page_title: History of Guatemala
section_title: Wyke-Aycinena treaty: Limits convention about Belize
hierarchical_section_title: History of Guatemala / 19th century / Battle of La Arada / Wyke-Aycinena treaty: Limits convention about Belize
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the border between Guatemala and British Honduras (now Belize) as delineated in the Wyke–Aycinena Treaty of 1859 Español: Mapa de la frontera entre Guatemala y Honduras Británica (hoy Belice), delineado en el Tratado Wyke–Aycinena de 1859
context_page_description: The history of Guatemala begins with the Maya civilization, which was among those that flourished in their country. The country's modern history began with the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524.
  Most of the great Classic-era Maya cities of the Petén Basin region, in the northern lowlands, had been abandoned by the year 1000 AD. The states in the Belize central highlands flourished until the 1525 arrival of Spanish Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado. Called "The Invader" by the Maya peoples, he immediately began subjugating the Indian states.
  Guatemala was part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala for nearly 330 years.This Captaincy included what is now Chiapas in Mexico and the modern countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The Capitation became independent in 1821 and became a part of the First Mexican Empire until 1823. From 1824 it was a part of the Federal Republic of Central America. When the Republic dissolved in 1841, Guatemala became fully independent.
  In the late 19th and early 20th century, Guatemala's potential for agricultural exploitation attracted several foreign companies, most prominently the United Fruit Company.
context_section_description: The Belize region in the Yucatán Peninsula was never occupied by either Spain or Guatemala. Spain made some exploratory expeditions in the 16th century that served as her basis to claim the area.  Guatemala simply inherited that argument to claim the territory, even though it never sent an expedition to the area after independence from Spain, due to the ensuing Central American civil war that lasted until 1860.
  The British had had a small settlement there since the middle of the 17th century, mainly as buccaneers' quarters and then for wood production. The settlements were never recognized as British colonies although they were somewhat under the jurisdiction of the British Jamaican government. In the 18th century, Belize became the main smuggling center for Central America, even though the British accepted Spain's sovereignty over the region via the 1783 and 1786 treaties, in exchange for a ceasefire and the authorization for British subjects to work with Belize's precious woods.
  After 1821, Belize became the leading edge of Britain's commercial entrance in the isthmus. British commercial brokers established themselves and began prosperous commercial routes plying the Caribbean harbors of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
  When Carrera came to power in 1840 he stopped the complaints over Belize and established a Guatemalan consulate in the region to oversee Guatemalan interests.  Belize commerce boomed in the region until 1855, when the Colombians built a transoceanic railway that allowed commerce to flow more efficiently between the oceans. Thereafter Belize's commercial importance declined. When the Caste War of Yucatán began in the Yucatán Peninsula the Belize and Guatemala representatives were on high alert; Yucatán refugees fled into both Guatemala and Belize and Belize's superintendent came to fear that Carrera–given his strong alliance with Guatemalan natives–could support the native uprisings.
  In the 1850s, the British employed goodwill to settle the territorial differences with Central American countries. They:  withdrew from the Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua and began talks that would end by restoring the territory to Nicaragua in 1894: returned the Bay Islands to Honduras and negotiated with the American filibuster William Walker in an effort to avoid the invasion of Honduras. They signed a treaty with Guatemala regarding Belize's borders, which has been called by Guatemalans as the worst mistake made by the regime of Rafael Carrera.
  Pedro de Aycinena y Piñol, as Foreign Secretary, made an extra effort to keep good relations with the British crown. In 1859, Walker again threatened Central America; in order to get the weapons needed to face the filibuster, Carrera's regime had to come to terms about Belize with the British Empire. On 30 April 1859, the Wyke-Aycinena treaty was signed, between the British and Guatemalan representatives. The controversial treaty had two parts:
  The first six articles clearly defined the Guatemala-Belize border: Guatemala acknowledged Britain's sovereignty over Belize.
  The seventh article was about the construction of a road between Belize City and Guatemala City, which would be of mutual benefit, as Belize needed a way to communicate with the Pacific coast in order to return to commercial relevance; Guatemala needed a road to improve communication with its Atlantic coast. However, the road was never built; first because Guatemalan and Belizeans could not agree on the exact location for the road, and later because the conservatives lost power in Guatemala in 1871, and the liberal government declared the treaty void.
  Among those who signed the treaty was José Milla y Vidaurre, who worked with Aycinena in the Foreign Ministry at the time. Carrera ratified the treaty on 1 May 1859, while Charles Lennox Wyke, British consul in Guatemala, traveled to Great Britain and got royal approval on 26 September 1859.  American consul Beverly Clarke objected with some liberal representatives, but the issue was settled.
  As of 1850, it was estimated that Guatemala had a population of 600,000.
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caption: 1861 map of the boundary between British Honduras (now Belize) and Guatemala
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