Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Good will, fostered by many interests in common, has marked our
relations with our nearest southern neighbor. Peace being restored
along her northern frontier, Mexico has asked the punishment of the
late disturbers of her tranquillity. There ought to be a new treaty of
commerce and navigation with that country to take the place of the one
which terminated thirteen years ago. The friendliness of the
intercourse between the two countries is attested by the fact that
during this long period the commerce of each has steadily increased
under the rule of mutual consideration, being neither stimulated by
conventional arrangements nor retarded by jealous rivalries or selfish
distrust.
An indemnity tendered by Mexico as a gracious act for the murder in
1887 of Leon Baldwin, an American citizen, by a band of marauders in
Durango has been accepted and is being paid in installments.
The problem of the storage and use of the waters of the Rio Grande for
irrigation should be solved by appropriate concurrent action of the two
interested countries. Rising in the Colorado heights, the stream flows
intermittently, yielding little water during the dry months to the
irrigation channels already constructed along its course. This scarcity
is often severely felt in the regions where the river forms a common
boundary. Moreover, the frequent changes in its course through level
sands often raise embarrassing questions of territorial jurisdiction.
Prominent among the questions of the year was the Bluefields incident,
in what is known as the Mosquito Indian Strip, bordering on the
Atlantic Ocean and within the jurisdiction of Nicaragua. By the treaty
of 1860 between Great Britain and Nicaragua the former Government
expressly recognized the sovereignty of the latter over the strip, and
a limited form of self-government was guaranteed to the Mosquito
Indians, to be exercised according to their customs, for themselves and
other dwellers within its limits. The so-called native government,
which grew to be largely made up of aliens, for many years disputed the
sovereignty of Nicaragua over the strip and claimed the right to
maintain therein a practically independent municipal government. Early
in the past year efforts of Nicaragua to maintain sovereignty over the
Mosquito territory led to serious disturbances, culminating in the
suppression of the native government and the attempted substitution of
an impracticable composite administration in which Nicaragua and alien
residents were to participate. Failure was followed by an insurrection,
which for a time subverted Nicaraguan rule, expelling her officers and
restoring the old organization. This in turn gave place to the existing
local government established and upheld by Nicaragua.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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