I am gratified that you have accepted this exacting task. It is
needless for me to assure you that the full assistance of this
Department is at your complete disposal and I shall be most pleased
to assist you in collecting publications, data and maps that you may
require.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum on the Beagle Channel Islands
Controversy Between Argentina and Chile
[Washington,] May 6,
1938.
In 1881, Chile and Argentina undertook to fix their boundary
through a treaty signed in Buenos Aires on July 23. Article 3 of
the Chilean-Argentine Commercial Treaty of July 23, 1881, which
delimits the boundary in the region of Tierra del Fuego, reads
as follows:
“In Tierra del Fuego a line shall be traced, starting
from the point named Holy Spirit Cape (Cabo del Espíritu Santo) in latitude 52°40′
shall be prolonged toward the south coinciding with the
western meridian of Greenwich 68°34’ until it touches
the Beagle Channel. Tierra del Fuego divided in this
manner shall be Chilean in the western part and
Argentine in the eastern part. With respect to the
islands there shall belong to the Argentine Republic the
Islands of States (Islas de Los
Estados), the islets in its immediate
neighborhood, and the other islands which may be in the
Atlantic to the East of Tierra del Fuego and the eastern
coasts of Patagonia; and there shall belong to Chile all
the islands south of the Beagle Channel to Cape Horn and
those which may be to the west of Tierra del Fuego.”
[Foreign Relations, 1881, p. 12.]5
In delimiting the boundary in the region of
Tierra del Fuego, the Governments of Chile and Argentina were
largely guided by the charts of the British Admiralty, the most
authoritative being the 1887 edition of Map No. 1373 and the
seventh edition of the Pilot of South America
of 1875. The genesis of the current controversy over
the ownership of the islands south of the Beagle Channel is in
what constitutes the Beagle Channel.
This long-standing boundary controversy with regard to the Beagle
Channel islands is far out of proportion to any possible
economic and military value which these islands may possess. The Geographical Review (Vol. 5, 1918,
pages 146–147) in commenting on this controversy mentions that,
“Two diminutive islands, almost unknown to
[Page 213]
geographers, navigators, or
traders, have brought up a new boundary discussion…6 The islands in question are inhabited
only by a few Indians. White settlements have been attempted at
various times but without success. The resources are meagre,
consisting of a small amount of timber and some fair grazing
land. It was upon the Tierra del Fuego coast near here that
Allen Gardiner and his party of English missionaries starved to
death in 1850…6 It is possible but not
probable that the islands may come to have strategic
importance”.
Argentine Position
It seems that for some years following the treaty, Argentina
raised no special question with regard to the islands at the
mouth of the Beagle Channel. As a result of certain hydrographic
surveys of the channels which flow around the island of Picton,
the Argentine Government later raised the questions of whether
the opening lay to the astronomical or the magnetic north of
Lennox Island, and that the proper ownership of the islands
south of this channel should be based upon a determination of
the principal axis (eje) of the
channel.
The first attempt to question Chile’s claim occurred in 1891 when
an Argentine geographer published a map in which the Beagle
Channel was indicated as bending to the south where it
intersects the meridian 65° 10’. A little later another
Argentine assigned the name of Moat Channel to the waters
flowing to the northwest of Picton Island between the island and
the mainland of Tierra del Fuego and placed the main course of
the Beagle Channel southeast and around the south of Picton
Island. The most extreme position taken by Argentina assigned
the point where the meridian 67° 15’ intersects the Beagle
Channel as its true mouth.
The Argentine position has been presented in the Derrotero del Canal de Beagle, published
by the Sección Hidrográfica del Ministerio de Marina [Buenos
Aires, 1901] in Memoria de los Trabajos
Effectuados en el Canal Beagle, 1899–1900, by the same
Department [Buenos Aires, 1912], and in a series of editorials
in La Prensa of Buenos Aires in January
and February, 1915, by Dr. Estanislao S. Zeballos.
Chilean Position
The Chilean Government is reported to have exercised limited
jurisdiction and sovereignty over the islands in dispute
periodically since the Treaty of 1881. Chile’s claim is defended
by J. Guillermo Guerra, Professor of International Law in the
University of Chile, in his La soberanía
Chilena en las islas al sur del Canal Beagle, Santiago,
1917.
[Page 214]
“Pacto Adicional” of
1893
In carrying out the Treaty of 1881, it soon became apparent to
the boundary commissioners that delimiting the line following
the highest crest created the possibility that where deep
indentations cut into the mountains Argentina might be found in
possession of points on the Pacific encircled by Chilean
territory. To avoid such awkward salients, Article 2 of the
“Pacto Adicional”, ratified December 21, 1893, states that,
“…7 the sovereignty of each state
over the respective littoral is absolute, to such an extent that
Chile cannot claim any point on [hacia]
the Atlantic nor can the Argentine claim any on the Pacific.”
The boundary commission considered it so important to stick
rigidly to this principle that in setting the boundary in Tierra
del Fuego the meridian south from Cape Espíritu Santo was
deliberately dropped over about a mile and a half west of the
true meridian designated in the treaty. This was done to prevent
the possibility of the boundary line cutting through the Bay of
San Sebastian and thus giving Chile a port on the Atlantic. [La soberanía Chilena en las islas al sur del
Canal Beagle, by Guerra, p. 263.] [In discussing the
question of the boundaries of oceans, the Geographer of the
Department referred to an unofficial exposition of this matter
in a special publication of the International Hydrographic
Bureau at Monaco, entitled Limits of the
Oceans and Seas, August 1928.]
Protocol of 1915.
The differing views of the two governments with respect to the
islands at the eastern end of Beagle Channel were brought out in
the open in 1915 as the result of the publication of a decree of
the Chilean Government, dated December 15, 1914, on the subject
of the jurisdiction and neutrality of the Straits of Magellan
and the southern channels. This led to the signing of a protocol
dated June 28, 1915,8 providing for the arbitration
of the matter by the King of England. It appears that the
British Government was willing for the King to act as soon as
the World War was over and the agreement to refer the question
to him was filed to await the end of the war. Since 1915 the
matter has been apparently dormant, as there is practically
nothing in the Department’s files.
The Geographer of the Department reports that an examination of
the maps on file in the Department shows the following
result:
1. Chilean maps examined show islands as being under Chilean
sovereignty.
[Page 215]
2. Argentine maps examined mostly show islands as Argentinian,
but some show Isla Picton and Isla Nueva as Argentinian, and
Isla Lennox as Chilean, e. g., Argentine railroad map, 1933,
sheet 5, filed as:
One Argentine map of Tierra del Fuego shows all 3 as Chilean.
Filed as:
Also an Argentine map of Argentina showing economic information:
3. A map of Argentina & Chile boundaries, 1902, printed in
Paris, shows “line acc. to Act of Oct. 1, 1898” putting I.
Lennox on Chilean side, and I. Picton & I. Nueva on
Argentinian side. Filed as:
The map of Tierra del Fuego, provisional
edition S. N. 19, of the American Geographical Society of New
York, is the best available in the Department for the area in
dispute. This map shows the portion of the boundary definitely
delimited and the portions in dispute as well as the various
alleged courses of the Beagle Channel. A photostat of this map
may be readily made in the Geographer’s Office.
