The perennial Anglo-Guatemalan dispute over Belize has overshadowed Guatemalan difficulties with Mexico. These two paperbacks, however, record in detail the loss of Chiapas to Mexico in 1824, the occupation of Soconusco by Santa Anna in 1842, subsequent negotiations, the treaty of September 27, 1882, whereby Justo Rufino Barrios gave up the Guatemalan claim to the two provinces, and the prolonged efforts of a joint commission to establish a Mexican-Guatemalan boundary. This task was complicated by mutual distrust, border incidents, imprecise geographic data, and granting of woodcutting contracts to competing private companies.
In Límites the first part consists of an essay written in Mexico by Andrés Dardón in 1875 tracing the history of the dispute since 1823. The second part presents a series of undated, unsigned editorials from El Mensajero in 1895 which supplement Dardón by commenting on developments since 1875. The Memoria of 1900 reexamines the whole question in greater detail from its inception in 1823 until the boundary settlement of April 1895. The author, Claudio Urrutia, was a member and later head of the Guatemalan commission of engineers appointed in 1883 under Miles Rock to work with the Mexican commission of Manuel E. Pastrana in laying out a definite boundary between their respective nations.
Basically these works resemble a legal brief designed to demonstrate that Mexico acted in bad faith. All three studies are the product of men party to the dispute which they are examining. The “scissors- and paste” technique of the amateur historian is very evident. Long quotations from uncited documents are strung together on a narrative thread. Occasional vague references are made to authors like Domingo Juarros, Alejandro Marure, and Lorenzo Montúfar. No maps are included. Persuasion relies largely on deductive reasoning, argumentative debate, and moral conviction. The two volumes present the Guatemalan case well. One will have to go elsewhere for the rest of the story.
