Settlement in Guiana From earliest times V

(CONTINUED FROM APRIL 28)

The war which at the time raged between the English, French and Dutch nations in the outer world affected these same nations in the Guianas.
In 1664 Lord Willoughby wrote home regarding the Dutch seizure of several places in Guiana…and advised that they should be attacked before they grew too strong; and in the following year, Sir Thomas Moddyford submitted his proposition for rooting the Dutch out of Guiana and the West Indies generally.

Accordingly, in this latter year, Lord Willoughby set out himself to attack the Dutch in various places, and sent Major John Scott with a small fleet and a regiment of foot…Scott in 1666 “by the assistance of the Caribbee nation…burnt and destroyed the enemies’ towns, forts and goods and settlements…and disbursed for His Majesty’s service 73,788 lbs of muscovado sugar.”
From a certain state-paper, it appears that the settlements taken by Scott were those on the Pomeroon and Essequibo. Scott left some of his men in possession of these captured places.
…Very soon indeed the Dutch reprisals began…In terms of capitulation, mention was made of the men whom Major Scott had left to guard the settlements which he had captured on the Pomeroon and Essequibo.
These had been attacked, had suffered great misery, and had been much reduced in number. One of them, a certain Lieutenant Everard, was in command in Essequibo with twelve men under him “who were all that were left of our men at Bowrooma and Dissekebe, all the rest perishing for want of supplies”.
They were soon forced to surrender to the Dutch, who then possessed exactly the same Guiana of which the English had been able to boast but a few months earlier.
[After several more battles with the English over the Guianas, the Treaty of Breda allowed the Dutch to continue] developing the colonies which already existed there. Only one new one was founded; but that one has since proved itself the first of them all.
The history of its formation is briefly this.
It has been said that the River Demerara lay unused, and almost unknown, between the Essequibo and Berbice long after these two rivers had been settled and had given their names to colonies.
Things remained somewhat in this condition till about 1739, by which time cultivation, spreading from Berbice on the one side and Essequibo on the other, had gradually approached the Demerara. By that time there was a settlement, an offset from Berbice, on the Mahaicony to the east of Demerara; and there were some few plantations, offsets from Essequibo, on what is now called the west coast of Demerara.
In 1745 an elaborate plan was drawn up and accepted for the cultivation of the intermediate lands, at the mouth of the Demerara. From the plan it is evident that it was Essequibo, and not Berbice, which eventually gave birth to Demerara.
It was stipulated that the people of the mother colony should be allowed for ten years to remove to the Demerara; but those who availed themselves of this permission were strictly enjoined to obey the authority of Essequibo.
It was not till 1765 that Demerary obtained a separate governor. This may, therefore, be considered the date of the separate existence of Demerara.
There were at the time about 130 estates, chiefly planted with coffee and sugar, in cultivation. The government was at first carried on from Borselen, an island some twenty miles up the river; but it was removed in 1775 to the newly-built town of Stabroek, at the mouth of the river, the same which is now known as Georgetown.
Thus the history of the foundation of each of the colonies of Guiana, which are now, or ever were, in the hands of the English, has been told.
(From: ‘Timehri: being the journal of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of British Guiana’ 2. The founding of the Colonies A.D. 1580 – 1745. Edited by E.F.Im Thurn. Vol 11:1883.)