Marblehead Pact (1906)

On 20 July 1906 official representatives of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras met aboard the U.S.S. Marblehead, anchored off the Guatemalan port of San José. Honorary representatives of Costa Rica and Nicaragua were also present. The United States and Mexico, sponsors of the conference, had brought the isthmian nations together in an effort to resolve the conflict that had erupted between El Salvador and Honduras, on the one hand, and Guatemala on the other. The Marblehead Pact, signed by the three belligerents, called for the ending of hostilities, the release of political prisoners, expanded efforts to control the activities of political émigrés, and a commitment to negotiate, within two months, a general treaty of "peace, amity, and navigation." The conferees designated San José, Costa Rica, as the site for the forthcoming isthmian conference and agreed that in the interim any difficulties involving the signatory powers would be submitted to the arbitration of the presidents of Mexico and the United States.

See alsoSan José Conference of 1906; Washington Treaties of 1907 and 1923.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1906 (1909), esp. pp. 835-852.

Dana G. Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (1964), esp. pp. 144-146.

Additional Bibliography

Buchenau, Jÿrgen. "Counter-Intervention Against Uncle Sam: Mexico's Support for Nicaraguan Nationalism." The Americas, Vol. 50, No. 2 (October 1993): 207-232.

Stansifer, Charles L. "Application of the Tobar Doctrine to Central America." The Americas, Vol. 23, No. 3 (January 1967): 251-272.

                                       Richard V. Salisbury