History.—When taken over in 1803 the prospects of three British colonies were by no means promising, and during the next decade the situation became very critical. Owing to the increased output of sugar by conquered Dutch and French colonies the English market was glutted and the markets of the continent of Europe were not available, Bonaparte having closed the ports. The years 1811 and 1812 were peculiarly disastrous, especially to those engaged in the manufacture of sugar, and at a public meeting held in Georgetown early in the latter year it was stated that the produce of the colony ordinarily worth £1,860,000 had on account of deteriorated value decreased by fully one-third. At this meeting it was resolved to petition the imperial parliament to allow the interchange of produce with the United States; a resolution which was unfortunately rendered abortive by the outbreak of war between England and the States in 1812, the trade of British Guiana being instead actually harried by American privateers. In his address to the Combined Court on the 20th of October 1812 the governor (General Carmichael) stated that a vessel with government stores had been captured by an American privateer, and in February 1813 the imperial government sent H.M.S. “Peacock” to protect the coast. On the 23rd of that month in cruising along the east coast of Demerara the “Peacock” met the American privateer “Hornet,” and though, after a gallant struggle, in which Captain Peake, R.N., was killed, the English ship was sunk with nearly all her crew, the colony did not suffer from any further depredations. In the following years news of the agitation in England in favour of emancipation gradually became known to the slaves and caused considerable unrest among them, culminating in 1823 in a serious outbreak on the estates on the east coast of Demerara. Negroes, demanding their freedom, attacked the houses of several managers, and although at most points these attacks were repulsed with but little loss on either side, the situation was so serious as to necessitate the calling out of the military. The ringleaders were arrested and promptly and vigorously dealt with, while a special court-martial was appointed to try the Rev. John Smith, of the London Missionary Society, who it was alleged had fostered the rising by his teachings to the slave congregation at his chapel in Le Ressouvenir. This trial was stigmatized as unfair by the missionary party in England, but on the whole appears to have been conducted decently by an undoubtedly unbiassed court. It is difficult now to form any very definite conclusion. Mr Smith certainly had great influence over the slaves, and while his teaching prior to the outbreak was at least ill-advised, he made no efforts while the disturbances were going on to use his influence on the side of law and order; indeed all he could say in his own defence was that he was ignorant of what was going on, a statement it is impossible to believe to have been strictly veracious. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. It is obvious that it was never intended to carry out this sentence, and on the 29th of November the governor announced that he felt it imperative on him to transmit the findings of the court for His Majesty’s consideration. The question of Smith’s guilt or innocence created a great deal of feeling in England, the anti-slavery and missionary societies making it a basis for increased agitation in favour of the slaves; but the imperial government evidently agreed with the colonial executive in holding that he could not be exonerated of grave responsibility, as the order of the king was that while the sentence of death was remitted Mr Smith was to be dismissed from the colony and to enter into a recognizance in £2000 not to return to British Guiana or to reside in any other West Indian colony. This order reached Georgetown in April 1824, but Mr Smith had died in the city jail on the 6th of February of a pulmonary complaint from which he had been suffering for some time.

Sir Benjamin d’Urban was governor from April 1824 to May 1833, the principal event of his administration being the consolidation in 1831 of the three colonies into one colony divided into three counties, Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo.

Governor d’Urban was succeeded in June 1833 by Sir James Carmichael Smyth, who began his administration by a proclamation to the slaves stating that while the king intended to improve their condition, the details of his plans were not as yet completed, and warning them against impatience or insubordination. When the resolutions foreshadowing emancipation, passed by the House of Commons on the 12th of June 1833, reached the colony, the planters, to whom the governor’s proclamation had been most distasteful, were thunderstruck and even the government was surprised. Naturally the slaves were wildly jubilant. Emancipation brought troublous times through which the governor steered the colony with great tact and firmness, serious troubles being nipped in the bud solely by his great personality, and the subsequent conflicts with the apprentices might have been obviated had he lived longer. He died at Camp House on the 4th of March 1838.

In the years following emancipation the colony was in a serious condition. The report of a commission in 1850 proved that it was virtually ruined, and only by the introduction of immigrants to provide a reliable labour supply were the sugar estates saved from total extinction. By 1853 the colony had begun to make headway, and Sir Henry Barkly, the then governor, was able to state in his speech to the Combined Court in January that its progress was in every way satisfactory. During Governor Barkly’s administration the long series of struggles between the legislature and the executive terminated, and when he left in May 1853 he did so with the respect and good-will of all classes. The strengthening of the labour supply was not effected without troubles. In 1847 the negroes in Berbice attacked the persons and property of the Portuguese immigrants, the riots spreading to Demerara and Essequibo, and not until the military were called out were the disturbances quelled. Similar riots in 1862 were only stopped by the prompt and firm action of the new governor, Mr (afterwards Sir) Francis Hincks, while rows between negroes and Chinese and negroes and East Indians were frequent. Gradually, however, things quieted down, and until 1883 the estates as a whole did well. In 1884 the price of sugar fell so seriously as to make the prospects of the colony very gloomy, and for nearly two decades proprietors had to be content with a price kept artificially low by bounty-fed beet-sugar, many estates being ruined, while those that survived only did so by the application of every economy, and by their owners availing themselves of every new discovery in the sciences of cultivation and manufacture.

The year 1889 was marked by an outbreak on the part of a section of the negro population in Georgetown directed against the Portuguese residents there. A Portuguese had murdered his black paramour and had been convicted and sentenced to death. The governor commuted the sentence to penal servitude for life. Shortly after this a Portuguese stall-holder in the market assaulted a small black boy whom he suspected of pilfering, the latter having to be taken to a hospital, while the former, after being taken to a police station was, through some misunderstanding or informality, at once released. Almost immediately excitable and unreasoning negroes were rushing about loudly proclaiming that the boy was dead, that the Portuguese were allowed to kill black people and to go free, and calling on one another to take their own revenge. Mobs gathered quickly, attacked individual Portuguese and wrecked their shops and houses, and not until the city had been given up for two days to scenes of disgraceful disorder were the efforts of the police and special constables successful in quelling the disturbances. The damage done amounted to several thousands of dollars, the Portuguese owners being eventually compensated from general revenue.

In 1884 the dispute as to the boundary with Venezuela became acute. It was reported to the colonial government that the government of Venezuela had granted to an American syndicate a concession which covered much of the territory claimed by Great Britain, and although prompt investigation by an agent despatched by the governor did not then disclose any trace of interference with British claims, a further visit in January 1885, made in consequence of reports that servants of the Manoa Company had torn down notices posted by Mr McTurk on his former visit, discovered that the British notices had been covered over by Venezuelan ones and resulted in the government of Great Britain declaring that it would thenceforward exercise jurisdiction up to and within a boundary known as “the modified Schomburgk line.” Outposts were located at points on this line, and for some years Guianese police and Venezuelan soldiers faced one another across the Amacura creek in the Orinoco mouth and at Yuruan up the Cuyuni river. Guianese officers were, however, presumably instructed not actively to oppose acts of aggression by the Venezuelan government, for in January 1895 Venezuelan soldiers arrested Messrs D. D. Barnes and A. H. Baker, inspectors of police in charge at Yuruan station, conveyed them through Venezuela to Caracas, eventually allowing them to take steamer to Trinidad. For this act compensation was demanded and was eventually paid by Venezuela. The diplomatic question as to the boundary—the results of which are stated above—was passed out of the hands of the colony; see the account of the arbitration under [Venezuela].

The last two months of 1905 were marked by serious disturbances in Georgetown, and in a lesser degree on the east and west banks of the Demerara river. On the 29th of November the dock labourers employed on the wharves in Georgetown struck for higher wages, and large crowds invaded the principal stores in the city, compelling men willing to work to desist and in some cases assaulting those who opposed them. By the evening of the 30th of November they had got so far out of hand as to necessitate the reading of the Riot Act and a proclamation by the governor (Sir F. M. Hodgson) forbidding all assemblies. On the morning of the 1st of December serious disturbances broke out at Ruimvelt, a sugar estate directly south of Georgetown, where the cane-cutters had suddenly struck for higher pay, and the police were compelled to fire on the mob, killing some and wounding others. All through that day mobs in all parts of the city assaulted any white man they met, houses were invaded and windows smashed, and on two further occasions the police had to fire. At night torrential rains forced the rioters to shelter, and enabled the police to get rest, their places being taken by pickets of militiamen and special constables. On Saturday, the 2nd of December, the police had got the upper hand, and the arrival that night of H.M.S. “Sappho” and on Sunday of H.M.S. “Diamond” gave the government complete control of the situation. Threatened troubles on the sugar estates on the west bank were suppressed by the prompt action of the governor, and the arrest of large numbers of the rioters and their immediate trial by special courts restored thorough order.

Authorities.—See Raleigh’s Voyages for the Discovery of Guiana 1595-1596, (“Hakluyt” series); Laurence Keymis’ Relation of the second Voyage to Guiana (1596), (“Hakluyt” series); Sir R. H. Schomburgk, Description of British Guiana (London, 1840); C. Waterton, Wanderings in South America, 1812-1825 (London, 1828); J. Rodway, History of British Guiana (Georgetown, 1891-1894); H. G. Dalton, History of British Guiana (London, 1855); J. W. Boddam Whetham, Roraima and British Guiana (London, 1879); C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of British Colonies; E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana (London, 1883); British Guiana Directory (Georgetown, 1906); G. D. Bayley, Handbook of British Guiana (Georgetown, 1909).

(A. G. B.*)

II. Dutch Guiana, or Surinam, has an area of about 57,900 sq. m. British Guiana bounds it on the west and French on the east (the long unsettled question of the French boundary is dealt with in section III., [French Guiana]). The various peoples inhabiting Surinam are Dutch Guiana. distributed according to the soil and the products. The Indians (Caribs, Arawaks, Warrous) live on the savannahs, or on the upper Nickerie, Coppename and Maroni, far from the plantations, cultivating their fields of manioc or cassava, and for the rest living by fishing and hunting. They number about 2000. The bush negroes (Marrons) dwell between 3° and 4° N., near the isles and cataracts. They are estimated at 10,000, and are employed in the transport of men and goods to the goldfields, the navigation of the rivers in trade with the Indians, and in the transport of wood to Paramaribo and the plantations. They are the descendants of runaway slaves, and before missionaries had worked among them their paganism retained curious traces of their former connexion with Christianity. Their chief god was Gran Gado (grand-god), his wife Maria, and his son Jesi Kist. Various minor deities were also worshipped, Ampuka the bush-god, Toni the water-god, &c. Their language was based on a bastard English, mingled with many Dutch, Portuguese and native elements. Their chiefs are called gramman or grand man; but the authority of these men, and the peculiarities of language and religion, have in great measure died out owing to modern intercourse with the Dutch and others. The inhabitants of Paramaribo and the plantations comprise a variety of races, represented by Chinese, Javanese, coolies from India and the West Indies, negroes and about 2000 whites. Of non-Christian immigrants there are about 6000 Mahommedans and 12,000 Hindus; and Jews number about 1200. The total population was given in 1907 as 84,103, exclusive of Indians, &c., in the forests. Nearly one-half of this total are in Paramaribo and one-half in the districts. The population has shown a tendency to move from the districts to the town; thus in 1852 there were 6000 persons in the town and 32,000 in the districts.