Amerindian-European Relations in Dutch Guyana

7Amerindian-European Relations in Dutch Guyana

ALVIN O. THOMPSON

In the book from which this article has beentaken we have dealt peripherally with the waysin which European, largely Dutch, contactswith the Amerindian communites affected thelives of the latter. At this point it is necessary tofocus attention more closely on this subject. Allthe Amerindian societies were affected to agreater or lesser extent by their contacts with theEuropeans. These contacts had to do mainlywith trade and military assistance, but the Dutchwere able to exploit Amerindian manpower in avariety of other ways, such as in cultivating pro-vision grounds and acting as boat hands, mes-sengers, timber cutters, baggage carriers andguides. The Dutch would have found it impos-sible to trade, reconnoiter and carry on theirother activities in the hinterland without theIndians' assistance. These people influenced thematerial culture of the Dutch in Guyana inseveral minor ways, but the Dutch infiuencedtheir life more deeply. Still, taken as a whole, theIndian culture-systems remained substantiallyintact. This was due to some extent to the factthat the Dutch did not generally try to imposetheir way of life on the Indians, so that theirpolitical and social systems embraced very fewIndians. In one area, however, the Europeancontact was traumatic.

In Guyana, as in other parts of the Americas,the European advent and colonization had acatastrophic effect upon the demography of theIndian communities. A number of factorsaccount for this situation, such as Europeandiseases, the development of the Indian slavetrade, intense warfare often relating to ques-tions of trade, and forced migration resultingfrom the military and social pressures exerted bythe other factors just identified. Warfare andforced migration tended to cause the Indian

groups to split into even smaller units thanbefore. Fission led to further vulnerability andfurther fissioning and so the process of decima-tion unfolded, as both cause and effect of thesefissiparous tendencies. The impression gainedfrom the Dutch contemporary records and frommore recent documents is that there was exces-sive fragmentation of Amerindian political andethnic groups. In few instances during theperiod under consideration was the process ofaggregation noticeable, and certainly no Amer-indian group increased significantly its territ-orial or political control. The military masteryof the Dutch in the more northerly areas wasunderscored by the continual expansion of theplantation system there. On the other hand,they had very little jurisdiction over the areasbeyond the plantations.

Two kinds of Indian migration are discerniblein the context of Guyana during this period:interior migration, that is, from one area toanother within Guyana; and inward migration,chiefly from Spanish and Portuguese territoriesinto Guyana. It is difficult at present to trace anypattern or sequence of migration; all that will beattempted here is to give some indication of thegeneral and specific factors relating to suchmigrations and the groups involved in the same.

The European presence is the obvious factorwith which to begin the discussion. As Sheridanpoints out:Not only were the Europeans accompanied to theNew World by invisible microparasites, but these con-querors and colonists were themselves macropara-sites.'

The early Dutch pushed the Indians out of theirhomelands, and those whom they could notpush out they attempted to wipe out with

Colonialism and Underdevetopment in Guyana, 1580-1803 (Caribbean Research and PublicationsBridgetown, 1987), pp. 191-213.

86

Amerindian-European Relations in Dutch Guyana 87

superior military technology and strategy. Insome instances the Indians offered physical re-sistance, but at other times they quietly retreatedto areas less accessible to the new invaders. Thispattern of migration was noticed in Berbice inthe 1670s, and in Demerara in the second half ofthe eighteenth century. Hartsinck notes that inthe early days it was possible to find relativelylarge villages of sixteen to eighteen householdsin the lower (most northern) parts of the colon-ies, but that the situation was quite different by1770. The villages were now located muchfurther inland, while only two or three house-holds could be found living together in the lowerareas. ^

The Dutch presence in Guyana resultedmainly in the interior rather than the outwardmigration of the Indians. This was due to twomain factors. Firstly, the upper reaches of therivers and some other areas of the hinterlandwere never occupied or controlled by the Dutchand in several instances they had nothing morethan a trading presence there. Secondly, theSpanish and Portuguese presence had createdsimilar pressures on several Indian groups inthose localities, so that there was strong disin-centive to migrate to those areas.

Spanish presence and activities in the north-west district and the Cuyuni area during thesecond half of the eighteenth century led tofissile multiplication and migration of theIndians further east. Thus in 1758 and 1762, as aresult of Spanish activities around the Dutchpost in Cuyuni, many Caribs fled the area andsought new homes in upper Essequibo. As lateas 1769-70 the Dutch were reporting the contin-ual withdrawal of these people from Cuyuni.' Inthe northwest, too, Spanish attacks on PostMoruka in 1769 and 1744 led to extensive disloc-ation of the Indians living there. According tothe Dutch authorities, before the Spanish at-tacks some 700 Indians could be found aroundthe post, but by 1772 most of them had disapp-eared from the area. In 1774 they were said to beseeking refuge in Corentyne. The PomeroonIndians were also greatly dislocated at this timeby the Spanish activities." The Spanish hadearlier been responsible for the retreat of manyIndians from Orinoco into Moruka in fairlylarge numbers, though actual statistics are un-available.

As early as 1685 the Caribs are recorded asmigrating from the Spanish to the Dutch zone inface of reprisals for an attack (along with someFrenchmen) on Santo Thome in the previousyear. They sought refuge in Amacura, Barimaand Waini in northwest Essequibo. In 1752-54

the Dutch records noted the retreat of the Caribsfrom Orinoco to the Dutch side as a result ofcontinual Spanish harassment. In 1755 theserecords mentioned that a Spanish priest hadrecently come to claim some Indians of theChima (Shiamacotte) nation, who had desertedthe Spanish missions for Post Moruka some tenyears previously. In 1767 and 1769 someWarraus were also recorded as retreating fromOrinoco to Barima; while in the latter year alarge number of Caribs were also said to havemigrated from the Spanish missions to Mahai-cony, some of them clad in priestly garmentsand ornaments.'

Northwest Essequibo witnessed the greatestincidence of inward migration and also the grea-test degree of dislocation. But inward migrationalso took place occasionally from the Spanishzone into the Cuyuni-Mazaruni district. Thus in1755 Gravesande reported that the chiefs of thePanacay people in upper Cuyuni had paid him avisit recently. They were at loggerheads with theSpanish and were offering their assistance to theDutch against possible Spanish encroachmenton territory which the Dutch held as their own.The Panacays even promised to settle downaround the Cuyuni post, but we do not knowwhether they made good this promise. In 1769,again, it was rumored that a group known as theCerekous (Cerekon) had moved from Spanishterritory into the area just below Post Arindaand were annoying the Akawois. Finally, in1790 four Indian chiefs along with theirfollowers migrated from the Spanish missionsinto Dutch territory in Mazaruni.'

More to the south and southwest of Guyana,the migrants came from the area of modet;nBrazil, specifically the Rio Branco-Rio Negrodistrict. The factors leading to migration fromthis area are less certain, but the most generalone was again the European (this time mainlythe Portuguese) presence and activities. Theseactivities may be summarized as slave raiding,founding mission stations by the use of force,and establishing a politico-military administra-tion. Dutch activities in the Rio Branco area alsoplayed some part in the migration of Indians.The obvious factor was the trade, and especiallythe slave trade, which the Dutch traders andtheir cohorts pursued here, as in Orinoco.Groups, perhaps seeking refuge from the Port-uguese, Dutch, Carib and other slave raiders,crossed the Ireng and Takutu rivers and madetheir way into secluded areas within the vastexpanse of virtually uninhabited territory in theRupununi district. This was true ofthe Macusis,as we shall see shortly.

88 Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World

Another factor which might have accountedfor inward migration was the attraction or pullof Dutch trade on one or two groups in the RioBranco. For instance, the Manaos, a people in-habiting the middle-upper reaches of the RioNegro, who wanted to establish direct andregular trading contact with the Dutch, foundthat their efforts were being thwarted by theCaribs and Akawois who occupied strategicareas along the established trade routes. TheAkawois feared that their own trading interestsmight be compromised by their more southernneighbours, but they seem also to have fearedthat the Manaos would use any opportunity toenslave them and lord it over them.

Actually, the first reference to the Manaos inconnection with the Dutch trade occurred in1719, when they were mentioned in Portugueserecords as trafficking with the Dutch in the head-waters of the Rio Branco, though their residenceappears to have been on the Rio Negro. They arereferred to in a Portuguese source of a laterperiod as being the nation of greatest renownthroughout the Rio Negro, on account of theirnumbers, valor, language and customs. In the1720s they were the most notorious slave dealersof that district.' Their first appearance in Esse-quibo seems to have been in 1722. In the follow-ing year they paid another visit to the area, arriv-ing in three boats carrying about thirty persons,including some slaves whom they hoped to sellto the Dutch. However, their advent producedquite a stir among the Caribs and Akawoisthere, who warned the Dutch officials that theyhad come with hostile intentions. The colonialgovernment reacted swiftly to this supposedthreat by sending a party to apprehend theManaos and take them to the fort for question-ing. Most of them escaped but about eight ornine of them were caught. This incident shookthem quite a bit. Later investigations revealedthat they had in fact come with amicable inten-tions and mainly to improve trade relations withthe Dutch. In 1724, no doubt because of the inci-dent mentioned above, they were attacking theAkawois and Caribs in upper Essequibo andthreatening to kill all the Dutch. The colonialgovernment resolved to send a force comprisingEuropeans and Indians to drive them away.

The Manaos were not heard of again inGuyana for some time and virtually disappearedfrom the Dutch records until 1751, when theywere reported by the postholder of Arinda to beharassing the Indian inhabitants of upper Esse-quibo. This is somewhat surprising, for thePortuguese records in 1727 mentioned theirParamount Chief, Ajuricaba, as being in all-

iance with the Dutch, and even flying their flag.He had become the scourge of the Rio Negroand Rio Branco, enslaving the inhabitants ofthose places and selling them to the Dutch. Evenafter the Portuguese got rid of Ajuricaba in thefollowing year, the Manaos remained a power-ful slave-raiding group, obviously in close ass-ociation with the Dutch traders. But curiouslyenough, in 1754 Gravesande referred to them asbeing in alliance with the Portuguese, while inreality they were often at each other's throats.'In 1763 Gravesande was thinking of forming analliance with them, which he believed wouldfurther Dutch trading interests in the RioBranco, while holding the ring politicallyagainst the Portuguese, who wanted to proinotetheir interests there. On the other hand, he didnot want to antagonize the Caribs, useful alliesand, in fact, the most redoubtable military aux-iliaries of the Dutch. The Caribs were trying tooppose the alliance; the postholder of Arindareported that an attempt made in the previousyear by the Manaos to send an embassy to theDutch government in Essequibo had been hin-dered by them. A sharp encounter had actuallytaken place between the two groups and theCaribs had been defeated, but the losses sus-tained by the Manaos had been sufficientlyheavy to force them to postpone their visit untilthe following year. Meanwhile, the Caribs wererallying their forces for the expected confront-ation, so that Gravesande feared that the largestIndian war during his administration was im-minent. In order to avoid this he send word tothe Manaos that they should send only a smallforce to Arinda, from where they would beescorted to headquarters.' As it turned out, thealliance never came about, nor were the Manaosable to establish their own corridor of trade withthe Dutch, a circumstance which Gravesandeattributed to 'a political dodge of the Caribnation'. ' Instead, the Manaos had to be contentto allow the Dutch and their Indian auxiliaries tocome and purchase their slaves from the RioBranco.

The events outlined above show clesu^ ly thepull that Dutch trade had on groups even in thefar interior, and also the conflicts which thetrade could and did generate among interestedparties. This was seen on a much smaller scale inrelation to the Wapisianas. In 1753 it wasreported that they had killed three white traderswho had gone to upper Essequibo to trade withthe Portuguese. The incident probably tookplace somewhere close to the lower-middleRupununi river, which was the normal route foraccess into the Portuguese zone. We are not


aware of what transpired as a result of theattack, but we know that Gravesande contemp-lated employing the Caribs who, along with theMacusis, had also been attacked by them, todrive them away from the route they were ob-structing or, as he put it, 'away inland far fromthe River Essequibo'." It is possible that heeither made good this threat or that the Indiansmigrated from fear of reprisals. When the post-ho]der met them some years ]ater, in 1769, hereported that they were occupying both banksof the Ireng river and that they had not seen awhite man for sixteen years. He also stated thatthey lived in the plains during the day but slept ininaccessible rocks and cliffs during the night,and heavily palisaded and defended their noc-turnal dwellings for fear of the Manaos, withwhom they were always in conflict.'^ They seemto have been divided into a number of families,living apart from each other and shifting theirdwellings periodically. In 1739 Horstman hadfound them south ofthe Takutu and Uraracuerarivers in what is today modern Brazil. The eigh-teenth- and nineteenth-century descriptions ofthem located them roughly between theRupununi on the east and the Ireng, Takutu andRio Branco on the west. Schomburgk estimatedthe number of those living in Guyana around1840 at 500 souls." From al] appearances theywere a predatory group (or groups) who foundthemse]ves frequent]y in conflict with theirneighbours. It is thought that they forced theMacusis to move further north, and that theyabsorbed the Atoris.

The Macusis themselves were another groupof migrants who entered Guyana at a relativelyearly period. Iris Myers suggests that a referenceon Du Val d'Abbevi]le's map of 1654 to theMuchikeriens (a people inhabiting the areaaround Lake Parima), might be applicable tothem. '" The first Dutch document available to uson the subject was written in 1753. It mentionsthem specifically and strongly implies that theywere already well known to the Dutch. This isnot surprising for they appear to have beenamong the chief victims of the Caribs, Manaosand others who sold them as slaves to the Dutch.They were regarded as the least warlike of thegroups in the Rio Branco." Their main home-land was probably the Rio Negro area, fromwhere a number of them migrated to Guyanatowards the middle of the eighteenth century.The Dutch source just referred to mentionsthem as the neighbours of the Wapisianas. Oneview is that they occupied the southern Rupun-uni savanna first and that they were forcednorthward by the Wapisianas. Around 1840

Schomburgk declared that their occupationsites included the savannas of the Rupununi andRio Branco, and the mountain chains of thePakaraima and Kanuku. He estimated theirtotal number at 3,000, and those living inGuyana at 1,500," a figure which made themone of the largest groups in the country at thattime (if his figures are reasonably accurate). By1786, according to the Portuguese Command-ant of the Rio Branco district, they were one oftwo groups there who were very attached to theDutch.

The Paravilhanos (Paravianas) were anothergroup originally inhabiting the Brazilian areawho migrated in small numbers into Guyana,possibly in the eighteenth century. They arementioned in Portuguese records as occupyingseveral sites along the Rio Branco and Takuturivers, and by 1770 they had become the domin-ant group in that region. Their presence inGuyana is barely mentioned in Dutch records.In 1739 Horstman seems to have found some ofthem on the Essequibo, about a day's journeyabove its confluence with the Siparuni. Accord-ing to Gravesande in 1769, during his early ad-ministration they used to live 'up in Essequibo',but because the Caribs repeatedly harassed themthey were forced to move to the Ireng river, inclose proximity to the Wapisianas." In 1788 theywere mentioned in Portuguese records as dwellsing close to the headwaters of the Takutu, alongthe ranges between that river and the Rupununi.They had gained notoriety as dealers in humanflesh. According to Farabee, they had becomeextinct by 1914.

Finally, we must mention the Tarumas in con-nection with inward migration. We do not knowthe date of their migration but it is generallythought that they entered the country sometimein the eighteenth century. In 1764 Gravesandementioned them as a 'numerous and powerfulnation' living in upper Essequibo." In the 1720ssome of them were living along the Takutu river,from where they probably migrated to the areaclose to the sources of the Essequibo river.

The migrations into southern Guyana didlittle to people that region, which throughoutthe eighteenth century remained largely unin-habited. The main occupation sites were locatedin the region between the Rupununi in the eastand the Takutu and Ireng in the west. Virtuallyno inhabitants could be found to the east of theupper reaches of the Essequibo river. On theother hand, Indian groups in the north spreadout over a much wider area than formerly.Refugee groups found their way as far east asthe Corentyne, while others sought asylum


along the middle reaches of the Essequibo andBerbice rivers, and in upper Demerara.

A factor which ought not to be overlooked inthis discussion as a probable cause of fission andmigration is the warfare carried on by groupstraditionally residing in Guyana. The problemhere, however, is that the records available to ushave little to say about these wars, and even lessabout their efl'ects on Indian migration. There-fore, all that can be attempted here is a summaryof the wars to which the records attest. Thesewars involved mainly the Caribs and to a lesserextent the Akawois, the two groups that theDutch generally regarded as the most warlike ofthose dwelling in Guyana.

In 1673 the Dutch records reported that theCaribs and Arawaks of Barima had just con-cluded a peace agreement. In 1680 the Caribsand Akawois of the Cuyuni-Mazaruni-Esse-quibo area were engaged in a relatively large-scale war which had not been resolved up to1683. In 1684 the Barima-Orinoco area was thescene of petty warfare, while in 1686 theAkawois and Caribs of Mazaruni were locked ina power struggle leading to the loss of severalfamilies. Conflicts also occurred between theCaribs and Warraus of the Barima-Orinocoarea in 1748. But the most sustained war seemsto have taken place from 1765 to 1768, betweenthe Akawois and Caribs in upper Demerara andthe middle Essequibo-Mazaruni areas. At onestage it even threatened to merge with a conflictbetween similar groups in the Corentyne.

The conflicts between the various Amerindiangroups upset the balance of life among them andcaused considerable anxiety. They led on severaloccasions to the stoppage of trade with theEuropeans. Indeed, the hinterland trade de-pended to a large extent on the goodwill of theIndians and their ability to maintain amicablerelations among themselves and also with theEuropeans, particularly the Dutch. This was animportant reason why the Dutch officials alwaysattempted to keep the peace with them and onseveral occasions to act as intermediariesbetween belligerent groups. Thus they inter-vened in Indian disputes in 1680, 1683, 1686,1765 and 1766, but they were not always able tobring about peace. In 1680, for example, theAkawois in Cuyuni refused to accept bribesfrom them or allow them to act as peacemakersin their war with the Caribs.

One of the main problems which the Dutchofficials faced in this respect was their limitedpolitical authority over the hinterland. Ofcourse, several contemporary and modernwriters have asserted that by the late eighteenth

century the Dutch had established a kind of pro-tectorate over the Indians. For instance, in thearguments put forward in 1898 by the Britishauthorities in their boundary dispute withVenezuela they asserted that the Amerindianchiefs became 'formally accredited officers ofthe Dutch Colony, and exercised their authoritywith the sanction ofthe West India Company'."A more recent writer declared in 1977 that theIndians had 'unquestionably recognized theprotectorate of the Dutch, and the Dutch hadassumed the responsibilities of a protectingpower'."" The British authorities had madevirtually the same statement earlier, specificallyin relation to the Caribs,^' while Rodway hadsaid much the same thing in 1896." These viewsdemonstrate a complete misunderstanding ofthe relations between the two parties during theperiod under discussion. In general, it was theDutch and not the Indians who needed to beprotected from threatened Spanish invasion,maroons and even the ravages of hunger. Theywere the ones who were dependent on theIndians, and not the latter on them. Neverthe-less, they were to some extent responsible forfostering the myth of their role as protectors ofthe Indians. Especially in their boundary dis-putes with the Spanish, they were bent upondemonstrating their political, military and com-mercial hegemony over the region under dis-pute. The rights of the Indians were never con-sidered by them when it came to the question ofterritorial jurisdiction, any more than they wereconsidered by the Spanish, British, French orPortuguese. T'he Europeans simply viewed themas having no territorial rights (and very fewother rights). According to the so-called 'law ofnations' of that period, which was completelyEurocentric, their lands were open to expropri-ation and colonization, provided they were notalready under the jurisdiction of some Christian(European) power. But since effective occupa-tion was regarded by the Europeans as theclearest expression of sovereignty, the Dutchtried hard to create the impression that theywere the effective occupants of a much widerarea than they actually administered.

One must also distinguish between thelanguage sometimes used in official correspon-dence between the WIC and the local Dutch ad-ministrators, and the reality of the situation onthe ground. Sometimes this official correspon-dence seems to imply that the Indians wereunder Dutch control but in moments of greaterlucidity and honesty Dutch dependence on thegoodwill and substantial assistance of theIndians becomes manifest. On balance, the


sources indicate a delicate alliance between theso-called 'colonizer' and the 'colonized'.

It is obvious that from the point of view of thevast majority of the Indians in Guyana theDutch did not exercise the slightest jurisdictionover them. Without doubt, Dutch influence wasfelt over a wide area, as we have seen already.However, we^must not confuse influence withjurisdiction, alliance with allegiance, fratern-alism with paternalism. No formal empire ofany significant territorial size was established bythe Dutch and it is quite doubtful whether weshould even regard the degree of Dutch influ-ence as constituting an informal empire. Itshould perhaps be said here that the same argu-ment holds good in relation to Spanish jurisdic-tion over the sprawling provinces of Guayana,Barcelona, Cuman, Santa F, etc.

Effective Dutch jurisdiction touchedrelatively few Indians, chiefly the Arawaks andWarraus, who came to reside either around theDutch hinterland posts or on the peripheries ofthe estates, and who underwent the most exten-sive acculturation. It is true that the Indianswere sometimes required by the Dutch to obtainpasses to go beyond the posts, but these appearto have been Indians living below the posts. In1763 the Commander of Demerara issued apermit allowing a Carib chief to go to Berbice.Similar passes were issued to Indians by otherDutch officials in 1778 and 1779." Dutch mer-chants had to pay a small sum of money toobtain such passes, but this does not appear tohave been the case with the Indians." What isclear is that official Dutch policy in contrastto that of the Spanish and Portuguese was toeschew the use of force to restrict the movementand way of life of the Indians. The Dutch triedto use persuasion rather than coercion to keepthe Indians in alliance with them and in closeproximity to their settlements. This was therationale behind the postholdership system andthe periodic distribution of gifts to the Indians.It is necessary to stress here that this distributionwas not an act of patronage but rather one offriendship. Dutch records leave us in no doubtthat without these gifts the friendship andservices of the Indians could not be assured.

The custom of regular distribution of gifts tothe Indians seems to have originated in the lateseventeenth century. According to Van Berkel,each Indian captain or chief at that time receivedbiennially from the Dutch in Berbice (and per-haps also in Essequibo) a red worsted dress anda hat, with which he appeared at the fort.^ ^Another source of the same period makes itclear that such gifts were necessary 'to keep on

friendly terms with the Chiefs'.^ As time wentby the practice embraced a large number ofchiefs from an increasingly wider area, and wasput on a more official footing in 1778 when anumber of chiefs were invited to the Dutchheadquarters in Essequibo and presented withhats having broad silver rims, and staves withsilver knobs. At the same time the Indians wereencouraged to show fidelity to the Dutch go-vernment at all times, to give their assistancewhenever requested to do so, and to refer theirdisputes to the Dutch authorities. They weretold that the instruments they had just receivedwere indicative of the Dutch government's re-cognition of them as chiefs, and that wheneverthey wanted to appoint new chiefs they shouldchoose those proposed by the Dutch govern-ment. It is also said that the chiefs and their fol-lowers were elaborately entertained at Duinen-burg, the Company's plantation, and that theyexpressed loyalty and friendship to the Dutchgovernment."

In the following year similar gifts were distri-buted to a large number of chiefs of the Carib,Arawak and Warrau peoples. The staves wereengraved with the WIC's seal, a practice whichsoon became customary. In 1784 the WICapproved an elaborate plan put forward by thecolonial authorities in Essequibo and Demerarato honor the chiefs, especially those of theCaribs. They were to be invited to come to thefort in Essequibo from the various districts ofthe country, and were to be offered lands onwhich to settle permanently, close to the Dutchsettlements. In addition, they were to be giventhe staves, as mentioned above, and also silverring-collars and rum. In return, they were topledge themselves to return to the fort onceannually to give a list of the men under theircommand, and to renew their pledge to assist theDutch in times of military need. In order toinduce them to do so, they were to be given giftson such occasions.^ Here, then, is the systemwhich several writers have regarded as tanta-mount to a recognition by the Indians of theparamountcy of Dutch authority, a view streng-thened by Hartsinck's statement in 1770, someyears before the system was elaborated fully,that the chiefs were being appointed by theDutch Governors."

On the contrary, a close look at the situationreveals that for three important reasons theDutch cannot really be said to have exercisedparamountcy over the Indians in general. In thefirst place it must be realized that the reason forputting forward the scheme was because theIndians were withdrawing from the neighbour-


hood of the Dutch settlements. The scheme wastherefore designed to attract them once again tothe lower reaches of the rivers, where theirservices would be more readily available in timesof need, particularly against runaways andmaroons. This was actually stated in the docu-ment of 1784 which set out the scheme, while it isimplied in those relating to the convocation of1778.

Secondly, the minutes of the Court of Policyof 1778, which recorded the actual visit of thechiefs in that year, declare that the presents weregiven to them as 'a token of friendship', not tomake vassals of them.'" In 1785, also, whenthree chiefs and 105 of their followers fromupper Essequibo visited the fort, the chiefs weregiven silver ring-collars as 'tokens of friend-ship'." While it is possible that a few of thechiefs were raised to the office or had their powerenhanced by the Dutch, in general their poweremanated solely from their kinsmen, to whomthey were ultimately responsible. This point wasmade by Hilhouse, who was well-acquaintedwith the Indians. He indicated in 1825 that thechief's authority was still subject to that of hispeople, and that the Akawois elected their owncaptains (chiefs), acknowledged no white pro-tector, and rejected any interference in theirdomestic affairs.'^ Several years earlier, in 1769,Gravesande had stated that when the principalchiefs visited him they immediately took a chair,sat down, and refused to eat and drink anythingbut what he himself had. They referred to himonly as 'mate' and 'brother'." It was onlyduring the governorship of Sir Henry Light(1838-48) that the colonial government reallybegan to appoint chiefs, and only then can theybe said to have become the accredited agents ofthe colonial government.'"

The third major reason relates to the landgrants. It appears that few if any Indians accep-ted the offer of such grants. They preferred toretain their independence and mobility, ratherthan come under the thumb of the Dutch, aswould certainly have been the result if they hadaccepted the land grants. It was only under theBritish that the system of creating Indian reser-vations, first mooted by the Dutch, came intooperation.

The tendency ofthe Indians to withdraw a fairdistance from the seat of Dutch power was oneof the clearest expressions of their indepen-dence. The Dutch continued to coax them toreturn, or at least not to move farther afield.Thus in 1803, in their instructions to their post-holders, they enjoined strict application of theregulations concerning the humane treatment of

the Indians. When the British occupied thecolony later in the same year they showed asimilar concern about the Indian question. Theyfelt that their earlier occupation (1796-1802)had led to'the withdrawal of a considerablenumber of Indians to more remote districts inthe country, a circumstance which might havehad grave consequences for their colonies. Theytherefore reintroduced the system of annualpresents that thad lapsed temporarily. Gradu-ally, however, they extricated themselves fromthis system as they felt more confident of theircontrol over the colonies and the hinterland. In1831 they made the presents triennial, and on theeve of the final abolition of slavery in 1838 theydiscontinued the practice altogether. The resultwas a significant withdrawal of the Indians fromthe main colonial areas to more remote posi-tions." This circumstance reinforces the viewthat the presents were the nuts and bolts of thealliance between the Europeans and the Indians.The British, like the Dutch, saw the alliancemainly as a security in times of slave uprisings;while the Indians were only prepared to stayclose to the Europeans as long as they were will-ing to give them gifts, allowances and rewardsfor military service against the slaves. The fri-endship between the two parties was no love re-lationship but rather a business arrangement.During the Dutch regime giving presents to theIndians was an ineluctable necessity for thecolonial administrations. In fact, by the nine-teenth century the Indians had even begun toview the presents and allowances as a form oftribute. In 1813 Colonel Edward Codd, ActingGovernor of Demerara, had this to say:

It is obvious that our Colonies are tributaries to theIndians; whilst the proper system of policy would beto make them allies, looking to us for protection."

He had good reason to be apprehensive aboutthis arrangement. In 1810 Mahanarva, a Caribchief, had moved into the capital with his men,threatening to use physical force unless the cus-tomary presents and allowances withheld fromhim by the British were paid. The governmentdecided to appease the chief rather than risk histaking umbrage on this occasion. The presentswere given but the government reserved the right at least so the Governor wrote to decidewhether it would make presents in future. Asnoted above, the presents continued for anothertwo decades.

It is sometimes asserted that even if theIndians were not politically, they were at leastmilitarily, subordinate to the Dutch, that they


could be summoned in times of military need,and that they were committed to placing theirforces under Dutch officers. There is some am-biguity in the Dutch records on this matter.Sometimes these records convey the impressionthat the Indians were under some compulsion torespond to the Dutch call for assistance, andindeed the Dutch records at times contain suchwords as summoned and ordered when referringto the call for assistance. However, the termrequested or an analogous term is used as com-monly. On each occasion when military assis-tance was rendered, material rewards had to begiven to the Indians, apart from the annual pre-sents. In 1763, for instance, when the assistanceof the Caribs was being sought by the Director-General of Essequibo to quarantine the colonyfrom the slave uprising in Berbice, this is whathe had to say to the WIC:

I shall write to Post Arinda as soon as possible toinstruct the Postholder to induce the Carib nation, bythe promise of a recompense, to take up arms in thismatter."

Such requests and rewards were quite common.In one sense, therefore, the Indian military aux-iliaries may be viewed as mercenaries ratherthan allies.

It is also somewhat inaccurate to say that theIndians generally fought under Dutch officers.Again, there are instances when the Dutchrecords state that Dutch officers were being sentto head the Indian contingents. In 1769 theCommander of Demerara stated that he hadappointed a persom whom the Arawaks respec-ted as commander over them in order to preventthem from migrating to Berbice. The person wasalmost certainly a white burgher officer." A fewyears later, in 1744, an Essequibo burgherofficer, Stephanus Gerardus van der Heyden(Heijden), was appointed by the Dutch authori-ties there as colonel over the Indians of that terr-itory, while his sons were appointed captains."Though the evidence on the subject is at presentrather scanty, it appears that during the secondhalf of the eighteenth century the Dutch beganto appoint officers to act on their behalf in theirmilitary dealings with the Indians. Theseofficers, however, were only liaisons between theDutch and Indian forces, and were not com-manders superimposed by the Dutch over theIndians. They attempted with varying degrees ofsuccess to coordinate the efforts of the whitesand Indians in bush expeditions. But they werenever recognized by the Indians as their super-iors, and on some occasions it proved virtually

impossible to achieve coordination between thetwo forces. Thus in 1769 when Backer, theDutch Commandant, attempted to get a Caribchief to put his forces under Dutch command,he replied: 'No, I am master of the Caribs. Youcan be master of the whites and of the othernations, and then we can together becomemasters of everything.'''" Hilhouse indicated in1825 that when expeditions were composed ofwhites and Indians there was 'always consider-able confusion and insubordination', and thatthis could only be avoided by dividing the forcesalong racial lines.'"

The Indians were never formally recruitedand constituted by the Dutch into a militarycorps. The nearest they came to this was to attr-act several of them to the most important postsestablished in the hinterland. In the late eigh-teenth century about twenty-five of them werereceiving small monthly stipends as militaryauxiliaries attached to Post Moruka. Even so,no attempt was made to train them in Europeancombat tactics. It is certainly untrue, then, tostate that the Indians were generally militarilysubordinate to the Europeans.

Some writers regard the fact that on severaloccasions the Indians sought redress from theDutch government for wrongs they had sufferedat the hands of the colonists as evidence thatthey were amenable to Dutch law. However, wemust also challenge this view on the basis thatthe referral of such disputes was the result of aclear understanding between the Dutch colonialauthorities and the Indians that the two partieswould eschew the use of force, as far as possible,in their relations with each other. Thus theIndians complained, not from a position of sub-ordination, but from one of alliance. It hardlyneeds to be said that the fact that a complainthas been lodged by someone against anotherperson to a third party does not necessarilymean that the complainant is under the jurisdic-tion of the third party, but rather that theaccused is under such jurisdiction. This was thesituation between the Dutch and the Indians.The latter always reserved the right to resort tothe arbitrament of force if they should fail toobtain redress through the Dutch judicialprocess. In fact, when grave offenses were com-mitted against them they sought immediate re-tribution by appeal to arms, rather thanreferring the matter to the colonial authorities.Thus Amerindian-Dutch relations were oftenpunctuated by physical conflicts, as happened in1747, 1750 and 1755-56.

The colonial authorities were quite sensitiveto the need to court the favor of the Indians and


therefore published laws periodically prohibit-ing the colonists from ill-treating them. As earlyas 1627 Abraham van Pere, the proprietor andfounder of the colony of Berbice, had agreed asone of the conditions of his proprietary grant totreat the Indians justly and honestly."^ Similarinstructions were given to Abraham Beekman,Commander of Essequibo, in 1768, and to thepostholders. Laws were actually published onthis matter for the information of the colonistsin 1729 and around 1760. According to the edictof 1729 delinquents were to be fined f .50 for thefirst offense and f.lOO for the second, while athird offense was to meet with a much heavierpenalty.'" In spite of these laws the Indians wereoften abused by the colonists.

An important reason for this was that evenwhen the Indians lodged complaints against themiscreants the Dutch courts rarely dispensedjustice impartially. For one thing, Indians, likeAfricans, were considered as an inferior and un-trustworthy species of humanity whose test-imony could not be admitted against whites inDutch law courts. The result was that even whenthe colonists were obviously guilty they usuallygot off very lightly, as we can see from two casesbrought before the colonial judiciary in 1750.The first was against Pieter Marchai, a planter inMEizaruni, whom the Caribs accused of refusalto pay them for services rendered him over aperiod of four months. Although the Court ofJustice found the evidence heavily weightedagainst him, it simply admonished rather thancompelled him to keep the peace with theIndians and pay them their dues. The other caseconcerned the i]]-treatment of another group ofCaribs by the colonist Pieter de Bakker. Thistime the Indians' testimony was corroboratedby that of another white person. Nonetheless,tlie court simply reprimanded him."^ Again, in1752 the actions of one Christian Tonsel inseizing the children and friends of some Caribsof Barima met with on]y reprimand and anorder to restore the persons seized to their rela-tives."'

Generally, the colonial judiciaries were notinterested in dealing out even-handed justice incases involving Europeans and Indians. Butthere were a few occasions on which raisonsd'tat made it imperative to rule in favour of theIndians, as can be illustrated by reference to twoincidents which took place in 1760 and 1772. Thefirst concerned Nicolas Stedevelt, a trader whohad put a Carib from Cuyuni in fetters andtaken away his wife for allegedly stealing hisgoods. Though he had a white witness whoconfirmed that the Indian had confessed to com-

mitting the crime, the Court passed judgementagainst him. He was fined f.25O and cautionedthat he would be banished from the colony for asimilar offense in future."* Two probable reasonsaccount for this unusual judgement. A law hadrecently been passed prohibiting the whites frommistreating the Indians and Stedevelt's actionsseemed a flagrant disavowal of the authority ofthe government. More importantly, Spanishactivities in Cuyuni were a constant source ofbother to the Dutch. They were therefore spar-ing no efforts to maintain friendly relations withthe Indians in that area, whom they hoped to useas a counterfoil to the Spanish. Stedevelt'sactions threatened to embroil the Dutch in aconflict with the Indians at a time when theformer could least afford it.

The second instance concerned one F. W.Gerds, who was imprisoned for twenty-fourhours, heavily fined, and ordered to pay f.5O ascompensation to an Indian whom he hadwhipped. Again, in this case Dutch 'humanitar-ianism' and 'sense of fair play' must have beenmixed with the leaven of enlightened self-inter-est. It is interesting to note that the same dis-patch that carried the story about Gerds alsomentioned that a slave revolt was taking placeon the sea coast and that the assistance of theIndians was being sought; hence the need toensure that the Indians did not have fresh causefor umbrage against the Dutch."'

Apart from cases where the Indians broughtcomplaints against the colonists, there were afew instances when the Dutch courts triedIndians for wrongs committed by them. In 1765an Indian was charged with committing murderin the Moruka district; in 1783 a similar eventtook place.

A third incident involving the Carib chiefAritanna in 1755 became a cause clbre someyears after the event, for the British (in theirmain argument concerning their boundary dis-pute with Venezuela in 1898) used it as evidence-in-chief of Dutch jurisdiction over the Indians.They alleged that the chief had been summonedby the Dutch authorities to appear before theCourt of Justice, because he had killed certainAkawois in the Mazaruni district. But this alleg-ation was not completely correct." In the firstplace, the person on trail was not Aritanna butrather the colonist Pieter Marchai who had in-cited him to commit the act. He confessed tohaving killed the Indians at Marchal's instig-ation, but no action was taken against him.Moreover, although Gravesande wrote to theWIC on January 5, 1765, that the Court ofJustice had sent someone to summon the chief


(Indiaen op te ontbieden), in an earlier dispatchof November 24, 1755, he had stated that theCourt had decided to invite {te versoeken hier teweesen) the chief to testify at the trial."" This in-cident cannot therefore be used as conclusiveevidence of Dutch jurisdiction over the Indiansin Mazaruni.

The entire rationale behind Dutch claims thatthey were offering the Indians protection againstthe whites can be gathered from Gravesande'scandid statement in 1769:

There is no one. Your Honours, who is more con-vinced how advantageous and necessary the friend-ship of the Indians is to this Colony... I thereforeneglect no possible opportunity of cultivating thefriendship ofthe same and of protecting them from allthe ill-treatment and tyranny of the whites as far as itis expedient to do.'

This was it. For a brief moment the Director-General exposed the naked truth: the cause ofthe Indians was only espoused as long as it wasexpedient for the Dutch to do so. Expediency,however, sometimes made the colonial officialsconsider playing off one group of Indiansagainst the other. Thus in the Dutch-Akawoisconflict of 1755-56 Gravesande contemplatedrequesting the assistance of the Caribs to fightthe Dutch cause, but we have no evidence thathe actually had recourse to this measure. In 1763he expressed the hope that his Carib allies would'get a good hiding' from the Manaos because hefelt that they were obstructing the latter frommaking direct contact and permanent alliancewith the Dutch. Later in the same year an ex-pedition comprising Dutchmen and Caribs, enroute to assisting the whites to put down the Ber-bice slave uprising, killed several Indians on thecontention that they had come to kill anAkawois chief. It was often the colonists, ratherthan the colonial authorities, who played off theIndians against each other for their unscrup-ulous ends and who were also responsible for in-stances of impassioned invective and armedhostilities between the Dutch and the Indians.Up to the end of the Dutch period there were stillseveral instances of festering grievances betweenthe two parties.

On a few occasions the Dutch offered militaryassistance or gave moral support to their Indianallies against outsiders, but on each occasionthat we have come across a particular Dutch in-terest was at stake. In 1724 they decided to assistthe Caribs of upper Essequibo to repel theManaos, but this was done because they had re-ceived a report that the latter had threatened tokill all Dutchmen, and also because their attacks

on the Caribs and Akawois might have led to themigration of these people to other areas, to thedetriment of the Dutch fisheries there." In 1746the Dutch offered military assistance to theIndians in Waini who had been attacked byother Indians from Orinoco. This was the timewhen the boundary problem with the Spanish inOrinoco was becoming a major issue and theDutch suspected that the attacks had been insti-gated by the Spanish in Cuman. The Dutchwere therefore hoping, in effect, to use theIndians of Waini and the other rivers in thenorthwest to hold the ring against the Spanish,instead of shielding the Indians from attacks.Again, in 1769 they gave their blessings to aCiu-ib expedition which was about to attacksome Cerekous Indians in upper Essequibo,who were alleged to have arrived from Orinocounder Spanish instructions to harass thoseIndians in alliance with the Dutch. Needless tosay, important Dutch territorial and trading in-terests were at stake. Curiously enough, how-ever, when in 1757 the Caribs were preparing toattack a new Spanish religious mission inCuyuni in an area which the Dutch claimed asbelonging to them, the government in Esse-quibo not only refused to provide them witharms but sent an emissary to Orinoco to apprizethe colonial government there of the intendedattack. The Dutch reasoned on this occasionthat their action would secure the goodwill ofthe Spaniards." This proves once again that itwas narrow self-interest which was the crucialvariable in Dutch relations with the Indians. Thelatter were often used as pawns in the game ofdiplomatic and military chess between thevitrious European colonial powers. As far as theDutch were concerned, once their own interestswere not at stake the Indians could kill them-selves or each other without their batting an eyeat what was taking place.

While issues relating to war and tradedominated Amerindian-Dutch relations, theexigencies of life forced the Dutch to forge linkswith the Indians at other levels. As already in-dicated, one of the vital ways in which theIndians assisted the Dutch in the daily runningof the plantations was by providing bread andfish for them, or more precisely for their slaves.Indian methods of preparing cassava and shwere also commonly employed on the plant-ations. The Indians affected the culture ofDutch plantation society in these and severalother ways, such as through the use of ham-mocks in place of European-style beds; Indianboats, which were admirably suited to riverinenavigation; and the local palms for thatching


roofs. The troolie palm was particularly widelyused. When laid properly, it forms thatchingwhich is very durable and quite resistant to rain.It was used by the Dutch to thatch their boilerrooms, slave huts and other buildings.

Although contact between the two parties wasregularly maintained, most Indians, even thosewho gave some service to the plantations and theposts; preferred to live some distance away fromthe Dutch establishments. Nonetheless, some ofthem found it convenient to live on or close tothe Dutch settlements especially the Arawaksand Warraus. The Dutch considered the formerto be the most docile, sedentary and civilized ofall the Indians. They were certainly the ones whounderwent the greatest degree of acculturationto European values, a circumstance which musthave had a lot to do with the European view ofthem. On the other hand, the Caribs andAkawois, who rarely gave any but militaryservice," were vilified as the most barbarous andincorrigible groups, to whom raid and rapinewere the normal way of life. The Dutch, ofcourse, never bothered to address the questionof the impact of their own presence and activi-ties on the escalation of Indian warfare.

As a rule, the Indians were sensitive abouttheir rights, as we gather from both Van Berkeland Hartsinck. They refused to be coerced intodoing a job or to be ordered about, and allowedno impairment of their rights as freemen.'"

In return for their services they received awide assortment of European manufacturedgoods cloth, hats, mirrors, beads, fish hooks,pins, needles, scissors, pots, basins, cutlasses,axes, adzes, firearms, powder, shot, etc." Irontools were the most important of these com-modities, from the point of view of theeconomic improvements they were capable ofbringing about in Indian societies. The iron axesmade it easier to clear the dense forest, while thecutlasses were quite handy for light cutting pur-poses. These tools therefore were in greatdemand; nevertheless, it would be a gross exa-gration to suggest, as Seggar does, that thesetools revolutionized the economic life of theIndians.'' The fact is that they had a surprisinglylimited impact on Indian agriculture. They werenot introduced in sufficiently large quantities tomake them commonly available throughout thecountry during the Dutch period. Stone toolstherefore survived for a long time after the in-troduction of the new tools, as was eilso the casein West Africa for over a thousand years afteriron technology had been introduced there. Theiron tools which the Dutch sold the Indians werealso quite shoddy and anything but durable,"

nor did the Dutch make their knowledge of ironsmelting available to the Indians. While iron orehas not been discovered in large quantities inGuyana, the knowledge of iron smelting mighthave enhanced Indian societies appreciably.

The Dutch also failed to influence Indian agri-cultural technology, apart from the use of irontools. We must record a series of negatives onthis score: no animal manure or artificial fertil-izers, no wheel and plow, no rotation of crops,no soil conservation methods. Instead, theycontinued to use their old methods well into thenineteenth century: slashing and burning, plant-ing a variety of crops in a single field, andleaving the land fallow after three or fouryears."

Even in relation to new crops the Dutch hadlittle to offer. The sugar cane was the only exoticcrop of note which they introduced, and, evenso, the Indians made very limited use of it. Theycultivated it as a secondary crop alongside theirother crops. In fact, nineteenth-century sourcesdealing with Indian domestic crops generally donot mention sugar cane, but only crops of localorigin. Cassava remained by far the most im-portant Indian crop.

Apart from European agricultural tools,there were other tools (especially the adze)which were used to manufacture boats andother wooden items. The European contribu-tion in this area was quite significant, mainly inlightening the various tasks and providing abetter finish. However, once again we notice theabsence of any substantial modifications ineither shapes, sizes or methods of constructionof Indian boats.

Iron was used for a wide variety of other pur-poses. It often replaced the bone or woodenpoints at the tip of javelins and arrows, thusgiving these implements sharper and moredurable points. Sometimes, also, iron huntingand fishing tools were used side by side with thetraditional tools. For fishing, of course, theIndians utilized the metal fish hooks which wereimported in seemingly large quantities. (Amongthe items which the British distributed to theIndians in 1827 were 11,972 fish hooks.)" Butfor a long time fishing with hooks did not dis-place the traditional method of fishing, whichentailed damming and poisoning the rivers andusing nets and arrows to obtain large catches."*

Firearms were perhaps the most significant in-novation and certainly the most coveted imple-ment introduced by the Dutch, even thoughtheir impact was largely negative. Of course, upto at least the last years of the eighteenth centurygun technology was still not highly advanced.


Moreover, the 'trade guns' exported fromEurope were usually the worst of their kind, aswas certainly the case with the majority ofDutch trade guns introduced into Guyana."Even in the late nineteenth century, under theBritish regime, the Indians were receiving gunswhich are said by Im Thurn to have been of 'amost trumpety kind'." Occasionally, moreeflicient weapons found their way through illicittrade into Indian hands, but even these oftenbecame rusty and defective in the tropicsbecause of the climate and, more importantly,neglect to service them regularly. There mustalso have been problems in repairing them andobtaining adequate supplies of gunpowder andammunition. In spite of these limitations, gunsgave their users a certain military advantageover opponents using such traditional weaponsas spears, bows and arrows. Consequently, theIndians made every effort to acquire them. Inpractice, however, the supply of guns wasalways limited, even for European personnel inthe colonies. Relatively few Indians thereforeacquired them, so that they never completelydisplaced the traditional weapons. The Caribsseem to have obtained more than their neigh-bours, which increased their striking power con-siderably and allowed them to prosecute theslave trade virtually with impunity. BothSpanish and Portuguese documents attest tothis fact.

After a while the Dutch authorities began toshow some uneasiness over the trade in guns tothe Indians or even putting such weapons intheir hands to assist the whites in their militaryundertakings. In 1755 Gravesande expressedfears that the possession of such weapons wouldconsiderably increase the difficulty of keepingthe Indians in check and that one day they mightturn the guns against the whites. They were nottrustworthy, since their friendship with thewhites was based upon 'fear or by reason of theprofit they make out of trading with us thanfrom inclination'." A few years earlier, in 1750,he complained to the Zeeland Chamber thatoccasionally they obtained good guns, and thattheir acquisition of firearms made them losetheir awe of these weapons, which he obviouslysaw as the ultimate security of the whites. Hesuggested that the surest way to eliminate thisoverarching threat was to abolish the gun tradecompletely, under stiff penalties againstdelinquents."

Actually, the Chamber prohibited the tradeon at least two occasions, in 1735 and again in1752, no doubt acting on the Director-General'ssuggestion. However, these embargoes did little

to stop the now of arms to the Indians, especi-ally since the suppression of the trade was likelyto lead to a rupture of the alliance between theIndians and the Dutch. In fact, in 1762 theCaribs laid the cards on the table: they were notprepared to fight the white man's wars withoutfirepower. Thus the authorities were forced toequip the Indians with firearms to fight for themin 1762, 1763, 1778 and 1785, and no doubt onother occasions."

Firearms added a new and significant factorto Indian warfare during the eighteenth century,though this did not mean that they invariablyensured success by their possessors againstgroups using mainly traditional weapons. Theyremained a prized possession for a long time, asSeggar noted in 1965: 'The shot-gun eventuallybecame, and still is the greatest prestige or statuspossession [among the Indians].'"

European manufacturers also modifiedAmerindian societies in areas of dress and orna-mentation, mainly in relation to the use of newmaterials. Glass beads commonly replacedseeds, shells, bark, etc, as the basic material formaking women's aprons, especially among thegroups in regular contact with the Dutch; thenotable exceptions were the Warraus." Impor-ted beads were also used to make necklaces, buttraditional materials held their own for a muchlonger time in the manufacture of these orna-ments. Blue cloth was now used to make men'slaps, but we do not know how common thispractice had become by the end of the Dutchperiod. What we know is that cloth formed anincreasingly important item of the trade.Bolingbroke, writing around the end of theperiod, indicated that the Indians used theircloth laps when visiting the European head-quarters. On such occasions the chiefs weremore 'elaborately' clad, in full European garb."We also learn from Im Thurn, who wrote aboutthree-quarters of a century later, that only theWarraus retained the use of bark cloths at thattime instead of imported cloths."

The Europeans were much less successful inintroducing domesticated animals into theIndian societies in Guyana. This is quite surpris-ing when we note that the introduction of suchanimals constituted a major input into manyIndian societies in the Americas. The introduc-tion of the horse, for example, revolutionizedIndian warfare in several parts of the Americas.However, in the case of Guyana, it was not thehorse but the dog which was the major innova-tion, and its impact was in respect of huntingrather than warfare. Even so, the Indians owedthe introduction of this animal more to the


Spanish and the Portuguese than to the Dutch.The small breeds of hunting dogs formerly pos-sessed by the Indians were increasingly dis-placed by dogs imported from Spanish andPortuguese territories. Schomburgk stated thatthe Akawois went to Colombia and Brazil toobtain these animals. The Tarumas in upperEssequibo had become breeders of these dogs bythe late nineteenth century," by which time theywere equal in value to a good gun or a largecanoe.

Apart from dogs, no other animal had amajor impact on Indian societies in Guyana.Horses were expensive and suffered a highmortality rate, at least in the plantation area.Their limited utility was also due to their unsuit-ability to the terrain in which the majority of theIndians lived. They simply could not competewith the canoe and the Indian's bare feet inmobility and versatility along the rivers and overthe paths. The animals which the Europeansused for food were considered by the Indianswell into the nineteenth century as unclean." Itis only in more recent times that they mainlythose in the Rupununi savanna have taken toraising cattle, pigs, sheep and goats.

Speaking more generally, the Indian-European contact led to a much more highlydeveloped barter economy among the former.By the end of the Dutch period this had led, ifnot to the emergence of a specialized tradingclass, at least to certain groups taking the lead-ing role in trade. These came mainly from theAkawois and to some extent the Carib com-munities.

Outside of the purely material aspects ofIndian life, contact with the Dutch affected theIndians in a few other ways. From the early daysthe Dutch cohabited with Indian women andproduced a small mixed group. In the early nine-teenth century they were living mainly at Bar-tica, at the junction of the Mazaruni and Esse-quibo rivers, by which time they had becomeconsiderably mixed with African blood. Theywere chiefly engaged in cutting timber andsalting fish for the Europeans. They often spokea hybrid language known as Creole Dutch,which had become the lingua franca of theslaves and several Indians by the late eighteenthcentury." Dutch lexical items had also foundtheir way into the Amerindian languages, forinstance, negotiae for 'trade' and kleine flintefor 'small arms'."

In the field of religion, almost nothing wasdone to Christianize the Indians. TheMoravians and Roman Catholics were the onlygroups which showed some interest in them.

The Moravians turned to them after encounter-ing planter opposition to their efforts atconverting the slaves. They turned to theArawaks in Berbice, where they founded a mis-sion in 1738. They established their headquar-ters at a place called Pilgerruh (Pilgerhuth), atthe junction of the Wiruni (Wironje) and Ber-bice rivers, and lived a simple life, fishing, hunt-ing and engaging in tailoring and shoemaking toobtain a livelihood. In time they learnt the Ara-wak language and began to translate the Bibleinto it, and also to compile a dictionary. By 1759they had about 300 Indians under their spiritualcharge, but shortly afterwards a number of theirfollowers died of an epidemic which swept thecolony at that time. The mission survived until1763, when it was destroyed by the slaves duringthe uprising in that year. The missionariesmoved to Corentyne (Ephraim), where theircoreligionists had established another mission in1757; this survived until 1806 when it was des-troyed by fire and eventually abandoned. Afterthe Moravians departed the Indians quicklyforgot most of the missionaries' teachings,though some memories survived for a longtime."

The Indians in Essequibo and Demerara didnot undergo any Christian instruction. In 1729A Roman Catholic priest from Orinoco visitedEssequibo and requested permission to startwork among them, but the Commander turneddown the request." This seems to have been theonly attempt to start a mission among theIndians there.

On the whole, it can be said that the Amer-indians were as much in the mainstream of deve-lopments in Guyana, both positive andnegative, as the Africans and the Europeans.The advent of the Europeans had quite a nega-tive impact on their political structures. ManyIndian communities became fragmented andsome were destroyed, a situation which reflectedin vivid miniature what had taken place andwhat was still going on throughout the continentof North and South America where whole civil-izations were destroyed. This was all part of theprocess of underdevelopment characteristic ofthe European impact on autochthonous socie-ties. New communities sprang up from the dev-astation and destruction, but these were smalland perhaps less cohesive than their predeces-sors, and were sometimes pitted against eachother in an interlocking struggle for survival.This is certainly the picture which emerges of theCaribs and Arawaks around the mid-eighteenthcentury. Without doubt, the European adventmultiplied the incidence of warfare within


Indian communities, while Indian-Europeanwars, and animosities bred between Indians andAfricans due to the use of Indians as slavecatchers, added further dimensions to the mili-tary factor. Our preliminary investigationsstrongly suggest that in several instancesrelatively peaceful zones in the pre-Europeanperiod, such as the middle Essequibo-Mazaruniarea, became battlegrounds in which the use offirearms escalated the conflicts. More peacefulpursuits also took place. A more sophisticatednetwork of trade developed, with the Indiansexchanging a variety of local goods for exoticproducts. But even here the military factor wasintrusive, especially in relation to the slavetrade, the repercussions of which were felt overa wide area.

The Dutch needed the Indians, as they neededthe Africans, in order to develop viable col-onies. They needed them for trade, military pur-poses, manpower availability, and a variety ofother purposes. Indian initiative and response tothe new groups did much to determine the pat-tern of plantation and hinterland development.In time the Dutch found it possible to arrange amodus vivendi with several Indian groups, butonly relatively few of them came under effectiveDutch jurisdiction. What the Dutch hoped todo, and what they actually did in a number of in-stances, was to establish a sphere of influenceover various groups in the hinterland. Thisallowed them to further their commercialobjectives, and also gave them some claimsvis--vis their European neighbours to posses-sion of territories, particularly in those areaswhere their postholders and Indian allies re-sided.

Notes

1. R. Sheridan, Doctors and Staves: a Medical and Demo-graphic History of Slavery in the British West Indies680-1834, (Cambridge, 1985), p. 40.

2. Jan J. Hartsinck, Beschrijving van Guiana of de Wilde-kust in Zuid-America (Amsterdam, 1770), pp. 290-91,293.

3. British Guiana Boundary Arbitration with the UnitedStates of Venezuela. The case on behalf ofthe Govem-ment of Her Britannic Majesty (London, 1898), here-after BGBV, Appendix ii, pp. 143,214,217; BritishGuiana Boundary Arbitration with the United States ofBrazil. The case on behalf of the Government of HerBritannic Majesty (London, 1903), hereafter VGB,Appendix, i, p. 83; United States Commission on Boun-dary between Venezuela and British Guiana; Report andAccompanying Papers ofthe Mission Appointed by thePresident ofthe Unites States... (Washington, 1897),hereafter USC, i, p. 340.

4. BOBV, App. ii, pp. 8-9, 12; App. iv, pp. 101, 127.5. BGBV, App. i,pp. 11,188; App. ii,pp. 76,100,119;

App. iv,p. 2; USC, i,pp. 249,259; C. A. HarrisandJ.A.J.de Villiers, Storm van Gravesande: The Rise ofBritish Guiana 2 vols (London, 1911), ii, p. 624.

6. BGBV, App. ii, p. 119; App. iv, pp.7, 78.7. FGB, App. i, pp. 24-25, 113.8. Ibid., p.61.9. Ibid., p.lO.

10. Ibid.,p.n.11. Ibid., p.61.12. /Wrf., pp.61, 86.13. Ibid. W. Farabee, The Central Arawaks (AnttiropoXog-

ical Publications, Univ. of Philadelphia), 9 (1918), p. 13;G. W. Bennett, An Illustrated History of British Guiana(Georgetown, 1866), p. 87.

14. I. Myers, 'The Makushi of British Guiana', Timehri,27, (1946), p. 18.

15. FGB, App. i, p. 139. See also R.M. Schomburgk,Travels in British Guiana 848-844,2 vols (originallypublished 1834, rpt. Georgetown, 1922-23), ii, pp. 318,343.

16. Schomburgk, Travels, i, p. 280, ii, p. 246.17. fGB, App. i, p. 86.18./Wrf.,p.72.19. BGK, App. i, p.91.20. M. N. Menezes, British Policy Towards the Indians in

British Guiana, 803-1873 (Oxford, 1977), p. 12821. GBK, App. i, p.98.22. J. Rodway, 'The Indian Policy ofthe Dutch', Timehri,

new ser., 15, (1896), p. 28.23. BGBV, App. iii, p. 104; App. iv, pp. 189-90; App. v,

p. 73.24. ibid., App. iii, p. 112.25. A van Berkel (trans W. E. Roth), Adriaan van Berkel's

Travels in South A merica Bet ween the Berbice and Esse-quibo Rivers and Surinam l670-689(GeOTgetovin,1941), p. 70.

26. SGSK, App. i, p. 90.27. Ibid., App. iv, p. 188; FGB, App. i, p. 134.28. BGBV, App. V, pp.25-26.29. Hartsinck, p. 291.30. BGBV, App. iv, pp. 187, 188. FGB, App. i, p. 134.31. FGfi, App. i, p. 159.32. V.Roth,'Hillhouse's"BookofReconnoissances'",

Timehri, 25 (1934), pp.20, 23.33. Harris & De Villiers, ii, pp. 598-99.34. BGBV, App. i, p. 103.35. Ibid., p . 105.36. //d., App. V, p.216.37./Wrf., App. ii, p.223.38. Ibid., App. iv, p. 5.39. Ibid,, p . 124; see also pp. 190, 192.AO.Ibid.,p.n.41. V.Roth, op. CI., p. 23.42. J. Rodway, 'Indian Policy', p. 14.43. BGBK, App. ii, p. 9.44. Ibid., p.64.45. Ibid.,p.l2-n.46. Ibid., pp. 182-83.47. Harris & De Villiers, ii, pp. 661-65.48. BGBV, App. \,p.i6.49./*((/., App. ii, pp. 123, 125.50. Cited by Harris & De Villiers, i, pp. 87-88.51. BGBV, App. ii, pp.2-3.52./Wd., pp. 130-31.53. Hartsinck,opc.,p.270.Actually,therewerealwaysa

few Caribs and Akawois who were willing to give non-military service to the Dutch but their numbers weremuch smaller than those of the Arawaks and Warraus.

54. Ibid., p . 17; Van Berkel, p. 29.55. BGBV, App. iv, p. 16.

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Amerindian-European Relations in Dutch Guyana

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