# Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala/Document No. II

DOCUMENT No. II.
Conference between Mr. P. H. Morgan and Sr. Don Ignacio Mariscal.
MEMORANDUM.
(Translation.)
On the 9th instant, the Honorable Minister of the United States, after requesting a special interview with the undersigned Minister of Foreign Affairs in order to discuss an important subject, visited the Foreign Office, and began the interview by giving the undersigned full assurances of the friendly spirit cherished by his government respecting Mexico, alluding, among other matters, to the note of the Honorable Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine, of which he had a few days before given a copy to the undersigned, and in which a similar friendly spirit was manifest. He added that, in the subject which he was about to introduce, his government by no means pretended to intrude in an officious manner, nor had it any other interest than a desire for the peace and harmony which should prevail between neighboring and sister nations, for the credit and the advancement of the republican institutions they had both adopted—institutions of which the consolidation in this New World ​could not but interest the United States as being their originators upon this continent; that they did not on that account assume to meddle in the internal government or in the mutual relations of the other American republics, whose prosperity they sincerely desired, without pretending to stimulate it by any other means than by their own example, or, when circumstances may seem to require it, by giving friendly counsel which it was hoped would be considered as disinterested as it really is, and not as having emanated from any selfish or interested motive.
When Mr. Morgan observed that the undersigned manifested his full conviction of the friendly sentiments which he had expressed in the name of his government, he added these words: "All that I have said to you will be found better expressed, in relation to the subject now to be presented, in the note which I will proceed to read by order of my government." He then read the note addressed to him by the Hon. Mr. Blaine, under date of the 16th of June last, informing him that the Government of Guatemala had formally applied to the President of the United States, soliciting his good offices in order to re-establish between the two republics the sentiments of friendship, which it was alleged had been interrupted in consequence of the question of boundary pending between them.
Having finished the reading of this note, Mr. Morgan, after offering a copy thereof to the undersigned, who expressed a desire to possess it, added that, if the Government of Mexico accepted the decision of the boundary question with Guatemala by means of arbitration, he thought that the Government of the United States would consent to become the arbitrator, and ​that the decision it might pronounce in such case would certainly be impartial and just, since it had no other interest than to re-establish harmony and good understanding between Mexico and her southern neighbor. Entering upon various considerations concerning the evils of war, Mr. Morgan observed that, even if Mexico should be victorious in a war with Guatemala, as she could not fail to be, in view of the great superiority of her elements, she would nevertheless suffer grave injuries, and perchance experience a paralysis of the movement of internal improvements lately begun, besides affording the evil example of deciding, by force of arms, the discussions between two sister republics.
The undersigned replied that he was satisfied that the sentiment which guided the Government of the United States in the step then taken was friendly and loyal, but at once observed that it had not been correctly informed by the Government of Guatemala. He further said that he would waive, for the time being, the consideration of various inaccuracies, both upon matters of history and upon recent events, contained in the note of the Honorable Secretary of State, which were doubtless due to one-sided allegations on the part of the Government of Guatemala, and to the fact that, in general, the history of Mexico is not well known, reserving the privilege of preparing, within a few days, a memorandum in which, besides stating what had passed in the said interview, he would rectify the inaccuracies above mentioned, and could take more fully into consideration some of the ideas expressed by the Honorable Secretary of State.
He would consequently limit himself at that time to the statement that force or conquest had never been the basis of the rights alleged by Mexico to a certain ​portion of her territory claimed by Guatemala, as upon a future occasion he would demonstrate. The complaints of the Guatemalans, he added, are not sincere, and the government of General Barrios knew very well how different are the facts of the case from the statements made to the government at Washington. Even before consulting the President, he could assure Mr. Morgan that the good offices of his government were received with high esteem by the Government of Mexico. There is as yet, he added, no motive what-ever for the fear that the latter will appeal to force to resolve the boundary question with Guatemala, which for many years has been under pacific and patient discussion, the Mexican Government having always been the promoter of the discussion, and of its solution by friendly measures.
The recent events of which the Guatemalan Government complained had been the subject of discussions in which the arguments of Mexico had not been answered, the last notes of the Mexican Government having usually been left without reply. The tactics of the Government of Guatemala had consisted in appealing, for lack of reasons, to delays and evasions. The present state of the question is, that the survey of the frontier by commissions of engineers appointed by the two governments is still pending. The appointment of these commissions was made by virtue of a convention promoted by Mexico, in which was stipulated the suspension of negotiations upon boundaries until the said frontier could be surveyed, and certain points which formed the basis of discussion could be astronomically determined.
The period fixed by the convention expired definitively before the scientific commissions had concluded ​their labors, and Mexico, which has always wished to attain a truthful and conscientious decision, is laboring for the renewal of the said convention, in order to continue the boundary survey, without which it would seem that there is no possibility of rationally continuing the discussion, or of arriving at an agreement, or of an intelligent decision of the questions at issue, by a third party.
This will prove to Mr. Morgan two things: first, that the Mexican Government positively desires to bring the question of boundary to a just and pacific conclusion, and second, that it is not possible at present even to say whether this question, at least in part, may become a proper one for an arbitration.
As to the other part, i.e., the perfect title of Mexico to the state of Chiapas, including the department or district of Soconusco, of which it has been in possession for so many years, the Mexican Government has several times declared that it does not and can not decorously admit any question. What it has consented to discuss among the claims of Guatemala, and for which it has been surveying and mapping out the frontier, is the matter of the boundaries of Chiapas and Soconusco, on the Guatemala side. But it may readily be seen that this can not yet give occasion to an arbitration, since the data have not yet been obtained which have been thought indispensable for the decision of the points at issue.
Mexico is very far from absolutely refusing arbitration, but does not think it possible at present, for the reasons just mentioned, and reserves her decision as to accepting it in the future, concerning certain points on which it might be useful. If it were not for these reasons, she would be glad to take into consideration, ​even before a formal proposition (which has not yet been made), the mediation of the United States with the character of an arbitration in her differences with Guatemala, for she would have the greatest confidence in the impartiality and justice of this mutual friend of both parties.
The interview was concluded by Mr. Morgan promising to send a copy of the note which he had read, and by the undersigned promising to prepare the present memorandum, which should contain, in addition to the foregoing, certain observations suggested by the contents of the said note.
Examining this important dispatch, of which a copy was sent to this Ministry the same day, attention is at once drawn, since it shows a strong desire to prove a just and friendly intention, to the paragraph drawn up in the following terms: "Events fresh in the memory of the present generation of Mexicans, which occurred at a time when the moral and material support of the United States, although engaged in a tremendous civil war, was amply afforded in order to avoid the danger with which a foreign empire menaced the life of the Mexican Republic, offer a satisfactory proof of the purity of motives and of the friendly disposition with which the United States regarded all that relates to the prosperity and the subsistence of the sister republics on this continent."
In fact, Mexico can never forget what was witnessed by the present generation of Mexicans as referred to by the Hon. Mr. Blaine, i.e., that the United States lent their generous moral support, when, being invaded by a foreign army, her people struggled alone and without resources from abroad against a European monarch and his instrument in this country, who ​was supported by certain misguided elements at home. Nor will she forget that the sentiment of the American people during that crisis clearly showed that, if the United States had not been engaged in a civil war of vast proportions, the support given to Mexico would have been more than moral, and would have sufficed to terminate the struggle some years earlier.
In the same note it is stated that the forces of the Emperor Iturbide having occupied a large portion of the territory of Central America, the fortune of war forced them to abandon all that territory except Soconusco and Chiapas, and that Mexico, after becoming a republic, did not desist from reclamations founded upon the imperial policy of absorption and conquest.
In this there are some historical errors, and especially one which is due, as already stated, to one-sided allegations or to the fact that, unfortunately, the history of Mexico is not well known. Even during the empire of Iturbide it was not conquest but the free-will of the inhabitants of Chiapas and Soconusco which determined their annexation to Mexico, as well as that of all the provinces of Central America except Salvador. In the use of the same liberty, they afterward separated from this country and formed with Guatemala a republic; always excepting Chiapas and Soconusco, which, after Mexico became a republic, re newed their determination to remain incorporated therewith.
As it is not possible here to recount the history of what occurred, it will suffice to mention that, on account of the ever-renewed claims of Guatemala, there have been published very serious and carefully studied treatises with the object of proving the right which Mexico originally acquired to this portion of her ​present territory, basing it, not upon conquest, but upon the will of the inhabitants, the proofs of which may be found in unquestionable documents which have been published. Among these publications are those respectively made by Don Manuel Larrainzar and Don Matias Romero, persons well acquainted with the facts concerning Chiapas and Soconusco, since the former is a native of that state and the latter has resided in Soconusco, where he had to abandon his property, which was devastated by Guatemalan invaders. But, without alluding to the contents of the said publications, it will be understood how inaccurate are the attacks made upon the right of Mexico to these regions which form a state of the Union, by simply examining the long and weighty note which Señor Lafragua, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed to the Minister of Guatemala in this capital, under date of October 9, 1875, adjoining to it several documents of a conclusive tenor.
This note, which has been circulated in a printed form, and in which the original rights of Mexico to Soconusco and Chiapas, now placed beyond doubt by a possession of more than thirty and fifty years respectively, are victoriously illustrated and proved; this note, which should have given rise to a serious discussion, has remained up to the present time unanswered, as the Government of Guatemala habitually leaves those which it can not answer.
The brief summary of that extended note will show by itself that the titles of Mexico have not consisted of absorption and conquest, as the Hon. Mr. Blaine has been led to believe by means of calumnies against this republic. The closing words of that document are as follows: "Summing up the argument ​of the present note, the following points have been demonstrated: First. Chiapas was a province similar to the others which formed the captaincy-general of Guatemala. Second. Chiapas, on the 3d day of September, 1821, freely separated from Guatemala and united with Mexico. Third. Chiapas, on the 12th day of September, 1824, again joined the United States of Mexico by the free choice of a majority of her inhabitants (it having been previously shown that the voting took place without the presence of Mexican forces in any part of the State, and that there was a large majority in favor of Mexico). Fourth. Soconusco, in 1821, was a partido of the Intendency of Chiapas, and as such united with the Mexican Empire. Fifth. Soconusco, in 1821, voted freely in favor of union with Mexico on the 3d day of May. Sixth. The Act drawn up at Tapachula on the 24th day of July, 1824, was a revolutionary and illegal procedure. Seventh. Central America recognized the Supreme Junta of Chiapas, and agreed to respect its decision," etc. Without copying the entire summary, the preceding will convince the reader that the Mexican Government has never based its original rights to Chiapas and Soconusco upon conquest.
As to recent events, the points of complaint against Mexico presented by the Government of Guatemala to the Government of the United States are four in number:
First. That the diplomatic efforts made to reach a settlement with Mexico have been fruitless.
Second. That there exists a preliminary and partial agreement for the purpose of ascertaining what are the true limits; and that the Guatemalan commissions of exploration sent to survey the region in order to ​prepare the basis for a definitive settlement were imprisoned by the Mexican authorities.
Third. That the agents of Guatemala charged to take a census of the territory in question were treated in the same manner.
Fourth. That the Mexican Government has cautiously but constantly invaded the frontier district which had heretofore been in the possession of Guatemala, replacing the local authorities which were there existing by those of Mexico, thus augmenting the area of the disputed territory.
It will be convenient to reply to these points in the same order.
I. Diplomatic efforts for the settlement of limits with Guatemala have always and exclusively been initiated by Mexico. In 1832 the Mexican Government sent Don Manuel Diez de Bonilla as Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary, and in 1853 Don Juan N. de Pereda with the same character, without obtaining any result. Señor Pereda remained in Guatemala until the year 1858. In the various interviews which he had with Don Manuel Pavon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of that republic, that gentleman constantly refused to celebrate a treaty of limits, and said that Guatemala proposed, in the pending negotiations with Mexico, to simply recognize the statu quo of the frontier between the two countries without any alteration.
Señor Pereda had to suspend his official relations with the Government of Guatemala on account of the refusal of the latter to treat concerning limits, and because the said government, in a discourteous and offensive manner, refused to grant the internment of several emigrados from Mexico, who were conspiring against the peace of this republic.
​The question of limits was not again discussed until October, 1873, when Señor Lafragua, Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed a note to Señor Garcia Granados, Chargé d' Affaires of Guatemala, indicating the necessity that the question should be concluded. For that purpose he invited the Government of Guatemala to appoint a plenipotentiary to open the negotiations in this capital.
Señor Uriarte, the new Minister of Guatemala, replied after some months, in July, 1874, after Señor Lafragua had asked him by note whether the said invitation was accepted, that he was provided with a full power to enter upon negotiations.
On the 21st of August, Señor Uriarte presented a memorandum to serve as a basis for discussion. After various conferences, Señor Lafragua replied to the memorandum, by a note dated October 9, 1875, with which he inclosed a draft of a treaty of limits between the two republics.
This important note, already alluded to, has remained without reply, as has also been previously remarked.
In July, 1877, negotiations were resumed between Señor Vallarta, as Plenipotentiary of Mexico, and Señor Uriarte, Minister of Guatemala. The result was the convention of December 7th of that year.
II. The note of Mr. Blaine alludes to this convention. By it, as already indicated, there was created a mixed commission of Mexican and Guatemalan engineers, charged with making a survey, forming plans, and fixing astronomically certain points in order to advance the knowledge of the question at issue, and afterward continue the discussion upon the limits of the two republics.
​In Article X it was stipulated that, during the suspension of negotiations upon limits, the high contracting powers would religiously respect and cause to be respected the actual possession, not raising or allowing to be raised any question relative to boundary-marks, and preventing every act of hostility on the part either of the authorities or citizens of the two republics.
The commissioners met at Tapachula, November 18, 1878, and began their operations.
On the 26th of January, 1880, three engineers of the Guatemalan commission appeared in the vicinity of Cuilco Viejo, a village of Soconusco, accompanied by a number of Indians, and placed there a cross. The local authorities believed that this act was intended to advance the boundary-post of Pinabete, recognized as the limit between the two republics and situated eight leagues farther north, as had been done years before by the inhabitants of Tacaná, a village belonging to Guatemala. Under this belief they questioned the said engineers, and not receiving satisfactory explanations of the act, nor being shown any document proving their character as commissioners, the said authorities arrested them and sent them to Tapachula. There they were immediately set at liberty by the political chief, who gave them the fullest reparations. This is the only case of imprisonment of engineers which Guatemala can cite, and as to this incident that Government appeared to be satisfied. The Mexican Government then believed that the local authorities had acted erroneously, but later acts of the Government of Guatemala show that it had really been intended to change the landmarks.
III. A motive similar to the foregoing occasioned the arrest of the agents of Guatemala, to which ​allusion has been made. In December, 1880, a commission, composed of the alcalde of Tacaná and four other persons, proceeded to register the inhabitants of some rancherias, which, although a league distant from the Mexican village of Cuilco Viejo, form an integral part thereof. They went—not, as alleged, to take a census in disputed territory—but to exercise acts of jurisdiction in the place, in order afterward to adduce them as a proof of possession by Guatemala. It is to be noted that the inhabitants of Tacaná, whose alcalde is the present subject of discussion, were the same who at a former time advanced the boundary-post of Pinabete, and that the rancherias in question would have been on Guatemalan territory if the said landmark had remained where it was then placed, on which spot the cross was afterward raised by the Guatemalan engineers. The said commissioners, who thus violated the convention binding them to respect the actual possession, were therefore justly arrested, and turned over to the District Judge, in order that he might act in accordance with the laws of Mexico.
The Minister of Guatemala complained of this act, alleging that those rancherias belonged and had always belonged to his country. In the reply made to him, under date of the 27th of January last, the inaccuracy of his assertions was proved by showing that those rancherias were within the provisional limits of Mexico, and that they belong to this republic, even according to the official map of Guatemala. In refuting the charges made by Señor Herrera in his note, against the Mexican authorities, it was shown by recent facts that the abuses have been on the part of the Guatemalan authorities.
As Señor Herrera based the title of his country to ​the said points on the fact that there were certain assistant alcaldes appointed by the authority at Sibinal, a village of Guatemala, the undersigned showed that the appointment had been first made after the signature of the Convention which bound the two countries to respect the statu quo in regard to limits, and that consequently it only proved that Guatemala had violated her engagement. Señor Herrera confined himself to stating that he would inform his government of this note, and it has thus far remained without reply.
IV. The accusations against Mexico under this fourth heading, i.e., a general charge of continual Mexican invasions of Guatemalan territory, are not only entirely false, but inconceivably audacious. There exists a plan of Soconusco made by Don José E. Ibarra, carefully formed, as is shown by the geographical and statistical notices of that department given in the margin. On it are marked in red ink the ancient limits, and in green those which seem to be recognized in recent times. The space between the two lines marks the advances made by Guatemala, and at the end of the marginal notices the dates are specified when they were effected. These invasions have been continued recently; the archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs are full of data upon those which have occurred since 1870.
Without being, perhaps, among the most notable, one of these invasions was for the purpose of destroying the property of Don Matias Romero, as already indicated. Señor Romero, who is well known in Washington, where he represented Mexico for several years, could not, with all his characteristic moderation and prudence, prevent Guatemalan Indians, by ​order of a prefect of that nation, from invading his lands within the Mexican territory, destroying his property, carrying away prisoner one of his employees, and maltreating others. In November, 1875, a complaint was presented to the Government of Guatemala for this act, but hitherto no reply has been made. On the other hand, that government has imputed to Señor Romero conflagrations and other crimes within the territory of Guatemala—charges entirely improbable, and which that gentleman has, moreover, refuted at length.
In the same month and year the engineer Don Alejandro Prieto, secretary of the Mexican legation in Guatemala, made a survey of the frontier by direction of Señor Garza, then Mexican minister to that government. He made the journey and the survey in company with General Barrios, President of Guatemala, as was stated by Señor Garza in a letter addressed to Señor Lafragua, and by the Government of Chiapas in a dispatch dated November 26, 1875. From this visit originated the sketch-map drawn up by Prieto, which may be found in this ministry, and which, as well from having been prepared under the inspection of President Barrios as for other reasons, can not be an object of suspicion to Guatemala. Upon it is marked the line which is the boundary in fact, and on it are also marked the points in dispute. To this line, then, must be referred the statu quo stipulated in the Convention of 1877. Now, the very notes of the Minister of Guatemala prove that his Government, far from having respected it, has violated it at Tonintaná, at Las Chicharras, Cuilco Viejo, and other points.
That Government has gone so far as to defend the misdeeds of the Alcalde Meoño, who attempted to ​assassinate a Mexican surveyor, and burned ranchos within the territory of Mexico.
It has done more. In December of last year it sent, or permitted to be sent, a force under the orders of the prefect of San Marcos (a department of Guatemala), which invaded our territory and destroyed the landmark of Pinabete, the same which was demolished by the residents of Tacaná, and which was reconstructed shortly afterward. The said prefect then hoisted the flag of Guatemala precisely upon the cross so mysteriously erected by the Guatemalan engineers near Cuilco Viejo.
Complaint being made at Guatemala of these acts, that government refused to give explanations to our minister, under the pretext that the subject had to be treated in Mexico, because Señor Loaeza had no instructions to receive them. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senor Montúfar, being pressed by our representative, who sent him a copy of a note from the undersigned manifesting surprise at such conduct, replied that the ground where these events took place belonged to Guatemala, without giving any reasons for such allegation, and overlooking the fact that the undersigned, in his note of the 27th of January last, to which no reply has been given, had demonstrated the contrary.
Meanwhile the term of the Convention of December 7, 1877, had expired on December 31, 1879, without the scientific commissions having concluded their labors. The Mexican Government proposed to that of Guatemala that the said Convention should be renewed for a term long enough to attain the object desired, and ordered its engineers to remain on the frontier, as in fact they have remained, notwithstanding that the ​Guatemalan engineers were withdrawn by their government without the formality of advising that of Mexico. The President of Guatemala personally informed our minister that he was willing to renew the Convention, and that instructions to that end had been sent to Señor Herrera, Minister of Guatemala in Mexico. Señor Herrera, however, considered himself for several months without sufficient instructions to negotiate, alleging that those received were not sufficiently explicit. It was only recently (July 11) that Señor Herrera, having come to speak with the undersigned about the friendly step taken by the Government of the United States, and the observation having been made to him that the Government of Guatemala had not yet sent him the instructions offered, made known that he had received them in the desired form.
This conduct of his government, not at all sincere, and seemingly incomprehensible, is now explained by the step which the President of Guatemala, through his representative, has taken toward the Government of the United States. President Barrios wished, as may be inferred from the facts, to gain time while he applied to a friendly government complaining of injuries supposed to have been committed by the Government of Mexico, whose conduct he depicted with false colors while soliciting the interposition of good offices. In this application, he apparently omitted, however, to state that, at the request of Mexico, the renewal of the Convention for the survey of the frontier was under advisement, a survey absolutely necessary, as declared by both governments, in order to fix the international limits, whether by diplomatic negotiations or other pacific means.
​The omissions and inexactitudes of the government of General Barrios, in its statements to the President of the United States, as well as its other acts concerning the question of limits with Mexico, show its policy upon this subject to be entirely lacking in sincerity and frankness.
The facts briefly noted in this memorandum, and others which can not here be mentioned, authorize the suspicion that the said government, in addressing the President of the United States, has not really desired, as was pretended, to obtain the decision of an arbitrator upon the question of limits. It is very certain that it can not be ignorant of the impossibility for Mexico to admit any discussion of the rights she has to Chiapas and Socouusco, forming as they have done for many years a State of the Union, an integral part of the republic, and that it also understands how impossible it is to fix the limits between this State and Guatemala, before surveying the region in dispute, whoever may be the arbitrator charged to render such decision.
The object, then, in pretending to promote an arbitration, can not be other than to gain time, as on former occasions, to continue the partial invasions and enervate the action of the Mexican Government in the simple defense of the national territory.
The undersigned, in order to place upon record the facts of the interview with the Honorable Minister Morgan, and the observations to which the note of the Hon. Mr. Blaine give occasion, has drawn up the present memorandum, which he signs for due evidence thereof.
(Signed)IGNACIO MARISCAL.
Mexico, July 25, 1881.