Borderless Empire: Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750–1800
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Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world. Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into "national Atlantics" suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the "Dutch Atlantic" by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries.
The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins. The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.
Bram Hoonhout
BRAM HOONHOUT is an assistant professor in economic history at Leiden University. He is the education programme director of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, the interuniversity research school in social and economic history in the Netherlands and Flanders.
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Borderless Empire - Bram Hoonhout
BORDERLESS EMPIRE
Early American Places is a collaborative project of the University of Georgia Press, New York University Press, Northern Illinois University Press, and the University of Nebraska Press. The series is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, please visit www.earlyamericanplaces.org.
ADVISORY BOARD
Vincent Brown, Duke University
Andrew Cayton, Miami University
Cornelia Hughes Dayton, University of Connecticut
Nicole Eustace, New York University
Amy S. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University
Ramón A. Gutiérrez, University of Chicago
Peter Charles Hoffer, University of Georgia
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, New York University
Joshua Piker, College of William & Mary
Mark M. Smith, University of South Carolina
Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University
BORDERLESS EMPIRE
Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750–1800
BRAM HOONHOUT
The University of Georgia Press
ATHENS
© 2020 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved
Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hoonhout, Bram, author.
Title: Borderless empire : Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic world, 1750–1800 / Bram Hoonhout.
Other titles: West Indian web
Description: Athens : University of Georgia Press, [2020] | Series: Early American places | Revision of author’s thesis (doctoral)—European University Institute, 2017, titled The West Indian web : improvising colonial survival in Essequibo and Demerara, 1750–1800. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019010723 | ISBN 9780820356082 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780820356075 (ebk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Essequibo—History. | Demerara—History. | Netherlands—Colonies—America—History. | Netherlands—Colonies—History—17th century.
Classification: LCC F2351 .H66 2020 | DDC 988.1/2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010723
For my parents
CONTENTS
List of Maps, Tables, and Figures
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Borderless Societies
1 The Borderland
2 Political Conflicts
3 Rebels and Runaways
4 The Centrality of Smuggling
5 The Web of Debt
6 Borderless Businessmen
Conclusion: The Shape of Empire
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes
Bibliography
Index
MAPS, TABLES, AND FIGURES
Maps
I.1 Essequibo and Demerara, their neighboring colonies and their major connections
I.2 Detail from a 1737 map of Surinam
I.3 Essequibo and Demerara around the turn of the century, with details of their plantation infrastructure and points of control
1.1 The Orinoco-Essequibo borderland
2.1 Detail from the mouth of the Demerara River, 1784
3.1 The three main desertion routes from Essequibo to Venezuela
3.2 Plantations and planters involved in the 1772 revolt in Demerara
3.3 Plantations involved in the 1789 bomba insurgency
3.4 Uprisings, desertion, and maroon attacks in 1795
5.1 Caerte van de rivier Demerary van Ouds Immenary, gelegen op Suyd Americaes Noordkust op de Noorder Breedte van 6 Gr. 40 Min, 1759
5.2 Carte de la Colonie de Demerary, 1784
5.3 Generale en speciale kaart der Colonien van de republicq der Ver. Nederl., geleegen in Guyana, langs de Zeekust der rivieren Poumaron, Essequebo, Demerary; van de grensen van Berbice tot de rivier Morocco aan de grens in de Spaansche Bezitting Oronoco, 1796
6.1 Estates of the individuals mentioned in the text
Tables
2.1 Number of plantations in Essequibo and Demerara, 1716–1800
3.1 Enslaved Africans in Essequibo and Demerara, 1735–1832
4.1 Vessels arriving in Essequibo and Demerara, 1700–1799 (annual average)
4.2 Exports from Essequibo and Demerara, March 1784–February 1785
5.1 Overview of mortgage funds active in Essequibo and Demerara
A1.1 Missions of the Reverend Father Capuchins of Catalonia of the Province of Guiana, 1788
A1.2 Goods ordered for 1,000 Amerindians, 1803
Figures
2.1 Origins of the Demerara supporters for the 1785 petition
4.1 Population of enslaved Africans in Essequibo and Demerara, actual numbers compared to counterfactual numbers based on registered slave imports, 1769–1795
5.1 Exports from Essequibo and Demerara, 1745–1801 (in lbs)
5.2 Registered exports from Essequibo and Demerara, 1798–1802 (in pounds sterling)
ABBREVIATIONS
ACA Amsterdam City Archive, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
BGBB British Guiana Boundary Books
—BC —British Case
—BCC —British Counter Case
—VCC —Venezuelan Counter Case
BL British Library, London, United Kingdom
BPL Boston Public Library, Boston, United States
BT Board of Trade
CO Colonial Office
CUST Boards of Customs, Excise, and Customs and Excise, and HM Revenue and Customs
IISH International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
LRS Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool, United Kingdom
MCC Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (Middleburgh Commercial Company)
MHS Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, United States
NAG National Archives of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana
NL-HaNA Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Netherlands
NRS National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
NYHS New York Historical Society, New York, United States
RAB Raad der Amerikaanse Bezittingen (Council of American Possessions)
RdK Raad der Koloniën (Council of the Colonies)
RBML Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
S-G Staten-Generaal (States-General)
TASTD Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
TNA The British National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom
UA Utrecht Archives, Utrecht, Netherlands
VOC Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company)
VWIS Verspreide West-Indische Stukken (Unsorted West Indian Papers)
WIC Dutch West India Company
ZA Zeeuws Archief (Zealand Archives), Middleburgh, Netherlands
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book inevitably involves incurring many debts. As this project has its origins in my dissertation, I would like to thank my advisers at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Jorge Flores and Regina Grafe. Jorge’s support and flexibility allowed me to shape my own project. At the same time, his encouragement to go beyond my comfort zone of economic history and incorporate more social history helped to make this a more balanced work. Regina made sure that I did not forget about the economic side. Her cheerfulness and willingness to discuss chapters over Skype or over pasta are much appreciated, and her incisive comments and broad knowledge of Atlantic history have been enormously helpful. I owe a Deutz-sized debt to my academic mentor, Cátia Antunes. While it cannot be recounted in full here, suffice it to say that her unfaltering faith as well as the many talks and rounds of feedback have been fundamental to my academic development over the past seven years. Her dedication to her
PhD students (broadly conceived) is a model for any adviser.
At Leiden University, Team Catia,
among others, always offered me a warm welcome. I have spent many hours thinking or drinking with Kate, Joris, Erik, Éli, Julie, Kaarle, Edgar, Hasan, Noelle, Miguel, Susana, João Paolo, Karwan, Jeannette, Sanne, Matthias, Aniek, and Marion, which helped develop our projects as well as our friendship. Similarly, many people at the EUI made life enjoyable, whether in academic settings, in town, or on the Schifanoia calcetto pitch; thanks to Roel, Matthijs, Martijn, Florian, Sanne, Diana, Marijn, Bouke, Niccolò, Bartosz, Jonas, Esther, Stephanie, and Miquel.
I have benefited from the generous advice and support of many others, whom I like to thank here. Gert Oostindie read the entire manuscript and gave very useful comments. Marion Pluskota, Michiel van Groesen, Karwan Fatah-Black, and Damian Pargas provided valuable input for the book proposal. Wim Klooster offered helpful advice during his stay at the NIAS, as well as when we met in the years afterward, just like Marjoleine Kars. Several participants at the FEEGI, CHAM, BGEAH, ISCECS, Itinerario, and ESSHC conferences provided valuable input. I am grateful as well to Paul Koulen, Johan van Langen, Roelof Hol, Ben ter Welle, and Syeade and Jerry Lagra all of whom contributed in one way or another to research in Guyana. In addition, David Alston has been very supportive in tracking Scots. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds for generously funding my research in Guyana, Barbados, and the United States. Finally, I want to thank the many archivists who have helped me in my quest for the few and scattered sources that deal with Guyanese history.
Parts of this book have been published previously, as Bram Hoonhout and Thomas Mareite, Freedom at the Fringes? Slave Flight and Empire-Building in the Early Modern Spanish Borderlands of Essequibo–Venezuela and Louisiana–Texas,
in Slavery & Abolition (2018); and as Smuggling for Survival: Self-Organized, Cross-Imperial Colony Building in Essequibo and Demerara, 1746–1796,
in Beyond Empires: Global, Self-Organizing, Cross-Imperial Networks, 1500–1800, ed. Cátia Antunes and Amélia Polónia (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 212–35. I would therefore like to thank Taylor & Francis and Brill for their permission to reuse parts of this material.
At the University of Georgia Press, I have been happy to work with Walter Biggins, Jordan Stepp, and Bethany Snead, who saw the potential for the book and always responded quickly to queries. In addition, I am grateful for the excellent copyediting of Sheila Berg. I am also thankful to the two great reviewers commissioned by the Press, who saw more clearly what the book was about than I could myself and whose suggestions were pivotal in reframing the book.
Finally, I would like to thank friends and family. I have been privileged with fantastic and supportive parents and a wonderful sister, as well as with friends who show there is more to life than academic work. Ultimately, though, my greatest thanks to my dearest Anouk.
Introduction: Borderless Societies
When in 1796 the British invasion fleet approached the Demerara River, its commanders were in for an unpleasant surprise. The expedition, arriving from Barbados with some thirteen hundred men, aimed to take possession of the Dutch colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, situated on the Guiana coast of South America. Theoretically, the British came to offer protection
to the colonies in the name of the Dutch Stadtholder. In practice, they were keen on taking these lucrative colonies for themselves. The Dutch colonies of Essequibo and especially Demerara already had a high percentage of British planters, and their fertile soils carried the promise of great riches. Their coffee, sugar, and cotton could fuel the unfolding Industrial Revolution in Britain with the raw material for its machines and the stimulants for its workforce.
Yet the shallow mouth of the Demerara presented an unforeseen obstacle to the invaders. Even though the heavy warships deliberately kept their distance, the lighter landing vessels failed to reach the shore. The English surgeon George Pinckard was traveling with the fleet and described the unfortunate situation. Instead of going ashore with the earliest tide in the morning, by five o’clock the entire advanced fleet had run aground, frustrating any plans of a quick invasion. The troops, neither able to attack nor able to retreat, became sitting ducks and were forced to await the next tide. The British thus had to change course. Their large ships were ordered to block the river mouth and to anchor within firing range of Demerara’s fort, to prepare for a possible Dutch counterattack.¹
However, the Dutch officials preferred to avoid confrontation. In fact, they were happy to surrender, as long as personal property remained intact. The scenario of a foreign takeover was familiar to the colonists: in the 1780s they had been occupied twice, first by British and then by French forces. After some initial confiscations of ships, the colonists had actually profited from those foreign occupations. Being part of the British or French empire had provided access to more commercial opportunities than they could ever hope for under the Dutch. Consequently, exporting to London or buying enslaved Africans from British slavers had greatly stimulated the expansion of the plantation economy in the 1780s, and the colonists expected similar opportunities now that the British were at their doorstep again.
Another reason for this positive attitude toward a British takeover was the large number of British settlers already present in Essequibo and Demerara. Throughout the eighteenth century, Essequibo and Demerara had welcomed many foreign planters. With the offer of generous ten-year tax breaks, many colonists had been enticed to move from islands like Barbados and Antigua, to abandon these increasingly depleted lands for fertile virgin soil. By the time of the takeover, British and North American colonists probably made up at least half of the planter population.²
Consequently, the British took control of the colonies peacefully the day after the initial standoff.³ Thereafter, except for a short intermezzo in 1802–3, the colonies would remain in British hands, and in 1814 the Netherlands officially ceded them to Britain. In 1831 the two colonies, together with neighboring Berbice, would be merged to form British Guiana. As a newly acquired part of the empire, many British planters, slave traders, and investors jumped on the opportunity to get rich quickly. The slave trade soared and investment boomed. While throughout the Atlantic world the system of slavery was increasingly challenged by abolitionists, it accelerated and intensified in newly acquired regions like Guiana. In fact, in the decade after the takeover, Demerara was the fastest expanding region in the world of slavery.⁴ A dream for absentee planters, a nightmare for the enslaved and abolitionists, British Guiana became the site of one of the greatest slave uprisings—the Demerara rebellion of 1823—and a source of fabled riches.⁵
However, the eighteenth century, under Dutch rule, was a profoundly different period. In the first quarter of the century there were just a handful of plantations in Essequibo, while Demerara was not even opened for colonization until 1746. Rather than being stimulated by the metropolis, the two colonies were largely neglected by the governing body—the Dutch West India Company (WIC)—which led to a situation of constant near-collapse. Irregular supplies from the Dutch Republic meant that food and building materials were almost always in short supply. In addition, the planters were perennially frustrated by the lack of enslaved Africans for sale, most of whom died young because of the terrible conditions in which they lived and worked.⁶ Furthermore, the colonial administrators lamented the vulnerability of the colonies, which was the result of a lack of military support. Without sufficient troops and adequate fortifications, the colonists were helpless against external invaders as well as internal insurgencies in the form of slave uprisings.
Nevertheless, the plantation economy grew quickly. In 1735 only thirty plantations existed in Essequibo, and in 1745 Demerara was just a river running through virtually impenetrable rainforest. Yet afterward especially the Demerara colony expanded rapidly. Within fifty years the two colonies had grown to include 2,000 whites and over 42,000 enslaved Africans, toiling on some four hundred plantations.⁷ By this point, the Demerara colony had eclipsed Berbice, as well as Essequibo, its former overlord colony, and was rapidly catching up with Suriname, the jewel in the crown of the Dutch plantation empire.⁸
This book seeks to understand how Essequibo and Demerara could survive and expand in this period. It does so by underlining the importance of local improvisation and connections across cultural and imperial borders. In other words, it posits that Essequibo and Demerara were borderless colonies.
There were five remarkable aspects in Essequibo’s and Demerara’s development: a borderland with Venezuela, which allowed enslaved people as well as soldiers to escape thereto; a heavy reliance on Amerindian allies as bounty hunters and as shock troops during revolts; a strong dependence on private initiative and local improvisation; smuggling as the basis for all domains of colonial trade (the import of provisions, the export of cash crops, and the slave trade); and a high number of non-Dutch planters. These characteristics—as the chapters that follow demonstrate—were interrelated, as they were the result of the open nature of the colonies. Individually these elements might be visible in other empires, but together they resulted in a unique mix that made Essequibo and Demerara into borderless societies.
This borderlessness
was especially noteworthy because it was manifested in the second half of the eighteenth century. The process of improvised empire building is normally associated with the seventeenth century, as during the eighteenth century European states became more involved and tried to enforce their mercantilist systems. France and Britain tinkered with their exclusive systems by making smuggling centers into free ports and by being strict toward the rest.⁹ Portugal had a period of mercantilist revival, initiated by the Marquis of Pombal, and Spain also tried to get a firmer grip on its vast empire through the Bourbon Reforms.¹⁰ Even the Dutch Republic tried to bind its colonies more strictly to itself by constructing a system of plantation mortgages that tied planters to investors in the metropolis.¹¹ Although these initiatives might be ineffective or even counterproductive (in the case of the Thirteen Colonies), the interesting aspect of Essequibo and Demerara is that the metropolitan authorities did not even try. With the state at a distance, the colonies retained their borderless nature, both in a geographic and in an institutional sense.
The geographic context is visible in map I.1, which shows that the colonies were located at the fringe of the Dutch empire. To the west, they faced the Spanish empire. The borderland separating Essequibo and Venezuela stretched far and wide and was mostly covered in dense rainforest, but rivers like the Cuyuni offered a way of connecting the two European colonies. The Cuyuni was used to facilitate trade but also allowed enslaved Africans to escape from the Dutch to the Spanish side, where they hoped to be declared free.¹² In addition, the borderland was home to a great and diverse number of Amerindian groups several of which became allies of the Dutch. Looking east from Demerara, we find the other Dutch Guiana colonies, Berbice and Suriname. Berbice was similar to Essequibo and Demerara in geographic openness, although it did not expand as quickly, possibly because it attracted fewer foreign settlers. Being run by a private society, it had its own dynamic and still awaits a thorough modern study for the Dutch period.¹³ Suriname, on the other hand, is well studied and serves as a mirror for Essequibo and Demerara throughout this book.
MAP I.1. Essequibo and Demerara, their neighboring colonies and their major connections by the end of the eighteenth century.
The four Dutch colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice, and Suriname all shared a pattern of development that was dictated by water. In an area covered by forests, the plantations were laid out along the coast or riverbanks, after enslaved people had cleared the grounds. Each plantation then became an island in itself. Building on the Dutch knowledge of reclaiming land through polders, a plantation needed a system of waterworks to make the cultivation of the fertile Guianese soil possible. An estate had a system of front, side, and back dams to keep out water, from the river or sea as well as from the rainforest. Within this enclosed area, canals and trenches for irrigation, drainage, and transport further divided the plantation into smaller plots.¹⁴ Initially, most estates were established upriver, sheltering them from the tide and plundering by roaming privateers. However, after the mid-eighteenth century a movement toward the coast took place, as it was discovered that the soil was more fertile there, and plantations higher up were abandoned.¹⁵
However, here a difference in openness between Suriname and Essequibo and Demerara emerged. In Suriname, as map I.2 shows, several forts were built on strategic locations and plantations were established upriver from them rather than on the coast. This offered protection from outside attacks but also resulted in more oversight by colonial authorities. While Suriname had its fair share of illicit trade, a higher degree of control meant smuggling did not gain the fundamental importance it did in Essequibo and Demerara.¹⁶ In the latter two, the fortifications were fewer in number and often badly placed, as map I.3 shows. Furthermore, new plantations were increasingly established out of sight of them, on the coast, so the colonies became more open and even more difficult for officials to oversee.
MAP I.2. Detail from a 1737 map of Suriname (south-up orientation). Sailing up the Suriname river, one would encounter Fort Nieuw–Amsterdam first, before reaching Fort Zeelandia and the city of Paramaribo. While Suriname’s plantation sector expanded afterward, it did not take the coastal form of Essequibo and Demerara. Source: Algemeene kaart van de Colonie of Provintie van Suriname, Alexander de Lavaux, 1737, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, NG-478.
MAP I.3. Essequibo and Demerara around the turn of the century, with details of their plantation infrastructure and points of control.
However, in Essequibo and Demerara, the possibilities for control had always been limited at best. In Essequibo a seventeenth-century fortification existed, Kyk-over-al (See everywhere
), far upriver, overseeing the Cuyuni and Mazaruni Rivers. It was later abandoned for the new fort, Zeelandia, established closer to the coast in 1739, so ships had to travel less distance to load their cargo. Fort Zeelandia provided some degree of oversight over shipping in and out of the river—even though the wide river mouth and the many islands in it offered enough possibilities for smugglers to escape attention. However, with the new plantations being located on the ocean side, out of sight, the fort lost an important part of its function.
In Demerara the situation was hardly any better. The administration was initially housed at the faraway Borsselen Island, mostly because that was conveniently close to the plantation of the highest official. Yet as a commercial node this island was highly impractical, and in the meantime smugglers could just load products directly elsewhere, by anchoring alongside a plantation. It was nevertheless only in the 1780s that a renewed effort at control was undertaken—by the French. When they occupied the colonies during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–84), the French laid the basis for the first real town, which would become Stabroek and today is the capital of Georgetown. Furthermore, they built fortifications at both sides of the mouth of the Demerara River, although the Dutch quickly abandoned one side once they regained possession of the colonies.¹⁷ Regardless, a fort at the entry of the river was of little use to prevent illicit trade from the coastal plantations. Even the mud banks favored smugglers, as they made it hard for the deep patrol ships to pursue the lighter smuggling craft that could get closer to the shore.
Smugglers profited not just from the geographic conditions but also from the institutional openness. Essequibo and Demerara were open to foreigners who were willing to try their luck. These might be planters abandoning exhausted soils elsewhere for fertile virgin soil, particularly in Demerara, or adventurers starting in the provision trade and diversifying into plantation ownership later. In any case, these immigrants brought their commercial connections with them. As a result, they often continued their previous business practices, for example, by buying captives from British slavers or exporting cotton via Barbados. This was illegal under Dutch rule, but in these weakly governed colonies they often got away with it. Indeed, in Essequibo and Demerara openness and institutional weakness went hand in hand, as lack of oversight allowed local actors to develop their own initiatives. The reason that the institutional structure remained underdeveloped was because the WIC was both unwilling and unable to develop it. More specifically, the fact that the colonies were ruled by the Company posed three problems.
First, the Company itself was a strange animal. The first WIC had been a weapon in the Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648) against Spain, had obtained the slave fortress of Elmina, and had temporarily occupied Brazil (1630–54) but went bankrupt in 1674. Its successor, the second WIC,
owned small free-trade emporiums like Curaçao and St. Eustatius but otherwise had ambivalent goals. It held the monopoly on the slave trade but voluntarily gave these rights away in 1738 as it could not turn a profit. But while it abandoned the idea of a trading organization, the Company did not become particularly enthusiastic about empire. The grand ambitions of wrestling large territories from others were gone, but now the WIC had to deal with the problems of governing colonies on the Guiana coast, in a period in which its debts accumulated rapidly.¹⁸ In other words, it lacked the means to facilitate the expansion of empire, leaving a vacuum in which local actors could develop their own initiatives.
The second problem was that the WIC was too divided to rule Essequibo and Demerara effectively. Governing proved much more complicated than in Suriname, in which the Company also had a share but which was dominated by Amsterdam interests.¹⁹ In contrast, Essequibo and Demerara became a battleground for the rivalry between Amsterdam and Zealand. Considering that the WIC’s governing board (the Assembly of Ten, or Gentlemen Ten) included representatives from the various provincial chambers, decision making was often thwarted by provincial interests. As Zealand had taken the initiative for the colonization of the Essequibo River in the seventeenth century, it claimed sole authority over it, in particular, the exclusive right to trade. Amsterdam maintained that the changes in the later WIC charters had opened the trade to all Dutch citizens. Furthermore, the WIC’s income from the colonies was low—it operated three plantations itself and otherwise only levied customs and colonial taxes—and the Amsterdam chamber bore most of the frequently incurred losses, being the largest contributor to the Company.²⁰ Amsterdam thus desired more influence in the colonies’ administration, but Zealand opposed it. This rivalry barred any plans for development. Only in 1770, after two decades of infighting, could an uneasy compromise be made, to be revised into a marginally less uneasy compromise two years later.²¹ While the Company was willing to invest for its part in the governance of Suriname, even after the compromise Essequibo and Demerara remained deprived. Supplies, military protection, patrol ships, and infrastructure all received minimal if any attention.
These issues were connected to the third problem: the lack of a proper legislative framework. No charter existed on which colonization was based, and the laws in force were the same laws as in Holland, insofar as they were applicable. By-laws, rather than laws, thus proved the basis for much of the colonial administration, signifying its improvised nature. These by-laws and proclamations were issued by the Council of Policy, one of the two councils (also called courts) responsible for the administration, the other one being the Council of Justice. The former unified legislative and executive powers; the latter wielded judicial power. In practice the division was not as clear-cut, since the Fiscal (the prosecutor, or bailiff), had a say in both councils. The Council of Policy was the most important body for the colonists as its by-laws had the force of law once they were approved by the Company directors in the metropolis. In both councils planters were represented, although the precise constellation changed over time and was a source of friction.
In this legislative limbo, without a clear metropolitan plan, the shape of empire was determined by those on the ground. While all empires were improvised to some extent, improvisation was really at the core of Essequibo’s and Demerara’s development.²² With too few provision ships coming from the Dutch Republic, the colonists bought their fish and flour from North American traders. Considering that there were almost never more than one hundred soldiers—most of them sick or eager to desert—the colonists looked for military solutions locally. Internal stability (rather than a foreign invasion) was their biggest concern, so they recruited the Amerindian population as bounty hunters and soldiers, to capture runaway slaves and quell slave uprisings. Furthermore, when the Dutch slave traders did not arrive, the colonists were quick to breach the mercantilist rules and buy their enslaved laborers from foreign traders instead. And if illegal trade was the best way to settle such business, the planters were only happy to comply and the local officials to consent. Consequently, a substantial amount of the plantation produce disappeared into the Atlantic network rather than going to the metropolis. While these haphazard solutions could not solve all the planters’ problems, they worked well enough to allow colonial expansion to take place.
While these conditions created a unique society in Essequibo and Demerara, similar elements of borderlesness were visible elsewhere in the Atlantic world. The story of Essequibo and Demerara thus has a lot to offer to scholars of Atlantic history. Indeed, historians of the Spanish empire will see many parallels. Improvisation was a key feature of Spanish governance too, epitomized by the famous phrase obedezco, pero no cumplo (I obey but do not comply), used by governors to indicate they would ignore or alter a specific metropolitan decree to fit the local circumstances.²³ The large Spanish empire also had many borderlands, where authority was thinly spread and developments were entangled
with that of a neighboring empire.²⁴ Furthermore, illicit trade was fundamental to the existence of the Spanish empire too, as smugglers filled the gap that the unreliable fleet system left open.²⁵ In fact, as in Essequibo and Demerara, Spanish colonists often did not consider smuggling to be opposed to the empire itself. In eighteenth-century Venezuela, a moral economy of smuggling existed, as colonists reasoned they were right to trade with foreigners because the lack of Spanish supplies left them no other choice. Furthermore, they were willing to rise up for this right.
²⁶ And when the British mistook this willingness to engage in contraband trade for disloyalty in the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739–48), they were quickly proven wrong.²⁷ As this book shows, in Essequibo and Demerara a similar moral economy of smuggling was at work.
For historians of North America or the British empire, this book might offer different parallels, namely, in a similar openness during the seventeenth century. In the early phases of English colonization, legal supplies were scarce, prompting colonists in the West Indies and the Chesapeake to trade with the Dutch, across imperial boundaries. Furthermore, they lobbied to legalize these exchanges—prohibited by the Navigation Acts—as they considered open trade to be in the empire’s best interest.²⁸ However, colonists gradually realized they had more to gain from mercantilism, to the disadvantage of the Dutch. Although illegal trade persisted, imperial control increased and the mercantilist system largely worked.²⁹ Therefore, while stricter enforcement of the rules after the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) provoked resistance in the Thirteen Colonies, the British West Indies preferred to stay within the empire, being dependent on metropolitan protection and the protected home market.³⁰ The Dutch had thus lost their role as middlemen, a function that was taken over by US traders. By the end of the eighteenth century, the roles were completely reversed: Dutch colonies, like the ones in Guiana, relied on foreign shipping, while US merchants turned toward global trade and became crucial connectors between different regions and empires.³¹
This book also emphasizes that the image of the Dutch as quintessential inter-imperial brokers is only valid for the seventeenth-century Dutch Moment,
when they were instrumental in jump-starting other empires.³² Afterward, the Dutch had to carve out a new role for themselves in the increasingly mercantilist Atlantic world. Free-trade hubs like Curaçao and St. Eustatius generated substantial profits, but this does not mean the Dutch were ideological free traders. The Dutch favored open inter-imperial commerce when they could profit from other empires but instated mercantilist regulations when it came to their own plantation colonies on the Guiana coast. However, this book shows that the borderless nature of Essequibo and Demerara made enforcement of such laws virtually impossible. Consequently, the two colonies drifted away from the Dutch Republic and became increasingly connected to the rest of the Atlantic world.
This study thereby also integrates the story of Essequibo and Demerara into Dutch imperial historiography, which has more or less forgotten about them as a result of the dual Dutch-British legacy. In fact, the most elaborate accounts for this part of Guiana date from the nineteenth century.³³ Since most seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents are in Dutch, British historians faced a language barrier while Dutch historians tended to write about bigger or more economically successful parts of the empire, such as the East Indies, the Caribbean islands, or Suriname.³⁴ Over the years, this focus has produced many thorough studies, often with an emphasis on trade. Recently the literature has branched out to more diverse and more transnational topics.³⁵ By analyzing Essequibo and Demerara in a similar transnational light, this book contributes to a fuller understanding of the early modern Dutch empire.
Historians of Suriname, and historians of slavery in general, might therefore be interested to see how the borderland conditions of Essequibo and Demerara shaped their regime of slavery. As the Spanish, like on many of their imperial fringes, promised freedom to runaways from Protestant countries, the most daring from Essequibo (and to a lesser extent Demerara) had an attractive escape option.³⁶ In contrast, in Suriname they might have become