| Guyana–Venezuela territorial dispute |
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TheSchomburgk Line is the name given to asurvey line that figured in a 19th-century territorial dispute betweenVenezuela andBritish Guiana. The line was named after German-born English explorer and naturalistRobert Hermann Schomburgk (1804–1865). The dispute arose because when theUnited Kingdom acquired British Guiana (known as the colonies ofEssequibo,Demerara, andBerbice until 1831) from theNetherlands in 1814, the western border with Venezuela was not defined.
In 1835, under the aegis of theRoyal Geographical Society, Schomburgk was sent on a trip ofbotanical andgeographical exploration to British Guiana, which resulted in a sketch of the territory with a line marking what he believed to be the western boundary claimed by the Dutch. As a result of this in 1840 he was commissioned by theBritish Government to carry out a survey of Guiana's boundaries. This survey resulted in what came to be known as the Schomburgk Line. Schomburgk's initial sketch, which had been published in 1840, was the only version of the "Schomburgk Line" published until 1886, which led to later accusations byGrover Cleveland that the line had been extended "in some mysterious way".[1]
The Line went well beyond the area of British occupation, and gave British Guiana control of the mouth of theOrinoco River.[2] Venezuela disputed Schomburgk's survey, claiming that the United Kingdom had illegally acquired an extra 30,000 square miles (80,000 km2) of territory. Venezuela claimed its borders extended as far east as theEssequibo River, citingPope Alexander VI and hisTreaty of Tordesillas which led to theCaptaincy General of Venezuela in 1777.
In October 1886 Britain declared the Line to be the provisional frontier of British Guiana, and in February 1887 Venezuela severed diplomatic relations.[1] Venezuela appealed to theUnited States to intervene, citing theMonroe Doctrine as justification. The United States expressed concern but did little in the way of resolving the situation, until Venezuela's hiring ofWilliam L. Scruggs as a lobbyist inWashington, D.C. brought the dispute to a head in the shape of theVenezuelan crisis of 1895. The key issue in the crisis became Britain's refusal to include in the proposed international arbitration the territory east of the Schomburgk Line. The crisis ultimately saw Britain accept the United States' intervention in the dispute to force arbitration of the entire disputed territory, and tacitly accept the United States' right to intervene under theMonroe Doctrine. An international arbitration panel resolved the dispute in 1899. The Schomburgk Line was, with small deviations, re-established as the border betweenBritish Guiana and Venezuela.[1] The first deviation from the Schomburgk line was that Venezuela's territory includedBarima Point at the mouth of the Orinoco, giving it undisputed control of the river, and thus the ability to levy duties on Venezuelan commerce. The second was drawing the border at theWenamu River rather than theCuyuni River, giving Venezuela a substantial territory east of the line – territory which Britain had originally refused to include in the arbitration. However, Britain received most of the disputed territory, and all of the gold mines.[3]
On a related issue the southern boundary between British Guiana andBrazil was settled after arbitration by theKing of Italy in 1904, where Schomburgk's survey also played a role.