In prehistoric times the Arawak Amerindians migrated from what is now Brazil into the north coast region of South America. They continued on into the islands of the Caribbean. The Arawak were relatively peaceful farmers who also fished and hunted. Not long before European contact another more warlike tribe from Brazil, the Caribs, invaded the area populated by the Arawaks, defeating and decimating them.

And then came another warlike people, the Europeans, who defeated the Caribs. The Spanish made early sightings of the north coast of South America but showed little interest in it because there was little indication of there being values there. The area later became known as the Guianas, an Amerindian word meaning the place of swamps.

When the Dutch gained their independence from Spain they went on a campaign of commercial expansion which culminated in the creation of an empire. The Dutch captured the north coast of South America, the Guianas, and also the northeast territories of Brazil, although the latter ultimately had to be surrendered back to the Portuguese.

In the Guianas the Dutch saw the commercial potential of using their polder-building skills to drain the swampy coastal and riverine areas for tropical plantations. This they did and began growing sugar cane. The governance of the territory was in the hands of the Dutch West India Company from 1621 to nearly 1800.

There was not enough labor available from the Amerindians and so the Dutch imported African slave labor. In the eighteenth century the Dutch encouraged English settlers to develop plantations in the western part of their Guianas territory and by the latter part of that century the English planters were virtually controlling the western part of the Dutch possessions. After the Napoleonic wars the British took possession of those western territories as British Guiana. The Dutch retained control to the east which became known as Dutch Guiana and later Surinam. The far eastern Guianas became French Guiana.

(To be continued.)