Amérique central. Colonisation du district de Santo-Thomas de Guatemala par la communauté de l Union, fondée par la Compagnie belge de colonisation.

£3,250 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

In the long and rich tradition of Central and South American schemes - think the Scotch Darien Colony and Gregor MacGregor’s fictitious South American nation Poyais - Verapaz was a short-lived Belgian colony on Guatemala’s Atlantic coast. Issued by the Compagnie belge de colonisation , this is the official account of the colony, and includes the official documents of the organization’s foundation and operations, the research and field intelligence underpinning the project, accounts of its relations with the Belgian and Guatemalan governments, and of the state of the colony in Guatemala to date. It is an expensively-produced, and entirely misleading, piece of propaganda . Economic changes in the newly independent Belgium left many rural areas in dire poverty and several waves of emigration to the United States and Canada. In 1841, King Leopold I, along with other fellow-royals and Belgian financiers, formed the Compagnie belge de colonisation so as to establish a Belgian colony in Guatemala of all places. The belief was that a colony would enhance Belgium’s national prestige, provide much-needed relief to the rural poor, and guarantee vast profits for investors . Importantly, Guatamala’s president, Mariano Rivera, welcomed the idea. Guatamala was also in financial trouble. The kernel of the idea was that the Compagnie belge would purchase 264,000 acres (1,068 sq km) of land on the Atlantic coast, specifically in the department of San Thomas. An agreement was struck on the basi

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