Anglo-American Crisis in Honduras 1849-1850

During the presidency of Juan Lindo Zelaya (1847-52), Great Britain began pressuring Honduras for the payment of debts and other claims. In October 1849 HMS Plumper entered Trujillo harbor in demand of reparations for mahogany supplies seized by Honduran authorities from Belizean lumber companies. A British naval force briefly occupied the port of Trujillo, destroying property and extorting 1200 pesos from the local government. Later in October, the recently appointed British consul to the Mosquito Coast protectorate, Frederick Chatfield, ordered on his own authority the seizure of Tigre Island in order to secure payment of compensation for the mahogany taken from Belizean traders. On October 16, 1849, troops from the steamer HMS Gorgon occupied the island. The Honduran garrison, commanded by Colonel Vicente Lechuga, did not resist. The occupation of Tigre Island was unauthorized by the Foreign Office approval and it was soon disowned and reversed.

Meanwhile, the American agent in Central America, Ephraim George Squier, had already warned Washington of the British intention to seize Tigre Island (in a letter dated September 12, 1849) and he suggested that the occupation was part of a British scheme to establish a military presence on the Pacific as well as Atlantic coast of the probable canal route. In response to what he believed to be a British threat to American interests in the region, Squier drafted and signed the "Chinandega Pact" together with the governments of Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador in November 1849. The pact provided US guarantees for any canal that opened into the Gulf of Fonseca. Furthermore, Squier took it upon himself to assure Honduran sovereignty of Tigre Island through a bilateral treaty with Honduras.

American Secretary of State, John Clayton, learned of the pact two weeks after it was signed. He immediately called in John Crampton, the British ambassador to Washington, to tell him that he disowned Squier's actions. On 26 December the British navy evacuated Tiger Island, hoisting the Honduran flag, which was given a 21-gun salute on the orders of Sir Phipps Hornby -- a gesture which may have mollified Colonel Lechuga a little and certainly marked a turning point in Anglo-Honduran relations, which now improved in direct proportion to the activity of Americans in Nicaragua. Squier forged on regardless, ostentatiously appropriating Tiger Island for Honduras (and the United States of America) in January 1850, shortly after its evacuation by the British. His action was quickly disavowed by Washington.

By now it was plain in both London and Washington that matters were getting out of hand locally and the Central America was rapidly acquiring great strategic importance. On April 19, 1850, the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was signed in Washington on behalf of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. The primary objective of the treaty was to nominally assure neutralization of the countries of Central America in anticipation of the construction of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In principle, the crisis had passed.

References

Americana: The Americas in the World Around 1850, 571-6, 618; Honduras - A Country Study.

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