monde," 1640) we read, on page 590, "Moruga," . . . and on page 602 "Amagore" . . . i.e., in the one case "Moruga, which our people call Ammegore," and in the other "Ammegore, which I suspect to be that which Keymis calls Amaeur." Both localities are within the disputed territory.

V. THE QUESTION OF POINT BARIMA

Hartsinck says, but without giving a date, that the Dutch formerly . . . had a post on this river (p. 257). The only evidence on the matter, with respect to the period before 1648, which I have anywhere found consists of the two following bits:

Fray Pedro Simon ("Noticias Historiales," p. 664) says that in 1619, or soon after Geronimo de Grados went into the river Baruma, which is the first in those provinces where the Arwaccas inhabit (probably therefore the Barima), and compelled the natives to yield submission and to give him provisions. This is unfavorable to the notion of a Dutch occupation or post, as far as it goes.

Father Pelleprat ("Relation des Missions," pt. 2, p. 112) says that the savages of the river Barima told him that they had already built a fort, in which the French might be lodged as soon as they had arrived. . . This was some time between 1652 and 1655, and the same remark may be made with regard to it.

It should be added that the maps which I have seen in no case indicate any towns or posts in this region prior to 1648 within the disputed boundaries.

The results of the investigation may be briefly summed up as follows: I find no evidence of any Spanish occupation of the disputed territory in 1648, nor of any but temporary occupation of any portion of it before that time. I find no certain evidence of any Dutch occupation in 1648 northward or westward of the Essequibo and Kykoveral, unless one thinks it proper to rely on the translation of Document No. 12 (with inclosure) in the British "Blue Book," page 26. I find no evidence of occupation of Point Barima before 1648.

Respectfully submitted.