THANK you for publishing my letter of February 5, 2009, captioned “Guyana’s Constitution apparently makes more provisions for indigenous communities than USA’s”. At this time of Mashramani celebrations and the commemoration of the Berbice Revolution of 1763, we remember the challenges encountered by our ancestors, the indigenous communities, in early colonial Guyana.

The Dutch traders who came to Guyana in the 17th century, initially concentrated on commercial relations with the Amerindians, and then used their commercial experience to their advantage in their colonisation strategy. I would refer your readers to an article xAmerindian-European Relations in Dutch Guyanax, from Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580-1803, and published in Caribbean Slave Society And Economy, A Student Reader, 1991, Beckles & Shepherd, Eds, in which Professor Alvin O. Thompson referred to the interior migration of Amerindians in Guyana, due to the presence of the competing Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese colonists. The Professor explained that xThe early Dutch pushed the Indians out of their homelands, and those whom they could not push out they attempted to wipe out with superior military technology and strategy.

In some instances the Indians offered physical resistance, but at other times they quietly retreated to areas less accessible to the new invaders.x The Dutch did, however, seek the friendship of some of the Amerindians, in particular the Caribs, as they needed their services for trade (including the trade in enslaved Indians) and military purposes (e.g. hostilities with the Spanish, conflicts with some Amerindian nations, and the capture of enslaved African runaways). He noted that xAs early as 1685 the Caribs are recorded as migrating from the Spanish to the Dutch zonexx and that the Manaos, said to have been xxa powerful slave-raiding groupxx of the Rio Negro and Rio Branco districts, areas of modern Brazil, had sought to engage in regular trade with the Dutch, but xxfound that their efforts were being thwarted by the Caribs and Akawois who occupied strategic areas along the established trade routes.x (Thompson, 1991, pg. 13-15). Professor Thompson also cites accounts given by Van Berkel and the British Guiana Boundary Arbitration with Venezuela, which confirmed that alliances were entered into between the Dutch and various Amerindian captains or chiefs.

The Dutch developed the practice of distribution of gifts to these captains or chiefs from about the late 17th century. The practice of gifts xas a token of friendshipx became more formalised in 1778 and was recorded in the minutes of the Court of Policy of Essequibo and Demerara. The Dutch sought to establish occupancy and to exercise jurisdiction over a large area of the interior, which for several millennia had been occupied by various nations of Amerindians. In 1784 the Dutch West India Company even went as far as to approve xxan elaborate planxx for the government of Essequibo and Demerara to honour the xxchiefs of the Carib, Arawak and Warrau peoplesxx by including the offer of xxlands on which to settle permanently, close to the Dutch settlements.x In 1810, when the British were in control of the colony, a Carib chief, Mahanarva, went into the Demerara capital with his forces and threatened hostilities unless the presents and allowances were forthcoming. The government decided to xxappease the chiefxx (Thompson, 1991, pg. 18-19). Some writers have referred to these agreements or alliances between the Europeans and Amerindians as treaties, presumably because they were regarded as having been transacted between ‘nationsx.

The resistance to African enslavement during the Berbice Revolution of 1763, the Demerara Freedom Demand of 1823, the Essequibo Protest of 1834 and other movements, has been well documented. Africans also resisted plantation enslavement by running away and forming bush communities (Maroons). There were large Maroon encampments in Guyana prior to the Berbice Revolution of 1763. In an excellent book, which I would recommend to your readers, Maroons of Guyana, Some Problems of Slave Desertion in Guyana, c. 1750-1814, published by Free Press in 1999, Professor Thompson states that in 1744, in the North-West District of Essequibo, there were large encampments of xat least 300x Maroons. A gruesome incident occurred, following an expedition against them. Hands of Africans killed were severed and taken to Governor van Gravesande, who had them xxnailed to posts as a warningxx (Thompson, 1999, pg. 15 & 21). Professor Thompson also referred to a letter from a French official in 1782, during the short period of French rule, which estimated that there were xxa little over 2,000 maroonsxx in the territories of Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo (Thompson, 1999, pp. 14-15). He also noted that the status of Maroons was defined by the authorities. In 1806, the Court of Policy of Demerara and Essequibo ruled that xxone yearxs residence in the bushxx was the criterion to be applied for defining a Maroon, and that those persons xxwho were resident in the bush for more than two years were regarded as being confirmed in their way of life as maroons.x In 1810, the Court of Policy of Berbice applied the same criteria, and added a clause to the effect that Maroons also apparently included those xxover sixteen years of age who ran away in groups of ten or more from one plantation, and who stayed away for three months or morexx (Thompson, 1999, p. 16).

Professor Thompson has shown that Maroon communities were firmly established in Guyana well over 260 years ago. There was at least one community which had been established in Essequibo for at least 24 years in the 18th century. He reports: xThere were few occasions in the history of the colonial experience of the New World, when the White colonial governments found it more expedient to come to a modus vivendi with the maroons than to seek a military solution to the problem. The most outstanding examples of this are in the cases of the maroons of Jamaica in 1739, and those of Surinam in 1761, 1762 and 1767.

We also note an instance of such an arrangement taking place in Essequibo in 1738. In that year, according to Hartsinck, (and 1741, according to Netscher) between 36 and 40 creole slaves belonging to WIC’s estate, Poelwijk, situated in the Mazaruni River, ran away and established themselves on an island, later called ‘Creole Island’, in the upper Cuyuni River. This island offered considerable difficulties of access to the Whites who sought to apprehend the deserters. The latter had fortified themselves on the island and, it is said, even challenged the Whites to come and get them. The Commander of the colony… decided to arrange a treaty of peace with them. By this treaty, they and their progeny were to be declared free people, on condition that they work every other month for the WIC. This group was sometimes referred to in contemporary Dutch sources as “half-free creoles.” … in 1765 it was said that the entire group “intend to desert to the Spanish Missions up in Cuyuni, so as to be entirely free.” ” (Thompson, 1999, p. 27).

We pay tribute to all the peoples of Guyana during Mashramani celebrations, and note the “special place” in the nation of indigenous peoples, the Amerindians, and I would add, the descendants of the Maroon communities.
COLIN BOBB-SEMPLE