French Policy towards Latin America, 1820–60

Shawcross, Edward

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70464-7_2

Edward Shawcross⁴

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

Chapter 2 places Latin America within the context of French imperialism from 1820 to 1860. The chapter asks why France committed more resources to this region than any other in the extra-European world, Algeria excepted, in the period 1820–67, which culminated in the greatest challenge to the Monroe Doctrine until the Cuban Missile Crisis. The focus of the chapter is on the position the region occupied in the worldview of French policymakers, the long history of French involvement with Spain and its colonies, the economic and strategic importance of Latin America in the nineteenth century and the ideas which underpinned French imperialism more generally. The chapter explores how French thinkers and policymakers developed informal-imperial strategies within the context of the decolonisation of the Americas. It also details how these strategies were intended to emulate Britain’s informal empire. French intervention in the River Plate provided an opportunity to put these ideas into practice and French activities in this region are referred to as a comparative to Mexico in order to explore more general trends in French policy towards Latin America, particularly the discourse of civilisation that promoted an active role for France in the extra-European world and the use of local elites to further French goals. Finally, the relationship of Britain to French policy in Latin America is analysed in order to see what effect it had on French imperialism in the region.

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Notes

1.
Thiers , Discours, VIII, 381–82.
2.
Ibid., VIII, 354.
3.
French involvement in the region is detailed in Jean-David Avenel, L’affaire du Rio de la Plata: 1838–1852 (Paris: Économica, 1998). McLean discusses French policy insofar as it relates to British involvement in War, Diplomacy and Informal Empire. See also Shawcross, ‘“When Montevideo Was French”’.
4.
‘The Monroe Doctrine’, in Robert Holden and Eric Zolov (eds.), Latin America and the United States : A Documentary History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 11–14.
5.
Quoted in Robert William Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe, A Survey of Foreign Policy, 1789–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 94.
6.
James Polk, ‘Texas, Mexico and Manifest Destiny’, in Holden and Zolov (eds.), Latin America, 21–23. Guizot ’s speech: ‘Chambres des Députés. Présidence de M. Sauzet. Séance du mardi 10 June’, Le Moniteur universel, 11 June 1845, p. 1655. On the Monroe Doctrine and its evolution, see Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011).
7.
First in a speech to the Chamber of Peers and then to the Chamber of Deputies, ‘Chambre des Pairs’, Le Moniteur universel, 13 January 1846, pp. 73–74, and ‘Chambre des Députés’, ibid., 22 January 1846, pp. 158–63.
8.
For an analysis of Mexico’s overseas trade for the period, see Inés Herrera Canales, El comercio exterior de México, 1821–1875 (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1977).
9.
Thiers , Discours, VIII, 382.
10.
The quote is from Alice Conklin and Sarah Fishman, France and its Empire since 1870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 16. For the various interpretations see Raoul Giradet, L’idée coloniale en France (Paris: La Table ronde 1972), 5–6; Blanchard, Culture coloniale, 13–14 and 92; Denise Bouche and Pierre Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, 2 vols. (Paris: Fayard, 1991), I, 52; Henri Brunschwig, Mythes et réalités de l’impérialisme colonial français (Paris: A. Colin, 1960); Agnes Murphy, The Ideology of French Imperialism (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1948).
11.
Jacques Binoche-Guedra, La France d’outre-mer, 1815–1962 (Paris: Masson, 1992), 30.
12.
Bernard Lauzanne (ed.), L’Aventure coloniale de la France, 5 vols. (Paris: Denoël, 1987–97), II, Jean Martin, L’Empire renaissant, 1789–1870, 257.
13.
Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 1. See also Sankar Muthu, Enlightenment against Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) and Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999).
14.
Todd, ‘Transnational Projects’, 266.
15.
Pitts, Turn to Empire, 168–85.
16.
See François Véron de Forbonnais, “Colony,” ‘The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project’, trans. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwal (Ann Arbor: MPublishing; University of Michigan Library, 2004) http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.246 accessed 16 July 2017. Originally published as “Colonie,” Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, III, 648–51 (Paris, 1753).
17.
Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes, 10 vols. (Geneva: n.p., 1781), IV, 201. Diderot contributed to this work and is identified as the author of the quoted section in John Hope Mason and Robert Wokler (eds.), Political Writings: Denis Diderot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 167.
18.
See Condorcet , Réflexions sur l’esclavage des nègres (Neufchatel: Société typographique, 1781).
19.
Denis Diderot , Observations sur le Nakaz, printed in Paul Vernière (ed.), Diderot . Œuvres politiques (Paris: Garnier frères, 1963), 417–18.
20.
See Condorcet , Réflexions sur le commerce des blés (London: n.p., 1776).
21.
On the civilizing mission under the Third Republic see Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).
22.
Condorcet , Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain (Paris: Agasse, 1794), 332–35.
23.
Benjamin Constant, De l’esprit de conquête et de l’usurpation: dans leurs rapports avec la civilisation européenne, 3rd ed. (Paris: Le Normant; H. Nicole, 1814).
24.
Ibid., vii–viii.
25.
Benjamin Constant, Principes de politiques applicables à tous les gouvernements représentatifs et particulièrement à la constitution actuelle de la France (Paris: A. Eymery, impr. de Hocquet, 1815), 205–06.
26.
Jennifer Pitts, ‘Constant’s Thoughts on Slavery and Empire’, in Helena Rosenblatt (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Constant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 188.
27.
The article was first published in Le Temps (Paris), 20 June 1830, and is printed in Ephraïm Harpaz (ed.), Recueil d’articles: [1825–1830]/Benjamin Constant; texte établi, introduit, annoté et commenté par Ephraïm Harpaz (Paris: Champion, 1992), 481–83.
28.
Jennifer Pitts, ‘Republicanism, Liberalism, and Empire’, in Sankar Muthu (ed.), Empire and Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 268.
29.
François Guizot , Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de mon temps, 8 vols. (Paris: Michel-Lévy frères, 1858–67), VI, 272–75.
30.
‘Chambre des Députés’, Journal des débats, 1 April 1843, third page.
31.
Laura Bornholdt, ‘The Abbé de Pradt and the Monroe Doctrine’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 24 (1944), 201–02. A more detailed biography is given in Colonel Daupeyroux, ‘La curieuse vie de l’Abbé du Pradt’, Revue des études historiques, 95 (1929), 279–312.
32.
De Pradt was influential in Mexico. Lorenzo de Zavala translated part of his work in ‘Traducción. América Española. Mexico’, El Sol (Mexico City), 18 July 1824, pp. 135–36 and ‘Concluye de traducción del articulo de Mr. Prat [sic]’, ibid., 19 July 1824, pp. 139–40. Estela Guadalupe Jiménez Codinach argues that de Pradt ’s ideas affected Mexican independence in México en 1821: Dominique de Pradt y el Plan de Iguala (Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1982).
33.
Bornholdt, ‘Abbé de Pradt ’, 203–08.
34.
In Dominique de Pradt , Les Trois âges des colonies, ou de leur état passé, présent et à venir, 2 vols. (Paris: Giguet, 1801–02).
35.
Dominique de Pradt , Des colonies et de la révolution actuelle de l’Amérique, 2 vols. (Paris: F. Béchet, 1817), i–xxvii; 196–208.
36.
Ibid., I, xx–xxiv.
37.
Todd, ‘Transnational Projects’, 278–84.
38.
Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, ou De la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population 2 vols. (Paris: Delauney, 1819), I, 393.
39.
François-René de Chateaubriand , The Congress of Verona: Comprising a Portion of Memoirs of His Own Times, 2 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1838), II, 233.
40.
De Pradt, Des colonies, I, xviii; 193–94; II, 200; 248–70.
41.
François-René de Chateaubriand , Oeuvres complètes de Chateaubriand . Vol. VI, Voyage en Amérique (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1861), 217.
42.
The debates initially appeared in La Gazette de la France. The articles have been translated into Spanish and published in Alberto Filippi (ed.), Bolívar y Europa: en las crónicas, el pensamiento político y la historiografía (Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República, 1986), 288–360.
43.
De Pradt, Des colonies, I, xvi.
44.
See Gilles Harvard and Cécile Vidal, L’Histoire de l’Amérique française (Paris: Flammarion, 2006).
45.
Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2004), 21.
46.
See Sylvia Neely, ‘The Politics of Liberty in the Old World and the New: Lafayette’s Return to America in 1824’, Journal of the Early Republic, 6 (1986), 151–71.
47.
See Marion Godfroy, Kourou and the Struggle for a French America trans. Lan Dill (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and Emma Rothschild, ‘A Horrible Tragedy in the French Atlantic’, Past and Present, 192 (2006), 67–108.
48.
Christophe Belaubre, Jordana Dym and John Savage (eds.), Napoléon et les Amériques: histoire atlantique et empire napoléonien (Toulouse: CNRS Université de Toulouse-le Mirail UMR 5136, 2009), especially chs. 7 and 13.
49.
Jean-François Brière, ‘Le baron Portal et l’indépendance d’Haïti, 1818–1821’, French Colonial History, 10 (2009), 97–108.
50.
Todd, ‘Imperial Meridian’, 167.
51.
For an overview of French interests in Latin America from the sixteenth to early twentieth century, see Christian Buchet (ed.), La Mer, la France et l’Amérique Latine (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2006).
52.
Adrian Pearce, British Trade with Spanish America, 1763–1808 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007), 8–9; Lynch, Bourbon Spain , 356.
53.
George Verne Blue, ‘French Protests against Restrictions on Trade with Spanish America, 1788–1790’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 13 (1933), 336–44.
54.
See Carlos Marichal, Bankruptcy of Empire Mexican Silver and the Wars between Spain , Britain and France, 1760–1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). The international context is also covered in Barbara Stein and Stanley Stein’s, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Reign of Charles III, 1759–1789 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003); The Edge of Crisis: War and Trade in the Spanish Atlantic, 1789–1808 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009); and Crisis in an Atlantic Empire: Spain and New Spain, 1808–1810 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2015). See also John Eliot, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
55.
Stein, The Edge of Crisis, 392.
56.
Lynch, Bourbon Spain , 394.
57.
Marichal, Bankruptcy of Empire, ch. 5.
58.
The classic study of Napoleon’s ambitions in Spain is André Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, 1799–1808 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1930).
59.
Jean-Baptiste de Villèle , Mémoires et correspondance du Comte de Villèle , 5 vols. (Paris: Perrin, 1888–90), III, 115 and IV, 488.
60.
Raoul de Cisternes (ed.), Le duc de Richelieu, son action aux conférences d’Aix la- Chapelle, sa retraite du pouvoir, documents originaux (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1898), 25–28.
61.
Chateaubriand to Louis Justin Marie de Talaru, 29 November 1823 in The Congress of Verona, 300.
62.
‘Rapport a S. E. le Ministre de la Marine et des colonies de la mission a St. Domingue de M. le Bon. De Mackau ’, AAE, [C]orrespondance [P]olitique, Haiti, 2.
63.
David Todd, ‘Republican Capitalism: The Political Economy of French Capital Exports in the Nineteenth Century’, 33. Paper shared at ‘France and its Empire in the Global Economy, 1815–1939’ workshop, 10 June 2015, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
64.
See William Spence Robertson, France and Latin-American Independence (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1939). France’s diplomatic relations with Mexico are discussed in Jacques Penot, Les relations entre la France et le Mexique de 1808 à 1840: un Chapitre d’histoire écrit par les marins et diplomates français, thèse (Lille: Atelier Reproduction des Thèses, Université Lille III, 1976) and Barker, The French Experience in Mexico. Latin American independence is placed in its international context by Gabriel Paquette, ‘The Dissolution of the Spanish Atlantic Monarchy’, The Historical Journal, 52 (2009), 175–212, and Rafe Blaufarb, ‘The Western question’, 742–63.
65.
‘Rapport sur les missions projettés dans les amériques Espagnoles’, dated March 1822 (with a margin note stating that instructions were extracted from the report and sent to agents on 10 March 1822). AAE, [A]ffaires [D]iverse [P]olitiques 46/1.
66.
‘Question dans l’intérêt de la France et des Amériques’, 25 May 1825, AAE, MD Amérique, 36.
67.
‘Instructions pour Monsieur Charles Bresson, chargé par le Roi d’une mission en Amérique’, AAE, MD Amérique, 36.
68.
Not including the French Caribbean colonies.
69.
Tableau décennal du commerce de la France avec ses colonies et les puissances étrangères, publiée par l’Administration des Douanes, 1827 à 1836 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1838), XLII–XLIII. Jacques Penot charts the expansion of French trade with Mexico in the immediate years after independence, ‘L’expansion commerciale française au Mexique et les causes du conflit franco-mexicain de 1838–1839’, Bulletin Hispanique, 75 (1973), 169–201.
70.
Tableau décennal 1827 à 1836, XLVI–XLVIII.
71.
Jacques Galos to ‘Messieurs les Membres Composant la Chambre de Commerce de Bordeaux’, 19 February 1825; Tomás Murphy Sr to Vicente Rocafuerte, 20 June 1826, AHGE, Francia, L. 1; e. 1.
72.
‘Instructions pour Monsieur Adrien Cochelet ’, 15 January 1829, AAE, CP Mexique, 4.
73.
On bimetallism, see Flandreau, The Glitter of Gold.
74.
Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland, Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne, 2 vols. (Paris: F. Schoell, 1811).
75.
Michel Chevalier, Des mines d’argent et d’or du Nouveau-monde (Paris: Au bureau de la Revue des deux mondes, 1846), 75.
76.
Jaime Rodríguez, ‘La crisis de México en el siglo XIX’, Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México, 10 (1986), 85–107.
77.
Beltrami , Le Mexique, 2 vols. (Paris: Crevot, 1830), I, 332; Mathieu de Fossey, Le Mexique (Paris: H. Plon, 1857), 429; Hippolyte Du Pasquier de Dommartin , Les États-Unis et le Mexique. L’intérêt européen dans l’Amérique du Nord (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852), 51–54; Martin to La Ferronnays, 24 July 1828, AAE, CP Mexique, 4; ‘Note de Monsieur Gabriac sur les mines du Mexique’; ‘Note sur la Sonora par Eugène du Moflas’, AAE, MD Mexique, 10.
78.
See Dugast, La tentation mexicaine, I, chs. 5 and 6.
79.
Jean Meyer, ‘Les Français au Mexique au XIXe siècle’, Cahiers des Amériques latines, 9–10 (1974), 51; Barker, French Experience in Mexico, 123–30.
80.
Several of them published works on Mexico, such as Ancharsis Brissot, Voyage au Guazacoalcos, aux Antilles et aux États-Unis (Paris: A. Bertrand, 1837) and Fossey, Le Mexique. These French communities, as well as the influence and impact of French culture and science in Mexico, are explored in Javier Perez Siller, David Skerrit and Chantai Cramaussel (eds.), México Francia: Memoria de una sensibilidad común; siglos XIX–XX, 4 vols. (Mexico: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla; San Luis Potosí: Colegio de San Luis; México, D.F., CEMCA, 1998–2008).
81.
Benjamin Disraeli, The Present State of Mexico, as Detailed in a Report … to the … Congress by the Secretary of State for the Home Department and Foreign Affairs, with Notes, and a Memoir of don Lucas Alaman (London: John Murray, 1825), 44; Charlotte Kellner, Alexander von Humboldt (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 107–08; Michael Costeloe, Bubbles and Bonanzas: British Investors and Investments in Mexico, 1821–1860 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011), 58.
82.
Schmaltz to Fleury, 16 June 1824, AAE, AD Mexique, 1.
83.
Chateaubriand , Congress of Verona, 226–29.
84.
The limited influence the British loans had on the Mexican government is explored in Michael Costeloe, Bonds and Bondholders: British Investors and Mexico’s Foreign Debt, 1824–1888 (Westport: Praeger, 2003).
85.
Schmaltz to Fleury, 16 June 1824, AAE, AD Mexique, 1.
86.
‘Question dans l’intérêt de la France et des Amériques’, 25 May 1825, AAE, MD Amérique, 36.
87.
Molé to Deffaudis , 10 November 1837 and Deffaudis to Molé , 6 May 1838, AAE, CP Mexique, 12; Molé to Roger, 7 July, 12 August, 22 November 1837, CP Argentine, 8.
88.
A naval demonstration before Cartagena had also been successful. See William Spence Robertson, ‘An Early Threat of Intervention in South America’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 23 (1943), 611–31. Baron Deffaudis hoped that this event would have a “salutary” effect on Mexico. Deffaudis to Broglie , 20 April 1834, AAE, CP Mexique, 8.
89.
Molé to Baudin , 23 August 1838, AAE, CP Mexique, 14.
90.
‘France, Paris, 30 juillet’, Journal des débats, 31 July 1838, front page.
91.
On Guizot ’s liberalism and its political context, see Michael Drolet, ‘Carrying the Banner of the Bourgeoisie: Democracy, Self and the Philosophical Foundations to François Guizot ’s Historical and Political Thought’, History of Political Thought, 32 (2011), 645–90; Aurelian Craiutu, Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2003); Marina Valensise (ed.), François Guizot et la culture politique de son temps (Paris: Gallimard, 1991); Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot (Paris: Gallimard, 1985).
92.
François Guizot , Cours d’histoire moderne: histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe depuis la chute de l’empire romain jusqu’à la Révolution française (Paris: Pichon et Didier, 1828), 6–9.
93.
On the relationship between the discourse of civilisation and imperialism see Brett Bowden, The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), and Duncan Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
94.
‘France, Paris, 30 juillet’, Journal des débats, 31 July 1838, front page.
95.
Deffaudis to de Broglie , 15 July 1833, AAE, CP Mexique, 8.
96.
Deffaudis to Broglie , 2 June 1836, AAE, CP Mexique, 10.
97.
Deffaudis to Thiers , 23 July 1836, AAE, CP Mexique, 6; Deffaudis to Molé , 25 November 1837, AAE, CP Mexique, 12.
98.
Baudin to Molé , 19 March 1839, AAE, CP Mexique, 16; De Cyprey to Thiers , 13 July 1840, AAE, CP Mexique, 19.
99.
Deffaudis to Thiers , 24 September 1836, CP Mexique, 12.
100.
Guizot to Saint Aulaire, 26 October 1844, AAE, CP Mexique, 24.
101.
‘France, Paris, 30 juillet’, Journal des débats, 31 July 1838, front page.
102.
‘Chambre des Députés. Présidence de M. Sauzet. Séance du mardi 25 juin’, Le Moniteur universel, 26 June 1839, p. 1093.
103.
William Katra, The Argentine Generation of 1837: Echeverría, Alberdi, Sarmiento, Mitre (London: Associated University Presses, 1996); Daniel Schwartz, ‘Juan Bautista Alberdi and the Mutation of French Doctrinaire Liberalism in Argentina’, History of Political Thought, 30 (2009), 140–65.
104.
‘Chambre des Pairs’, Le Moniteur universel, 9 February 1841, pp. 515–16.
105.
‘Chambre des Pairs’, Le Moniteur universel, 9 February, 1841, p. 515.
106.
Guizot to Saint Aulaire, 21 January 1845, AAE, CP Argentine, 19.
107.
Britain unilaterally raised its blockade in 1847. France continued until 1848.
108.
José Luis Mora to Gomez Farías, 20 May 1845, [B]enson [L]atin [A]merican [C]ollection, The University of Texas at Austin, Valentín Gómez Farías collection.
109.
Cochelet to foreign minister, 1 January 1832, AAE, CP Mexique, 7.
110.
Baron Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros to Count Horace François Bastien Sébastiani de La Porta, 30 August 1832. For similar views see Gros to Sébastiani, 13 February, 5 April, 5 June 1832, AAE, CP Mexique, 7.
111.
Sébastiani to Baron Gros, 4 March 1832. Tornel was pleased by the July Revolution. Tornel to Alamán , 19 and 28 September 1830, AHGE, Estados Unidos, L. 17; e.1. Alamán welcomed it insofar as it led to French recognition of Mexico and gave no indication of hostility towards it in his diplomatic correspondence. Alamán to Murphy, 29 September and 27 October 1830, Francia, L. 8; e. 57, and L. 9; e. 73.
112.
Quote from Deffaudis to Molé , 24 February 1837, AAE, CP Mexique, 11. See also Deffaudis to foreign minister, 6 July, 1 and 19 October, 1836, AAE, CP Mexique, 10; Deffaudis to Molé , 12 January and 24 February 1837, CP Mexique, 11.
113.
Baudin to José Urrea, 22 December, Urrea to Baudin , 27 December 1838, José Antonio Mejía to Baudin , 6 January, Baudin to Urrea and Mejía , 15 January, Baudin to Mejíá, 20 January, Baudin to Molé 15 February, Baudin to Urrea, 16 February 1839, AAE, CP Mexique, 15; Baudin to Molé , 19 March, ‘Note, article pour le Moniteur sur l’affaire du Mexique’, Baudin to Soult, 27 November 1839, AAE CP Mexique, 16.
114.
Eugène Massin in Henri Blanchard and Adrien Dauzats, San-Juan de Ulùa, ou Relation de l’expédition française au Mexique, sous les ordres de M. le contre-amiral Baudin , par MM. P. Blanchard et A. Dauzats. Suivi de notes et documents et d’un aperçu général sur l’état actuel du Texas, par M. E. Maissin … Publié par ordre du roi, sous les auspices de M. le baron Tupinier, alors ministre de la Marine (Paris: Gide, 1839), 457–62.
115.
See especially his speeches on 29 and 31 May 1844, and 5 January 1850. Thiers , Discours, VI, 349–98 and 399–444; VIII, 327–84.
116.
Antoine-Louis Deffaudis , Questions diplomatiques et particulièrement des travaux et de l’organisation du Ministère des affaires étrangères (Paris: Goujon et Milon, 1849), 78.
117.
Alexandre Dumas, Montevideo, ou Une nouvelle Troie (Paris: N. Chaix, 1850), 159.
118.
Charles Lefèbvre de Bécourt, ‘Des Rapports de la France et de L’Europe avec L’Amérique du Sud’ Revue des deux mondes’, 15 (1838), 54–69.
119.
Louis-Napoléon , ‘Nos Colonies dans l’océan pacifique’ first published in Progrès du Pas-du-Calais, 14 June 1841. Republished in Oeuvres de Napoléon III, 5 vols. (Paris: Amyot, 1854–69), II, 3–8.
120.
Louis-Napoléon was supposedly offered the presidency of Ecuador in 1844. In 1859, and again in 1862, the idea of a French protectorate over Ecuador was discussed. Mark van Aken, King of the Night: Juan José Flores and Ecuador, 1824–1864 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 180. On French involvement in Central America see Thomas Schoonover, The French in Central America: Culture and Commerce, 1820–1930 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2000); Edward Richards, ‘Louis Napoleon and Central America’, Journal of Modern History, 34 (1962), 178–84.
121.
Louis-Napoléon , ‘Vielle histoire toujours nouvelle’ first published in Progrès du Pas-du-Calais, 3 August 1844. Republished in Oeuvres de Napoléon III, II, 35–41.
122.
‘Corps législatif’, Le Moniteur universel, 28 January 1864, p. 147.
123.
Nassau William Senior , Conversations with Distinguished Persons, During the Second Empire, from 1860 to 1863, 2 vols. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1880), II, 113.
124.
Robert Tombs, France 1814–1914 (London: Addison Wesley Longman, 1996), 151.
125.
Jean-Marcel Jeanneney and Élizabeth Barbier-Jeanneney, Les économies occidentales du XIXe siècle à nos jour (Paris: Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1985), 222.
126.
Todd, ‘Imperial Meridian’, 178–79.
127.
Thiers , Discours, VIII, 341–42.
128.
These years were selected because the revolution of 1848 makes this an anomalous year for French commerce, and after 1860 the US Civil War resulted in a reduction of its international trade. Between 1861 and 1867, Latin America’s share of the total volume of French imports and exports increased. The statistics are taken annually from Annuaire de l’économie politique et de la statistique (Paris: H. Guillemin & Cie, 1847–99) from the issues 1848 to 1869. By Latin America, it is meant all countries listed in the journal’s tables that are part of this area today, which are the following (these names are those used by the Annuaire translated into English—not the present day equivalents): Brazil; Mexico; Peru; Chile; the River Plate ; Uruguay; New Granada; Venezuela; Cayenne/(later) French Guiana; Haiti; Guatemala; Ecuador; Bolivia; Martinique; Guadeloupe; and Dutch, Spanish and Danish Possessions in the Americas (three separate categories).
129.
Michel Chevalier, L’Isthme de Panama, examen historique et géographique des différentes directions suivant lesquelles on pourrait le percer et des moyens à y employer, suivi d’un aperçu sur l’isthme de Suez (Paris: C. Gosselin, 1844); Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Canal of Nicaragua, or a Project to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by Means of a Canal (London: Mills and Son, 1846).
130.
‘Politique—Bulletin de la semaine’, Le Mémorial diplomatique, pp. 65–66.
131.
Hamilton, Anglo-French Naval Rivalry, 36–37.
132.
Robert Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present (London: Pimlico, 2007), chs. 7 and 8.
133.
See Roger Bullen, Guizot , Palmerston and the Breakdown of the Entente Cordiale (London: Athlone Press, 1974) and Price, The French Second Empire, ch. 13.
134.
See Bock, Prelude to Tragedy.
135.
Ashburnham to Palmerston , 30 November 1837, disp., 63 marked ‘confidential’, FO 50/107.
136.
Examples are numerous, see Wellington to Pakenham, 17 March 1835, FO 50/90; Pakenham to Wellington, 8 March 1835, disp. 10; FO 50/91 and Palmerston to Pakenham, 15 November 1836, disp., 26, FO 50/97.
137.
Ashburnham to Palmerston , 7 November 1837, disp., 57, FO 50/107.
138.
Palmerston to Ashburnham, 15 September 1838, disp., 35, FO 50/112.
139.
Palmerston to Mandeville, 6 February 1839, FO 6/68.
140.
Aberdeen to Peel , 27 November 1843, British Library, Peel Papers, Add MS 40454.
141.
British interests in the River Plate are outlined in James Murray, ‘Memorandum on British Trade’, 31 December 1841, FO 97/284.
142.
Russell to Wyke, 30 April 1862, disp., 52, FO 50/363.
143.
Palmerston to Russell , 13 August 1863; Palmerston to Russell , 11 September 1863, PRO 30/22/22.
144.
Palmerston to Russell , 26 September 1863, PRO 30/22/22.
145.
Joseph Garnier and Guilllaumin (eds.), Annuaire de l’économie politique et de la statistique pour 1851, 58; and Block and Guilllaumin (eds.), Annuaire […] pour, 1862, 68.
146.
Robinson, ‘Non-European Foundations’, 122.
147.
Aberdeen to Ouseley, 8 April 1846, Aberdeen Papers, Add MS 43201.
148.
Aberdeen to Ouseley, 4 February 1848, Aberdeen Papers, Add MS 43201.

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Edward Shawcross

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Shawcross, E. (2018). French Policy towards Latin America, 1820–60. In: France, Mexico and Informal Empire in Latin America, 1820-1867. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70464-7_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70464-7_2
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