This study of the techniques used by United States citizens in the nineteenth century to collect indemnity for alleged damages from Venezuela has a setting of Manifest Destiny and Machiavellian diplomacy.
Located in the Caribbean Sea and less than a mile long, “Bird Island” was a source of guano over which three U.S. corporations fought legal and legislative battles at home and a war of coercive words against Venezuela. The sun-dried, powdered manure, highly prized as a fertilizer, was exploited by the American discoverers for a short time before the Caracas government asserted ownership and rightly or wrongly ousted them.
Instead of making money from royalties on Aves Island guano, Venezuela eventually had to pay for a small financial loss and huge hypothetical profits of Yankee entrepreneurs whose interests were championed by the Department of State.
The story, well known as to basic facts, is enriched in this work with details from the private papers of Henry Shelton Sanford which are now available to researchers. Harris skillfully sets forth the questionable (if not corrupt) methods in vogue a century ago and used by Sanford, a very capable Connecticut lawyer and diplomat who became the owner of all the Aves claims.
How and why the Americans were expelled from Aves, the two fruitless years spent in trying to get the Secretary of State to act, the events which led to Venezuela’s signing a settlement convention, and the last payment made to heirs forty-five years later are described in this definitive monograph. It deserves publication in English as well as Spanish.
