Frederick Chatfield

Frederick Chatfield (born February 6, 1801 in London , † September 30, 1872 in Brighton ) was the consul of the United Kingdom in Central America from 1834 to 1852 .

Consul in Central America

Chatfield's superior was the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Charles Gray, 2nd Earl Gray , Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston .

From 1834 to 1852, Frederick Chatfield represented the British government and represented the interests of British industry in Central America. In the 1840s he sought investment protection for British investors and called the Royal Navy when he deemed it necessary to enforce concessions.

His official seat was in Guatemala City . Guatemala and Costa Rica were under the influence of the United Kingdom. Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua were under US influence. José María Castro Madriz applied to the Government of Her Majesty Victoria (United Kingdom) for the establishment of a protectorate over Costa Rica. Chatfield negotiated the matter with José Miguel Mora Porras , but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office politely declined.

The British interests in Nicaragua were supported by the Vice-Consuls John Forster in El Realejo and Thomas Manning in León (Nicaragua) . Both ran the largest export company. It exported Brazil wood and indigo and had an import monopoly over the ports on the Pacific coast. The UK traders lent money to the Nicaraguan government in exchange for the tobacco monopoly and revenue from El Realejo customs.

Frederick Chatfield originally supported José Francisco Morazán Quezada , viewed the Central American Confederation project as a failure in 1838 and supported the aspiring leaders of the Partidos Conservadores

In August 1840 the newspaper El Redactor Constitucional appeared as the government organ of José Francisco Zelaya y Ayes , in which the complaints of British citizens in November 1840, which the British consul, Frederick Chatfield presented, were dealt with.

Miskito Protectorate

Francisco Ferrera recognized Thomas Lowry Robinson as monarch of the British Protectorate Miskito Coast on December 16, 1843, under pressure from Chatfield . Advised by Chatfield, in June 1847 Lord Palmerston defined the boundaries of the Kingdom of Misquito, Cabo Gracias a Dios to the north and Río San Juan to the south . The viceroyalty of New Granada was to be kept at a distance by an area on the Chiriqui Lagoon , which was to be added to Costa Rica . When Nicaraguan troops occupied San Juan del Norte at the mouth of the Río San Juan, it was defeated by a British force sent to the governor of Jamaica by Charles Edward Gray . Graytown was named after Gray .

Interoceanic channel

In 1826 the British engineer John Baily (1811–1850) was commissioned by a British company to carry out a study for a transoceanic connection via Nicaragua. In 1837 and 1838, Baily developed a project study on the Nicaragua Canal with a route from San Juan del Sur across Lake Nicaragua and the Río San Juan for the Nicaraguan government.

In February 1840, Martin Van Buren's confidante , John Lloyd Stephens, visited Nicaragua. He interviewed John Baily, made detailed notes on the results of the study. Stephens left Nicaragua via El Realejo , where he met the influential trader and British Vice-Consul John Foster. John Forster informed his supervisor Frederick Chatfield in Guatemala.

Chatfield wanted to put pressure on the government of Honduras Juan Lindo to grant the British government the right to an interoceanic canal. He claimed debts from the Honduran government, which the British government had bought from British citizens. In order to slow Chatfield, Ephraim convinced George Squier , who had replaced Elisha Hise as US consul in Central America in Nicaragua in July 1849, to place the island of El Tigre in the Gulf of Fonseca under US administration for 18 months by the government of Honduras . During this time Squier hoped to sign a canal deal.

Chatfield ordered Captain James Aylmer Dorset Paynter of HMS Gorgon (1837) to occupy El Tigre and then hoist the Union Jack . This happened on October 16, 1849. The British stayed on the island until the British Foreign Minister Palmerston disapproved of the occupation in February 1850 as part of the negotiations on the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty .

Chatfield retired in 1852.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mario Rodriguez (* 1922), A Palmerstonian diplomat in Central America: Frederick Chatfield , University of Arizona Press, 1964, 385 p.
2. ↑ National Portrait Gallery, http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp91584
3. ^ Ralph Lee Woodward: Central America from Independence to c. 1870 . In: Leslie Bethell (ed.): The Cambridge History of Latin America . Vol. 3: From Independence to c. 1870 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985. ISBN 0-521-23224-4 . Pp. 471-506, here pp. 495 and 499.
4. ↑ Jorge Francisco Sáenz Carbonell, Quincena 1, Enero del 2002, archive link ( memento of the original from May 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. EL CIUDADANO ESCLARECIDO 
5. ↑ E. Bradford Burns, Patriarch and folk: the emergence of Nicaragua, 1798-1858 , Harvard University Press, 1991, 307 pp. 52.
6. ↑ Robert L. Sheina, Latin America's wars , Brassey's, 2003, p 498
7. ^ The New York Times March 31, 1854, CHARLES EDWARD GRAY, ex-Governor , embarked in HM screw steamer Devastation
8. ^ Richard Warner Van Alstyne (1900 - 1983), American Diplomacy in Action , Stanford University Press
9. ^ House of Commons, Correspondence Respecting the Mosquito Territory: Presented to the House of Commons , July 3, 1848, in Pursuance of Their Address of April 3, 1848, Adamant Media, House of Commons, Adamant Media Corporation, 2004, 145 SS 97
10. ↑ James Aylmer Dorset Paynter http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowBiog.php?id=738
11. ^ Lester H. Brune, Richard Dean Burns, Chronological History of US Foreign Relations: 1607-1932 Routledge, 2003, p. 159.
12. ↑ Asociación para el Fomento de los Estudios Históricos en Centroamérica, El primer encuentro con los filibusteros en Nicaragua: antecedentes y contexto  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. FN34  
13. ↑ Robert L. Sheina, Latin America's wars , Brassey's, 2003 SS 198

References

1. ↑ en: Charles Edward Gray
2. ^ Es : El Tigre (Honduras)
3. ↑ en: HMS Gorgon (1837)