Dutch colonisation of the Guianas
Dutch colonies of the Guianas | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1621–1959 [a] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Suriname remains under Dutch control | 1959 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1959 [a] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Currency | Dutch guilder, Surinamese guilder | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The
The colonies of Essequibo and Demerara were controlled by the Dutch West India Company, while Berbice and Surinam were controlled by the Society of Berbice and the Society of Suriname, respectively. Cayenne also came under brief periods of Dutch control. After the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, Britain gained control of the three colonies (Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo) west of the Courantyne River, which became British Guiana and then modern Guyana. The remaining colony, Suriname (also called "Dutch Guiana"), remained under Dutch control until its independence in 1975.
History
Origin
In 1598, a fleet of three Dutch ships visiting the Wild Coast mention passing the river "Surinamo" a year after the English had done the same. colonists. Due to the effects of disease and attacks from natives, these colonies rarely lasted long.
Establishment
The Dutch West India Company was created in 1621, and given unsupervised control of the colonies in South America. The colony was administered by Abraham van Peere, a Dutch explorer who had founded the settlement of Berbice. After the Third Anglo-Dutch War, England ceded the colony of Suriname, in exchange for New Amsterdam.
Dutch Guiana was not a political entity, but, rather, a geographical indication. The colonies that formed along Dutch Guiana were, initially, controlled by several entities.
Dissolution
Under the Batavian Republic, much of Dutch Guiana was once again occupied by the British. After the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, Britain gained control of the three colonies (Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo) west of the Courantyne River. These three colonies became British Guiana. After 1815, there were five Guianas, referred to by their dominant languages: Spanish Guayana (Venezuela), British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (Brazil).[2]
The colony that remained was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands until 1975, when it became independent as the Republic of Suriname.
Geography
Dutch Guiana covered the majority of the Guiana Shield, with its borders ranging from the Orinoco Delta in the northwest, the eastern banks of the Caroní River in the southwest, to the Marajó island of the Amazon River delta in the southeast.
Dutch Guiana or Suriname
Although the
See also
Notes
- ^ Dates in this article are given in the Gregorian calendar, then ten days ahead of the Julian calendar in use in England.
References
- Citations
- JSTOR 41847495.
- ^ Jacobs, Frank (2012-01-16). "The Loneliness of the Guyanas". Opinionator. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
- ^ See for example this royal decree Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine separating Suriname from Curaçao and Dependencies (1845).
- ^ In treaties between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the colony is consistently referred to as the Colony of Surinam, e.g. Convention between Great Britain and the Netherlands, relative to the Emigration of Labourers from India to the Dutch Colony of Surinam, the Accession of the Dutch colonies of Curaçao and Surinam to the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property.
- ^ This is, e.g., how Jan Jacob Hartsinck uses the term in his Beschryving van Guiana, of de wilde kust in Zuid-America (Hartsinck 1770, pp. 257).
- Books
- Hartsinck, J.J. (1770), Beschryving van Guiana, of de wilde kust in Zuid-America, Amsterdam: Gerrit Tielenburg