Resumen

VIVAS PINEDA, Gerardo. The gifted peninsula: the maritime forgotten in the negotiations by the Guajira, 1833-1891. Tiempo y Espacio [online]. 2015, vol.25, n.64, pp.243-286. ISSN 1315-9496.

The backward motion in space of our present maps, turned into cartoons of the Uti Possidetis, represents the most uncomfortable evidence of our careless attitude toward our territory, and also casts a shameful shadow over the skills employed in the negotiations undertaken by national diplomacy. Actually the plenipotentiaries who had to handle Colombia’s expansionist foreign policy during the 19th century forgot to take a cursory glance through seafaring documentation written by pilots, skippers, navy officers and sailors in general, when sailing hadn’t still lost its struggle against the steam boat, and the maritime ventures depended on the goodwill or ires of the ocean. For if the bad temper of the sea is to be considered, Colombian waters experienced the worst that could be imagined. If this permanent and unaltered telluric fact along the centuries -and is registered in hundreds of navigation journals and course logs- had been known, studied, analyzed and used by our delegates on limits affairs, Colombia would have had to forget Peninsula and Gulf altogether. This work exposes a brief review of the negotiations by our diplomacy between 1833 and 1891 -the years marking the start of discussions and the end of diplomatic litigation by the judgment of the Spanish arbitrator, respectively- and identifies the lack of a coherent strategy based on the maritime documentation mentioned above as title deeds in favor of our country. It reviews the testimonials of seafarers that experienced the adversities of the immense Neogranadine seas, explaining the usefulness of the journals and course logs during the maritime voyages, and the inclusion in their courses of all kind of details over the incidences occurred during the Caribbean and transatlantic trips.

Palabras clave : navigation; journals; course logs; meteorology; frontiers; boundaries; diplomacy.

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