WATER WITCH Incident
1 FEBRUARY 1855
WATER WITCH INCIDENT
Our Navy launched a series of geographical explorations in the 19th century, focusing in part on South and Central America. Here, the US had both strategic interests, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine prohibiting European interference, and trade interests. The La Plata River system of sub-Amazonian South America provided access to the markets of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Presidents Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce believed, therefore, that the La Plata and its Paraná, Pilcomayo, and Paraguay River tributaries, should be open to international trade, much as is the St. Lawrence Seaway. Thus, Secretary of the Navy John P. Kennedy sent the 10-gun sidewheel gunboat USS WATER WITCH to survey the La Plata system. LT Thomas J. Page, with able scientific passion but wanting in diplomatic skills, commanded the expedition that departed 8 February 1853.
WATER WITCH reached the mouth of the La Plata at Buenos Aries, receiving permission there to explore the Brazilian and Argentinean portions of the river system. The main tributary, the Paraguay River, bisects Paraguay and provides access to Asuncion. At Asuncion, however, on 1 October 1853, President Carlo Antonio López was not as receptive. He allowed surveying of the Paraguayan portion of the river but asked Page to halt at the town of Bahia Negra, where the Paraguayan portion ends, and Brazilian and Bolivian sovereignties begin. López feared that opening commerce above Bahia Negra would vitalize Brazil’s remote Matto Grosso province, increasing Brazilian activities therein and potentially threatening weaker Paraguay. Once arriving at Bahia Negra, however, Page reasoned he had already been granted permission to survey the Brazilian stretch of river beyond. He exceeded his agreement with López and coursed above Bahia Negra, 150 miles into Brazil to Corumba. On WATER WITCH’s 2000-mile return through Paraguay, the hot-headed American Consul, Edward A. Hopkins, got into a row with López over an insult to Hopkins’ younger brother. Hopkins had privately purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of Paraguayan land, and when a miffed López expelled Hopkins, the latter refused to surrender these holdings. Fearing for his life, Hopkins took shelter aboard WATER WITCH and was spirited away from Asuncion. López, all the angrier, now forbade any further US Navy operations on Paraguayan rivers.
News of López’ edict reached Page in Argentina where he had left Hopkins. Clutching a open-navigation treaty still in the process of ratification, Page ordered WATER WITCH to chart the Paraná River tributary which formed Paraguay’s southern border with Argentina. On this day, the gunboat approached Itapiru, Paraguay, where Fort Guardia Cerritos protected the entrance to the Paraná. Repeated warnings from the fort went unheeded. WATER WITCH turned up the tributary…
Continued tomorrow…
Cooney, David M. A Chronology of the U.S. Navy: 1775-1965. New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, p. 74.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 239-43.
McKanna, Clare V. “The Water Witch Incident.” American Neptune, Vol 31 (1), January 1971, pp. 7-18.
Smith, Gene Allen and Larry Bartlett. “‘A Most Unprovoked, Unwarrantable, and Dastardly Attack’: James Buchanan, Paraguay, and the Water Witch Incident of 1855.” The Northern Mariner, Vol 19 (3), July 2009, pp. 269-90.
Williams, John Hoyt. “The Wake of the Water Witch.” Proceedings, (Suppl.) 1985, pp. 14-19.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: The Paraguay River bisects the landlocked nation of Paraguay then penetrates north into Brazil. Brazil and Paraguay had experienced tensions over the Paraguay River, which was the only means of access to the Matto Grosso province of Brazil. A similar situation would exist if the Mississippi River originated in the Manitoba Province of Canada and comprised the only access to Manitoba.
The Paraná River joins the La Plata south of Paraguay and defines Paraguay’s southern border with Argentina.
