No. 78.
Mr. Gresham
to Mr. Bayard.
Washington, July 19, 1894.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch of the 28th of May, in which you report a recent interview with Lord Kimberley touching the Bluefields incident, and communicate the desire [Page 127] expressed on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government to act in accord with the United States, and in deference to oar judgment in dealing with the question.
It gives me pleasure to commend the views which you so clearly expressed to Lord Kimberley.
During your incumbency of this office, in an instruction to Mr. Phelps, our minister at London (No. 999, of November 23, 1888), you called attention to the fact that as long ago as 1853 Lord John Russell pointed out to Mr. Crampton that “the Mosquito Indians, instead of governing their own tribe according to their own customs, furnish a name and title to Europeans and Americans who carry on trade at Grey Town and along the coast of Mosquito according to the usages of civilized nations.” This control of the affairs of that region by alien residents continued until the treaty of Managua was concluded in 1860, one of the obvious purposes of which was the correction of this abuse and the removal of all pretext for the intervention of any foreign protector or interested power. The condition described by Lord John Russell as notoriously existing in 1853 most certainly exists to-day. Indian government within the meaning of the treaty in this part of the territory of Nicaragua, has never existed, and owing to the incapacity of the Indians it may be safely said never will exist. Great Britain, by her solemn renunciation of a protectorate of any kind over the Indians, was of course barred from intervening to establish or advise an Indian government; and it may be well here to remark that when it was concluded in 1860, the treaty of Managua was regarded by the United States as a satisfactory settlement of-the Central American policy or question, simply and solely because it was believed to terminate, once for all, the British claim to protect the Indians. With the details of the relations between them and the expressly recognized territorial sovereign the United States had no concern.
My instruction to you of April 30, No. 374, will have shown that the late attempts to organize, through alien intervention, a government for the Mosquito Reservation wholly foreign to the scheme provided by the treaty of Managua, were deemed by us to be at variance with the policy and engagements of half a century. Acceptance of the implied invitation of Lord Kimberley for the United States to join with Great Britain in devising a solution of the problems growing out of the Bluefields incident might imply a willingness on the part of this Administration to depart from the consistent policy pursued by previous administrations in dealing with Central American questions.
The situation at Bluefields and elsewhere in the strip presents no question difficult of solution. The sovereignty of Nicaragua over the whole of the national domain is unquestionable. She has granted or secured to certain Indians within part of her domain the right of self-government, under expressed conditions and limitations. It may be safely said that such government does not exist and has not existed in the Mosquito territory. An alien administration, in other interests than those of the Indians, notoriously exists, especially at Bluefields. Nobody is deceived by calling this authority a Mosquito Indian government. No matter how conspicuous the American or other alien interests which have grown up under the fiction of Indian self-government, neither the United States nor Great Britain can fairly sanction or uphold this colorable abuse of the sovereignty of Nicaragua.
So far as American rights of person and property in the reservation are concerned, this Government can not distinguish them from like rights in any other part of Nicaragua; and should they be invaded [Page 128] we could only look to the territorial sovereign for redress. This being so, the United States could neither participate in nor sanction any device whereby the ultimate authority and international responsibility of Nicaragua in respect of American citizens in the reservation might be impaired or restricted.
These general considerations are submitted for your guidance in dealing with any suggestions Lord Kimberley may advance.
I am, etc.,