CHAPTER XII. DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN ITS BEARING ON THE QUESTION OF ADVERSE HOLDING. Having stated the general principles lying at the foundation of the doctrine of adverse holding, it remains to consider how far, under the Treaty, and under the general principles of law apart from the Treaty, an adverse holding for fifty years by the Netherlands of any of the territory in dispute has been established. There is but one condiiton, specifically mentioned in the Treaty, which is generally sufficient to constitute an adverse holding, namely "actual settlement of a district." A word may be said here as to the time-limit mentioned in Rule (a). The period covered by the history of the Dutch colony is from 1648 to 1814, a period of one hundred and sixty-six years. Under these circumstances, and considering the importance which the parties attached to the time-limit, as shown by its insertion in Rule (a) of the Treaty, it would seem that the British Case should be found somewhere to state at what date the claim is made that the fifty-years' period begins to run. But one looks in vain through the whole Case and Counter-Case for any suggestion that at any particular date any fifty-years' period begins to run for any particular locality. 1. Actual settlement of a district. The question what is sufficient to constitute an adverse holding in respect to actual settlement has been already discussed in the chapter devoted to the interpretation of the Treaty (pp. ). As there shown the acts relied upon to establish adverse holding must in all cases be national acts, made under the authority of the adverse holder who claims as sovereign, and must be evidenced by a continued exercise of sovereignty, in other words, by political control. A settlement, in order to fulfill the conditions of adverse holding as to any particular locality, must be composed of inhabitants in greater or less numbers, who have adopted that locality as a fixed place of abode, and who have established there their homes and occupations with a certain degree of permanence; it must be under a recognized and actual political control exercised over the territory as territory, and over all persons therein; and finally, no such claim can be established beyond the area of actual settlement, nor in a geographical district, by anything less than a settlement of the district. Starting with the Dutch possession of Kykoveral at the date of the Treaty of Munster, we find that between 1648 and 1814 the Dutch succeeded in making settlements to a certain extent and for a greater or less period (1) On the Essequibo River, and at the mouth of the Cuyuni and Massaruni, below the falls of those rivers. (2) At Pomeroon and its immediate neighborhood. The question of settlement is also to be considered, although only for the purpose of showing its non-existence, in (1) The Interior Territory, west of the Lower Cuyuni Falls and south of the Imataka Mountains, including the Cuyuni-Massaruni region. (2) The Coast Territory, west of Moruka, including the BarimaWaini region. The evidence as to these four localities will be considered in the above order. (1) ESSEQUIBO. The history of the Dutch colony of Essequibo is divided into two periods. During the first hundred years or thereabouts, the settlements or plantations were chiefly upon the points of land formed by the junction of the three streams,--Bartica Point, between the Massaruni and the Essequibo; Cartabo Point, between the Massaruni and the Cuyuni; the point where the penal settlement was 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 Massaruni, 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 |