How Guyana Was Made

Guyana is a place of deep, deep social fractures. It has the 20th highest homicide rate in the world, almost three times the global average. Almost anywhere here in the capital city it’s strongly advised not to walk alone at night. So how did this tiny paradise get so violent? Unlike Brazil or Colombia or El Salvador, the story of Guyana is a little different. This video looks at how the Europeans smashed together the people of three different continents to create this little colony of sugar. To support the channel:   / membership   (become a supporter) https://buymeacoffee.com/lostincontext (tip jar) Sources and recommendations (with Amazon links- If you buy I will earn a small commission) John Gimlette, Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge, 2011 (https://amzn.to/4ugwqsp) A lyrically written travel account on the three Guianas. It's fun, and poetic, and deeply researched. Saamaka Dreaming, Richard Price and Sally Price, 2017 (https://amzn.to/4suIJQ2) The single (and perhaps only?) book to read on the culture of the Saamaka in Suriname while it still partially existed. The account of two anthropologists. John Hemming, Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon, 2008 (https://amzn.to/4snyxsK) The standard account of the history of the Amazon rainforest. Comprehensive, and much better written than your average dry history. Charles C. Mann, 1491: The Americas Before Columbus, 2005 (https://amzn.to/47h1MoQ) One of my favourite books I've ever read. A story elegantly told, and it will change the way you think about the Americas before the European arrival. Charles C. Mann, 1493: How the Ecological Collision of Europe and the Americas Gave Rise to the Modern World, 2011 (https://amzn.to/4lcckeI) The sequel to the above, about the world that was created by the connecting of the Americas to the world system. McNeill, J. R, Mosquito Empires; Ecology and War in the Greater Carribbean, 2010 (https://amzn.to/40hxHle) It seems like it might be a dry history book, but it's much better than that. Argues convincingly for the crucial role of disease (hence the mosquito) in the story of the Americas. English colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, 1604-1668, James A. Williamson, 1923 Articles The Economist Tim Merrill, ed. Guyana: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1992. ‘A New History of the First Peoples in the Americas’, Adam Rutherford The Atlantic, 2017 Suriname: 2016 Country Review, www.countrywatch.com ‘Genome-wide Ancestry and Demographic History of African-Descendant Maroon Communities from French Guiana and Suriname’, Fortes-Lima et al, Am J Hum Genet. 2017 FREIRE, José R. Bessa. “Da ‘fala boa’ ao português na Amazônia brasileira”. Amerindia. Revue d’Ethnolinguistique Amerindienne, Paris, 1983, 8, pp. 39-83 ‘MI5 files reveal details of 1953 coup that overthrew British Guiana's leaders’, Associated Press, The Guardian, 2011 Richard Price, ‘Maroons in Guyane: Getting the Numbers Right’, Brill, 7th December 2018 Scott B. MacDonald, ‘Has anything changed since French Guiana’s 2017 social upheaval?’, April 20, 2021 ‘A Path to Prosperity for Oil-Rich Guyana’, Harvard International review, 27 September, 2023 ‘Venezuelans to vote in referendum over large swathe of territory under dispute with Guyana’, AP, December 3rd 2023 00:00 Intro 01:22 Background 02:23 Dutch Guyana 06:47 Essequibo and Bartica 11:41 Fort Island 17:00 The British 19:40 Indentured Labour 21:30 The PPP and PNC 26:30 Racial Division 29:20 Independence