Cuyuni aban- was abandoned; and the bylier in charge moved down doned by the Dutch. to a place among the lower falls of the Cuyuni, at least as far down as Tonoma rapids. At this place the byliers led a solitary life until 1772, when the senior died. With his death all thought of posts on the Cuyuni was forever and definitely abandoned by the Dutch.* have reliable tidings I shall deliberate with the Court what is to be done in the matter. [Appendix to Case, i, 169.] At the same time [again wrote Gravesande, June 27, 1767,] I received a report from the Post in Cajoeny that the Indians are being bribed and incited to such a degree that they are unwilling to do the least thing for the Postholder, and that even when he orders the passing boats to lie to to see whether there are any runaways in them, they obstinately refuse to do so, and when he threatens to shoot upon them they reply that they have bows and arrows with which to answer. [Appendix to Case, ii, 170-171.] The Assistant Gerrit Van Leuwen [again writes Gravesande, February 9, 1769,] has reported to me concerning the Post in Cajoeny, that he had heard from the fugitive Indians that a detachment of Spaniards had come to just above the Post, and had captured and taken away a whole party of Indians; that they had threatened to come again during the next dry season and proceed as far as Masseroeny to capture a party of Caraibans there, and that they would then sail down the Masseroeny and again up the Cajoeny and visit the Post on their way. I immediately sent him back again (after having provided him with gunpowder and other things), and charged him to use the oars as much as possible, and to find out through the medium of the Indians the time about which they would commence their expedition and to inform me of the same, when, in order that they may have a fitting reception, I will send a commando to Mr. Van der Heyden upon Old Duynenburg (with whom I have already spoken on the matter and arranged what measures are to be taken), past which plantation they must go. [Blue Book, 3, 158.] * Anxiety was now constant; and early in May [1769] there came once more tidings of a Spanish attack on the Post. This news was speedily corrected by a letter from the senior bylier, reporting not an actual but only a threatened attack. There was added the important information that he intended to remove the Post to an island named Toenamoeto, lying between two falls, where it would be better and healthier, and that he had already begun a clearing there; and he inclosed a bill for the expenses of this clearing. Though both the Company and the governor were annoyed at this high-handed action of the bylier, the step was not reversed. Fear, remarked the governor, often leads to mistakes; but "he is now there, and is much better protected against surprises"— though he adds, this is wholly contrary to my intention, since for good reasons I would gladly have had that post gradually farther up the river." In June, 1770, the senior bylier, Jan van Witting, announced that the Indians were still drawing off from the Cuyuni; and in the same note asked for his own discharge at New Year's, when his time would be up. He remained there, however, through the following year and into 66 These, the only attempts at Dutch yuni. These ephemeral attempts at establishing posts on the Cuyuni, and an unsuccessful attempt in 1741-3 to occupation of Cumine for copper in the Cuyuni below Moroko creek, located somewhere near the head of what is now known as Suwaraima island, were the only attempts made by the Dutch during the 18th century to actually occupy land in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni basin above the lowest falls of those rivers.* the next, apparently undisturbed by the Spaniards. Then his service was cut short by death; in the pay-roll for 1772 his decease is chronicled by the secretary, who adds that he could not learn the exact day of its occurrence. The second bylier, Gerrit von Leeuwen, seems to have served out his year and then returned to the ranks of the garrison. Thus quietly, but forever, the post in the Cuyuni disappeared from the records of the colony. [U. S. Commission Report, ii, 340–341.] Yesterday evening Bont received a letter from Mr. Van der Heyde, in which that gentleman informs him that the Indians up there have told him that the Post in Cajoeny had been attacked by the Spaniards; that Jan Wittinge had been killed, and Van Leuwen carried off. Mr. Van der Heyde at the same time states that he is doing his best every day to hire Indians to send up the river in order to see whether this is true, but has up to the present not been able to persuade any Indians to go. If this be true it is insufferable, and it is too bad that a cat should allow itself to be eaten up by a small mouse. If we only had the soldiers we would make them pay for it well. [Appendix to Case, ii, 189.] I shall not dwell upon this further, and shall try to obtain full information concerning it. I shall send the Postholder, G. Jansse, to Demerary as soon as possible. [Blue Book, 3, 166.] * Early in 1741 this miner, one Thomas Hildebrandt, arrived; and until the middle of 1743 investigations were carried on vigorously under his direction, both in the Mazaruni and in the Cuyuni. His letters, and especially his journals, transmitted to the Company, give with prolix minuteness the method and the place of his researches. In the Mazaruni he went no further up than a little above the plantation Poelwijk, scarcely to the lowest rapids. In the Cuyuni, which promised better, he pushed his explorations much farther. The highest point reached by him was a creek called "Moroko-Eykoeroe" (Moroko Creek), where he opened a copper mine. The place was some two days distant from Kykoveral, and, so nearly as can be determined from his description, was on the right or south bank of the river, probably somewhere near the head of what appears in modern maps as the island of Suwaraima. To facilitate his work and "to escape the great danger of the falls," Hildebrandt constructed a road through the forest from the indigo plantation, at the head of tide-water, to the still water above the first great series of rapids, and planned to build another stretch yet higher up stream. The mines, however, did not speedily pay. Hildebrandt's brutal manners alienated superiors and subordinates, and drove the slaves to desertion. In 1743, after an alleged attempt to run away himself, bag and baggage, up the Cuyuni to Orinoco, he was packed off home to Results of threequarters of a century. very Two To sum up the results of three-quarters of a century: The colony, which in 1725 had clustered about Kykoveral, had abandoned that site and had moved down to the mouth of the river, spreading little by little along the eastern bank of that river, and finally stretching over into the Demerara. The interior had been entirely abandoned except for purposes of trade and slave raiding. efforts at actual occupation in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni basin had proved failures, and that region had been abandoned to the Spaniards. The only Dutch post west of the Essequibo was at the mouth of the Moruca; but, except for that post, the Moruca, the Wacupo and the Pomeroon were entirely deserted.* Europe. This was the first and the last of Dutch attempts at mining in the Cuyuni. [U. S. Commission Report, i, 317-318.] That it is not true that the Hollanders had had, nor have now possession of the Cuyuni river (called by them Cayoeny), because when they established a Guard and Barrack, like that of Maruca, in the year seventeen hundred and forty-seven (1747), to facilitate the inhuman traffic and capture of Indians, whom they surreptitiously enslaved, within the dominions of the King our Lord, for the culture of the plantations and improvement of their Colony, as soon as it came to our knowledge, in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-seven (1757), they were dislodged from there, so that neither in the Cuyuni, Maserony, Apanony nor any other rivers emptying into the Esquivo, have the Hollanders any possession; nor could it be tolerated that they should have it, because those rivers embrace almost all the territory of the Province of Guayana in their course from their western termini, where their headwaters originate, down to the eastern limit emptying into the Esquivo river. From that fancied possession it should result that the Hollanders would be the owners of the extensive Province of Guayana and that we, the Spaniards, had no more part of it than the said margin of Orinoco, which is an absurdity. [Appendix to Case, ii, 372.] *Surinam, belonging to the Dutch, borders Berbische, on our right, and a little further up the coast is the French colony of Cayenne. With such restless neighbors about us we shall require to be watchful and alert. On our left we approach the river Orinoco, and what is termed the Spanish main. [Pinckard (Dr. Geo.) Notes on the West Indies. 2nd ed. London, 1816, i, 357.] By inspecting the map you will find that our situation upon this coast is now rendered peculiarly interesting. The Spaniards are on our left, to leeward; the Dutch and French to windward on our right;-close in our rear are heavy and impenetrable forests, inhabited by wild and naked tribes; and our whole front is bounded by the open sea. [Same, ii, 115.] Demerara, Feb. 11, 1797. A considerable time has now passed since DUTCH WEAKNESS AND SPANISH CONTROL. But what has been said shows merely the limits of Dutch occupation. It gives no idea of the weakness of the colony, nor of the frequent danger it was in of total extinction at the hands of the Spaniards, nor of the political control which Spain exercised throughout the region now in dispute up to the very banks of the Essequibo. It was a control which served to limit the growth of the Dutch colony; which, in great measure, shaped its policy; and which confined it always to the mouth of the Essequibo and to the region east of that stream. The weakness of the colony and its danger of extinction was due mainly to three causes: 1st, to lack of population; 2d, to military weakness; and 3d, to fear of the Spaniards. Effects of Span ish control. Causes of Dutch weakness. 1ST-POPULATION.-In 1733, after a century's exist Population. ence, the colony numbered less than two hundred Europeans. our arrival upon this coast, and, having remained so long without any interruption, we had almost believed that the many foes upon our borders meant to leave us in quiet possession of the colonies we had taken; but we have, at length, been assailed from the quarter, whence we least expected it, having had a skirmish with the Spaniards to leeward, instead of the Dutch or French, who in more imposing aspect, threatened us from windward. Fixing upon a favorable moment when they expected that the garrison might be sunk in repose, after the festivities of the Queen's birthday, a party of Spaniards crossed [over from] the river Oronoko in the night of the 19th inst. and made an attack upon our outpost at Moroko, the remotest point of the colony of Essequibo. [Same, ii, 165.] Pinckard, whose writings should have authority, and who came to Guiana in 1781, in the fleet under Sir George Rodney, which took Guiana from the Dutch, distinctly says, in his admirable letters on Guiana, that the most northern outpost of the Dutch colonies at the time of their first capture by the English was on the Morooca. [im Thurn (E. F.) Boundary pamphlet of 1879, in U. S. Commission Report, ii, 716; see also Appendix to Case, iii, 152.] * There were then in Essequibo 66 Europeans, servants of the Company, and 854 slaves, distributed at the fort, Cartabo, the five Company's plantations, and the trading posts. The private estates numbered 25 to 30, averaging three Europeans and about sixty slaves on each; the whole population may therefore be estimated at about three thousand, besides the free Indians. [Rodway (J.) History of British Guiana. Georgetown, 1891, i, 73.] Military weak ness. June 8, 1734 Sept. 2, 1754. Aug. 15, 1758. 2D-MILITARY WEAKNESS.--The military condition of the Dutch is thus referred to in letters of the Essequibo Governor : In a letter to the West India Company, written on June 8, 1734, the Commandeur in Essequibo speaks of the Spaniards as "formidable" and of the Dutch as very feeble." He submits the following question 66 for their Lordships' consideration: "First, as the Spaniards are making themselves so formidable by the collection of a considerable number of troops, and we on the contrary are very feeble here, whether it is not of the greatest necessity to send a militia reinforcement hither, since the real design of the Spaniards is unknown to us.”* Again on September 2, 1754, Gravesande, then Commandeur in Essequibo, wrote to the Company: "With the small number of soldiers I cannot repel the least aggression in those quarters. It is even impossible for me. (however necessary at this conjuncture) to detach eight or ten men to garrison and defend as far as possible the post of Moruca, which will, I fear, see trouble. All that I can do is, with the aid of the Carib nation, whose flight from Barima I daily expect, to cause all possible hindrance to the undertaking; but then I should want ammunition and food and have none of either." In 1758, August 15, Gravesande writes to the Company: "In the current year many people have died in this Colony, and the garrison is in a very lamentable state; one soldier dies after another, and, of those who fall ill, there is scarcely one who recovers. We have, therefore, not more than fourteen men at present who are capable of doing duty, none at all in Fort Kijkoveral, which I have had to leave unprotected, and one solitary man in Demerary." * Appendix to Case, ii, 86. |