afterwards situated, between the Cuyuni and the Essequibo, and the opposite bank of the Essequibo, with a few plantations lower down. This circle of plantations surrounding Kykoveral is the early Dutch colony of Essequibo.

No attempt was made to settle on the Cuyuni, Massaruni or Essequibo above the falls. The latter formed an absolute barrier, as far as colonial development was concerned, both on the Cuyuni and the Massaruui, as has already been shown in discussing the geographical features (Ch. VII, pp.

).

The first period in the history of settlement in Essequibo is from

(1) 1648 to 1740.

The statement is made in the British Case (p. 25), speaking of the period prior to 1648, that "the seat of government was at Kykoveral." This statement is not correct as indicating the condition of affairs at the date of the Treaty of Munster or prior thereto. Fort Kykoveral, on the island of that name, was not the seat of government in the sense that there was any settlement around it which it governed. Kykoveral was the settlement. There was nothing else.

At this date the establishment at Kykoveral was purely a trading establishment. The persons who occupied it were the unmarried employees of the West India Company. There were no free colonists; there were no plantations.

For the first nine years after the Treaty of Munster, these conditions remained unchanged. There is no record of any colonists or of any settlement. The direction of the post at Essequibo was in the hands of the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company, and their first invitation to colonists was issued in 1656 (V. C. II, 28). A new invitation, granting additional privileges, was published the next year (V. C. II, 30). As a result of these efforts, on March 22, 1657, the first actual colonists arrived in the Essequibo, numbering twelve persons.

The small results of this first undertaking led the Zeeland Chamber to make an arrangement with three Dutch cities which resulted in the settlement of the Pomeroon in 1658. This settlement will be taken up by itself.

In consequence of the energy with which the undertaking of the three Zeeland cities was started, the colony in the Pomeroon attained a rapid, perhaps too rapid development. For the moment all interest was centered in this colony; and although the Essequibo settlement was maintained and its Commandeur remained at Kykoveral, it showed comparatively little progress.

Not until 1664 do we find any indications of new development in this quarter. In that year the first allusion appears in the evidence subsequent to the emigration of the twelve colonists in 1657. This is the petition of Jan Doensen to the Zeeland Chamber, July 3, 1664 (B. C. I, 162), asking for a grant of land which he with several qualified associates had chosen and taken possession of "situated in the River Essequibo at Brauwershoek, upon which he has placed an agent, one Huibrecht Vinou, a Frenchman, provided with several negroes and other agricultural implements for the establishment of a regular sugar-mill there and of the further plantation needed therefor."

Brauwershoek was on the point already referred to between the Cuyuni and Essequibo, and therefore within the little circle already described surrounding the island of Kykoveral and in its immediate neighborhood. It was about at the present site of the British penal settlement.

The fact that there was no settlement of colonists in Essequibo at this time is further established by Doensen's petition, which also shows that there was no registry of lands in the colony. He asks that, "inasmuch as there in that country they have or can find no opportunity for having the ownership of their aforesaid plantation recorded and registered," the ownership may be recorded at home.

In 1665, during the war between the English and the Dutch,

an English force from Barbadoes, led by Major Scott, attacked and captured Pomeroon and Essequibo, at both of which places he left garrisons in occupation.

The French, as the allies of the Dutch, harassed and blockaded the English garrisons, which in the following year surrendered, and the Dutch thereupon resumed possession and the West India Company its control.

The settlement on the Pomeroon having come to an end, Essequibo resumed its importance, and in 1669 the first cargo of sugar was sent from the colony, a result no doubt due partly to the fact that all the Pomeroon slaves were turned over to Essequibo.

In the next year, 1670, Hendrik Rol was appointed Commandeur; and in pursuance of the policy which he advocated, three plantations were started for the Company in that year in Essequibo. The colony was still in a primitive stage of development.

In 1674 the States-General chartered the new West India Company, limiting its possessions to Essequibo and Pomeroon.

It early became evident that the fort at Kykoveral was too far up the rivers to serve as a protection from attack by sea, and in 1684 we find the first tendency towards a movement in the direc tion of the river mouth. In that year the French were in the Orinoco, and in consequence of the alarm created by this invasion a "stronghold" of palisades was built on Stamper's Island, some distance down the Essequibo River (B. C. I, 167).

During the next twenty-five years the plantation increased in number and extent, yet as late as 1691 the whole colony contained not more than one hundred Europeans (Rodway and Watt, Chronological History, pp. 12, 86, 88).

The most complete picture of the daily life of the colony and the occupations of those who had it in charge in the early part of the eighteenth century is to be found in the Journal of the Commandeur from July, 1699, to June, 1701, printed in full in B. C.-C., pp. 47-158.

To illustrate this Journal, map of the plantations

was made by the Surveyor, Abraham Maas, in 1706, and sent to the West India Company by the Commandeur.

This map (Venezuelan Atlas, Map 59), taken in connection with the Journal just referred to, shows exactly the extent of the Essequibo settlements. It defines the boundaries of twenty-eight plantations, nearly every one of which is referred to in the Journal. Of these plantations, nine lay on the Essequibo below the junction of the rivers, twelve upon the Essequibo above, and the remainder on the Cuyuni and Massaruni in the immediate neighborhood of Kykoveral. The plantations lay on the river banks, and the land comprised in each grant extended a mile or two inland. None of these plantations were too far from the fort to make the journey, going and returning, in one day.

The plantations on the Cuyuni and Massaruni were much nearer to the island than the most distant plantations on the Essequibo itself. There was not a plantation on these rivers further than ten miles from the fort. All of them were below the falls.

During the next thirty years the plantations gradually increased, but almost wholly on the banks of the Essequibo. The river still remained the only means of communication. No roads were built, and there were no interior plantations. There was no village anywhere; the only part of the settlement which resembled a village was a collection of ten or twelve houses at Cartabo point between the Massaruni and the Cuyuni, opposite Kykoveral. At this point, in 1716, a new Government house was built, directly opposite the island, which was known as the "House Naby" (near by), at which the Court of Policy held its sessions. The few houses which gathered around it were locally known as Cartabo.

The lowest fall of the Cuyuni still remained the extreme limit of the plantations on that river, and it continued to be the limit as long as the Dutch colony existed. At this point the Company had two experimental plantations for raising indigo and coffee. The indigo plantation was begun in 1732 (B. C. II, 14). It was at

the lowest fall in the Cuyuni (Id., 201), where mention is made that a party of Spaniards "in Cuyuni have been down to the lowest fall, where your Lordships' indigo plantation is situated."

At the lowest fall of the Cuyuni an experimental coffee plantation was also established by the Company. From the report of the Commandeur of the Colony in 1730 (B. C. II, 10), this planta tion was partly above and partly below the fall. The Commandeur reports that

"on the 29th and 30th of September [i. e., 1729] I inspected the coffee plantations in Cuyuni, both above and below the fall, and found many of the oldest trees withered, and most of them in a bad state, wherefore I ordered the Director, Saigné, to go and inspect the surrounding lands, and to have a new coffee and cocoa plantation laid out towards the next season, in order to see whether it would not be possible to grow the last-mentioned product in Cuyuni (where the ground is best fitted for it)."

About 1738 a number of slaves revolted, and established themselves on an island in the Cuyuni, between the lower falls and the mouth. It was finally arranged that they should continue to occupy the island under the Government, on performing certain work. This continued for a considerable time, the people being referred to as the "Company's half-free creoles" (B. C.

).

In the Massaruni there was also a plantation in the immediate neighborhood of the falls. This was the Company's plantation as Poelwyck, which had been on an island near the fort, but which, in 1704, the Commandeur began to transfer to a point above the falls (B. C. I, 228). The British case states:

"The site can be identified by means of the map of 1748 by Storm van 's Gravesande, on which it is numbered 46."

A reference to the map in question shows that plantation No. 46, which is given in the table of references on the same map as Poelwyck, was not more than ten miles above Kykoveral, and therefore just about the lowest fall.

In 1735 an outlying post was established at some distance up the Essequibo River, at or near Arinda. This outlying post was maintained with more or less continuity through