Georgetown to celebrate 200th birthday

Considered ‘the Venice of the West Indies’ in the 19th century

By Dmitri Allicock

Georgetown with its canals and traditional houses, was known as the Venice of the West Indies

On May 5, 1812 an ordinance was passed to the effect that the town formerly called ‘Stabroek’, with districts extending from La Penitence to the bridges in Kingston and entering upon the road to the military camps, shall be called Georgetown.

The city of Georgetown began as a small town in the 18th century. Originally, the capital of the Demerara-Essequibo colony was located on Borselen Island in the Demerara River under the administration of the Dutch. When the colony was captured by the British in 1781, Lieutenant- Colonel Robert Kingston chose the mouth of the Demerara River for the establishment of a town which was situated between Plantations Werk-en-rust and Vlissingen.

It was the French who developed this town and made it their capital city when they captured the colony in 1782. The French called the capital ‘La Nouvelle Ville’ before ‘Longchamps’. When the town was restored to the Dutch in 1784, it was renamed Stabroek after Nicolaas Geelvinck, Lord of Stabroek, and president of the Dutch West India Company. Eventually, the town expanded and covered the estates of Vlissingen, La Bourgade and Eve Leary to the North, and Werk-en-Rust and La Repentir.

The entrance of the Botanical Garden 1924 (Courtesy of British Empire Exhibition Wimberley)

Guyana’s first capital still exists. The ruins of a brick fort can still be seen on a little island where the Essequibo, Mazaruni and Cuyuni rivers meet. The original fort was a wooden structure built around the 1600s by some Dutch traders, who called it ‘Kyk-Over-Al’ or ‘see over all’, because it provided a commanding view of the three rivers.

The wooden structure was replaced in the 1630s by a brick structure, which served as an administrative centre.

Another notable landmark is the Dutch Fort Zeelandia on Fort Island in the Essiquibo River. This brick fort still retains its main features and was built in 1743.

Kyk-Over-Al was Guyana’s first capital until it was moved down river in 1743 to Island in order to have ready access to more fertile land.

Cityscape

The birth of Georgetown occurred shortly after the 1803 treaty of Amiens, which awarded the colonies of Demerara, Berbice and Essequibo to Britain from the Dutch.

The seawalls 1924 (Courtesy of British Empire exhibition Wimberley)

Dutch and English were the primary language then, as English culture and laws slowly took over. The separate three former Dutch colonies of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice were finally united into one entity called British Guiana in 1831 and were governed from Georgetown.

The history of early Georgetown also witnessed the abolition of slavery act in 1833, which eventually brought an end of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Africans and the most repugnant industry known to the history of humanity.

Georgetown was once called the ‘Garden City’ because of the many trees that graced its avenues. The city’s avenues were created when some of its historical canals were filled in. These unique avenues in urban streets are lined with flowering tropical trees, which shed their colourful blossoms at various times of the year on the pedestrian pathways that run between them.

Georgetown, despite its modern developing skyline, is still a city of wooden structures, including most of its houses and public buildings. Its most famous landmark is the St. Georges Anglican Cathedral, arguably the tallest wooden structure in the world.

Venice of the West Indies

In the 1890s, Henry Kirke, author of ‘Twenty five years in British Guiana’ said, “Georgetown, called the ‘Venice of the West Indies’, is a strange place, and one calculated to excite the interest and admiration of everyone. Beneath the level of the sea at springtides, the city is defended from the waves of the Atlantic by a granite breakwater two miles long, stretching from Fort William Frederick at the mouth of the river Demerara to Plantation Kitty on the East Coast; great granite groins runs out from it to the sea every sixty yards or so, to break the force of the waves; whilst the wall, which is twenty five feet wide at the top, is utilized as a promenade and health resort in the afternoon and evenings.

“This sea wall was commenced in 1858, and was not completed until 1892. It was built principally by convict labour, and all the granite was brought from the penal settlement on the Massaruni River.” Henry Kirke continued, “The streets in Georgetown are all rectangular: the city is intersected in all directions by open canals and drains, which are crossed by innumerable bridges. These, at the time I first went out to the colony, were made of wood, which have since been replaced by handsome structures built of iron and cement.

“Main Street is certainly one of the prettiest streets I ever saw. About fort yards wide, it is divided up the middle by a wide canal full of the Victoria Regia Lily, the canal and the roads on each side, being shaded by an avenue of saman trees. Handsome houses, painted white, or some bright colour, are built on each side of the street, nearly all of which are surrounded by gardens, full of crotons, palms, poinsettias, bougainvilleas, and all sorts of bright-hued plants and flowers; on some of the trees can be seen clusters of cattleyas with their mauve and rose coloured flowers, from another an oncidium throws out its racemes of odorous petals, four to five feet in length.”

The British Guiana ‘British Empire exhibition wembley’ of 1924 said this of Georgetown: “The city has all modern conveniences, – electric cars and lighting, attractive shops, business places, wide streets and fine private residences surrounded with a glowing wealth of coloured flowers and a luxuriant growth of vegetation. Many of the streets are triple, consisting of two vehicular roads and a central pedestrian avenue between grass borders, and shaded by ornamental trees, which remove any misleading impressions created by the river frontage.”

Two centuries of rich intangible cultural heritage for all Guyana is embodied by Georgetown’s history. Let this historical anniversary be remembered as a time for renewal of entrusted and sacred heritage, which must be proudly passed on to the future generations. (Taken from Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)