Gunboat Diplomacy's Last Fling in the New World: The British Seizure of San Quintin, April 1911

Abstract

In considering acts of military intervention by foreign powers which occurred in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, one is apt to think of the years 1914, 1916 and 1919, when U.S. forces invaded or occupied portions of Mexican territory. There was, however, one case of intervention of this sort during the revolution in which U.S. military personnel were not involved–the landing of a small party of British marines belonging to the H.M.S. “Shearwater” at the port of San Quintín on the northwest coast of the Baja Californian peninsula in April 1911.The British landing at San Quintm constituted a vestige or remnant of "gunboat diplomacy", an aspect of English foreign policy that had originated in the age of Palmerston and which reflected the unrivaled naval supremacy enjoyed by Great Britain during the period extending from the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 to the end of the Second World War. The episode represented, in a rather overt way, the hard-nosed attitude characteristic of British foreign policy at that time with regards to Latin America in general and other so-called "backward" regions of the globe.

Environmental Violence and the Socio-environmental (de)Evolution of a Landscape in the San Quintín Valley

“…British, American, and Mexican citizens trickled into the area, planted crops, and constructed a small wharf. In 1891 operations began for constructing a dam, initiating irrigation works, and setting up a flour mill on the inland side of San Quintín Bay (Taylor, 1996). The settlement was abandoned in 1917 (Phelts-Ramos, 2004).…”

The Vascular Flora of Greater San Quintín, Baja California, Mexico

“…British, U.S. and Mexican citizens trickled into the area planting crops and constructing a small wharf. In 1891 operations began for a dam, irrigation works and a flour mill on the inland side of San Quintín Bay (Taylor 1996). The settlement was abandoned in 1917 because the English had failed to comply with the colonization law of 1883 (Phelts-Ramos 2004).…”