Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/267

DUTCH.] GUIANA 253 court at Paramaribo, there are three cantonal and three district courts. The president and four permanent members of the supreme court are nominated by the crown. 1 " The king," says Mr Palgrave, "is almost everything;" the "Lords," in a consultative capacity, are something ; and the " Commons " are merely honorary. History. The Dutch began to visit the coasts of Guiana about 1580, and we find Adriaan ter Haaf sending vessels thither in 1599. In 1614 the states of Holland granted to any Dutch citizen four years monopoly of any harbour or place of commerce which he might discover in that region. The first settlement, however, in Surinam (in 1630) was made by an Englishman, whose name is still preserved by Marshal s Creek. When Cayenne was taken by the French in 1664 a number of Jews who had settled in that part of Guiana removed to the Surinam district, where they soon consti tuted an important and nourishing community. In 1666 the Eng lish settlement was taken by storm by the Zealanders under Crijnssen or Krijrissen (the name is spelt in various ways), and 100,000 ft of sugar were exacted as a ransom. By the peace of Breda the Dutch were formally recognized as masters of Guiana, and though the Willoughbys, who considered their rights infringed, did all they could to weaken the colony and draw off a large part of its English population to Jamaica, it continued to flourish, and was confirmed to the Dutch by the treaty of Westminster in 1674. For some time the Zealanders claimed that they alone had right to the country, but it was ultimately decided that the possession was a national one in the full sense of the word. The New Dutch West Indian Company, founded in 1674 to replace the older company which had failed, received Guiana by charter from the states general in 1682. 2 In the following year the company sold one-third of their territory to the city of Amsterdam, ami another third to Cornells van Aerssens, lord of Sommelsdijk. The new owners and the company incorporated themselves as the Chartered Society of Surinam, and Sommelsdijk agreed to fill the post of governor of the ctflony at his own expense. The lucrative trade in slaves was retained by the West Indian Company, but the society could im port them on its own account by paying a fine to the company. Sommelsdijk s rule was marked by rare wisdom and energy. He repressed and pacified the Indian tribes ; he erected forts and dis ciplined the soldiery ; he constructed the canaj which still bears his name ; he established a high court of justice ; he introduced the cultivation of the cocoa-nut; and in short he devoted himself in all ways to the welfare of the colony. But on 17th June 1688 he was nnssacred in a mutiny of the soldiers. The third " which Som- melsdijk possessed was offered by his widow to William III. of England, but it was ultimately purchased by the city of Amsterdam for 700,000 fl. In 1712 the French, under Cassard, sailed up the river and put Paramaribo to ransom ; and after their departure there was hot dispute between the Society and the colonists as to who should pay the indemnity. During the rest of the 18th century the chief troubles of Surinam were the bush negroes and the slaves. Peace with the Aukan negroes was made in 1760, and with the Saramaccans in 1762; but in 1776 the governor Nepveu still found it necessary to surround the colony with a military cordon against the attacks of the Bonni tribe. By the spring of 1786 pacification was complete. In 1795 the Society was abrogated, and the affairs of Surinam placed under a committee of twenty-one members. The English, who had assumed the protectorate of the colony from 1799 to 1802, took actual possession in 1804, and appointed Sir Charles Green governor. In 1807 the slave trade was abolished. At the restoration of the Dutch authority in 1815 the colonists of the district of Nickerie sought to remain under English rule, or at least to receive the right of trading with English colonies. In 1825 the privileges of the Jews were annulled, and the rights of ordinary citizens bestowed on them instead. Surinam and the West Indies were placed under a common government in 1828, but the governor was to reside at Paramaribo. In 1832 several negro slaves who had set fire to the city were publicly burned alive. The administration of Surinam was separated from that of the West Indies in 1845. Baron van Raders, who assumed the governorship in that year, had the honour of greatly improving the state of the slave-laws, and of declaring the commerce of Guiana open to all nations at peace with the Netherlands. The suppression of slavery and the organization of immigration, as already indicated, are the main moments of the recent history of the colony. Among the older works on Surinam the first rank is held by Hartsinck s masterly Beschrijving van Guiana of de Wilde Kust in Zuid Amerika, 2 vols. 4to, Amsterdam, 1770. A valuable Gcschicdenis der Kolonie van Suriname, by a number of "learned Jews," was published at Amsterdam in 1791 ; and it has been supplemented and so far superseded by Wolbers, Gcschiedenis van Suriname, Amsterdam, 1861. Sketches of Surinam life are given in the form of a tale in Schaik s De Manja. Familie Tafcred 1 Compare Mr Cohen s Report in Parliamentary Papers [C 1861], 1877. ^ 2 See the Octroy or Charter in Hartsinck, or in Verzameiiny van Stukken aangaande de Surinaamsche Aanyelecjenheden, &c., The Hague, 1845. uit hct Surinaamsche Volkslcbcn, Arnheim, 1866 ; and a number of ex cellent pictorial illustrations will be found in A. Halberstadt sAWcmt- satie van Eurojicanen te Suriname, Leyden, 1872, fol. The English reader is indebted to W. G. Palgrave for a brilliant study on Uutch Guiana, London, 1876, reprinted from the Contemporary Review. See also the Jaarboekje of the Lcllcrlicbende Gcnootscliap " Ocfning Kiucckt Kennis" at Paramaribo; the Staatkundig Jaarbockje, pub lished by the Vereeniqing voor de Statistiek in Nederland (Amster dam) ; and the Surinaamsche Almanak, published > the Maatsch. tot Nut van t Algemeen, Leyden and Amsterdam. (H. A. W.) II. FRENCH GUIANA is bounded on the west by the Maroni or Marowijne, which separates it from Dutch Guiana. Towards the south and east its limits are still uncertain. According to the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 it was to be bounded towards Brazil by the river of St Vincent Pinzon, but the identification of this river has never been officially determined. 3 The Oyapock is accepted provisionally by both countries, but the French claim that the Arouari is the real St Vincent Pinzon, and consequently that they have a right to the country for 100 miles further south along the coast. Between the Maroni and the Oyapock the coast-line is about 130 miles. The fourteen quarters of the colony are estimated to have an area of 1,308,739 hectares, i.e., about 3,233,893 acres, or 5052 square miles, nearly as much as half the area of Belgium ; but if the frontier be pushed back to the watershed, the whole area of the country could not be less than 53,000 square miles. Surface. A considerable portion of the low coast-land of French Guiana is occupied by swamps and marshes, the most deeply submerged of which are covered with a dense growth of mangroves, and receive the name oipripris, while the drier stretches are occupied by the pinot or wassay palm (Euterpe oleracea), and are designated pinotieres. In a few places, as in the Sinnamary quarter, there are peat bogs in process of formation. About 40 or 50 miles inland, where the land begins to rise, the traveller reaches the outskirts of those primeval forests which stretch back vast and vague towards the mountains. Between the narrow maritime selvage^ so to speak, and the commencement of the high lands are undulating plains or savannahs. Hitherto the colony has confined itself almost exclusively to the littoral and alluvial region, with its fertile mud-banks. The savannahs are still in a state of nature ; and though the earlier colonists made clearings in the highlands, they soon grew disappointed with the barrenness of the cold granitic soil. The mountains behind Guiana do not exceed 3000 or 4000 feet of elevation ; the principal range indeed, the Tumac Humac, was estimated by M. Creveaux, who crossed it in 1877, at no more than 1312 feet above the sea-level. But the dense tropical forests attract so much moisture from the ocean winds that the highlands are the birthplace of a large number of rivers which in the rainy season especially pour down vast volumes of water. Upwards of twenty are counted between the Maroni and the Oyapock. United as they often are in their navigable sections by cross channels, they constitute a valuable means of communication from dis trict to district. Omitting the Maroni already described under Dutch Guiana, the first of importance as we proceed southwards is the Mana, which is navigable for large vessels 10 miles from its mouth, and for smaller vessels 27 miles further. Passing the Sinnamary and the Kourou we next come to the Cayenne, at the mouth of which lies the island on which the colonial capital is built. About a dozen lakes,of which Mepecucu, Macari, and Mapaare the largest, have been counted in the French territory. Climate. The rainy season begins in November or December, and lasts till the latter part of June ; but there are usually three or four weeks of good weather in March. 3 See " Memoria sobre os limites do Brasil com a Guyana Franceza," by J. Caetano da Silva in Revista trimensal de Hist, e Geogr., Rio de

Janeiro, 1850.