CHAPTER I.

GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE CONTROVERSY.

The purpose of the Treaty by which this high Tribunal has been constituted is to make "a speedy and final settlement" of a boundary dispute of long standing, which arose in Guiana between the Kingdom of Spain and the Netherlands, and which was left unsettled by them at the time of the acquisition of their territories by their successors in title, Venezuela and Great Britain. Neither the Netherlands nor Spain is a party to the present controversy.

The original title of Spain to Guiana, that is to say, the territory between the Orinoco and the Amazon, rested upon discovery and occupation.

The mainland of South America was discovered by Columbus in 1498 in this very region. In the following years his lieutenants explored the coast between the Amazon and the Orinoco. During the first quarter of the sixteenth century, charters were granted and settlements established by Spain in various parts of South America, the city of Cumaná, a short distance to the west of the Orinoco, being one of the most ancient.

In 1530, a grant of Guiana was made by the Spanish Crown to Diego de Ordaz. The charter defined the grant as including the coast from the Orinoco to the Amazon. In 1531, Ordaz, in command of an expedition, took possession under his charter, ascending the Orinoco for six hundred miles. In 1537, his lieutenant, Herrera, ascended the Orinoco still further.

Many other Spanish expeditions are recorded during the sixteenth century, the last and most important of them being that of Antonio de Berrio, which started in 1582 from Santa Fé, the capital of the New Kingdom of Granada, and proceeded down the Meta and the Orinoco, finally establishing settlements on the island of Trinidad and at Santo Thome, on the east or south bank of the Orinoco, and therefore in the territory of Guiana, in 1591. Berrio was appointed by the King of Spain, Governor and Captain-General of Guiana, and the boundaries of his province were defined as the Orinoco and the Amazon, and included also the island of Trinidad. In 1595, Vera, Berrio's principal lieutenant, brought out an expedition from Spain, numbering two thousand persons, as colonists, soldiers and missionaries.

During the ten years following the foundation of Santo Thome expeditions were made from time to time and at various points along the coast of Guiana and in the interior, of which formal possession was taken with solemn ceremonies by Berrio. The Essequibo is mentioned among the points frequented by Berrio's lieutenants. It was early settled by the Spaniards, and supplies of provisions for Santo Thome and Trinidad were obtained from there. Trade was carried on at that point and in the intervening territory of Barima and Moruca.

In 1581 the Netherlands formally renounced the sovereignty of Spain, of which they had until that time been the vassals, and the war then raging between the two countries continued until 1648, with an interval of truce from 1609 to 1621.

The first mention of a Dutch voyage to Guiana was in 1598, when a trading vessel of the Dutch ascended the Orinoco to Santo Thome. The Dutchman Cabeliau took part in the voyage and gave an account of it. It was purely a mercantile venture.

No Dutch settlement is mentioned on the coast of Guiana prior to 1613, in which year the Spaniards surprised and destroyed their settlement upon the river Corentin. No Dutch settlement is known at this period west of the Corentin; but in 1615

there was a settlement of Spaniards, who were engaged in tilling the soil in Essequibo.

In 1621, the truce having come to an end, the Dutch West India Company was chartered by the Netherlands for the purpose of concentrating Dutch trade and maritime enterprise in connection with both continents of America in the hands of a single company. About 1626 the company sent persons to "lie" in the river Essequibo, and at some time within the next eighteen years a fort was built upon the site of an earlier Spanish fort on the island of Kykoveral, situated in the Mazaruni River, close to the point at which it empties into the Essequibo.

By the Treaty of Munster (1648), at the end of the war, Spain acknowledged the independence of the Netherlands, and released and confirmed the possession to them of the places which they at that date "held and possessed." At that date the Dutch held and possessed several places in the territory of Guiana, such as Surinam, Berbice, and Essequibo. During the war they had also twice successfully attacked and sacked Santo Thome, the Spanish capital of Guiana. As far as the evidence shows, however, the westernmost of the places held or possessed by the Dutch at the date of the Treaty was the fort at Kykoveral.

Upon the facts, Venezuela contends that an original title was established and perfected by Spain to the whole of Guiana by discovery and occupation; that by the Treaty of Munster, at the close of the Thirty Years' War, Spain confirmed the Dutch title to the places they held and possessed at the date of the Treaty, which places they had acquired by conquest during the war, and that the westernmost of the places so held and possessed was the island of Kykoveral, to which access from the sea was only obtained by the river Essequibo; that therefore the river Essequibo, with the said island, forms the western boundary of Dutch acquisition in 1648, and determines the western limit of the Dutch territories at that period.