Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc

Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc.

7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected]

(Guatemala-Belize Border Survey) Mapa De Una Parte de la Frontera Entre Guatemala y Honduras-Britanica senalada en el Convenio de 30 de Abril 1861 y Medida por los Comisionados Nombrados Segun dicho Convenio Desde el 4 de Dicieme 1860 al 21 de Abril 1861

Stock#: 69095 Map Maker: Clayton / Baron Brun

Date: 1861 Place: Guatemala City Color: Pen & Ink with Wash Color Condition: Good Size: 26 x 38 inches

Price: SOLD

Description:

One of the Most Important Maps in the History of Guatemala and Belize.

Impressive manuscript map of the border between Guatemala and British Honduras (Belize), copied by Baron Brun in Guatemala shortly after the original was produced by Lieutenant V.G. Clayton for Henry Wray the official surveyor of the border.

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7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected]

This example would appear to be one of the official manuscripts produced for the Guatemalan government following the completion of the survey.

The map focuses on British Honduras, showing its coastline in the Gulf of Honduras and its border with Guatemala, as well as a considerable amount of information on the Belize River. The operative part of the map is the dashed red line, representing the new border, that starts just north of the Belize River before angling toward "Brazo de Gracias a Dios" on the Sarstoon River. There is an additional red-lined border where the Sarstoon empties into the Gulf of Honduras.

A hand-written note in the lower-left corner explains that this is a manuscript copy of a V.G. Clayton and Henry Wray original, made by Baron Brun, an artillery colonel in the service of the Republic of Guatemala. The note further explains that he was trained at the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, the foremost military academy in France:

Copiée sur la carte Originale déposée au Ministeres (de las relaciones exteriores) à Guatemala par le Baron Brun ancien Eléve de Saint Cyr - Colonel d'Artillerie au Service de la république de Guatemala

A brown-ink note underneath the title block includes the Spanish-language certification of the map and signatures of Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Cano Madrazo and Captain Henry Wray, the Guatemalan and British representatives respectively.

The Wyke-Aycinena Treaty of 1859

In 1859, the governments of Guatemala and the United Kingdom (as colonial ruler of British Honduras), ratified a treaty defining the Guatemala-British Honduras border. This treaty was named the Wyke- Aycinena Treaty after the authors Pedro de Aycinena y Piñol and Charles Lennox Wyke. It required a formal survey to fully establish the border, much of which ran through dense and mountainous jungle.

For this task, a Captain in the Royal Engineers, Henry Wray, was commissioned. A 1948 R.A. Humphreys article from International Affairs provides an overview of Wray survey:

Captain Wray arrived in Guatemala in February, 1860, and by November he had surveyed the course of the proposed road from Izabal to Guatemala City-a length of 157 miles... Then, in company with a Guatemalan Commissioner [Manuel Cano Madrazo] he began the boundary survey. They set up

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7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected]

marks at Gracias a Dios Falls, on the Sarstoon, to mark the south-west corner of the frontier, and at Garbutt's Falls on the Belize. They had begun to work north to the Hondo when their work was stopped. The reason for this stoppage was that the British Government had now discovered that there was some uncertainty how far the frontier of the colony, in this north-west corner, marched with Guatemalan territory and where it began to march with Mexican.

The treaty required that Britain build, or later, pay for the building of, a road between Guatemala City and the Caribbean. Britain failed to build the road or pay for it, leading Guatemala to argue that the treaty was invalid, and a large area claimed by Belize was in fact Guatemalan territory. This dispute continues to this day; as of 2020, the matter had been brought before the International Court of Justice after referenda were held in Guatemala and Belize. The issue is expected to be ruled on by 2022 or later.

Detailed Condition: Manuscript map in pen and watercolor on a large sheet of wove paper. Some loss from three of the corners (as illustrated) and minor surface soiling.

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