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history

19th century

The modern Republic of Peru, which had since its founding negotiated its borders with Gran Colombia, never ascribed any value to the demarcation of limits detailed in the Decree of 1802. Throughout the course of the agreement of Girón, the protocols of the treaty of 1829, and the discussions of the Mosquera Pedemonte Protocol (in which numerous references were made to the Real Cédula de 1802), it was never used as a basis for territorial demarcation. However, in 1851, Brazil signed a treaty with Peru by which means the latter would hand over large territorial extensions belonging in part to the Viceroyalty of Peru, and in part to the Viceroyalty of New Granada. In exchange, Brazil recognized Peru as its adjacent throughout the full extent of the Javari River and the geodesic that starts in Tabatinga and terminates in the confluence of the Caquetá and Apaporis rivers. While the Decree of 1802 was well known, it was never taken into consideration in matters of territorial demarcation before 1851.

In 1858, war broke out between Ecuador and Peru, with Peru for a time occupying the port of guayaquil (this is referring to the Battle of Guayaquil. After the end of the was, peaceful relations resumed without a peace treaty.

20th century

The borders between Ecuador and Peru throughout much of the 20th century, with the disputed territories shaded

The Oriente territory, an area of roughly 40,000 square miles, lying east of the Andes on the headwaters of the Amazon, was practically undeveloped during the 1930s, but was thought to be rich in tropical resources. Peru had colonized much of the region along the rivers, thanks to easy access via tributary waterways; the Andes were a natural barrier to convenient access or administration of this area for Ecuador. The other disputed districts were Tumbes, on the coast, and Jaen, estimated at 500 and 3000 square miles, respectively.

Under the treaty of 1887, both countries submitted the controversy to the arbitration of the King of Spain; fearing the threat of war as a result of an unfavorable determination, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina offered a joint mediation in early 1910. Ecuador desired a direct settlement, but Peru declined to negotiate and insisted on arbitration. Nothing further was accomplished until June 21, 1924, when representatives of Ecuador and Peru met in Quito and signed a protocol that pledged to send delegations to Washington, D.C. to determine the boundary via direct negotiations, or the arbitration of the President of the United States, with the results of either to be submitted to each country's Congress for approval. In February 1934, the two countries formally requested the U.S. Government's arbitration of a discussion of the implementation of the Quito Protocol of 1924.

On July 6, 1936, Ecuador and Peru signed a further protocol providing that the delegations of the respective countries commence their final negotiations in Washington on September 30, 1936, maintaining the existing territorial status quo in the meantime. As stated in the address of the Chairman of the Ecuadorean Delegation at the opening session, the two parties would strive for a direct total settlement to end the boundary dispute; if this could not be accomplished, a partial direct settlement and corresponding partial arbitration would be attempted, to be carried out by the United States.

Ecuador's claim was based on the demarcation indicated in the peace treaty of 1829 and the Protocol of August 11, 1830 between New Granada and Peru. The 1829 treaty was a result of the victory of New Granada over the Peruvian armies at Tarqui; in Article 5, "both parties acknowledge as the limits of their respective territories, those belonging to the ancient viceroyalties of New Granada and Peru prior to the independence with such variations as they deem it convenient to agree upon..." leaving the determination of limits to a boundary commission. The Ecuadorian position was that when New Granada separated into the countries of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, leading up to Ecuador's independence in 1830, the southern border remained fixed as per the 1829 treaty.

The Protocol of August 11, 1830 first appeared in 1892, when Colombia remarked that it did not appear in the collection of treaties related to the dispute that was published by Peru at the time; Peru denied the existence of the protocol, as well as the authenticity of the copy presented by Colombia. Ecuador claimed that the protocol put the treaty of 1829 into execution, leaving only a small part of the boundary in doubt.

Peru's claim rested on the boundaries of colonial administration as shown in the Real Cedula of July 15, 1802 and subsequent decrees dating up to 1816, as well as the effective possession and occupation of the territory since colonial times. Peru contended that the separation of New Granada into three countries negated their treaty of 1829, as the other party had ceased to exist and could not carry out the formation of the specified demarcation commission. It additionally pointed to an 1832 treaty between Peru and Ecuador, which would supersede the 1829 document in any case, and argued that Ecuador had previously supported this view. In Peru's interpretation, the boundary was unsettled by any treaty in force, and maintained the principle of uti possidetis, which enables a belligerent party to claim territory that it has acquired by war.

To bolster its claim, Peru presented the Real Cedula of 1802, which separated the provinces of Mainas and Quijos (except Papallacta) from the Viceroyalty of New Granada, and handed them to the Viceroyalty of Peru, because of better facilities of communication with Lima than with more distant Santa Fe de Bogota. Ecuador asserted that the decree was ecclesiastical in nature, and did not transfer or otherwise change the political status or administration of the provinces in question, standing by its uti possidetis posession of the territories, and the irrelevance of the 1802 decree in face of the 1820 treaty and 1830 protocol. Peru claimed that the territories had been represented in its Parliament since its independence in 1821.

Ecuadorian–Peruvian War

Main article: Ecuadorian-Peruvian War

On July 5, 1941, war broke out between the two countries, with operations scattered along the thousand-mile frontier. Despite "accepting in principle" suggestions by Brazil, Argentina, and the United States to withdraw troops and enter peaceful negotiations, the Peruvian Army continued to advance towards the Gulf of Guayaquil, additionally taking river outposts in the Oriente region.

Analysis

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The antecedents of the dispute are now of historical interest only. Among other things they involve what we may call the classic ignorance of geography that has been responsible for most other boundary disputes in the new lands of the Western Hemisphere. Wrong geographical descriptions, embedded in treaty texts and in earlier colonial decrees and definitions, provided wide scope for later disputes. Then the progress of settlement came in to make its own contribution to confusion, with colonists of one nationality or another going up or down a border river carrying the national flag and insisting upon the "protection" of soldiers. Moreover, the cartographic distributions of population resulting from settlement are at variance with old uncertain lines; for settlements conform to real rivers and to resources as they are currently known to exist. If gold or oil are discovered, politically stimulated and subsidized colonization will surely follow. Trading interests and development company prospectuses and concessions heighten the national interest. It is only a question of time when "rights" based on documents are superseded by those alleged on the basis of settlement, however attenuated, and by "wrongs" charged to officials of both sides.

When the states of Latin America were formed following the Wars of Independence, they agreed in general to follow colonial boundaries. But the southern boundary of Ecuador, a state formed out of the southern part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, had overlapping definitions. A royal cedula, dated 1802, complicated matters because it dealt with rivers and territories in unexplored parts of the eastern slope of present-day Ecuador and the language of the cedula remained extremely difficult to interpret. Added to the difficulty was considerable uncertainty as to the validity of the cedula as well as its meaning following the Wars of Independence. Spanish colonial law ruled that a cedula did not become binding until it was successfully applied. In this particular case, the wide extent of the territory involved, the limited number of settlements, and the impossibility of defining a line on a broad unmapped frontier, made it difficult for Peru and Ecuador to agree upon a definitive boundary. Ecuador has sent expeditions into the forests of the east, organized an institute for the study of Amazon history and geography, and laid claim to an Amazonian outlet. Peru has countered with settlements, investments, extension of military posts and the improvement of navigation facilities. As time went on, documents increased in number and in points of contradiction. The commercial and political conflict between the two principal cities, Quito and Guayaquil, has troubled the course of negotiations for many years and is a matter of common comment on the streets of both cities today. At one time Jaen voted for union with Peru and Guayaquil stood for autonomy.

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Ecuador was unable to put up a solid front against the claims of Colombia, Brazil and Peru. Civil wars weakened the state. From 1830, when the territory now called Ecuador separated from "Grand Colombia," to 1883 ten different constitutions were adopted.

The sum of the matter, so far as legal rights are concerned, is that each side can make out a plausible and to some degree a juridical case for its claims. To resolve the contradictions of claims it is necessary in nearly all cases anywhere to engage in what we may term "horse trading." The alternative is war over territory that is often not worth the price. The present century has witnessed growing hostility between Ecuador and Peru as explorations disclosed resources of increasingly obvious value. On August 1, 1887, the two countries signed an Arbitration Convention which named the King of Spain as arbitrator. Both sides submitted their claims. They were as wide as the contradictions of the documents, that is to say, they were as wide as possible. It was not until 1910, following many vicissitudes and changes of conditions, and to the accompaniment of threats from both sides that they would not accept an unfavorable decision, that the arbitration negotiations failed and war was averted only by a narrow margin. Since then it has been clear that neither side would give in, the dispute having become a prime factor of national politics. No government of the day felt that it could afford to give way even to a slight degree without falling. In 1936, negotiations were taken up in Washington, President Roosevelt having been requested to use his good offices to bring the delegates of Peru and Ecuador into a working relationship. After two years the Washington conferences ended in failure and the parties drifted steadily toward a state of open hostility. The rivers of the Ecuadorian Oriente, as the eastern slope is called, run southeasterly to the Mara?on and the Amazon through heavily forested country. The settlements are small and negligible in commercial output; but commerce converges at Iquitos, a city of 40,000 population, at the head of steamer navigation on the Amazon and a center of activity for a region the size of Texas. Flowing northward to the Mara?on and the Amazon are the Peruvian rivers Yavari, Huallaga, and the great Ucayali, open to navigation by launch. The importance of the lands along these rivers, and of their traffic, has been one of the factors making Iquitos a city chiefly of Peruvians. An oil concession east of the Ecuadorian Cordillera, in a region in which large invest ments have already been made, had been granted by the Ecuadorian Government. The development of petroleum resources is particularly important because the republic is both small and poor, and had been dependent largely upon a one-crop export (cacao) in securing foreign exchange for the satisfaction of import requirements. Ecuador now exports a higher percentage of the crude petroleum output of her Pacific littoral than either Colombia or Peru. If the Oriente extended to Iquitos, the problem of access to markets would be solved. The use of oil trucks on motor-roads-to-be, of pipelines, or of railways westward to the Pacific, are alternatives which would place a heavy burden on the industry. Article six of the Protocol attempts to provide Ecuador with "free and gratuitous navigation" on the principal eastern rivers. The tropical forest that clothes the western slopes of the Andean Cordillera in the boundary zone thins out halfway to the western coast. In the valley of the Zarumilla River it merges into low thorn and open woodland, alternating with grassland.

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The livestock industry is important, and charcoal, fruits, vegetables and gold are also exported. There is petroleum at Talara, Peru, and the field extends northward partway to Tumbes, the small commercial center of northern Peru. The petroleum possibilities of the Zarumilla region, though unknown, are not overlooked. The whole structure of naval defense on the Pacific littoral of South America was based until recently upon a few antiquated steel ships. A decade ago a little new armament, chiefly planes and tanks,rwas acquired by both Chile and Peru. Guayaquil, a principal port, is practically defenseless. Though motor roads now connect the chief cities, interior communications are still too poor, or motor cars and oil trucks too scarce, to permit the concentration of power quickly at any given point. There are few strategic key areas and all are highly vulnerable. The national budgets of Ecuador and Peru will not stand a rearmament program. Each has a tight economy, with too little diversity to absorb the shocks of war. The centers of production are too dispersed and small to support any suitable plan of defense. Fighting on credit is a devastating business; and even the threat of war sends exchanges tumbling and disrupts the export trade. It took Peru nearly 50 years to recover from the chief effects of the War of the Pacific. Bolivia and Paraguay will hardly recover in a shorter time from the effects of the recent Chaco War. Nowhere is there a greater need for an outside moral authority in the settlement of boundary disputes. That authority has come into being slowly but surely. It is the moral authority of other Latin American countries. The United States insists on its own willingness to act in friendly concert of counsel, but is unwilling to bring "pressure" to bear. In some of the affairs of life, international and otherwise, form is indistinguishable from substance. Latin American individuals and peoples set great store by form, both in approach and in actual negotiation. All nations desire to save face. The business of diplomacy is to find a way to do it. If it were not for the face-saving process, governments would fall as fast as they were formed in time of national tension, particularly when territory is involved; for territory is still one of the most delicate subjects of negotiation, doubtless largely on account of its tangibility. The economic aids which diplomacy can now enlist are more diverse in character, more indirect and more effective, than earlier forms of pressure used to be. To buy critical goods or refrain, to make credits or not, to supply shipping or send it elsewhere ? these are only a few of the background items. If they are employed by all and understood by all, and if their effect is open, they help leave national pride intact. They do not have the rude impact on national sensibilities of a boundary relocation. They also point the way toward the distant international goal of general peace based on economic well-being. Territories and boundaries will be of less consequence in a future world in which economic advantages and disadvantages depend less upon national sovereignty than upon cooperative international arrangements. It is an unquenchable hope of the peoples of the world today that necessary elements of force can be pooled in the interest of all. In this way, outside moral authority may acquire the support which it now needs if it is to bring the world nearer to a state of reasonably assured peace.

Sources

• Isaiah, Bowman (July 1942). "The Ecuador-Peru Boundary Dispute". Foreign Affairs. 20 (4). Council on Foreign Relations: 757–761. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
• Maier, Georg (January 1969). "The Boundary Dispute Between Ecuador and Peru". The American Journal of International Law. 63 (1). American Society of International Law: 28–46. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
• Woolsey, L. H. (January 1937). "The Ecuador-Peru Boundary Controversy". The American Journal of International Law. 31 (1). American Society of International Law: 97–100. Retrieved 2010-02-22.

Eldorado

Early exploration of the region

One of the first Europeans to enter and explore the Amazon Basin in search of the legendary El Dorado was Gonzalo Diaz de Pineda, with an expedition of 130 Spaniards and a large number of natives, setting out on December 8, 1538. His expedition explored the northwestern region of Ecuador, following a route corresponding to Quito - Baeza - Coca River - Napo River. He stopped short of following the Napo River to its confluence with the Amazon River.

this all needs clarification. Who was subordinate to who?

The first European expedition down the Amazon River set out in 1541, led by Francisco de Orellana, the governer of Guayaquil. Ordered by the new governer of Quito Gonzalo Pizarro to explore the Coca River and return where it ended, Orellana decided instead to continue after being threatened with mutiny by his men when they reached the Coca's confluence with the Napo. The expedition continued down the Napo, following the Dias de Pineda route, reaching the Negro River on June 3, 1542, and finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean on August 24, 1542. This account is disputed by Peruvian sources, who claim that Gonzalo Pizarro started his journey in Cuzco, and that he recruited Orellana in Quito on his way to the jungle.

Both Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana were, like Diaz de Pineda, motivated by the search for El Dorado, a native chief who supposedly covered himself with a gold powder and then washed himself in a lagoon in honour of his gods. The natives of Quito told the Spanish that the land of El Dorado had temples and palaces just like what they found in the Inca Empire. Because the Indians had said that the land of El Dorado had a seemingly infinite amount of cinnamon trees, the Spaniards started calling that region Canelas (land of Cinnamon), even calling the Amazon River the Rio de Canela before it received its modern name from King Charles I.