On 20 July 1895, during a dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela over the latter's boundary with British Guiana, Secretary of State Richard Olney told the British to submit to arbitration. "The United States is practically sovereign on this continent," he wrote, "and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition." After a brief war scare, the British agreed to an arbitration process that gave them nine-tenths of the disputed land. Venezuela was not consulted. Olney's claim to supremacy in the Western Hemisphere was the broadest interpretation to date of the Monroe Doctrine, which rejected European interference in the Americas.
Bibliography
Braveboy-Wagner, Jacqueline Anne. The Venezuela-Guyana Border Dispute: Britain's Colonial Legacy in Latin America. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984.
Eggert, Gerald G. Richard Olney: Evolution of a Statesman. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974.
