AT FIRST glance, Den Amstel, located on the West Coast of Demerara, seems to be an unassuming country village. But do not be fooled. This village has an important and distinguished history. The Guyana Chronicle recently visited this cradle of history, and found out that the village still bears traces of its rich legacy today.
Den Amstel is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the north, and the villages of Fellowship, Blankenburg, and Hague to the south, east and west respectively.
This village was once a coffee plantation that was owned by a Dutch planter named John Craig, and is named after Craig’s two sons, Denny and Amstel.
It is very important to note that this is one of the villages that was purchased in the ‘Village Movement’ of the 19th Century. It is also necessary to briefly explain this interesting bit of our Guyanese history.
After the emancipation of African slaves in 1838 in the British territories, many planters were faced with selling their properties as they faced foreclosure to creditors.
Many freed slaves took advantage of this opportunity and established villages either through individual or communal purchases. In 1847, 125 of these liberated people came together and purchased Plantation Den Amstel for $5000.
They pooled their resources and became successful proprietors by 1854. Den Amstel is the first village to have held a village council meeting and to establish a council.
In 1892, the community was officially established as a village when the residents were given the mandate to manage their own affairs.

Village jaunt

Stepping off a bus into the sweltering heat of the mid-morning sun retracted by the asphalt road, I look around, wondering where to start. It is not long before I run into retired police officer, Samuel Harris and tell him about my mission.
Harris is happy to talk about the village where he has been residing for almost two decades, and points out some of the historical sites and buildings in the community.
One of these is the Ebenezer Congregational Church that stands proudly in the community. The church, in its present incarnation, was built in 1956 to replace the original structure, which was erected in 1843 on Plantation Blankenburg. 
The cornerstone of the structure, research shows, had been laid by Governor Alfred Savage himself in the year 1955.
Harris proudly noted that the community is home to about eleven churches, and some, as I observed, are quite beautiful in structure. He also points out that the community is home to many schools, including a playschool, a nursery school, a primary school and a technical vocational school.
He noted, however, that unlike the Den Amstel of old, which relied heavily on farming as an economic activity, only a small amount of persons farm these days, with most preferring to open businesses, or go outside of the community to find jobs.
And as can be seen by just a casual glance around the community, there is no shortage of small businesses providing commodities such as food and clothing, or services such as barbering or hairstyling and nail care.
In fact, at the moment, a construction crew is erecting just a short distance away a workshop which, when opened, will service mechanical engines. Also noteable, many if not most of these businesspersons seem to be women. One of them, Natasha Greene, is a young mother of four, and manages a clothing business in the central part of Den Amstel.
Being very interested in seeing what residents described as a ‘handicraft centre’, I head for the Hague Blankenburg Neighborhood Council, behind which, I was told, the centre is located.
There, instead of the ladies doing crochet and tie-dyeing as I expected, I find high school students hard at work with their set-squares. I have stumbled upon the Technical Vocational Centre located in the village.
The Centre caters for children from Forms One to Five throughout the West Coast of Demerara, and is run by a quota of permanent teachers as well as some guest teachers from other schools.
According to one of the teachers at the centre, Samuel Hollingsworth, the children are being taught Technical Drawing, Building Technology, Electrical Technology and Metal Work.
Heading away from the main road down into the backstreets of Den Amstel, I meet  a teacher on her way from school, who has been a resident of the community since she was two months old. She’s soon to turn fifty, she proudly told me.
Eloquent, and with a sound knowledge of her community, my new acquaintance is a veritable well of information. In fact, by the end of our brief but enlightening conversation, I beg her for her contact information, intending to one day again benefit from her knowledge.
She, like Harris, points out the many schools in the community. Through her I learn how the women of the community came together to start their own daycare, and how the community’s play school was founded by the Congregational Church.
She gives me a bit of information about the Ebenezer Church that I hadn’t come across yet. I learn that the Church, when it was located at Blankenburg, was a place for teaching slave children to read and write before emancipation.
Noting that the village was formerly one that was dominated strongly by African culture, my guide notes that this has since changed somewhat, as there is now a high level of interaction between villagers and people from other communities, particularly neighbouring villages such as Blankenburg.
Disagreeing with Harris, the retired policeman I’d met earlier, who had voiced his  concern about the drainage problems in the area, my guide believes the community to be one of the better served areas on the West Coast in terms of drainage.
She noted however that there has been some deterioration in some irrigation channels, in particular one that runs alongside the Den Amstel Nursery School.
Asked as an old time resident of Den Amstel, what she would like for her community, she responds that she would like to see more entrepreneurs. “But aren’t there lots of entrepreneurs?” I countered, pointing out the many businesses I see on every corner in the community.
Giving her take on the situation, she said: “If I want a pin, I have to go out of Den Amstel; if I want a zinc sheet, I have to go out of Den Amstel.”
I see her point then: There is a preponderance of persons selling the same items. We part shortly thereafter, but not before she shows me the house underneath which the village’s first nursery school was started by a woman named Enid Jackson 50 years ago, and the place where John Miggins, a veteran of World War I resides.
The weather is changing, and heavy showers break the heat of the day, forcing me to run for shelter once too often.
One of my final stops of the day is at the Ebenezer Church, where I discover young girls from the Sunday School group practising their dance moves. “Dancing is a way of life in the village,” they tell me, and are happy to show me some of their routines. .
Despite the many changes, Den Amstel is forever a testimony to those who pooled their resources and established their independence against the obstacles placed in their way by the colonial elites.