De los frentes de batalla a los linderos tangibles en el Sureste Novohispano. La demarcación de los límites de los territorios ampliados de los establecimientos británicos del Walix por la convención de Londres de 1786

Abstract

The British and the Spanish empires contended for the possession of the southeastern corner of the Yucatán peninsula during the XVII and the XVIII centuries, a region known at the time as Walix (northern Belize). The Treaty of Versailles of 1783 and the Agreement of London of 1786 finally de- fined the regional situation. The former created a district between the rivers Hondo and Belize in order to concentrate all the Englishmen dispersed trough out the Central American coast; the latter treaty enlarged this area up to the Sibún river. The king’s lieutenant of Campeche endeavored to limit the territory of the new concession by erecting a series of Doric columns in situ in the year 1787, defining thus, the area of the British Settlements in the Walix. In retrospective, this was the very moment that the modern frontier between Mexico and Belize was established.