to the introduction of foreign trade to her territory through the Amazon and its tributaries, and that her possession of ports on both oceans relieved her of the necessity of endeavoring to free that river from the restrictions imposed by Brazil; but he directed Mr. Green to impress upon the New Granadian Government "the decided advantages that would result to it, in common with other states, from the adoption of a liberal policy in respect to the free navigation of the Amazon." (Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Green, min. to New Granada, Aug. 15, 1853, MS. Inst. Colombia, XV. 163.) A copy of the instructions to Mr. Trousdale was also communicated to the chargé d'affaires of the United States in Bolivia. In communicating it Mr. Marcy said: "Various causes have influenced the United States to submit passively to the pretensions to the exclusive control exercised so illiberally by his Imperial Majesty over this mighty river [Amazon]. The ancient restrictive policy to which Brazil still obstinately adheres is in conflict with the spirit of the present enlightened age, which claims the free use of all the natural means of international communication, obviously designed by a wise Providence for the common benefit of all civilized nations." (Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Dana, chargé d'affaires to Bolivia, Nov. 1, 1853, MS. Inst. Bolivia, I. 18.) In an instruction to Mr. White, chargé d'affaires to Ecuador, enclosing a copy of the instructions to Mr. Trousdale, Mr. Marcy said: “The Republics of Venezuela, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia are all interested in procuring the removal of the restrictions which now practically deprive them in a considerable degree of the advantages and resources of that portion of their respective territories which would be thereby [by the opening of the Amazon] opened to an extensive and profitable foreign commerce. . . . Bolivia and Peru have already taken steps for testing the extent to which the pretensions of Brazil may be maintained. . . . It would be well for you... to present to the Government the advantages that would accrue to Ecuador in following the example of Bolivia and Peru. For, when all of the five States whose fertile regions are watered by the Amazon and its tributaries shall have thrown open their rivers and ports to foreign commerce it is thought that Brazil will not be able long to withstand the moral power which will thus be arrayed against her selfish and restrictive policy. And I speak thus confidently as to the probable course of Ecuador, when this subject shall be directly presented to her attention, because Mr. Clay, our present minister at Lima, has already addressed the Ecuadorian minister in Peru upon this subject, and has received from him every encouragement to believe that the project is viewed not unfavorably by his Government." (Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. White, chargé d'affaires to Ecuador, Aug. 20, 1853, MS. Inst. Ecuador, I. 36.) President Pierce, in his annual message of December, 1853, said: "Our minister at Brazil is instructed to obtain a relaxation of that policy and to use his efforts to induce the Brazilian Government to open to common use, under proper safeguards, this great natural highway for international trade." For memorial of Lieut. Maury on the free navigation of the Amazon, see H. Mis. Doc. 22, 33 Cong. 1 sess. See, as to the free navigation of rivers, H. Report 295, 31 Cong. 1 sess. By a decree of January 4, 1854, the Peruvian Government modified the decree of the previous April by restricting the use of the Amazon to Brazilians, subject to existing treaties. The treaty between Brazil and Peru of October 23, 1851, expired October 23, 1858, and a "fluvial convention" between the two powers was then signed, by which Peru was to have provisionally the navigation of the Amazon, paying only charges for lighting, pilotage, and police. In 1862 the Peruvian Government gave notice of the termination of the treaty of July 26, 1851, which came to an end December 9, 1863. Bolivia, however, concluded with the United States, May 13, 1858, a treaty of commerce and navigation, by Article XXVI. of which it was declared that, “in accordance with fixed principles of international law," Bolivia regarded " the rivers Amazon and La Plata, with their tributaries, as highways or channels open by nature for the commerce of all nations;" and that she invited commercial vessels of the United States and of all other nations "to navigate freely in any part of their courses which pertain to her, ascending those rivers to Bolivian ports and descending therefrom to the ocean, subject only to the conditions established by this treaty and to regulations sanctioned... by the national authorities of Bolivia, not inconsistent with the stipulations thereof." Further stipulations as to the navigation of the rivers in question were embodied in Article XXVII. The navigation of the Amazon was at length declared by the Govcrnment of Brazil, by a decree of December 7, 1866, to be open to vessels of all nations from September 7, 1867. This was followed by a regularatory decree of July 31, 1867. By these decrees the Amazon was declared to be open as far as Tabatinga, on the frontiers of Brazil; the river Tocantins, as far as Cametá; the Tapajoz, as far as Santarem; the Madeira, as far as Borba; the Negro, as far as Manaós; and the San Francisco, as far as Penedo. By a decree of January 25, 1873, the right to navigate the Madeira was extended beyond Borba to Santo Antonio, its first fall. In 1891 the State of Amazonas temporarily levied a transit tax on rubber shipped from Peru to the United States by the Amazon. The tax was admitted to be illegal under the constitution of Brazil. December 17, 1868, the President of Peru issued a decree declaring the navigation of all the rivers of that Republic to be "open to merchant vessels, whatever be their nationality:" 1 a Dispatch of Mr. Clay, Min. to Peru, No. 477, Nov. 27, 1858, MSS. Dept. of State. See For. Rel. 1871, 41. € 58 Br. & For. State Papers, 551, 552-567; Dip. Cor. 1867, II. 256, 257. d For. Rel. 1899, 123. e For. Rel. 1891, 40, 41, 43; 1893, 42. ↑ Schuyler, American Diplomacy, 343, 344, citing Collection of Peruvian Treaties, Lima, 1876, p. 115; Lawrence, Wheaton (ed. 1863), 363–365; Collection of Oviedo, VII. 108-134, and MSS. Dept. of State. By a contract entered into in London on July 11, 1901, and approved by the Bolivian Congress on December 20, The Acre question. 1901, the Bolivian Government undertook to grant to an Anglo-American syndicate, which was incorporated under the title of "The Bolivian Syndicate of New York City," a concession of important rights, powers, and privileges, including powers of administration and government, in the whole of the territory of Acre, concerning the title to which a controversey was then pending with Brazil. In consequence the Brazilian Government, on August 8, 1902, suspended the free navigation of the Amazon so far as concerned the importation and exportation of merchandise to and from Bolivia. Against this the Governments of France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, and the United States remonstrated as a measure injurious to their commerce with Bolivia. On February 20, 1903, the freedom of commercial transit in respect of Bolivia was restored, but the importation of war material into that country through the Brazilian rivers was prohibited till further notice. The position of Brazil was clearly set forth by Baron Rio-Branco, who had become minister of foreign relations in December, 1902, in a note to Mr. Seeger, United States consul-general in charge of the legation, of February 20, 1903, as follows: "It was in 1866 that the Brazilian Government opened the Amazon to the merchant ships of all friendly nations; but of the affluents of that river which have their source in Bolivian territory or pass through it the only one to which it extended this liberty, and in fact the only one in Brazil which can serve Bolivian foreign commerce, was the Madeira, from its confluence to the port of Santo Antonio. The Purús, and therefore its tributary, the Aquiry, or Acre, never were open to international navigation. Brazil has always maintained that when a river passes through the territory of two or more states the freedom of navigation or of transit through the country of the main river depends on a prior agreement thereto with the country of the tributary river, an agreement which in its nature implies reciprocity. "There has not been and there is not in force any treaty of commerce and navigation between Brazil and Bolivia, and free transit by Brazilian rivers for Bolivian foreign commerce was only a matter of tolerance on the part of Brazil. But since the Bolivian Government has thought to be able to transfer rights of a quasi-sovereign nature to a syndicate of foreigners of different nationalities, Americans and Europeans, a syndicate without international capacity, and which, by the way it is constituted and by the means it undertook to employ in Europe, clearly showed that it was conspiring against the so-called Monroe doctrine, and inasmuch as the same Government has besides this conferred upon that syndicate the power of disposing at will of the navigation of the river Acre and its affluents, Brazil concluded it was her duty to make reprisals, and for that reason, in the absence of conventional law between the two parties, suspended the tolerance which has existed for some years. "The situation which obligated the adoption of that expedient has now changed, and, therefore, since the Federal Government is desirous of attending as promptly as possible to the interests of commerce, it has by a decision of this date reestablished free transit on the Amazon for merchandise between Bolivia and the foreign countries; it has continued, however, to prohibit the importation to that country of war material by Brazilian rivers." The syndicate was induced, by the payment by Brazil of a sum of money, to renounce all its rights and claims under the concession, and a modus vivendi was entered into between Brazil and Bolivia, pending the conclusion of a definitive treaty of settlement, which was signed at Petropolis, November 17, 1903. By this treaty all Bolivia's rights in the Acre territory were acquired by Brazil, and the latter's relations then became acute with Peru, the Government of which country also laid claims to the territory. Collisions took place not only between the Peruvian troops and the inhabitants of the territory, but also between the Peruvian and Brazilian forces: and in May, 1904, the Brazilian Government prohibited the transit of arms and munitions of war to Peru by way of the Amazon. By the treaty of commerce and navigation between Brazil and Peru of October 10, 1891, certain rules and regulations, in addition to those established for all nations in 1867, were agreed upon as to the navigation of that river. The Government of Brazil, however, maintained that these facilities were applicable only "to the innocent transit, and in no way to the passage of means of aggression and war, to be used against Brazil and her nationals." In regard to such passage, Baron RioBranco, in a note of May 16, 1904, declared that the conventional right of transit came into conflict "with the natural and absolute right which Brazil possesses to prevent and impede, as much as possible, future aggressions, which would disturb the peace still further. In resorting to this prohibition, the Brazilian Government makes use of the so-called right of self-preservation, which may be prudently resorted to before the employment of reprisals." In accordance with the prohibition thus ordered, the Brazilian Government caused to be removed from a steamer at Manaos certain cases of arms and ammunition shipped from Europe to Iquitos, but informed the Peruvian minister at Rio de Janeiro that the articles might be forwarded to their destination by some other route. The Peruvian minister protested both against the general prohibition and also against the interruption of the transit of the particular cargo, declaring that the latter was intended for commercial and not for military purposes. On July 12, 1904, however, a protocol was signed by Baron Rio-Branco, on the part of Brazil, and by Señor Velarde, Peruvian minister at Rio de Janeiro, on the part of his Government, by which a modus vivendi was established with a view to the prevention of conflicts in the upper Juruá and upper Purús pending the effort of the two Governments to reach a final settlement by negotiation, or, in case such negotiation should fail, by other amicable methods. As the result of this amicable arrangement, the prohibition of the transit of arms to Peru by way of the Amazon was revoked. It should be observed that the treaty of Petropolis of November 17, 1903, between Brazil and Bolivia, pledges perpetually "the most. ample freedom of transit and river navigation to both countries," and secures to each country the right, in connection with such transit and navigation, to keep customs agents at certain ports of the other. See For. Rel. 1903, 36-43; Brazil and Bolivia, Boundary Settlement, Treaty for the Exchange of Territories and other Compensations, signed at Petropolis November 17, 1903, together with the Report of Baron Rio-Branco, Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil; Brazil and Peru, Boundary Question, by John Bassett Moore: New York, 1904; Col. W. C. Church, in The Geographical Journal, May, 1904, p. 612. Navigation men-of-war. The Brazilian decrees of 1866-67 said nothing as to men-of-war. In 1878, on the request of the American legation at by Rio, permission was granted for a United States man-of-war to ascend the Amazon as far as the mouth of the Madeira. In 1882 the Brazilian Government stated, in response to an inquiry of the British legation, that the ships of war of friendly powers might freely enter the maritime ports of the country, but that their right to enter river ports depended, in the absence of a convention to the contrary, upon a special concession in each case. In 1899 permission was granted by the Federal Government of Brazil for the U. S. S. Wilmington to ascend the Amazon on her way to Iquitos, in Peru, but in a discussion which subsequently arose as to the formalities necessary to be observed the Government stated that according to the rule in Brazil the commander of a foreign man-of-war before ascending the river must obtain a formal permission from the governor of Para on a written request made by the proper consul there." During the past summer two national ships of the United States have visited Brazilian ports on a friendly mission and been cordially received. The voyage of the Wilmington up the Amazon River gave rise to a passing misunderstanding, owing to confusion in obtaining permission to visit the a For. Rel. 1899, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123. See also For. Rel. 1900, 65. |