Guiana, in its widest signification, is the region lying between the Orinoco and the Amazons in South America, with the Atlantic on the east and no definitive boundaries on the west. It consists of five divisions, known respectively as Venezuelan, British, Dutch, French, and Brazilian Guiana, the first named situated to the west of the next three, and the last named to the south of all four. But both Venezuelan and Brazilian Guiana being incorporated in those states, we have to describe here only British, Dutch, and French Guiana.
These three colonies abut upon the Atlantic, in the order named, between Venezuela on the north and Brazil on the south. The physical conformation is practically the same in all three. Next the Atlantic is a fringe of alluvial soil, lying in many parts below the sea-level, and generally inundated in the rainy seasons, with mud-flats skirting the coast and sandbanks jutting out into the ocean; these last are generally held together by the roots of mangrove-trees, though not unfrequently they are of a shifting character, forming temporary islands and moving about under the impulse of wind and tide and river current. This alluvial zone, varying in width from 10 to 40 miles, and consisting principally of blue argillaceous soil, of very great fertility, contains virtually the only cultivated territory in the three colonies. Beyond it the contour rises by a series of short terraces or land waves up to an undulating savannah region of moderate elevation (average 150 feet), which is formed geologically of the accumulated detritus brought down from the primitive mountain masses in the interior. The third and innermost division of colonial Guiana consists of the upland country, a plateau region ridged with mountain-chains (which rise in places to 3000 or 3500 feet), and everywhere covered with a dense primeval forest, exceptionally rich in magnificent timber-trees—rich not only in the quality of the timber, but also in the variety of the species. This division is as yet almost wholly unknown, save that the courses of most of the larger rivers have been explored to their sources.
Rivers.—The whole of Guiana is well provided with rivers. Most of them flow north or northeast to the Atlantic, and bring down with them vast quantities of sedimentary matter, which becomes deposited as the alluvial mud of the coast. These streams, although they are of admirable service for irrigation purposes, are of little use as waterways for navigation, owing to the mudbanks which choke their mouths, the sandbanks which obstruct their channels, and the numerous falls and cataracts by which their waters descend from the highlands and savannah plateaus to the low-lying coastal belt. Up to the line of the rapids and falls, however, they are navigable by small vessels for distances varying from 10 to 150 miles. Several of them are connected together in their lower courses by cross-channels and artificial canals. Indeed, communication in the colonies is principally effected by water, not by land.
Climate.—The climate, as be seems a region lying between 1° and 8° N. lat., is hot and moist, but on the whole tolerably uniform. Generally speaking, the thermometer ranges from a maximum of 95° to a minimum of 70° F.; the average, however, deviates but little from 80° to 84° F. The heat is tempered by sea-breezes during greater part of the year. The rainfall is heavy; the average for British and Dutch Guiana is 75 to 100 inches annually, and in French Guiana it is still heavier, sometimes reaching 140 inches in the year. The precipitation is, however, greatest in the interior; hence the great number of rivers fed from the wooded mountain-slopes inland. Two rainy and two dry seasons are distinguished: the former last as a rule from December to February and from April to August. Hurricanes are extremely rare.
Flora.—As would be expected from the nature of the country, vegetation is of extraordinary richness and luxuriance. Many of the numerous timber-trees are valuable for shipbuilding, house-building, roofing, cabinetmaking, &c. Several useful gums are yielded, and also balsams, wax, bark, fibre, oil, nuts, juices, medicinal preparations, &c., caoutchouc, balata gum, copaiba balsam, carapa-seed oil, sarsaparilla, cinclona, laurel oil, calabashes, silk cotton, tonqua beans, arnotto, Bromelia flax, angelica, cotton, tobacco, &c. The best-known food-plants comprise the cassava, sweet potato, arrow-root, capsicum or Spanish pepper, tomato, guava, cherry, avogato, bread-fruit, melon, granadilla, banana, pine-apple, earth-nut, yam, rice, and maize. Besides these there is a prodigious quantity of creepers, ferns, trec-ferns, and flowers; amongst these last must be specially named the orchids, which often form a continuous carpet along the tops of the forest trees, and the magnificent Victoria regia lily.
Fauna.—The most conspicuous branch of the fauna is the birds, the most characteristic forms being the stink-bird (a vulture), eagles, owls, nightjars, humming-birds, the bell-bird, several passerine species, orioles, a wren, toucans, jacamars, trogons, puff-birds, kingfishers, anis, parrots, the cock of the wood, curassows, tinamous, trumpeters, the jacana, the horned screamer, sandpipers, the sun-bittern, herons, ducks, and divers. Mammals are not so plentiful as the extensive uninhabited forests might perhaps suggest. They are represented by jaguars, tiger cats, peccaries, tapirs, deer, sloths, armadillos, ant-eaters, agoutis, capybaras, opossums, raccoons, coatis, porcupines, squirrels, monkeys, martens, fish-otters, and manatees. Other forms of animal life are swarms of insects, including butterflies, crickets, mosquitoes, sandflies, and jiggers; turtles and tortoises, crocodiles, iguanas, frogs, snakes, including the anaconda and whip snakes; several Siluroid fishes, the electric eel, rays, sharks, and the sawfish.
Indians.—The native Indians, who still for the most part lead a 'wild' life in the forests, constitute several different tribes, and seem to belong to what were probably two distinct stocks, the indigenes and their original conquerors, the Caribs. In many parts of Guiana rude attempts at picture-writing exist on the rocks and faces of the hills. Two varieties have been discriminated—one deeply incised, the other merely scratched. Who the authors were is not known with certainty; they are generally believed to have been the ancestors of the existing Indians, who, however, have preserved no traditions relating to the inscriptions.
History.—The first Europeans to explore the coast of Guiana seem to have been the Spaniards Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499 and Vicente Pinzon in 1500. Several attempts were made by adventurers of different European nations to found colonies in this region in the later part of the 16th and the early part of the 17th centuries. To this period belong Raleigh's and the other expeditions which visited this part of South America in search of the fabulous gold city El Dorado (q.v.) and the Lake of Parima. Apart from semi-buccaneering expeditions and landings, the first successful colonisation of Guiana seems to have been made by the Dutch, on the Essequibo, shortly before 1613. The English got firm footing at Surinam in 1650, and the French on the Kourou and Oyapock in 1664. Two years later the English seized both French and Dutch Guiana, but restored them in 1667, and at the same time handed over Surinam to the Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam—i.e. New York. The French, in 1674, renewed their attempts to settle at Cayenne, and with success; that part of Guiana has remained in their hands ever since. Except for two short periods (1781–83 and 1796–1802), the settlements on the Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice and in Surinam were held by the Dutch down to 1803, when they were again taken possession of by the English, who at the peace of 1814 restored the last named, but retained the first three. Berbice was at first administered as a distinct colony, but in 1831 it was incorporated with the rest of British Guiana. During slave-holding times sugar-planting brought some degree of prosperity to these colonies; but their productiveness in this respect was very sensibly crippled by the abolition of slavery, which deprived them of their supplies of the requisite kind of labour for the plantations. Since that event coffee and cotton have almost entirely ceased to be grown; and the cultivation of betroot for sugar caused a serious crisis in Guiana cane-planting. British and Dutch Guiana, however, still show signs of vitality: the cane-sugar industry, if not reviving, is at least not retrograde, whilst gold-mining is a decidedly progressive industry. Except for gold-mining, which however remains stationary, French Guiana is in a hopelessly deplorable condition.
BRITISH GUIANA, or DEMERARA, with a coast-line of 320 miles, is separated from Dutch Guiana on the E. by the river Corentyn; on the S. and W., next Brazil and Venezuela respectively, the boundaries have never been definitively determined. The British make the limits of the colony extend southward to the sources of the Essequibo in the Acaiai Mountains (about 1° N. lat. and 59° W. long.), and trend thence nearly due east to the head-waters of the Corentyn, whilst the west boundary (going north) coincides with the Takutu and Cotinga as far as Roraima; thence it proceeds north-east to the Imataca range and onwards north to the mouth of the Amacuro. The Venezuelans, however, claim all the region west of the Essequibo right up to the sources of this river. The area of British Guiana is approximately set down at 96,000 sq. m. The western part of the colony is diversified by chains of the Paearaima or Parima mountain-system, which stretch generally from west to east, as the Imataca range in the north, the Merumé or Pacaraima Mountains, which rise to 3000 feet between 4° and 5° 30' N. lat., and to some 8000 or 9000 feet in the table-topped Roraima (q.v.), and the Acaiai Mountains, which form the southern boundary of the colony as well as the watershed between the Essequibo and the feeders of the Amazons. Between the two ranges last mentioned comes an eastward extension of the great Brazilian savannah region. The more important rivers are the Corentyn, Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo (with its tributaries, the Rapununi and the Mazuruni, and the Cuyuni, an affluent of this last), Waini, and Barima, all flowing north into the Atlantic; and the Takutu, which, supplemented by the Ireng and Cotinga, feeds the Rio Branco, a left-hand tributary of the Amazon. For the disputed Venezuela frontier, the subject of prolonged negotiations which led in 1895 to a threatening message from the President of the United States, see VENEZUELA.
The leading industry of the colony is the cultivation of the sugar-cane. Wood-cutting and gold-mining are the only other industries of any moment. The exports embrace sugar, average value £1,200,000 per annum; rum to the amount of nearly £100,000; molasses £20,000; timber, shingles, charcoal, cocoa-nuts, balata, and gunis. The export of gold increased from £9000 in 1884 to £500,446 in 1894. The total value of the exports, which go principally to the United Kingdom and West Indies, fell from £3,208,631 in 1882 to £2,039,900 in 1895. More than half the exports go to the United Kingdom. The imports (mostly from the United Kingdom), which consist chiefly of flour, rice, dried fish, butter, pork, and beef, fell from £2,224,000 in 1883 to £1,668,750 in 1895.
In 1894 the population was 280,869, and embraced Europeans, Creoles, negroes, coolies from India, Chinese, natives of Madeira and the Azores, and aboriginal Indians; but of these last only some 10,000 are included in the census return. The negroes number 100,000, the East Indians 106,000, the Chinese 3800, the Europeans 2600. Most of the plantation work is done by immigrant coolies from British India and by Chinese.
The colony is divided into three counties, Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo. The ports are Georgetown (q.v.), the capital, and New Amsterdam. The administration is in the hands of the governor, appointed by the crown, and two legislative councils—the Court of Policy (15 members) and the Combined Court (23 members)—the latter having the control of the finances. Slavery was abolished in the colony in 1834, though the importation of slaves from Africa had practically ceased twenty years before. Compensation was paid to the amount of £4,297,117 for 84,915 slaves (£50, 12s. per head). The colony possesses one line of railway, from Georgetown to Mahaica (21 miles long), telegraphic communication with Europe and the United States, and a good system of postage.
DUTCH GUIANA, or SURINAM, with an area of 46,058 sq. m., and a coast-line of 240 miles, has for its boundary on the west the river Corentyn, on the south the Acaiai Mountains and their eastern continuation, the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, and on the east the Maroni or Marowijn, which separates it from French Guiana. It is, however, a matter of dispute between the French and the Dutch which of the two upper branches of this last river—the right-hand arm, the Awa or Lawa, or the left-hand arm, the Tapanahoni—is the upper part of the main stream. The Dutch claim that it is the former, the French the latter. The other rivers of the colony are the Surinam, Saramacca, Coppename, and Nickerie, all flowing into the Atlantic. The greater part of the surface is covered with unexplored primeval forest, scarcely more than 210 sq. m. of the entire area being cultivated. The chief products are sugar, cocoa, gold, rum, molasses, bananas, rice, corn—of which sugar, cocoa, and gold are largely exported. The total annual value of exports is from £300,000 to £500,000; that of imports is from £400,000 to £600,000. Gold-mining has made rapid strides since 1875; the export having increased in value from £2079 in 1876 to £90,461 in 1886, and £132,400 in 1893, though probably one-fourth more is smuggled out of the colony. In the year 1887 new discoveries of gold were made in the district between the rivers Tapanahoni and Awa, the region, some 8000 sq. m. in extent, which is in dispute between Holland and France. Trade is carried on principally with Holland, the United States, and Great Britain and her dependencies. There is a governor, a supreme council of five (all nominated), and a partly elected colonial assembly. The population, which is very heterogeneous, in 1894 numbered 62,649, of whom nearly one-half live at Paramaribo (q.v.) the capital. In 1884 the total was given at 52,978. Besides these there were about 4000 Bush Negroes—i.e. negroes who escaped during slavery times and subsequently asserted their independence—and 1200 Indians. As in British Guiana, labour is principally performed by coolies from British India and by Chinese. The colony is divided into eight administrative districts and the town of Paramaribo, and is under the charge of a governor, assisted by an executive council. The members of the provincial estates, the legislative body, are elected by the people. Slavery was abolished in 1863.