(gatneU Inioeraitg iDthranj Ktljaca, N no fork WljitE Sjistoriral ffithrary THE GIFT OF PRESIDENT WHITE MAINTAINED BY THE UNIVERSITY IN ACCORD- ANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THE GIFT Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library F 2331 .B7U5 v.1 accom panying papers of the Co Report and 3 1924 021 461 383 .„...* Digitized by Microsoft® El lK~K Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Cornell University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in limited quantity for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON BOUNDARY BETWEEN VENEZUELA AND BRITISH GUIANA REPORT ACCOMPANYING PAPERS COMMISSION APPOINTED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES "TO INVESTIGATE AND REPORT UPON THE TRUE DIVISIONAL LINE BETWEEN THE REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA AND BRITISH GUIANA" Volume 1 HISTORICAL WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 18!) 7 {■ V. . , UGUAkY Digitized by Microsoft® /y loCr»&S"(* j , i j m n o o Y'l iSfl 1V1MU YNA-H8I J Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS. Page. Report of the Commission 5 Eepout on Spanish and Dutch settlements prior to 1648; by J. Frank- lin Jameson 35 Report as to the meaning of Articles A' and VI of the Treaty of Munster; by George Lincoln Burr 71 Report as to the territorial rights of the Dutch West India Com- pany ; by George Lincoln Burr 97 Report on the evidence of Dutch Archives as to European occupa- tion and claims in Western Guiana; by George Lincoln Burr 119 3 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. To the President. Sir: Pursuant to the act of Congress, of date December 21, 1895 (29 Stat. L., 1), the undersigned were, on January 1, 1896, appointed "to investigate and report upon the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Gruiana." Immediately thereafter, and on January 4, we con- vened at the office of the Secretary of State and organized by the election of David J. Brewer as president and Severo Mallet-Prevost as secretary. As we had a "name," it seemed necessary also that we have a " local habitation," not merely for the meetings of the Commission and the work of its employees, but also for the collection of maps, books, and papers, and for conferences with all who might be interested in the question. To that end we leased a suite of seven rooms in the fourth story of the Sun Building, No. 1317 F street northwest, and fur- nished them moderately, yet sufficiently, for the work of the Commission. We were at the outset confronted with the fact that our work was both novel and difficult; that there were no prece- dents to guide as to the manner in which the inquiry should be prosecuted, the character or amount of testimony to be Digitized by Microsoft® 8 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. obtained, or the means by which it should be secured. While the boundary line, whose true location we were called upon to ascertain, was a matter of importance in its ultimate deter- mination to both Venezuela and Great Britain, neither Gov- ernment was consulted or took part in the creation of the Com- mission or in the selection of Commissioners. Each of them might have ignored our Commission as the result of a merely voluntary movement on the part of a nation in no way person- ally interested in the territorial question. Yet we felt that while neither Government was bound by what we should ascertain and report, each might be willing to assist in our work and might be possessed of evidence of great value not easily at least obtainable from other sources. We therefore addressed a communication to the Secretary of State, with the view of its presentation to the two Governments so directly interested. Copies of such communication, with the replies thereto, are attached to this report (Appendix A). We take pleasure in adding- that during the entire life of the Commission each of the two Governments has manifested in a most agreeable and satisfactory manner its desire to help us in our investigations. Every call made upon either has been promptly answered, and there has been an effort to put us in possession of all the facts which either deemed of importance to a satisfactory solution of the question in dispute. Beyond this, it is fitting also that we mention the fact that individual citizens of this country as well as of others have been alike kindly disposed, proffering and furnishing to us books, maps, pamphlets, and documents of various kinds in Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 9 their possession which seemed to them likely to be of assistance in the determination of the boundary. It has certainl)- been gratifying to note the general disposition to assist in the work of the Commission as a means evidently believed by all likely to bring about a peaceful and honorable solution of a trouble- some question. It would be impossible for us within the limits of this report to name all the individuals and all the offers of assistance; still we desire not only to record the fact of these offers, but also to express our thanks therefor. While for reasons hereafter indicated the final solution of this contro- versy has been transferred to another tribunal, it is none the less a source of extreme satisfaction that this general interest was manifested in the work, and it is therefore fitting that we should express in this way our gratitude to all who thus facilitated that work. In making our report, we find it not wholly convenient to pursue a strictly chronological order, but shall endeavor to indicate the lines of our investigations, the extent to which our inquiries have been prosecuted, and the limits which we had reached when our work was interrupted by notice from the State Department. We were early impressed with the benefit to be derived from the assistance of gentlemen whose recognized eminence in historical and geographical studies justly entitles them to be called experts. We were furnished by Mr. P. Lee Phillips, of the Congressional Library, with a list of some 300 or more maps showing the territory in dispute, and some of them also showing lines of division between the territories of Holland and Spain. Digitized by Microsoft® 10 REPORT OF THK COMMISSION. We applied to Dr. Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard College, one of the leading geographers of the country, for an examination of the various maps and such suggestions as he might make upon the evidence furnished thereby. He visited us at Washington, and after a few days' consultation and discussion it was deemed advisable that he should place in writing his views and suggestions. He accordingly did so, and his report is included among the papers presented here- with (Vol. III). It was apparent not merely from the information thus obtained, but also from an examination of the maps them- selves, that there was great confusion in respect to the lines shown on the several maps. It was deemed important to make further investigation, to place the maps and charts in groups so far as possible, to trace any connection that there might be between them, and to develop at length the value of the evidence furnished by them as to the line of division. In pursuance of this, our secretary, Mr. Mallet- Prevost, conducted with great care an examination into this subject, and has prepared a report discussing exhaust- ively all the cartographical evidence. He has succeeded in arranging the maps in classes or groups, shown the historical connection between them, and pointed out the value of the evidence furnished by them. This report will be found in Volume III. In like manner we secured the services of Prof. John Franklin Jameson, professor of history at Brown University, and Prof. George L. Burr, professor of history at Cornell Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 11 University, recognized authorities in antiquarian researches, who carefully examined certain historical questions and pre- pared papers which accompany this report. Professor Burr, especially, has been of great service, having given to the Com- mission a year's labor, part of which was in the examination of original documents in Holland and London. He has been of the utmost assistance in bringing before us the historical evidence bearing upon the fact, time, extent, and significance of the various settlements by the Spaniards and Dutch in and adjacent to the disputed territory. (See their reports, Volume I.) We were also assisted by Prof. James C. Hanson, of the Wisconsin State University, in the examination of a collection of maps and charts belonging to that institution, and by Dr. De Haan, of Johns Hopkins University, in the matter of translations of Dutch documents and the examination of the archives in Holland. While no formal paper was prepared by either of these gentlemen to be incorporated in our report, their services were none the less of great value and deserve especial mention. The confusion apparent on the face of the maps, even of the later ones, suggested a general lack of geographical knowledge, and it was deemed important that we should have a map promptly prepared expressing the latest results of all researches and examinations. Accordingly, we applied to the officials in charge of the Geological Survey and of the Hydro- graphic Office, who promptly placed at our disposal all the material in their possession, and also personally rendered great Digitized by Microsoft® 12 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. assistance. Mr. Marcus Baker, of the former office, was spe- cially detailed for the work. A preliminary map was soon pre- pared, and has proved of great value, each of us having a copy thereof constantly by his side during all the reading and examination of books, documents, and other matters. As this preliminary map had proved of so much value, we deemed it important to accompany our report with a series of maps, which should be as accurate as possible and represent not merely the geographic but the other natural features of the disputed territory. Accordingly, Mr. Baker, assisted by others, has given months of labor to the matter of maps and charts. Some of the maps Professor Burr has transformed into histor- ical charts by noting thereon the various towns, settlements, and posts, with the time of their establishment and the dura- tion of their existence. An inspection of these maps will be found to give both cartographic and historic information of great value. Not only that. We have had reproduced some of the more important maps and charts of the last three centuries which had been made the objects of examination and criticism by our secretary, and have had them, together with some rare maps and charts collected by Professor Burr and some obtained from the archives at Rome, bound in an atlas, which is one of the volumes we submit as a part of our report. We can not speak too highly of the valuable services of Mr. Baker in this matter, and desire also to express our thanks to the officials of the Geological Survey and the Hydrographic Office for their kindness. Digitized by Microsoft® EEPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 13 In. the matter of historical investigation there were ques- tions as to the actual settlements, when and where made, by which nation, how long continued, and the acts of dominion exercised in connection with such settlements over contiguous territory. This opened a wide field for investigation. It became necessary to examine many books of travel, historical works supposed to contain more or less information in respect to settlements, other evidences of such settlements, and also all general histories of the two countries. This investigation included an examination into the Spanish settlements on the Orinoco from the time of the first location of the city of Santo Thome" prior to 1600, the Dutch settlements on the Essequibo and the Pomeroon, the Spanish missions east of the Imataca Mountains in portious of the Cuyuni basin, and the temporary establishments of the two nations in various parts of the disputed territory; also the several efforts of the two nations to exercise dominion and control over the Indians residing in these districts, to carry on trade and commerce with those Indians, and the long series of efforts on the part of each to check and destroy the aggressive and what was supposed to be the unwarranted efforts of the other nation to acquire a foothold in the territory. This investigation imposed on us a large amount of labor. Many books were examined, some of which although in advance supposed to contain information bearing upon the question, were found on perusal to be entirely barren thereof, while others were very instructive. Without attempting an enumeration of the various books examined, we may state in Digitized by Microsoft® 14 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. a general way that some one of our number, and sometimes all of us separately, read through every book which, either by its title or the suggestions of any person, seemed likely to throw any light upon the questions of settlement, occupation, and territorial dominion. The extent of this work no one not a member of the Commission and not participating in its labors can fully appreciate. Beyond these historical works and works of travel it was deemed probable that in the diplomatic correspondence between the officials of the two countries, in the reports made by the officials of either colony to the home nation there might be found statements of fact, narrations of events, reports of con- ferences, which would at least help in reaching a satisfactory conclusion upon the question of occupation, or disclose admis- sions as to territorial right. In addition to the diplomatic correspondence which had been put into print, we were fur- nished by the State Department with its bound volumes of such correspondence, all of which bearing directly or indirectly, probably, or possibly upon the question, we had copied for the purposes of examination, and also thereafter carefully examined the same. The Treaty of Munster, while it contained a confirmation by each nation to the other of the places, etc., of which it was in possession, did not name those places, and did not define the boundary between the possessions of the two nations, nor in terms indicate any rule by which such boundary could be defined; neither, on the other hand, did it provide for any future convention or treaty for the determination of such Digitized by Microsoft® EEPOET OF THE COMMISSION. 15 boundary. It seemed possible, if not probable, that there were existing certain international rules generally understood and accepted of sufficient application to settle the true bound- ary between the possessions of the two nations. Impressed with the conviction that such might have been the thought of the two nations to this convention, we deemed it important to examine and discuss various treatises on international law. This Treaty of Munster, it must be borne in mind, was signed a century and a half after the discovery of America, and at a time when, as is a well-known fact, European nations had established many settlements within the limits of this conti- nent, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that by that time some rules for the delineation of boundary had become recog- nized, and not improbable that these two nations when con- firming to each other their respective possessions had such rules in mind as sufficient to fix the boundaries thereof. In pursuance of this we examined and discussed all the available treatises on international law, from Vattel to the present time, in their bearings upon the question before us. In the course of such examination our attention was directed to the fact that questions of this kind entered into the discussion between the United States and Spain in reference to the settlement of the boundaries between what is now Louisiana and Texas, and also between this country and Great Britain in respect to the boundaries between our northern possessions and British Columbia. We examined at length the correspond- ence between the representatives of these respective nations concerning these matters, with a -view of ascertaining if Digitized by Microsoft® 16 EEPOKT OF THE COMMISSION. possible the opinions of those nations to some extent interested in this controversy as to the rules for determining questions of boundary. It was developed by such examination that there are certain rules in respect to the delimitation of boundary which had been generally acquiesced in by all nations, and may be said to have then become a part of international law; other rules whose validity was denied and of which, therefore, it could only be safely said that it is doubtful whether they entered into the thought of the two nations in making this treaty; and still others which were mere claims on the part of one nation or another, and which were so generally denied that it must be assumed that they were not regarded in this treaty. Before we had proceeded far in our investigation it became obvious that we must extend our inquiry beyond matters that had hitherto passed into print. No treaty had ever been made between the nations which definitely determined the boundary line. While the Treaty of Munster in 1648 confirmed to each the possessions it then had, there was no specification of those possessions and no indication of the territorial limits which attached to the actual settlements. In the diplomatic correspondence there was no attempt at an accurate descrip- tion of any boundary line. Whatever there was in such cor- respondence by way of claim on the one side and concession on the other, or claim on the one side without denial on the other, which tended to show that certain places and districts were recognized as belonging to one or the other Government, there was nothing which could be said to approximate an Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 17 agreement as to the true location of the line dividing the territories of the two nations. Neither did the multitude of maps published during the last three centuries disclose any consensus of opinion among cartographers in respect to the divisional line. Books of history and travel were not only lacking in definiteness, but also in many respects conflicting in their statements, many of them supporting such statements by references to unpublished papers and reports. These things combined to make it clear that no satisfactory answer could be given to the question submitted to us without some investi- gation of original documents ; and the proposition was debated whether we should ourselves visit Spain and Holland or send special agents to make examinations of the archives of the two nations and obtain copies of the valuable documents to be found therein. While debating this question we were advised by the Vene- zuelan Government that it had caused an examination to be made of the archives in Spain and copies taken of such docu- ments found therein as were supposed to throw light-upon the question before us. We were also advised that the British Government was collecting evidence and was preparing to submit to Parliament a book containing the information it had thus acquired. It seemed probable that the collections being made by the two Governments might relieve us from the necessity of personal visit, or of sending special agents, or at least aid materially in determining the line and scope of our own examinations. Hence we delayed action in this direction. The first two volumes of the British Blue Books were placed vol 1 2 Digitized by Microsoft® 18 EEPOET OF THE COMMISSION. in our hands the latter part of .March, and the Venezuelan copies, as translated and printed, were received in June. The latter consisted wholly of Spanish, documents. The two vol- umes of the British Blue Books contained little from the Dutch archives, and while there was some reference to documents found therein, the documents themselves were not quoted. Under these circumstances our pressing duty seemed to be a thorough examination of the archives at Holland. Accord- ingly, on May 9 Professor Burr left to engage in this work. He remained abroad until October 28, spending his time mainly in Holland, though visiting London for the examina- tion of certain Dutch documents that had been surrendered by Holland to England. He was assisted in this work by Dr. De Haan, and the result of their researches is found in Volume II. Mr. Coudert, of our Commission, spent several weeks abroad, and also gave his personal attention to this work of examination. Through the kind assistance of Archbishop Corrigan, of New York City, we obtained access to the docu- ments found in the Propaganda at Rome, which contain reports of the missionary establishments in a part of this dis- puted territory, and which proved of especial value in deter- mining the extent and character of the Spanish occupation. The large collection of documents from the Spanish archives presented by the Venezuelan Government, as well as that found in the British Blue Books, led us to believe that there was no necessity for any further examination of such archives. In the month of November, Professor Burr having returned Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 19 from Holland, the material which he had collected, the British Blue Books, the Venezuelan documents, and the unprinted evidence which had been furnished by the Venezuelan Gov- ernment, were all before us together with such information as we had obtained from the Propaganda at Rome and from our examination and perusal of the various books of history, travel, and international law, as well as of the diplomatic correspondence. At that time we received advices from the Secretary of State of the conclusion of negotiations looking to an arbitration of the matter in dispute. Our advices were conveyed in letters of date November 10 and December 28, copies of Avhich are hereto attached. Upon the receipt of these letters we stopped the work of examination and consul- tation, and since then we have been preparing an atlas and printing the testimony we have collected and the reports of experts. We had hoped to have everything in print and ready to submit before this, but owing to the time required for translation of documents and in securing accuracy in the maps, we have been delayed and are unable to return these publications at the present time. We have thought it wiser to be accurate than swift, but hope within a few weeks to transmit to the State Department the completed work. Our own publications will consist of four volumes, as follows: Yol. I. Containing this report and several historical reports. Vol. II. Documents from the Dutch archives, prepared by Professor Burr, together with certain miscellaneous documents fur- nished by the Venezuelan Government. Vol. III. Cartographical reports. Vol. IV. An atlas comprising seventy-six maps. Digitized by Microsoft® 20 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. We have also had bound a few copies of the following pub- lications, which have been presented to the Commission for its consideration: British Blue Books, five volumes. Venezuelan documents, three volumes. Historical account furnished by the Venezuelan Government, to- gether with several briefs and arguments. Before closing this report, it is due to our secretary, Mr. Mallet-Prevost, that we record our appreciation of the great value of his services. He has not only been an admirable sec- retary in the ordinary sense of the term, but, more than that, a wise counsel and adviser. He has borne the burden of the detail work of the office, and has also assisted in the collection and collation of evidence and shared in our study and exami- nation. His knowledge of the Spanish language and his expe- rience in searching official records have enabled him to render constant assistance, while his untiring industry has largely lessened our own labors. Of the employees in our office, it is no more than justice to say that they have all proved competent and faithful. In conclusion, may we not properly advert to the fact that while in consequence of the recent treaty between the two nations specially interested, which treaty was brought about by the active efforts of this Government, our own work has been terminated, the Commission has been a factor of no inconsiderable importance in the solution of the problem. It may be inappropriate for us to enter into any defense of the action of Congress in authorizing its creation, and yet it may not be amiss to notice that at that time there had been developed Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 21 and was existing no little bitterness of feeling between the people of Great Britain and of the United States ; talk of war was abundant, and the business interests of both nations were affected prejudicially by the possibilities of conflict. The appointment of the Commission, though it had no absolute power of determining the question at issue, was accepted as affording a means for a full investigation of the question in dispute, and for an ascertainment, by gentlemen impartial and disinterested, of the facts respecting the controverted boundary. The general belief that a full disclosure of the facts in respect to this troublesome question would open the way to some peaceful solution of the dispute promptly allayed the appre- hensions of war, and all waited until this Commission should have completed its examination. Not only was this appre- hension of conflict allayed, but each nation seemed to feel that the creation of the Commission was equivalent to an invitation to the two contesting nations to appear before the bar of public opinion and make each its showing as to the merits of its claim. It is not strange that under the influence of this, each nation proceeded not merely to state its contentions, but to examine the various depositories of evidence in Spain, Holland, Rome, London, Georgetown, and Caracas for proof of facts to sus- tain such contentions; and the mam T volumes of original mat- ter taken from these depositories which since the appointment of the Commission have been printed have thrown a flood of light upon the question. More than that, as each nation has made thus independently its examination of historical and other facts, it would seem that each has become impressed Digitized by Microsoft® 22 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. with the conviction that the question is one of such nature as to justify reference to an arbitral tribunal; that there is no such absolute certainty of right on the part of either as to justify a mere forcible assertion thereof, and that the question is really one calling for judicial examination and determina- tion. So a wise and just view of the case is that the Commis- sion has been a potent factor in bringing the two nations into a consent to submit the matter in dispute to an arbitral tri- bunal. We are not blind to the fact that the air to-day is full of arbitration as a just and proper way to settle international differences, and we can but hope that this Commission has helped to the consummation of such a happy result generally, as well as in respect to this particular dispute. It is also believed that the mass of documents, maps, and reports already referred to which have been collected, sifted, and submitted to critical examination by the Commission will prove to be of great use to the arbitral tribunal, materially abridging their labors and therefore insuring a much more early solution and settlement of the question involved than would otherwise be possible, thus removing all the more speedily and completely a danger which has threatened nor- mal international relations for many years past. All of which is respectfully submitted. David J. Brewer. R. H, Alve-x. F. R. Coudert. Daniel C. Gtlman. Andrew D. White. February 27, 1897. Digitized by Microsoft® Appendix A. (i.) Offick of the Venezuelan Boundary Commission, Washington, B. C, January 15, 1896. Dear Sir: I have the honor to state that the Commission appointed by the President of the United States "to investi- gate and report upon the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Giiiana," has organized by the election of the Honorable David J. Brewer as its president, and is entering upon the immediate discharge of its duties. In so doing it has, after careful consideration, concluded to address } T ou on the question of securing, so far as possible, the friendly cooperation and aid of the two nations which are directly interested in the now pending boundary differences. It must have suggested itself to you, as it no doubt has to the President, that this Commission, thus authorized to ascer- tain and report the boundary line between two foreign nations, bears only a remote resemblance to those tribunals of an inter- national character of which we have had several examples in the past. They were constituted by or with the consent of the disputants themselves, and were authorized by the parties immediately concerned to pronounce a final judgment. The questions at issue were presented by the advocates of the vari- ous interests, upon whose diligence and skill the tribunal might 23 Digitized by Microsoft® 24 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. safely rely for all data and the arguments essential to the for- mation of an intelligent judgment. Their functions were therefore confined to the exercise of judicial powers, and they might fairly expect to reach a result satisfactory to their own consciences, while it commanded the respect of those whose interests were directly involved. The present Commission, neither by the mode of its appoint- ment nor by the nature of its duties, may be said to belong to tribunals of this character. Its duty will be discharged if it shall diligently and fairly seek to inform the Executive of cer- tain facts touching a large extent of territory in which the United States has no direct interest. Whatever may be the conclusion reached, no territorial aggrandizement nor material gain in any form can accrue to the United States. The sole concern of our Government is the peaceful solution of a con- troversy between two friendly powers — the just and honorable settlement of the title to disputed territory, and the protection of the United States against any fresh acquisitions in our hemisphere on the part of any European State. It has seemed proper to the Commission, under these cir- cumstances, to suggest to you the expediency of calling the attention of the Governments of Great Britain and Venezuela to the appointment of the Commission, and explaining both its nature and object. It may be that they would see a way, entirely consistent with their own sense of international pro- priety, to give the Commission the aid that it is no doubt in their power to furnish in the way of documentary proof, his- torical narrative, unpublished archives, or the like. It is scarcely necessary to say that if either should deem it appro- priate to designate an agent or attorney, whose duty it would be to see that no such proofs were omitted or overlooked, the Commission would be grateful for such evidence of good will Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 25 and for the valuable results which would be likely to follow therefrom. Any act of either Government in the direction here sug- gested might be accompanied by an express reservation as to her claims, and should not be deemed to be an abandonment, or impairment of any position heretofore expressed. In other words, and in lawyers' phrase, each might be willing to act the part of an amicus curice and to throw light upon difficult and complex questions of fact, which should be examined as carefully as the magnitude of the subject demands. The pur- poses of the pending investigation are certainly hostile to none, nor can it be of advantage to any that the machinery devised by the Government of the United States to secure the desired information should fail of its purpose. I have the honor to remain, your most obedient servant, David J. Brewer, President. The Honorable the Secretary of State. (20 Department of State, Washington, January 18, 1896. Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge yours of the 15th instant and to say that I have communicated the views and suggestions therein contained to Her Britannic Majesty's Gov- ernment and to the Government of the Republic of Venezuela. Respectfully, yours, Richard Olney. Hon. David J. Brewer, President Venezuelan Boundary Commission. Digitized by Microsoft® 26 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. (3.) Legation of the United States of Venezuela, Washington, February 1, 1896. , Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's note of the 18th ultimo relative to the organi- zation of the Commission appointed by his excellency the President of the United States to examine the true boundary line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Guiana, and to report concerning the result of their examination. Your excellency refers to various suggestions made in a letter from the Honorable David J. Brewer, the presiding officer of the Commission, concerning the propriety of the parties immediately interested in the matter intrusted to said Commission assisting it by furnishing to it such documentary evidence, historical narratives, and unpublished archives as may be in their possession or at their disposal, and by appoint- ing an agent or attorney to see that such evidence is furnished. I transmitted a copy of your excellency's aforesaid note to the ministry of foreign relations on the 22d ultimo, and I did so with the more pleasure since the contents of that note are in perfect accord with the voluntary offer which my Govern- ment had already made to the Department of State, through this legation, to furnish all the data collected by it relative to its boundary dispute with Great Britain, which offer is the best pledge of the good will with which it should be consid- ered as being prepared to comply with this just desire of the Commission. I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your excel- lency the assurances of my highest consideration. Jose Andrade. His Excellency Richard Olney, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 27 (4.) Legation of the United States of Venezuela, Washington, January 9, 1896. Sir: The ministry of foreign relations of Venezuela has for a long time been collecting ancient documents and maps, with a view to strengthening the title of the Republic to the absolute possession of the territory occupied by Great Britain north and west of the Essequibo, and as the Boundary Com- mission appointed by his excellency the President may desire, on beginning its work, to have at its disposal the largest possi- ble number of data relative to the case which it is to examine, I have the honor to bring the above circumstance to your excellency's notice, and to inform you that my Government is prepared to send all that long series of antecedents to Wash- ington if the Commission shall think it necessary. Accept, your excellency, the assurances, which I here renew, of my highest consideration. Jose Andrade. His Excellency Richard Olney, Secretary of Stale. (5.) [Translation.] United States of Venezuela, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Caracas, January 10, 1896. Resolved, In view of the fact that there are in the National Library, and in the archives of this office, many valuable documents and maps of ancient date, some of them of British and Dutch origin, as also important historical and geographical Digitized by Microsoft® 28 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. works of analogous character and of remote origin, collected during the past years by the National Government and its agents abroad with a view to the elucidation of the boundary question in Guayana and of establishing the rights of Vene- zuela in that contention; and in view of the fact that the pres- ent circumstances seem singularly opportune for an exposition in synoptical form of the titles in support of the claims of the Republic, the constitutional President of the Republic has deemed it proper to name a Commission, composed of four members, who will be charged with the duty of carefully examining, arranging, classifying, and indexing all documents and cartographical evidences referred to, and to prepare an official report containing a synopsis of said records, documents, maps, and histories, and thus giving to their work an authentic character in the grave matter treated of. The labors of the Commission will be aided at the same time by the works, maps, and documents found in other libraries and archives, and even by the reports of a technical character made to the National Government, since the beginning of the controversy, by those agents charged with the study of the conditions of the usurped Venezuelan territory. The members of the Commission will be named immediately by special Resolution, to the end that they may commence their labors forthwith and complete them if possible before the close of the session of Congress of 1896. The locality of the Commission and where it will hold its sessions will be in the upper saloon of the Yellow House, fronting the west avenue. Let it be communicated and published. P. EZEQUIEL ROJAS. Digitized by Microsoft® report of the commission. 29 United States of Venezuela, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Caracas, January 10, 1896. Resolved, In accordance with the Resolution of this same date, relative to the examination and classification of the docu- ments, works, and maps collected in this office with the view of elucidating the question of limits between Venezuela and British Guayana, that Dr. Rafael Seijas, as chairman, Dr. Lau- reano Villanueva, Dr. Julian Viso, and Senor Marco Antonio Saluzzo be, and are hereby, constituted the Commission charged with the duties aforesaid. Notify the nominees and then publish. By the National Executive: P. EZEQUIEL ROJAS. (6.) [Translation.] Legation of the United States of Venezuela, Washington, D. C, February 26, 1896. Sir : I have had the honor to receive your excellency's note of the 24th instant, and the letter of the Honorable David J. Brewer, president of the Commission on the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, which your excellency inclosed therewith ; and in conformity with the desire stated in both those communications I transmitted them forthwith to my Government by cable. I deem it pertinent to the matter of which this note treats to inform your excellency that Mr. William L. Scruggs has been appointed by the President of the Republic the agent charged Digitized by Microsoft® 30 REPORT OP THE COMMISSION. with submitting information to the aforesaid Commission and presenting reports relative to the titles and rights of Venezuela. I beg your excellency to accept, etc., Jose Andrade. To His Excellency the Secretary op State. [Translation.] Legation op the United States of Venezuela, Washington, February 22, 1896. Sir : In response to the invitation of the Honorable David J. Brewer, president of the Commission upon the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, addressed to the par- ties interested in the good results of the labors of that Com- mission and cited in your excellency's note of the 18th of January last, of which I send a copy to my Government, the Minister of Foreign Relations charges me to inform your excellency as follows : Toward the end of December last this department began to perfect a plan to facilitate in favor of those who may take part in the settle- ment of the boundary question the examination of the innumerable documents, works, and maps collected by Venezuela with the object of reenforcing her rights in the controversy. That plan eventually resolved itself into the appointment of a Commission of eminent men, composed of four members having a vote, and their operations with respect to the aforesaid maps, documents, and works are clearly defined in the order published in No. 6606 of the Official Gazette, where like- wise appears the appointment of the persons chosen for that office. By this you will see that the labors of the classifying commission embrace making a synthetical report concerning the spirit or nature of the documents, with the aid of which these, together with the books and maps, may be examined much more rapidly and carefully, and therefore to greater advantage. The Government has deemed this Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT OP THE COMMISSION. 31 more consonant with the necessities of the case than would be the dispatch of the documents themselves forthwith without any key- thereto or summary or index to facilitate their examination. The time which the Venezuelan Commission will consume in this work will be made up later on in clearness and in method, as well as in rapidity and order, in so far as concerns the examination of the important collection. I avail myself of this occasion, etc., Jose Andrade. Mr. Richard Olney, Secretary of State. (8.) Department of State, Washington, February 10, 1896. Sir: I have just received from our ambassador at London a cipher telegram, copy of which, translated, is as follows: British Minister for Foreign Affairs readily places at the disposal of the Government of the United States any information in the hands of Her Majesty's Government relating to Venezuelan boundary. Engaged in collecting documents for presentation to Parliament. He will have great pleasure in forwarding advance copies as soon as completed. Respectfully yours, Richard Olney. Hon. David J. Brewer, President Venezuelan Boundary Commission. Digitized by Microsoft® Appendix B, (i-) Department of State, Washington, November 10, 1896. My Dear Judge: You will see by the morning papers that that has happened which at our last interview I said was likely to happen within three or four days. The United States and Great Britain are in entire accord as to the provisions of a proposed treaty between Great Britain and Venezuela. The treaty is so eminently just and fair as respects both parties — so thoroughly protects the rights and claims of Venezuela — that I can not conceive of its not being approved by the Venezuelan President and Congress. It is thorough^ approved by the counsel of Venezuela here and by the Venezuelan Minister at this capital. In view of this situation it is extremely improbable that the Commission of which you are president will be called upon to make a report. In the view of the President and myself it is also desirable that the deliberations of the Commission should be suspended — for reasons which I stated to you at our last interview and which I need not repeat — until further notice. There need be no ostentation about the suspension nor any special publicity given to it. But I wish to be in a position to assure all parties concerned that such is the fact. Please treat this as strictly confidential. Very truly yours, Richard Olney. Hon. David J. Brewer, President Venezuelan Boundary Commission. 32 Digitized by Microsoft® REPOKT OF THE COMMISSION. 33 (2-) Department of State, Washington, December 28, 1896. Sir: I had the honor to inform you about the 10th of November last that Great Britain and the United States had reached a complete understanding between themselves respect- ing the Venezuelan boundary question; that they had agreed upon the provisions of a treaty for the arbitration of the ques- tion as between Great Britain and Venezuela; that there was little, if any, doubt that the arrangement would be acceptable to Venezuela; that in these circumstances a report from the Commission would probably not be required, and accordingly that suspension of the labors of the Commission until further notice would not be out of place. I have now the honor to apprise you that the expectations entertained when my communication was made in November last have been realized. The substantial provisions of the treaty referred to have been approved by the Venezuelan Government, so that when matters of detail and form are arranged nothing will remain but the customary signatures to the treaty and the submission of the same to the Venezuelan Congress for its ratification. There would therefore seem to be no reason why the Commission should not at once proceed to close up its work, which would seem to involve nothing more than putting the material it has accumulated into such shape as to make it easily available for the purposes of the arbitral tribunal to be constituted under the proposed treaty. In thus notifying the Commission that there has ceased to be any occasion for the further prosecution of its labors, I am directed by the President to express his high appreciation of vol 1 3 Digitized by Microsoft® 34 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. the diligence, skill, and effectiveness with which those labors have been conducted. That they have been instrumental in bringing about results of great and permanent value to the peoples of the three countries concerned can not be questioned. Respectfully yours, Richard Olney. Hon. David J. Brewer, President Venezuelan Boundary Commission. Digitized by Microsoft® f REPORT SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. BY J. FRANKLIN JAMESON. 35 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® EEPOKT ON SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. By J. Franklin Jameson. To the Members of the Venezuela-Guiana Boundary Commission. Gentlemen: You have asked me to investigate and report upon "the history of the Dutch and Spanish settlements prior to 1648, including the Spanish missions and the Dutch trading posts and the examination of their respective characters, con- cluding with a succinct statement as to the actual location, extent, and character of those settlements at the date of the Treaty of Minister." At the date on which this report is finished (June 11, 1896) I have not received from Professor Burr any information arising from the researches which he has just begun in the Dutch archives; no "British Blue Book" of documents and correspondence has appeared, subsequent to that headed "Venezuela, No. 1 (1896);" nor have I seen any documents emanating from the Venezuelan Government and relating to the above question of later date than those which in the present year were reprinted from "Senate Executive Document No. 226, Fiftieth Congress, first session." Information may soon .come from any of these sources of such a character as to modify the conclusions herein expressed. The present report 37 Digitized by Microsoft® 38 JAMESON. is based upon such printed materials as are accessible in the chief libraries of Washington, New York, Providence, and Boston. 1 The topic propounded may, for convenience and without injury, be divided into the five following sections or subsidiary questions : I. The history of Santo Thom6 to 1648. II. The question concerning other Spanish settlements. III. The question of the missions. IV. The question concerning Dutch posts on the Essequibo and the rivers to the north of it. V. The question of Point Barima. The accessible facts respecting these will be discussed in the above order. I. THE HISTORY OF SANTO THOME. Though no one of the sites successively occupied by this city falls within the • disputed territory, it nevertheless seems necessary to treat of its early history, in order to a thorough investigation of the second and third questions mentioned 'While this report was being prepared for the press an opportunity was afforded to examine a part of the results of Professor Burr's researches made in Europe. By reason of this examination, or of suggestions made by Professor Burr after reading this report, a few verbal changes have been made in the text, as, for instance, in cases where the writers of books, purporting to quote manuscript documents, have been found by Professor Burr to misquote them. It has been felt that everything erroneous should be eliminated. But it has not been thought necessary to modify the text of this report in order to avoid the appearance of overlapping with that of Mr. Burr. On the contrary, he has been so kind as to think that, in any territory common to the two, the marked agreement in the conclusions reached by this independent study based on largely different materials might in some degree fortify the deductions to which his more extensive researches have led. A few footnotes have been added by reason of Professor Burr's statements and by reason of the publication of the British Blue Book "Venezuela, No. 3(1896)." The three volumes of "Documents * * * submitted to the Boundary Commission by the counsel of the Government of Vene-' zuela" contain no statements relating to the period ending 1648, except such as are based on Gumilla. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 39 above. Even the proper dating of its foundation has a bear- ing upon these subsequent inquiries, as has also the statement of its character at different periods. The town of Santo Thome - de la Guayana was founded by Antonio de Berrio, probably in 1591 or 1592. For this state- ment a sufficient authority is that of Fray Pedro Simon, whose "Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales," Cuenca, 1627, must be often cited in this report. Fray Pedro Simon was provincial of the Franciscans at Bogota, and wrote this volume in 1623 ("Noticias," p. 661), so that he is much more nearly a contemporary than any of those who have suggested other dates. His book is also of excellent quality, and rests, as we know, in part on respectable manuscript authorities of earlier date. The various other dates stated require but a passing notice. Schomburgk, in his edition of Raleigh's "Discoverie" (p. 79, note 2), says that "Diego de Ordaz found in 1531-32 at the mouth of the Caroni a settlement called Caroao or Carao, which afterwards received the name of Santo Tomas de Guayana." Netscher, in his " Geschiedenis van de Kolonien Essequebo," etc. (p. 20), says that Ordaz founded Santo Thome" about 1532. Both statements are very likely derived from a similar remark in Gumilla, "El Orinoco Ilustrado" (p. 9, edition of 1741). But what Simon says (p. 121) is that Ordaz, being at Paria, "sailed to the other bank of the river, and landed at a village called Carao, whose natives received him kindly." This is a different place, and no settlement by Ordaz is mentioned. Gumilla in the same passage places the voyages of Raleigh and Keymis in 1545 and 1546 instead of 1595 and 1596. On the next page he declares that the town was destroyed in 1579 by the Dutch captain Janson ; and the assertion is repeated by Caulin in his "Historia Coro-graphica Natural y Evangelica Digitized by Microsoft® 40 JAMESON. de la Nueva Andalucia," 1779 (p. 9), by Hartsinck, by Hum- boldt, "Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales" (Vol. II, p. 638), and by Rodway, "Annals of Guiana" (p. 14). The reference is to the expedition of Admiral Adriaen Janszoon Pater, the date of which is certainly 1629 (see post) ; and the whole notion of Santo Thomcj's existing in 1579 doubtless rests, as Professor Burr conjectures, on a misreading of MDLXXIX for MDCXXIX. For the statement of Depons, "Voyage a, Terre Ferine" (Vol. Ill, p. 254), that Berrio founded the town in 1586, I find no authority. The settlement thus founded in 1591 or 1592 remained for some time a feeble one. Late in 1594 Berrio sent Domingo de Vera to Spain for recruits. (Keymis, "A Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana," 1596, p. 9; Simon, p. 597.) Before he returned Sir Walter Raleigh made his celebrated first voyage up the Orinoco, described in his "Discoverie" of 1595. In that book he makes no mention of Santo Thome, though he sailed up the Orinoco to the Caroni. This does not prove that the town was not there, but that he had reasons for not mentioning it; for Keymis, "Relation of the Second Voy- age" (p. 6), implies that Raleigh had found and destroyed a settlement when he says: "I answered him, that at our depar- ture we left no Spaniards alive to annoy them." Raleigh him- self, in his "Apology" (edition of 1650, p. 29), speaks in 1618 of the Santo Thome' of that time as distant so many miles "from the place where Antonio Berro the first Governour, by me taken in my first discovery, had attempted to plant;" and "Newes of Sir Walter Rauleigh," London, 1618, says (pp. 42, 43): "Now an entrance in former yeares our Generall did make, as you have read, with that successe that not any before or since hath ever equalled and displanted the first garrisons." At some time in this year 1595 Captain Velasco, who held Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 41 Trinidad for Francisco de Vides, governor of Cumana, sent Captain Felipe de Santiago with twenty men to take Santo Thome" from Berrio, "taking advantage," says Simon, "of the small number of men whom Berrio had." ("Noticias," p. 600.) Santiago did not carry out his purpose. This encounter between Berrio and Santiago on the banks of the Orinoco may have taken place in the spring of 1595, as represented by Simon, or in the autumn, as represented on page 51 of the "British Blue Book," in the translation of the dispatch of Don Roque de Montes. In any case these passages, confirmed by the statement of Keymis on page 9 of his tract, show that Vides and his partisans had pretensions hostile to those of Berrio. Raleigh in his " Disco verie" (ed. Schomburgk, p. 37) says that Vides and Berrio "were become mortall enimies." Therefore the absence of all mention of Santo Thome" from the dispatch of Don Roque de Montes to the King of Spain does not, as is implied on page 4 of the "British Blue Book," lines 17 to 20, disprove its existence. If the town was destroyed by Raleigh, it was shortly reen- forced by Domingo de Vera, who brought from Spain a large body of settlers for Trinidad and the Orinoco (Simon, p. 600; Keymis, p. 9). The population of the place rose to 400 men, women, and children. Of 300 who set out for Manoa, nearly all were destroyed. Reenforcements came from Trinidad, but the governor, after a period of sufferings, permitted any who chose to withdraw. (Simon, pp. 606-614.) Keymis, who visited the Orinoco in April, 1596, states (pp. 15, 16) that the Spaniards then had at the mouth of the Caroni a "Rancheria of some twentie or thirtie houses," which Berrio intended to fortify with ordnance, and in which he had about 55 men. A. Cabeliau, "commies-general" of the Dutch ship Zeeridder, who visited Santo Thome" in the summer of 1598, and whose Digitized by Microsoft® 42 JAMESOX. report to the States-General is printed as an appendix to Volume I of J. K. J. de Jonge's "De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indie," 1862, found there a force of 60 cavalry- men and 100 musketeers. That the settlement was still small in 1611 is evident from a letter of Sir Thomas Roe to the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, dated at Port of Spain, February 28, 1611, and summarized in the ' ' Calendar of State Papers, Colonial." (Vol. I, p. 1 1 •) He says that he has sailed all along the Wild Coast (i. e., Guiana) ; that it is understood that the King of Spain intends to plant the Orinoco ; that men, cattle, and horses are arriving daily to be employed in fortifying the place, raising a new city, and in the conquest of Guiana; but that he (Roe) thinks all will be turned to smoke. The town had not grown in importance when Raleigh's men destroyed it at the time of his last expedition. In his letter to Carew, 1618 (Edwards's "Raleigh," Vol. II, p. 377), he says: " Her Majesties death, and my longe imprisonment, gave time to the Spannierds to sett upp a towne of staks, covered with leaves of trees, upon the bancks of Oronoque, which they called 'St. Thome.'" In his "Apology" (pp. 29,52) he calls it "a Spanish towne or rather a village," "a Wooden Towne, and a kind of a Forte." The leading, and contemporary, Span- ish authority makes hardly more of it. Don Diego de Palo- meque, says Simon, had 57 men ; there was a fort, six cannon, a church, a belfry, a convent of Franciscans. (" Noticias," pp. 637,640,643.)' The inhabitants began rebuilding at once upon the with- drawal of Raleigh's men, at the end of January, 1618 (Simon, p. 659), constructing now more than one church, and a convent of Dominicans as well as of Franciscans. A document cited in Caulin (" Historia Coro-graphica," pp. 180, 181) relating to the Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 43 latter convent shows the jolace inhabited in April of that year. It existed when Jan de Laet wrote the first edition of his " Beschryvinghe van West Indien," that of 1625, for he gives (p. 487) elaborate sailing directions for the voyage from the Essequibo to Santo Thome", on the authority of a journal which has come into his hands; so also in his edition of 1630 (pp. 591, 592). In both he states that the town had a large tobacco trade with the English and the Dutch, insomuch that some- times eight or nine Dutch ships or more were in the river at one time. In his Latin edition of 1633 ("Novus Orbis," etc., p. 659) he speaks of this in the past tense, as having existed until the King of Spain forbade under severe penalties such trading with foreigners. In December, 1629, Santo Thome" was attacked by a naval force of the Dutch West India Company under Admiral Adriaen Janszoon Pater, and was sacked and burned; it then consisted of 130 or 140 houses, of slight construction, a church, and a Franciscan convent. (De Laet, " Beschryvinghe van West Indien," edition of 1630, p. 593, and his " Historie ofte Jaer- lyck Verhael," p. 166.) According to Document No. 12 in the " British Blue Book," page 56, the place was again taken, sacked, and burned in 1637 by the Dutch and Caribs. 1 Finally, it appears from Father Pelleprat's "Relation des Missions des PP. de la Compagnie de Jesus dans les Isles, et dans la terre firme de l'Arne'rique Meridionale," Paris, 1655 (pt. 2, p. 9), that at the time of the arrival of Father Denis Mesland in Spanish Guiana, in 1653, Santo Thome had very few inhabitants. 1 This affair is now more fully described in contemporary Spanish documents, of which translations are printed in the British Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," at pp. 212-216. The author of one of these documents, the regidor of Trinidad, says that Santo Thonn5 was at the time of the attack in process of removal ; there were a few settlers at the new town and a few at the old (p. 215). In another (p. 214) an alcalde of Trinidad states that the population was scanty in those parts. Digitized by Microsoft® 44 JAMESON. It is evident, then, that at no time between 1591 and 1648 was this Spanish town an important center of population, such as would naturally send out offshoots into the surrounding ter- ritory. On the contrary, it must have been, during nearly all these years, a feeble settlement, maintaining its own existence with some difficulty. It is evident also that one's search for evidence of other settlements in Spanish Guiana need not be extended backward beyond the year 1591. It does not appear necessary to enter at length into the vexed and difficult question of the various sites of Santo Thome. Putting together the statements of Simon (pp. 596, 608), of Keymis (p. 15), and of Cabeliau (in De Jonge, Vol. I, p. 157), it seems clear that the original town was, from 1591 to 1598, at the mouth of the Caroni. Although Simon represents it as still there at the time of Raleigh's expedition of 1618 (p. 641), Raleigh's own expression ("Apology," p. 29) that it was now "twenty mile distant from the place where Antonio Berro * * * had attempted to plant," accords better with all the details which have come down to us respecting the English assault and occupation. 1 These conclusions are also those of Mr. S. R. G-ardiner, in his " Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage." (Vol. I, p. 54.) As to the site to which Fernando de Berrio removed the town in 1619, or the site or sites subse- quently occupied, down to 1 648, it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile or to make definite all the indications given by Simon (pp. 666, 670), De Laet (" Jaerlyck Verhael," p. 166), Oumilla (p. 11), and Caulin (pp. 59, 191), though the last two agree in placing it at the site which it occupied in the middle of the last century. It is sufficient to say that no writer places it Professor Burr suggests that the building of the town at this more defensible site may even have begun as early as 1.596 or 1597, with the arrival of Domingo de Vera and his settlers — the account of Cabeliau being perhaps as consistent with this site as with the other. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AMD DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 45 at any time at a lower point than this, so that its occupation was never an occupation of a portion of the territory now disputed. Its history has been given for other reasons. II. THE QUESTION OF OTHER SPANISH SETTLEMENTS. There is no perfect evidence of the existence before 1648 of any other Spanish settlement than Santo Thome" in the region between the Orinoco and the Essequibo, or of any other than a temporary occupation of any position in that region. I know of no authority for the statement made by Sefior Fortique (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 226, 50th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 29) that "in 1591 the enemies of Spain found towns to ruin" in Guiana. The evidence regarding Spanish occupation in Guiana after that date may be stated as follows: An appendix to Raleigh's " Disco verie" contains abstracts of certain Spanish letters from the New World which were taken at sea by Capt. George Popham in 1593 or 1594, and were delivered by him to the Privy Council. Among these is an account which purports to have been sent to the King of Spain to inform him of the formal act by which Domingo de Vera, maestro de campo to Antonio de Berrio, had taken possession for Spain of lands south of the Orinoco. The document is to be found at pages 123-128 in Schomburgk's edition of Raleigh, and is summarized on page 383 of the "Calendars of State Papers, Domestic," 1591-1594. It is dated from the river Orinoco, "in the principall part thereof called Warismero, the 23 of Aprill 1593," and relates, with the signatures of Domingo de Vera and of Rodrigo de Caranca, register of the forces, how Vera had taken formal possession of the land in the name of the King and of Berrio, the governor, at Warismero ; then, under successive dates extending to the 4th of May, how the Digitized by Microsoft® 46 JAMESON. same was done at three points lying inland from the river, the first two leagues inland, the second Carapana's town, the third Topiawari's town (apparently all these lay near the mouth of the Caroni), crosses being erected and the consent of these chieftains being understood to be given. The march is then traced for a week more, 10 leagues (40 miles) inland from Topiawari's town, but with no statement as to taking posses- sion beyond that place. The document is no doubt substan- tially authentic, but it indicates possession only as a formal act performed upon the line of march. In 1595 Raleigh, in his "Discoverie" (Schomburgk's ed., p. 39) says that Berrio "alwaies appointed 10 Spaniards to reside in Carapanas towne" (see also p. 56), while Keymis in 1596 speaks of him as going to Carapana with 15 men, and also of 10 Spaniards as abiding in Winicapora (pp. 10, 18). But Car- apana was no doubt very near S. Thomd, and the Winicapora is probably the Cano Josd, an affluent of the Orinoco only a few miles long. These phrases, therefore, do not indicate any occupation of portions of the territory now disputed. Upon the same page with the passage just mentioned Raleigh says that the Spaniards "used in Canoas to passe to the rivers of Barema, Pawroma, and Dissequebe, which are on the south side of the mouth of Orenoque, and there buie women and children from the Canibals", but says nothing to support Senor' Fortique's statement that Raleigh wrote that the Spaniards "occupied the rivers Barima, Moroco, and Pumaron" or "that their domination extended to the Essequibo." (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 226, 50th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 29.) Simon (pp. 606, 607) represents the Spaniards of S. Thome", soon after the arrival of the reinforcements under Domingo de Vera, as proceeding to make excursions in the vicinity, trading with the natives, but not as making any other settle- ments. He also narrates at length (pp. 608-610) the fortunes Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 47 of a body of 300 who set out for Manoa, but of whom all but about 30 were soon destroyed by the Indians, and whose expedition effected nothing. Keymis, against a marginal date of September (1595), men- tions another Spanish expedition, his account of which should be cited textually, because of the inferences which, as will be seen, have been drawn from distorted versions of it. He says (pp. 8, 9): "In Moruga it was, that they (the Spaniards) hunted Wareo and his people, about halfe a yeere since * * * They were not of Anthonie de Berreo his companie, that fol- lowed this chase, but were the Spaniardes of Marguerita, and the Caraccas". It is sufficient for the present purpose to say that this is no evidence of Spanish occupation of the Moruca. 1 In April, 1597, Leonard Berrie, who conducted a third voy- age for Raleigh, was in the Corentyn. Thomas Masham, who accompanied him and wrote the account of the voyage in Hakluyt (edition of 1811, Vol. IV), says that he there learned from an Indian that in the Essequibo "there were some 300 Spaniards, which for the most part now are destroyed and dead" (p. 193). On May 4, he says (p. 194): "It was reported that the Spaniardes were gonne out of Desekebe, which was not so. * * * The next night wee had newes brought * * * that there were tenne canoas of Spaniardes in the mouth of Coritine * * * who went along the coast to buy bread and other victuals for them in Orenoque, Marowgo, and Dese- kebe". The phrase must probably be interpreted as meaning "for those who were in the Orinoco, the Moruca, and the Esse- quibo." Under this interpretation the passages cited from Masham seem to imply a temporary occupation in the Essequibo 'Professor Burr calls my attention to the fact that Keymis, in speaking of the Essequibo, also says: "Farther to the oastward than Dessekebe no Spaniard ever travelled * * * In this river, which we now call Devoritia, the Spaniards doe intend to build them a towne." The sentence is a confused one, but as to its meaning there can be no question. Digitized by Microsoft® 48 JAMESON. at this time. This maybe the explanation of the emblem carved in stone over the gate of the fort at Kykoveral, which Hartsinck ("Beschrijvinge van Guiana," p. 262) declared to be the Portuguese arms, and to be evidence of previous Portu- guese occupation, but which Netscher (p. 337), who has seen it, declares to be simply a cross, and to be more probably of Spanish origin, since the Portuguese hardly came so far west. The occupation, if there was a distinct occupation, was temporary. De Laet, in his ' ' Beschry vinghe van West Indien," edition of 1625, says (p. 474): "The Spaniards had here (i. e., in the Essequibo) some people in the year 1591 (he means 1597) according to the account of Thomas Masham, but they seem to have come to nothing again." In his edition of 1630 he says, more decidedly, that the settlement had come to naught (p. 577). 1 But of more importance are the observations of A. Cabeliau in 1598, already mentioned. His narrative is detailed, clear, and businesslike. In company with two other ships that he found on the Guiana coast, he visited all the rivers between the Wiapoco and the Orinoco; he names, among others, the Essequibo, the Pomeroon, and the Moruca. Into these rivers they did not sail, partly "because there was not much to get there, as the Indians informed us" ("datter nyet veel te halen en was, zoe ons d'indianen wys maecten"); so they only coasted along the land in this part, in order to have knowl- edge of it. As Cabeliau traded freely and eagerly with the Spaniards of Santo Thome", and was given the guidance of the governor's miner in searching around there for Raleigh's mines, it is extremely xmlikely that when he coasted along* 'As Professor Burrpoints out, an Englishman (who is clearly Harcourt's cousin, Unton Fisher), writing in 1608 from the Guiana coast, tells it as importantnews that now, as he learns from an Indian, the Spaniard " hath cleare left Dissikeebee and not a Spaniard there." Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 49 past the Essequibo with the above-mentioned impression of it, there were any Spaniards there. Remarks which he makes when speaking of the soldiers at Santo Thome\ in a passage already adduced, have an important bearing on the question of other settlements. He says that these soldiers "daily seek to conquer the gold-rich Guiana, but can not do it by means of the forts as yet built there, nor by any means of friendship, because the nation called Caribs violently oppose them every day * * *, and the Spaniards, seeing that they can not win anything there, have begun to make a road, about six days' journey south of the river Orinoco, in the mountain range of Guiana, through the rocks and hills, about 1,600 stadia long, * * * an d think by these means to conquer it" ("dagelicx vervolgen om het goudryk Weyana te con- questeren, dan connen 'tzelfde doer de fortsen alsnoch daerop gedaen zynde of met geene middelen van vriendschap con- questeren, deurdien de natie genaemt Charibus hen dagelycx geweldichlicken wederstaen * * *, ende de Spaegnaerden siende dat zy aldaer nyet en konnen gewinnen, hebben omtrent 6 daegreyzens, by suydens de riviere Worinoque, aen 't ge- berchte van de Weyane eenen wech beginnen te maeken doer die rotsen ende geberchten, omtrent 1600 stadien lanck, * * * ende meenen by dese middel alsoe, tselfde te conquesteren "). (The passage is in De Jonge, "Opkomst," etc., Vol. I, p. 156- 159.) If a road 200 English miles long is meant, it would, if extended in certain directions southerly from the Orinoco at Santo Thome, run into the territory now in dispute. The letter of Sir Thomas Roe, already mentioned, may fairly be thought to indicate that there were no Spanish settle- ments, or none of any account, on the coast of Guiana in 1611. Raleigh, in a letter supposed to be of the year 1612 (Edwards's "Raleigh," Vol. II, p. 338), speaks of a captain vol 1 4 Digitized by Microsoft® 50 JAMESON. "who came from Orenoke this last spring, and was oftentimes ashore att St. Thome, where the Spaniards inhabite," words which seem to imply that they at that time had but that one settlement. In his journal of his voyage of 1617 (Schom- burgk's Raleigh's "Discoverie," p. 203), he says of the Esse- quibo that "the Spaniards of Orenoke had dayly recourse" to it. But in that journal and in the other literature of this last voyage nothing points to any settlements of Spaniards in this region except at Santo Thome, while many passages convey an implication that that was their sole town. One instance to the contrary should be mentioned. In "A declaration of the Demeanor and Cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, as well in his Voyage, as in, and sithence his Returne," which King James I published in 1618 for public justification of his course, "although Kings be not bound to give Account of their Actions to any but God alone," we read (on p. 30), "And yet it is confessed by all, that the parts of Guiana, where St. Thome was scituate, were planted by Spaniards, who had divers Townes in the same tract, with some Indians inter- mixed, that are their Vassals." But it is doubtful whether great weight should be given to this testimony. 1 On the other hand, it is observable that Don Diego de Palo- meque, on the approach of Raleigh's men, sent a man "to warn and call those who were on their estates (estancias) at more or less distance from the city" (Simon, p. 637), but that he did not send for remoter aid. Those who fled from the town had apparently no neighboring settlement to which to flee (p. 641). When the authorities of the town, Palomeque 'Professor Burr suggests that King James's statement came to him from the Count of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador. This derivation, which would of course deprive the statement of value, is based on a passage which Mr. Burr quotes (see his report) from the second edition of Harcourt's "Eolation of a Voyage to Guiana," 1626. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 51 being dead, sent for aid, it was to Bogota (p. 650). Simon prints at length (pp. 651-658) the instructions which Don Juan de Borja, president of the audiencia of Santa Fe" ; gave to Cap- tain Diego Martin, whom, in response to this appeal, he sent with a force for the succor of Santo Thome — instructions dated May 28, 1618. Among all the directions which he gives him for his guidance in the performance of this remote and uncer- tain task, there is no hint of the existence in Guiana of any other Spanish settlements than Santo Thome", although, if there had been any such, the president would surely have been anxious for their protection also. 1 Late in 1619 or early in 1620, the Arwaccas having slain six Spaniards, Fernando de Berrio sent out Captain Geronimo de Grados from Santo Thome* to chastise them. He went into the Barima 2 and compelled the natives to submit and to give him provisions; then into the Essequibo, where he did the same; then into the " Verius." At the mouth of the Essequibo, on his return thither, he found six foreign ships ("navios de enemigos") manned by Englishmen, who seized him and sent word to Berrio to ransom him for 30 quintals of tobacco, March, 1620. In Simon's account of this affair ("Noticias," pp. 66^-666) there is no hint of any Spanish town in these rivers, and it appears most probable from the narrative that there was not. In speaking of Pater's expedition of 1629 De Laet ("Jaerlyck Verhael," pp. 165, 166) conveys the same implication, making no mention of any other Spanish town than S. Thome", though he gives a minute account of almost every day's progress of the fleet. The same is true of the ■The same inferences arise from the petition of the town of Santo ThomiS to the King of Spain, printed in the British Blue Book "Venezuela, No. 3," pp. 207-209, and from the accompanying documents. '-"Baruma." Professor Burr presents good reasons for believing that this means the Pomeroon, and not the Barima. Digitized by Microsoft® 52 JAMESON. various editions of his description of the "West Indies, Dutch, Latin, and French, of 1625, 1630, 1633, and 1640. He mentions no settlements of Europeans from the Essequibo to Santo Thome", though he gives elaborate sailing directions for the whole route (pp. 487, 591, 659, 601 of the respective editions). Seilor Fortique's statement ("Senate Executive Document No. 226," p. 29) that De Laet found the Moroco and the Pumeron occupied by Spain before 1648 is, so far as I know, quite without foundation. In a document of the year 1633 or 1634 the Dutch West India Company, according to the translation in the "New York Colonial Documents" (Vol. I, p. 66), say: "From New Spain, eastward, * * * to beyond Trinidad * * * are all settled by Spaniards; except next to these, the Guiana country, which we call the Wild Coast; this coast and divers rivers are inhabited by free Indians, and still unsettled; * * * but * * * all the trade which exists there, can easily be carried on with two or three ships a year." 1 Heylin's " Cosmographie," 1652, a book which enjoyed a certain authority, speaks of Santo Thome" as "the only Town of all Guiana possessed by the Spaniards." III. THE QUESTION OF THE MISSIONS. Even if there were, within the period before the date of the Treaty of Minister, no occupation of Guiana by Spanish lay- men, it would be entirely possible that settlements of a char- acter to give title under that treaty might have been founded by missionaries. It therefore becomes necessary to examine all the evidences of missionary activity in .the Orinoco region between 1591 and 1648. 1 The documents relating to the capture of Santo Thome in 1637, printed in the British Blue Book " Venezuela, No. 3," pp. 212-216, give no indication of other Spanish settlements near. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PKIOE TO 1648. 53 Caulin ("Historia Coro-graphica," p. 9) declares that Fathers Llauri and Vergara came into the province of Gruayana in 1576 and labored there until 1579, when they were obliged to withdraw by reason of the invasion effected by the Dutch captain Janson. But the expedition of Janson (Adriaen Janszoon Pater) occurred in 1629, as has already been seen, and the mission of Fathers Llauri and Vergara, as will be shown on better evidence later, began in 1664. Fray Pedro Simon, who 30 years later was provincial of the Franciscans in the province of Santa Fe, to which Santo Thome" originally belonged, tells us ("Noticias," p. 606) that a Franciscan, Fray Domingo de Santa Agueda, accompanied Berrio in all his discoveries and in the founding of Santo Thome. Another friar, Francisco Carillo, accompanied Domingo de Vera in his march of 1593, according to the Pop- ham document already cited. (Schomburgk's Raleigh's "Dis- coverie," pp. 124, 125; "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1591-1594," p. 383.) When Domingo de Vera in 1595, or perhaps in 1596, returned from Spain with reenforcements for Berrio, he brought with him ten clergymen and twelve Franciscan fri- ars. Two of the secular clergy and five of the friars went at once to Santo Thomd, where Fray Domingo de Santa Agueda welcomed the five Franciscans into a convent which he had founded, "making six," says Simon explicitly. ("Noticias," pp. 599, 606.) It appears from this that Santo Thome' had not hitherto been a center of missionary propaganda, and there is no evidence that any friars were in Guiana outside of the town. The expedition toward Manoa was accompanied by four friars, but its fatal termination precludes the thought of their having then established mission stations. Simon, in his "Noticias Historiales" (p. 614), describes the subsequent fortunes of eight of these ecclesiastics. Two of Digitized by Microsoft® 54 JAMESON. them, permitted by Berrio to withdraw at the time of depres- sion ensuing upon the Manoa expedition, perished on their way in the delta of the Orinoco; two others in their voyage from Trinidad to Margarita; three others succeeded in return- ing to Europe, and three, all Franciscans, made their way up to New Granada. Simon would surely obtain information directly or indirectly from these, living as he did at the capital of that kingdom, and, as a good Franciscan, would not have failed to make mention of any extensive missionary labors on their part. But he makes no mention of any missions in Guiana outside of Santo Thome" down to the close of his volume, which was written in 1623. In 1617 the convent was transferred from the jurisdiction of the province of Santa Fe" to that of the province of Caracas, and on April 25, 1618, the transfer was effected at Santo Thome". (Caulin, "Historia Coro-graphica," p. 180.) At the time of the attack by Raleigh's men in January of that year, Padre Francisco de Leuro, who seems to have been both parish priest and head of the convent, was slain. The authorities of the town, in their appeal to the audiencia of Santa Fe', say that they have but one priest remaining. In the subsequent rebuilding both a Franciscan and a Dominican convent were erected ; but there was none but the Franciscan there at the time when the town was assailed by Pater in 1629. (Simon, pp. 650, 659; De Laet, "Beschryvinghe van West Indien,'' edition of 1630, p. 593; "Novus Orbis," 1633, p. 659; "Nou- veau Monde," 1640, p. 601.) I have found no other indications of Franciscan activity in Guiana than these, which carry with them no implication of the existence of other missionary stations than Santo Thome" itself. In the Jesuit literature of the time and of subsequent years Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH. AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1G48. 55 ("Relations," "Litterse Annuse," etc.) I have found but one indication of the presence of a Jesuit in Spanish Guiana before 1648, and I understood Professor Burr that he had found nO other, in the libraries in which he had searched, than this same one. In the "Annuse Litterse" for 1652, namely, in the portion devoted to the occurrences in the province of New Granada from 1642 to 1652, inclusive, one section (p. 185) consists of a list of those who have died. Among the entries we find this: "In the Mission of Guayana, where scarcely any harvest responds to labor, however distressing, Father Andreas Ignatius, head of that mission, a man of obedience and heroic zeal, and a professed of the four vows, fell at that glorious and. most desti- tute post." ("In Missione Guayanensi, ubi labori quantumvis serumnoso messis psenfe nulla respondet, P, Andreas Ignatius, ejus Missionis Prseses, vir obedientise ac zeli heroici, et 4. vota Professus, in gloriosa ilia, et rerum omnium penurise plena statione occubuit.") Of this Father Andreas Ignatius I have found no other trace in Jesuit literature. The phrase "ejus Missionis Prseses " above, would naturally be held to implv the presence of several Jesuits in Guiana at this time. Yet when, September 29, 1652, one who is called "Dom Frantique," an officer of the governor Don Martin de Mencloza, writes to Father Dionysius Meland (or Mesland) reinforcing the governor's invitation to him to come over from the French possessions to Santo Thome", he says: "We have here no member of a religious order" ("Nous n'avons point icy de Religieux"). (P. Pelleprat, Relation des Missions des PP. de la Compagnie de Je"sus dans les Isles, et dans la terre firme de l'Amerique Me'ridionale, Pt. II, p. 27.) Cassani, the historian of the Jesuit province, begins the story of Jesuit activity in the regions of the lower Orinoco with the year 1659. He relates how in that year Father Digitized by Microsoft® 56 JAMESON. Antonio de Monteverde, a Fleming, came from Cayenne to the Orinoco and then made his way up the river to the mis- sion of his order in the llanos. He persuaded the provincial authorities in Santa Fe to take religious possession of the lower Orinoco, and Fathers Vergara and Llauri were sent thither in 1664. Monteverde and Mesland, "a tried man," were in the same year assigned to the mission in the llanos. Llauri and Vergara found the Spaniards of Guiana in a con- dition ot spiritual destitution. (Cassani, "Historia de la Pro- vincia de la Compania de Jesus del Nuevo Reyno de Granada," 1741, pp. 81, 82, 110, 114, 128.) Gumilla, in his "El Orinoco Ilustrado" (p. 11), also a Jesuit, has no earlier origin of Jesuit missions in Guiana to suggest. There is, then, among the accessible materials respecting the Jesuits no evidence to support the notion of settlements established by them in the territory now disputed. Of other than Franciscan and Jesuit missionary efforts in the region I have found no trace save the mention of the Dominican con- vent, apparently short-lived, at Santo Thome. IV. THE QUESTION CONCERNING DUTCH POSTS. It seems susceptible of demonstration that the Dutch had no settlements in the northwestern portions of Guiana before the beginning of the seventeenth century. Hartsinck, "Beschrijving van Guyana," says that as early as 1580 Dutch vessels traded along this coast. But the remark is no doubt due, as De Jonge has remarked ("Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag," Vol. I, p. 46, note), to a miscon- struction of a remark of De Laet in his " Beschry vinghe van West Indien" (on p. 487 in the edition of 1625). It is not necessary to explain the misconstruction, as neither Hartsinck Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 57 nor De Laet refers to settlement, but only to voyaging and trade. 1 The "British Blue Book" (p. 4) declares that "there is abundant evidence coming from Spanish sources that during the latter half of the century, prior to 1590, the Dutch had established themselves on the coast of Guiana." No such evi- dence is brought forward, however, and the marginal reference is a general reference to the entire correspondence of a whole province with the Spanish Government during a period of a hundred and five years. Until such evidence is adduced, the statement must, on grounds which will presently be mentioned, be regarded as of hardly more weight than that which pre- cedes it in the sentence, that "the Dutch appear to have been the first who, in the early part of the sixteenth century, turned their attention to Guiana." Not better supported is the statement immediately following upon the same page, that "in 1595 the English explorer, Capt. Charles Leigh, found the Dutch established near the mouth of the Orinoco, a fact which is confirmed from Spanish sources." The Spanish sources are neither quoted nor mentioned. The marginal reference is to Purchas's Pilgrims, pages 1250-1255. Now, the letter of Charles Leigh printed on page 1254 of Pur- chas is dated July 2, 1604, and relates to his voyage of that time, and not to that of 1595, from which no letter is known to have survived. It speaks of Dutchmen in the river Wia- poco, far to the eastward of the disputed territory, and not in the Orinoco. Moreover, it says simply : " At my arrivall here I found a Dutch Shippe, and sithence here hath arrived another, they buy up all the Flaxe they can get." No mention of any Dutch settlement is made, either here or elsewhere in Leigh's 'A fuller examination of this error, by Professor Burr, will be found in his report on the evidence of the Dutch archives. Digitized by Microsoft® 58 JAMESON. letter. Neither is any .such story to be found in the narratives of Leigh's companions. Their accounts agree with his. "This Sims," says Master John Wilson, "was Masters mate of the Holland Shippe which Captain Lee found in the River of Wiapoco at his first arrivall there" (p. 1264). Next in chronological order comes the statement, repeated in "Senate Executive Document No. 226," that in 1596 the Span- iards drove out a body of Dutch colonists from the Essequibo. This is most likely derived from Hartsinck, who says that the Netherlanders must have settled early on the Essequibo, for the Spaniards already in 1596 drove them out from there ("want de Spanjaarden hadden hen in 1596 reeds van daar verdre- ven"). The genealogy of this statement can apparently be traced. Hartsinck gives as his authority Martini ere's "Grand Dictionnaire Ge'ographique," 1738. Martiniere probably got it from some edition of Blaeu. Blaeu got it from De Laet, and De Laet from Keymis. But what Keymis said was ("Rela- tion of the Second Voyage," 1596, pp. 8, 9): "In Moruga it was, that they (the Spaniards) hunted Wareo and his people, about halfe a yeere since [margin, September]. * * * They were not of Anthonie de Berreo his companie, that fol- lowed this chase, but were the Spaniardes of Marguerita, and the Caraccas." In other words, certain Spaniards drove out certain Indians from the district of the Moruca. Jan de Laet's account of the affair is, in his edition of 1625, the following (p. 475): * * * "the Moruca, where the Spaniards of Mar- garita and Caracas drove out the savages in the year 1596, with the help of the Arwacas" ( * * * "Moruga, daer de Spaegniaerden van de Margarita ende Caraccas de Wilden ver- dreven in 't jare 1596. met hulpe van de Arwaccas"). His second edition, 1630, reads the same (p. 577), save for a gloss upon the name Moruga, "Moruga, or, as our people call it, Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 5& Ammegore." In his Latin edition of 1633 he gives the same account (p. 649): * * * " Moruga (quern nostrates vocant Ammegoren) cujus accolas, Hispani e Margarita et Caraccis advecti, anno do Io XCVI ope Arwaccarum ex avitis sedibus pepulerunt." From this harmless rhetorical addition about "the homes of their ancestors " the transition was easy to the text as we find it in the French edition of 1640 (p. 590): * * * "Moruga (which our people call Ammegore) the inhabitants of which the Spaniards from Margarita and Caracas drove out from the land of their ancestors (or predecessors) by the aid of the Arwaccas, in the year 1596." Blaeu ("Douzieme Volume de- la G-eographie Blaviane," Amsterdam, 1667, p. 292) copies the words of the French text exactly, save that, perhaps in order to be more impersonal, he substitutes "the Dutch" for "our people." The passage then read: * * * "Moruga (que les Beiges nomment Ammegore) les habitans de laquelle, les Espagnols venus de la Margarite et des Caracques, chasserent du pays de leur predecesseurs, par le moyen des Arwaques r l'an 1596." Martiniere, in his "Grand Dictionnaire Ge"ogra- phique" (T. IV, p. 138, s. v. Essequebe), varies the phrase still further. After mentioning the Moruga, he says: "The Dutch give to this last the name of Ammegore. In 1596 the Span- iards from Margarita and Caracas drove out from the land of their predecessors those who lived on the banks of this river, using for this purpose the aid of the Arwaccas" ("Les Hol- landois donnent le nom dAmmegore a cette derniere. Les Espagnols venus de la Marguerite et de Caraques chasserent en 1596 du Pais de leurs predecesseurs ceux qui habitoient sur les bords de cette Riviere, et se servirent pour cela du secours des Arwaques"). After all these little successive modifica- tions the passage, even as it stands in Martiniere, does not Digitized by Microsoft® 60 JAMESON. •declare that the Spaniards drove out Dutch inhabitants of the Morug-a. But, the mention of the Dutch once introduced, it is easy to see how an inaccurate writer might confuse them with the "prddecesseurs," might, for instance, in the extract just given take "Dutch" to be the grammatical antecedent of "those," and so might suppose the sense to be that the Span- iards drove out "those Dutchmen who lived on the banks of" the Moruga. Evidently this is just what Hartsinck did. Thus the evidence of occupation in 1596 disappears. The "British Blue Book," on page 4, says that " Ibarguen in 1597 visited San Thome"; he also visited the Essequibo and reported 'white men,' who can be shown to have been the Dutch, to be settled high up that river." For this, a vague reference to the letters of the province of Cumana in the archives of the Indies during a period of one hundred and thirteen years is given, but no text. 1 The notion that the Dutch had settlements in the Essequibo at this time is plainly refuted by the narrative of A. Cabeliau, already described. Not only does it seem certain that if there had been Dutch settlements in that river he would have known ■of and visited them, but he distinctly declares, in his report to the States-General (De Jonge, Vol. I, p. 160), that in his voy- age along this coast he and his companions had discovered, found, and visited more than twenty-four rivers, many islands in the rivers, and other various harbors, "which have not been known or visited by our nation, and, what is more, have not been described or discovered in any charts or cosmographies 'It appears from a communication of the British Colonial Office to Professor Burr that Don Domingo de Ibarguen, in a long report dated Trinidad, October 27, 1597, says that, having accompanied Don Fernando de Berrio to Santo Thom£, he set out thence on a voyage of exploration and visited the Essequibo, -where he says that he "heard very great news of the men -who were clothed and fighting with arms." But he makes in this connection no mention of the Dutch. Digitized by Microsoft® SPA.NISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 61 before the time of our voyage" ("die nyet by dese landen en. zyn bekent nog beseylt geweest, ja dat meer is, in geene quaerten oft cosmographen voerdato onse voyage bescreven nock ontdekt zijn geworden"). Moreover, the conscientious De Jonge found no evidence in the Dutch archives of settle- ment prior to the seventeenth century. As to the Dutch settlements made in the first half of that century, much confusion has been introduced into the subject by Hartsinck, who on page 207 of his " Beschrijvinge van Guiana " describes Nova Zelandia and Fort ter Hooge as situ- ated on the Essequibo and identifies the latter with Kykoveral, at the juncture of the Cayuni and the Mazaruni, while on page 259 he describes Nieuw Zeeland, Nieuw Middelburg, and the Huis ter Hooge as situated on the Pomeroon. But Hartsinck is not a first-hand authority for the period before 1648, nor are, apparently, his sources. It is best to go back first to such authorities as seem incontestable, and, moreover, first to consider the facts respecting the Essequibo. There can be no doubt that the Dutch West India Company had an establishment on the Essequibo in 1626. A resolution of the Zeeland Chamber of the Company, of December 10 in that year, permits Jacob Canyn to retire from his position at Isekepe, while another, of August 23, 1627, shows Jan van der Groes as an agent of theirs in that region. 1 (Netscher, p. 6 1.) Earlier dates have been suggested, but on less solid grounds. In the years 1750 and 1751 the Zeeland Chamber of the Dutch West India Company had a controversy with the other mem- bers, claiming the colony on the Essequibo as exclusively theirs. In a memorial of the States of Zeeland and the Zeeland 'The passage already cited from the journal of 1617 in Schomburgk's Raleigh's "Discoverie" (see p. 50, above) seems to exclude the chance of Dutch as well as of Spanish settlements in the Essequibo in 1617. Digitized by Microsoft® 62 JAMESON. Chamber to the States-General, in 1750 (printed in Jaco- bus Kok's "Vaderlandsch Woordenboek," 1785, Vol. XIV, s. v. Essequebo), those bodies say: "The States of Zeeland are always considered and called the patrons and founders of the colonies on the mainland of America, between Cape Orange and the river Orinoco, and especially of that of Essequibo, known to your Excellencies under the name of Nova Zelandia, which colony was already, known and visited by the Zeeland Chamber at the time of the granting of the charter of 1621; witness the old books and registers, and among others a jour- nal book of 1627, in continuation of that kept by Conijn in Essequibo, giving an account of his administration to the managers of Guiana in Zeeland" (p. 404). A petition of the chief stockholders of the Zeeland Chamber to the States-Gen- eral in 1751 ("Tegenwoordige Staat van Amerika," 1767, p. 661; Hartsinck, p. 234) makes a similar assertion, that "at the first beginning of the West India Company in 1621 the river Essequibo was noticed as a colony already established, strengthened by a fortress then called Fort ter Hooge * * * but soon after named Kykoveral" ("dat by den eersten aan- vang van de Westindische Compagnie in 1621, de Rivier Essequebo aangemerkt wierd als eene reeds bevestigde bezitting, besterkt met een Fortres toen al genaamd het Fort der Hooge * * * en kort daar na genoemd Kyk overal"). But this is assertion made long after. 1 Nearer in point of time, but open to objection on other grounds, is the testimony of a paper among the Sloane manu- scripts in the British Museum, of which portions (apparently nearly the whole) are printed in the Rev. H. V. P. Bronk- hurst's "The Colony of British Guyana and its Labouring 1 The value of these assertions, and their relation to the documentary evidence to ■which they appeal, is fully investigated by Professor Burr in his report. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 63 Population," London, 1883 (pp. 45-53). It appears to be of the year 1668, and is anonymous. 1 "The sixth colony," the author says, "was undertaken by one Captain Gromweagle, a Dutchman, that had served the Spaniard in Oranoque, but understanding a company of merchants of Zealand had before undertaken a voyage to Guiana and attempted a settlement there" (this no doubt refers to a preceding paragraph, which notes an abortive settlement of Zeelanders at Cayenne in 1615), "he deserted the Spanish service, and tendered himself to his own country, which was accepted, and he dispatched from Zealand, anno 1616, with two ships and a galliot, and was the first man that took firm footing on Guiana by the good likeing of the natives, whose humours the gentleman perfectly under- stood. He erected a forte on a small island thirty leagues up the river Dissekeeb, which looked into two great branches of that famous river. All his time the Colony flourished; * * * he was a great friend of all new colonies of Christians of what nation soever, and Barbados oweth its first assistance, both for food and trade, to this man's special kindness, anno 1627, at which time they were in a miserable condition ; he dyed anno 1664, and in the 83d year of his age, a wealthy man, having been Governor of that Colonie forty-eight years. In this Colonie the authour had the good fortune to meet with some ingenious observations of the former Governor, of what had been transacted in Guiana in his time, to whom the world is obliged for many particulars of this story." A footnote relates how Capt. Thomas Powell, governor of Barbados from 1625 to 1628, "having understood the Dutch had a plantation in the River Dissekeeb," sent to his old friend Captain Grom- weagle for aid, and how Gromweagle "persuaded a family of 'The results of Professor Burr's personal investigation of this manuscript will be found on pp. 133-138 of Vol. II and in his report. Digitized by Microsoft® 64 JAMESON. Arawacoes, consisting of forty persons, to attend Powell to Barbados, to learn the English to plant," etc. (Bronkhurst, pp. 40-48.) The author of this paper can be proved to have been Maj. John Scott, somewhat famous in the history of Long Island and of New Netherland down to 1665. For he says (id., p. 50): "The same year [1665] in the month of October, the author having been commisionated Commander-in-chief of a small fleet and a regiment of soldiers, for the attack of Tobago, and several other settlements in the hands of the Netherlander in Guiana, as Moroco, Wacopou, Bowroome, and Dissekeeb, and having touched at Tobago, in less than six months had the good fortune to be in possession of those countries." Now by reference to the "Calendars of State Papers, Colonial" (Vol. V, pp. 481, 529, 534), it will be seen, both by Scott's testimony and by that of another, that he was commander of this expedition. 1 John Scott (see the Proceed- ings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. VI, pp. 66-74) has not the highest reputation. Lord Willoughby writes to Secretary Williamson ("Calendars," p. 540) that Scott has perchance told Williamson some truth, but not all gospel. Netscher, to whom the document is anonymous, declares that while Aert Adriaenszoon Groenewegel (Scott's "Captain Gromweagle") was commandant on the Essequibo from 1657 to 1666, he certainly did not command there for forty-eight years. He also says, with justice, that the paper is inaccurate in other parts ("Geschiedenis," pp. 42, 43, 358). Yet it seems difficult altogether to discredit it. The Zeeland expedition of 1615 is historical. ("British Blue Book," p. 53, No. 8.) The passage regarding Barbados receives independent 'By reference to Professor Burr's statements on p. 134, Vol. II, it will be seen that the manuscript is undoubtedly by Scott, the original bearing his name. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PEIOR TO 1648. 65 confirmation from a contemporary source, "The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith," Lon- don, 1630, in chapter 26 of which we read concerning Barbados: "The first planters brought thither by Captaine Henry Powel, were forty English, with seven or eight Negroes; then he went to Disacuba in the maine, where he got thirty Indians, men, women and children, of the Arawacos." 1 The indications given by Netscher and, in the last century, by the Zeelanders as to what is or was in the Dutch archives, coupled with the statements of Scott and Smith, are at any rate sufficient to show that by 1627 the Dutch had an estab- lishment, probably Kykoveral, on the Essequibo, though De Laet makes no mention of any in his editions of 1625, 1630, or 1633. The Zeeland memorial of 1750, already cited, sets forth (Kok, Vol. XIV, p. 405) that when, in 1632, the majority of the Nineteen of the West India Company wished to abandon the Essequibo colony, the Zeeland Chamber protested, resolved to continue it, and took the necessary measures. Reference is made to the records of their meetings of April 8, June 17 and 24, 1632, February 13 and June 29, 1634. In the latter year David Pieterszoon de Vries was, in the early days of November, at the mouth of the "Timmerarie" (Demerara). While he was lying there he was visited by Jan van der Groes, who came over in a canoe from the "Isekebie" (Essequibo), where he was chief commander for the West India Company, "die daer Opperhooft was van wegen de West-Indische Companie" (De ] But from certain documents (to which my attention has heen called by Professor Burr), published in Timehri for June, 1891, it appears, on Powell's own evidence, not only that these Indians were carried off without any aid from the Dutch, but that Powell knew nothing of the presence of the Dutch in the river. Scott, there- fore, is here clearly wrong. VOL 1 5 Digitized by Microsoft® 66 JAMESON. Vries, "Korte Historiael," 1655, p. 135). This Jan van der Goes has been mentioned above, and is named by Netseher as commander on the Essequibo at this time. The Zeeland memorial of 1750 says that his actions and his plans for the development of trade and the discovery of silver mines may be seen by examining the records of the Zeeland Chamber for April 20, May 21, 1637, February 21, April 18, 1639, April 12, June 23, and October 18, 1640, but does not quote these passages. As to the existence of the colony on the Essequibo from 1640 to 1648, the printed sources which I have examined offer no more than a probability of its continuance. Nor, unless Scott be trusted, has any evidence presented itself which would show where on the Essequibo was situated the Dutch colony — save evidence a century later. Nor have I, if one document be set aside, seen any evidence that the Dutch before 1648 occupied any post or posts west of the Essequibo. The documents, of date 1613 and 1614, given in the "British Blue Book" (p. 52), show only that the Dutch were reported to have three or four settlements some- where between the Amazon or Wiapoco and the Orinoco. Hartsinck, indeed (p. 259), speaks of Nieuw Zeeland, Nieuw Middelburg and the Huis ter Hooge as situated on the Poma- roon, and as destroyed by the English in 1666. But he does not say that they were founded before 1648, and Scott, who conquered them in 1666, says distinctly that the colony "in the rivers Borowma, Wacopou, and Moroca" was settled by Zeelanders "from Tobago, anno 1650" (in Bronkhurst, p. 48). It is true that the name of New Zeeland appears earlier, according to the Zeeland Chamber, but it appears chiefly associated with the Essequibo, and as the name of a region or district rather than of a town, as is plain from a passage in Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOR TO 1648. 67 this same Zeeland memorial, which, also explains the origin of Nieuw Middelburg. (Kok, Vol. XIV, p. 409.) From what has been said, the memorialists declare, it will appear what pains the Zeelanders have expended on their fosterling, Nieuw Zeeland, and had it not been for the English war it would certainly have "become one of the most flourishing colonies in America, for one Cornells Goliath had, in the year 1658, made and brought over a new map of the district and formed a plan to build a town, Nieuw Middelburg, there; but New Zeeland could not obtain that fortune, but by the sword of the enemy" became desolated ("een der florissanste volkplan- tingen van Amerika geworden, hebbende ten Jaare 1658 eenen Cornells Groliath een nieuwe Kaart van die Landstreek gemaakt en overgebragt, en reeds en Plan geformeerd, om daar een Stad nieuw Middelburg te bouwen; dan Zelandia Nova heeft dit geluk niet mogen erlangen," etc.). At a later time Nieuw Zeeland was, I understand, the name of a town near the Pomeroon. As for "ter Hooge," the Zeeland petition of 1751, which Hartsinck quotes (p. 234), maybe right in say- ing that in 1621 there was a Fort der Hooge on the Essequibo, and Hartsinck himself may also be right in saying (p. 259) that in 1666 there was a Huis ter Hooge on the Pomerun. 1 In the "British Blue Book" (p. 56) a document is given, dated 1637, which gives information of the sacking and burn- ing of Santo Thome" by a Dutch force from "Amacuro, Esquibo, and Berbis." I can only remark that, in the absence of the Spanish text, its meaning is uncertain, because in that period the names Amacura and Moruga were sometimes con- founded. Thus in the French edition of De Laet ("Nouveau Monde," 1640) we read, on page 590, " Moruga (que les nos- tres nomment Ammegore)," and on page 602 "Amagore (que 1 These matters have been cleared up by Professor Burr's researches. See his report. Digitized by Microsoft® 68 JAMESON. ie me doute estre celle qui est nominee par Keymis Amacur)," i. e., in the one case "Moruga, which our people call Amme- gore," and in the other "Amagore, which I suspect to be that which Keymis calls Amacur." Both localities are within the disputed territory. 1 V. THE QUESTION OF POINT BARIMA. Hartsinck says, but without giving a date, that the Dutch formerly (" eertyds ") had a post on this river (p. 257). The only evidence on the matter, with respect to the period before 1648, which I have anywhere found consists of the two following bits: Fray Pedro Simon ("Noticias Historiales," p. 664) says that in 1619, or soon after, Greronimo de GSrados went into the river Baruma, which is the first in those provinces where the Arwaccas inhabit (probably therefore the Bariina), and compelled the natives to yield submission and to give him provisions. This is unfavorable to the notion of a Dutch occupation or post, as far as it goes. 2 Father Pelleprat ("Relation des Missions," pt. 2, p. 112) says that the savages of the river Bariina told him that they had already built a fort, in which the French might be lodged as soon as they had arrived ("Des Sauvages de Balime * * * me dirent de plus, qu'ils avoient deja baty un fort, dans lequel les Francois se pourroient loger aussi-tost qu'ils seroient arrives"). This was some time between 1652 and 1655, and the same remark may be made with regard to it. 'The documents relating to the capture have now been printed at greater length, in translation, in the British Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 212-216; but the remark made above seems still to apply. ^Professor Burr presents good reasons for believing that not the Barima, but the Pomeroon, is here meant. See his report. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS PRIOE TO 1648. 69 It should be added that the maps which I have seen in no case indicate any towns or posts in this region prior to 1648 within the disputed boundaries. The results of the investigation may be briefly summed up as follows: I find no evidence of any Spanish occupation of the disputed territory in 1648, nor of any but temporary occu- pation of any portion of it before that time. I find no certain evidence of any Dutch occupation in 1648 northward or west- ward of the Essequibo and Kykoveral, unless one thinks it proper to rely on the translation of Document No. 12 (with inclosure) in the "British Blue Book," page 56. I find no evidence of occupation of Point Barima before 1648. Respectfully submitted. J. Franklin Jameson. June 11, 1896. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT AS TO THE MEANING OF ARTICLES Y AND YI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. GEORGE LINCOLN BURR. Digitized by Microsoft® 71 Digitized by Microsoft® KEPOKT AS TO THE MEANING OF ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. By George Lincoln Burr. I have been asked by the Commission to investigate and report as to the meaning- of that clause in the Treaty of Mini- ster between Spain and the Netherlands, signed January 30, 1648, which provides for the possession by the Spaniards and the Dutch, respectively, not only of "such lordships, cities, castles, fortresses, commerce, and countries in the East and West Indies, as also in Brazil and on the coasts of Asia, Africa, and America, respectively, as the said Lords, the King and the States respectivelv, hold and possess," but also " compre- hending therein particularly the places and forts which the Portuguese have taken from the Lords, the States, since the year 1641 ; as also the forts and the places which the said Lords, the States, shall chance to acquire and possess after this, without infraction of the present Treaty' 1 ' 1 ; and of the kindred clause, in the following article, which provides that "among the places held by the said Lords, the States, shall be comprehended the places in Brazil which the Portuguese took out of the hands of the States, and have been in possession of ever since the year 1641. As also all the other places which they possess at present, so long as they shall continue in the hands of the 73 Digitized by Microsoft® 74 BURR. said Portuguese, anything contained in the preceding Article notwithstanding." 1 The question to which my attention is especially asked, whether these clauses gave the Dutch liberty to make fresh acquisitions in territory claimed by the Spaniards, but held by aborigines; or whether they applied only to lands held by the Portuguese. In order to a conclusion, I have addressed my study to the following points : 1. What was meant by the words translated "forts and places"? The treaty was drawn in French and in Dutch, the two ver- sions being of equal authority. 2 The Dutch expected a con- troversy on this point, and instructed their envoys to meet a claim for the use of Spanish with an answering claim for the use of Dutch, but were prepared to concede the use of Spanish and French to the one side and of Dutch and French to the other, or to compromise by the use of Latin altogether. The Spaniards seem, however, to have made no difficulty on this point, but to have granted more than was asked (a course characteristic of the general policy of Spain in these negotia- tions); for it was agreed at Minister, May 5, 1646, "that all 'This translation into English, which is that printed in the British Blue-Book ("Venezuela No. 1," pp. 6, 7), is open, as will appear in the course of this report, to serious objections. It is borrowed, doubtless, from the standard old Collection of all the Treaties . . . Between Great Britain and other Powers published at London in 1785 by Debrett. At least the translation there given (i, pp. 14, 15) is the same, save for a slight correction or two. The palpable error "upon" for "and on" (following " Brazil"), common to both, is corrected in the above transcript. There is also here omitted from their enumeration of "lordships, cities, castles, towns, fortresses, coun- tries, and commerce," the word "towns," which has nothing answering to it in the original; and "commerce" is restored to its proper place, before "countries." *Aitsema, Saken van Staet en Oorlogh ('s Gravenhage, 1671), vi, 2 ( Verhael van de Neder- landsche Vrede-Handeling), p. 232. Cf. also Leclerc, N4gociations secretes touehant la Paix de Munster (La Haye, 1726), iv, p. 71. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OP THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 75 the writings which have to be made for the above-named present treaty shall be written in the French and In the Flemish [i. e., Dutch] language, and that the writing in these said two languages, yet only after being very exactly collated the one with the other, shall be held equally authentic. But in the conferences and speeches which have to be made orally, respec- tively, there may be used indiscriminately the French, the Flemish [i. e., Dutch], or the Latin language, according as one or another may for the greater convenience be able to make himself the better understood." The clause in question is a part of Article V, and reads, in the French text: 1 * * * compris aussi les lieux et places qu'iceuoc Seigneurs Ustats ei apres sans infraction du present Traitte viendront a conquerir et pos- seder. * * * And in the Dutch text : 2 * * * of de plaetsen die sy hier naemaels sonder infractle van't jegemcoordigh Tractaet sullen komen te verkrygen en te besitten. * * * The words u lieu%" and " places" " plaetsen" are the most general and indefinite terms known to these languages for the expression of locality, and correspond wholly to the cognate English word "places." The French "place" might in certain contexts mean a "place forte"- a fortress; but its translation by 'I transcribe carefully from the official text, printed by order of the States-General and by the official printers at The Hague in 1648. As given by Dumont (Corps universel diplomatique, Amsterdam, 1728, vol. vi, pt. 1, p. 430) and by others — mostly following him — the orthography varies slightly. The text here cited is in the library of the Department of State. Since writing these pages I have been able to examine, in the Dutch archives, the sumptuous official original of this treaty, both in its French and in its Dutch text, and can certify that the cardinal phrases here discussed stand in the manuscript precisely as in the printed editions. To be perfectly exact, the French text has over the preposition "a" an acute accent instead of a grave, and puts a comma after "conquerir;" but this is mere archaic usage. 'As printed in the official issue at The Hague, 1648; see note above. Aitzema's text (iii, p. 260; vi, 2, p. 387) varies slightly from this in spelling. Digitized by Microsoft® 76 BURR the Dutch "plaetsen" makes that here out of the question. The English translation should therefore run, not "forts and places," but "places" alone. A study of the use of these words in the negotiations lead- ing to the Treaty of Minister shows them commonly employed to denote towns rather than stretches of country; but this may be explained by the circumstances of each case, and further study has convinced me that no inference as to the character of the localities in thought can safely be based upon them. 2. What was meant by the words translated " acquire and possess" f As already seen, the words answering to these in the official languages of the Treaty are the French u conqueriretposseder," the Dutch "verkrygen en besitten" Of "posseder" and of "be- sitten" "possess" is a true and adequate translation; but the English "acquire" by no means answers to the French "con- querir." The Dutch word ' ' verkrijgen, " indeed, which originally and properly meant "to conquer," had already, as is evident from a study of contemporary documents, gained the broader meaning of "to acquire" in general, with which it is now cur- rently used. But, as the word is here used as an equivalent to the French H conquer ir" (rendered in the Spanish version by "conquistar"), it must, unless one is to suspect the Dutch of double dealing, have been meant in the more restricted sense. 1 "Conquer and possess" would therefore be a truer English translation; and the phrase would seem to imply rather a 1 Postscript. — I may add that later study and my discussions 'with Dutch scholars have removed my hesitation to suspect sharp practice in the use of verkrijgen as the equivalent of conquerir. It now seems to me most plausible to conjecture that when the Dutch envoys found themselves unable to make the Spaniards accept in the French text of the treaty the true equivalent of verkriji/en — acquerir — they compro- mised by consenting to the use of conque'rir in the French while retaining verkrijgen in the Dutch. Yet they must have known that, by a well-known principle of inter- pretation, the treaty could be binding only iu its more restricted sense. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 77 seizure from another State than an occupation of lands held only by aborigines. 3. What "places" were in the thought of the parties to the treaty? The only places suggested by the negotiations are those to be won back from the Portuguese in Brazil. Thus, in the Spanish dispatches 1 relating to the Treaty of Minister, there is, from beginning to end, no mention of any other American possession in this connection. 2 It is clearly on the Dutch hostility to the Portuguese, occasioned by the loss of Brazil, and on the Dutch wish for a free hand in order to win back that colony, that Spain especially grounds her hope of coming to terms with the Netherlands. 3 Nor are the Dutch preliminaries less rich in evidence that this design was uppermost in the Dutch thought. Thus one sees the fleet des- tined for the relief of Brazil held back by the States-General pending the negotiations, 4 "that they may not enter into war with new enemies (friends and allies of France) while they are seeking to conclude a peace with the old enemy," but instructed to sail immediately on the completion of the treaty. And the French dispatches emphasize yet more this influence of the affairs of Brazil. At the very outset of the negotiations between Spain and the Dutch at Miinster, Mazarin wrote to the French envoys: 5 I have no occasion to say to you anything this time as to the ambas- sadors of the Netherlands and the negotiations which the Spaniards have began with them, except that doubtless, among the motives which 'Printed in the great national Coleccion de dooumentos inidltos para la hUtoria de Espana, vols. 82-84. 2 Cf. c. g., vol. 82, pp. 281, 328, 381, 495; vol. 83, pp. 548, 573, 574. 3 Cf. Aitzema, vi, 2, passim. ■•Leclerc, Negotiations secretes, lv, pp. 402, 405. 6 March 3, 1646. The letter is printed by Leclerc (Negotiations, iii, pp. 102,103). Digitized by Microsoft® 78 BURR. they will use to try to win them, they will take advantage of the divi- sion existing between Portugal and Holland in the West Indies, offering the Dutch their aid against enemies more recent, and therefore more hated. And this fear seemed to them confirmed by the event. The French even learned, in September, 1646, from their represent- atives in Holland, that the Spaniards were trying to hurry the Dutch into the treaty by alleging the existence of a league between France, Sweden, and Portugal at their cost. It will be asked why, then, this clause should have been made general, instead of limiting the places to be "conquered and possessed" to the possessions of Portugal. The answer lies near that the Dutch had reason to fear that, in case of emer- gency, the Portuguese would hand over their Brazilian posses- sions to one of their allies, most probably to France ; and that it was matter of life and death for the Dutch West India Company to win them back, whoever might hold them. It is highly suggestive of this that, as appears from the Spanish papers, the Dutch were unwilling, 1 even in the direst extremity, to send to Brazil any of the French troops in their service. And it is especially to be noted that when, at the completion of the treaty, 2 the Dutch States-General formally provided for its transmission to all their leading representatives abroad — "to the East and the "West India Companies, also to the Gov- ernor-General in the East Indies, also to the President and Councilors and to the Lieutenant-General of the Forces in Brazil, also to Admiral De Witt, also to the Commander on the Coast of Guinea, also to the Directors in Loanda de St. Paulo and St. Thome, also to the Director in New Nether- land" — there is no mention of Guiana or of any of its settle- ments. 1 See letter of Philippe Le Roy to the Archduke, September L>, 1647, in the Golec- cion, vol. 83, p. 459. 2 Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 383. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 79 On all these points the source and original intent of the articles in question has clearly an important bearing. So far as it can be traced in the printed documents left to us from the negotiations, their story is as follows. Early in 1645 (January 27), when it had not yet been fully determined to enter into negotiations with Spain, and long before the envoys were actually sent to Miinster, both the East and the West India Companies submitted to the States-Greneral certain "considerations." Those of the "West India Company were seven in number, and provided: (1) That, "in case of the combination of the two Companies [which then seemed imminent], it would be more profitable for the combined Companies to continue the war, both in the East and the West Indies, the coast of Africa, Brazil, the South Sea, and other quarters south of the Tropic of Cancer or beyond the Equator than to make any peace or truce with the King of Spain." (2) That, in case the Companies are not combined, the peace or truce with Spain, if accepted also by the East India Company, might be of use. (3) That, in case of a general peace or truce, the Company should be guaranteed its faithful observance by Spain. (4) That, in such peace or truce there should be included all powers, nations, and peoples with which the West India Company, within the limits of its grant, are in friendship and alliance. (5) That the Company shall be allowed to push its trade in all places, within the aforesaid limits of its grant, where the King of Spain has no castles, jurisdiction, or territory (cas- teelen, jurisdictie, noch gebiei) ; and that with such merchandise, wares, slaves, and else as they shall see fit. (6) That the subjects of Spain shall in no wise be permitted to travel or trade in any ports or places where the West Digitized by Microsoft® 80 BUKR. India Company has any castles, forts, and territory, or lodges, 1 unless like trade privileges shall be granted to the aforesaid Company in all quarters and places belonging under the said King of Spain. (7) That each party shall continue to possess and enjoy such cities, castles, fortresses, trading places, and lands as shall at the conclusion of the treaty belong [competeren] to each. The plenipotentiaries of Spain were eventually given gen- eral powers to make such terms as they might find wise ; but from the first 1 the Estates of Zeeland stoutly opposed the sending of Dutch envoys to Miinster until the preliminary points to be submitted to Spain should have been definitely established; and this became the policy of the States-General. On October 28, 1645, there was adopted by them a very elaborate body of instructions, numbering no less than 116 articles. Of these the eleventh prescribed that the subjects of Spain and Holland, respectively, should have the right of free travel and traffic in all the European possessions of each, and in such extra-European possessions as are open to their other allies; and that, "as regards the places, cities, ports, and har- bors which they hold outside the aforesaid limits, the afore- said States [of the Netherlands] and their subjects shall not carry on any traffic without the express permission of the said King [of Spain]. But they [the Dutch] shall be per- mitted, if they choose, to carry on traffic in the lands of all other princes, potentates, and peoples who shall allow them to do so (even outside the aforesaid limits); and neither the aforesaid King, nor his officers and subjects, shall on this 'This word " logien" already needed definition, and is explained in the discussions of the Estates of Holland to mean warehouses. [" Jiat is Packhuysen, daer uyt de Koopmanschappen ende Waren worden verJcochV] 2 Aitzema, vi, 2, pp. 187, 198, 199. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OP THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 81 account do any harm to the princes, potentates, anil peoples who allow or shall allow the same, nor likewise to themselves [the Dutch] nor to the indviduals with whom thev carry on or shall carry on the aforesaid traffic." There had followed this two articles 1 relating' to the trade of the Indies. These had, however, been canceled on October 14. Yet they are printed with the rest and prescribe: (1) That the Spaniards shall retain their trade (vaert) in the East Indies as it exists at present, but shall not be allowed to extend it further, and shall also keep out of the Portuguese possessions in the Indies, having no right to trade there; and likewise the inhabitants of these lands [the Netherlands] shall have no communication with the Spanish or Portuguese East Indies. (2) That the monopoly of the two India companies shall be guaranteed, and that "there shall be included in the treaty all the potentates, nations, and peoples with whom the States- Greneral or the West India Company, within the limits of their grant, are in friendship and alliance; and this Company may push its trade and traffic in all places within the limits of its grant where the King of Spain has no castles, jurisdiction, or territory, and that with such merchandise, wares, slaves, and else as they shall see fit, and the subjects of the said King of Castile shall in no wise be permitted to trade or travel in any ports or places where the West India Company has castles, forts, territory, or lodges, 2 unless the Castilians shall grant like trade privileges in all quarters and places belonging under the King of Castile. . . . And each shall continue to pos- sess and enjoy such cities, castles, fortresses, trade, and lands in " the West Indies and Brazil as, at the conclusion of the treatv to be made, shall belong to each. 'Aitzema, vi, 2, pp. 205, 206. ' 2 Warehouses. VOL 1 6 Digitized by Microsoft® 82 BURR. At the end of these canceled articles are inserted the follow- ing substitutes: XII. This foregoing article was found to be faulty. . . . XIII. The navigation and traffic of the Indies, respectively, shall be maintained. And there was prefaced the somewhat incoherent explana- tion that " when and how the plenipotentiaries shall later be instructed on this point shall in due time follow." Armed with these instructions, 1 the Dutch deputies reached Miinster in January, 1646. The Spaniards suggested 2 as a basis for negotiation the terms of the twelve years' truce between Holland and Spain in 1609. But the Dutch insisted on their instructions, and on May 17 submitted to the Spanish envoys a preliminary draft, in 71 articles, of the proposed treaty. It was ultimately adopted almost word for word. There is in it, however, no mention of the Indies, the pro- visional Article V running as follows: Y. Be it understood that the foregoing shall be without prejudice, and it is expressly reserved, hereafter to submit certain articles touch- ing the navigation and traffic of the East and "West Indies, which it is agreed to uphold and maintain. But these articles were so long delayed 3 by the home gov- ernment that the Dutch plenipotentiaries grew impatient 4 and "meanwhile wrote repeatedly and asked for the two articles touching the commerce in the East and West Indies which in October last were stricken out of the instructions." 'Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 216. ^Dispatch of Penaranda, in the Colecdon, vol. 82, p. 310. Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 234. 3 Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 245; cf. p. 246, at end, and the formal request on p. 249. ■■The impatience of the Spaniards is clear from the letters of Peiiarauda (cf. especi- ally Colecdon, vol. 82, pp. 339, 342, 345). Already on May 31 he -writes: "We have agreed with the Dutch on every point except that relating to the Prince of Orange ' and that of the navigation of the Indies." Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 265. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTEB. 83 At last, on November 20, 1646, the States-General referred to a committee consisting- of Messrs. Boreel, Cats, Stavenesse, and the secretary, Musch, these canceled articles, with power "to frame and revise them in such fashion that they may find place in the aforesaid instructions, and also among- the seventy articles" (of the treaty). On the following day this committee reported back 1 these articles "so revised and framed that they may now fitly find place among the adjusted seventv articles according to the wish of their High-Mightinesses" (the States) "excepting only the alternative named by the aforesaid can- celed articles, which alternative might be given the pleni- potentiaries by separate resolution, to be used according to circumstances in the cases therein described." The States accordingly took the matter into consideration, and, discharg- ing their committee, resolved to add the following alternative: Tet, in case of the rejection of the above stipulations, shall both the subjects of the above-named King [of Spain] and the inhabitants of this state [the Dutch] restrain themselves from travel and traffic in the ports and places occupied [beset] by the one or the other of the parties with forts, lodges, or castles; and, in case there are set before the ambassadors of the States considerations contrary to those above expressed, they shall give notice thereof to their High-Mightinesses [the States], who can then communicate with the authorities of the one or the other Company, or of both, regarding the matter. The deputies of Zeeland, 2 however, urged that, " in case it can not be gained from the Spaniards that there shall be recip- rocal traffic and communication each in the other's lands, in that case it shall be stipulated not only that the Spaniards shall keep out of all the places occupied, by and in the name of this state, in the West Indies and Brazil, together with those which have been taken from the West India Company by the Portuguese, and shall not come into these with military force 1 Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 266. - Aitzema, vi. 2, p. 267. Digitized by Microsoft® 84 BURR. or to cany on trade ana business; bat shall also keep out of such places as are there possessed by the Portuguese." This proposition 1 was, after discussion, reserved for further consideration and to be submitted for advice to the next meeting of the provincial Estates of Holland (i. e., the province of that name). The articles 2 regarding the West Indies were presented at Minister, December 13, 1646, and met with violent opposition from the Spanish plenipotentiaries, such as had befallen no other of the Dutch demands. They declared that these arti- cles 3 were novelties wholly unknown to the negotiations thus far, and that their provisions, " especially that they of the West India Company and others should have free access and traffic everywhere in the West Indies," were contrary to the funda- mental maxims of Spain; that such terms had not only never been granted to Great Britain or Denmark or any foreign power, but not even to the subjects of the King of Spain himself, in Aragon, Portugal, or the Spanish Netherlands; that such terms could not and would not be granted ; and, if they were insisted on, the negotiations must stop. And, in several suc- cessive conferences 4 (December 15, 16, 17, 18, 19), the Dutch envoys "were met, on the points touching the East and West India Companies, with very many difficulties, so that they almost despaired of carrying the affair through, since the Spaniards showed themselves so sensitive in this matter that they debated or balanced almost every word." Long before, in fact, the Spaniards had received explicit •Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 267. 2 Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 270. Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, pp. 467, 468. 3 Peiiaranda had been assured by the Dutch envoy, Knuyt, that the demands of the Dutch on this point would not he inordinate. See his letter to Castel-Rodrigo of May 28, 1646 (Coleccion, vol. 82, p. 339). 4 Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 270. Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, p. 463. Aitzema makes the discussions close on the 18th. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 85 instructions on this point from their home government; for on July 8, 1646, Penaranda had written the King of Spain, 1 in the very letter inclosing the preliminaries already agreed on: In the [matter] of the commerce of tlie Indies we have the instruc- tion by which we are to govern ourselves, and Your Majesty shall be at once informed of what is ratified, without its being subject to any new revision of ours. [. . . "en el [arliculo] del comercio de las Indias tenemos la instruction eon que nos habemos de gobernar, ya 2 Vuestra Majestad estard informado de lo que ratified,, sin que esto quede sujedo a nuevo arbitrio nuestro."} Yet Article V, 3 which had been submitted by the Dutch envovs in precisely the form in which they had received it from the States-General, was finally adopted with but one or two very slight modifications. In their reply of December 15 (as printed by Leclerc, hi, pp. 467, 470) the Spanish ambassa- dors had argued only: As to the 5th 4 [article], that the Dutch may recover all that the Port- uguese have taken from them in Brazil, the right remaining to His Majesty [the King of Spain] over all he had there when the revolt of Portugal began. But the Dutch answered, 5 in their repty drawn up on the 16th and 17th: Article Y. Nothing can be changed in the conteuts of the article; so it must stay as we have put it. (" On ne peut rien changer au con- tenu de V Article, ains doit demeurer comme nous Vavons mis.") l Coleecion, vol. 82, p. 381. This passage is also quoted (verbatim, save for the change to indirect discourse) in the Consulta of the Spanish Council of State, held at Saragossa, August 12, 1646. (Coleccion, vol. 82, pp. 401, 402.) 5 As quoted by the Council of State, this becomes "y ". r Cf. the Dutch text of the instructions of the States-General (given by Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 264), with the French text of the articles submitted at Munster on Decem- ber 13, 1646 (given by Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, p. 468), and both with the finished treaty. "Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, p. 469. f Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, p. 470. Digitized by Microsoft® 86 BURR. And, finally, at the close of their five days' conference, on the 19th, the minute as to this article is: Article 5. Agreed, excepting that the Spaniards reject the clause "without being at liberty to go further" ("sans se pouvoir etendre plus avanP'). This last point was, however, later conceded by the Span- iards, and the phrase remained part of the treaty. But their first objection seems to have been at least partially met by inserting in the clause, "which the Portuguese have taken from the Lords, the States," the restricting phrase, "since the year 1641." Less simple is the question as to the (to us) all-important clause regarding "the forts and places which the said Lords, the States, shall chance to acquire and possess after this." This passage first appears in the revised instructions given the envoys by the States-General in November, 1646, and in its original Dutch reads precisely as in the text of the completed treaty. But in the French text of this article, as submitted to the French envoys in December, and as printed by Leclerc (in his Negotiations secretes, iii, p. 468 — probably from a draft in the French archives), one reads, not the word "couqaerir," as in the published treaty, but "acquerir." Yet it could hardly have been this reading which was in the hands of the French envoys at Mtinster, when, in the same dispatch to Mazarin 1 wherein they report that the Dutch plenipotentiaries "tell us that, as regards the three points of the treaty not yet agreed on, the Spaniards have granted them that of the Indies just as they have asked it" (en la sorte quHls Pavoient demande), they make this most significant comment : 2 Another thing which gives us food for thought is the yielding of the Spaniards iu the matter of the Indies, which is beyond doubt one of 'Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, p. 391. 2 Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, p. 393. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 87 the most important articles of the whole treaty, in which the Dutch find an advantage which they had not hoped, and which has not been granted them without some extraordinary motive. The King of Spain consents to be no longer at liberty to extend his boundaries iu the East Indies, and to limit them to what he occupies at present; and the con- quests which may be made by the United Provinces shall remain theirs, whether over the natives of the country or over the Portuguese, what- ever may be the event of the war of the said King of Spain against the King of Portugal. This would seem a conspiracy clearly made between them to despoil this latter [the King of Portugal], in order that, while the Castilians drive him from the continent [i. e., of Europe], he may lose also what he holds in the Indies by means of the Dutch, who as merchants, with whom interest is all-powerful, could not be more nattered by the Spaniards than by leaving them the opportunity and the hope of making so great a profit. And, as the ministers of Spain have shown in this much servility and submissiveness, there is room to fear that the price of this abandonment is not alone the ruin of Portu- gal, but that there has been besides a secret promise to come to terms without France, it being certain that three days earlier Peiiaranda had declared that they would sooner risk everything than yield this point. Yet it should be added that these same French envoys had, six months earlier (14 June, 1646), written home 1 that "The gentlemen whom we sent to M. de la Thuillerie [French min- ister at The Hague] is back, and tells us it is the opinion of the said Sieur de la Thuillerie that the affair of the Indies may hinder a long time. But that is not the belief of our friends here, who think that the Spaniards will pass over this point blindly, as over the others, and especially so, as since the change of Portugal they have had no more interest in the Indies." However, on August 31 they had learned from Mazarin, a propos of the arrival at Paris of a Spanish courier sent to the envoys at Minister: It is not known whether this courier may not bear orders to the plenipotentiaries of Spain to go further and grant the States the point of the commerce of the Indies; but we have beeu assured from divers Leclerc, Xer/ociations, iii, p. 216; cf. also p. 222. Digitized by Microsoft® 88 BURR. quarters that up to the present Castel-Eodrigo and Peflaranda have had precise orders not to yield on that point, and to do nothing about it beyond what was granted in the last truce [that of 1609] ; to which we are assured the said States will in no wise consent. As to Article VI, 1 it was first submitted in the first of the alternative forms suggested by the States-General — that grant- ing the Dutch freedom of traffic in the Spanish colonies ; and, when the Spaniards would not hear to this, then in the second of the alternative forms. But if one may trust Leclerc's draft, there was here, too, appended to the phrase "including the places which the Portuguese have - taken from the States and occupied" the words "and those which the said States, without infraction of the present [treaty] shall hereafter come to acquire and possess" [" viendront a acquerir et posseder"~\. But, as finally agreed on, 2 December 19, 1646, it lacks this phrase and is identical in form with the article of the completed treaty. When, however, on January 8, 1647, 3 these articles, as adopted at Miinster, were submitted to the Dutch States- General, and by them to the several provinces, 4 there came a storm of suggestions and objections. Of these, the only ones throwing light on the points now under consideration are cer- tain emanating from the Estates of Zeeland. 5 This body urged that Article VI ought to be amplified, even beyond the original instructions, so as to provide "that the Spaniards gen- erally must keep out of all the places which the Portuguese possess within the limits [of the grant] of the West India Company" On the other hand, the words "as also all the other places" "can not and must not be permitted, lest therefrom it should 1 Leclerc, Negotiations, iii, pp. 468-471. » Aitzema, vi, 2, pp. 272, 273 ; cf. Leclero, iii, p. 471. 3 Aitzema, vi, 2, pp. 272, 273. 4 Aitzema, -vi, 2, pp. 297-309. 6 Aitzema, vi, 2, p. 306. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 89 come to follow that the King of Spain possesses in the Indies places where he has no castles, forts, or lodges, and thereby should be corroborated the claim of the aforesaid King that he having, by virtue of gift from the Pope, title to the West Indies, and not allowing that anybody without his permission should therein travel and trade, is in possession and control of the whole thereof." That is to say, the Dutch must not tolerate so much as an implication that Spain can give away lands held only by the natives. The Zeelanders objected, too, to the limiting phrases "since the year 1641," "so long as they shall continue in the hands of the Portuguese," and "anything contained in the preceding article notwithstanding." This last phrase, they understand, is insisted on by the Spaniards in order to prevent the East and the West India Companies from pleading the liberties given them by their charter, under Article V of the treaty; but these charter rights might better be expressly limited, and such a limiting clause is submitted. But even more suggestive, perhaps, is the form of a new Article VI presented by the Estates of Zeeland to the States- General for substitution in the treaty. 1 In it the clauses now in point run as follows: . . . "that the subjects of the said King [of Spain] shall not traffic nor anywise travel in the ports and places which the said States have and possess within the district of the West India Company, therein being spe- cially included the places by the Portuguese from this state taken and occupied, together with those which the aforesaid States shall hereafter, without infraction of the present treaty, come to acquire [verkrygen] and possess, and further, in gen- eral, all other places which the Crown of Portugal or any 1 Aitzema, vi, 2. p. 307. Digitized by Microsoft® 90 BURR. Portuguese, within the aforesaid district of the West India Company, now holds and possesses." As everything points to the Estates of Zeeland or to their deputies in the States-General as the most zealous promoters of the provisions of the treaty touching the West Indies, this clear intimation that the Portuguese possessions alone were in their thought in framing the questioned clauses should be of use in the interpretation of the treaty. But, on discussion of all these suggestions by the States- General, 1 in the session of May 18, 1647, it seems to have been felt best to abide by what had already been gained ; and the articles were eventually ratified without further change. By this historical survey it has been made clear, I think, that the questioned clause came originally from the West India Company itself or from its sponsors; that, after sharp scrutiny, it was accepted by the Spanish envoys precisely as it was submitted, save for a possible (but, if actual, most sig- nificant) change of "acquerir" to "ccmquerir;" that, in the minds of its authors, it had reference only to possessions of the Portuguese; but that, already in the minds of the French diplomats, and possibly in the intent of the Dutch plenipoten- tiaries, it was susceptible of ambiguous interpretation. The points of most interest in this history will doubtless be found the comments of the French envoys on the one hand and the suggestions of the Zeeland Estates on the other. 2 'Aitzema, vi, 2, pp. 317-319. 2 Postscript. — Since submitting this report I have had opportunity, in the Dutch archives at The Hague, to examine the original manuscript records of the Miinster negotiations. But neither in the six thick volumes containing the proces-verbal of the Dutch envoys nor in the four containing the action of the States-General rela- tive to the treaty did my somewhat hurried search reveal anything of importance to the West India question which was not long ago printed by Aitzema or by Le- clerc. For the correctness of these scholars as to the data of chief interest to us L can, however, now vouch. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OP THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 91 4. What was the policy of the Butch as to recognizing a right of any other power to lands still occupied only by natives? What was the feeling of the Estates of Zeeland has been shown above. But it was notoriously the general attitude of the Dutch — especially after their great publicist, Hugo Grotius, early in the seventeenth century, had in his Mare liberum impugned the basis of Spanish and Portuguese claims. More even than did other Europeans, they sought their title from the natives themselves. Their relations with the aborigines of the Guiana coast seem from the first to have been those of friend- ship and affiance ; and, though no specific treaties have been adduced, still less is there anywhere implication, in the acces- sible Dutch sources, of a claim derived from Spain. Of the relations of the Dutch with the Indians the Spaniards were constantly complaining, and specific illustration is perhaps unnecessary. 5. Was this provision of the treaty ever appealed to by the Dutch in support of aggressions on territory claimed by the Spaniards f Throughout the century and a half of their neighborhood in South America — a period filled with reciprocal aggressions and complaints — I have as yet found no instance of appeal to this clause of the treaty by the Dutch. For the present pur- pose it may be enough to point out that no such instance is cited by the British Blue Books. * 'Postscript. — Having, since the submission of this report, made search, in the Dutch archives, through the whole of the diplomatic correspondence between the Nether- lands and Spain during this period, and also through the papers of the States-Gen- eral and of the West India Company, I am able to affirm this position with much greater positiveness. To other clauses of the treaty I find the Dutch appealing; to this never. The Spaniards, however, once appealed to it, and the case is an inter- esting one. It was in 1688. The Spanish ambassador laid before the .-tates-Gencral Digitized by Microsoft® 92 BURR. Yet it may, of course, be replied that, while the Dutch might be unwilling, by urging such a claim, to admit Spanish rights over unsettled territory, Spain might still be estopped by the clause from resenting their encroachments. 6. How have later historians and diplomatists interpreted this clause ? In the multitude of authorities I have consulted I have found as yet no other interpretation than that it refers to Portuguese possessions. Most, indeed, dismiss the article with a mere passing mention; and their evidence can be counted, therefore, at best, but negative. Two, however, offer something more. Jacques Basnage, theologian and historian, was one of the foremost trained diplomatists of Holland in the early eighteenth century. His share was large in the negotiation of the Treaty of Utrecht, which reaffirmed the provisions of the Treaty of (January 16, 1688) a complaint regarding an alleged project of certain Dutchmen at Amsterdam and elsewhere to establish in America, ' ' in the neighborhood of the great river of Darien," a "free port in the form of a new commonwealth." This region, claimed the ambassador, belonged notoriously to the KiDg his master, and was in his possession; wherefore "this would be in direct violation of Article V of the Treaty of Peace" of 1648, " which treaty, "he adds, "is observed religiously by both parties." Thereupon, after six months' inquiry and deliberation, the States-General replied (July 27, 1688) that the projectors in question had in view nothiDg which was contrary to the treaty, and would take no action at all without the permission of the States- General; moreover, that before granting this permission the States- General would find out whether the enterprise were in any way in conflict with Article V or any other article of the Treaty of Miinster, and in that case would wholly forbid it. And nothing more is heard of the project. (See, for the docu- ments in this episode, vol. ii of the report of the Commission, pp. 183-187.) Had the Dutch been disposed to invoke the Treaty of Miinster against Spanish aggressions, they surely could have had no more tempting occasion than was given by the assaults on the Essequibo posts during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Yet I find neither in the protests of the West India Company aud of the States- General nor in the diplomatic correspondence with Spain any allusion to that treaty. Once, indeed (September 2, 1754), the governor of the Essequibo colony asked the Company if the boundary between Holland and Spain in Guiana were not regulated by the Treaty of Miinster; but they were obliged to reply (January 6, 1755) that neither in that treaty nor in any other could they find anything about it. Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OP THE TREATY OP MUNSTER. 93 Minister. Just at the close of his life he published at The Hague his huge Annals of the United Provinces, and in it he subjects the Treaty of Minister to careful analysis. 1 "By the third article," he says, "each was to preserve its property." And then, a little after, speaking of the fifth, "The same thing was to hold in the Indies, both East and West. And included therein were the towns which the States-General had taken in Brazil from the Portuguese since 1641; or which they should take in future" [La meme chose devoit s 1 observer aux Indes tant Orientates qu 7 Occidentales. ~Et on y comprenoit les Villes que les J&tats- Generaux avoient ocupes [sic] au Bresil sur les Portugais depuis Van 1641 ; on qu'ils ocuperoient [sic] a Vavenir]. The error as to the con- dition of things in Brazil is palpable ; but the interpretation of the treaty is none the less clear. And the Comte de Garden, perhaps the best known of the general historians of diplomacy, in his General History of Treaties of Peace, writes : 2 By this Article [V] Spain abandoned to the Dutch all the conquests which they had made over the Portuguese in the different parts of the world while Portugal was a province of the Spanish monarchy. This sacrifice was not great on the part of the Spaniards ; since 1640 they had vainly been striving to subject Portugal, and they could conse- quently flatter themselves little with the hope of recovering these dis- tant possessions. So they made no difficulty about ceding also to the Dutch, by this same Article V, their rights to all the forts and places which the Portuguese had taken from them, since 1641, in Brazil, and likewise also to the forts and places which the Dutch could conquer thereafter without infringing the present treaty — that is to say, which they could conquer from the Portuguese in the Indies and in America" [* * * u de meme que sur les lieux et places que les Hollandais pour- raient conquerir dans la suite, sans infraction au present traite, c'est- a-dire qu'ils pourraient conquerir sur les Portugais, aux Indes et en Amerique "]. 'Basnage, Annates des Provinces-Unies (La Haye, 1726), vol. i, p. 102. 2 Garden, Histoire ginfrale des Traites de Pais, vol, i, pp. 168, 169. Digitized by Microsoft® 94 BURR. Postscript. — I am happy to be able to add what amounts to an official Spanish exposition of this article of the treaty of Minister. When, toward the close of the eighteenth century, Spain grew impatient of the fetters put upon her trade in the East Indies by the clause of this article forbidding her "to go further," and when her efforts on behalf of her Philippine Company were met by protest from the Netherlands, she tried to stir Dutch generosity by pointing out in detail the greatness of her own concessions in this treaty. rims argue the Spanish diplomatists in their memorial transmitted to the Dutch States-General on December 4, 178li: "The condition of affairs in the two Indies, and especially in the Bast, when the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia were begun, was as follows: The Dutch wished by that Treaty to retain not only all the conquests they had made in the Indies, but eveu, with the help of Spain, to obtain and secure a right to the reconquest of what had been conquered from them under the new Portuguese Government. In point of fact Spain alone, by reason of her rights to the Crown of Portugal, could have a right to the conquests belonging to that Orowu in the East and West Indies; and hence it was Spain which could concede these to the States-General of the United Provinces. Inspired by that aim, the Dutch plenipotentiary sought, in the negotiations which preceded the Treaty of Westphalia, or Minister, to win over the Spanish plenipoten- tiaries to the expediting of the Peace, cajoling them with the plea that the Portuguese, if attacked in the Indies by the subjects of the United Netherlands, would be the less able to defend themselves in the Spanish peninsula, and thereby the conquest of Portugal would be the easier for Spain. "Prance, which on the one hand had supported the revolt and inde- pendence of the Netherlander, and on the other hand had aided and abetted that of the Portuguese, was startled by the negotiations carried on between the Dutch and Spanish envoys. Prance and Holland had agreed not to make peace the one without the other; but the French plenipotentiary, the Comte d'Avaux, found out that the Dutch deputies had almost completed their Treaty, and they confessed to him that the three points which had remained imsettled were nearly arranged. The first of these points was that Spain should restrict her limits in Digitized by Microsoft® ARTICLES V AND VI OF THE TREATY OF MUNSTER. 95 the Hast Indies to those which she then possessed, conceding or leaving to the Dutch the conquests in all the remainder; and out of this arose the alienation of the French plenipotentiary." The Spanish memorial then quotes in full the significant passage from the letter to Mazarin, 1 and resumes its argument thus : " From this passage it is very clearly to be seen that the sole object and thought of Holland in the Congress ot Miinster, as regards the East Indies, was to obtain from Spain an agreement not to extend her limits there; to restrict herself to what she then occupied and to lea re to the Dutch the conquests which they might be able to win from the Portuguese, without thought of forbidding the Spaniards to carry on their trade by whatever route might suit them. This same object is that which appears with the utmost clearness in Article V of the Treaty of Miinster. . . . " The second point agreed on was that Spain and the States-General should remain in possession of what they respectively occupied at the time of the treaty in both the East and the West Indies, as also in Brazil and on the coasts of Asia, Africa, and America; this point fol- lows literally the provision in Articles III and IV of the truce of 1609 and in the instructions of the Spanish plenipotentiaries. The third point was that the States-General should preserve their possession and rights as to the forts and places which the Portuguese had taken from them since the year 1041, as also to the forts and places which the said States shall come to conquer there hereafter ['llegassen a conquistar de alii adelante'] without infraction of the present Treaty. This exorbitant concession made by Spain to Holland was that which the [Freuch] plenipotentiaries in the Congress of Miinster complained of, as we have quoted in the words of the historian of the Peace of Westphalia; but it is to be noted that, according to this same Article V, the naviga- tion, traffic, possession, and rights of conquest conceded to the States- General must be loithout infraction of the present Treaty, which is the same as to say that they must not conflict with the navigation, traffic, possession, and rights reserved likewise to Spain in both the Indies and on the coasts of Africa, Asia, and America. . . . Spain was to retain by this article all that she possessed on the coasts of Asia, Africa, and America, and all the rights which on these coasts have 'Printed on pp. 86, 87, above. Digitized by Microsoft® 96 BURR. pertained or do pertain to the Crown, except what was taken and occupied by the Portuguese from the States-General. . . . The Dutch pleuipotentiaries strenuously urged the permanent sanction, by a treaty framed for the navigation of the East and West Indies, of what Spain and Portugal had, up to the temporary concession in the Truce of 1609, refused and opposed, obtaining at Miinster the enor- mous concession that they should acquire as their own their new con- quests, receiving under certain circumstances those made by Spain." ["obteniendo en Munster la condecendencia exorbitante de que adquiri- essen privativamente las Nuevu.s Conquistas dexando las hechas a la Espana en tales cireunstanciasP] Grave are these concessions, and significant the quotation, without a word of protest, of that comment of the French envoys 1 which puts the widest interpretation upon this clause of the Treaty of Munster; but it is still clear that, even as a basis for an appeal to Dutch generosity, the Spaniards are not themselves disposed to accord it so broad a meaning. Answer from th*e Dutch side to this document there is none to be found in the records. 2 It seems fair, then, to conclude that: 1. It is improbable that, in the intent of its framers and its ratifiers, the Treaty of Munster conceded to the Dutch a right to win from the natives lands claimed by Spain. 2. It does not appear that it was ever interpreted in this sense by either Spain or the Dutch. George L. Burr. Washington, April, 1896. 'See page 87 above. -The Spanish original of this memorial, as transmitted by the Dutch ambassador at Madrid, may be found in the Dutch Rijksarchief at the Hague among the diplomatic correspondence of Fagel, Secretary of the States-General, in the volume marked "Spawje: Secrete Brieven, 1756-1796." A Dutch translation of the whole document, but without the Spanish original, may be found printed in the Secrete Eesolutien of the Estates of Holland, under January 19, 1787. The clauses italicized in the transla- tion above given are, of course, thus italicized in the manuscript. Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT AS TO THE TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. BY GEOEGE LINCOLN BURR. 97 vol, 1 7 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT AS TO THE TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. By George Lincoln Bdkr. In the course of the controversy over the Guiana boundary it has been alleged (1) that the charters of the Dutch West India Company named the river Orinoco as one of the limits of its grant, and (2) that within the limits of the grant these charters gave territorial jurisdiction. Thus the British Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1" states (p. 5): In 1621 the Charter of the Dutch West India Company -was granted by the States-General. . . . This Charter, reaffirmed in 1637, gave the Orinoco as the limit of the Company's territorial jurisdiction. And again (p. 7): After the Treaty of Miinster, fresh regulations were again issued by the States-General to the Dutch West India Company, in which the Orinoco is again treated as the limit of its jurisdiction. And yet again (p. 8) : Iu 1674 the Charter of the West India Company was renewed, and in the preamble the Colonies of Essequibo and Pomeroon were enumer- ated, the limit of the Company's jurisdiction being still fixed at the river Orinoco. 99 Digitized by Microsoft® 100 BURR. To determine the grounds for these statements, and to learn what more in the grants to the Company might be pertinent to this question, I have, at the request of the Commission, made a careful study of the charters of the Company and of all the legislation of the States-General in its behalf, so far as printed in the great official collection of the States-General's acts. 1 I. AS TO LIMITS. The Company received its first charter on June 3, 1621. This charter consists of forty-five articles. The only specifi- cation of limits is in Article I, whereby all outside the Company are prohibited from travel and trade ("fe varen, ofte negotieren, ofte eenigerhande traffijcq te drijven") "to the coasts and lands of Africa, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, or, furthermore, to the lands of America, beginning from the south end of Newfoundland through the straits of Magellan, Le Maire, or other straits and passages lying thereabout, to the Straits of An Jan [corresponding to our Bering Strait], 2 whether ] The Groot Placaat-BoeTc. This is the one source cited by the English Blue Book (save that, for the charter of 1674, it names only the " Xeilerl. Jaer-Boek" of 1750). The copy I have used of the Groot Placaat-Boek is that in the Astor Library, printed at The Hague, by the public printer, at intervals from 1658 to 1746, and breaking off with Volume VI at the year 1740. These volumes contain the legislation of the States- General from the beginning, together 'with many earlier documents (from 1097 on) bearing on the history of the Netherlands, and they include the most important acts of the provincial Estates of Holland and of Zeeland, as well as those of the States- General — though, alas, not the entire legislation of any of these bodies. The work is very fully indexed ; but I have not trusted the index alone. Since completing this paper I have studied at Albany (in the State Library) the remainder of this series to 1794, together with a full set of the printed minutes of the Estates of Holland; and at The Hague and in Middelburg have been able to consult the manuscript originals of these records. I have found, however, to sup- plement or modify the conclusions of this paper, nothing of importance. 'Strictly speaking, the Strait of An Jan is not laid down on the old maps at the same point as our Bering Strait; but that is only because the northern Pacific was unknown. As it was the strait supposed to divide America from Asia, it exactly coincides with Bering Strait as a limit. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 101 to the North Sea or to the South Sea, or to any of the islands on the one side or on the other or lying between the two ; or, moreover, to the Australian and southern lands, stretching and lying between the meridians of the Cape of Good Hope on the east, and on the west the east end of New Guinea, inclusive." 1 It will be seen that there is here no mention of the Orinoco, nor indeed of any other American limit between Newfound- land on the one coast and Bering Strait on the other. The charter was meant, that is, to include the entire coast of America. Six days later, on June 9, 1621, there was again issued, by itself, this edict of prohibition, 2 the specification of limits being couched in precisely the same terms as in the charter. On June 10, 1622, the salt trade within the Company's limits, which had not at first been included in their monopoly, 3 was added to it; but the limits are themselves not specified, save by reference to the earlier documents. The main objective point of this salt trade was beyond the Orinoco — at Punta de Araya, near Cumana. 4 On November 26, 1622, these prohi- bitions of June 9, 1621, and June 10, 1622, had to be renewed; but the territorial limits are not again specified. On February 13, 1623, the charter was slightly amplified; 5 but there was no change of limits, and therefore no mention 'Groot Placaat-Boelc, vol. i, eols. 565-578. Cf. Aitzema, Saken van Staet en Oorlogh, vol. i, pp. 62-66, where the charter is also printed in full; as also in Tjassens, Zee- Politie ('a Gravenhage, 1670), pp. 305-317. ''Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 577-580. There is in the Library of Congress an offi- cial contemporary impression of this Placaat ("in's Gravenhage, by Hillebrant Iacobssz." 1621). It is from this that I have transcribed the extract above. '■ Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 579-582. Id is printed also by Aitzema, i, pp. 66, 67, and in part by Tjassens, pp. 317, 318. H Groot Placaat-lioek, i, cols. 581-584. b Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 583-586. Also in Aitzema, i, p. 67, and in Tjassens, pp. 318, 319. Digitized by Microsoft® 1 02 BURR. of these. Nor were they mentioned in the prohibition of May 24, 1G24, 1 which forbade emigration or transport of emigrants save through the Company. And the form of government pro- mulgated on October 13, 1629, 2 for the territorial acquisitions of the Company is equally without definition of limits. In thinking the charter "reaffirmed in 1637" the English Blue Book is in error. Granted for twenty-four years, it did not expire till 1645. Even then it was not at once renewed, for its friends sought strenuously the consolidation of the West India Company with the East, whose charter had also just run out. 3 It was not until July 4, 1647, that the States-General promulgated the intelligence that on March 20 preceding they had prolonged for another quarter-century the charter of the West India Company. The limits were unchanged, and are not restated. When at the end of 1671 the charter again expired, 4 it was thrice renewed for periods of eight months at a time, pending discussion, and naturally without any mention of territorial limits. The fate of the old Company had long been sealed, and on September 20, 1674, the States-General created by charter an entirely new one. 5 Its territorial limits were vastly narrower; "To wit, that within the period of this current century, and thereafter to the year 1700,° inclusive, no native or subject of these lands shall, otherwise than in the name of this United Company, be at liberty to sail or trade to the coasts and lauds 1 Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 595-598. * Groot Placaat-Boek, ii, cols. 1235-1248. A Groot Placaat-Boek, i. Also in Aitzema, and in Tjassens, pp. 337, 338. ^December 24, 1671; August 27, 1672; March 30, 1673. See the Groot Placaat-Boek, iii, pp. 1329, 1330. 6 Groot Placaat-Boek, iii, pp. 1331-1343. The official contemporary impression of The Hague, 1674, is in the Library of Congress, and it is that which I here transcribe. 6 The worthy legislators evidently counted the year 1700 a part of the nest century. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OP DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 103 of Africa, reckoning from the Tropic of Cancer to the latitude of thirty degrees south of the Equator, including all the islands in that district lying on the aforesaid coasts, and especially the islands St. Thomas, Annebon, Isle de Principe, and Fernando Polo, together with the places [plaetseri] of Essequibo and Pomeroon, lying on the continent of America, and also the islands Curagao, Araba, and Buonaire" ( . . . " midts-gaders de plaetsen van Isekebe cade Bauwmerona aen het vaste Landt van America gelegen, als mede de Eylanden Curagao, Aruba ende Buonaire"). And that is all. Elsewhere in the old domain anybody might now trade. 1 On November 30, 1700, this charter was renewed for thirty years more (to date from January 1, 1701), without change or restatement of limits; 2 and again, on August 8, 1730, for another thirty years (to date from January 1, 1731), still with- out change or restatement. 3 At the end of 1760 it was again renewed for a single year without change of limits, and on 1 Postscript. — This charter had been long in process of creation. As early as June 7, 1669, it was under discussion in the provincial estates of Holland, the limits then suggested being precisely those later adopted. On April 2, 1674, this provincial body submitted to the States-General another draft, in which to the two places on the American mainland, Essequibo and Pomeroon, was added Xew Netherland (which the Amsterdamers still hoped to regain from the English), and also a provision that the new West India Company might retain " such further places and districts on the American mainland as it should take actual possession of by the creatiou of forts, warehouses, or established trade" ("ende de rerdere plaetsen ende districten aen het vaste Lant van America gelegen, dewelcke hide Ociroije aende voorgaende West Ind" Comp" ver- gunt ende mede onder denselren Limiten gecompreliendeert geweest s'ljn, voor so veel dese •nieuwe Generale West Ind" Comp" vande voorgenoemde verdere plaetsen ende districten dadelijcke possessie door het maken van forten, Logien ofte gestabilieerden liandel, komt te nemen, en te behouden"). But, in the new draft submitted by the Estates of Holland on August 13, 1674, this interesting supplementary clause has dropped out. In those earlier forms, no more than in the finished charter, is there the slightest mention of the Orinoco. (See the printed minutes of the Holland Estates and the manuscript records of the States-General at The Hague.) *Groot Placaat-Boek, iv, pp. 1333, 1334. 'Groot Placaat-Boek, vi, pp. 1401-1407. Digitized by Microsoft® 104 BURR. January 1, 1762, for thirty years more, expiring- with the dis- solution of the company at the close of the year 1791. 1 It is thus clear that, from beginning to end of its existence, the charters of the Dutch West India Company never named the Orinoco as its limit. Yet in the renewal of 1700 there is a mention of that river which is at least of interest. Differing rates of toll had been established for cargoes to "New Nether- land," to "the West Indies," and to "other places of America; " 2 and now, "for the better elucidation of the aforesaid charter," the States-General "further explains" "that under the name of New Netherland" may be included "that part of North America which stretches westward and southward from the south end of Newfoundland to the Cape of Florida," while "under the name of West Indies are understood the coasts and lands from the Cape of Florida to the river Orinoco, together with the Curacao Islands," and that by the phrase "the other places of America" ( u deverdereplaetsen van America"), whether, "in the oldest or the preceding charter," "are denoted all the Caribbean islands — Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico included — together with all the coasts and lands from the River Orinoco aforesaid, through the straits of Magellan, Le Maire, or other straits and passages thereabouts, to the straits of Anjan," etc. It will hardly be claimed that the Orinoco is hereby made a boundary of the colony of Essequibo, for this would carry the other frontier to Bering Strait. And somewhat the same difficulty is offered by those enactments of the fourth and fifth decades of the seventeenth century, in which alone in all the 'I follow the contemporary official impression of this " Xader 2i>'olongatie van liet Octroy" (The Hague, 1761). Hartsinck, Beschryving van Guiana, i, p. 216, and Xet- eeher, Geschiedenis van de Kolonien, p. 83, note, are both slightly in error as to these dates. 2 Groot Placaat-Boek, vi, pp. 1401-1407. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OP DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 105 legislation of the States-General I have else found a mention of the Orinoco. It is one of these — that of 1637 — which the English Blue Book 1 has in its text taken for a reaffirmation of the charter; and it is part of another which, hj some confu- sion, it has reprinted in its appendix. 2 The circumstances of these enactments seem to have been as follows: The policy of carrying the war with Spain into America had proved so popular, especially after the Dutch successes in Brazil and the capture of the Spanish silver fleet in 1628, that in 1632 it was found necessary to put some restrictions on the privateers. 3 At any rate, on Mav 14 of that year the States-General issued an enactment that for the space of one year (to the end of May, 1633) no armed ships "shall be free to sail to the coasts of Africa, Brazil, or New Netherland, or elsewhere where the Company mav have trade [daer de Compagnie Negotie sonde mogen hebben], on any account whatsoever, nor under any pretext that may be urged — lack of provisions, fresh water, or whatever else — on pain of the penalties prescribed in the charter against those who violate it: 1 Yet shall the aforesaid ships prior to the date above named of the last of May, 1633, be free to sail to the West Indies, to wit, the river Orinoco, westward along the coast of Cartagena, 5 Puerto Bello, Honduras, Campeachy, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coast of Florida, together with all the islands lying within ^lue Book, p. 5. 2 Blue Book, p. 55. n Groot Placaat- Boek, i, cols. 599-602, and especially the note; and Aitzema, i, pp. 67-69. It calls itself : " Ordre ende Reglement . . . waer op ende waernaer alle gemon- teerde schepen uyt dese respective Provintien sullen rermoglien 1e varen in seeder ghedeelte van de limiteu van H Octroy ran de West-Indisclie Compagnie.'' ■"' Om geenderley oorsaecke, nock onder wat pretext suJcks sonde mogen geschieden, 't zy ran vervallen te zijn, faulie ran Vivres, versch Water of andersints, op de penen inden Uctroye tegens de Contrarenteurs van dien gestatueert ." ■''"Naer TVest-Indien, te weten de Riviere Oronocque, Westwaerts langhs de Kuste van Cariagena." Digitized by Microsoft® 106 BURR. these limits, in order there to cany on all manner of warfare, by sea and by land, against the King of Spain, his subjects and allies." A month or so after the expiration, of this prohibition, on July 15, 1633, it was renewed, 1 this time without restriction as to period, but with a notable change as to territory. Brazil is added to the permitted lands, while the clause defining "on any account whatsoever " (from "nor under any pretext" to "prescribed in the charter against those who violate it" — "noch" to "gestatueert") is stricken out. Ships of war were now, therefore, prohibited only from sailing "to the coasts of Africa, or New Netherland, or elsewhere where the Company may have trade," but may sail "to the coasts of Brazil; like- wise into the West Indies, to wit, the river Orinoco westward along the coast of Cartagena, Puerto Bello, Honduras, Cam- peachy, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coast of Florida," 2 etc. It is this enactment of 1633 which is printed in part in the English Blue Book 3 as " Regulations for the Dutch West India Company," and with the appended note that "there are some minute verbal alterations, not affecting the sense, between the text of 1632 and that of 1633." It has been pointed out that the regulations are not for the Company, but for the "armed ships" of others; and I think it will appear that the transfer of Brazil from the prohibited coasts of the one edict to the permitted coasts of the other affects the sense at least enough to make it clear that the Orinoco is not meant as a limit of the Company's jurisdiction — for Brazil, in 1633 as in 1632, was the most highly valued and the most tenaciously held of all the Company's possessions. It is not as a limit of l Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 599-602. Cf. Aitzema, i, pp. 67-69, and Tjassens, pp. 319-323. ! The Dutch text may be found on p. 55 of the English Blue Book. 'Blue Book, p. 55. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OP DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 107 the West India Company, but as the first term in a definition of the West Indies, that the name of the Orinoco occurs; and a glance at the maps will show with what perfect geographical fitness, for the mouth of this river is precisely the point where the long line of the Caribbean islands, termi- nating in Trinidad, reaches the coast. And surely there are other reasons, besides those of boundary, which could make such a landmark as the great mouth of the Orinoco, beyond which to the east there were in any case by common confes- sion no Spanish settlements, a wise limit for ships of war. It is, alas, not quite certain, as the Guiana coast is not mentioned either among those prohibited or those permitted, that it is not in both enactments included under "the coasts of Brazil." Much more susceptible of the interpretation here urged by the English Blue Book would seem another statute of the States-General, enacted in 1635 and renewed in 1637. 1 On January 6, 1635, "by advice and deliberation of the Direct- ors" of the West India Company, the States threw open to all subjects of the United Provinces the trade in "wood, tobacco, cattle, and all kinds of wares or merchandise in certain parts of the limits of the charter of the said Company," namely: . . . "The ships of the aforesaid subjects shall be free to sail to the West Indies: To wit, the river Orinoco, westward along the coast of Cartagena, Puerto Bello, Honduras, Cam- peachy, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coast of Florida, together with all the islands lying within these limits, but they shall on no account whatsoever be free to sail to the coast of Africa, nor to New Netherland, or elsewhere where the said Company has trade." . . . And on October 16, 1637, this edict was renewed without 1 Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 607-610. There is in the Library of Congress a con- temporary official impression of this Plakkaat. Digitized by Microsoft® 108 BURR. change of terms. 1 In both enactments Brazil is entirely ignored; but on April 29, 1638, the trade of Brazil was thrown open by a separate ordinance, which was supplemented by others of August 10, 1648, and December 11, 1649. 2 In these the phrase of territorial description is "to the city Olinda de Parnambuco, and the coasts of Brazil" Q l op de Stadt Olinda de Parnambuco, ende Kusten van Brazil"); and the "Wild Coast," as the Dutch called the coast of Guiana, is nowhere mentioned. Now, here at last we have the Orinoco named in such way as to suggest a limit of monopoly. But a more careful inspec- tion shows that it is as the first Spanish point, not as the last Dutch one, that it is named. It is to be the beginning of free trade, but may nevertheless lie somewhat beyond the last port closed by monopoly. And what was restricted by these enact- ments was not the territorial authority of the Company, which everywhere, as in Brazil, for example, remained on precisely the same footing and with the same limits as ever, but solely its monopoly of trade. 3 On August 10, 1648, the States-General issued yet another of these regulations as to trade. It was not, as might possibly be inferred from its date, an outcome of the Treaty of Mini- ster. The territorial limits of this particular restriction were adopted by the West India Company itself as early as Octo- ber 14, 1645, after much discussion as to the best interests of trade, and were submitted on April 9, 1647, in precisely this form to the States-General, in the report of the committee on 1 Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 607-610. It is the text of the renewal which is fol- lowed by the Placaat-Boek, the variations of that of 1635 being pointed out in a note. It is printed also by Aitzema, i, p. 69, and by Tjaassens, p. — . 2 Groot Placaat-Boek, i, cols. 609-612, 613-618. 3 Postscript. — This has been printed in the Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 56 58. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OP DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 109 the reform of the West India Company. 1 It is clear at a glance that what is here thrown open to free trade is again the Spanish coasts of the Caribbean and the Gulf, and that the Orinoco serves as a point of departure for these, while what is reserved to the Company is the entire remaining coast of America, with that of West Africa. Were this a territorial claim, it would imply Dutch ownership of all America and Africa. It is in fact a trade restriction implying in itself no territorial claims whatever, though territorial possessions doubt- less had their share in determining this restriction of trade. As originally drawn in 1645, and as submitted to the States- General in 1647, what was permitted by the regulation was not primarily trade, but "to attack or injure the enemy," and it was explicitly set forth that "it is not intended to license the ship or ships . . . merely to trade in or carry timber, salt, tobacco or cotton, and all other wares, . . . but it is also designed to commit offensively and defensively every hostility and damage on the King of Castile's subjects." But, the peace with Spain having intervened, in 1648 it was enacted without these aggressive clauses, but without change as to ter- ritorial limits. As the new and final charter of 1674 granted the new Com- pany formed by it nothing else on the American mainland than "the places of Essequibo and Pomeroon," the Orinoco could hardly again come into question, even as a trade limit, unless the Orinoco were counted the boundary of Pomeroon. That it was so counted never appears in the legislation of the States- General, and seems expressly precluded by the terms ("the territory of the State, extending ... to beyond the river Waini, not far from the mouth of the river Orinoco") ! This document may be found- in English translation in the first volume of the Documents relative to the colonial history of Sew York, pp. 216-2+8. Digitized by Microsoft® 110 BURR. of tlie remonstrance addressed by the States-General to Spain in 1769. There result, then, from this review of the legislation of the States- General, the conclusions: 1. That neither in any charter of the Dutch West India Company, nor in any "reaffirmation" or extension of any charter, is there mention of the Orinoco as a limit. 2. That in none of the published legislation on behalf of that Company is the Orinoco made a boundary of territorial right, possession, or jurisdiction. 3. That its second and final charter of 1674 seems to exclude the Orinoco from the territorial possessions of the Company. II. AS TO JURISDICTION. The original charter of the Dutch West India Company, in 1621, granted in its second article: 1 That, further, the aforesaid Company in our name and by our author- ity, within the limits hereinbefore prescribed, shall have power to make contracts, leagues, and alliances with the princes and natives of the lands therein comprised, as well as to build there any fortresses and defenses, to [provide] 2 governors, troops, and officers of justice, and for other necessary services, for the preservation of the places, mainte- nance of good order, police, and justice. And, likewise, for the further- ance of trade,, to appoint, transfer, remove, or replace, as according to circumstances they shall find proper. Furthermore, they may promote the settlement of fruitful and uninhabited districts, and do everything that the service of these lands 3 [and the] profit and increase of trade shall demand. And they of the Company shall regularly communicate J Groot Placaat-Boek, vol. i, col. 567. '-This important verb is omitted in the charter, as printed in the Groot Placaet-Boek, in Aitzema, and in Tjassens — and so, perhaps, in the original document; but it is supplied, in the new charter of 1674, as " aenstellen." ■ I. e., the Netherlands, not the colonies : see Professor Jameson's discussion of this phrase in his Willem Usselinx, pp. 71, 72. The words, which are of constant occur- rence, always refer to the mother country. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. Ill with us, and shall report such contracts and alliances as they shall have made with the aforesaid princes and nations, together with the conditions of the fortresses, defenses, and settlements by them under- taken. 1 The third article of the charter provides that the States- General shall confirm and commission all governors, and that these, as also the vice-governors, commanders, and officers, shall swear allegiance to the States as well as to the Company. By the fifth article the States promise to supply such troops as may be necessary — these, however, to be paid by the Com- pany. Such are the provisions creating and limiting the territorial jurisdiction of the West India Company. They were never changed. Even in the new charter of 1674 these articles were copied outright, with but one or two corrections in diction. 2 But as early as 1629 the States-General found it wise to prescribe more definitely for the government of the new ter- ritories. On October 13 of that year they issued an " Order of Government, 3 both as to policy and as to justice, in the places conquered and to conquer in the West- Indies," explain- ing that " it has been made clear to us on behalf of the West India Company that for the better direction of affairs it would be useful and serviceable to the said Company that under our 1 On August 27, 1648, at the request of the States-General and hy instruction of the Company, "Director de Laet delivered unto the assembly authentic copies of such treaties, contracts, and capitulations as the said West India Company hath made and concluded with the kings, princes, and potentates within the limits of their charter. Whereupon deliberation being had, it is resolved and concluded that the aforesaid authentic copies be locked up and preserved." (Minutes of the States- General, as translated in Documents relative 1o the Colonial History of the Stati- of Xetv York, i, pp. 253, 254.) -In Article II " begrepen,,'' "comprised," becomes gelegen "situated;" the long word nootsaeckelijcke, "necessary," yields to the shorter word nootelijcke, "needful;" and the lacking verb aenstellen is supplied. Articles II and V are wholly unchanged. 'GrootPlacaat-Boek, vol. ii, pp. 1235-1247. Digitized by Microsoft® 112 BURR. authority there should be enacted by the said chartered Com- pany a definite system of government, both as to policy and as to justice, in the place or places (with God's help) to be conquered." The provision for the protection of the vested rights of "Spaniards, Portuguese, and natives" — the phrase occurs more than once — suggests where these conquests were to be made. "The councilors," says the fifteenth article, "shall further seek at every opportunity to establish friendship, trade, and commerce with neighboring and near-by lords and peoples, also alliances and compacts, to the damage and enfeebling of the King of Spain, his subjects and allies, and to the best furtherance of the common weal of the Company, making the aforesaid treaties on behalf and in the name of the High and Mighty Lords the States-General and of the West India Com- pany; and shall, regarding all these, take first and foremost the advice of the General and Governor." All property of the Jesuits, or of "other convents or colleges of clergy, of what order soever," is to be seized and confiscated to the profit of the Company, just as if belonging to the King of Spain. The twenty-first, article provides for "any places, within the limits, situate on the Continent or on the adjoining islands" which may "come to be conquered and possessed." Again, on April 26, 1634, the States-General, "by advice and deliberation of the Directors of the general chartered West India Company," issued an "Order and Regulation" 1 — this time "regarding the settlement and cultivation of the lands and places by the aforesaid Company conquered in Brazil." In this they provide minutely for the government of all such as shall go to dwell "within the limits of the lands and places l Groot Placaat-Boelc, vol. i, cols. 621-626. A copy of a contemporary impression of this statute may he seen in the Library of Congress. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 113 conquered or yet to conquer in Brazil by the chartered West India Company." Still again, on August 23, 1636, 1 they further provided for the government of the "conquered captaincies, cities, forts, and places in Brazil;" and yet again, on October 12, 1645, 2 when the capstone was put on their structure by the creation of "the Supreme Government in the lands of Brazil already through God's blessing conquered, or yet to conquer." For the government of Guiana, or of any of its colonies, no enactment of the States-General is to be found. The control of its possessions in this quarter seems left wholly to the Company. 3 And in none of these enactments of the States- General, nor yet in any of the explicit codes issued bv the Company for the instruction of its servants, 4 have I found any provision for the trade outposts which play such a part in the colonial records of Guiana, or any intimation as to the territo- rial claims involved in the establishment of these. It is, however, worth adding that when in 1665, in the con- troversy over New Netherland, the British ambassador argued that the West India Company's charter was more limited than the patents granted by the English King, the States-General replied that "that granted to the West India Company is as ample as any which the King hath granted or can grant. And the Company is expressly authorized by the second article of its charter to plant colonies, occupy lands, and furthermore, as fully and amply as any patent from the King can extend, 1 Groot Placaat-Boel; vol. ii, cols. 1247-1264. -Groot Placaat-Boelc, vol. ii, cols. 1263-1268. 'Postscript. — I am glad to add that the Company's provisions for these may now be found in my extracts from Dutch Archives, in Vol. II of the report of the Com- mission. 4 Two contemporary impressions of that issued with the new charter of 1674 — that by the official printer of the States-General ('s Gravenhage, 1675) and that by the printer of the Company itself at Middelburg — are in the Library of Congress. VOL 1 8 Digitized by Microsoft® 114 BURR. and such is expressly declared under the Great Seal of the State." 1 From this survey of the charters of the Company and of the other legislation of the States-General it appears, then, that the Dutch West India Company was charged with ample terri- torial jurisdiction in all districts which it should conquer or colonize within the limits of its charter. But it does not appear that this territorial jurisdiction was made coextensive with these limits, or that there was ever mention of the river Orinoco in connection therewith. But there further exist, among the acts of the States- General, certain grants of territory on the Guiana coast, made by the West India Company with the concurrence of the States or by the States at the instance of the Company. It remains to ask what of territorial jurisdiction or boundary may be specified or implied by these. Thus, in 1669, the Dutch West India Company conceded to the German Count of Hanau a strip 30 Dutch miles broad, which they have been quoted 2 as granting "from their territory of Guayana, situated between the river Orinoco and the river Amazons." Unfortunately a careful study of this grant, whose full text is given by the Dutch historian Hartsinck, 3 and which is translated in full by Rodway and Watt, 4 the English historians of British Guiana, fails to find in the document any such clause as that quoted. 5 The phrase actually used is, indeed, full of suggestion of another sort. For the grant reads: . . . " A piece of land situated on the Wild Coast of America, between the river Oronoque and the river of the Amazons," adding the condition, "which His 'I owe to Professor Jameson the suggestion of this interesting passage. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1 " p. 8. 3 Hartsinck, Beachrtjving van Guiana, vol. i, pp. 217-222. 4 Rodway and Watt, Annals of Guiana, vol. ii, pp. 5, 6. r 'I have since studied the original in the Dutch archives at The Hague, but without finding this clause or any like it. Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 115 Excellency will be entitled to select, provided he keeps at least six Dutch miles from other colonies there established or founded by the said chartered "West India Company or with its con- sent." . . . ("ee« streeke Lands, gelegen op de wilde Kust van America, tusschen Rio d' Oronoque en Rio de las Amasonas!' 1 . . . "mits blyvende ten minsten ses Hollandsche mylen van andere Colonien door de voornoemde geoctrojeerde Westindische Com- pagnie of met hare permissie aldaar opgericht en geetablisseert"). That the grant implies that the whole Wild Coast was counted by the West India Company open to Dutch coloniza- tion can not be questioned. It seems to imply also that there were still on that coast unoccupied stretches of 30 Dutch miles in breadth lying at least six miles distant from the Dutch establishments of Surinam, Berbice, and Essequibo; and that such a stretch might by the Dutch be granted outright, even to a foreigner. But it does not assert an exclusive Dutch right to colonize that coast; and it must in this connection be constantly remembered that throughout most of this century the Governments of Great Britain and of France were also freely granting patents of territory on the Guiana coast, and that there has been found no record of the slightest Dutch protest against it. Great Britain was, indeed, earlier in the field than the Dutch, the colonies of Leigh and Harcourt antedating any known Dutch settlement on this coast, and the patent to Harcourt covering the whole territory from the Amazon to the Essequibo. It should be added that the colony of the Count of Hanau was a flash in the pan, no attempt ever being made to establish it. Among the published acts of the States-General I have as yet been able to lay hand on only one other grant of terri- tory in this region. It is a contemporary impression 1 of a 'A copy of this impression is in the Library of Congress at Washington. I have since studied the original at The Hague. Digitized by Microsoft® 116 BURR. " Charter from the High and Mighty States-General relating to the Colony on the Wild Coast of America, under the leadership of the Knight Balthazar Gerbier, Baron Douvily; printed in the year of our Lord 1659." It tells how, on November 15, 1658, the States conceded to the baron 1 "as Patroon the right to erect a colony on the continental Wild Coast of America, in the district of the charter granted to the West India Com- pany" (* * * u Dat d6n Heer Bidder Balthazar Gerbier Baron Douvily als Patroon sal mogen oprechten een Colonye in West- Indien op de vaste wilde Gust van America, in H district van H Octroy aen de West-Indische Compagnie verleent"). But neither in the "articles of liberties and exemptions," granted him by the Company, nor in the appended "advertisement" setting forth enthusiastically the beauties of the new land, is there any other definition of its location and limits than that it is to be "on the continental Wild Coast of the West Indies, of five miles in breadth, or along the seashore, and further so far inland as shall by the colonists come to be cultivated on the Wild Coast in America, with jurisdiction over the bays lying within the colony, and half [the jurisdiction over] the rivers on the two sides of the aforementioned colony" (. . . "een Colonic te moghen oprechten op de vaste Wilde Custe van de West- Indien van vijf mylen in de breete, ofte langhs den Zee-Jcant, ende voorts so verre lantswaerts in als door de Goloniers sullen kunnen werden gecultiveert op de wilde Custe in A merica, met Iurisdictie aen de Bay en in de Colonie gelegen, ende de helft van de Bevieren, aen beyde zyden van de voorn. Colonic"*)} 'Gerbier, though a Dutchman, had spent most of his life in English service as the friend of Buckingham and of Charles I, to whom he owed his title. Balked in his career by the Puritan revolution, he seems now to have had it in mind to renew under Dutch auspices the Wiapoco colony of the Englishman Harcburt. There it was, in the extreme east of Guiana, that he attempted his settlement; but his enter- prise came speedily to naught. 2 The attempts at fresh colonies on the Cayenne and on the Wiapoco in 1676, and the charter granted in 1689 to Jan Reeps, of Hoorn, to erect a colony "on the west Digitized by Microsoft® TERRITORIAL RIGHTS OF DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 117 From the terms of these grants may unquestionably be inferred the assumption by the Dutch Government of a right to plant colonies, either directly or through the "West India Company, in the district known as the Wild Coast. There is, however, in none of them anything to suggest that this was counted exclusively a Dutch right; nor is there in them ac- claim of sovereignty over this coast as a whole. I hope for much more from the unprinted records of the Company, 1 which by your instructions I am to examine in Europe. Respectfully submitted. George L. Burr. Washington, May, 1896. side of the river Amazon, as far as to Cape Orange," were not the affairs of the West India Company, whose territory now (since the new charter of 1674) included on the mainland only Essequibo and Pomeroon. There is in the charter of Reeps no men- tion of a Dutch claim to Guiana as a whole. (See the minutes of the States-General March 4, May 29, June 5, 1688, and January 7, 1689 ; the minutes of the Estates of Holland July 16, 1688; and the charter and prospectus of the colony, printed at The Hague, 1689. A copy of the latter is in the Lenox Library.) 1 Postscript. — This hope was only partially justified. What I found in these docu- ments may be learned from my report on the evideuce of Dutch archives. Nothing in them invalidates the conclusions reached above. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES AS TO EUROPEAN OCCUPATION AND CLAIMS IN WESTERN GUIANA. GEORGE LI^NTCOJLJSr BURR. 119 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES AS TO EUROPEAN OCCUPATION AND CLAIMS IN WEST- ERN GUIANA. By George Lincoln Birr. To the Commission appointed "To investigate and report upon the true divisional tine between the Republic of Venezuela and British Guiana": Early in May, 1896, I had the honor to receive from you the following- instructions : Washington, J). C, May 7, 1S9H. Dear Sir : For the satisfactory completion of the work of the Vene- zuelan Boundary Commission, it is found necessary to verify and sup- plement the materials in its hands by researches in the archives and libraries of the Netherlands. It is the Commission's wish to intrust you with this mission. It seems best that you proceed at once to The Hague, and there first examine carefully the records and diplomatic correspondence of the States-General from the time of the earliest Dutch settlements on the coast of Guiana to the final transfer to Great Britain of the colony of Essequibo, seeking to learn what claims were at any time made to territory or jurisdiction on this coast, and especially what cor- respondence may ever have been had, as to boundaries or territorial aggressions, with the Government of Spain. Having completed this, you may then make similar research in the records of the provincial Estates, especially in those of Zeeland, for such dealings with trade or with the colonies as may possibly throw some light on territorial claims made by or for the latter in Guiana. This done, all accessible papers 121 Digitized by Microsoft® 122 BURR. of the Dutch West India Company, whether at Amsterdam, Middel- burg, or wherever now to be found, should be thoroughly looked into, with a view to ascertaining the exact location and extent of its settlements and trading posts, the character of the territorial claims based ou these under its charters, and the relations sustained by them toward their Spanish neighbors. Should you have reason further to believe that there may be found in municipal archives, libraries, or pri- vate collections records, journals, or correspondence throwing light upon the territorial limits or claims of the Dutch colonies in Guiana, these may also be examined, so far as the courtesy of their custodians makes them accessible to you. The points to be kept especially in view in this research are : 1. The exact holdings of the Dutch upon the seacoast and the dates of their occupation or abandonment, with all evidence as to the exist- ence and location of trading posts, guardhouses, or other establish- ments, however slight or temporary, west of the mouth of the river Moruca. 2. Whatever can be learned of the nature and extent of the trade carried on, and of the control exercised, if any, by the Dutch in the whole region north of the Sierra Imataca, between the mouth of the Moruca and that of the Orinoco, with any intimations of territorial claims in this district. 3. The precise situation, nature, and duration of any Dutch posts established in the valley of the river Ouyuni and i tributaries above the junction of that stream with the Mazaruni, with anything that can be learned of Spanish garrisons or missions in these parts or of the relations here between Dutch and Spanish colonists or authorities. 4. Whatever can throw light upon the precise nature of the terri- torial claims, as to jurisdiction and boundaries, of the Dutch West India Company, and of its plantations, or upon the attitude of Spain or her colonial authorities toward these. The Commission will be glad to receive prompt intelligence, by tele- graph if the matter seem to you likely materially to influence its con- clusions, of all important discoveries made by you; and will expect from time to time detailed reports of your procedure and results. Suggestions as to other promising channels of research it will at all times be willing to receive and consider; and, should there seem to you serious risk in delay, you are empowered to enter upon any such avenue of inquiry before receiving the formal sanction of the Commission. Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES. 123 In case, in the course of your investigations, you should find docu- ments or papers which you deem of sufficient importance to have copied, you will have this done, obtaining the certificate of the custo- dian, wherever possible, as to the correctness of the copy, and in all cases making, yourself, a comparison of the copy and the original. Should you, in tlie course of your investigations, require the assist- ance of any clerks, copyists, or stenographers, you are authorized to employ them and to pay them for their services such compensation as may be reasonable and usual in the places where they are so employed. Very respectfully yours, S. Mallet-Prevost, Secretary. Professor George L. Burr. The mission thus intrusted to me has been accomplished. I have now the honor to submit a final report of its method and its results. I. METHOD. In obedience to your instructions I sailed for Holland by the steamship Werkendam on Saturday, Ma) r 9, 1896. Land- ing in Rotterdam on the morning of May 22, I went at once to The Hague and entered on my researches in the archives of the realm at that capital. As the details of my procedure are already familiar to the Commission through my frequent com- munications to its secretary, it will be enough here to say that I was busied there until nearly the end of August. My research covered the sources named by the instructions of the Commission — the records and diplomatic correspondence of the States- General, the records of the provincial Estates, the papers of the Dutch West India Company, and included, besides, many documents suggested by questions arising in the course of my work or laid before me by the ever-helpful archivists. The papers of the West India Company, all now gathered in these central archives, proved far more volumi- nous than I had expected, filling many hundreds of volumes, Digitized by Microsoft® 124 BURR. and I was gratified to find that it was in precisely that por- tion of them with which my study must deal that least had been lost. 1 It will give an idea of the extent of the task and may aid in the verification of its results if I here subjoin a list, hj cat- alogue numbers, 2 of the manuscript volumes examined by me: 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 318 334 335 330 337 338 339 340 341 •The missing records whose loss there was most reason to deplore were: (1) The minutes of the proceedings of the Nineteen (the supreme board of the West India Company under its first charter, 1621-1674); of these only the first volume (1623- 1624) remains. (2) The earliest volume (1623-1626) of the minutes of the Zeeland Chamber of the Companj', and the volumes covering the period 1646-1657. (3) The minutes for certain years of the proceedings of the Ten (the supreme board of the Company under its second charter, 1675-1791), namely, for 1715, 1728, 1738, 1741, 1742, 1745, 1748, 1751, 1752, 1754, 1755, 1757, 1759, 1761, 17f 3, 1765, 1767, 1769, 1770, 1775, 1777, 1783, 1785, 1788, 1789: the archivist in charge of the "West India papers, though he had often noticed these strange lacuna 1 , could give no explanation of them. The letters received by the Company from the Essequibo colony during the period 1756- 1772, whose loss threatened to be most serious of all, proved later to be intact among the papers at London. 2 These catalogue numbers are likely at no distant day to be replaced by others, since a new catalogue is in prospect. The old catalogue, however, will doubtless remain accessihle at the archives. The titles of such of these volumes as I found of fruit to my research will of course be found attached to the transcripts which I herewith submit. The time at my disposal does not warrant a classification and description of them here. 8 37 88 111 9 38 91 112 10 39 92 113 11 40 93 114 12 41 94 162 13 42 95 163 14 43 96 167 15 44 97 169 22 45 98 170 25 46 99 171 26 50 100 172 27 51 106 173 28 52 107 174 29 53 108 175 30 54 109 176 36 55 110 198 342 380 473 491 343 381 474 495 344 382 475 497 345 383 478 525 346 384 479 526 368 385 480 527 369 462 481 528 370 463 482 531 371 464 483 533 372 465 484 534 373 466 485 535 374 467 480 536 370 468 487 537 377 470 488 538 378 471 489 539 379 472 490 540 Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES. 125 541 798 904 1034 1959 2119 2368 3077 3122 542 799 908 1035 1996 6 2120 2369 3078 3123 569 800 913 1036 2006 2121 2370 3080 3124 570 801 916 1047 2007 2122 2389 3081 3125 594 804 917 1048 2008 2157 2390 3082 •3133 596 805 921 1049 2009 2158 2391 3083 3134 597 806 938 1051 2010 2183 2392 3084 3135 599 807 939 1052 2012 6 2238 2394 3085 3136 600 808 940 1053 2012 c 2243 2395 308G 3137 601 809 941 1395 2012 d 2255 2396 3087 3138 602 810 944 1396 2013 2260 2397 3088 3142 629 a 813 a 945 1611 2014 2269 2398 3089 3143 629 6 813 6 946 1626 a 2022 2287 2439 c 3090 3144 643 813 d 947 1626 1 2026 2313 2439 xo 3091 3145 644 824 953 1627 d 2080 2319 2439 xd 3092 3150 717 841 954 1907 2081 2320 2439 xx 3093 758 842 955 1916 2094 2321 2578 3094 759 843 960 1917 a; 2099 2322 2579 3095 764 844 966 1918 2100 2324 2580 3096 768 845 967 1919 2109 2332 2581 3097 775 846 968 1925 2110 2335 a 2624 3098 777 854 970 1933 2111 2336 2657 3101 778 855 971 1947 2112 2354 2658 3102 779 856 972 194S 2113 2358 2659 3105 780 859 974 1953 2114 2359 2961 xxx 3106 782 885 975 1954 2115 2363 2966 3107 795 901 1005 1955 2116 2365 2976 3108 796 902 1022 1956 2117 2366 2980 3120 797 903 1023 a 1958 2118 2367 3075 3121 All these numbered volumes belong to the papers of the Dutch West India Company. To these must be added, there- fore, the registers of the States-General, of the Dutch Admiral- ties, and of the provincial Estates of Holland and of Zeeland. 1 Added must be the diplomatic correspondence between Spain and Holland, in its three series — the letters of the Dutch ■The minutes of the Holland and the Zeeland Estates are accessible also in print; but passages of grave importance had to be verified by the manuscripts. Digitized by Microsoft® 126 BURR. ambassadors in Spain to the States-General, to the secretary (Griffier) of the States-General, and to the pensionary of Hol- land, who discharged the functions of minister of foreign affairs. Added, too, must be the records of the negotiations connected with the Peace of Westphalia, the Peace of Utrecht, and the Peace of Amiens. Of sundry isolated documents falling under neither of these classes, adequate description will be found in the footnotes to the transcripts which I here- with submit, or in those to the present report. In all my labors I received from the officials in charge of the archives the most ungrudging cooperation. Neither my large demands on the working space of the reading room, nor the heavy labor of fetching the hundreds of codices from remote upper chambers caused a word of complaint. Docu- ments and maps I was allowed to copy freely; and copyists and photographers were kindly found for me. At my shoulder, to aid in difficult readings or to lend their experience in questions of interpretation, were ever the patient and astute scholars in charge of the reading room, and there was hardly a member of the staff to whom at one time or another I had not occasion to make appeal. To all these archivists, from highest to lowest — to Jongheer Th. van Rienisdijk, the archivist in chief; to Mr. Telting, the adjunct archivist in charge of the West India papers, and to his colleague in charge of the East India papers, Mr. Heeres; to the commies- chartermeester, Mr. Hingman, who was my guide to the diplomatic papers and to the records of the States- General; to Mr. Morren, who aided me in collation and who was the untiring purveyor of codices; to Messrs. Ross and Van Oyen of the reading room, and to Mr. Caland, my assistant in tran- scription; and to the janitors as well, who so cheerily fetched and carried away — I owe alike a hearty gratitude which I Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES. 127 should be sorry here not to record. 1 Xor should I by any means omit to mention the generous aid given me in so many ways throughout my work at The Hague by the foremost of all students of the history of the Dutch colonies which now make up British Guiana, their historian, General P. M. Netscher. In July I was joined by Dr. De Haan, of the Johns Hopkins University, who in June, on his way to spend his vacation with his parents in Leeuwarden, had offered his help in my work. Of this I was now glad to avail myself, and from this time forward he took from my shoulders most of the burden of collation and of translation. In August there joined me, much to the pleasure and profit of my work, Mr. Coudert, of your own number, who remained with me there for some weeks. Toward the end of August my work had in its chronolog- ical progress reached 1791, the date of the suppression of the West India Company. It seemed wise to break off here for a visit to Zeeland, where in the provincial and municipal archives at Middelburg, and in the municipal archives of Flushing and of Vere, I hoped, in view of the close relations of these three Walcheren cities with the Guiana colonies, to gain fresh light, especially upon their earlier history. This hope was disap- pointed. Arriving in Middelburg, I first addressed myself to the archives of the province of Zeeland, where, in the absence of the archivist in chief, I was courteously received by the commies - chartermeester. His assurance that none of the papers of the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company still lingered here was but confirmation of what I had learned at The Hague. He could, however, put before me in the 'My obligations to these scholars have not ceased with my return. Mr. Telting, especially, has patiently answered a multitude of questions arising in the digestion of my work; and Mr. Van Oyen, aided by Mr. Ross, has carried out for me certain researches in the early papers of the States-General which I had been unable to bring to completion. Digitized by Microsoft® 123 BURR. original manuscript the minutes of the Zeeland Estates, and, what was better, a voluminous body of letters and documents, serving as pieces justificatives to these minutes, from the sixteenth century onward. In these documents, which are arranged in the chronological order of the minutes themselves, I sought diligently through those years in which any action of the Estates with regard to Guiana gave me reason to hope for new light from this illustrative matter. The search was, however, wholly without fruit. Nor could I learn of the existence of anything else in the provincial archives likely to throw light upon my problem. In the same building with the provincial archives of Zeeland is also the provincial library, and to this I now betook myself. The librarian, Mr. Broekema, devoted himself to my service and put into my hands not only certain printed books which I had hitherto sought in vain, but also several manuscripts. Among the latter were the minutes and journals of the "Com- mercial Company of Middelburg trading within the limits of the West India Company's charter" from 1720 to 1791. I was especially gratified to find here also manuscript copies of the municipal records — the minutes of the city councils — of both Middelburg and Vere. This made unnecessary the visit I had planned to the municipal archives of these two cities, for it was only these minutes I had hoped to consult there; and it was the more welcome because I had reason to believe that at Vere the archives of that ancient town were in some confusion. In none of the books and documents examined by me did I find, however, anything of serious value to my quest. I should now have turned my steps toward Flushing, had I not learned from the commies-chartermeester at Middelburg that in the English bombardment of 1809 the town archives had been utterly destroyed. Effort has since been made, Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES. 129 indeed, to gather from private sources what may partially supply their place; but in Middelburg there was put in my hands a complete printed catalogue of these gleanings, and it needed but a hasty turning of its pages to show that a journey thither was needless. I returned, therefore, to The Hague, not much wiser than I came, but convinced that from Dutch provincial and municipal archives in general there was little to hope. Another quarter promised better fruit. During the course of my research at The Hague there had been published by Great Britain the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," largely made up of extracts from Dutch records ; and of this Dutch portion an advance copy had, through the courtesy of Her Majesty's Government, been since June in my hands. From this I had learned, not more to my own surprise than to that of the archivists at The Hague, that a very important portion of the papers received by the Dutch West India Company from its colonies in Guiana were in British hands, and must be sought in London. Thither, therefore, I now turned myself, accom- panied by Dr. De Haan. Reaching London on September 3, and presenting myself at the American Embassy, I received the necessary introduc- tion to the officials of Her Majesty's Foreign Office. There I met a kindly reception and was conducted to the Colonial Office, where, as soon as matters could be put in readiness, the Dutch colonial papers, together with the maps of the Schomburgk boundary survey, which at the -instance of the Commission I had also asked to see, were laid before me and left to my free use. Regarding the maps, which were outside of the scope of my original errand and hence of the present paper, I have elsewhere reported to the Commission. The Dutch documents (which, I was assured, are all that are now vol 1 9 Digitized by Microsoft® 130 BURR. in English hands of the Dutch records of the Essequibo col- on)') form a single series of letters, with their inclosures, from the Colonial Government to the Dutch West India Company. They are bound in vellum, in thick quarto volumes, numbered consecutively from 456 to 504. Chronologically they begin with the small body of letters from the revived colony on the Pomeroon (1 686-1689). All the rest belong to the last century of Dutch occupation, beginning Avith the opening of the year 1700 and coming down to the expiration of the West India Company at the close of 1791, some documents being of even so late a date as March, 1792. The documents are, in nearly every case, originals, and with their inclosures form a series much more complete than any now in the Dutch archives at The Hague. It seems probable that with the transfer of the colony, in 1814, the Dutch Government handed over to the British its own best official set of these colonial papers. That at least the earliest nine volumes once belonged to the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company is clear from their bearing its monogram on their covers; and it is probable from the older numeration still visible on their backs that all did so. 1 With these documents we were busy until nearly the end of September. The extracts printed by the Blue Book were compared with their originals and the Dutch text transcribed where there could be an)- doubt as to the precise meaning of a passage. This, under my oversight, was especially the task of Dr. De Haan, while I meanwhile examined the documents 'This older numeration, beginning with No. 269, ends with 323, there being some lacunas and slight variations from the English order. There is an old numera- tion by letters from A to XX. The British numbers are printed on red slips and pasted on the volume. This, and the title "Colonial Office Transmissions" on a, similar red slip, are the only mark of their present ownership except the stamp bear- ing the words "Public Record Office: Colonial Office," with which bindings and pages alike are plentifully besprinkled. Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES. 131 as a whole and transcribed or marked for transcription such other passages as seemed to deserve the attention of the Commission. Of the documents of Dutch origin printed in the Blue Book there remained a few whose originals, even in London, were inaccessible to us. These were those drawn from the archives of British Guiana — extracts from the minutes of the old colonial councils of Policy and of Justice. Such transcripts of the Dutch as had been transmitted from the colony were freely shared with us; but a part of the extracts had been sent in English translation only. 1 Throughout our work at the Colonial Office all possible helpfulness was shown us by those with whom we had to do. For the courtesies of Sir Thomas Sanderson, of the Hon. Francis Hyde Villiers, and of Mr. Reddan, of the Foreign Office, and of Sir Robert Meade and Mr. C. Alexander Har- ris, of the Colonial Office, I may especially express my thanks. Mr. Harris was almost constantly at call, and facilitated much our work with the documents. I have also to thank him for transcripts generously furnished me since the completion of my work in London. During the stay in London I had also opportunity for research at the British Museum and at the Record Office, and here, too, received every courtesy and aid from the scholars in charge. On September 26, we returned to The Hague, and took up again our work at the archives there. •. By the 20th of October I had brought down my study to the close of the Dutch occu- pation in Gruiana. Crossing that night to England, and find- ing time next day for a little added research in the British Museum, I sailed for America by the steamer Teutonic, boarding 'The passages which we were thus unable to verify were those in the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3" bearing the numbers 73, 82, 96, 100, 107, 109, 112, 117, 123, 139, 147, 184. Digitized by Microsoft® 132 BURR. it at Queenstown on Thursday, October 22. In the course of the work at The Hague I had found occasion to make researches in the Royal Library and in that of the Department of the Colonies as well as in the archives, and had made several trips to Leyden for investigation in the university library there. I could learn by inquiry of no private collections from which I was likely to gain further materials of importance; and other research in the public archives and libraries of Holland I had been led by what I found at The Hague and in Zeeland to count needless. 1 This part of my report must not be closed without grateful recognition of the helpful courtesies at The Hague of the American minister, Mr. Quinby, and of his secretary, Mr. Rix, and at London, of our ambassador, Mr. Bayard, and of Secretary Roosevelt. With the transcripts, which were the material outcome of my research abroad, I reached Washington on October 28. I have now the honor to lay them before you. 2 'One exception I must make to this in favor of the private archives of the Stad- houders. These archives of the House of Orange, pending the completion of the new building in which they are to be housed and made accessible to scholars, are only partially and with difficulty to be used; and it was so late in my work when I found myself in need of aid from them that I grudged my waning time to the uncer- tain attempt. For a single point which, had it presented itself earlier, I should certainly have essayed a search among them, I may refer to a note in my report on Maps from Official Sources (at page 150 of Vol. III). 2 These transcripts are printed in full, tinder the title of " Extracts from Dutch Archives," in Vol. II of the Report of the Commission. Digitized by Microsoft® REPORT ON THE EVIDENCE OF DUTCH ARCHIVES. 133 II. RESULTS. But what, you ask me, do these documents show f In answer, let me take up, first, their testimony as to the earliest relations of the Dutch with Guiana; 1 then, in territorial order, what they show as to the Dutch in the Essequibo, in the Pomeroon, in the Moruca, in the YTaim, in the Barima, in the Amacura, and in the great western branches of the Essequibo, the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni ; next, their evidence as to the history of Dutch claims to boundary in these regions; and, in conclusion, what can be learned from these Dutch docu- ments as to the settlements and claims of the Spaniards. At your request I shall take also into account such concurrent or onflicting evidence upon these points as is furnished by other historical sources. To make clearer my results I submit also herewith a series of historical maps, showing the progress of European occupation in the Orinoco-Essequibo region from the beginning of the acquaintance of the Dutch with Guiana to the loss of their western colonies there. 2 'This field (and in part the others also) has already been dealt with by Professor Jameson's report on Spanish and Dutch settlement in Guiana prior to 1648. The conclusions reached by his study, based on the printed sources, are but reinforced by my research among the documents. Yet, as this research has brought into my hands not unpublished documents only, but also the manuscript originals of printed sources, and thus enables me to speak with greater fullness or positiveness on nearly every point touched by him, it has been thought wise to review the whole territory. I shall, however, count it unnecessary to do more than refer to Professor Jameson's paper for the more elaborate treatment of sundry phas.es of the subject. -These maps are printed in Vol. IV (atlas), as maps 5-15. A brief paper " On the Historical Maps," in Vol. Ill, gives a summary of the evidence on which they rest. Digitized by Microsoft® 134 BURR. I. GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. The national existence of the Dutch began with the year 1579. In 1581 they formally renounced their allegiance to the King of Spain. Till then, however rebellious, they had been his subjects. Such title as their exploration or commerce could give was the King of Spain's title. Even the assertion of their independence brought with it no claim to lands out- side the Netherlands; nor is there reason to suppose that the Dutch yet dreamed of such a claim. 1 The King of Spain, indeed, was now their foe; and they knew well that he was not King of Spain alone. That realm but gave him his most familiar title. He was lord of Portugal as well, lord of the fairest lands of Italy, lord of the Mediterranean isles, lord still of half the Netherlands ; but his proudest title was that of lord of the Indies. Thence he drew the treasures with which he dazzled and bullied the world. 2 America Avas but a Spanish 'In view of these facts, I find especially puzzling ;<, claim that "the Dutch appear to hare been the first who, in the early part of the sixteenth century, turned their attention to Guiana" (Blue Book " Venezuela No. 1," p. 4) ; and, as a result of my research, it is not easy to credit the statement in any sense. In reply to a request for the evidence on which it rests, I have learned of nothing definite except only that when in 1528 the Welsers of Augsburg, having received a grant from Charles the Fifth, led their expedition to the Spanish Main, their troop was made up of " Germans and Flemings." But the Welsers were South Germans, their destination was not Guiana, and the "Flemings'' who at this date were available for such an enterprise were far more likely to hail from the great towns of the populous Southern Netherlands than from the provinces peopled by the Dutch. Of relations of the Dutch with Guiana prior to their independence I have found else no suggestion ; and the researches of the Dutch historians of Dutch commerce give no countenance to such a theory. "How conscious the Dutch were of this fact appears constantly in the pages of Usselinx, of Van Jleteren, of Grotius. Under many forms they reiterate Raleigh's com- plaint that "It is his Indian Golde that indaungereth and disturbeth all the nations of Europe." Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 135 island. Xo other European State, save Portugal, had yet planted a colon)' on its shores; and Portugal was now one of the dominions of the King of Spain. Whatever cloud might rest on the exclusiveness of his right by discovery to the northern half of the continent, none now obscured his title to the south- ern. That this title had, further, the explicit approval of the Pope of Rome was hardly likely to give it added sanctity in the eyes of Protestant powers; but as yet that title, how- ever its basis might be questioned, was not attacked from any quarter. If Drake, the Englishman, and his fellow-freebooters made the Caribbean seas their own and took tribute of the treasures of Peru, it was confessedly but a raid into an enemy's territory; land they neither sought nor claimed. Yet if the English, though in name at peace with the King of Spain, might thus singe his beard on these far shores, so with double warrant might the Dutch. And such, not con- quest or settlement, was, so far as the records show, the aim of the first Dutch project for a visit to these coasts. 1 Its 1 Jan de Laet has again and again been made responsible for the statement that as early as 1580 the Dutch traded to the Orinoco. Hartsiuck, the old Dutch historian of Guiana (i, p. 206), was perhaps the first to set afloat the blunder. He makes Gumilla jointly responsible for the statement; but Gumilla merely follows Do Laet. What De Laet really says is something very different. It is in one of his chapters on the Orinoco, and he has been speaking of the expeditions of Raleigh from 1595 to 1617. "For some years now there has been carried on a great trade in tobacco and other things on this river, both by the English, singly and iu companies, and by us Dutchmen, so that there have been years when eight, nine, and more ships at a timo from the United Netherlands have been on this river." (Xienwe Wereldt, eds. of 1625, 1630, bk. xv, cap. 21.) In his Latin text (not cited by Hartsinck), which was published some years later, this statement was somewhat expanded as follows : "In the meantime, and even earlier, several expeditions were undertaken both by the English and by our people [the Dutch] to the river Orinoco and the town of Santo Thoinc5 for the purpose of trading, and especially for tobacco, which is there dili- gently cultivated by the Spaniards ; so that, as rests on good authority, our people sometimes went up that river with eight.or nine ships in a single year and bargained with the governor of Santo Thorne", before the King of Spain had by -i. most severe interdict forbidden all Spaniards to carry on trade with foreigners." Now, it is certain that Santo Thomo itself was not in existence before 1591 or 1592 Digitized by Microsoft® 136 BURR. suggester was an Englishman. On June 10, 1581, one Captain Butz (or Batz, as his name is spelled by turns — it was not (see, as to thie, Professor Jameson's report); and the prohibition meant must be the edict of February 27, 1603, or, more probably, those of April 25 and May 11, 1705 (see p. 154, note). This, therefore, is the period to which Jan tie Laet's statement must apply; and this tallies with what little else we know of this Orinoco trade. Of course, all that could be learned from the passage in any case would be, not that the Dutch, but that the Spaniards were already established in Guiana. Mr. Schomburgk, however, not only falls into the blunder of Hartsinck, but makes the passage more tributary to his argument by adding (Blue Book "Venezuela Xo. 1," p. 235; "Vene- zuela Xo. 5," p. 25) to the statement "so early as 1580 the Dutch navigated the Orinoco'' the further statement "and settlements were attempted on such parts as were not occupied by the Spaniards." This is, so far as I can determine, a wholly unsupported assumption. Another error, whose evolution it is not quite so easy to trace, is that which appears in its most fully developed form in the History of British Guiana by Jlr. Kodway, where we read (i, p. 3) that before the end of the sixteenth century Dutch traders had established depots for Indian products on the Guiana coast, and that "two such depots were established in Guiana about the year 15S0, the one in the Pomeroon, and the other at a small Indian village called Nibie in the Abary Creek." The historian even goes into minute particulars as to the management of these dep6ts, telling us that " only about ten [men] were left at the store, one of whom was natu- rally made Commander" — with much else of picturesque detail. But, convincingly circumstantial as all this is, there is, I fear, not the slightest doubt that all the fact it contains is antedated by a century. A hundred years later there was indeed a trading post on the Pomeroon (see Extracts, p. 145), though by no means so well- manned as in Mr. Rod way's description; and there was then also, or had lately been, an Indian village near the creek Abary which the Dutch knew by the name of Xaby — i. c., "Near-by" (see A. v. Berkel, Amerilcaunsclie Voyagien, Amsterdam, 1695). How these slight elements grew to such stately proportions can in part be con- jectured. Mr. Rod way's immediate sponsor was perhaps his predecessor, Dr. Dalton, whose History of British Guiana (i, p. 105) tells nearly the same story, less the details as to the management of the posts. The post Nibie is here, however, only a post "where there was an Indian village called Nibie." For the source of a statement by Dalton one is prone at once to turn to Hartsinck, on whom he draws for nearly every fact of this early history and seldom without misunderstanding him ; but in this instance there is clearly an intermediary. Dr. Dalton has but transcribed the pas- sage, with slight changes in wording, from Mr. Schomburgk's Description of UrHish Guiana (pp. 81, 82). Where Mr. Schomburgk found it, he does not tell us ; but I thiuk I am able to guess. In a little collection of the colonial laws published at George- town in 1825 under the title of "The Demerura and Essequelo Vade-Mecum" there is an historical introduction which is almost certainly a connecting link between Hart- sinck's statements and their enlargement by Mr. Schomburgk. In this we read (p. 1) : " Their first settlements [i. e., the first settlements of the Dutch] were made near the River Essoquebo, towards the River Pomeroon, or Bouweroon, and on Abary Creek, where there was a small Indian village called Xaby." And, in the chrono- logical table which follows, there appears as the first item : "1580— About this period the Zeelauilers attempted small settlements, for the Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 137 improbably Butts or Bates), who had already made five voy- ages to the Indies, offered to the provincial Estates of Holland purpose of traffic with the native tribes, on the banks of the Amazon, Oronoco mid Pomeroon, on which last they had a small establishment called Xova Zeelandia." Now, in this form it is not hard to trace both elements of the story to the pages of Hartsinck. That historian, at the beginning of his chapter on the settlement of the Dutch in Guiana (i, p. 206), declares that "the trade of the Hollanders and Zee- landers, not only to the rivers Orinoco and Amazon, but to the whole coast of Gui- ana, seems to have begun iu or shortly before the year 1580," and a little later (p. 207) he gives their colony on the* Essequibo the name of "Nova Zelandia." As this is a palpable confusion with the later Nova Zelandia, which he places on the PomerooD, it was natural enough that his borrower should combine the later location with the earlier date. That Hartsinck is wrong, both as to date and as to location, will pres- ently be seen. As to the alleged settlement on the creek Abary, what Hartsinck says is at the beginning of his chapter on Berbice (i, p. 280). "The boundary of this colony to the northwest is at the creek Abary or Waybari, which lies about three miles from the river of Berbice and on which there is established a post of this colony; and which, as is related, separates the colony from Demerary in pursu- ance of an agreement made in the year 1672 between the Commandeur of Essequebo and the Secretary of Berbice, Mr. Adriaan van Berkcl, as empowered thereto, whereby it was stipulated that they of Berbice should withdraw a post of fifteen or sixteen men which they had stationed in the Indian village Naby, about three hours from Demerary, for the buying up of dyes and other wares from the Indians, and should leave the west side of the creek to them of Essequebo.'' Now, it is conceiva- ble that one whose Dutch was scanty, finding this the first thing stated about the colony of Berbice, might have understood " grenspaaltn,'' boundary, to mean settle- ment; and, thus started, have gained from the rather clumsy sentence only a con- fused idea of an early post. In any case, other basis for the legend is not to be found. That Hartsinck has himself somewhat misunderstood Van Berkel, whom he cites as his authority, is to us of no moment. It must not, however, be inferred that all historians have fallen into these errors. The more scholarly history of the Guiana colonies by General Netscher rejects though it does not fully expose them ; and the standard historian of the rise of the Dutch sea-power, the able and conscientious De Jonge, writing as an archivist in full pos- session of all the sources, long ago pointed out (vol. i, p. 46, note) that only Hart- sinck's misunderstanding of De Laet is responsible for so early a connection of the Dutch with Guiana. The claim of the British Blue Book ('-Venezuela No. l,"p. 4) is more moderate and its source quite different. "There is abundant evidence," it says, "coming from Spanish sources, that during the latter half of the century, prior to 1590, the Dutch had established themselves on the coast of Guiana ; " and in support of this it refers to the "letters, etc., 1588-1693," of the province of Cumana, in the Spanish Archives of the Indies. I can only regret, as Professor Jameson has already done, that no item of this abundant evidence has been given to the world, and must add not only that I have found in Dutch official sources nothing to support this claim, but that it seems wholly inconsistent with what I have learned from them. Digitized by Microsoft® 138 BURR. to make another in their interest if they would fit out three or four more ships to send with his own. The proposition was referred to a committee, and was further discussed in the ses- sions of June 14 and July 7 ; but on July 22, notwithstanding the evident favor of the project by the Stadhouder, the Estates declined the Englishman's offer. "As regards the proposed voyage of Captain Batz to the lands of Peru and the islands lying thereabout," says their resolution, "the Estates of Hol- land, in view of the great burdens of the land for the carrying on of the war, can not undertake the expense required; yet," they add (perhaps to let the stranger down as easily as possible), "the Estates will look on with approval if any private individu- als in the cities of Holland care to aid the project, and will even lend a helping hand thereto " 1 As was long ago pointed out by Dutch scholars, nothing seems ever to have come of it, 2 and the enterprise, if carried out, would have been rather a feat of war 3 than a commercial enterprise. Yet the episode shows that to the Dutch all Spanish South America was still Peru, and that a venture thither was a serious matter. There is no reason to suppose that the objective point was Guiana rather than any other part of Terra Firma or the West India islands, and that Dutch settlements already existed on these shores is, of course, out of the question. 4 1 All the passages relating to this episode are printed in full, among the transcripts, in Vol. II of the report of the Commission, pp. 3-8. For brevity's sake, I shall hence- forward refer to these "Extracts from Dutch Archives" as "Extracts" simply. s De Jonge, Nederlandsch Gezag, i, p. 35 ; Berg van Dussen Muilkerk, in the Gida for November, 1848. l "Meer een op zich zelf staand oorlogs-feit dan eene Nederlandache handels-onderne- ming," is De Jonge's phrase. ■'Yet it is precisely this episode on which Mr. Schomburgk bases his statement (Bine-Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 235; "Venezuela No. 5," p. 25) that "the States- General privileged, in 1581, certain individuals to trade to these settlements exclu- sively" — i. e., to the Dutch settlements postulated by him (see p. 136, note). There is question neither of the States-General, nor of a privilege, nor of trade, nor of Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 139 It is nearly a decade and a half before I again find mention in Dutch official records of any expedition to the coasts or islands of South America. Then, in March of 1595, the Estates of Zeeland granted freedom of convoy to one Balthazar de Moucheron for a cargo of goods to the Spanish Indies. This was, of course, for peaceful traffic, and his objective point would seem to have been the island of Margarita, long the leading Spanish entrep6t for these parts. 1 It was just at this time that by a Zeeland ship, not impossibly this one, was dis- covered just south of that island of Margarita, on the Spanish mainland of South America, the remarkable deposit of salt which for years made Punta de Araya (or Punta del Rey, as the Dutch more often called it) one of the leading destinations of Dutch commerce; and the established route thither led along the whole length of the Ghiiana coast. 2 In the same year there is record of a venture to Santo Domingo by a union of Holland and Zeeland merchants. 3 In the following year we hear of another Zeeland expedition to the Spanish Indies, 4 and there were not improbably many similar enter- prises not mentioned in the records, for it was only when settlements, nor yet of Guiana. He has been misled by a careless statement of Hartsinck (i, p. 206) — a careless statement strangely misunderstood. "I have searched once more, with Mr. Telting" (the archivist in charge of the West India papers), -writes me General Netscher, the eminent historian of the Guiana colonies, under date of November 30, 1896, in kind confirmation of my own research on this point, "all the resolutions of the States-General of 1581, and some years thereabout, but we did not find anything." 'At least De Jonge is probably right in connecting (i, p. 46) this expedition of Moucheron with Van Meteren's mention of a voyage to Margarita. 2 Van Rees, Geschiedenis der StaathuishoudTcunde in Xederland, ii, p. 3. (Cf. also Jan de Laet's chapter on Araya iu his Meuwe Wereldt). The Eemonstrantie described below (pp. 151-153) speaks of this route of the salt ships, which is else well known. (For the passage, see Extracts, p. 33.) "De Jonge, i, p. 46. •'That Moucheron and Adriaen ten Haeff had part iu this, as Netscher states (p. 2) is only a guess of De Jonge's (i, p. 46). Digitized by Microsoft® 140 BURR. freedom from convoy dues was sought that legislative action was needed, and even after the establishment of the admiral- ties no ship need seek a commission unless it chose. 1 It was in 1591 or 1592, according to his own statement, that William Usselinx, the inspirer above all others of the West India trade, returning from the Spanish islands, began his agita- tion in the Netherlands in behalf of Dutch trade with South America. 2 I have already spoken (p. 135, note) of Jan de Laet's statement as to Dutch trade with the Spaniards on the Orinoco even before Raleigh's expedition of 1595. Yet it is improbable that this trade to the West Indies antedates 1594; for to that year is ascribed 3 the beginning of direct trade with Brazil, and all tradition and probability make Brazil the earliest, as it was the nearest, destination of Dutch trade in America. 4 It will be noted that as yet, so far as the records show, the trade is with recognized Spanish settlements, and therefore not of a sort to create a territorial title. Of Guiana or of direct trade with the Indians, there is thus far no mention. 5 'See resolution of the States- General, 22 Dec, 1599 (Rijksarchlef, Hague). 2 See his Memorie aenwysende, etc. (Rijksarehief, Hague, and printed by Van Rees), p.l. 3 See De Jonge (i, p. 36,) citing a manuscript Deductie in the Dutch Rijksarehief. The Brazil of that day, it must be remembered, was not thought of as reaching as far north as to the Amazon. 4 "De oudste geregelde vaart op de kusten van America door onze zeelieden, is geweest de vaart op Brazilie."— De Jonye (i, p. 35). Indirect trade with Brazil, by way of Portugal, was in vogue at least as early as 1590. 6 For the genealogy of the story that in 1596 the Spaniards found Dutch colonists in the Monica, I may refer to the convincing discussion of Professor Jameson (pp. 58-60, above;. The British Blue Book ("Venezuela No. 1") happily ignores this claim; but it adds a fresh one of its own. It states that " Ibarguen in 1597 . . . visited the Essequibo and reported white men, who can be shown to have been the Dutch, 1o be settled high up the river;" and in support of this statement it cites without transcription a considerable portion of the Spanish archives. I am indebted to the courtesy of Her Majesty's Government for the exact passage; The Spanish explorer Ibarguen, reporting in 1597 to the King, states that he visited the Essequibo where (it is the following phrase only which is given me in the words of the original) "he heard very great news of the men who were clothed and fighting with arms." Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 141 But in 1596 there was published in England a book which set the imagination of all Europe on fire — Sir Walter Raleigh's " Discoreric of Guiana.'" It called universal attention to the wealth of these coasts and to the advantages of trade with the natives. The Netherlands were not the last to feel its influence. Already before the end of 1596 one begins to hear in the records of the States-General of the trade with the West Indies; and on March 24, 1597, the merchant-banker Hans van der Veken, of Rotterdam, was granted a commission for two vessels, "manned with Germans and other foreigners, to go to the coast of Guinea [in Africa], Peru, and the West Indies, and there to trade and bargain with the savages," this commission ' ' containing also request to all princes and poten- tates to let these ships and their crews pass freely and in peace thither and return again to these provinces." 1 Guiana is not yet mentioned; but, in the children's phrase, we are growing warm. On September 3 of this same year (1597) the States- How these are known to bo "white men" and "settled" and "high up the, river," or how they "can he shown to have been the Dutch," I have not learned. In Dutch documents also I find mention, indeed, of men in the interior of Guiana who are clothed and who fight with arms; but these are only the fabled inhabitants of El Dorado — whom, by the way, it was precisely Ibarguen's errand to seek. But there is another passage of this report of Ibarguen's which, if correctly reported, shows unquestionably the presence of Dutchmen as traders on this coast. Mr. Rod- way, writing in the Guiana magazine Timeliri for December, 1896, and apparently ascribing his information to Mr. Reddan, now of the British Foreign Office, states that Ibarguen (who, it seems, was the sergeant-major of Domingo de Vera, the leader of the body of Spanish colonists sent in 1596 to the Orinoco) says in his report that on his way from the Orinoco to the Essequibo he arrested "five Flamencos in a boat, who were trading with the Indians of Barima." And this account seems borne out by the statement regarding Ibarguen's report — unfortunately, without quota- tion or literal translation — which I owe to Her Majesty's Government. Yet this at most shows Dutchmen, not in the Essequibo, but in or near the mouth of the Orinoco, and suggests only that Dutch trade to Santo Thome of which we already know from the pag^s of Jan de Laet. In the following year (1598) two Dutch expeditions, as we know from the journal of one of them, stopped thus to trade with the Indians in the Barima on their way up the Orinoco to Santo Thome\ (Cf. p. 144, below, and vol. ii of the Commission's report, p. 17.) 1 For the passage in full see Extracts, p. 9. Digitized by Microsoft® 142 BURR. General were requested by Gerrit Bicker and his associates, merchants of Amsterdam, "who have it in mind to equip two ships, so as to send them to a certain coast and haven of America Peruana, being a place where never any from these [Netherlands have been, and which is also not held by the Spaniards or the Portuguese," to grant them freedom of convoy both going and coming, "and this for two full voyages, if so be that God Almighty should be pleased to bless their first voyage as they hope, — and this out of regard to the great sums they will lay out on this voyage and the risk therein lying." Whereupon it was resolved to grant them the desired convoy "to a certain coast and haven of America Peruana, provided that they shall lade in the aforesaid ships no forbid- den goods, and that they shall further be bound, on their return, to bring satisfactory evidence that never anybody from these lands has traded to the aforesaid haven, and shall make true report in the meeting of the States-General of their experiences, with specification of the places where they have been and have carried on their trade." And "it is the under- standing," goes on the record, "that like freedom shall be granted to others who shall likewise desire to go to other unknown havens." "But this," ends this significant passage, " the deputies of Zeeland declared themselves uninstructed to grant." * The encouragement was not lost; for but three months later, on December 15, 1597, Jan Cornelisz. Leyn, of Enkhui- sen, and his partners, having it in mind with two ships " to sail to the land of Guiana, situate in the realm of Peru," sought freedom of convoy for their first six voyages, both going and returning. Whereupon it was voted to grant their request, but only for the two voyages "which they have it in mind to 1 Extracts, pp. 9, 10. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 143 make with their two ships to the unknown and unnavigated havens of America, to wit, to the land of Guiana, situate in the Kingdom of Peru, as herein specified;" and this upon pre- cisely the same conditions as to lading and report as in the preceding case. 1 And a week later, on December 23, the Estates of Holland voted aid toward the arming of this expe- dition "to Guiana, in the Kingdom of Peru". 2 "Het Landtvan Guiana gelegen in het Coninckryck van Peru: h clearly we have in these expeditions the very earliest Dutch voyages to the Guiana coast. And luckily, to make the matter doubly sure, we have left us from one of these voyages, and that the first, the stipulated final report to the States-General. At least, there is no reason to doubt that the ship's clerk, Cabeliau, whose "report concerning the unknown andunsailed course \_voiage] of America, from the river Amazon as far as the island of Trinidad," 3 still rests in the archives of the States-General, and who sailed from Holland in a squadron of two ships on December 3, 1597, was the scribe of this expedition to "America Peruana." Having lost sight of their smaller vessel on the way, Cabeliau's party reached the American coast on February 9, 1598, at a point near the mouth of the Caurora, just west of the Cayenne, five degrees by their reckoning north of the equator. As they lingered to trade with the Indians in the Cayenne, where they found an English ship busy with the same errand, there arrived also on June 3, 1598, two ships of that other expedition "to Guiana, in the realm of Peru; " and with these they "joined company in order together to explore the entire coast as far as to the river Ori- noco." As far as the Corentyn they pushed into all the rivers as they went, finding nowhere European occupation, but trading with the natives. "Between the rivers Corentyn and Orinoco 1 Extracts, pp. 10, 11. ■ Extracts, pp. 11, 12. 3 Extracts, p. 13. Digitized by Microsoft® 144 BURR. are these rivers: Berbice, Apari, Maychawini, Maheyca, Demi- rara, Dessekebe [Essequibo], Pauroma [Pomeroon], Moruga, Wayni. These neither singly nor in company did Ave visit or trade in, because our time was nearly used up and because the Indians gave us to believe that there was not much there to get, and also because our provisions were growing scant, so that we did nothing more than to cruise along the coast, in order to take knowledge of it, until Ave reached the river Ori- noco." But into the river Orinoco, the Barima, and the Ama- cura they sailed, "and there bartered and traded;" then pushed up the Orinoco "about 40 [Dutch] miles, to the place or settle- ment where the Spaniards stay, which is named St. Thome, where Don Fernando de Berreo is Governor and also Marquis of Guiana, the river Orinoco and all the coasts being still unconquered as far as the river Amazon." Thence wending their way homeward, they were able to report that "in this voyage we have discoA-ered, found, and navigated more than twenty -four rivers, many islands in the rivers, and A~arious havens besides, which have hitherto neither been known in these provinces nor sailed to therefrom ; nay, more, were before our voyage unknown to any map or • geographer." 1 And to this statement, Cabeliau, "as clerk of this expedition," makes affidavit. It was the certificate demanded bv the States-General, and its validity was conceded, for on October 19, 1599, the freedom of convoy conditioned upon it Avas without protest aAvarded by the States-General to Gerrit Bicker and Company, "having made the voyage to America Peruana," as already on August 11 it had been to their -col- leagues "returned from Guiana, in the Kingdom of Peru." 2 By these acts the supreme political authority of the Nether- Tor Cabeliau's journal in full, see Extracts, pp. 13-22. 2 Extracts, p. 11, note. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 145 lands becomes a witness that the coast of Guiana was thereto- fore unvisited by the Dutch. An investigator of political titles may well be content with such evidence. Nor is there, so far as I can find, the slightest reason to question its truth. 1 While these expeditions were still abroad, on November 16, 1598, three other Amsterdam merchants asked freedom of convoy for a ship which they were lading "to sail to the coasts of America, into the realm of Guiana and other islands thereabout, in which quarter ships from these lands have never been;" and it was granted for two voyages on the same terms as to the others. 2 And, not long after their return, on November 9, 1599, "at the request of Jan van Penen and Gerrit Diricxsz. de Vries cum suis, merchants and burghers of Haarlem, who are making ready a certain ship wherewith to sail along the coasts of Guiana in America, in order to seek the rivers of Wiapoco and Orinoco and there to find asraiii a certain mineral stone lately brought from there 1 To this same expedition seem to belong the oldest existing Dutch maps of any part of this coast, one of them dated 1598 and both now in the collection of the Dutch Rijksarchief. See De Jonge's excellent note on them (i, p. 50). For reproductions of them see the Atlas of the Commission, maps 57, 58. One represents the mouth of the Cayenne, the other the southwest coasts of Trinidad. These are precisely the places -where we know the expedition to have lingered. De Laet, in his description of the Wiapoco (ed. of 1630, p. 568; ed. of 1633, pp. 638, 639), quotes from the journal of another Dutch expedition which was there in 1598, and which was very possibly that of the great and little flphera Atundi, which joined Cabeliau's party off the Cayenne; for, although Cabeliau almost certainly did not visit the Wiapoco, he cites it among the rivers of their joint discovery. So, too, in speaking of the Amazon De Laet says (ed. of 1633, p. 634) : "Iu the year 1598, and even earlier, the merchants of Amsterdam and others sent their ships to these coasts, that they might open and establish trade with the savages who inhabit these coasts" (anno 1598 et etiam ante, Amstelodamenses atque alii mercatores naves suas ad lias oras destinarunt, ut commercium cum barbaris qui lias oras accolebant conslituerent et stabilirent) ; and he tells the story of one of these ships, which, finding itself by accident off the Amazon, explored the mouth of that river. This is the earliest date for the presence of the Dutch in this region which is anywhere named by this well-informed and almost contemporary historian. 5 Extracts, pp. 12, 13. VOL 1 10 Digitized by Microsoft® 146 BUER. into this country as a specimen by Jacob Adriaensz., mate at Haarlem," they were granted freedom of convoy for two voyages under the usual conditions. 1 But all these venturers were from the province of Holland. 2 Where, then, were the Zeelanders, to whom has so long been ascribed the earliest traffic with this coast? When, a century and a half later, there burst forth the quarrel, long festering between the merchants of Holland and of Zeeland, as to the right of the latter to the monopoly of the trade with Essequibo, the Zeelanders ransacked all old documents within their reach and put forth memorial after memorial to prove that the trade with Guiana had from its beginning been in their hands. But, while they discreetly kept silence regarding these early expe- ditions of the Hollanders, their search revealed nothing earlier in support of their own claim than a certain minute of the proceedings of the provincial Estates of Zeeland on November 20, 1599, which deserves to be quoted here in full: In the matter of the request of the Burgomaster of Middelburg, Adriaen teu Haeft, setting forth how that, in the preceding year, 1598, at heavy cost to himself, he caused to be investigated on the continent of America many different rivers and islands-; and how that in this voyage were discovered various coasts and lands where one could do notable damage to the King of Spain; and how that he is well minded to send out again two ships in order, in the country's behalf, to dis- cover certain places, a thing which can not be done so effectively with seafaring folk alone. Wherefore, and in view of the fact that in Holland, for the encouragement of exceptional enterprises of this sort, great favor is shown to the promoters of such voyages, such as the providing them with cannon, powder, and soldiers, he doth petition that there be granted to his ships from 16 to 20 experienced soldiers, among them a 'Extracts, p. 23. 'That De Jonge (Nederlandsch Gezag, i, p. 54) ascribes to Isaac Lemaire a share in this trade -with the Spanish Indies is due to an odd misreading of "in Tierra Firma" for "in communi forma" in the minutes of the States- General for April 15, 1600 (Eijksarchief, Hague). Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 147 good commandant, and doth engage that he will himself provide their rations. Whereupon the representative of the nobility gave verdict that commerce ought here to receive the same favor as in Holland, and that therefore it ought to be learned through the deputies there [i. e., to the States -General] just what is done in Holland in this behalf, in order to be able to do the same here; the deputies of Middelburg, how- ever, grant soldiers to the number of 16; those of Ziericzee likewise, to the number of 12, on half wages, subject to the approval of their con- stituents; those of Goes, Tholen, Flushing, and Vere promise that they will send in at once their report to their town councils on this point, and that the councils will find out what is done in Holland in such cases. 1 There is here no mention of Guiana; and of the enterprise itself there is never again mention in the minutes of the Zeeland Estates. That Guiana was its destination is probable enough, but probable only. What it seems safe to infer is that this was the beginning of Zeeland's dealings with these unsettled coasts of the West, — that the coasts in view were conceived of as belonging to the King of Spain,— and that the enterprise was one of hostile aggression. In this last lies its significance; the employment of soldiers in an unsettled region can hardly point to anything less than an attempt at the occupation of territory, l Notulen, 1599; for the Dutch, see Extracts, p. 23. I have sought diligently but iu vain in the provincial archives of Zeeland for anything in the accompanying papers of this year or of the following which could throw farther light on this enterprise. The later papers -which cite this in support of the claims of Zeeland in Guiana are the Bench t published to the world by the Estates of Zeeland in the latter half of 1750, and reprinted iu the Nederlandsche Jacrboeken for December of that year (pp. 1492- 1519), and the memorial of the directors of the Zeeland Chamber of the Dutch West India Company on the same subject, of August 23, 1751 (Nederlandsche Jaerboekeu, 1751, ii, pp. 1079-1135). It should perhaps be remembered that it was in this year 1599 that there sailed forth from the Zeeland port of Flushing the Dutch armada under Pieter van der Does, which, after taking a town in the Canaries and avenging at the Isle de Principe that unsuccessful enterprise of Balthazar de Moucheron in 1598 which Berg van Dussen Muilkerk calls the "earliest attempt at colonization from out the Netherlands," sent seven or eight of its ships across the Atlantic to ravage the coast of Brazil. They returned, with great booty of sugar, in the follow- ing year. Digitized by Microsoft® 148 BURR. and we seem here to have the earliest known effort of the Dutch to establish themselves on the coasts of America. One may even guess where the blow was struck. Jan de Laet, writing in 1624 of the Amazon, tells us that " our Netherland- er began some years ago to visit this great river, and the men of Flushing established on it two forts, besides dwelling- places — one of them on Coyminne, which is like an island . and is reckoned to be some 80 miles up the river. The other, named Orange, lies 7 miles lower down." 1 In the Latin text of the same work, published in 1633, he devotes a whole chapter to Dutch relations with the Amazon, having now learned of the visiting of that river by Netherlander in 1598. 2 "Others also in the following years," he adds, "attempted to enter and explore the great river Amazon, and in this the enterprise and industry of the Zeelanders was especially con- spicuous;" and to these as a whole, not to the men of Flushing alone, he now ascribes the colony and the two forts. 3 Two pages further on he speaks of a neighboring river, the Aracoa, "which our people explored in the year 1600." 4 One or both of these deeds may belong to Ten Haeff's expedition; if not, iMeuu-e Wereldt, eels, of 1625, 1630 (p. 562 of the latter). This is the source of the statement in the Zeeland memorial of 1750, which has crept theuce into all the his- tories. Blaeuw's Xieuwe Wereldt is there cited; but Blaeuw's Xieuwe Wereldt is only De Laet's text set to Blaeuw's maps. Unfortunately the Zeeland memorial care- lessly puts the forts "not far from" the Amazon, and malies the date " about the same time" as Ten Haeff's venture. Before De Laet's edition of 1630, the colony had already been destroyed by the Portuguese : in 1629 it was found in ruins by the Dutch, a fact which finds duo insertion in that edition. This establishment was doubtless that "tobacco-plantation on the Amazon " for which the Zeelanders claimed reimbursement in 1621 (see p. 159, below). In De Laet's history of the West India Company (Leyden, 1644) we learn of the date of its destruction (1625), and of the flight of the survivors to the Wiapoco. (De Laet, Sistorie, pp. 111-113; and cf. Netscher, Geschiedenis, pp. 53-57.) -See note, p. 145, above. *Xovit8 OrUs, 1633, p. 634. *Noviia OrUs, p. 636. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 149 it has left no trace. But, if these were its work, they show, what might antecedently have been expected and what seems confirmed by the subsequent history, that the Dutch occupa- tion of Guiana began at the extreme east. There is, indeed, one statement afloat which would seem to contradict this. In his memorandum in support of the bound- ary urged by him, Mr. Schomburgk states : " It is said that at the close of that century [the sixteenth] a Chamber of Mer- chants existed at Middelburg, trading to the River Barima." 1 By whom it is said, or when, or where, he does not so much as hint. The historians of Guiana, one and all, know naught of it. The historians of Dutch commerce are as ignorant. The Zeelanders themselves in 1750 found nothing so precious to their search. I have sought it faithfully, but in vain, among the manuscript records of the Dutch. The English searchers have not found it in their Spanish documents. After a pro- longed search through the literature of the subject, I am fain to confess that I can find no item of fact out of which it could have been evolved. 2 Another error, more easy to trace and expose, is that set afloat by Hartsinck (i, p. 207) of a charter of freedom of con- voy granted by the States-General on July 10, 1602, to cer- tain Zeeland merchants for trade with the coast of Guiana. As he gives his sources, it is easy to establish that there was no charter, that the merchants were not Zeelanders, and that their destination was not the Guiana coast. The applicants were that same Jan van Penen and Gerrit Diricxz. de Vries whom we already know from an earlier petition 3 to have been 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No, 1," p. 235 ; " Venezuela No. 5," p. 25. 2 Is it possible that it can be but a confusion with the Miduelburg colony of the following century (1658-1665) in the Pomeroon, the resemblance of whose earlier name — Baroma, Baruma — to that of the Barima has given rise to so many miscon- ceptions ? 3 See p. 145, above. Digitized by Microsoft® 150 BURR. merchants of Haarlem. What they asked was, first, freedom of convoy for a single voyage, and, second, its continuation for subsequent ones. The States-General referred the matter to the Admiralty of Amsterdam, instructing that body to grant the first request when the voyage had actually been made, but to refuse the second altogether. Accordingly, when, in Janu- ary, 1604, the petitioners presented themselves to the Admi- ralty, proof of their voyage was insisted on ; and it then came to light that its real destination was to ascend the river Orinoco (probably in search of the precious metals, as in their expedi- tion of 1599). Up that river, however, "by reason of the multitude of the Spaniards whom they found there," the Dutch ship had been unable to penetrate. Freedom of convoy for this voyage was granted; and there was an end of the matter. 1 The imposing list of Zeeland merchants which Hartsinck couples with this supposed charter as traders "about this time" to the coast of Guiana is borrowed mainly from the Zeeland memorial of 1750, 2 and is only a dist of patroons taken at random from a record book still extant, which covers nearly the whole seventeenth century. 3 Yet Hartsinck's list, which adds to these the Haarlem merchants just mentioned, and even their captain, Rijk Hendrikszoon, is repeated, with more or less of respect, by all later historians, including even the careful De Jonge 4 and Netscher. 5 'This error is partially exposed by Netsoher (p. 39). For the documents in full, see Extracts, pp. 25, 26. ^Nederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1751, ii, p. 1085. 3 The Book of Commissions, etc., 1626-1671, of the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company. I shall later speak of this more fully. *Nederlandsch Gezag, i, p. 53. 6 Page 38. The "Jan van Pere," whose name seems to have been especially seduc- tive to these writers is, I am convinced, a myth, suggested only by the Haarlem "Jan van Penen.'' The first Van Pere known to the records of the West India Company is Abraham ; and he first took his seat as a director on October 5, 1626. The colony of Berbice, which gave his name such prominence, was not founded till 1627. Cf. Extracts, pp. 15, 44, 45. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 151 Traders, indeed, there doubtless were. Under date of the year 1600 the well-informed contemporary, Van Meteren, points out, in his annals of the Dutch, the motives which impelled to the West Indian trade and gradually, changed its character. ' ' The United Netherlands also sought, in furtherance of their commerce, to discover means of trade with the West Indies, and sent many ships (and great ones withal) to the uninhabited West India islands after salt. * * * This trade came very opportunely, since the trade to the coasts of Africa, or Guinea, by reason of the multitude of ships which from all lands repaired thither, gave no longer so good profit as at first. Therefore they endeavored, through this trade to the salt islands, gradu- ally to open a commerce with the West Indies, without seeking to make any conquests there, but rather to win the friendship of the Indians and to protect them against the Spaniards, for whom, apart from this, they have no love, and thus to come into traffic with them — a course which in time must develop a trade, since the Dutch can sell all wares cheaper by half than do the Spaniards, on account of the heavy Spanish taxes and tolls." That the trade with Guiana, once set in motion, was not allowed to sleep one may, therefore, even in the absence of explicit data, well believe; and that at least one Dutchman was keenly alive to the opportunity and need of fortifying this trade by the establishment of colonies we have cogent evidence. There lies in the archives at The Hague a petition, unsigned and undated, but bearing the title, "Remonstrance to the States-General of these United Provinces on the subject of the colonization of the coasts of Guiana in America." A transcript of that document I have the honor to lay before vou. 1 I believe it, on the ground of its ideas and its style, the work of Willem Usselinx, the well-known originator of 1 Extracts, pp. 27-36. Digitized by Microsoft® 152 BURR. the Dutch West India Company, and to be identical with that discourse on the colonization of the Indies of which he him- self tells us in a pamphlet of the year 1608. 1 But, whatever may be thought as to its authorship, it will hardly be questioned that this was the petition which was dealt with by the States- Gi-eneral on February 25, 1603. "I doubt not," begins the paper, "that it is well enough known to the States-General what a rich, beautiful, fruitful, populous, pleasant, and •In his Yertoogli, hoe nootwendich , etc. (cf. Professor Jameson's Usselinx, note 32). "It must not be thought," he writes in this pamphlet, "that the Spaniard has so taken possession of all the most fruitful lands and places of the Indies that none are left which are of good climate, fruitful, and comfortable to dwell in, and in which profit is to be made, since we know that he is still daily making war in order to gain certain ones, while others can not well be reached by him on account of the clumsi- ness of his great ships, as well a< through the resistance offered him there by the Indians, and some are still unknown to him. • ■ And if one answers that the Portuguese and other Spaniards luive better advantages for this trade than we, since they have there certain places, I admit it; but when they first came thither they had not so great advantages, either in ships or otherwise, as we now have, the more so as these lands are now as well known to us as to them, and we have good opportunity to get all that we should be in need of for the establishment of colonies from certain neighboring places — which places do not need to be here specified — while the Span- iard in the beginning had to get from Spain everything that he needed. But since I have adequately treated this point in a discourse on the colonization of the Indies, which I composed some years ago, I will not here repeat it ; it is enough to have shown that the means to gain a share in the rich trade of the Indies is to occupy places there with people from these lands." That Guiana is here in his thought can hardly be doubtful to any familiar with the local conditions ; and why he should not care to name it, even in citing the title of his earlier discourse, is also evident enough from the context. Van Rees, the foremost Dutch student of Usselinx's career, points out (in his Geacliiedenis der Staathuislioudkunde in Nederland, ii, p. 102) that from various expressions in his pamphlets may be inferred his scheme for the establishment of colonies on the coast of Guiana. The "Remonstrance" is not in Usselinx's handwriting, for I have compared it with many autographs of his in the Rijksarchief and can not find the slightest resemblance. The document has strayed from its place in the archives, and Mr. Hingman, the commies-cliariermeesler who for many years has had charge of the papers of the States-General, thinks it less likely to be the original presented to that body than a copy which belonged to the provincial Estates of Holland. The absence of signature, indeed, would seem to preclude all thought of its being the original. Were the papers of the States-General complete, it source could douht- liss be made certain, as well as the date of its presentation; but they are not. Digitized by Microsoft® guiAna and the dutch. 153 precious region, situate in America and named the province of Guiana, was now not long since discovered by some of the merchant ships of this country." His opinion of its limits and its neighbors may therefore have some slight worth to the present research. The province of Guiana in America, he says, stretches "from the great river Amazon to Punto della Rae or Trinidad." "It is so situated that the nearest districts inhabited by the Portuguese in Brazil are distant therefrom more than 300 miles. And the nearest places dwelt in by the Spaniards are also about 200 miles from the quarter where the mine above mentioned has been discovered, which one must first people and fortify; the said province being also inaccessible from the borders of the aforesaid nations (over and above the great distance) by reason of many high moun- tains, great wildernesses, and forests, and cut off from them by very deep rivers." The Portuguese, then, to this writer, were wholly outside the province; the Spaniards in it, but remote from the spot he would first colonize ; the Dutch not yet there at all. But the States-General, however tempted, replied that for the present it could not take action as to this requested colonization of Guiana. 1 Whether or no this document is the work of WillemUsselinx, it is certain that Usselinx was at just this time 1 urging the colonization of America in general and of Guiana in particular. "Inasmuch," writes his countryman and contemporary Van Meteren, " as the navigation and trade to the East Indies brought good business into the United Netherlands, some bethought them that a navigation and business of the same sort to the "West Indies, or America, might be brought about through the creation of a well-organized Company. Among 'Extracts, p. 36. 2 That Usselinx did not begin writing on tMs subject until 1600 we know from bis own words. As to this and as to bis career in general, I may refer to Professor Jameson's admirable biograpby of bin). Digitized by Microsoft® 154 BURE, others one Willem Usselinx, of Antwerp, merchant, a man who had spent several years in Spain and in the islands every- where, and had well posted himself as to the trade and oppor- tunities of the West Indies, or America, disclosed and suggested in all quarters the proper means which were of use to that end. "For it was evident [he urged] that the Spaniard had still many foes in America, or the West Indies, who were strong and not easy to conquer, and who, with a little help, would be able to resist the Spaniards, especially if one should furnish them weapons and should teach them to use horses, and also to move and manipulate troops, so as to make the Spaniard show his back. For it was well known [he said] that from the island of Trinidad as far as the Equator the Spaniards had no places or fortresses. These arguments and the like, with other tidings and information possessed by him, which it would not be politic as yet to spread abroad, this Usselinx knew how to employ. Wherefore he was charged, in the year 1604, to draw up a policie, or prospectus, in order to see if it would find shareholders, or adequate voluntary subscription by merchants, for the formation of such a Company and the making up of a good capital. " The prospectus consisted, first, of a complaint against the Spaniard, who sought to shut out the Dutch from all navigation, trade, and business, as was shown by his establishing in Spain a new toll (beside the old) of thirty per cent. 1 Further, that 1 This refers to the edict of Valladolid, February 27, 1603, by which, while the closure of the Indies was reaffirmed, foreign traders were admitted to Spain itself under payment of a thirty per cent toll. Its further provisions are given by Van Meteren (in his NederlandtscMe Historis, sub anno 1603). Owing to the opposition made by France and England, this edict was repealed before the end of 1604 (December 11) ; but early in 1605 trade with the Indies was forbidden afresh under severer penalties. " In the following year, which was 1605," writes the Dutch historian Pontanus in his Jmstelodamensimn SMoria (1611), "the King of Spain promulgated a severe edict, by which he sought not only to close to Hollanders and Zeelanders the realms Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 155 there had lately been discovered certain fruitful lands and islands, of good, healthful climate, inhabited by good and friendly of Spain and Portugal, but strictly forbade them to navigate into any part of the Indies, East or West, under the heavy penalty of death and confiscation of all their property." It may be worth while to transcribe here, from an official compilation of these Spanish laws for the Indies (" Sumarios de la recopilacion general de las Leyes, Ordenancas, provisiones, cedulas, instrucciones, y cartas dcordadas, qpor los Seyes Cato- licos de Castilla se lian promulgado, expedido, y despachado, para las Indias Occidental es . . . par el liceneiado Don Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuna"), published at Mexico in 1677, a summary of such relating to foreign traders as were then in force. They occur in Lib. iii, Tit. 23 (pp. 235a-237b), " De los estrangeros, quepassan d las Indias" : Ley I. Que Ningun estrangero, pueda tratar, ni contratar en las Indias. Ley II. Que Ningun estrangero, ni persona de las prohibidas, pueda tratar, ni contratar, de estos Reynos a las Indias, ni passar a ellas, sin habilitacion, y licencia del Eey : y los que la tuvieren, lo puedan hazer con solos sus caudales : so pena deperdimiento de bienes, y de la tal habilitacion. Ley V. Que Ningun estrangero pueda passar A las Indias, ni tratar, ni contratar en ellas, ni de ellas & estos Eeynos : so pena de per- dimiento de las mercadurias, aplicadas por tercias partes : en que tambien incu- rran los naturales, que para ello fueren supuestos. Ley VI. Que en ningun puerto de las Indias, se admita trato con estrangeros : so pena de lavida, y perdimiento de bienes. Ley VII. Que ningun estrangero pueda estar, ni vivir en las Indias, ni passar &, ellas : y los que huviere, sean echados dellas: y aviendo passado sin licencia, pierdan lo que huvieren ganado. % D. Felipe III. en Ventosilla, a 25. de Abril, y en Valladolid, a 11. de Mayo, de 1605. H D. Felipe II. en Valladolid, a 27. de Iulio, de 1592. 1f D. Felipe III. en Madrid, a 2. de Octu- bre, de 1608. Y a 25. de Diziembre, de 1616. 1[D. Felipe III. en S. Lorenco, a 15. de Novembre, 1611. Y alia 3. de Octubre, de 1614. 1[ El Emperador D. Carlos, en Madrid, a 15. de Octubre, de 1535. Y D. Felipe II. en Toledo, & 22. de Septiembre, de 1560. En Madrid, a 17. de Octubre, de 1562. En i-l Escurial, a 28. de Octubre, de 1565. Digitized by Microsoft® 156 BURK. folk desiring the acquaintance and friendship of the Dutch peo- ple, whom they knew to be foes of the Spaniards, in order to be helped by them against the Spanish tyranny, etc., especially the people of the interior, these being not barbarians but toler- ably civilized and organized, not going naked but clothed, and well disposed, in case some people should be sent over thither to teach them, to till and cultivate their land the better, it being found adapted to the planting of sugar, ginger, oil, wine, indigo, cotton, hops, and other fruits, the soil bringing forth many sorts of useful products serving for good and valuable dyes, besides the mines of gold, silver, and other minerals, which are the sinews of war. These lands would also in time make a good market for the wares and industries of the Netherlands. More- over, on the seacoasts of these lands there was found great abundance of salt, with which always, if there were lack of a better cargo, the ships could be ballasted and laden. "Beside the wordly blessings, it was to be hoped also that such a trade would conduce to the honor and praise of God, inasmuch as the saving faith and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ could thus in course of time be transplanted thither." . . } Glowing as are the<3e pictures of the new land and clever as are the arguments for its occupation, there is (with the possible exception as to the Zeelanders on the Amazon) for long no evidence of Dutch settlement in Guiana. 2 When, in 1608, Usselinx wrote his "Exposition, how necessary, useful, and profitable it is to the United Netherlands to preserve the 1 Van Meteren, Nederlandtsche Historic, sub anno 1607. 2 The "projected Guiana company" (geconcipieerde Guianse Compagnie) mentioned in another manuscript memorial of this period ■which De Jonge has printed (pp. 257-261 of pt. i of his Nederlandsch Gezag) can hardly have had an actual existence, and may be an enterprise related to the petition above described. De Jonge' thinks this memorial written between 1597 and 1602, and suspects Usselinx of its authorship. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 157 freedom of Trading to the West Indies, in the Peace with the King of Spain," 1 he seemed to know nothing of colonies in Guiana; and it is hard to explain by any theory of politic sup- pression both his neglect of an argument which would so greatly have strengthened his plea and his evident eagerness for a beginning of such colonies. "All the trade that we have had in the "West Indies tip to now," he writes, "has been [in the district] from Margarita to Cuba, where the King of Spain has almost everywhere territory, and, since by the proposed article of the Truce we consent not to trade to places where the Spaniards are, we abandon this former trade." 2 . . . "But now let us speak of this West Indian trade, which is very unintelligently discussed by many, who urge that it is of small importance to us because we have there no places or foothold, and the trade which we have had there we abandon with the Truce. But at this we must look a little more closely; and I hope in what follows to prove the contrary" 3 . . . "For, since in the article of the Truce it is granted that we may trade and traffic in all places, havens, and cities where the King of Spain has no territory, we are therefore given liberty to trade in Florida, the Antilles, the whole seacoast of Guiana, a great part of Brazil, and beyond to the Strait of Magellan, being a good 500 miles where the Spaniard has no territory except on the Rio de la Plata ; furthermore, through the Strait of Magel- lan, in the rich land of Chili and many other lands and islands lying in the South Sea." 4 So writes the Dutchman the best informed of his day as to the affairs of the West Indies. The Twelve Years' Truce with Spain, which in 1609 went into effect, embodied the provisions discussed by Usselinx. The Dutch might no longer trade to the Spanish ports in the Indies, but were free to traffic, even 1 Dutch " Vertoogh," etc. 3 Vertoogh, p. 6. : < Vertoogh, p. 8. 4 Vertoogh, p. 10. Digitized by Microsoft® 158 BURR. there, with "all other princes, potentates, and peoples."" To the Spaniards this can hardly have implied a permission to found colonies; but the Dutch, at least in private, were hardly likely to share this view, 2 and in 1614 we find both the States- General and the provincial Estates of Holland seeking to encourage discovery and settlement by general provisions granting to the finders a temporary monopoly of trade. That such enterprises were, however, not wholly safe may be in- ferred from the fact that in 1618 the Zeelander Jan de Moor and his partners asked permission to arm their ships engaged in trade with the West Indies ; and that the government was concerned to protect the truce is shown by its granting this onlv under pledge that they should not be used except in self- defense. 3 Throughout the period of this truce I have lighted on no mention of Guiana colonies in any official record, but this by no means disproves their existence; long after then existence is certain the effort to keep them a secret is demon- strable, and they scarcely appear in Dutch official papers till after the Treaty of Minister. That there had been some attempts, at least, at settlement in Guiana may be gathered from a certain confidential report 'Dumont, Corps dipl., v, pp. 99-102. Cf. Van Rees, i, p. 236. 2 It was in L609, the very year of the Truce, that the great Dutch publicist, Hugo •Grotius, published (at first anonymously) his famous Mare liberum, whose express purpose it was to show that Spain (now, of course, inclusive of Portugal) had no right to the monopoly of the seas or of the trade of the Indies. In 1614 the work appeared in Dutch translation. Its full title is : "Free Navigation, or Demonstration of the right of the Dutch to trade with the Indies" ( Yrye Zeevaert, ofte Betvys van 'trecht dat den Hollanders toecompt over delndische Coophandel) . In successive chapters the author argues that the Portuguese (and hence, of course, the Spaniards) have no right of lordship over the natives because of discovery, or of Papal gift, or of conquest ; and, after demonstrating also the freedom of the sea, he concludes his work with a chapter showing "That the Dutch ought to retain their right to the Indian trade — he it in peace, he it in truce, he it in war." He does not speak of colonies; hut the exten- sion of his argument was easy. 3 Zeeland Admiralty, Minutes, July 18, 1618 (Hague Rijksarchief). Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 159 made just at the end of this truce, on January 25, 1621, to the Stadhouder, the city of Amsterdam, and the directors of the East India Company, as to the best regions for settlement in the western seas. The author, one Cornelis Janssen Vianen, who tells us that he has voyaged to Guinea, to the West Indies, along the coasts of Chile and Peru, and so around the globe, and believes he has in these travels "found the proper means to touch the Spaniard where he is weakest," thus writes of Guiana: Sixthly, as to the opinion of some that notable profit could be made from sundry plantations and fruits, which one must first find and plant, on the continent of America between Brazil on the east and the river of Orinoco on the west, in and about the river Amazon. 1 answer that sundry of our Netherlander s have there as yet by the means described made but small profit, although up to the present they trade there in peace; and it is not to be doubted that, if an attempt should be made with superior force to win the country, and tbrough such production to drive out of the market any of the products of Brazil and the West Indies, the Spaniard will make a powerful effort to hinder it, the more so as thereby his commercial waters in Brazil and the "West Indies would be obstructed. It is therefore my opinion that little is to be accomplished there, in view of the impend- ing war — for experience has taught us here at home that the lands exposed to war yield little or no profit. 1 Their duration, however, was probably but transient. When in 1621 there was created a Dutch West India Company with monopoly of Dutch commercial and colonial interests on the coasts of America, the only claim for reimbursement mentioned anywhere in the records is that made by the Zeelanders for their "tobacco-plantation on the river Amazon." 2 But their foes have left us further evidence. From dis- > Extracts, pp. 37, 38. 2 See the printed minutes of the Holland Estates for 1621, under date of April 8th and April 20th. Even from this Amazon settlement the Dutch were expelled in 1625 (see note, p. 148, above). Digitized by Microsoft® 160 BURR. patches of the government of Trinidad and Spanish Guayana, reprinted by Great Britain from the Spanish archives of the Indies, we learn of a certainty that by June of 1613 the Dutch were established in the Corentyn, 1 and, though they were driven from there the next year by the Spaniards, were alleged to have already three or four more settlements between the Amazon and the Orinoco — four from the Wiapoco to the Orinoco, says a later letter of the same year. Two of these, according to a letter of the year 1615, were on the Wiapoco and the Cayenne, having been established in 1614 (so the con- fused passage seems to mean) by Theodoor Claessen of Amster- dam 2 — that on the Wiapoco, according to another letter, by two merchants of Flushing. It is probable that these others were on neighboring rivers, that on the Corentyn being the westernmost. 3 Nor does all this wholly lack confirmation from Dutch rec- ords. In the archives at The Hague there is, or was, an ancient sketch map of the Cayenne, bearing no date but showing set- tlements with the names of Dutchmen appended; this De Jonge 'To the fact of this Dutch colony on the Corentyn, though not to its precise date, there is Dutch testimony also. "On this river Corentyn,' 7 writes Jan de Laet in the earliest edition (1625) of his Nieuiee Wereldt, "we Dutchmen traded- and also kept people there many years ago ( reeljaren gheleden ) ; their High Mightinesses, the States- General, had granted a charter therefor (.hadden daer Octroy van rerleent)." !Blue.Book "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 52, 53; " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 204-206. c 0n the map of Jan de Laet, first published in 1625, and probably drafted in 1624 (De Laet's preface is dated November 15, 1624), there appear along the coast and rivers east and west of the Wiapoco and Cayenne, as well as on these streams them- selves, a number of the tiny circles which elsewhere on this map indicate villages, European or native. To most of them no names are attached, and they indicate possibly Indian towns, possibly settlements; but it is noticeable that the western- most are on the Corentyn. (They are oddly retained, with no additions, in the maps of Blaeuw.) Quite apart from this, the interpretation of which is doubtful, it is highly probable that it was the westernmost settlement which would most attract Spanish notice and Spanish hostility ; and this seems from the Spanish documents to have been just the case with that on the Corentyn. After the colony on the Esse- quibo is known to be established, we find all Spanish aggression directed against that. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 161 long ago suspected to belong to a very early attempt at coloni- zation. 1 And the Zeeland directors, in their memorial of 1751, cite a certain request addressed in 1639 to the West India Com- pany by the veteran Zeeland merchant, Jan de Moor, which is said to show that as early as 1613 the Guiana colonies were in full existence. 2 To all this evidence drawn from other sources should be added that, positive and negative, of the English colonizers, Leigh, Harcourt, and their fellows, whose ventures about the Wiapoco were in precisely the region where Dutch settlements are earliest vouched for by the Spanish papers. Yet, though we have from these undertakings several reports of one sort or another, and though evidence of rival Dutch enterprises would unquestionably have been of value in allaying the hesitation caused by the Spanish sympathies of King James, we find in them no mention of Dutch settlements outside the Amazon. Harcourt in 1608 made a careful exploration of the coast as far west as the Marowyn, and in his detailed Relation (printed in 1613, and reprinted in Purchas's Pilgrimes, 1625, vol. iv, pp. 1267-1283), he expressly says (p. 1278 of Purchas): . . . I took possession of the Land, by Turfe and Twigge, in behalfe of our Sovereigne Lord King James : I took the said possession of a part, in name of the whole Continent of Guiana, lying betwixt the rivers of Amazones, and Orenoque, not beeing actually possessed, and inhabited by any other Christian Prince or State; wherewith the Indians seemed to be well content and pleased. The territory granted him by the English King's charter stretched from the Amazon to the Essequibo. 1 De Jonge, i, pp. 53, 54. No map answering his description can now be found. -Nederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1751, ii, p. 1085. The year 1613 is thus the earliest date to which the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company in 1751, in its desperate search for evidence to sustain its monopoly of the Essequebo trade, could carry back the Guiana colonies, though it used in that search historical records now lost. VOL 1 11 Digitized by Microsoft® 162 BURR. Among the British colonial papers there exists a document addressed to the King, evidently emanating from Harcourt or one of his colleagues. It bears no date, but has by the editors of the Calendar of State Papers been conjecturally ascribed to January, 1623. It can not have been written later than March, 1625, the date of James's death. Its object is to set forth "breife motives" to maintain the right of the Eng- lish "unto the River of Amazones and the Coast of Guiana." "Your Majesty's subjects" it begins, "many yeares since found that countrie free from any Christian Prince or State or the subjects of any of them." "Your Majesty's subjects with the faire leave and good liking of the native inhabitants have theis 13 or 14 yeares continuallie remayned in the said River and also in the River of Wiapoco being upon the same Coaste." "Your Ma tie hath bine pleased to graunte severall Commissions for these parts, and (w th good advice of your Councell) hath granted two severall letters Pattents the one in the 1 1 th of your Raigne of England, the other, the 17 th ." "The Count of Gondomer 1 didbouldlie and most confidentlie affirme that his Master had the actuall and present possession of theis parts: whereupon he obtained of your Ma tie a suspence and stay of all our proceedings for a tyme. And two yeares and a halfe afterward the said Embassadour caused about 300 men to be sent into the River of Amazones, then to beginn the foresaid possession and to destroy the English and Dutch there abideinge." 2 In 1626, after the accession to the English throne of Prince Charles, to whom his book had been dedicated, Harcourt 'Gondomar was the Spanish ambassador in England. = See Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, pp. 36, 37. For a certified transcript of this document, as of several ■ others from the Public Record Office, I am indebted to the courtesy of Her Majesty's Government. For reasons why I sus- pect that the document should be dated a year or two later, see p. 177, note 4. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. ] 63 published a fresh edition of his Relation, much revised and enriched. Among the added passages is this interesting account of the above-mentioned Spanish attempt to purge Gruiana of strangers (p. 7): And here I think it fit to give notice of the dealing of a Spanish Ambassadour (whilest he resided in Ungland) against these men [the English colonists in Guiana], after he had procured them to bee alto gether abandoned by their owne Country, by his false suggestions, and violent importunity : For not content and satisfied to have ■wrought a suspension of all proceedings upon the Patent of the Amazones . . . he was still troubled at the leaving of a hundred persons in those parts . . . and underhand made a dispatch into Spaine, to procure a Force to supplant and ruine them; whereupon 3. ships were sent from Spaine, that had their directions and commission to fall in with Br as ill, and to take in there a competent force to effect the same : which ships with 300. Portugals and Spaniards, accompanied with about 1500. of their Indians in their Periagos came into the river in the pursuite of this design e, . . . [whereupon] way (at last) was given unto the enemie, by running up farther into the Country and the inland parts, ... so that the enemie . . . were forced to withdraw themselves into their ships, and to depart the river, leaving some of their men thereabouts, then to beginne that actuall possession, which the Count of Gondomar had two years before bouldly affirmed to be in being on the behalfe of his Master, when hee obtained the suspense of the forementioned Patent of the Amazones, and of all the proceedings Thereupon ; which act of his, may (perhaps) be esteemed in the number of his greatest practises amongst us. The mischiefe intended unto our Country men, was bitterly, at the same time, effected upon divers Dutchmen, to the losse of their lives, because they were more loosely seated, and more openly exposed unto the enemie upon the borders, or Islands of the maine river. The men left there by the Spaniards, were afterward chased quite away by the English going aboard the next Dutch ships that came into the river. Already in his first edition (1613) Harcourt had stated that samples of the commodities of Guiana were to be seen, not Digitized by Microsoft® 164 BURR. only in his own custody, but also "in the hands of Master Henry Hovenaar, a Dutch-man, who in the yeare of our Lord 1610. performed a voyage to Guiana, to the places where our Company was seated, and now or lately did abide in Thames- streete, neare unto Cole-harbour." To this he adds, in the new edition of 1626: "The like examples have bene often (since that time) produced both by Englishmen, Dutch, and French- men, that yearely returne from thence." In concluding his argument Harcourt again (p. 76) urges the King of England to the "obtaining and gaining the Sover- aigntie of so many great, spacious, and goodly Countries and Territories, not yet actually possessed, and inhabited by any Christian Prince or State whatsoever." It is clear, too, that as late as 1609 Harcourt and his party, the Englishmen most likely to know and most interested in knowing, supposed the Spaniards still occupying the Esse- quibo; for it is in the closing months of that year that his cousin, Unton Fisher, whom he had left in the Marowyn for further exploration, reports on the testimony of an old Indian that "now hee [the Spaniard] hath cleare left Dissikeebee and not a Spaniard there." The only mention of the Dutch which I find in this report from Harcourt's westernmost explorer is where, in this same passage of 1609, Unton Fisher tells how the old Indian had come down to the mouth of the Surinam, hearing that the Dutch were there, to trade with them for axes; but this probably refers only to a trading ship. 1 This silence of the English explorers as to Dutch settlement in Guiana can not weaken the force of the positive Spanish testimony, which makes it certain that as early as 1613, and at 1 Dutch ships trading to the Wiapoco are also mentioned by the slightly earlier English explorer, Charles Leigh, in 1604. This (and the serious misunderstanding of it by the Blue Book) has been pointed out by Professor Jameson (p. 57, above). Purchas, in his Pilgrimage, has two or three other instances of Dutch traders met on the Guiana coast at this period. Digitized by Microsoft® GUIANA AND THE DUTCH. 165 least until 1615, the Dutch were settled on this coast. But, in view of it, it is very unlikely that, save in the Amazon, they were there much earlier; and both the English and the Spanish evidence, as well as the Dutch, suggest that these earliest Dutch settlements may have perished in their infancy, and in part or wholly at Spanish hands. To these must be added the testimony of the later English- man, Major John Scott, who, not far from 1670, in his account of the colonization of Guiana, wrote thus of what he thought the earliest Dutch settlement: The fifth colony consisted of about 280 Zealanders, with two small ships, landed their men at Cayan, anno 1015, but could not bring the natives to a trade; were often gauled by the Indians, and were at length forced to quit their post. Returned to Zealand the same year. The worth of this last authority must be discussed in connec- tion with the statements as to another Guiana colony, whose story it is now time to take up. Suffice it for this first chapter to have reached, with 1613, a date at which the existence of Dutch colonies in Guiana is certain. Thus far my results may be summed up as follows: 1. The earliest Dutch expedition to the coast of Guiana, then conceived of as a part of the Spanish kingdom of Peru, reached that coast in 1598. This expedition was formally recognized by the Dutch States-General itself as one to a place theretofore unvisited by Netherlanders. 2. The earliest Dutch settlement on this coast may possibly have been on the Amazon in the year 1600; but the earliest date at which the existence of any Dutch occupation can be affirmed with certainty, or even with probability, is the year 1613. 3. Of any claim by the Dutch to Guiana as a whole, or to any part of its western coast, there is thus far no intimation. Digitized by Microsoft® 166 BUEE. 2. THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. That there is no credible evidence for the presence of the Dutch in this river prior to the year 1613 has already been seen. 1 All assertions of their presence there before the foun- dation of the Dutch West India Company in 1621 go back to two documents alone. These are aught but confirmatory the one of the other; and each deserves a closer study. Longest known and implicitly (with more or less of distortion) fol- lowed by most later writers is the memorial submitted to the States-General, on August 23, 1751, by the directors of the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company, in defense of its claim to the colony of Essequibo. 2 Its aim was of course a thoroughly partisan one. In the report published in the same behalf a year earlier (in the autumn of 1 750) by the pro- vincial Estates of Zeeland, this Guiana colony was alleged to have been in existence and in the hands of the Zeelanders prior to the establishment of the West India Company in 1621; but the only document adduced in support of this was an account book of the year 1627, which could hardly prove anything of the sort. 3 The Amsterdam Chamber, in the 1 As to its earlier occupation by other Europeans see Professor Jameson's report (pp. 46-52) and iny own paper On the Historical Maps (in vol. iii, pp. 188-191). s The autograph original of this document is in vol. 2006 of the West India papers, in the Dutch Rijksarchief. It was officially printed, aud was printed in the Xeder- landsche Jaerboeken for 1751, pp. 1079-1135. 3 " Welke Colonie reeds by de Kamer Zeeland bekend en bevaren is geweest, ten tyde van het verleenen van 't Octrooi tenjare 1621. uitwyzens de oudste Boeken en Registers, en onder andere een Journael-Boek van 1627. in opvolging van dat van Gonyn, in Essequebo gehouden, doende Rekening van deszelfs Administratis aen de Heeren Majoors van de Wilde Kust in Zeeland." — (Ned. Jaerboeken, 1750, p. 1494.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 167 reply drawn up by it (January 9, 1751) at the request of the States-General, had passed lightly over this point, resting its claim on action of the Company at a much later period, and content with referring somewhat loftily to the published litera- ture of the subject as showing that Hollanders, too, had traded to the Guiana coast before 1621. 1 But the Zeeland directors felt the claim important, and in their answering memorial (August 23, 1751) came to its support with what seems fresh evidence and with the skill of finished casuists. Beginning their argument with a reminder of the project of Ten Haeff in 1599, 2 they bring into close connection with him a list of later Zeeland founders of American colonies, without feeling it necessary to point out that the earliest of these be- gan his activity in 1626, and that they have but borrowed the names from an old West India Company record book cover- ing the period 1626-1671. "It is true," they now add, in a sentence well calculated to muddle all later research, "that, as regards the colony of Essequibo, the name of the first pro- jector and founder thereof we have not yet been able with certainty to learn; yet it is nevertheless more than probable that it was first visited and colonized by the Zeelanders, namely, so far as can be traced, by a certain Joost van der Hooge, who thereafter was also the first director of the Zeeland Chamber, and that, if not for several years before the creation of a Gen- eral West India Company (a conclusion to which much color is given by a certain request presented to the Board of Nine- teen in the year 1639 by Jan de Moor, wherefrom it becomes 1 "En met geen meerder gralie word beroepen tot de eerste ontdekking van Guajana en liet bevaren van die Landstreek sederd het jam- 1598. tot het jaer 1670. toe. Want om Uw Roog Hog. niet op te houden met een historieel rerhael van de Equipagien zoo wel uit Holland, ale van elders op de gemelde Kust roor het jaer 1621. gedaen, en waer ran depub- lieke en met den druk gemeen gemaekte Schriften overvloedige getuigenis geeven,'' etc. — (Xed. Jaerboeken, 1751, p. 194.) - See pp. 146, 147, above. Digitized by Microsoft® 168 BURR. apparent that already as early as 1613, and so eight years before the charter was granted to the West India Company, the colonies on the Wild Coast were already in full existence), at least by the time of the beginning of that Company such an establishment must already have existed there, in view of the fact that in the first mentions of the river Essequibo in the books, registers, and minutes of the Company then brought into existence one finds this colony spoken of as of an already established possession, strengthened by a fort which then bore the name of Fort der Hooge, after an old noble Zeeland family near of kin to that of the noble lords van Borsselen, and shortly thereafter the name of Kykoveral, and yet without the slight- est shadow of accompanying evidence that this had come about through the Company or at its order, as would in that case certainly appear in the resolutions of that body, and nevertheless the Zeeland Chamber was at that time in posses- sion of that river and that fort, and also of the trade which was there carried on — these being, perhaps, brought into their hands by those individual founders themselves, who afterwards, as we have already seen, formed a part of the Zeeland Cham- ber of the said Company and were made directors thereof, as, for example, Messieurs Van der Hooge, Ten Haef, Elfsdyk, Van Peere, and others, who had theretofore traded to the afore- said coast, were elected and installed as directors in the afore- said Chamber." "But be this as it may," they continue, taking breath in a fresh paragraph, "so long as from the side of the Amsterdam Chamber not the slightest evidence can be produced that the aforesaid colony and river, before or at the beginning of the Company, was traded to by the Hollanders or by any other inhabitants of the State except the Zeelanders, it may. safely be concluded, on the hereinbefore specified and more than Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 169 probable . grounds, that the inhabitants of Zeeland alone and exclusively, from the beginning on, have traded to the afore- said river, erected there their establishments, and, under the care and direction of the Zeeland Chamber, have remained in continuous possession thereof. 'In dbscuris enim inspicere sole- mus quod verisimilius est,' and l in pari causa, possessor potior haberi debet:" 1 1 "Het is wuer, dat men ten opzichie van de Colonic van Essequebo, op voorschreve Kust insgelyks tjelcgen, de cerate Aenleggcr en Stichter van dezelve, by name, tot hier toe niet regt heeft kunnen ontwaer worden; Edoch H is niet te min meer dan waerschynelyk, dat dezelve door geen andere, dan door de Zeeuwen, en uel voor zoo verre men zulks kan naspeuren door zckeren Heer Joost van der Sooge, die daer na oolc de eerste Beivindhebber van de gemelde Kamer Zeeland is geworden, het eerste is bezocht en bevolkt geweest, en dat zoo niet al eenige jarcn, reeds voor de erectie ran eene Generate Westindisclie Compagnie is geschied, (ivaer toe nogihans vele aenleidlnge word gcgeven door zeker Bequest by den Heer Joan de Moor, aen de Vergaderinge van Xegeniienen, tenjare 1639. gepresenteerd, waer nit komt te blyken dat de Colonien op de Wilde Kust, al ten jare 1613. en dus acht jaren voor liet Octrooi, aen de Westindische Compagnie verleend, al in een volkomen wezen zyn geweest) immers al by den aenvang van de Compagnie zoodanig een Etablissement daer reeds moet geweest zyn, aengezien oolc by liet eerste, H geen men in de Boeken, Registers en Xotulen van die toen in stand yebrachte Compagnie van Rio Essequebo vind vermeld, men omtrent dezelve Colonic bevind gesproken te worden, als van eene reeds bevestigde Possessie, gesterkt met eene Fortres, toen al genaemd het Fort der Sooge, naer een oud Adelyk Zecuwsch Geslacht, naeuw verbonden aen dat van de Hoog Ed. Heeren van Borsselen, en kort daer na genoemd Kykoveral, zonder dat echter daer by eenige de minste schaduwe ontdekt word, dat zulks door de Compagnie of op deszelfs ordre zoude wezen geschied, ale het gene anders zeker in derzelve Resolutien wel zov.de wezen gevonden, en echter was ter dier tyd de Kamer Zeeland al in de Possessie en het bezit van die Rivier en dat Fort, mitsgaders van den Handel, die aldaer werd gedreven; zynde dezelve mooglyk veelligt daer in gebragt door die particuliere Aenleggers selve, die ■naderhand, zoo als ivy hier voren gezien hebben, een gedeelte van de Kamer Zeeland, in dezelve Compagnie hebben uitgemaekt en in het beivind van dezelve zyn gebragt geworden, zoo als de Heeren van der Hooge, ten Haef, El/sdyk, van Peere en anderen, die op de voor- schreve Kust reeds te voren geequipeerd hadden, tot Bewindhebberen in voorschreve Kamer zyn geeligeerd en aengesteld geweest. " Dan het zy hier mede zoo het toil, zoo lang men aen de zyde van de Prwsidiale Kamer geen het minste bewys kan produceren, dat de voorschreve Colonie en Rivier, voor of met den aenvang van de Compagnie, by de Hollanders of eenige andere Ingezetenen van der Staet buiten de Zeeuwen is bevaren en behandeld geworden, zoo kan en mag men, nit de reeds hier voren opgegevene en meer dan ivaerschynelyke gronden, veilig besluiten dat de Zeeuwsche Ingezeteneu alleen en privativelyk de voorschreve Rivier, van begin af, hebben bevaren, hunne Etablissementen aldaer opgerecht en onder de bezorginge en directie van de Kamer Zeeland daer van in eene gecontinueerde Possessie zyn gebleven. In obscuris enim inspicere solemus, quod verisimilius est, arg. legis 114. ff. de Regulis Juris : et in pari (ansa, possessor potior haberi debet ; sec. I. 13S. eod. tit." — (Nederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1751, pp. 1085, 1086.) Digitized by Microsoft® 1 70 BURR. Now, to anybody who reads with care (as few historians seem to have had the patience to do) these adroitly framed sentences, it is clear that we have here not a positive proof of the existence of the Essequibo colony prior to 1621, but a con- fession that no such proof can be found. And one needs to read but slightly between the lines to detect that the directors have lighted upon but two items of possible evidence — an uncertain allusion of the year 1639 to the existence of the Guiana colonies in general in 1613, and the mention in early records of the West India Company of a "Fort der Hooge" in connection with the Essequibo. The alleged request of Jan de Moor in 1639 can not now be verified, for the minutes of the Nineteen for this year are lost; but there is no reason to doubt its existence or its verity. It is, however, clearly a mere reference to the Guiana colonies in general; explicit mention in it of the Essequibo there is con- fessedly none. It would even seem, from the cautious form of the statement, that its testimony to the Guiana colonies at all is rather inferential than direct. What is urged as to a "Fort der Hooge" would be more serious were it borne out by the contemporary records on which it claims to be based. These very earliest records of the West India Company still remain to us, and in precisely the copies used by the Zeeland directors themselves. 1 True, the very first volume of the minutes of the Zeeland Chamber itself is now lacking ; but there is much reason to believe that it was lacking when this memorial was written, and, had it been in this that the phrase was found, the memorialists would undoubt- edly have cited volume and date, as they have done wherever in their memorial these minutes are used. That there is here 1 There are even preserved, among these volumes, in the Dutch Bijksarokief, some of the memoranda made for this very memorial. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 171 no citation whatever strongly suggests that what is stated is only an impression. Xow, in the extant minutes of the Zee- land Chamber, running without a break from 1626 to 1644, and making frequent mention of the Essequibo colony, there is never any mention of a Fort der Hooge at all; nor have I been able to find it elsewhere in the records of the Com- pany. Nor is this colony at first spoken of, as alleged, as a possession strengthened by a fort; for, as appears from an entry of August 23, 1627, it had as yet no fort at all, though the Company then promises to send soon some men to build one. The name of the fort, Kykoveral, which does not appear in the records before 1644, is thereafter constantly met; and had there been earlier a Fort der Hooge named after a director of the Company, the Zeeland directors would hardly have shown to an influential colleague the discourtesy of constantly ignoring its title. Joost van der Hooge is, indeed, named first, at the organization of the West India Company, among the stockholders and directors of the Zeeland Chamber, and this has seemed to some a reason for accepting the story; but they forget that this place belonged to him, ex officio, as burgomaster of Middelburg. 1 It is more probable that the place of his name suggested the tradition. There is nothing in the minutes of these bodies to connect him with Essequibo; and he was not one of those to whom matters relating to this colony were commonly referred. That the authors of the memorial were not writing with the documents before them may be guessed from the fact that, of the three others whom they mention with Van der Hooge as Guiana patroons who had earned a 'Of this Joost van der Hooge, General Netscher tells us, on the high authority of Mr. Van Visvliet, the learne:! archivist of Zeeland, that he was horn in 1585 and after serving six times as Burgon aster of Middellmrg between 1618 and 1630, became for the rest of his life (1631-1659) rekenmeester ter Generaliteit. (Geschiedenis van de Kolonien, p. 337.) Digitized by Microsoft® 172 BUKB. seat in the Zeeland Chamber by the transfer of their colonies, not all were original members of that chamber. There is, too, another claimant to the name of Fort der Hooge, or Ter Hooge. When in 1657 the control of the Essequibo had passed into the hands of the three Walcheren cities (Middelburg, Flushing, and Vere), and they had planted in its region their new colony and had given it the new name of Nova Zeelandia, there stood on the bank of the Pomeroon, we are told, not only the fort- ress Nieuw Zeeland, and below it the village Nieuw Middel- burg, but a little farther downstream the "Huis ter Hooge" — believed to have been a fortified lookout. 1 The Zeeland Es- tates, in their paper of 1750, fell into the error of supposing the colony of Essequibo to have borne from its outset the name of Nova Zeelandia. 2 This the Zeeland directors cor- rected; but is it not possible that they fell into the kindred error of forgetting the site and date of the Fort ter Hooge? The other document which gives for the foundation of the colony of Essequibo an earlier date than 1621 lies in the library of the British Museum, where it bears the mark " Sloane MSS., 3662 " It is a thin bound volume, lettered on its back, " Var. Tracts on the E. and W. Indies." The book is, however, all written by a single hand; and the author has made no effort to conceal his identity, for the volume begins with an 1 The ultimate source for this statement and for the maps (e. g., Bouchenroeder's) which set down these places on the Pomeroon, 1 suspect to be the Middelburg geog- rapher Arent Eoggeveen, in his Brandende Veen, whose text was written while the colony was still in existence, and whose authority, as he expressly tells us, is that of Cornelis Goliat, who was the engineer of this colony. But Eoggeveen spells this on his map '"t Huys der Hooghte," and in his text '"t Huys der Hooght"; i. e., probably, "the house of the height" — for a height well suited to fortification we know there was at or about this point. That Eoggeveen, a Middelburger and a contemporary, could so have caricatured the familiar name of "Ter Hooge," had he found that in Goliat's chart, is inconceivable. As to Goliat and Eoggeveen, see also pp. 214-217. 2 JSfederlandsche Jaerioeken, 1750, p. 1494. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 173 elaborate preface, to which, he has signed at the end his name in full — "John Scott." It is an autograph fragment, or rather a collection of sketches and materials, belonging to an unpub- lished and probably never finished work on the islands and coasts of America, from Newfoundland to the Amazon, 1 and 1 In his preface Scott himself thus describes the scope and method of the projected work: "In my youth I was a great lover of Geographie and History in Generall, bat aboute the Eighteenth yeare of my age I tooke up a resolution to make America the scene of the greatest actions of my life, and there to sett myselfe a worke (if pos- sible) to finde out the Latitudes, the Longitudes, and to know the oridginall discovery with the situations of all places both on the Continent and in the Islands ; as also the names of Persons and of what Nations they were who have possessed them, and what fortune each Nation hath had, and (as neare as I could) the fortune of the severall governor successively, and of the respective Collonies, the most remarkable distempers and diseases, the Commodityes abounding and advantages of trade, what places were more or less Tenable of Nature, and what were made strong by fortifica- tions, in w' man«er, and to what degree ; Moreover how those Colonies have pros- pered or declined in Trade, increased or decreased in number of Inhabitants from Europe, and the proper causes thereof; Together w th the strenth [sic] of the severall Indian Nations, their customes Governments, and Commodities, and what advantages may be made of them in point of Warr or by Trade. I labour'd likewise to discover the Rocks, Sandes Shelves, and Soundings about every Island, and in the Entrance of all Ports, Havens, Kivers, and Creeks, as well on the Terra firma as the Islands, my scope at first being only for my owne particular sattisfaction, but now I am not out of hope these things may be both of some reputacion to myselfe, and a generall advantage to the English Nation, by which especially I shall have my end and reckon these eighteene yeares last past, by running through all manner of dangers (at seve'll times) to make Collections and Observations, have been spent to good pur- pose for my Country, and thereby put mee in possession of the greatest fellicity that can befall a man in this life. "I had once a purpose to have given you a, large discription of all America, but then considering the Spanish Indies had not onely been performed by other Authors but those Authors especially such as are Authentick have writ nothing for the last 60 yeares . . . besides I was loath to cloy the World with long Discourses about old Matters w cl1 would not have an aspect on such affairs as are proper for our Consider- ation, but chose rather to give new accounts from observations of my owne (or such living Testimonies as I could credit) Touching those places w cl1 have not been suffi- tiently sett forth by any man before me : Purposely omitting that part of the Spanish Indies that I have noe knowledge of . . I chose rather to content myselfe with w* (in great part) I know, what my owne eyes have seen, and much of what my feet have trodden, and my sences brought under an exact inquiry, confineing my selfe with the Eiver Amazon on the South . . . That River parts Brazile and Guiana, Digitized by Microsoft® 174 BURE. its author is that Major John Scott, once of Long Island, who after an all too prominent part in the politics of New England and New York had fled to Barbados, and who while there had been chosen to lead the expedition which in 1665-66 cap- tured for England the Dutch colonies in Guiana. 1 Among the chapters here completed are those on Guiana and on the West Indian islands Barbados, Grenada, and Tobago. The first named of these chapters, with a long extract from the second, was a few years ago transcribed by a colonial scholar (though apparently without discovery of its authorship) and published and its mouth is crossed by the Equinoctiall Line; from whence in my Mapps and History I pass Northward to Newfound Land. "More than 1200 miles along the shore, surveying all the Islands worth nottice [sic] comprehended within that vast part of the Atlantick Ocean one hundred and six of which Islands I have been Personally upon, have Travelled most parts of New England and Virginia, and a greate part of Guiana, and other places of the Maine between the Tropick of Cancer and the forementioned grand River, and w tb Shipps and Barques have sayled into very many of the Rivers, Bayes Ports, and Creeks within the two boundaries of this discription. As for those places which have not come under my survey, and the Originall of many of the Colonies, whether English, Spanish, French, or Dutch whoes \_sic~] plantactons are settled beyond the Memory of any man that I could meet with, in such cases I took my measures from the best authors as Herera Ovid a and Acosta among the Spaniards, Thunis a Grave Authour among the French, John Delaet among the Dutch and from many other Authours and sev'll curious manuscripts that came to my hand besides the Carts [aic~\ of which I ever labour to gett the best extant and besides actually to coverce [»ic] with good Artists that had been upon the place, and such po-sons I ever strove to oblidge and draw to me of w' Nation soever they were; I made it my business likewise to purchase or borrow all the historys and Journalls that I could heare of whether Lattin Ittallian Spanish or Portugais French Dutch or in our Language, wherein I may say I have by reason of a generall generous conversation had luck extraordinary, and herein w' paines I have taken what cost I have been att is so Notorious, that over and above the knowledge of a great number of Gentlemen which I have been oblidged too [sic] for a Communication of printed books, Mannuseripts Pattents Commissions, and papers relating to those parts, the many bookesellers of England and Holland will doe me Right to testifie my continuall inquisition." 1 For the passages in which Scott himself tells the story of this capture and describes the Guiana of his time, see Extracts, pp. 133-137. His part in this expedi- tion is else known, and Professor Jameson, who knew of the manuscript through Bronkhurst's extracts, had already (p. 64, above), from this internal evidence, estab- lished the identity of its author. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 175 in a Guiana newspaper. 1 Thence it was copied into the book of a missionary, Bronkhurst, 2 and so reached the world of scholars. Its reception by historians has not been flattering, and the r name of its author will hardly add greatly to its weight, for Scott's reputation for accuracy of statement is not unimpeached. 3 His facilities for information were, however, remarkable, and especially so for Guiana. 4 For his statement as to the founding of the colony of Essequibo in 1616 by one Captain Gromwegle, 5 and for the reasons why it must be doubted, I may refer to the report of Professor Jameson. I have only to add that my own examination of the manu- script records, while vindicating Scott in assigning to 1664 the death of Groenewegel, and while carrying back to 1645 that governor's advent in the colony, brings to light no earlier mention of him in the books of the West India Company, and convinces me that he could not earlier have been commandeur on the Essequibo. That in 1616 he or any other built there a fort seems unlikely from the fact that a fort needed to be built there in 1627. 6 That he may in that year have come to some other Guiana colony is not impossible, though the records of the Zeeland admiralty for this and the adjacent years fail to show the name of such a captain. 7 In view of the fact that 1 The Royal Gazette, Georgetown, July 24, 1879. ' 2 The Colony of British Guyana and its Labouring Population, London, 1883. :l See the citations of Professor Jameson, p. 64, above. Lord Willoughby, there quoted, knew him well and was by no means an unfriendly witness. 4 See (in addition to note, p. 174) Extracts, pp. 134, 135, and p. 135, note. 5 So, and not Gromweagle, as Bronkhurst prints it, it is always spelt in the manu- script — of course, for the Dutch Groenewegel. "See p. 180, below. Had it been merely the repair of an old fort that was needed, or even its replacement by a new one, this would almost certainly have been shown by the wording of the record. True, between 1616 and 1627 a fort might have been destroyed and abandoned; but such an event was likely to leave trace in record or tradition. 'These records are for this period complete at the Hague; and between 1613 and 1621, at least, no such name can be found in them. Digitized by Microsoft® 176 BURR. Scott credits to Groenewegel's "ingenious observations" only a part of the particulars of this story, and in view of his de- monstrable inaccuracy as to dates and names in what else he tells us of the beginnings of colonization in Guiana, I think it must be felt that, though there are doubtless elements of truth in his story, his authority is much too slight for a state- ment else so unsupported, and so inconsistent with facts better known. 1 Is it not more probable that Scott has confused with the original establishment of the Dutch in the Essequibo the founding of the first colony of planters there — the Nova Zeelandia of the Walcheren cities — in 1658? Of the latter 1 Among these better known facts (in addition to the evidence, negative and posi- tive, derived from Dutch records) are the following: Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1617, on that second voyage to Guiana which resulted in the sack of Santo Thome', the Spanish settlement in the Orinoco, thus writes, in his journal, under date of Decem- ber 10, of his instructions to the party sent up that river: "I also gave them order to send into Dessekebe for I assured them that they could not want Pilotts ther for Orenoke, being the next great river adjoyning unto it, and to which the Spaniards of Orenoke had dayly recourse." Now, Sir Walter Raleigh, despite his long impris- onment, was perhaps the best posted European of his time as to the affairs of Guiana. Moreover, he had brought with him and had just put ashore at Cayenne for trade with the Indians two Dutchmen, and had hobnobbed in that port with the captain of a Dutch trading-ship, "one Janson of Flushing, who had traded that place about a dussen yeares." It is scarcely conceivable that, had there been then a Dutch colony in the Essequibo, Raleigh could have failed to learn it. Even Sir Robert Schom- bnrgk infers from this that the Dutch were not then in EBsequibo, and in his foot- note on the passage, reconciles it with his theory of an earlier Dutch occupation of that river by stating that, though " the Dutch were here established as early as 1580-90," "they were, however, driven from their settlements by the Spaniards, assisted by the Indians" — he is clearly thinking of the alleged expulsion of Dutch- men from the Moruca in 1596. That both these latter assumptions are errors is of no consequence to the question now in hand. (See Raleigh, Diseoverie of Guiana, ed. Schomburgk, pp. 198-203. ) In the second place, Fray Pedro Simon, the contemporary Spanish historian, writing at Bogota within the same decade, narrates in much detail the chastisement by the Spaniards, in 1619, of the hostile Arawaks in the Pomeroon, the Essequibo, and the Berbice. What is more, he states that these Indians have, up to their corruption at this time by the English (he means Raleigh's party), been always the friends of the Spaniards. He clearly knows nothing of any presence of the Dutch in these rivers. (See his Notidas, pp. 664-666, and Professor Jameson's report, p. 51, above.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 177 Groenewegel was, as we shall presently see, indeed the first Commander, and so in a sense the founder. In June, 1621, the truce with Spain having now expired, there came at last into existence the long-projected Dutch West India Company. Its charter granted it monopoly of trade over all the coasts of America, both Atlantic and Pacific, not to mention West Africa, the islands, and the Antarctic continent, and this without a suggestion of frontier within these bounds. All existing Dutch colonies on these coasts passed, therefore, into its hands. The only claim for reim- bursement which finds mention in the official records is one made by the Zeelanders for their "tobacco-plantation on the Amazon". 1 Of other establishments on the South American coast nothing is heard. Even after the grant of the charter, however, the Company was long in organizing. The stock had first to be taken up. The Zeeland shareholders did not meet till May 26, 1623. 2 to choose the directors of the Zeeland Chamber; and the supreme board of the Nineteen, made up of deputies from this and the other chambers, first came together on August 3, 1623. 3 Among the items of business prescribed for this open- ing session one finds mention of the coast of Brazil, at the one side of Guiana, and of Punta de Araya, the salt depot, at the other, but no word of the Wild Coast itself. 4 We learn, 'As to this foundation on the Amazon, see p. 148, above, note. 2 This I learn from the minutes of the shareholders themselves (Hague, Eijksar- chief, West India papers, vol. 470). 3 So testify the Mneteen's own minutes (West India papers, vol. 51). Cf. Extracts pp. 38, 39, note. ■"Yet, in the English document quoted above (p. 162) from the British colonial papers, a. document conjecturally calendared under January, 1623 (at which date no session of the Dutch West India Company had yet been held), one reads: "The West Indian Companie in Holland do now send two or three shipps full of men unto the Amazones intendinge speedilie to supplie them w th manie more for Plantation." It would be of value to know the grounds for the ascription of the document to so VOL 1 12 Digitized by Microsoft® 178 BURR. however, that already a "goodly number of colonists" are pre- senting themselves. But it is not until the session of September 10, 1624, that one reads among the topics for consideration: The deputies of Zeeland will please bring with them the instructions given to the ships bound for the Amazons, and further information as to the condition of things in that quarter; and the deputies of all the chambers shall come instructed, so as to devise means for the secur- ing of that region, whether by the planting of suitable colonies or otherwise. 1 At the session, however, after hearing the memorial of the Zeeland deputies, nothing was done save to furnish a copy to each of the chambers for consideration and report. Unluckily, the loss of the later minutes of the Nineteen 2 leaves us in the dark as to the immediate sequel; but from a passage in the Zeeland memorial of 1751, possibly based on these records, we learn that in 1627 articles were adopted "for the establishment of a colony on the Wild Coast," 3 and that on March 4, 1628, the Nineteen asked from the Zeeland Chamber a written report on the "colonies of the Amazons." A bright light is also thrown on the Company's plans by their still extant form of "Commission for Captains," drawn up in 1626 : 4 "Since we have undertaken," declare the directors, "in virtue of the charter granted by the States-General of the United Netherlands to this Company, to send certain ships to early a date. Nothing in its contents demands it ; and a time subsequent to the rupture of the negotiations for the Spanish marriage, in 1624, would seem more con- genial to the presentation of such a memorial. The copy in question of the docu- ment is endorsed "For the Prince, his Highnes." 'For the Dutch, see Extracts, pp. 38, 39. 2 This first volume, alone preserved, covers the period from August 3, 1623, to December 24, 1624. 3 Nederlandsche Jaerioeleen, 1751, pp. 1088, 1089. The articles are probably those of which only a part is to be found in the colony-book of the Zeeland Chamber. See Extracts, p. 53. 4 For the document in full, see Extracts, pp. 40, 41. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 179 the West Indies, there to further the peopling of uninhabited places, and among other things to build a fortress, in order to be secure against the raids and invasions of the Spaniards and other nations our foes, and since to accomplish this with the greater sureness, we have need of a capable, true, and expe- rienced person to have command thereover as captain," there- fore they do appoint the candidate in question. But meanwhile there comes to our aid a body of records which from now on will give far more definite information as to these Guiana colonies. The minutes of the Zeeland Chamber itself, whose first volume (1623-1626) has, alas, long been lost, are from May 4, 1626, onward for twenty years (to May 31, 1646) preserved to us intact. We find, indeed, in these precious volumes, for some time after then abrupt begin- ning, no explicit mention of any colony. But alreadv on May 21, 1626, it was "resolved to look about for a capable person for director of the business in the Amazons; and if a capable one can be found to send him thither by the first ship." 1 Of ships to the Amazons one hears abundantly. 2 On October 8, 1626, the Burgomaster Jan de Moor and Confraters Grodin and Ten Haeff were made a committee "to report in writing what new trading places within the limits of the charter might be found where it would be advisable for the Company to cany on business, in order that, on their report, action may be taken bv the Nineteen." And at last, on November 26, 1626, we find what I believe the earliest mention in extant records of any Dutch establish- ment on the Essequibo: The committee on wares is authorized to make up a suitable cargo to the Amazons for the yacht Amemuyden. Resolved, To send with the aforesaid yacht Amemuyden 20 ripening 1 See Extracts, p. 41. ' : See Extracts, pp. 42-45, for examples. Digitized by Microsoft® 180 BURR. youths, in order to land them in the Amazon, the Wiapoco, or the Esse- quibo — wherever the folk of our Chamber may be found — for the pur- pose of being employed there. And each of them shall be granted 2, 3, or 4 guilders a month, according to their capacities. 1 Again, under December 10, 1626, we read: Resolved, To let Jacob Canyn come home from Essequibo, as he asks to do, and to fill his place with another. 2 And only two days later, December 12: Johannes Beverlander is taken into the service of the Company for three years, to lie in the river of Essequibo along with Jan van der Goes; and that for twenty-one guilders a month. 3 It is more than six months before there is again in these minutes any mention of the Essequibo. Then, on August 23, 1627/ it was, on report of a committee — Resolved, To raise the wages of Jan van der Goes in Essequibo, after his first three years (for which he is bound to the Company), to five pounds Flemish a month, and to send the supplies asked by him, as is set down in the request, together with other necessaries, and to authorize him to retain five or six men out of the ship Arent, and that by next [ship] we shall send him 30 men and cause a fort to be made. 5 1 For the Dutch, 8ee Extracts, p. 42. 2 Extracts, p. 43. It has been inferred from this passage that Canyn was Com- mander of the Dutch establishment on the Essequibo ; and in support of this has been quoted the passage of the Zeeland Chamber's memorial of 1751, which speaks of "an account-book of 1627, in continuation of that of Conyn, kept in Essequibo, giving a report of its administration to the superiors of the Wild Coast in Zeeland." (For the Dutch of the entire passage, see note, p. 166, above.) This account-book (Journael-Boeh) can no longer be found. It seems more plausible to infer from the two passages that Canyn, or Conyn, was only clerk of the Essequibo post; and the entry of December 12, by which Beverlander seems sent to take his place, while Jan van der Goes is named as in command, without any preceding or following res- olution for his promotion, seems to me convincing. 3 Extracts, p. 41. 4 The date 1626, given by Netscher for this entry, and from him borrowed by others, is only a printer's error. 6 Extracts, p. 45. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 181 Thereafter nothing more in 1627. But from these brief items out of the first year of its known existence I think it possible, if due weight be given to what is omitted as well as to what is said, to draw with safety two or three important inferences. First, that the establishment in the Essequibo antedates May, 1626. Second, that so late as 1627 it was still a trading post rather than a settlement, with not so much as a fort yet erected. Third, that its commander, as yet a mere agent without a title, had in August, 1627, not yet com- pleted the third year of his service. It is of course possible to reconcile all these with a longer Dutch occupation; but, when taken in connection with the absence of all authentic evidence for their earlier presence in that river and with the purpose of the West India Company, so clearly implied in September, 1624, to plant new establishments on this coast, I think it not rash to conjecture that Jan van der Goes was at the head of the first Dutch occupation of the Essequibo, and that the beginning of that occupation was in or about the year 1625. And I am able to add a bit of evidence which seems to me to raise that conjecture to a practical certainty. In the year 1625 the Dutch merchant and geographer Jan de Laet gave to the world the first edition of his Neiv World; or, Description of the West Indies. His preface, written after' the work was completed, is dated November 15, 1624. His book is one of great zeal and industry, and of exceptional conscientiousness. Moreover, Jan de Laet was from the outset a director of the West India Company, and alive both to its interests and to its new sources of information. Yet in this edition of 1625 his description of the Essequibo is drawn mainly from English sources. He quotes, however, in support of his statements as to its navigation and products, " our people who some Digitized by Microsoft® 182 BURR. years ago visited this river." Of the Spaniards lie says that, according to the account of the Englishman Masham, the}' had some people here in 1591 [1597], but " seem to have come to naught again." And a little further on, in his description of the Orinoco, he tells us, following Raleigh, that " among other traffics which the Spaniards there carry on, one is to go with canoes to the rivers of Barima, Pomeroon, and Essequibo, and there to buy women and children from the Caribs, and with great profit to sell them again in Margarita." 1 The book of De Laet met with great success. It became evident that a new edition would be demanded. But before this appeared, in 1630, there were some things which needed to be changed. On January 28, 1627, one reads in the min- utes of the Zeeland Chamber (De Laet was a member of that of Amsterdam) this entry: In reply to the letter of Confrater Jan de Laet asking of the Cham- ber of Zeeland that it will please send him certain copies of log books of [voyages to] the Amazons and elsewhere, consent is given, on condi- tion that he be instructed to send them back within a month or six weeks. 2 ' It is significant that just these journals should have been asked. More significant is the change, in the new edition, of the description of the Essequibo. There is no mention, indeed, of Dutch settlement. On the contrary, the allusion to an earlier Dutch visit to the Essequibo is stricken out. But the account itself has grown fuller and more definite. The Eng- lish writers fall into the background. There is knowledge of the Essequibo's division above into three arms, and that good land lies on all three. And the Spaniards no longer "seem to have come to naught," but "have come to naught." The passage 1 Xkuwe Wereldt, 1625, pp. 474, 475, 480. 2 For the Dutch, see Extracts, p. 44. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 183 in the chapter on the Orinoco is, however, retained — perhaps by oversight. 1 Now, it is quite possible that, had there been in 1630 no Dutch colony on the Essequibo, Jan de Laet might still have written his text of 1630; but it is quite impossible that, had he known a Dutch colony there in 1624, he could have writ- ten his text of 1625. 2 '-Wieuioe Wereldt, 1630, pp. 577, 583. 2 To be compared with these passages is also that description of Guiana, published by Jan de Laet in another work in 1628, which is printed in full at p. 355, below. Interesting, too, in this connection is a bit of English evidence. In February, 1627, Capt. Henry Powell landed on the island of Barbados, then wholly uninhab- ited, 40 or 50 English settlers. He then set out for the neighboring mainland of Guiana to buy from the Indians materials for the plantation. Twenty years later Powell himself (in a petition for the return of the Indians he had then carried off from the main — the document is in the Bodleian Library, Mawlinson JISS., C. 94, and was printed by Mr. N. Darnell Davis in Timehri for June, 1891) thus told the story of the expedition : "Having left the aforesaid servants upon this Island, I proceeded in my voyage to the Mayne, to the river of Disacaba [Essequibo], and there I left 8 men, and left them a cargezon of trade for that place. And I traded with the Indians of the aforesaid Mayne for all things that was to be gotten for the planting of this Island of the Barbadoes. And coming down the river of Disacaba, there was three cannoes with Indians of the people that I had trade with, followed me to the river's mouth and upon a small Island at the river's mcuth went ashore, a little before night, faire by the shippe, and had a desire to speake with me. I went ashore to them, and lay that night upon the Island to know their intent to follow me so farre. Their answer was that they did perceive by ye things that I had bought of them that I was bound to plante an Island that lay to the Northward of them and that they had relation from their forefathers that had been upon an Island that way that was not inhabited, and they described the name of the Island to me, and that they had a desire to goe with me as free people to manure those fruits, and that I should allow them a piece of land, the which I did, and they would manure those fruits, and bring up their children to Christiantie, and that we might drive a, constant trade between the Island and the Mayne, for there was manie more of the Indians of that place, that had a desire for to come for that Island, the next yeare, if I would come there againe.'' It will be noticed that the Englishmen had apparently no knowledge that there were then Dutchmen in the Essequibo. And this seems also clear from another document of Captain Powell's, a sworn statement made by him in 1656; and also from the affidavit, in 1660, of a John Powell (probably his nephew), who was with him in this expedition. These two (from the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and from the Bodleian, respectively) are likewise printed in Timehri for June, 1891. Digitized by Microsoft® 184 BURR. I have dwelt on the beginning of the Dutch establishment in the Essequibo, that I might, if possible, fix its date with cer- tainty. What needs to be told of its growth may be told more briefly. In 1627 it seems still but a trading post. But mean- while other Guiana posts were becoming colonies. Before the end of 1626 two bodies of settlers had been gathered, and early in 1627 were sent out, the one to the Wiapoco, the other to the Cayenne. 1 In June of 1627 the Nineteen enacted a scheme of common government for the Guiana colonies, pres- ent and to come, Cayenne to be its seat and each of the others to send thither deputies ; 2 and tempting privileges were insured to private founders of colonies. In the same month they empowered Jan de Moor to send a fresh colony to Tobago. 3 In July were sent out the settlers for the new colony of Abra- ham van Pere, on the river Berbice. A fort was to be built for them, and equipped with guns at the cost of the Company. 4 But no colonists for the Essequibo. 5 That the Company reserved for itself, and had no mind to intrust to patroons; but it neglected to colonize it for itself. It was this, I sus- pect, and especially what was being done for the neighboring river, which called forth from Jan van der Goes the com- plaint, perhaps the threat, which one can divine behind the generous action of the Zeeland Chamber on August 23, 1627. The Essequibo, too, they conceded, should have its colonists and its fort; Jan van der Goes should receive his supplies at once, and, if he would but be patient, in time a larger salary. ■See Extracts, p. 43; and, for further details, De Laet, Historie . . . van de . . . Wesi-Indische Compagnie (1644), ff. Ill, 112, and Netscher, Geschiedenis, pp. 53-57. L See Extracts, pp. 47-53. 3 See Extracts, pp. 54, 55. 4 See Extracts, p. 45. s What is said by General Netscher (p. 54) of the alternative destination of certain colonists in November, 1626, is an error. The passage about "Amazon, Wiapoco, or Essequibo" belongs only to the -'20 ripening youths," who were, of course, to be employe's at the trading posts. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® - V iJWjl/n^ Lc*r>tt>rv. i*»u»^t- f^ x SITE OF FORT KYKOVERAL AS SKETCHED BY GENERAL NETSCHER IN 1845 (See note, pp. 185-187) J ;,..>• '/■ i> ,-->. SECTION OF WALL OF FORT KYKOVERAL AS SKETCHED BY GENERAL NETSCHER IN 1845 (See note, pp. 185-187) Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® ■ I " • ^ " 1 • <§ i&f 1 ±ifS Ss Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 185 The five or six men to be retained from the Arent and the thirty who were promised were very probably the desired colonists for the Essequibo. 1 That the thirty were sent, there is little reason to doubt; for, on April 10, 1628, it was voted "to provision the yacht Armuyden for ten months, and also for three months for as many colonists as are to go along. The said ship shall go to the Amazon, the Wiapoco, the Cay- enne, and so on to the Essequibo, manned with 35 men. The same ship shall carry over all the necessaries for the colonists." 2 That the promised fort was built is not so certain. Nor have we anywhere in these early years, except perhaps from the sentence of Jan de Laet as to the whereabouts of the good land, a hint as to where in the river the colony was planted. That its center, if not its sole seat, was the island at the junc- tion of Mazaruni and Cuyuni is, however, made nearly certain by several considerations. In the first place, there is found nowhere in later records any tradition of another site or of a removal. In 1764 the Zeeland Chamber declared to the States- General that "from all old time" the fort had been at this place. Again, the island was the only natural stronghold of its sort. It was, moreover, probably suggested by a prior occupation — an occupation leaving a tangible inheritance in solid stone walls which to the end were utilized in the Dutch constructions here, and which in part remain to this day. 3 •By "colonists," however, must not be understood tillers of the soil, much less free planters. " The colony of Essequibo," said the Zeeland Chamber itself in 1751, in the memorial resulting from its search through its own records, "from the begin- ning on, down to the year 1656 was inhabited only by such persons as were employe's of the Zeeland Chamber, and who . . . at that time were called 'colonists' and were kept there for the carrying on of trade, which soon grew to such proportions that in some years a hundred barrels or more of annatto dye came over at once." — {Xederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1751, p. 1097.) -Extracts, p. 55; also p. 53 and note. r As to the origin of these old walls of Fort Kykoveral there are three distinct theories. (1) That they are Spanish. The evidence as to a Spanish occupation of the Essequibo has been discussed by Professor Jameson (pp. 45-52, above) and inmy Digitized by Microsoft® 186 BURR. The colony was for long not a commercial success. In 1632 the Nineteen decided to abandon it, 1 as they had already abandoned, in 1631, that on the Cayenne. 2 The colonists, indeed, seem to have come home in a body, Jan van der Goes at their head. But after conference with him, the Zeeland Chamber (April 8, 1632) 3 voted not to give it up. Abraham van Pere had offered to carry on the trade to Essequibo in con- nection with that to his colony of Berbice. 4 The contract was own paper On the Historical Maps (vol. iii, pp. 188-191). (2) That they are Portu- guese. This belief first appears at the time of its dismantling, in 1764, when the Essequibo governor described it as "an old Portuguese work, built extraordinarily- tight and strong." Half a dozen years later, in 1770, Hartsinck, in his Description of Guiana, declared that "this fort was, by the Portuguese, built of quarried stone on a small island lying in the mouths of the rivers Cuyuni and Mazaruni (but was in 1764 broken up, after which there was built with the stone a sugar-windmill on the Company's plantation Duinenburg, and later, in the year 1768, with the remaining stone a similar mill on the Company's plantation Luixbergen)," and again that "Fort Kykoveral was built of hewn stone (surely by the Portuguese, since the arms of that realm are cut in stone above the doorway)" — " zekerlyk door de Portugeezen : dewyl het Wapen van dat Bylc ooven de Poort is uitgehouwen." (Beschryving van Guiana, i, pp. 207, 208, 262). (3) That they are Dutch. This has found support in the state- ment of Major John Scott (given in full by Professor Jameson on p. 63, above) that in 1616 a fort was built here by the Dutch captain ' ' Gromwegle." The worth of this evidence has been discussed both by Professor Jameson (pp. 64, 65) and by myself (pp. 172-177). The Rt. Rev. William Hart Coleridge (Bishop of Barbados and the Lee- ward Isles, 1824-1841), who once visited this remote portion of his diocese, has left a description of the ruins which strangely mingles Portuguese founders with the date assigned by Scott to the Dutch. Mentioning "the old fort Kykoveral," he remarks that it was "built in 1616," and that there remains of it a postern in brick, on the side remote from Cartabo. On the key of the arch of this postern, he says, one can make out, though half effaced, the Portuguese arms. The wooden pillars which once sustained the "stellings" are, he adds, still visible. (This passage which occurs in a note to a pastoral charge delivered at Georgetown, Demerara, July 18, 1839, is accessible to me only in French translation — the charge being reprinted at pp. 1157- 1162 of vol. ii of the great Bapport sur les questions coloniaies by Lechevalier, 1843, 1844: it fell into my hands too late for a successful search for its English original.) On the other hand, General Netscher, the careful modern Dutch historian of the colonies which now form British Guiana, who in 1845 and again in 1850 closely 1 Nederlandsche Jaerooeken, 1750, p. 1494. - Nederlandsche Jaerooeken, 1751, p. 1090. 3 Extracts, p. 65 ; cf. Nederlandsche Jaerooeken, as above. 4 Extracts, p. 67. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 187 closed with him on July lb*, 1 and in August Jan van der Goes was ' reengaged, with two assistants, to take charge of affairs there. 2 Thus the Essequibo establishment, even if it had been aught else, now fell back into a mere trading post. It is clear from the contract with Van Pere that no products are expected from that colony except the dyes supplied by the Indians. Rates are, indeed, stipulated at which "in case the Company examined these ruins with intent to verify Hartsinck's statement as to the Portu- guese arms, found over the doorway nothing hut a simple cross. The sketches of the place then made on the spot by him in his journal I have, through the kindness of that generous scholar, been permitted to examine; and, in response to my request to he allowed to reproduce them, he has with his own hand made a copy of them, which I have the honor to submit herewith. In further explanation of the sketches he has had the kindness to add the following note : "Remains or ruins of a very small ancient Spanish fort, for nearly a century the residence of the Commandeurs of the colony Essequebo, called by the Dutch Kyko- veral on account of its domineering situation at the confluence of the Massaruni, Cayuni, and Essequebo — as seen and superficially sketched by me in 1845, and seen again in 1850. Only two-thirds of the stone walls of the fort were then and are probably still existing; the part on the Cartabo side is built of granite or quartz; the northeastern side of the wall is brickwork of -(-4 feet at the bottom, with a gate or portico of 8 feet by 4 feet (inside), and 2 embrasures for artillery. The rest was all in ruins and nothing was left of the building or barrack. "Gen 1 P. M. Netscher. "The Hague, October 19"', 1896." General Netscher has himself, in his Geschiedenis van de Kolonien (pp. 338, 339), dis- cussed the origin of the fort, pointing out that the presence of the Portuguese in the Essequibo prior to the Dutch occupation is a thing wholly foreign both to Dutch and to Portuguese tradition and inconsistent with all we know of the circum- stances. He tells me, too, that the Spanish and Portuguese scholars and diplo- mats before whom, at every opportunity, he has brought the question, agree that the cross was an emblem much more likely to be thus used by the Spaniards than by the Portuguese. 'Extracts, pp. 67, 68. 2 Extracts, pp. 66, 67. There he was at the visit to Guiana, in 1634, of the North Holland merchant, De Vries, who came seeking a site for a colony of his own. De Vries coasted no farther west than the mouth of Demerara. There Jan van der Goes came in a canoe to meet him, and is called by him "head man in Essequibo on behalf of the West India Company" ("Jan van der Goes . . . van de Bivier van Iselcebie, die daer Opperhooft was van werjen de TTest-fndische Companie"), a title which suggests the head of a commercial establishment rather than the governor of a, colony. (De Vries, Eorle Bistoriael, p. 135.) Digitized by Microsoft® 188 BURR. shall please to send any person to Essequibo with the afore- said ships" of Van Pere they may do so; but this seems to be meant only for the personnel of the post, for one hears in the minutes of no others. Still the Essequibo did not pay. On April 16, 1637, there was again discussion in the Zee- land Chamber as to its profitableness, and the matter was referred to the committee on commerce. 1 But while this was pending there came an interesting consignment from the colony. On May 14, 1637, "Gonfrater van Pere was au- thorized to turn over two kegs of syrup, or sap of sugar- cane, arrived from Essequibo from Jan van der Goes, to Sr. Segers, in order that he may try to reduce it to sugar." 2 It is the first mention of agriculture in the colony, and a suggestion of that industry which was later to be its greatest source of revenue. 3 But not yet: Jan van der Goes, it appears, was dissatisfied, and the Company was as clearly dissatisfied with him. On August 17, 1637, we read that "inasmuch as Jan van der Goes had written from Essequibo that he, with all the folk who were there with him, was minded to come home by the first ship, it was some time ago resolved for the present to send thither in the place of the said Van der Goes, by the ship Be Jager, Cornelis Pieters Hose; and on account of the great demoralization of the folk and their wish to come home, 1 Extracts, p. 71. s Extracts, p. 72. 3 Under date of April 2, 1635, there is, in the minutes of the Zeeland Chamber, an «ntry which, at first blush, might suggest that tobacco, too, was raised in Essequibo. In the chest of a skipper arrived from the Guiana coast there was found, along with a letter of Jan van der Goes and a bag of money, eighty-three rolls of tobacco. But the fact that this was a puzzle to the Chamber itself, and that nothing more is heard of the matter, makes it more probable that the tobacco, if it came from Jan van der Goes at all, had been smuggled in from the Orinoco, the usual source of tobacco for Essequibo in later years. The best reason for believing that it may have been grown in the colony is that it was pronounced "very poor." In any case, we hear nothing further of tobacco. (See Extracts, p. 69.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 189 it is resolved that they shall be allowed to come home and the colony provided anew with five-and-twenty other respect- able persons, from whom the Company may receive more service, and more edifyingly withal." And Confraters Lonissen and Van Pere were made a committee to pick tip these new servants, with instructions ''to look for the discreetest persons so far as shall be possible." 1 This resolution perhaps mainly aimed at a salutary effect on the deserting colonists, who must, it seems, already have arrived; for just three days later (August 20, 1637) we read that "the persons who have been enlisted for Essequibo, being mostly from the people who came with Van der Goes and have not much to live on, shall for this once, and without its being a precedent, receive a shilling a day for costs." 2 Jan van der Groes, however, remained for the present in Holland, and in the minutes of 1639 and 1640 we hear much of a certain expedition led by him to the Orinoco in search of a silver mine; but as the enterprise was confessedly into hos- tile territory in time of war, and as it came to naught, it has no interest here. 3 Meanwhile the establishment on the Essequibo went on as before. In 1640 (August 6) we read that "the Committee on the Business of Essequibo having reported as to the folk and the cargo which they had deemed advisable to send thither, their report was adopted, and the committee was authorized to arrange with Van Pere and Van Rhee [the patroons of Berbice], inasmuch as they are sending a ship thither, regarding the transportation thither of our folk and 1 Extracts, p. 72. It is not impossible that this exodus of the colonists may have had to do with a projected attack upon Essequibo by the Spaniards of the Orinoco. (See Extracts, p. 76.) 2 Extracts, p. 72. •Tor all the passages relating to it see Extracts, pp. 96-100. Digitized by Microsoft® 190 BURR. goods, as well as the charges for bringing from there the cargo of dye." Yet it is unlikely that the "folk" here men- tioned were colonists proper (i. e., settlers); for "folk" is in these records regularly used for any group of the Company's own servants, while for settlers that word is rarely employed. In 1642 (June 30) there was drawn up by the Zeeland Chamber and inserted in its minutes, a standard list of the supplies to be shipped to the Essequibo at each of the infre- quent consignments to that colony. This list 1 throws much light on the size and aims of the post. It would seem safe to infer from it that there were then employed on the Essequibo not more than thirty men, and that their business was wholly the gathering of dyes ; for the articles are such as would be bar- tered to the Indians or used in the gathering of these products and of the food supply of the colonists. On delivering these supplies, the ship was to ' ' take in such dye and letter- wood as at the time shall be ready " and return directly home. In 1644 one finds in the quoted address of a letter to "Adriaen Jansz., Commandeur, and Adriaen van d. Woestyne, Clerk, at Fort Kykoveral in Essequibo," for the first time such titles for its officials and a name for its fort. 2 They suggest a new departure ; but there is nothing else in the minutes to imply it. By March 9, 1645, Adriaen Jansz. has given place as Comman- deur to Aert Adriaensz. van Scherpenisse. 3 The Essequibo establishment was still not a success. The charter of the Dutch West India Company seemed about to expire, and it was time its affairs were set in order. On May 29, 1645, a committee of the Zeeland Chamber, submitting suggestions to this end, reported that, "as concerns the river 1 Extracts, pp. 100-102. 2 Extracts, p. 102. "Adriaen Jansz.'' may possibly be but a distortion of the name of Jan Adriaensz. van der Goes. 3 Extracts, p. 103. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 191 of Essequibo, the committee's opinion is that now for some time it has been traded to with small profit to the Company, and for the reason that individual colonists * are permitted to trade there as well as the Company, so that the goods coming from there can not fetch their proper price. On this point they are of advice that, at the expiration of the charter, either the trade there ought to be held exclusively for the Company or it were better that the aforesaid place should, subject to the proper fees, be tin-own open to free trade." 2 On January 18, 1646, there was drawn a contract with Abraham van Pere for a special voyage to Essequibo after the annatto dye ; and now there is inserted a clause binding him to bring also any other merchandise he may find there. 3 On May 23, 1647, there is a similar special contract of the Com- pany with a ship belonging to an outside party: going out with goods for Brazil and supplies for Essequibo, it shall bring back from Essequibo "the dye and other goods which the Company may have there, and from the Caribbean Islands, if it choose, a cargo of tobacco, cotton, or other products of the soil." 4 Similar contracts were made on November 19, 1648, and on January 14, 1649. Annatto dye is the only product of Essequibo named. 5 Such are our scanty materials for a notion of the charac- ter and limits of the Dutch colony on the Essequibo at the close of the long war with Spain. So far as they enable us to infer, it was a body of two or three dozen unmarried 'Under the privileges granted to colonists l>y the Company in 1627 and 1628, the members of any West Indian colony were at liberty to trade freely on the unsettled coasts. Against this encroachment on their monopoly in Guiana the Zeeland Cham- ber had now for many years protested in vain. (See Extracts, pp. 69, 70.) 'Extracts, p. 104. 3 Extracts, pp. 104, 105. ■"Extracts, pp. 106-108. 'Extracts, pp. 110-112. Digitized by Microsoft® 192 BURR. employes of the West India Company, housed in a fort at the confluence of the Cuyuni and Mazaruni with the Esse- quibo, and engaged in traffic with the Indians for the dyes of the forest. 1 Agriculture, .save for the food supply of this gar- rison, there is little reason for supposing. Of tobacco or of sugar one hears nothing after the mention of the specimens received in the time of Jan van der Groes. The first sugar mill on the river seems to have been established in 1664; and at that date there was as yet no provision for the registry of lands in Essequibo. 2 This purely commercial character of 1 The only other avocation mentioned is that of fishing : one Jan van Opstall, an employ^ of the Company in Essequibo, in 1644, complained of the loss of a finger while fishing for the Company, and asked compensation, hut the Company could not find this in the contract. The fishing was probably for the food supply of the post — as often later. 3 Both these facts appear from the petition of Jan Doensen, July 3, 1664, who was establishing a sugar mill at Brouwershoek, opposite Fort Kykoveral, on the north bank of the mingled Cuyuni and Mazaruni, near their junction with the Essequibo. For lack of a colonial registration he begged the Company to register it in Holland; and the Zeeland Chamber, not knowing what else to do with it, entered it " till fur- ther order " in their " Book of the Colonies " — where it remains unique. (See Extracts, pp. 132, 133. ) The creek by which the mill stood has ever since been known as Sugar Creek (Zuiker Creek). The petition clearly implies that this mill was the earliest. It, of course, does not follow that before this mill no sugar was raised in the colony, but only that, if so, it was pressed out after the primitive Indian fashion. But the Zeeland Chamber itself, in its memorial of 1751 (Xed. Jaertoeken, 1751, p. 1092), affirms, as a result of its search through the records, that " beside the monopoly of trado to the colony, the Zeeland Chamber of its own authority also established therein plantations for the cultivation of sugar and of other products there growing, whereof the earliest example is found in their Minutes under June 8, 1671;" and it even bases an argument on this late beginning of cultivation. That the date should be earlier is suggested not merely by Doensen's petition, but by an entry of 1669 (Extracts, p. 138); but it is not unintelligible that the Chamber should overlook things which happened in the period (1658-70) when the colony was under the con- trol of the Walcheren cities. They are unlikely, however, to be in error as to the earlier years. Modyford, the English governor of Barbados, indeed wrote home in 1652, in a letter urging the colonization of Guiana, that "the Dutch have already on two or three rivers built suger workes, one of them at Marawini . . . another at Berbice River and another at Essequeke [Essequibo] .'' But he may more easily have been mistaken as to this one point than the Dutch records. (See British Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, pp. 373, 374; for a transcript of the document I am again indebted to Her Majesty's Government.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 193 the Essequibo establishment is the more striking because the other Dutch colonies on the coast, both those of the patroons and those planted directly by the Company, had all been of settlers. How far afield or in what direction, their commerce with the Indians or their exploration of the country took the Dutchmen of Essequibo, or what they counted the limits of their occupa- tion, we have as yet no means of knowing. The Company had as early as 1627 thought of providing Jan van der Goes with a sloop, 1 and there is no reason to doubt that he had used one to visit neighboring rivers unoccupied by Europeans, as even the private colonists of Berbice were encouraged to do. 2 Of outposts there is thus far no mention. 3 Such as it was, the post on the Essequibo remained in 1648, as it had always been, the westernmost establishment of the Dutch on this coast, and was now, with the exception of Berbice, their only Guiana colony. 4 With the conclusion of a lasting peace with Spain and with the renewal for another quarter century of the Dutch West India Company's charter, one might look for a rapid colonial development. But the Company was now robbed of the pri- vateering which had been its leading source of revenue, and bankrupted by the long and fruitless struggle for Brazil. It Extracts, p. 46. Extracts, pp. 46, 47. 3 When, in 1634, the Dutch merchant De Vries, in his prospecting tour along this coast, reached the Denierara, Jan van der Goes came thither to meet him ; hut there is nothing in De Vries's account to suggest the existence of a post there. (See his Korte Historiael, p. 135.) 4 The Spanish document conjecturally ascribed by the Blue Book ("Venezuela No. 1," Appendix I, pp. 56, 57) to 1640 (this is modified in the Errata later published, to "some time before the treaty of Miinster") is palpably of much later date. The Pomeroon was not settled till 1658, and Surinam was in British hands till 1667. Though untrustworthy for any date, the document belongs, perhaps, to about the year last named. VOL 1 13 Digitized by Microsoft® 194 BURR. is not till 1655, when the hopelessness of the recovery of Brazil had become apparent even to the Company itself, that the Zeeland Chamber seems first to have thrown open again the Guiana coast to colonization, on condition that the colonists should draw all their supplies and wares from Zeeland and ship thither their cargoes. 1 And it was not till late in 1656 (October 12) that they drew up a prospectus, inviting, under tempting conditions, the settlement of the Wild Coast. 2 This they followed, in 1657, with a new body of "liberties and exemptions" for patroons. 3 That these prospectuses were pub- licly promulgated does not appear, yet the invitation certainly reached the ears of both patroons 4 and of colonists, and "on March 22, 1657, the first free colonists, to the number of twelve persons, some with and some without family, wife, children, and slaves, arrived" in the Essequibo. 6 But the Chamber still shrank from assuming alone the man- agement of such a colony, and in 1657 (June 9) we find its members petitioning the provincial Estates of Zeeland to assume the direction of the enterprise, "it being their inten- tion," they state, "with the approval of the Estates, to estab- lish a colony and new population on the Wild Coast of Essequibo and neighboring places, stretching from the first to the tenth degree north of the Equator between the rivers 1 Ifederlandache Jaerboeken, 1751, p. 1093. It would seem that the Nineteen was also at this time promoting colonization in Guiana; for the Zeeland memorial of 1750 quotes from its minutes, now lost, a "body of liberties for founders of colonies/' under date of August 30, 1655, in which colonists were forbidden to approach the colonies of the Zeeland Chamber nearer than fifteen Dutch miles along the coast or in the interior. And reference is in this connection made to their minutes for Sep- tember 20, 1658, and September 3, 1659. (Nederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1750, p. 1504, note.) 2 Extracts, pp. 113-117. 3 Extracts, pp. 120-123. 4 Extracts, pp. 117-120. 5 Nederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1751, p. 1093. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 195 Orinoco and Amazon, where there is granted them the exclu- sive right to voyage and trade, by virtue of their agreement with the West India Company" — i. e., the agreement of this Chamber with the Company as a whole. 1 This petition failed through the opposition of some of the less commercial members of the Estates; but before the end of the year they found a taker for the task. The three great trading towns of Zeeland, the Walcheren cities — Middelburg, Flushing, and Vere — offered alone to undertake the matter; and there was transferred to them, in conjunction with a com- mittee of the Zeeland Chamber and subject to the supreme jurisdiction of the Company and of the State, the colonization and management of the entire coast. " The aforesaid cities," ran their contract with the Company, "shall establish and plant colonies on the continental Wild Coast between the first and the tenth degrees." 2 The agreement between the cities themselves (December 16, 1657) is content to speak of their enterprise as "the business regarding the peopling and cultivation of the Wild Coast in America under the charter of the West India Company." 3 Of their actual procedure we are happily fully informed through the still extant minutes of the managing board of the colony, made up of the representatives of the three cities, four among whom were also members of the Zeeland Chamber, sitting at the West India House in Middelburg. They rechris- tened the WildCoast " Nova Zeelandia," and choosing as Director of the colony that same Aert Adriaensz. who had already for a dozen years been in command in the Essequibo,* they added to 1 Extracts, p. 124. ^Extracts, pp. 125, 178. ^Extracts, p. 126; cf. pp. 125, 178. 4 There can be little doubt, at least, that he was the same as the Aert Adriaensz. of Scherpenisse, whom we find named in the Zeeland Chamber's minutes for 1645. Digitized by Microsoft® 196 BURR. him (December 24, 1657) one Cornells Goliat, whom, on account "of his experience in fortification, military science, and land- surveying, as well as in ciphering and book-keeping," they made "Commissary over the stores of the aforesaid jalace and Com- mandeur over the 25 soldiers to be sent thither, and furthermore engineer for the parceling out of lands, the making of maps, and the laying out of sundry strong-places or forts for the protec- tion of the colonists." Thus burdened with functions, Goliat was dispatched to the Guiana coast, and on August 19, 1658, they received from him a "short description of the rivers Demerara, Essequibo, Pomeroon, and Moruca, lying on the coast of Guiana, otherwise named the Wild Coast, now Nova Zeelandia." His results had, long ere this, profited the colonists themselves; for these, setting sail from Zeeland on February 2, 1658, had under his guidance established themselves, not in the Essequibo, but in its neighbor river to the westward, the Pomeroon, and the adjoining stream, the Moruca. 1 Of this establishment, on which was expended most of the energy of the new effort at colonization, and which soon monopolized in current use the name of Nova Zeelandia, I have elsewhere to speak. 2 The Essequibo was, however, not abandoned. There still, at Fort Kykoveral, Avas stationed the Commandeur of the entire colony; and when, by 1664, the Pomeroon experiment was languishing, the erection of a sugar mill in Essequibo points to the turning of agriculture toward that river. A sudden end of things to both settlements was brought before the end of 1665 3 by an invasion of the English (Extracts, p. 103 ; cf. also pp. 129, 139.) He was certainly the same who had been in command there since 1650. (Extracts, p. 139. ) His surname of Groenewegen (Major Scott's "Gromwegle") is mentioned but rarely in the records. 'Extracts, pp. 127-129. 2 See pp. 214-217 below. 3 The date assigned this enterprise in modern books is 1666. The loss of the minutes of the Zeeland Chamber from the end of February, 1666, to the close of that year leaves Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 197 from Barbados, who, under Major John Scott — taking advan- tage of the war then in progress between Great Britain and Holland in Europe — captured all the Dutch establishments westward of Berbice and left garrisons in the Pomeroon and in the Essequibo. But the Indians, more friendly to the Dutch, were induced to refuse the English all supplies; and the starv- ing garrisons, after being harassed and shut up in their forts by the French, the allies of the Dutch, surrendered within a few months to Bergenaar, the Dutch commandeur in Berbice, who early in 1667 turned them over to a fleet sent for their res- cue by the provincial Estates of Zeeland. Thus "Essequibo and Pomeroon, first taken by the English, then plundered bv the French," and now "by the whole world abandoned" — to use the phrases of the Zeeland Estates themselves — passed again into the hands of the Netherlands. 1 But into whose hands? The commandeur of Berbice would gladly have held them as his capture ; but the Zeeland Estates ignored his claim and occupied them "as res nuttius" (aban- doning the Pomeroon, but maintaining a garrison in the fort of Essequibo) till they could find an owner who would meet the costs of their expedition. They at last (late in 1668) offered them to the three cities; but these, dismayed at the expense of a fresh beginning, would no more of them, and us without light from that quarter, unless the break he in itself significant. From the English colonial papers and from Scott's own account, one gathers only that he set out from Barbados in October, 1665, and reached there again in April, 1666. But the narrative of the Surinam governor, Byam, makes it probable that Essequibo was attacked late in 1665; and this is the date named by Adriaan van Berkel, who was there in 1671 (.Amerikaansclie Toyagien, p. 26), and by the Zeeland Chamber in its review of the incident in 1686 (Extracts, p. 179). For 1666 I find no such contempo- rary authority. It must, of course, be remembered that to the English of that day the year 1665 ended iu March of what we now call (and what the Dutch then called) 1666; and an error may easily have thus arisen. "For the details of this episode see the English accounts printed in Extracts, pp. 133-138; Nederlavdsclie Jaerboeken, 1750, pp. 1496-1501,-1751, pp. 1102, 1103; and Extracts, pp. 179, 180. Digitized by Microsoft® 198 BUKK. thought of selling the colony. There was only the West India Company to fall back on. The Company, now nearing its end and more impecunious than ever, was slow to come to terms; but on April 11, 1670, its Zeeland Chamber concluded with the Zeeland Estates a compromise, by which it should again receive "the Fort and the Colony of Essequibo," on condition of paying the costs of the garrison which had occupied it and of pledging (beside certain favors to the neighboring colony of Surinam, newly won from the English, and not for the Com- pany) that "the colony of Essequibo" should henceforward be open to all Zeelanders, "excepting that the trade in annatto dye shall be carried on by the aforesaid Chamber [of the West India Company] alone." And on October 15, 1670, the States- General, having heard "the request of the directors of the West India Company of these lands, setting forth how the Chamber of Zeeland had some time ago begun to form a colony on the Wild Coast of America upon the river Esse- quibo, and how this colony, having fallen during the English war into the hands of the English, was recovered again out of the hands of the English by the forces sent out to the coasts of America by the province of Zeeland, and that thereafter the aforesaid province of Zeeland had suffered itself to be persuaded to place it again in the hands of the Company," sanctioned the transfer and its conditions. 1 All this time the colony, though many of its settlers had perished or fled over sea to the West Indian Islands, had not been wholly deserted; and it is not unlikely that the virtual abandonment of the Pomeroon accrued to the advantage of Essequibo. The former had been richly supplied with slaves, and 1,200 of these, seized by the English, were turned over by them in Essequibo at their surrender in 1666. These were doubtless put to use, and even before the formal resumption 2 As to all this see Nederlandscke Jaerloeken, 1750, pp. 1501-1508. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 199 of the colony by the West India Company, one finds con- siderable consignments of sugar as well as of dyes. But it is from that event and from the arrival of the energetic skipper, Hendrik Rol, in 1670, as the first governor 1 under the new regime, that a new era of prosperity for the colony seems to date. In his first year there were but three private planta- tions in Essequibo, two of them worked by 12 or 14 slaves apiece, the third, lying an hour above Fort Kykoveral (doubt- less on the Mazaruni), by 28 or 30. In 1671 he won from Berbice the control of the Demerara. By 1673, if not earlier, he was trafficking with the Caribs in the Barima, as well as with the Arawaks, and he was also just opening a trade with the Orinoco. 2 Such was the condition of the Guiana colony when, in 1674, the old West India Company, so long in the agonies of death, at last expired. To take its place there had already been created (by charter of September 21, 1674) one wholly new, with territorial limits widely different. Instead of the entire coast of America, there were granted to the new one on that continent only "the places of Essequibo and Pomeroon." Of the situation or limits of these places there was no other definition than the phrase, "situate on the continent of America." 'From here on I shall often call by this more familiar title the Essequibo Cornman- deur. His functions were mainly civil, not military, and eventually there existed beside him in the colony a head of the garrison, known as the commandant. That the Commandeur was not called Governor, as he wished to be, seems to have been only a matter of rank and pay ; and it costs us nothing to give him the more appro- priate title. Strictly speaking, however, the Essequibo governor remained a Com- mandeur till, in 1751, Storm van's Gravesande received the higher title of Director- General, Demerara then receiving a commandeur of its own, though still subject to the authority of the Director-General, who resided in Essequibo. From 1784 the Director-General resided in Demerara, and it was Essequibo which had the Com- mandeur. In 1792, when the colonies passed from the West India Company to the State, the Director-General became a Governor-General, and this title he retained. : A. van Berkel, Amerikaansche Voyagien, pp. 43-48; Extracts, pp. 138-141. Digitized by Microsoft® 200 BURE. To the new West India Company, however, the meaning was not doubtful; and they entered without ado upon the administration of the colony. So slight was the break that Hendrik Rol was not disturbed, but remained its Commandeur until his death. But from the advent of the new Company its records are preserved to us in far greater completeness. From 1675 we have without a gap the missives by which the Com- pany governed the colony, and from 1679 almost as uninter- ruptedly the letters and documents which came from the colony in return. From this wealth of material it is clear that the continuity of the colony was henceforward unbroken. Twice, indeed, before its final occupation by Great Britain it was for a time in English or in French hands — from 1781 to 1784 and from 1796 to 1802. But these occupations, bloodless and purely military, suspended neither its local institutions nor the trend of its territorial growth. This territorial growth, though slow, was steady and knew no serious interruptions. The field of its activity, however, had striking changes. Until well into the eighteenth century the plantations of the Essequibo clustered themselves for safety about Fort Kykoveral, at the junction of the Essequibo with its two great western branches, and along the portions of these three rivers just above this junction. Down to this time much the larger part of the colony was on the west of the Esse- quibo. 1 When, in 1701, the colonial Court of Policy found it wise to divide the colony, for purposes of military organiza- tion, into two districts, it was thought fair to let the plantations in the Mazaruni make one, those in the Essequibo the other. 2 'Cf.note, p. 348, below. ; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 68. The translation is here not untrue to the manuscript, but the manuscript is only a contemporary copy and the sense demands that "the (de) river" should be "that (die) river," and that the "river" (riviere) of the following line which from its form might be either a singular or a plural should here rather be translated " rivers." Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 201 But, as these upper lands became exhausted, the more fertile lower reaches tempted even those who were already estab- lished above; and at the completion of the new fort on Flag Island, near the mouth of the river, and the transfer thither from Kykoveral (in 1739-40) of the garrison and the seat of government, the exodus had already become general. 1 Bv 1773 there was no longer any demand for grants of land up the river, and nearly all of it was given up to forests and annexed as timber grounds to the plantations below; 2 and bv 1777 there was, with one exception, not a sugar, coffee, or cotton plantation above Flag Island — in fact, no culture what- ever except a few cassava grounds. 3 Flag Island hugs the east side of the river, and whether it was due to this fact or to the opening and rapid colonization of the Demerara, while the Pomeroon remained closed, or only to the greater attractive- ness of the lands, the center of gravity of the colony speedilv transferred itself to the east of the Essequibo. Before the plantations on the west had reached the mouth of that river, those on the east formed a solid row clear around to the Deme- rara. 4 The Pomeroon was not reached by them until the very last years of the eighteenth century. 5 Meanwhile, the original site of the colony became a wilderness. As early as 1764 Storm van 's Grravesande could speak of "the few colonists who still live up the river" — meaning, as the context shows, at the old site of the colony, about the junction of Cuyuni and Mazaruni. 6 'Already by 1748 the Cuyuni could be counted very remote. (Extracts, p. 316.) 2 Blue Book, ■"< Venezuela No. 3," p. 183 (No. 255). 3 Extracts,p.540. 4 See Atlas of the Commission, maps 66, 67, 68, 70. •'Extracts, pp. 612-637. As to a single squatter on the Pomeroon, an isolated plan- tation on the Moruca, and a forbidden attempt to settle on the Barima, see pp. 222, 242, below. iil Xog boven in de riviere women." Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 134. Cf. also maps 66, 67, in the Atlas of the Commission ; these make yet clearer this desertion. Digitized by Microsoft® 202 BURR. In the river Essequibo itself cultivation had at the outset of the eighteenth century been carried as far up as the first great rapid, that of Aretaka. 1 About the middle of the century a Jew named De Vines had even successfully attempted a sugar plantation above this first fall — doubtless only far enough up to secure fresh land. 2 A town, even a village, there was never at any time on the Essequibo. "This is perhaps the only instance of a European colony, among thousands throughout the world," said in 1782 the proclamation providing for the creation of the new capital on the Demerara, "which has arrived at some magnificence without the establishment of either town or village." 3 The set- tlers lived, as they preferred to live, scattered on their planta- tions. The Company's officials and garrison were for long all housed on Kykoveral. In 1716 the Commandeur got permis- sion to build a new government house on the mainland just opposite the island, on the Mazaruni side of the point formed by the two streams. The house was dubbed "House Near-b) T " (Naby), and the hamlet which gathered about it was called Cartabo, from the plantation which occupied the point. After 1740, when the colonial government was removed to the new fort on Flag Island, Cartabo fell to ruin. According to Hart- sinck, writing in 1770, when it was "now in ruins," it had con- sisted "of twelve or fifteen houses." 4 On Flag Island, now coming to be called Fort Island, there likewise grew up a cluster of buildings: the fort, the public offices and ware- houses, the quarters of the garrison, the dwellings of the offi- cers — inventories of these buildings appear from time to time 1 See Atlas of the Commission, map 59. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 131. For other mentions of De Vries see pp. 85, 88. 3 Rodway, History of British Guiana, ii, p. 8. 4 JBesohryving van Guiana, i, p. 263. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 203 among the records of the Company; but a village in addition never arose there. 1 Even the colony church was for long not here, but on the plantation of Ampa, midway from Flag Island to Kykoveral. 2 But while the territory thus actually occupied by the col- ony for purposes of cultivation, whether in the neighborhood of Fort Kykoveral or in the coast district, was confined within such narrow bounds, there was another colonial activity, which laid far wider regions under tribute. This was the colony's trade ; for this trade was mainly a trade with the natives. As we have seen, this was at the outset and for more than a quarter century of its existence its exclusive function. Even after plantations had there been established by its proprietors and the colony thrown open to private planters, it was alone this trade with the Indians which the Company retained as its own monopoly; and for many decades this remained its chief source of income and the object of its most jealous care. This it was in defense of which it built its forts, planted its outposts, maintained its garrisons. It would, therefore, be palpably unjust not to take this into account in any measurement of its territorial rights. To determine, however, its worth as a form of occupation, one must examine somewhat more closely its character and methods. The products mainly sought by this trade were such as could be furnished by the Indians, and by the Indians alone: the dyes and oils and precious woods of the forest — annatto (called by the Dutch oriane), letter-wood, carap-oil, balsam copaiba. Annatto, the most important of these, was worked up by the Indians into balls or cakes for transportation; but 'For a sketch of what was there in 1748 see a corner of map 60 in the atlas of the Commission. ! Of the half-mythical Nieuw Middelburg on the Pomeroon (1658-65) I must else- where speak. See pp. 215-217, below. Digitized by Microsoft® 204 BURR. all alike were gathered without cultivation. 1 The natural supply of these was, therefore, at best, but constant, and the increas- ing demand made it necessary to seek them ever farther afield. The means employed to this end by the colonial authorities were of two sorts, which must be clearly distinguished. They had, first, the agents whom they called outrunners (uitloopers). These, who must have existed from the very beginning of the colony, scoured, by canoe or on foot, the whole country, stir- ring up the Indians to bring in their wares and barter them at the fort or themselves carrying into the wilderness the trinkets for exchange and bringing back the Indian produce. The out- runners were regular employes of the Company — in the later time usually half-breeds or old negroes familiar with the Indian dialects — and seem to have been sent on definite tasks. "AH the old negroes," wrote the Essequibo governor to the Company in 1687, "are off for their several old trading-places among the Indians, to wit, six for annatto, two for balsam copaiba, and two for letter- wood and provisions." 2 Later these out- runners regularly appear in the muster-rolls of the colony. The districts or routes of their activity are, however, never named. Occasionally in the correspondence of the colony one hears of them in this region or in that, but too vaguely to infer their exact whereabouts. 3 Of far more moment to the present investigation is the sec- ond means employed by the colony in the trade with the Indians. In addition to their outrunners (uitloopers) they came also to have their outliers (uitleggers). It was by this title, as we have seen, that the employe's first sent to the Essequibo were known; and, in truth, the relation later borne by the posts ■Yet it is to be noted that the dye-trees had to be planted by the Indians. (Ex- tracts, p. 156.) 2 See letter of November 4, 1687, printed by Netseher, Geschiedenis, pp. 374-377. 3 See, e. g., Extracts, pp. 150, 161, 172, 257. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 205 of the outliers to the central fort of the colony was not unlike that borne for long by the colony itself to the home land. It was somewhat more than half a century after the beginning of the colony when a beginning was made of this new method. The suggestion may very possibly have come from Berbice. In 1671, when the neighbor river of Demerara passed into the control of the Essequibo colony, the Berbice authorities had in that river a post of 15 or 1 6 men, and the commander of this force had been stationed there some fifteen or sixteen years. 1 But it could scarcely have been on the taking posses- sion of this river, nor yet on the occupation, two or three years later, of the Mahaicony, farther east, where also the Berbice colony had had an outlier, that the system actually went into effect; for it can hardly be doubted, from the tenor of Com- mandeur Beekman's letter suggesting such a post on the Pom- eroon in 1679, that this was the beginning of a policy new to Essequibo. 2 Yet it was not long thereafter before there were posts on the Demerara and the Mahaicony as well. In 1691, the date of the first muster-roll preserved in the colonial records, we find mentioned only Pomeroon and Demerara; but by 1700, the date of the next roll left us, Mahaicony has joined them. 3 From this point on to the end our record of these posts is fortunately complete; not only are muster-rolls much more frequent, but, what is better, the pay-rolls of the colony, sent year by year to the home authorities and pre- served with scarcely a break in the series, give us the names 'So testifies Adriaan van Berkel, the Berbice secretary, who visited the post in that year, and who made the bargain by which the river was turned over to Esse- quibo. (Amerilcaansche Voyagien, pp. 30, 31.) It is clear from Van Berkel's account, as from other sources (cf. Extracts, pp. 138, 139). that the Essequibo colony was already claiming the Demerara and carrying on trade there; but it does not appear that it had there, like Berbice, a force in actual possession. s Extracts, pp. 144, 145. •Extracts, pp. 192, 199. Digitized by Microsoft® 206 BURR. not only of the posts themselves but of every employe' at these posts to whom a guilder was paid on the colony's behalf. They tell us the name, nativity, and term of service of all the outliers, or postholders, as they come later to be more com- monly called, and of all the byliers (bijleggers), or under-post- holders, who to the number of one or two were associated with them in the management of the posts. 1 From these sources it is clear that these posts were few, defi- nite, constant. Besides the Pomeroon, the Demerara, and the Mahaicony there were but two other quarters of the Essequibo colony where such a post was ever in existence ; in 1736 there was established (and thereafter maintained) a post on the upper Essequibo, and thrice during the eighteenth century (1703, 1754-58, 1766-1772) a post was planted on the Cuyuni. These five were all. The location of these posts did not, indeed, always remain precisely the same. The post at the mouth of the Pomeroon was, before the middle of the century, pushed a long way up the adjoining river, the Monica, and before the end of it, migrated back to the seacoast again. That on the Essequibo was at least once moved much farther up the river. The three successive posts on the Cuyuni were almost certainly at as many different points. That on the Demerara was about the middle of the century absorbed by the new colony which had arisen in that river. Yet each quarter had but its single post; however, for strategic or other reasons its site might vary, its relation to the colony remained the same. 2 ^or specimens of these records, Bee Extracts, pp. 192, 199, 205, 207. As to the com- pleteness of the series, see notes, p. 311, below. -True, there seems to have been for a year or two (1703-1705) a second post on the Pomeroon — for what reason does not appear. Toward the close of the century, after Demerara had become a partially distinct colony, it established one or two posts of its own; but these do not concern the present discussion. For the proof of what is here stated as to the posts on the Pomeroon, the Moruca, and the Cuyuni I must refer to the later pages dealing with those rivers. As to tho post on the upper Esse- Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 207 What may have been the political significance of these posts is less easy to determine. Among the forms of occupation specified by the Treaty of Minister, in 1648, as precluding visit and trade by the subjects of the other power, was that by loges (in the Dutch text, logien). This word was at the time defined by the Holland Estates to mean warehouses. 1 But it is by this word that the posts are described (notably that on the Cuyuni) in the formal remonstrances of the States-General to Spain (1759, 1769). 2 The postholder and his one or two white assistants were usually old soldiers and remained enrolled among the military of the colony, at least until the year 1775. 3 The posts were supplied with arms, and the northwestern post, at least, had cannon as well ; it was sometimes garrisoned with a larger force, and more than once stoutly and successfully resisted attacks from an armed foe.* When, after the raiding of the Pomeroon colony by the French, it was resolved in 1690 to abandon the plantations there, the West India Com- pany instructed the Essequibo governor to leave there "three men with a flag for the maintenance of the Company's posses- sion." 5 It was possibly this order which was in thought when in 1737 a later governor wrote the Company that the Moruca post must be kept up ''because it was established for the maintenance of your frontiers stretching toward the Orinoco." 6 The presence of a post is, however, more than once coupled quibo, see p. 208 of vol. iii of the Commission's report. Of the project, never carried out, to establish a post on the Bariroa, I shall speak fully in connection with that river. As to the Company's share in the establishment of the posts, see note, p 315, below. J See note, p. 80, above. Cf. also pp. 81, 89. 'Extracts, pp. 384, 469. Extracts, pp. 443, 502, 504. 'Extracts, pp. 236-238, 241, 256, 455, 456; Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 73, 74, 115, and passim. "Extracts, p. 191. ^Extracts, p. 278. Digitized by Microsoft® 208 BURR. by the Esseqmoo governors with the thought of taking or maintaining possession of a district. 1 The functions of the postholcler and his assistants have been so fully and so clearly described by the colonial govem- < >rs themselves, in documents now accessible in print, that they can hardly need here so much as a summing up. 2 The fore- most during the earlier history of the colony was, of course, the traffic with the Indians. But with the oversupply of the markets or the gradual exhaustion of the forests, others took the foreground. "The most important work of a postholder," wrote the Essequibo Director-General in 1778, "lies in this, that through friendly and companionable intercourse with the Indians he seeks more and more to win them to us, that he further keeps a sleepless eye on the doings of the neighboring foreigners, both Christian and Indian, that he watches for runaway slaves, and has them caught and returned by the Indians." 3 To this, in the case of posts situated on avenues of inland communication, like that on the Monica; or, to a less extent, that on the upper Essequibo or that on the Cuyuni during its brief existence, was added the supervision of travel and of import and export. Of the trade in poitos, or Indian slaves, which their Spanish neighbors believed the chief activity of these posts, there is less mention than might be expected in the records of the Essequibo colony. In the interest of the good will of the Indians, the rules governing it were »E. g., Extracts, pp. 160, 322; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," 117, 131. Of the hoisting at intervals of the Company's flag (as stated by Mr. Rodway, Annals of Guiana, ii, p. 89), I have been able to find no mention. Even Mr. Rodway does not mention it in his later History or in his report on The Boundary Question, though in the latter he discusses the posts at much length. -See, e. g., Extracts, pp. 241-243; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 191; and espe- cially the instructions given to the postholders themselves (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 131-133, 140, 248; Extracts, pp. 581-584; and below, p. 241). 3 Extracts, p. 543. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 209 strict. 1 Though alwaj-s earned on to a greater or less extent, it is possible that the share taken in it by the Essequibo posts has been exaggerated by the identification with them of the itinerant slave-gatherers of other colonies, who likewise found in the Caribs of this wild intervening region the best purveyors of human flesh and blood. But, beside this trade of the Company, and in spite of the monopoly long maintained by it, there was also a trade with the Indians carried on by private colonists. So far as this was the work of planters, aiming chiefly at the supply of their own wants, it needs no attention here. But there was in the colonies a class of men who gave themselves wholly to trade, especially to the slave trade and to smuggling. " Since this river begins to be filled with many inhabitants," wrote Commander Beekman, of Essequibo, in 1687, "some of them rove contin- ually among the Caribs, buy up everything, and glut them with wares." 2 These were the so-called "rovers" (swervers). 3 They were mainly Europeans, and seem to have spent their lives in scouring the forests, making vast journeys into yet unvisited wilds, not less, perhaps, to gratify their love of explo- ration and adventure than to win a livelihood. To one who would draw from the peregrinations of these wanderers any inference as to territorial boundaries, there present themselves two serious obstacles: our almost utter ignorance of their routes, and the probability, from what little we do know, that they were wholly indifferent to boundaries of any sort. If, too, we find rovers from Essequibo far afield in the region 'See, e. g., the ordinance of 1686, printed by Netscher, Geschiedenis, pp. 367, 368. 2 Netscher, Geschiedenis, p. 376, where the letter is given in full. 3 This word is, in the Bine Book, rendered by a puzzling variety of English ones: not only by "rover,'' or "wanderer," but by "runner," "traveller," "trader," "itin- erant trader," "itinerant hawker," "depredator" (p. 117), even by "pirate" (pp. 116,117). VOL 1 14 Digitized by Microsoft® 210 BURR. stretching toward the Orinoco, so too we find there rovers from Berbico and from Surinam, from the French colonies on the main and in the islands, from the British in Barbados, from the Portuguese in Brazil, and from the Spaniards at the west. 1 Some, too, seem to have changed their political allegiance at will. 2 The chief external trade of the colony, and the only one of interest to the present research was that with the Spaniards of the Orinoco. Begun as early as 1673, 3 it seems always to have been carried on by that inland water route connecting the Moruca with the Barima and must have involved more or less of intercourse with the Indians of this region. 4 Now connived at, now hampered by the Spanish authorities, it was always encouraged by the Dutch West India Company, save for a brief period of prohibition (from 1684 on) when they were clearly moved by distrust of their own governor. 5 Prior to the middle of the eighteenth century this trade was carried on mainly by the Dutch. But from 1761 it became the settled 1 The earliest of whom I have found record are those named by Major John Scott (see Extracts, pp. 134, 135), who in 1665 gave him excellent information as to the upper Orinoco. For further mention of rovers, or of those •who were probably such, see Extracts, pp. 156, 158, 159, 161-164, 172,182, 229, 230, 239, 274-276, 278, 306, 315, 319, 320, 332, 372, 373, 403, 414, 547, 548 ; Blue Boot " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 74-76, 91, 93, 95-97, 100, 102, 103, 113, 116-118, 125, 130, 132, 135, 136, 148. Spanish documents have also much to say of them. Their lawlessness is noted by Dutch and Spanish alike. The competition of the Surinam traders was especially complained of by the Esse- qnibo authorities. (Extracts, pp. 239, 278, 322, 332.) ? Such as that Ignace Courthial who played so large a part in the intercolonial trade during the eighteenth century. =Extracts, p. 140. ■•There is in the minutes of the Zeeland Chamber for 1750 a very puzzling passage (Extracts, p. 333), which seems to imply that Spanish traders came from up the Essequibo, and which may perhaps point to a traffic by way of the Cuyuni. Of the trade in horses, which was carried on by the Dutch via that river at the beginning of the eighteenth century and which some have thought a trade with the Spaniards, I speak elsewhere. (See pp. 308-316, below.) More or less of smuggling seems always to have been carried on by that route. 6 Extracts, pp. 168, 173, 182; and, for further discussion, see pp. 260, 268, below.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 211 policy of the Company and of the colonial authorities to trans- fer the conduct of this trade to the Spaniards. 1 So successful were they that from this time forward one scarcely hears of Dutch traders to the Orinoco; 2 and in 1794 the Governor- Greneral, though himself a son of the colony, was seemingly ignorant that this trade had ever been in other than Spanish hands, and described to the home authorities with interest the Moruca-Barima route as "the course of the Spanish lanchas." 3 Fishery must from the first have been of prime importance to the food-supply of the colony. 4 From an early date it was systematically carried on both in the upper rivers and on the seacoast to within the mouths of the Orinoco and the Amacura. 5 Hunting, too, especially that of the wild hog abounding in these regions, was a matter of moment; and it led the Dutch up the Cuyuni and Mazaruni and into the coast region as far as the Amacura. 6 Of the mining enterprises of the colony, so far as these led beyond the plantations, I shall speak in connection with the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni; and something as to the cutting of timber and thatch must be said in discussing the Pomeroon, the Waini, and the Barima. 'Extracts, p. 394 (cf. also p. 318); Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 116, 119. - The readiness with which it was taken up by the Spaniards is suggested by Storm's words, in 1764, about their passage of the Moruca post (Blue Book "Vene- zuela No. 3," p. 131). So, too, in his letter of September 27, 1763 (id., p. 126), the clause "the road to the Spaniards leads past this post" should rather be translated "the road of the Spaniards hither" (" Ook is de pasaagie der Spanjaerden naer Mer voorby de door"). "Extracts, pp. 616, 617. In the transcripts herewith submitted (vol. ii) pains have been taken to include whatever might throw light on the history of this Orinoco trade. The table of contents will prove, I think, an adequate guide to this. ''Cf. note, p. 192, above. The Orinoco and Amacura fishery I first find mentioned in 1681 (Extracts, p. 150), but then in terms which suggest that it was no new thing. Of later Spanish attempts to have this coast fishery of the Dutch I shall speak in connection with the several rivers. 6 Extracts, pp. 152, 157; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 62. Digitized by Microsoft® 212 BURR. The treaties of the Dutch West India Company with native tribes are carefully preserved; but there is none with the Indians of Guiana. No such treaty is known to the extant records of the Company or to the documents transmitted from the colony. In 1776 the Essequibo Director- General, having sought in vain in the colony itself for documents throwing light on the original compacts between the colonists and the Indians, wrote to the Company to learn if they could supply him with copies of any such. "There must have been made in the olden day," he urges, "some convention between the Europeans and the free Indian nations," "though there is here nothing of the sort to be found." 1 But the search of the Company must have been equally ineffectual, for his question was left unanswered. Nor have I found anything in the records to suggest that the Dutch here ever looked on the Indians as possessing any ownership of land. To sum up this long chapter: 1. So nearly as can be determined, the Dutch occupation of the Essequibo dates from the year 1625. 2. Until 1657 the colony, a mere post for traffic with the Indians, consisted of a score or two of the Dutch West India Company's employes housed on the island of Kykoveral at the junction of the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni. 3. Settlement, begun in 1657 and from 1658 carried on with vigor both in the Essequibo and the Pomeroon under the charge of the Walcheren cities, was interrupted for a year or two by the British seizure of 1665-66; but, resumed in 1670 by the old West India Company and continued from 1674 by the new, met with no further interruption. 4. From its beginning until 1740 the colony, radiating from the junction of the three rivers, had its center and major part 1 Extracts, p. 509. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE ESSEQUIBO. 213 west of the Essequibo and south of the Cuyuni, but from that time on drew toward the seaboard, till by 1777 cultivation above Fort Island was practically abandoned. 5. No town existed, at any time, on the Essequibo. (J. Trade, from the first, knew far less narrow limits than settlement, That with the Indians was carried on (1) by the West India Company's outrunners and (2) by its posts, and (3) by private rovers. The routes of the outrunners are little known; the rovers were irresponsible and heedless of frontiers ; the posts were few, fixed, certain, and had a military and political as well as a commercial use. Trade with the Spaniards of the Orinoco was carried on through the territory now in question, by way of the Moruca-Barima passage. Till after the middle of the eighteenth century it was mainly in the hands of the Dutch, but later fell wholly into the hands of the Spaniards. 7. Fishing and hunting, from an early date, led the Dutch into the upper rivers, and westward along the coast as far as the Amacura and the mouth of the Orinoco. 8. Of treaties with the Indians there is no record. Digitized by Microsoft® 214 BURR. 3. THE DUTCH IN THE POMEROON. 1 The first Dutch occupation of the Pomeroon, so far as is known to historical records, was in the year 1658. 2 It was in that year that the three Walcheren cities, having taken off the hands of 'the West India Company the colonization of the Guiana coast, sent the engineer Cornells Goliat to survey the region and lay out the new colony. 3 It was doubtless on 'The name has been spelled in a strange variety of ways: liaroma, Barouma, Baruma, Baumerona, Baumeronne, Bauron, Baururu, Banrunia, Boirrum, BoueroL, Boumeron, Boumeronne, Boumeroune, Bouroma, Bourona, Bonronne, Boururu, Bou- weron, Bowroom, Bowroome, Paroma, Pauronia, Paurooma, Pawroma, Pomeron, Pomerun, Ponmaron, Pontmarrou, Poumaron, Poumeron, Pouroona, Powmerou, Pumaron. Yet I have not seen any spelling in which the accented vowel (answer- ing to the oo of Pomeroon) is not o or u or some equivalent of these. (I have once found Bauroema, hut the Dutch oe is pronounced like our oo. "Pomeroon'' first appears late in thelast century.) This makes impossible any confusion with Barauia or Barima. ■1 have already pointed out (pp. 136, 137, note) the baselessness of the assertion of the presence of the Dutch there in 1580. This and all other suggestions I have seen of an earlier date than 1658 for the occupation of the river are demonstrably misun- derstandings of the careless statement of Hartsinck. In 1619, according to the con- temporary Fray Pedro Simon {Noticias BistoriaJes, p. 664), the Spaniard Geroniuio de Grados made an expedition into this river and compelled the natives to yield submission and give him provisions (cf. also p. 258, note). It is, of course, not impossible, or even improbable, that after their establishment in the Essequibo the Dutch traded also in the Pomeroon; but there has been found no evidence of this. 'Extracts, pp. 127, 128. The prospectus of the new colony, issued on November 26, 1657, is printed by Otto Keye, in his " Onderscheyt tusaohen Koude en Warnie Lauden," or " Beschryvinge van het heerlycke ende gezegende Landt Guajana," (1659, 1660), which is itself but a larger prospectus. In this the colonizers are called " Patroons of the Zeeland 'Colony at Essekobe [Essequibo], Paurooma [Pomeroon], and Maruga [Moruca]," and the author speaks more than once (as, c. g., at p, 104) of their " col- ony on the Rivers of Paurooma and Maruga in Guajana.'' Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE POMEROON. 215 his advice that they made the Pomeroon the site of their lead- ing settlement. Goliat sent home a description of the region from the Demerara to the Moruca, with a chart and a plan of the proposed settlement. On the right bank of the Pomeroon, some 15 or 20 miles above its mouth, there was to be a town which should bear the name of Nieuw Middelburg. Above this was to be built an imposing fortress called, after the colony, Nova Zeelandia. Below the town, on the same side of the river, was to stand the " House of the Height," 1 doubtless a fortified lookout, such as was usual in the Dutch colonies. But it is greatly to be feared that none of these ever approached com- pletion. 2 " Had it not been for the English war," wrote the Zeelanders themselves less than a century later, in their memo- rial of 1750, "Nova Zeelandia would surely have become one of the most flourishing colonies of America, one Cornelis Goliath having brought over a new map of the region and hav- ing already framed a plan for the building of a town, Nieuw Middelburg; yet Zeelandia Nova was not to attain this good fortune, but through the sword of our foe [the British] and the plundering of our then ally [the French] was to be left tying empty and waste." 3 It lived but half a dozen years. Colo- nists, indeed, poured in, negro slaves were liberally supplied, 1 " Huia der Soogte," not " Hiris ter Sooge," as it has been commonly called. For discussion of this name and its meaning, see pp. 170-172, above. That at this point there uas a height, the first of its sort on the river, Ave know from the careful reconnoissance made in 1779 by the Spanish officer Inciarte, who chose this hill as the natural site for his projected fortress, 2 That the foundations, at least, of the fortresses were laid appears from a letter of the Essequibo governor in 1760, wherein he declares these still to be found there. (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 114.) 'JS'ederlandsche Jaerboeken, 1750, pp. 1500, 1501. Even apart from the English invasion, however, the colony had begun to languish. The means of the three cities were unequal to the task. As early as 1660 Vere was unable to pay its stipulated share of the costs, and before the end of 1663 the managing council in Zeeland hsid become so embarrassed that it broko np altogether. (Extracts, p. 179.) There is, therefore, the more reason for doubting that the plans of Goliat fruited in realities. Digitized by Microsoft® 216 BURR, and by 1665 the governor of the neighboring English colony of Surinam could pronounce it "a most nourishing colony," "greatest of all [the Dutch] ever had in America." 1 But the end was at hand. In the winter of 1665-66 the English from Barbados, led by Major John Scott, after taking possession of the Essequibo, swooped down also on the Pomeroon, and left the colony in ruins. What was left was devoured by the military occupation of the French, who followed the English in its possession. It was an entire year before the invaders were here dispossessed, and the settlers had meanwhile scattered to the four winds. 2 But, though thus destroyed prematurely from the earth, Nova Zeelandia still lived on paper. Even before the colony's ruin the chart of Groliat fell into the hands of his enterprising townsman, the geographer Arend Roggeveen of Middelburg, and when a little later that map-maker brought out his fine atlas of these coasts — the "Burning Fen, lighting up all West India " — Nieuw Middelburg, with its fortress Nova Zeelandia and its Huis der Hoogte, took a handsome place on the map, which it did not lose till almost our own day. 3 All 'Extracts, p. 137. 3 See pp. 196, 197, and authorities there cited. According to the minutes of the States-General, it was on March 3, 1667, at the request of the Zeeland Chamber, "examined and considered whether and on what basis" the colonies which had been captured by the English and retaken by the French might be claimed back; where- upon, "after deliberation, it was found good and resolved that Mr. Van Benningen, the minister extraordinary of this State in France," be instructed to demand "the restitution of the islands of Tobago and St. Eustache, together with the colony of Pomeroon, all situate in America" ( . . . " de restitutie van de eylanden Tobago ende St. Eustaclie, midtsgaders van de Colonie van Baumeroma, alle in America gelegen"). A fortnight earlier, on February 16, 1667, authority had been given the Zeeland Cham- ber to send out a certain person " whom for the preservation of their colonies they had resolved to send to the Wild Coast, in order there to take command of Fort Kykoveral, situate in the River Essequibo." But between these dates (on February 28) Admiral Crynsseu, who had before the end of 1666 been sent out by the Zeeland Estates, arrived on the Guiana coast, and soon had the colonies in his possession. 3 Roggeveen's Brandende Veen was first printed in 1675, but the text was written while the colony yet existed, for he speaks of it as still in being. He quotes Goliat Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THK POMEROON. 217 through the eighteenth century no map was complete without them. They still figure in the Venezuelan maps of the present century. This was the only town which, even on paper, the col- ony of Essequibo knew until the rise of Stabroek, toward the end of the last century; and it is not strange, perhaps, that their Spanish neighbors of the Orinoco, unable to understand a com- munity all scattered on plantations, assumed it to be the Dutch capital. But, though the Pomeroon colonv was gone, the "place" was still counted of an importance to warrant its as his authority, and seems to follow him implicitly. According to his narrative it ■would seem that Goliat's chart bewail at the' Coppenani. " De solve is my ter ha,:t gekomen," he says, speaking of the coast west of that river, "van eenen Goliath, zynde Ingenieur en Commandeur van Esequeba, met de vvlgende Rivier tut I'oumeron toe, heel curieus afgeleght" ("This has come into my ha;-..1s very carefully drafted hy one Goliat, engineer and commander of Essequibo, togethor with the following rivers as far as the Pomeroon").' This last clause douhtless re.ero also to Goliat's map, aud is of interest as showing tho limit of his survey. In his description of the Pomeroon, ■to which ho gives tho alternative title "or Rio Xieuw Zeelandt," Roggevoen writes: . . . "There arc sundry other branches, emptying both from the west and from the east into the river, which one must pass before one reaches the House of the Hooght and Nieuw Middclburrj , and the Port Kova Zeelandia" ("al-eer men komt hy 't Hnys der Hooght, ende Xicnw MiCdelburg, ende 't Port Kora Zeelandia" — italics as in Roggeveen's text). "The town Nieuw Hiddclburg and the Fort Kova Zeelandia are built by the oft-mentioned Goliath, as engineer and commandeur at that place, whose description here ends." Goliat is said to have been "known, above all, as a very capable and accurate surveyor and map-maker," and distinguished himself in that field after his return from Guiana (Nagtglas, Levensberichten van Zeeuwen). Roggeveen settled in Middelbnrg about 1658, and had great local eminence as a geographer. He is said to have platted his maps himself. (Nagtglas, as above.) In the title of his atlas he calls himself " Arent Roggeveen, Liefhebber Maihemaiicus, professie doende in de zelfde Konst tot Middelburg in Zetland." Roggeveen's map is faithfully followed, as to the sites of these places on the Pomeroon, by Hartsinck's description {Beschryving ran Guiana, i, p. 259) in 1770, and by Bouchenroeder's map of 1796-98 (atlas of the Commission, map 70), which, however, marks them as "ancient" or "ruined." The passage of Roggeveen's text which especially shows the colony in existence when he wrote is one not without an interest of its own. "It is needless," he says, in speaking of the Essequibo, "to write much further of the character of this river, for this has become well enough known since the three cities, Middelbnrg, Flushing, and Vere, ha\e there erected a colony; yet their principal relations are with the river Pomeroon." {Om reel verier van de gelegentheyt deser Rivier te schryven, is niet noodigh, alsoo snicks genoegh bekent is geworden, t'zedert dat de drie Steden, als Middelburgh, Vlissinghe, en Veere, aldaer een Colonie hebben opgereeht: doch de prineipaele correspondentie is in de Rivier Poumaron.) Digitized by Microsoft® 218 BURR. mention in 1G74, along with Essequibo, in the charter of the new West India Company. There is, however, in the records of that hody for some years no mention of any attempt to make use of it. 1 It was in October of 1679 that Abraham Beekman, then Commandeur in Essequibo, wrote to the Company (in the earliest letter from the colony now found among its records) that "The river Pomeroon also promises some profit. In order to make trial of it," he explains, "I sent thither in August last one of my soldiers to barter for annatto dye." The soldier 'Just when the last European of the Nova Zelandia colony left the Pomeroon can not be learned. The Dutch ailmiral, Crynssen, on taking possession in 1667, is said to have left a garrison in t^at river as well as in Essequibo (Hartsinck, Beschryving van Guiana, i, 224) ; unt this was doubtless only until the wish of the Zeelanders could be learned as to the resumption of the. colony. We hear no more of Europeans there; and, in 1671, a Berbice attempt, reported by Adriaan van Berkel, to send thither a cargo of wares, together with the Essequibo governor's confiscation of the venture, implies that only Indians were then in possession there. A manuscript among the "Evertsen papers" (marked "Moore, 1790"), in the Lenox Library, containing a cipher for use by the squadron destined in 1672 for the recap- ture of New York, gives signs for Cayenne, Surinam, Berbice, and Essequibo, but none for Pomeroon. Yet in 1673 the English captain, Peter Wroth, discussing the resources of the Dutch for the defense of Surinam, thought it possible that they might "strengthen themselves from the garrisons of Berbice, iBsakebe [Essequibo], and Baruma [Pomeroon] ." (British Calendar of Stats Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1669-1674, pp. 517, 518.) Another English document of a half dozen years later, though it evinces some geographical confusion, has doubtless reference to the district between the Essequibo and the Orinoco. It is a petition to the King by one Marke Fletcher, who, "having pitched upon a place to the leeward of Surinam and Essequibo, called Demerara, fitting for a plantation and place of trade," "requests His Majesty will grant his patent for establishment of same, or at least a provisional order to prosecute the affair with assistance from the governors of the Leeward or Caribbee Islands, and privilege to transport to Barbadoes and other islands the trees and canes cut down for clearing the ground." (British Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1677-1680, Nos. 714, 771, pp. 255, 281. These two entries evidently refer to the same petition, and I have treated them accord- ingly.) Demerara is, of course, not to the leeward of Essequibo; but, in view of the wording of the petition and of the circumstances, the place had in mind probably was so. It is not strange that the Lords of Trade and Plantations, in reply, desired first "to be informed on certain points: as to whether any are seated thereabouts, what tract of laud he means to take in," etc. Tims they answered on July 30, 1678. A sequel does not appear. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE POMEROON. 219 had been temporarily recalled because of a raid of the C'aribs; "but the scare being now over," writes the Commandeur, "I shall send him back there within four or five weeks (the dye season not fairly beginning there befoie that date), and if the trade prospers it would not be a bad idea to build there a lit- tle hut for two or three men, so that they mav dwell per- manently among the Indians and occupy that river. Thus these would be stimulated to furnish a deal of annatto — for the place is too far off for them to bring it here to the fort." 1 Of this post, which was speedily established, one hears often in the letters of the next few years. The annatto trade flour- ished there, but by 1686 the Company had a better use for the Pomeroon. An Essequibo planter on a visit to Holland — one •Jacob de Jonge — persuaded them to open that river to him- self and other settlers. After satisfying themselves that the Walcheren cities and the Zeeland Estates uo longer had a valid claim there, they granted the petition, made of the new settlement an independent colony, and appointed De Jonge Commandeur. He set out at once for his colony, arriving and beginning operations there in April, 1686. Colonists followed, and the settlement was in a hopeful wav, when, after even a briefer life than that of its predecessor of 1658-1665, a Euro- pean war again proved fatal. On April 30, 1689, just three years after the colony's birth, the French, guided by the Caribs through the water passage leading from the Barima, and rein- forced by those savages, fell upon the settlement in the night and utterly dispersed it. 2 Xo attempt was ever made to reestablish it. The West India Company, on receiving full tidings, only instructed (Novem- ber 15, 1689) the Essequibo commandeur to leave there the 1 Extracts, pp. 144, 145. -Extracts, pp. 174, 181, 18s ; Blue Book "Venezuela Xo. 3," pp. 60-66. Digitized by Microsoft® 220 BURR. Company's flag, with three men, in order to retain possession. 1 The post was established and maintained, though, as would appear, with but two men instead of three. At least, according to the muster-roll of September 6, 1691, there were there only a postholder and a single assistant. 2 In 1700 it was on the same footing; but in this year we begin to hear a new name for its site : where the pay-roll for this year makes Jan Debbaut "postholder in Pomeroon, at the Company's trade house," the muster-roll makes the same soldier "postholder in Wacupo." 3 By 1704 the pay-roll, too, adopts the new title for the post, calling Jan Debbaut "postholder in Wacupo." Now, the Wacupo, orWacquepo, is a branch of the Pomeroon, joining it from the left just a little above its mouth: a branch of much commercial and military importance because it has (or had), at least in time of high water, a navigable communi- cation with the river Moruca to westward, and, through that river, with the system of bayous by which canoes make their way to the Waini, the Barima, and the Orinoco. Through this passage it doubtless was that the French had made their way in 1689 for the destruction of the colony. It was, therefore, very natural that a post for the protection of the Pomeroon should find a site on the Wacupo ; and this site offers a ready explanation for the double name. This solution gains support, too, from another name. In the journal of the Pomeroon Commandeur for 1686 one reads of a "postholder in Courey." 4 Now, Courey, or Korey, is the name of the swampv meadows through which the canoe-channel led from the Wacupo to the 'Extracts, pp. 190-192. 'Extracts, p. 193. 3 Extracts p. 199. From 1700 to 1703 the muster-rolls fluctuate between Wacupo and Pomeroon; after that, they call this post always Wacupo — spelling the name "variously. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 64. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE POMEROON. 221 Monica (or, rather, to its branch, the Manawarima) ; 1 and no point on the Wacupo could be a more natural site for a post than the junction with the passage through these wet meadows. If a post were already there in 1686, it is surely not improbable that its buildings should be chosen for the later occupancy. It would appear, however, that there was now for a vear or two a second post on the Pomeroon ; for we learn from the pay- rolls that on July 14, 1703, Paulus Veefaart was made "post- holder in Pomeroon," and both the pay-roll and the muster-roll for 1704 register him there, with an assistant, while Jan Debbaut and his assistant are still accredited to Wacupo. On April 6, 1705, however, he was discharged from the Company's service; and, although on the muster-roll for June 18, 1705, his assistant, Dirk Schey, still appears in the Pomeroon, it was perhaps only to finish out the year. In the following year we find him serving as bylier in Demerara, and the name Pomeroon does not again occur among those of the posts. 2 The post of Wacupo remained and flourished. Twice during the War of the Spanish Succession its garrison had suc- cessful brushes with the foe — in 1709 and in 1712 — the second time repelling with its four men a much superior force of French and Spaniards. 3 In 1707 Commandeur Beekman suggested the laying of a toll ' ' in the rivers Moruca and Pomeroon" on the traders from other colonies who passed through these inland waters for traffic on the Orinoco, but his successor deprecated the step as involving too great expense. 4 It would, indeed, have been necessary to plant a new post on the Moruca or to remove that of Wacupo to some point where it would com- 'Extracts, p. 237. Cf. Atlas, map 68. -In tlie muster-roll of October 20, 1707, the Wacupo post is called, it is true, "The Company's dye-house in Pomeroon and Wacupo.'' : Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 97, 99. Extracts, pp. 3-10, 341, 348. = Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 99, 100, 102. 3 But this examination, as appears from the dating of the document, perhaps took place in the Moruca region instead. "Aymara-Aykoeroe" (i. e., Aymara Creek) is very possibly hut another form of the name of a well-known branch of the Moruca — the " Haymarakaboera" of Chollet's map (Atlas, map 68), tbo " Haimuracahara" of Schomburgk. The Carib ending -aykoeroe (icuru) seems, at least, to answer to the -Icaboera (eabura) found in Arawak regions; and this creek lying just where Arawak and Carib meet, may well have tolerated this Carib turn to its name — at least at the hands of a Dutchman skilled in the Carib speech and dating a Carib document. There is another Haimara-lcuroo in the upper Essequibo (Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 22). (Cf. note, p. 331, below.) ■•Extracts, pp. 372, 373. 5 This letter of Storm's I have Bought in vain among the Surinam papers, and Governor Nepveu's reply is not to be found among those of Essequibo. But for a most interesting later letter on the same subject see Extracts, p. 403, and cf. p. 283, below. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE BARIMA. 281 the situation of that river "so far this side of Waini, which people claim to be the boundary; though 1," he adds, " think it must be pushed out as far as Barima." * And on what grouuds, they asked, do you maintain this? 2 In his letter of reply, this question about the Barima was overlooked or ignored; 3 but there soon came an event which forced it upon his attention. In the autumn of 1760, an armed Spanish boat, "sent out expressly to catch the Surinam traders 4 in Barima" 5 — so wrote the Essequibo governor to the Company — had captured cer- tain boats of the Essequibo plantations, which were engaged in the annual fishery at the mouth of the Orinoco. 6 A part of these had been seized on the Essequibo side of the Barima, "and thus," wrote Storm, "within the Company's territory." But why, again and more explicitly asked the Zeeland Chamber, 7 do you hold that everything which has happened on this side of Barima must be deemed to have occurred on territory of the Company 1 ? It was in response to this demand that on August 12, 1761, 8 he mentioned again the Carib tradi- tion of a former Dutch post on the Barima, adding that "the boundaries are always thus defined by foreigners, as may be seen on the map prepared by D'Anville, the Frenchman" — in odd forgetfulness of the fact that D'Anville does not make the Barima the boundary. 9 "These are the only reasons," he •Extracts, p. 386. ^Extracts, pp. 389, 390. sBlue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 114. ■"' Swervers," not " pirates," as translated in the Blue Book. As to these " rovers," or wandering traders, see p. 209 of this report. 6 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 115, 116. 'For the details of this enterprise from the Spanish side, see Blue Book ''Venezuela No. 3," pp. 249-254; Venezuelan " Documents," II, pp. 36-38. From these it does not appear that Essequibo slave traders were less aimed at than those of Surinam. 'March 16, 1761. Extracts, pp. 391, 392. 8 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 117. 'See Atlas, map 40. Digitized by Microsoft® 282 BUER. said, "upon which I base my opinion, since there are no old documents here from which any information could be had." "It appears to me," he continued, 1 "that the Spaniards are not ignorant of this, else they would not have made so many com- plaints concerning the behavior of the traders 2 in Barima. I believe that, had they considered it to be their territory, they would have found some means for stopping it." The Company, satisfied or mystified, was silenced. The Barima was next again mentioned by them when, a few months later (August 23, 1762), they took steps toward securing a new map of the Essequibo colony, 3 which should include the coast as far as the Orinoco, "with an accurate locating of the mouths of the rivers Pomeroon, Waini, and Barima, and such others as flow into the sea between the Essequibo and the Orinuco." 4 Nor did Storm soon recall it to their attention. The reg- ister 5 of the colony, the first ever made (suggested, as he explained, by that of Berbice), which, written with his own hand, he transmitted them in February, 1762, defines the terri- tory of the colony as stretching from Berbice not to the Barima, but only to the Amacura, 6 which on D'Anville's map lies east of the Barima; and in the list of its rivers the Waini is the westernmost named. And when, in August, he had again to report the seizure of a fishing canoe by the Spaniards, this time at the mouth of the Waini, 7 he contents himself with 'In his manuscript this begins a fresh paragraph of the letter, while the preceding sentence does not. 2 " Su-eners," not "depredators.' 7 Extracts, p. 395. 4 As to Van Bercheyck (from whom this map was asked) and his map-making, see pp. 136-139 of my report on Maps from Official Sources, in vol. iii. General Net- scher prefers to spell the name Van Bergeijk, which is perhaps its modern form. '•Naamwijzer, directory . 6 Blne Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 119. Cf. pp. 295-297, below. 'This description was repeated in the subsequent directories, of which there are eight (1762-1769). Cf. e. g. Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 135. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE BARIMA. 283 declaring this river "indisputably the Company's territory," without mention of the Barima. 1 Yet in April, 1764, in dis- cussing the numerical strength of the Caribs, he again speaks of "the whole jurisdiction of the Company from Abari 2 to Barima." 3 Most remarkable, however, in view especially of his earlier and later utterances as to Spanish acceptance of the Barima as boundary, is his letter of August 18, 1764, to Governor Nepveu of Surinam, wherein he advises that governor not to name, in the passes granted by him to traders, the river Ba- rima. "Your naming in those passes the river Barima," he explains, "causes complaints from the Spaniards, who, main- taining that that river is theirs — wherein," remarks Governor Storm van 's Gravesande, "I believe they are right — have already sent some of these passes to the Court of Spain." Wherefore, he added, "in all the passes which I issue I set down only permission to pass the posts and to go among the Indians to trade, without naming any place." There were already, he said, such grave reasons for complaints against the Spaniards, which were even then pending before the Court of Spain, that he could wish them to have no answering griev- ance as an excuse. 4 Such being the Essequibo governor's attitude, it was un- likely that he would encourage Dutch settlement in the Barima. Down to this time, indeed, there is in the records no mention of any Dutchman's sojourning in the Barima for any purpose save that of trade. The fertility of this unoccupied region had, however, not gone unnoticed. An Essequibo planter, a German said to have been banished from Surinam, one A. von 1 Blue Book. "Venezuela No. 3," p. 120. 2 The boundary of Berbice. 3 Extracts, p. 402. i Extracts, pp. 403, 404. Digitized by Microsoft® 284 BUKK. Eosen, 1 had in 1749 tried to impress its value upon the King of Sweden, to whom it whs said to belong; 2 and, failing in that, addressed himself in 1755 to a prince of his own father- land, Frederick the Great of Prussia. 3 When this, too, came to nothing, Rosen would seem to have undertaken to settle the Barima on his own account. In April, 1766, Storm van 's Gravesande complained to the Company 4 that a gang of Esse- cpiibo colonists, rag-tag and bobtail, had taken up their abode in Barima under sundry pretexts — salting, trade, lumbering — and were making it a den of thieves. As they were staying on the west shore, which was "certainly Spanish territory," he was about to write to the governor of Orinoco concerning the state of affairs. The Orinoco governor, however (as Storm later wrote the Company), told him just to go ahead and col- lar the scoundrels. 5 Accordingly the Moruca postholder was sent thither, though with strict instructions not to set foot on "the Spanish bank" of the river. He had the good fortune to apprehend Rosen on the east shore — "our bank," the governor calls it — and arrested him, with a lumberman whom he was maltreating. After trial, Rosen was banished, taking refuge in Orinoco. What became of the other ruffians in the Barima, if others there actually were, does not appear. 6 But the Esse- quibo court now issued an order forbidding all sojourn in the Barima, lest this become a robbers' nest and involve the colony in a quarrel with the Spaniards ; and the Moruca postholder was charged with its active execution. 7 In the formal instructions 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 147, 148. Extracts, pp. 325, 326. 'Possibly to an interest stirred uy this appeal was due the coming of those Swed- ish emissaries mentioned in Storm's letters of 1753-54. 3 In this second appeal Von Rosen, who had now removed to Demerara, was joined by another Demerara planter, earlier a " swerver," one Finet. The two had in 1754 made a visit of inspection to Waini and Barima. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 139. Extracts, p. 414. sBlue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 143. Extracts, pp. 425, 426. «Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 139, 140. Extracts, p. 441. 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 140. Extracts, p. 415. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE BAKIMA. 285 issued to him in 1767 (October 7), he was explicitly charged to "pay strict attention to everything that transpires in Barima and give an exact written report of the same." 1 The West India Company, though somewhat perturbed lest the colonial authorities had exercised jurisdiction on Spanish territory, 2 approved the' course of the governor and the new order of the court if the district were really under their authority ; and the detailed explanations and assurances of the governor 3 seem to have set their minds at rest. The prohibition of sojourn in Barima proved, however, ineffectual. One Jan La Riviere, at least, in spite not only of the order of the Court and its sanction by the Company, 4 but of the express injunction of the governor not to settle between Essequibo and Orinoco, and even of the insertion of this in his passport, went thither with his slaves and his family, and there had a plantation or plantations. 5 There he died, leaving his estate to his widow; but she was not long left in its enjoy- ment. This time it was the Spaniards who purged the river. 6 In the spring of 1768 a coast-guard vessel, sent from Santo Thome" by the Orinoco governor to warn off the foreigners, sailed up the Barima and destroyed the buildings and planta- tions found there, carrying off all their tools. The inhab- itants, warned by the Caribs, had escaped, and the widow La Riviere returned to Essequibo. 7 The site of their plantation ■For these instructions, printed in full from the colonial records by Mr. Rodway, in his report ou "The Boundary Question " (Georgetown, 1896), see p. 241, above. 2 Extracts, pp.420, 421. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 142, 143. Extracts, pp.425, 426. "Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 154. Extracts, pp. 421, 442, 443. •'Extracts, pp. 452, J ".3. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 274-279. Venezuelan "Documents," I, pp. 231-234. 7 The Spanish testimony to this exploit speaks of "sundry" Dutch families and of " the foreigners," and mentions the houses and plantations as if there were sev- eral establishments. But, had there been any other settlers from Essequibo, it seems probable that Storm would have, loarned it, if only from the widow La Digitized by Microsoft® 286 BURR. iii the Barima is nowhere mentioned. 1 Of protest by the Dutch authorities there seems to have been no thought. There is never again mention in Dutch documents of the stay of any Dutchman in the Barima. A Spaniard, however, the young officer Iiiciarte, who in 1779, on his way to the Ponieroon, made a reconnoissance of the lower Barima, found in the Aruka, its lowest western tributary of importance, at the distance of a league from the Barima, a hill "which was inhabited by a Dutchman from Essequibo called Mener Nelch and by certain Indians of the Carib tribe." 2 At the foot of Riviere, and would have mentioned it to the Company. It is possible that the other settlers, if such there were, were from other colonies - not improbably French or English from the islands. In the library of the British Museum, in that volume of the Egerton manuscripts calling itself Papeles Tooantes d la Provincia de Venezuela, Vol. Ill, 1773-1798 (marked Press C42. G.); there is a copy of a letter, addressed by Andres de Oleaga, Contador of Guayana, to Josef de Abalos, Intendente of Caracas, which seems to throw a light on this. It contains this passage (fol. 70, lines 19-25): "Covetous of this spacious and attractive territory on the banks of the river Barima, the English of Barbado.% \inited with the Dutch of Essequibo, established a colony, and in the year 1778 were dislodged by action of this govern- ment through the agency of the privateer boats of this place; and, in spite of the watch which has been kept, the English have continued to make great ravages on the timber." (" Envidiosos deeste grand ey ameno territory? en la margen del Rio Barima, eatablecieron colonia los Tngleaes de la Barvada, unidos con loa Olandeses de Esqitivo, y el ano de 1778 fueron desalojadoa por disposicion de eate Govierno por las lanchas corsanas de esta Plaza, y -por miiclio que se ha vigilado aiempre han keclio grandea aacas de maderas loa Yr.gleaes.") Now "1778" is here a quite impossible date ; for the letter itself, though misdated " 1777" (November 15), is an answer to one of August 14, 1778, and must have been written before the end of that year. Inasmuch as the Spanish purging of the Barima in 1768 answers so perfectly to the description in this pass- age, while none of 1778 is known from the records, it seems a fair conjecture that "1778" is here but an error for 1768, and that the other settlers then ousted from the Barima were therefore English. That Oleaga was likely to know whereof he spoke will appear from the fact that it was precisely he who in 1768 as Royal Accountant in Santo Thom<5 received and invoiced the confiscated property. (Blue Book " Ven- ezuelaNo. 3," pp. 274-280; Venezuelan "Documents," I, pp. 231-234.) Governor Storm at first believed the attack instigated by certain deserters from the Moruca post and plantation (Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 148, 154; Extracts, pp.440, 442); but there is no mention of these in the Spanish documents, and Storm himself later speaks of it as simply the work of the Spaniards (Extracts, p. 453). 'My reasons for thinking they may have been on the Aruka are stated just below. 3 Seijas, Limitea Britanicos de Guayana, p. 91. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE BAKIMA. 287 this hill he found the hulls of a large pirogue and of another craft, and was assured by an Indian that these had belonged to the Dutchman. On the hill he found survivals of coffee, banana, and orange trees. Further details he noted in a diary, 1 which unfortunately is now lost. "Mener" is doubtless Mynheer. It would be hard to repre- sent its sound more accurately in Spanish. "Nelch," I sus- pect to be a distortion of Nelis. Diederik Nelis 2 was a man well known to Essequibo records. 3 In 1765 it was only the timely encounter with "the colonist Diederik Nelis coming from Barima" 4 which saved three lost sailors from starvation. In August, 1767, Nelis was living in the upper Essequibo, 5 "up near the plantation Oosterbeek." It was to him that the Caribs reported the desertion of the post Arinda; 6 but before the end of that year he had been provisionally made postholder at Moruca, though the governor confesses his incompetence, and implies that he was a man addicted to drink. 7 There he was kept until 1774, when he was replaced by the bylier Ver- meere. 8 As postholder in Moruca at the time of the Spanish "'Entrando en el citado cafiode Arueo, & una legua de navegacion, se da con el primer cerro, el que ha sido habitado pocos aiios liaee de nn liolande's do Esquivo llamado Mener Nelch, y various indios de la naeion Caribo. Al pi<5 de este cerro en un cafiito encontr<5 un fondo eon el casco entero de un guairo y otro de una piragua grande que un iudio me asegur6 Labor sido del expresado liolande's. En el nominado cerro hallamos porcion de iirboles de caf<5, anones y naranjos: omito las demas cir- cuustancias por tener anotadas por menor en el diano que tengo formado, al quo me refiero." -The name appears also as "Neelis," and at least once (in instructions to Moruca postholder, 1767, see p. 241, above) as "Neels," which sounds strikingly like Nelch. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 137. 4 Extracts, p. 411. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 145. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 149. 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 157, 162, 180. 8 Vermeere, who had been bylier since 1766, first appears as postholder in the muster-roll of July 4, 1774. As the military pay-roll for this year (for reasons appearing in Extract No. 291) does not mention the posts, the exact day when Nelis was relieved can not be stated. Vermeere had been captured by the Spanish Digitized by Microsoft® 288 BURR. sack of the La Riviere plantation, and as himself expressly charged with attention to all that transpired in Barima and with the exclusion of Essequibo settlers, Nelis must have become more familiar with the place, and may easily have betaken himself thither on his release from his duties at Moruca. As the La Riviere plantation had already been cleared, and as the same considerations, agricultural and political, 1 which would direct his choice of site and of soil must have influenced La Riviere before him, it is surely not improbable that the site occupied by Nelis (if "Mener Nelch" was really he) had been La Riviere's as well. 2 Mener Nelch is not quite the last Barima settler known to tradition. When in 1841 Mr. Schomburgk went up that stream, he found, far up the river, at the mouth of the Herena, a place where, as he was told by the Indians, a white man at the commencement of this century had cultivated sugar. He had possessed, the Indians said, a schooner and several punts, with which he carried on a timber trade. The spot was still called by the Indians "The last place of the white man." 3 Mr. Schomburgk's conjecture that this white man was "very likely a Dutch settler" is doubtless reasonable enough. His mode of life at least suggests rather a migrant in October, 1770, but was released in 1773, reaching Essequibo again on April 24. Says the pay-roll for 1772 (transmitted in 1773) : . . . "Termeereby de Spanjaards in Oetob r 1770 is gevange gmomen. . . . P. S.: roor 'I senden ran dit. guarnisoen soldy boek is opgem. Vermeere weder los gelaten, en op de 24 April 1773 alhier g'arriveert." 'In view of the Company's attitude (see p. 285), a Dutchman west of the Barima was doubtless safer from arrest by the Essequibo authorities, while from the Span- iards, so far as appears, he was no more safe on one side than on the other. 2 When, in 1883, Mr. Im Thurn, entered on the charge of this region, there "had even then been settled for some time " on the Aruka ' ' a coloured man from the Deme- rara River, a Chinaman, and a Portuguese;" and it is on the Aruka, adds Mr. Thurn, that "the chief agriculture of the district has developed since the time of that first visit." See his very interesting article on "British Guiana; the Northwestern District," in the Proceedings of the Iioyal Geographical Society, 1892, pp. 677, 678. r Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1." p. 215; " Venezuela No. 5," p. 12. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE JBARIMA. 239 from some neighboring Dutch, English, or French colony than a Spaniard. Yet it is only a conjecture, and I am able to throw no light upon it from the documents. The Dutch documents, indeed, know little enough of the Barima after 1768. Storm van 's Gravesande did not again urge it as the boundary ; and in the remonstrance to Spain in 1769 the Dutch Government described its territory as extend- ing, not to the Barima, but only "to beyond the river Waini." Not even a Dutch trader is again heard of in the Barima. The West India Company, which theretofore had always encouraged the colonial trade to the Orinoco, 1 issued in 1761 its instructions that so far as possible this trade be transferred to the Spaniards and carried on, not from Essequibo to Orinoco, but from Orinoco to Essequibo. 2 This policy was loyally and effectively carried out; and within two years the current of trade was flowing the other way. 3 Before the end of the century it was such a thing of course that, when in 1794 the Governor-General fa man long in the colony and exceptionally familiar with its interests) visited the Moruca post, he learned for the first time of the inland route by which "in the rainy season the Spanish lanchas, coming from Orinoco to Moruca," made their way from one river into another, and reports this "route of the Spanish lanchas" to the Dutch home authorities as "something very remarkable." 4 It was only "in former days," according to his narrative, that the postholder, his infor- mant, had made "several journeys to Orinoco." ■Excepting only during the brief interval of want of confidence in Commaudeur Beekman (1684-1690). 'Extracts, p. 394. Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 119. ; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 126, where, however, there ia an unfortunat mistranslation: the original has, not "the road to the Spaniards," hut "the road of the Spaniards hither" (" Ook is de passagie der Spanjaerden naer Mer voorbyde door"). Cf. also Blue Book "Venezuela, No. 3," pp. 128, 131, 142; and, for other mentions of the presence of Spaniards in Essequibo at this period, pp. 122, 144, 154. i "Iets zeer merkwaardig." (Extracts, p. 616. ) VOL 1 19 Digitized by Microsoft® 290 BURR. The relations with the Caribs of the Barima remained, indeed; and one hears from them occasional complaints, mainly of the aggressions of the Spaniards. 1 Once (26 July, 1769) the Company encouraged stirring the Caribs to reprisals; 2 and once (11 Oct., 1775) the Moruca postholder met a Spaniard's claim to the Barima and the rivers between it and the Moruca by an answering claim for the Dutch. 3 But the only errand which after 1768 I find taking a Dutchman into that region is the overhauling of escaping slaves. 4 Of the Spaniards in and about Barima there is somewhat more frequent mention. 6 The claim to the Barima as boundary, though its mention by Hartsinck in 1770, 6 its recognition on the English map published in 1783 from the observations of Thompson, 7 and its adoption in 1798 by the map of Bouchenroeder must have kept it familiar, 8 finds for long no further mention in the records. In 1801, however, the confidential envoy sent to represent the Dutch Council of the Colonies at the elbow of the Dutch plenipotentiary in the Congress of Amiens was instructed to see that the colonial boundary was there defined at the Barima, if it could not be fixed at the Orinoco; 9 but, as he explained to the Council in a most suggestive letter, he found it unwise to mention the question there. 10 The negotiations at Madrid suggested by him were never undertaken; and the 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 156, 157, 165. Extracts, pp. 454, 547. ^Extracts, p. 465. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 190. "Extracts, pp. 595, 599. f Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 160-162, 190; Extracts, p. 566; and passages cited at beginning of this paragraph. B Beschryri«g van Guiana, i, p. 146. 'Atlas, map 43. "Atlas, maps 70, 46. Cf. vol. iii, pp. 163-173. "Extracts, pp. 639-644. '"Extracts, pp. 645-617. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE BARIMA. 291 only further mention of the river I have found among Dutch papers is in an unused and unpublished charter submitted by this returned envoy to his colleagues in 1803, wherein it is proposed that under certain conditions the colonists of Esse- quibo and Demerara shall be allowed to cut timber in the Pomeroon, the Waini, and the Barima. 1 The results of my research, then, are as follows : 1. Prior to 1683 little is known of the relations of the Dutch with the Barima; but, so far as known, they were of trade alone and did not differ from those of other Europeans trading in that river. 2. Toward the end of 1683 the Dutch Commandeur in Essequibo provisionally took possession of that river for the Dutch "West India Company by stationing there an employe' to buy up Indian wares and by warning off other traders; and early in 1684 he had a shelter built there for occasional visits from the Pomeroon postholder, at the same time suggesting to the Company that it take the Barima into its possession and establish there a permanent outlier's post. 3. The West India Company wholly ignored these sugges- tions; and in the summer of 1684, and for long thereafter, the Barima was occupied by hostile Caribs and by their allies, the French, who in 1689 were building a fort in that river. For many years nothing more is heard of Dutch trade in the Barima. 'Extracts, pp. 657-659; but cf. also pp. 660, 661. The alleged staking out and apportionment, in 1797, of all the lands " from Essequibo to Point Barima," of which there is report ina Spanish document of that year (Blue Book " VenezuelaNo. V'pp. 138, 139), belongs, of course, to the period of British occupation and is not within the scope of the present report. I find, however, in the Dutch papers during their reoccupation in 1802-3 no mention of such a thing, and at least one paper (Extracts, No. 353) not easy to reconcile with it. If true, there should be, of course, in the British colonial or military archives under this date some report of this survey and apportionment. Digitized by Microsoft® 292 BURK. 4. In the eighteenth century Dutch trade there was resumed and relations of close friendship with the Caribs built up; but, though in 1744 the establishment of a post in that river was again suggested by the Essequibo Commandeur, and this time provisionally approved by the West India Company, no post was ever at any time established. 5. Settlement in the Barima was at no time attempted by the Dutch. In 1766 a party of Essequibo colonists sojourning there under pretext of salting, trading, or lumbering, was dis- lodged by the Essequibo government itself, which then pro- hibited all stay there. The plantation of another Essequibo colonist, who, in defiance of this prohibition, settled there, was in 1768 destroyed by the Spaniards without protest from the Dutch. Of two later settlers, vouched for by Indian tradition and reputed or suspected to be Dutch, the identity is uncertain and the fate unknown. 6. No other Dutch occupation of the Barima, of any kind, has been found recorded. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE AMACUEA. 293 7. THE DUTCH IN THE AMACURA AND BEYOND. Of the Amacura there is little mention in Dutch records. In 1598 Cabeliau and his companions of that earliest Dutch expedition to Guiana traded with the Indians hi the Amacura as well as in the Barima. 1 In 1629 Admiral Pater, going up the Orinoco for his sack of Santo Thome, mentions the Ama- cura in his sailing notes ; 2 but Jan de Laet, who used his log books, understood by it only the easternmost mouth of the Orinoco. So it is represented on his map of Guiana, 3 and so it appears on Dutch maps throughout the seventeenth cen- tury 4 — not excepting those published in the prospectuses for the colonization of Guiana. 5 The earliest mention of the Amacura I have found among the papers of the Dutch "West India Company is of 1681. Very puzzling, in view of these facts, is the mention, in cer- tain Spanish documents of the year 1637, of the Amacura in connection with the Essequibo and the Berbice as the seat of a Dutch colony. 6 That it is an error I can not doubt; for not only is it inconceivable that so important a post should be unknown to the official records in the Netherlands, but docu- 1 Extracts, p. 17. *Nieuwe Wereldt, ed. of 1630, p. 593; Latin ed. of 1633, p. 660. 3 So it had already been printed on De Laet's map in 1625 ; and, identifying Pater's "Ammegore" with Keymis's "Aniacur," he found in 1630 and in the later editions no reason for change. See Atlas, map 24. 4 Cf., e. g., those of Blaeuw (Atlas, maps 25-28). 5 E. g., in the printed edition of the grant to the Count of Hanau (Frankfort, 1669) and in the Pertinente Beschryving van Guiana (Amsterdam, 1676). "■•Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 214,215. Digitized by Microsoft® 294 BURR. ments which I herewith lay before the Commission 1 show- that in this very year, 1637, both the Spanish governor of Guayana and the Dutch executive officer in charge of the neighboring island of Tobago looked on the fort in the Esse- quibo as the Dutch possession nearest the Orinoco. 2 One may perhaps account for the error by some aid given the Dutch by the Caribs of Amacura, 3 or by some confusion with the Moruca, through which the route of the Dutch invaders may have lain, or simply by that astounding mis- information which belongs so generally to the Spanish reports about Dutch settlements. 4 What has been said of the Ba- rima at this period shows the unlikelihood of the presence of the Dutch in the Amacura at the middle of the seventeenth century; and that they were not there in 1673 seems implied by the language of an English captain who in that year victualed there, 5 and by that of the English Council for 'Extracts, pp. 76, 80. It is true that in the Spanish governor's list of the Dutch colonies (p. 81) there is one represented only by a blank ("N") — whether because he had forgotten its name, or because the prying Dutchman could not make it out; hut the place of this blank in the series sufficiently shows that, in the thought of the Spaniard, it was toward the east of Guiana, not toward the west. And if there had been in 1639 a Dutch settlement in the Amacura, it would have been there, and not in Essequibo — or, at least, in the Amacura as well — that Jan van der Goes would have been instructed to "inform himself of the enemy's circumstances" before proceeding with his secret expedition to the Orinoco. (Extracts, p. 96.) Where it was, in this direction, that he was charged to erect a fort, can only be guessed; but wherever it was, "he erected no fort at the place prescribed by his instructions," even though "the enemy offered no hindrance there." (Extracts, p. 99.) 2 This is suggested also, indeed, by a Spanish document printed in this same con- nection by Great Britain (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 216), wherein a pro- jected attack on the Dutch in Essequibo and Berbice is spoken of without mention of the Amacura, which would certainly have been earliest dealt with. r Cf. Blue Book "Venezuela So. 3," p. 212. •"In illustration, not to cite less palpable cases, I may instance the part played by the Dutch settlement of Nieuw Middelbnrg on the Poraeroon, which for much more than a century after its destruction appears regularly iu Spanish documents and maps as the capital of this nearest of Dutch colonies. 'Captain Peter Wroth, who testified on August 5, 1673, as follows: "Dep[onen]t then sailed past Surinam, taking a sloop, to Isakebe, al[ia]s Demerara, where he was ambuscaded and lost some men, and thence to the Caribbs in Ameoouza River, where he victualed, and arrived at Barbadoes this day." "Amecouza" is probably only a misreading of Amecoura. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE AMACURA. 295 Plantations, who in the following year advised the authorities of Barbados to return to "the River of Amacoura in Guiana" eleven Indians who "have been latelv brought thither, 1 as they judge by force" (carried off perhaps by Wroth), "and that they take occasion to gain the good will of the neighbor Indians to his Majesty's subjects, who have lately found, by their assistance to the French, of what consequence their friendship is." But by 1681 the Dutch of Essequibo were at least familiar with the Amacura; for we find them sending a canoe thither to salt down mana/tees and wild hog's flesh. 2 In 1685 the Dutch hating Coppenam Caribs driven out from Surinam were said to be taking refuge in Amacura as well as in Barima and Waini ; 3 and it is long before the name again appears in the records. At last, in 1762, on the title-page of the first direc- tory of the Essequibo colony, 4 one finds the " River Amacura" named as its western boundary; but a study of the context shows that the Amacura here meant must lie east of the Ba- rima, for the Barima does not appear among the streams of the colony. It is probably the Amacura of the D'Anville map, so much appealed to by Governor Storm van 's Gravesande, the author of this directory — a stream placed on that map midway between those there called Barima and Wayma (Waini) and emptying into the Orinoco at the spot where modern maps show the mouth of the Barima. While it is, I am convinced, a misconception to hold that, when Storm van 's Gravesande spoke of the Barima, he meant the Amacura, it is none the less certain that, when he here speaks of the 'British Calendar of Stale Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1669-74, Nos. 1134, 1409 (pp. 518, 631). ^Extracts, p. 152. ^Extracts, p. 173. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 119. See p. 282, above. Digitized by Microsoft® 296 burr. Amacura, it was not the Amacura proper, but, at farthest, the stream we now know as the Barima. And so with the follow- ing directories, till their cessation in 1769. As to this strange confusion, a word of further discussion may be useful. That D'Anville has simply transposed the names of the two rivers is quite possible. But with Storm van 's Gravesande it is otherwise. Before the D'Anville map was first published the name of the Barima was thoroughly familiar to him. The Amacura there is no reason to believe him to have known at all. The Barima, as appears from his correspondence, he knew as on the inland route to Orinoco, as the home of the Caribs, as the river where a post of the Com- pany was said once to have been. Nothing that he says of it suggests that it may have been the Amacura which was in his thought. In his map, 1 made for the Company in 1748, the Barima appears, not the Amacura; and the little Spanish map 2 which, in 1750, he handed over to the Dutch authorities shows the Barima (though without its name), and not the Amacura. When the map of D'Anville came into his hands he seems to have assumed without question that the river thereon shown as the Barima was the river he had always known by that name. Despite his later appeals to D'Anville's map, all that he tells of the Barima, to the end of his official life, is told demonstrably of the Barima proper, not of D'Anville's Barima, the Amacura; for his information came from those who knew the river through no blundering map. When, however, just prior to the prepa- ration of his directory, in 1762, his claim to the Barima as a boundary had been treated with hesitation and distrust by the Company, 3 it would not be strange if he turned to the D'Anville map, and, finding there, midway between the river marked Barima and the Waini (which he counted "indisputably 1 Atlas, map 60. * Atlas, map 61. D See p. 281, above. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE AMACURA. 297 the Company's territor}-"), a tiny stream named Amacura, chose this as the limit to be named in the directory. But, whatever may have been the reason of his course, the fact seems clear that the "Barima" of his letters was the Barima of local parlance, and not the Barima of DAnville's map; while the "Amacura" of his directory was the Amacura of DAnville's map, and not that of local parlance. In other words, there is no reason to believe that the Amacura is here in question at all. And, -if not here, then nowhere ; for I find in Dutch records no further mention of that river. 1 More of interest I find in Dutch relations with remoter branches of the Orinoco and with the Orinoco itself. The fore- boding in a Spanish document of 1686, written by a Spaniard in Spain, 2 that the French may, in league with the Indians, " occupy the territories and ports of His Majestv [the King of Spain], as they have done in other parts, and as the Dutch have also done with some towns on the River Orinoco in the region of the Mainland," is probably, so far as refers to the Dutch, only a vague and careless allusion to the sacking of Santo Thome by them in 1 629 and 1637 ; but I have found else much reason to doubt that the Dutch in the seventeenth century and in the early eighteenth regarded the Orinoco as so altogether ■I should perhaps except a mention in a letter of protest received by the Esse- quibo governor in 1767 from a Spanish friar, who declares the Indians of Soro and Amacura to be committed to his care, and asks the return of those seized for slaves. (Extracts, p. 427.) The governor calls him "a missionary priest in Orinoco,'' and intimates that if any of his Indians are in Essequibo they have run away thither. The Spanish mission of "Amacuro" finds mention also, among the newer missions of the Aragonese Capuchins, in Fray Caulin's HMoria de la Nueva Andaluc'ca (1779). The interesting Spanish document (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1/' pp. 138, 139) which tells how, in January, 1797, a Spanish official found the Amacura guarded by Indians on behalf of the English in Essequibo belongs, of course, to the period of British occupation of that colony and does not fall within the scope of the present report. The British and the Spaniards were then at war. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 222. Digitized by Microsoft® 298 BURR. Spanish as is often assumed. 1 The earlier Spanish docu- ments abound in complaints of the liberties taken by the Dutch in that river, even above Santo Thome; 2 and below that point the Dutch long traded in freedom — often with the conniv- ance of the Spanish officials themselves. 3 One great southern branch, the Aguire, they seem long to have treated as a sort of neutral territory. When in 1726 two agents were sent' from Essequibo to the Spanish governor in Orinoco for the pur- chase of certain articles, they were instructed in writing by the Essequibo authorities, in case the governor should refuse them permission to trade, to repair to the Aguire and barter for the articles there. 4 In 1730, the missionary Bishop of Oran, the Frenchman Nicolas Gervais, finding in Orinoco no sphere for his activity and refused permission to convert the Indians in Essequibo, betook himself, under Dutch escort, to the Aguire as to a neutral soil; and when he was murdered there by the Caribs, it was a Dutchman trading to that river who reported his fate and the Dutch authorities of Essequibo who recovered his effects and transmitted them to his country- men in the islands. 5 In 1741 the Essequibo plantations sent to the Aguire for the purchase of horses. 6 In 1760 Father Benito de la Garriga, prefect of the Capuchin Missions, spoke of a Dutch slave trader who was domiciled for eight years among the Caribs of the Aguire. 7 And about the same time 1 A phrase lately ascribed to the Directors of the Dutch West India Company in 1639, " the Orinoco being Spanish," is not theirs, hut only n remark of a modern historian of the Guiana colonies (Netscher, Geachiedenis, p. 69), who had no thought of put- ting it in their mouths. -See, b. g., Venezuelan "Documents," I, and cf. Extracts, pp. 226, 244. 3 See Extracts, pp. 142, 243-246, and passim: all Dutch trade in the Orinoco with the .Spaniards was, of course, matter of connivance. J Bhie Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 79. Extracts, p. 2-19. 6 Extracts, pp. 250-253. Yet see also Fray Caulin's Historia, pp. 56, 328-339. 'Extracts, p. 293. _ 'Venezuelan " Documents," II, p. 148. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE AMACURA. 299 (1757) Don Joso - Iturriaga mentioned, in a dispatch to the Spanish Government, that for connivance at the Dutch trade with the missions by this route the friar of the Palmar mission had been removed. 1 The Caribs of the upper Orinoco had a regular route thither, crossing the Caroni above the missions. 2 It was even believed among the missions that the Dutch gov- ernor of Essequibo claimed jurisdiction as far as a line running due south from the mouth of the Aguire. This was told their prefect by a fugitive slave, who claimed to have brought from Essequibo an official document in which this was shown; 3 and a Dutchman from Essequibo told the same prefect that the mission of Curumo had been destroyed because it lay east of this line. 4 The slave traders are even said to have once pre- sented a passport in which the Essequibo governor styled himself ' ' Governor of Essequibo and the mouth of the Orinoco." 5 But all this is unknown to the Dutch records, and was cer- tainly never reported to the home authorities. Indeed, if the Essequibo correspondence may be trusted, the Dutch slave traders who infested these parts are more likely to have been from Surinam than from the western colonies. 6 "When in 1758 "Venezuelan "Documents," III, p. 167. Very interesting is Fray Caulin's account of the Aguire, written in 1759. After speaking of the ship's mouth of the Orinoco, he adds: "Antes de desaguar este Caiio forma una Ensenada, en la qual recifte al Bio Barima, y mas arriba al Aquire, que trae su ortgen de la Serrania de Imataca, a pocas leguas de los Pueblos de Midmo y Terepi de Nation Carivcs, que lia fundado el B. P. Fr. Alejo, Capuchino Catalan. En este Bio dieron cruel muerte los Carives al llustrisimo Senor Obispo Don Nicolas Gervasio de Labrid . . . Soy estd habitado de Indios Carives y Aruacas, que riven gentilmente, acompanados de mucltos Christianos fugitivos de los Pueblos de Alision, en que recibieron- el Santo JSautismo, y, lo que no es de pasar en silencio, en el perjudicial exercicio de servir de prdcticos, vogas, y mensageros a los Olandeses de Esqnivo, que entran frequenternentc por este Carlos al ilicito y lamentable Comercio de Esclavos, que compran en creeido numero a los Carives, conduciendolos por este y oiros Bios." . . . 2 Venezuelan "Documents," III, p. 185. 3 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 237 ; Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 8, 9. * Venezuelan "Documents," IT, p. 151. 6 Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 143. fi See pp. 209, 362, of this report. Digitized by Microsoft® 300 BURR. the acting governor of Essequibo reported to the West India Company that the Spaniards were building a mission in the Imataca, the river next west of the Aguire, he added the com- ment that this was, in his opinion, "certainly far outside the con- cern of this colony." 1 Of Dutch trade in this lower Orinoco region I find no mention after the sixties of the eighteenth century. In fine, then: 1. So far as known, the Dutch in Guiana had never any relations with the Amacura, save to fish and hunt in that river; and even that is known through but a single instance (in 1681). 2. With the lower Orinoco in general, and especially with the Aguire, they long maintained relations of trade, and in such sort as to make doubtful their recognition of Spanish sovereigntv there. 1 Extracts, p. 334. Digitized by Microsoft® THE BUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 301 8. THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. From the beginning of their occupation of the Essequibo the Dutch were established at the junction with that river of its two great western branches, the Cuyuni and the Maza- runi. 1 There was their fort, there their seat of government, there their earliest plantations. 2 From this confluence the plantations spread upstream to where tide-water is met by the rapids which fill the whole upper course of these rivers. The Cuyuni, whose lowest falls are but a half-dozen miles from its union with the Mazaruni, and whose higher banks were less suited to the planting of sugar, was the latest of the three to be occupied, and at the end of the seventeenth century plantations had but begun to creep up that river.* With the introduction, however, in the early part of the eighteenth century, of the cultivation of coffee, cacao, and indigo, the lands in the lower Cuyuni also were taken into use. 4 It had been an argument, both for indigo and for coffee, that they could be cultivated in the upper rivers — that is, above the rapids which set a limit to tide-water navigation. 5 The success with these cultures was never such as to make ■See p. 185 of this report. ^Extracts, pp. 102, 132. A. Tan Berkel, Amerikaanache Voyagien, pp. 42, 43. ! A cassava ground was planted on an island at its mouth as early as 1681; and in 1694 a plautation was begun on the shore above the fort. (Extracts, pp. 152, 194.) This was perhaps the later Duinenburg, at the angle of Cuyuni and Mazaruni. Duinenburg was certainly in existence in 1710, but was then called a new planta- tion. (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 73.) 4 Blue Book '-'Venezuela No. 3," pp. 77, 80, 82, 83, 84. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 72. Extracts, p. 248. Digitized by Microsoft® 302 BURK. this necessary. The highest plantations established in the Cuyuni were the Company's indigo plantation on the north, a little below the lowest fall, its coffee plantation on the south, a little lower down, and coffee and cacao plantations on the Batavia Islands between. This is shown both by maps, like that of Heneman in 1772, 1 which long after these plantations had been abandoned marks carefully their forsaken sites, and that of Storm van 's Gravesande, in 1748, 2 which shows that the culture of indigo had already been given up, and that in the Cuyuni there then remained nothing but one coffee plan- tation; and also by documents, like the letter of the colonial Court of Policy in 1731 explaining why "it is impossible to establish any plantations" above the falls, 3 like the journals of the mining engineer Hildebrandt, 4 which show with minuteness of detail that at the time of his operations in the colony (1741-1743) there was above this coffee plantation and the indigo plantation opposite no occupation on the Cuyuni, 5 and like the letter of Storm in 1759, 8 in which, enumerating to the Company the basis of the colony's claim to the Cuyuni, he specifies, in proof of occupation, nothing besides the work of the miners and "the coffee and indigo plantations you for many years had there." The situation of the indigo plantation is, moreover, distinctly stated by the Director-General in 1761, 7 when he speaks of the Spaniards in Cuyuni who "have been down to the lowest fall, where your Lordship's indigo planta- tion was situated." 8 It is possible that the gravest obstacle to 'Atlas, map 63. 5 Atlas, map 60. f Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 83. "Extracts, Nos. 140, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149 (pp. 285-301). 6 This would have appeared even uiore fully had it been thought worth -while to print his bulky j ournals entire. "Extracts, p. 386. Cf. also Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 111. 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 117. *"Gelegen heeft:" was situated, not is, as translated in the Blue Book. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 303 the occupation of the Cuyuni was the reputed insalubrity of the river. In February, 1748, the colonial Court of Policy' reported the old indigo plantation unsalable, even on the most favorable terms, because of "the remoteness and the unhealthfulness of the river Cuyuni." 1 Its remoteness was, however, no small matter, for after the completion of the new fort in the lower river (1740) the whole colony, lured by the rich sugar lands of the coast, had drifted rapidly thither. Already, by 1748, the Company's old planta- tion of Duinenburg, at the angle of the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni, abandoned about 1740 for a new Duinenburg on Fort Island, 2 had passed into the hands of a private planter, Van der Heyden, 3 whose family remained its proprietor through- out the Dutch ownership of the colony and gradually gained possession of the other lands in the lower Cuyuni, on both sides, and of the islands as well, 4 their property (at least on the south bank) reaching to the falls. 5 That Van der Heyden 'Extracts, p. 316. Cf. Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3,'' p. 73. = Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 87. Atlas, map 60. Netscher, pp. 112, 113. Care must be taken not to confuse Old Duinenburg with this new plantation. The Blue Book translation, in passages mentioning the older plantation, has several times by error a present tense instead of a past. 3 Atlas, map 60. ••Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 85. 5 This appears from the report made to the governor of British Guiana in 1855 by the Commissioners appointed to inquire into and report upon the titles to lands, etc., iu the rivers Essequibo, Mazaruni, and Cuyuni, with their respective tributary streams — a copy of which I owe to the courtesy of Her Majesty's Colonial Office. In support of a claim then pending on behalf of the heirs of Stephanus Gerardus van der Heyden, to "the lands called and known as Cartabo, situate at the junction of the Massaroony and Cayoenie rivers," and to other lands, there was laid before the Commissioners a grant of May 5, 1774, to S. G. van der Heyden of " certain lands in the river Essequebo, beginning at the north side of the river Cayoenie upwards from the Creek Simieri to the Creek Paricoesa, and on the south side of that river begin- ning from the Creek Ocroreboe to the Fall Acajoe, besides the Island [sic'] Big and Small Batavia, and two others, and the Island Acaijoe and Arwassie, in the Kiver Masseroeni, to the east of the lands of his parents from the Creek Wonipiere upwards to the Creek Tipoeroe and the Island Rusthoff." The Commissioners, finding on Bouchenroeder's map no creek named " Paricoesa/' thought Zuiker Creek must be meant, "for no other creek is laid down on the chart Digitized by Microsoft® 304 BURR. was an extreme settler in the Cuyuni, appears from many allu- sions in the documents of the next half-century, and his inti- mate relations with the Indians made him of great service to the colony; 1 but that he ever occupied or used lands above the falls is nowhere intimated. 2 Another colonist who must have dwelt at the extreme of set- tlement in the Cuyuni is that C. Crewitz, who, in 1761, was charged there with the prevention of smuggling and the arrest of runaway slaves; but of him we are not only told that he lived "below the fall," 3 but are so fortunate as to know the precise limits of his land. upward from Simierie": but "the chart" is here a poor reliance, and Zniker Creek was then known by that name. Van der Heyden had, however, already land on the north of the Cuyuni to the westward of this acquisition ; for a. grant of 1761 (Extracts, p. 393) shows him then in possession there as far as the old indigo plan- tation. The Van der Heydens held land also in the Mazarnni (Atlas, map 60). The lands acquired by them in 1761 " in Mazaruni" from Van der Cruysse (Extracts, p. 392) were, however, not in that river above its junction with the Cuyuni, but on the north side of their united stream between their confluence and the Esseqnibo (see note 3, below) and, since they reached the creek "Simiery," must have adjoined the grant of 1774 described above. 'Bine Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 106, 127, '138, 144, 158, 159, 166, 180, 181, 184, 194. Extracts, pp. 304, 555, 556. On account of these services the Director-General once even urged the Company to exempt him from taxation. 2 When in 1789 the Spanish officer, Lopez de la Paente, made his expedition down to the mouth of the Cuyuni he found dwelling here at the fork of the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni " a Dutchman named Daniel with four companions, very many negroes, and Indian slaves — all his." It was, doubtless, Daniel van der Heyden (cf. Blue Book, p. 194; Extracts, p. 600). In the Mazaruni there were also "some Dutchmen with a Carib village." Besides these a Carib, Manuyari, had his house on the north of the Cuyuni at the foot of the rapids. (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 338.) : Blue Book, p. 118; Extracts, p. 393. "Cruysse," as the name is spelled in the Blue Book translation of the letter of February 9, 1762, is a, misreading. The manuscript (Storm's autograph at London) has "Creuztz," doubtless a distortion of Crewitz, as comparison with the earlier passage on the same page suggests. Chris- tiaan Crewitz must, of course, not be confused with the councilor Abraham Van der Cruysse, a man of more note in the colony, who owned much land further down the Cuyuni toward the Essequibo, from opposite Old Duinenburg all the way to the Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 305 The only other occupants of the lower Cuyuni mentioned in the Dutch records are the Creoles — slaves born of Indian mothers and negro fathers. In 1741 thirty or forty of these, driven to desperation by the brutality of the miner Hildebrand, whom they were forced to aid in his operations in the Cuyuni, deserted to an island in the river, and there fortified themselves so securely that the colonial authorities found it wise to make terms with them. Thenceforward a body of these partially free half-breeds continued to dwell in Cuyuni at the base of the falls. 1 . In short, at no time is there record of any cultivation in the Cuyuni above the lowest falls, excepting only the bread- Essequibo. (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 87; Atlas, map 60.) The lauds "in Mazaruni" sold by this Abraham Van der Cruysse in 1759 and 1761 (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 113; Extracts, No. 215), lay not in the Mazaruni proper, but north of the united Cuyuni and Mazaruni below their confluence ; for not only is Van der Cruysse set down in the map of 1748 as the owner of the lands at the junc- tion of these rivers with the Essequibo, but the creeks "Cattony," "Siiniery," named in the transfers are well-known streams on this shore. (Atlas, maps 60, 66, 70.) In the report of the British Guiana Land Commissioners in 1855 (see note, p. 303), translating a Dutch record of 1773, certain lands are described as "situate in the Upper Massarouney, commencing from the front lands of the widow P. de Wey to the upper corner of Calico." But here "the Upper Massarouney " can only mean the Mazaruni in general — in this case, below the confluence of the Cuyuni; for, as the Commissioners said, "the Calico Creek is well known, being situate on the west bank of the river Massarouney nearly opposite the Penal Settlement." This case is the clearer because, as appears from the same report, the original grant of this land (to Jan Heraut, in 1759) described it merely as "the abandoned place at Calekkoe, in Maseroeny." The claimants, in 1855, defined it as " a tract of land between Esse- quibo and Masserooney, designated on the chart of Bouchenroeder as lot No. 11." By 1773 it was all very far up, in the thought of those at the center of the colony. JThis is Hartsinck's story (Beschryving tan Guiana, i, 272). But cf. Netscher, p. 112; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3,"pp. 109, 114, 118, 120. The maps of Storm (Atlas, map 60), of Heneman (map 64), and of Hartsinck (map 54), show their name attached to a creek joining the Cuyuni here from the south. Only those of Hartsinck and of Bouchenroeder (map 70) show a Creole Island. I am sorry that while with the doc- uments I did not take more pains to get at the root of this matter. That they dwelt, however, somewhere here at the foot of the falls, all agree. VOL 1 20 Digitized by Microsoft® 30(5 BURR. grounds of the Cuyuni post during the brief periods of its existence. 1 But, before taking up the vexed question of the Cuyuni posts, it will be well to point out what is known of the colony's earlier relations with the upper Cuyuni. The earliest men- tion of the river I have found in the Dutch records is that in Commandeur Abraham Beekman's letter of June 28, 1680, when that river, temporarily closed by an Indian war, is called " our provision chamber." 2 From letters of the following years it appears that not provisions alone were gathered there by the Company's "old negroes," but hammocks, balsam, and other Indian products. 3 It appears, too, that the Dutch were not without competitors; for the Spaniards bought up copaiba, 4 while the French made forays from the Barima into the Cuyuni and carried off the hammocks and all the other wares. 5 The latest of these passages, that of 1686, speaks of old Daentje, the negro runner who brought these tidings, as coming from ' ' the savanna, up in Cuyuni, of the Pariacotten ; " or, as it may quite as well be translated, "from the savanna up in Cuyuni, from the Pariacotten." And, in an earlier passage, mention is made of the driving off of the "Pariacotten" by the French, much to the detriment of the copaiba trade, since it was these who gathered the balsam from the trees. Now, 1 When, in 1837, an Englishman (Hilhouse) first went up the Cuyuni, he wrote: "I can find no traces of any one having preceded me in the survey of the lower part of this river." And, having described in his journal the first day's ascent, to the head of the Camaria Falls — " we ascended this day," he thinks, "fully seventy-seven feet" — he declares that "it is evident that colonization can never be attempted on this river: the first day's journal determines that." " Beyond all other rivers," he avers, "the Cuyuni is the most difficult and dangerous of ascent." — (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 1837, pp. 446-454 .) Yet Hilhouse was no "ten- derfoot : " he had long been colonial surveyor and protector of the Indians. Extracts, p. 150. 3 Extracts, pp. 151, 155, 158, 159, 162, 172. •"Extracts, p. 161. 6 Extracts, pp. 172, 182; cf. also pp. 159, 160. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 307 " Pariacotten" is evidently but the Dutch form of the more familiar Spanish word Pariagotos, 1 Paria Indians, the name of a tribe well known on the banks of the Orinoco. Paria was the earliest name by which the region of that river was known to Europeans. Raleigh, in 1595, at the mouth of the Caroni, heard of the Eparagotos as a great inland nation. 2 They were the first to yield to Spanish missionary effort in these parts; and in 1682, according to a contemporary record, there were "in the city of Quay ana two villages of Indians of the nation of the Pariagotos, gathered from those who dwell in these environs." 3 Indeed, to these Spaniards the Pariagotos were so preeminently the Indians of the country that they received the alternative name of Gruayanos, 4 by which they were more commonly called. It was these, if we may judge from the fact that the mission villages were made up of these, whom the Capuchin missionaries found in the savannas of the Yuruari when in the fourth decade of the eighteenth century 5 they pushed their work over the divide from the Orinoco. From the banks of the Caroni to Palmar all the missions were of Pariagotos. In default of aught to the contrary, it seems fair, then, to suppose that the savannas which stretch from the 1 Gotos means a tribe, a people. Cf. Schomburgk, in his edition of Raleigh's IHs- coverie of Guiana, p. 77, note. 2 Diseoverie, ed. Schomburgk, p. 80. 'Strickland, Documents and Maps on the Boundary Question (Rome, 1896), p. 1. 4 To the Capuchin missionaries, at least, these names were synonymous. Cf., e. g., Strickland, pp. 59, 71 (where the "6 PaHagoios," added to Gruayanos in the first item of the list, is undoubtedly meant to apply also to the remainder) or, p. 9 (where the Indians of Cupapuy, known from all the lists to have been Guayanos, are called Pariagotos). So, too, Fray Caulin, long a resident of Guayana and more than once provincial of the neighboring missionaries of the Observant order, writing in 1759 his Historia de la Nweva Andalucia, describes as of Pariagotos ("de nacidn Pariagdtos") the missions "Caroni, Santa Maria, Cupapuy, Palmar, San Antonio, Alta-gracia, and Divina Pastora," which from all the Capuchin lists are known to have been made up of Guayanos. 6 See the table of these missions in vol. iii, pp. 215-217. Digitized by Microsoft® 308 BUER. hills north and west of the Yuruari to the forest east of the Curumo and indefinitely toward the banks of the Cuyuni may as a whole or in part have been known in 1686 to the negro scouts of the Dutch colony as "the savanna of the Pariacotten," or, if the other translation be correct, as the " savanna up in Cuyuni" where the Pariacots were found. 1 A "savanna up in Cuyuni," at least, the Dutch knew; for of this, though it is not again coupled with the name of the Pariacots or with trade in Indian products, we hear often enough. 2 In 1687 the Essequibo governor wrote the Company that " all the old negroes are off for their respective trading places among the Indians, to wit, six for annatto dye, two for copaiba, and two for letter- wood and provisions." 3 It is not improbable that the destination of one or more of these was the savanna up in Cuyuni; but no destinations are specified The next mentions of the Cuyuni are all in connection with a very different traffic. In 1693 the West India Company, re- plying to some letter which, I fear, is lost, congratulates the Essequibo governor on having " discovered up in the river of Cuyuni [a place for] trading in horses." 4 The trade there, they add, must be kept a monopoly of the Company. This, too, suggests a savanna; for it was the want of pasturage which forbade the rearing of horses in the Essequibo. But 1 The translation "Pariacot savanna" is supported by the presence, on the little map handed to the West India Company in 1750 by the Essequibo governor and said by him to be a copy of one made by th6 Spanish Jesuits, of the name " Savane Pariacott." The region it seems to mark lies north of the upper Cuyuni and to the westward of the branch called by this map "Meejou." It must be because the editors of the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3" understand here by this the Yuruari that in their map they show a " Pariacot Savannah" southwest of the Yuruari. But, for reasons which will be set forth later in this paper (see pp. 380, 387), it seems to me certain that the "Meejou" is the Curumo. *Cf., e. g., Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 72. 3 Netscher, p. 376. ••Extracts, p. 194. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 309 no savanna is mentioned. By 1697 the horse traffic in Cuyuni had grown less important, as the commandeur reports, because of the equal cheapness with which horses could be fetched "from Orinoco" 1 — a phrase which would seem to imply that the horses obtained up in Cuyuni were not smuggled in from the Spaniards, 2 but which may mean only that the sea route had now been made safe by the general peace of Ryswick. In May of 1701 the commandeur reports "the horse trade up in Cuyuni less brisk than heretofore." 3 But there was drawing on a great European war. The Court of Spain, hitherto the ally of the Dutch, was now leagued with France, their arch-enemy. In October, 1701, the Essequibo Court of Policy justified the purchase of horses from a Rhode Island trader by the plea that " all the lands where we carry on our horse trade are under the King of Spain, as we know by experience from the prohibitions we have already met in the trade to Orinoco." 4 This anxiety was not groundless, even as regards the trade up in Cuyuni; for on September 17, 1702, the Court of Policy wrote to the Company that "the horses which are fetched from above are not to be got as hitherto, partly because of the expected war, whereby the Indians are stirred up against us, as we already have evidence, since all those which were ob- tained had swallowed some poison and have died." 5 Of this mortality among the horses Commandeur Beekman also wrote i Extracts, pp. 196, 197. 3 That even the Caribs, whose dwelling was the forest, might on occasion supply the Dutch with horses, appears from the complaint of the Capuchin prefect in 1758 (Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 236; Venezuelan " Documents," II, p. 7). 3 Extracts, p. 198. "Extracts, p. 201. 15 . . . " de paarden die van boven gehaalt werden niet als voor desen te bekomen zyn, eensdeels door den verwagteden oorlog waardoor de Indianen jegens ons opgemaalct werden, en reeds preuve van hebben genooten, die alle welke bekomen synde, eenig vergift liadden ingekregen ooJc gestorven ben." Digitized by Microsoft® 310 BUER. ten days later, 1 adding that "the Spaniards will no longer per- mit any trafficking for horses on their territory." And the matter did not better itself. On June 14, 1703, the Euro- pean war being then fully under way, Beekman wrote to the West India Company: I am very sorry to be obliged to inform you that, owing to the present war, no horses are to be got above here as hitherto, inasmuch as those Indians think themselves to stand under the crowns of Spain and France; and this trade is thereby crippled. 2 In this very letter was inclosed 3 the muster-roll first announc- ing a Dutch post up the Cuyuni. 4 "Outlier in the river Cu- yuni," it says — "Allart Lammers, of Meenen, outlier." In the margin is the note: "From the fort, six weeks by water." 5 In the following month, in accordance with the rule of send- ing by different bottoms duplicates of all papers, another copy of this muster-roll was forwarded to Holland, 6 but with a 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3,"p. 69. 2 Extracts, p. 205. The mention of France here along with Spain is to be explained, doubtless, by the fact that under its Bourbon claimant Spain was now virtually in the hands of France. The phrasing is, perhaps, only the commandeur's own, and chosen for Dutch ears. 3 Extracts, No. 89. 4 It is this muster-roll which is printed at the top of page 70 in the Blue Book "Vene- zuela No. 3," but by an error it is there described as an inclosure in a letter of 1702. It is slightly misplaced in the volume in which it is now bound, but was demonstra- bly sent by the ship De Jonge Jan in June, 1703. The invoice of articles sent by this vessel accompanies it in the volume and shows this muster-roll as No. 9, correspond- ing with the number ou the document itself. The same list shows the consignment of two hogsheads of sugar specially marked with a star, tallying exactly with the statement in Beekman's letter of June 14, 1703, sent by this ship . 5 " Van t fort 6 weeken varens." 6 It is this muster-roll which is printed at the foot of page 70 in the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3;" but the date "June 19, 1703," there attached to it is an error. It bears no date, but was transmitted by the ship Pinnenburg, July 27, 1703, on whose list of consignments it appears as No. 4, with which number it is itself also docketed. (This list is now document No. 97 in the volume.) The muster-roll of this date printed in my own transcripts (Extracts, No. 89) is from a duplicate of the same date, found at the Hague. Careful comparison of this with the London manuscript shows them almost precisely alike — the title printed in the Blue Book having been supplied by the editors, and the "90" and "9" for "40" and "4," with one or two otber slight variations, being oversights of transcription or of the press. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 311 slight variation in the note as to the location of the Cuyuni post. It now reads: "Up in the savanna, six weeks by water." 1 The pay-roll of the colony, 2 made up at the close of the fiscal year, but not sent to Holland till some months later, brought more details. ''Allart Lemmers, of Meenen," says this circum- stantial witness, was made outlier in Cuyuni May 20, 1703, but on account of his "brutalities" 3 was removed on October 1, 1703, and reduced to the rank of a sailor on the commandeur's yacht, remaining there till August 10, 1704, when he was allowed to go back to Holland. This is all we know of it. Neither the open correspondence of the West India Company with its colony nor its extant secret minutes show any mention of this post; and it is half a century before a Cuyuni post is again heard of. The pay-rolls, 4 continuous from this point on, and confirmed by frequent muster-rolls, 5 show, beyond a doubt, that for the time this was the end of it. l " Boven int savaen 6 iveeken vaarens," reads the London manuscript. 2 Extracts, p. 207. 3 The word meant less in Dutch, than now in English. "Insubordination" or "insolence" would perhaps be better than the literal translation. Half a century- later the next postholder in Cuyuni was dismissed on a similar charge of miscon- duct. "His brutality," wrote the governor (the same Dutch word is here used), " makes him capable of doing mischief amongst the Indians ; and he, too, was shipped back to Europe." (Cf. Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 109.) ■■Beginning in 1700, the only years unrepresented by these pay-rolls down to the loss of the colony in 1796, are 1735, 1737, 1761, 1762, 1779, 1795. In 1774 (owing to a quarrel between Director-General and Commandant) the postholders and byliers are not given, and in two or three of the pay-rolls a half-year's accounts only are found — including, however, all open accounts. There are muster-rolls for all the years thus lacking, except 1761, 1762 ; and for 1762 there is a colonial directory, giving full statistics of the posts. For the year of reoccupation, 1802-3, there is a list in Governor Meertens's journal (under July 5, 1803). From the beginning of the eight- eenth century, therefore, our information as to the number and personnel of the posts is certain, and virtually complete. 5 The muster-rolls are more irregular as to date than the pay-rolls, but most of the years of the eighteenth century are represented by at least one. Those extant from the half-dozen years following 1703 are respectively of August 10, 1704, June 18, 1705 (date of letter of transmission), June 24, 1706, July 30, 1706, October 20, 1707 (date of letter of transmission), January 1, 1709. None of these mention a Cuyuni post, which first appears again in that of April 14, 1755. Digitized by Microsoft® 312 BURR. A post in Cuyuni, up in the savanna, six weeks by water from Fort Kykoveral, manned only by an outlier, from May 20 to October 1 , 1 703. Not, as has been hastily asserted, in the "Pariacot savanna." That — if there was such a savanna — is not improbable; but it is purely inference, lacking all docu- mentary proof. "The savanna" implies either some well- known savanna, or the savanna region of the upper Cuyuni in general. The " Pariacot savanna" had been mentioned but once, if at all, in the past quarter-century of the colony's corre- spondence, and, if a special savanna, could hardly be well- known to the Company; but, as we have seen, if the phrase really existed, it may best have meant the savanna region of the upper Cuyuni in general. There is then little in the direct evidence to guide us as to the site of the post. Six weeks should, by the criterion of later journeys, have sufficed to take the postholder quite to the Orinoco 1 . He might, at least, in that time have reached any point in the savanna. The phrase, "by water," should, perhaps, not be too closely pressed, since his journey thither must, in any case, have been mainly by water; but, it may be noted that all other colonial posts, earlier or later, kept to the edge of navigable water, and this venturer so far afield was surely not less likely thus to secure his retreat. If one would conjecture the exact site of the post, one must turn for help to the circumstances. As we have seen, the only traffic in the upper Cuyuni which had lately found mention in the colonial correspondence was that in horses. These, as the power used in working the sugar mills, were an essential to 1 Compare, for instance, that of Lopez de la Puente in 1789 (Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 337-339). To be sure, La Puente had a generous number of oarsmen, and the same may be said of the expedition of Bonaldes in 1758; but the postholder, too, could doubtless count on Indian help, abundant and skillful. It must, however, be remembered that he had his wares to transport, and may well have planned to barter by the way. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 313 that industry which was the life of the colony — a thing without which, as Commandeur Beekman wrote in June, 1803, 1 in speaking- of the war's hindrance of their importation, the colony would be forced into ruin. And what special anxieties as to the supply were just now caused by the attitude of the Indians in the upper Cuyuni we have also seen. It is surely not strange that the two latest historians of these colonies should associate the new post with the traffic in horses. 2 If this infer- ence be just, then certainly the most likely base for that post- holder's operations would be the point where the horses could best be delivered and shipped. To this end, in view of the grave dangers of the rapids and the difficulties of sustenance on the long water journey, there would doubtless be sought, first, the most navigable route, and then the lowest point where this was reached by the savanna. In such case, the Curumo was more likely to be traversed than the Yuruari; not alone because it is a more navigable stream and a much shorter route to the savanna, but because the falls in the Cuyuni above its junction with the Curumo are especially difficult and dan- gerous. 3 'Extracts, p. 204. -Netscher, p. 92; Rodway, i, pp. 49-50. Both these writers, however, go further than the evidence warrants, the former representing the horses as "bought of trad- ers from Spanish Guiana," the latter declaring the post "established for the purpose of bringing horses from Spanish Guiana." These may be plausible inferences, but they are inferences only. 3 The Spanish officer Antonio Lopez de la Puente, who in 1788-89 made such a comparative examination of these rivers as no other is known to have done, reported that "the river Curumo is navigable the greater part of the year for sailing-boats and canoes, and in flood time even for large vessels. By this river there is a great saving of rapids in going to Essequibo, which abound in the Yuruari and Cuyuni to the mouth of the Curumo." (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3", pp. 329-332, 337-339). The Curumo, he says (p. 338), speaking of it at the place near Tumeremo where it is crossed by the savanna, "is quite navigable, without rapids, unless the fierce sum- mer diiea it up, as they say, but only for a short time." So, too, the English party from Demerara which in 1857 went up into the Yuruari gold region learned that the journey might be considerably shortened " by avoiding the Yuruari and proceed- Digitized by Microsoft® 314 BURR. The savanna crosses the Curumo 1 at a point near its junc- tion with the Mxitanambo, not far from the later site of Tumeremo. It was near this point that the road made by Courthial forty years later for the introduction of horses and cattle into Essequibo entered the forest. 2 It is here or here- about, as it seems to me, that, if one must hazard a conjecture at all, the Cuyuni post of 1703 is most likely to have been placed, and probably on the west bank of the stream. 3 But there is one consideration, at least, which makes all such guessing- hazardous. It is not certain that a site for this ing ... by the Cooroomoo Creek to Toomeremo, where horses can be had to proceed to Tupuquen." On reaching the creek they found it impassable, owing to the exceptional dryness of the season ; but they were told that " in the wet season Tupuquen can be reached iu three days by this creek." They were a full week making their way up the Cnynni from this point to the mouth of the Yuruari, find- ing the Yacami Rapid especially difficult, while "above that the river was one confused mass of islands and rocks and one continuous series of falls and rapids." And in the Yuruari they " came to a series of rapids, caused by the river pouring over most enormous beds and blocks of granite, which much exceed in height, and are much more difficult of ascent, than any met with in the Cuyooni." (See the journal of Mr. Campbell, one of the party, in Timehri, June, 1883, pp. 120, 129, 132, 133.) How familiar the Dutch were with the Curumo route at the middle of the eighteenth century appears abundantly from the complaints of the Spanish missionaries. " Being the lowest direct communication with the Spanish provinces," writes Hil- house, who, first of all Englishmen, visited its mouth in 1837, "it was the old route of smugglers." ■Atlas, map 2. Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3." p. 338. Venezuelan "Documents," III, p. 60. Campbell, writing in 1857 at a point below Tupuquen on the Yuruari, declares that "the country between this place and the Cooroomoo Creek is open savannah, over which cattle could easily be driven; and there is also a savannah on the opposite side of the same creek which extends for some distance and approaches the Cuyooni. It would not, therefore, be a very serious undertaking to make a road across this country by which cattle might be driven to Demerara.'' (Timehri, June, 1883, p. 138.) 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 86, 91, 327. 3 But for the greatness of the distance from the fort, I should in my historical map (Atlas, map 9) have located it conjecturally at the junction of the Curumo and the Mutanarabo. That distance, however, coupled with what La Puente says of the navigability of the stream even above the union with the Mutanambo, has led me hesitantly to set it a little higher, at the confluence of another tributary. It is, however, wholly matter of conjecture whether the savanna skirts thus far the banks of the river: no traveler has yet described that quarter. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 315 Cuyuni post was ever selected or that the postholder ever reached the savanna. He was appointed, to be sure, on May 20, 1703. But the postholder of a new post might well be delayed by preparations, and May was not a favorite month for a voyage up river; but if, in view of the probable emer- gency, a prompt start is in this instance to be assumed, it must have been July before he reached his destination. Tf the "brutalities" for which he was dismissed were committed immediately on his arrival and reported to the governor at once, the order for his recall could barely, even with all allow- ance for swifter downstream travel, have brought him back by October 1, the known date of his discharge. It is possi- ble, of course, that his discharge was made to date from the arrival of the complaint or from his receipt of the recall; but so to condemn without a hearing, and on Indian evidence, hardly suits with Dutch practice. In any case, there remains the possibility that he embroiled himself with the Indians en route and failed to reach his destination, or, reaching it, had not yet established himself at any site. What throws an air of mystery about the whole matter is the total silence both of the commandeur and of the Company. Such silence as to a new post is almost or quite without a parallel, 1 and, taken in connection with the disappearance of that dispatch of a decade earlier which reported the discovery of the new source of horses, it suggests the possibility of a 'The Deruerary post was perhaps inherited in 1771 from Berbice; hut in the ease of the Mahaicony a little later, of the Pomeroon post in 1679 and in 1689, of Arinda in 1736, of the restored Cuyuni post in 1766, and even in the case of mere changes of site, there was explicit correspondence hetween the governor and the Company. When in 1684 and again in 1744 a post on the Barima was suggested, or in 1746 one on the Cuyuni, it was in terms which suggested a need of the approval of the Company. It is only of the Cuyuni post of 1754 that we first learn after its establishment (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 103), and even here in terms which imply an earlier knowledge by the Company. Digitized by Microsoft® 316 BUKR. correspondence too confidential to find a place in these extant bodies of letters. Yet the frequent loss of ships and of papers in these times of war must be remembered. 1 The discontinuance of the post in Cuyuni finds no direct explanation in the documents. But we know whence the colony was supplied with horses. In November, 1703, we find Beekman buying twenty-eight from an English ship, and in August, 1704, thanking the Company for their relaxation in such times of emergency of their prohibition of trade with the English. In April of that year the Company wrote that it had gained from the patroons of Berbice permission for Essequibo to buy horses from those shipped thither. But in 1706 they were still being procured from up the Cuyuni, though there was complaint of their mortality on the road. 2 In October, 1707, the commandeur complained that they could no longer be got thus from above so conveniently and in such quantity as need required. 3 It is the last mention I have found of the importation of horses by this route. For long one hears no more of the upper Cuyuni, save now and then of the pursuit and capture there of an escaping slave i The Company's monopoly of the trade in Indian slaves there was strictly insisted on, 5 though the yield was small; and in 1731 the directors, who had not followed the advice given them in 1722 by the engineer, Maurain-Saincterre, to establish coffee plantations above the falls, 6 asked the colonial authori- ties if these rivers could not be put to some further use. 7 They replied only that the rapids made plantations there impossible. 8 'In 1708 (May 2) this had proved so serious that the Company required the sending of letters in triplicate, instead of duplicate, while the war lasted. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 72. 'Extracts, p. 208. "Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 71, 72. Extracts, pp. 233, 272, 273. B Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 82. e Extracts, p. 248. * Extracts, p. 254. 8 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 83. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 317 But when a few years later there arrived in the colony as secretary the energetic young engineer officer, Storm van 's Gravesande, another use for these rivers was suggested. He noticed there signs of mineral wealth, transmitted specimens, and urged the sending over of a mining engineer. 1 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. 2 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, 3 and, so nearly as can be determined from his description, was on the right or south bank of the river, 4 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 ■Extracts, pp. 281-285. ^Extracts, pp. 285-301. 3 On his first journey up the river, prospecting as he went, it took him several days to reach there; but he afterwards repeatedly sent a boat thither and back from Cartabo in a little less than four days, and his own later trips thither tally with this. (Extracts, pp. 287-292, 294-298, 300.) 4 True, he speaks of the Blaauwenberg, or Blue Mountains; and on the Spanish map handed in by Storm van 's Gravesande in 1750 the Blaauwenberg is a raDge north of the Cuyuni. But more than one sentence of Hildebrandt suggests that to him the Blue Mountains were on the other bank as well. Owing to the bend in the course of the stream, hills which at this point are south of the Cuyuni would, as seen from the lower river, seem to be north. The range (only a few hundred feet in actual height) possibly crosses the river. Few of the names he mentions can be identified on the maps. Digitized by Microsoft® 318 BURR. still water above the first great series of rapids, 1 and planned to build another stretch yet higher upstream. 2 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 Europe. This was the first and the last of Dutch attempts at mining in the Cuyuni. 3 In 1746 there was attempted in that quarter another enter- prise of not less promise. A Frenchman named Ignace Cour- thial, originally perhaps from Martinique, but long an explorer and trader, not to say a smuggler, in this frontier district, was by the colonial authorities permitted, though not yet a citizen of the colony or a subject of Holland, 4 to cut a road through 1 Extracts, pp. 299, 301. In reporting it to the Company he calls it " a small path, such as could be traveled by men." It appears from his journal that its breadth was 1-J fathoms. When, in 1789, the Spaniard Lopez de la Puente made his raid down the river, he found here a road — perhaps that opened by Hildebrandt — from "the mouth of the creek Tupuro," "the head of the rapid Camaria," to the foot of the lowest fall. (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 338.) ^Extracts, p. 300. 3 The statement of Mr. Schomburgk, copied by many, as to an attempt at mining here in 1721 is an error, caused, perhaps, by connecting these operations of 1741-1743 in the Cuyuni with the attempt of the West India Company in 1721 (mentioned by Hartsinck, i, p. 231) to encourage the discovery of mines in Essequibo. In 1742, while Hildebrandt was at work, the Company wrote the governor of a rumor that an old slave bought from the Spaniards and emancipated had revealed to one Steynfels the existence of " a rich mineral mountain situate toward the side of Orinoco," and instructed him with all secrecy to investigate this; but nothing seems to have come of it. (Extracts, p. 294; cf. also p. 369.) 4 That Courthial was in March, 1746, not yet a citizen of Essequibo is implied in Storm's phrase " one Ignatius Courthial " (instead of the usual " an inhabitant of this colony ") in reporting to the Company the granting of his petition. But we have besides Courthial's explicit statement to the Company in August, 1748, that he had been " only about two years" their subject, and that he did not become so until after several interviews with the governor — an acquaintance which Storm's letter of March 19, 1746, by no means implies. The "admittance to this colony" ("entree en cette eol- lonie"), which he says he had been granted, implies only admittance for trade; access would perhaps be a better translation. Mr. Rodway's statement, amplified from General Netscher's, that Courthial had been one of Hildebrandt's miners, is, I think, Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 319 the forest to the savannas of the upper Cuyuni, in order thus to bring in mules, horses, and cattle from Orinoco. 1 As the Company's post in Demerara was no longer needed there, that river having just been opened to colonists, the governor pro- posed to remove it to this Cuyuni road and charge it not only with trade there, but with the collection of import dues on the animals brought in; but where on this road he meant to place the post he does not say. 2 The Company approved his plan ; 3 but it is clear from the pay and muster rolls that for some reason it was not carried out. 4 It is possible that, as in the case of the post at the same time projected for the Barima, he could not find a trusty postholder. In December of 1748 Courthial himself had gone up the Orinoco after some hundreds of cattle and mules; 5 but his thought was now of a great stock ranch in the savannas of Berbice and Demerara, where he would himself raise all the beasts needed by the Dutch colonies. 6 This project, saddled with an ambitious scheme to make himself an error. I have nowhere met his name among Hildebrandt's reports, and it is quite inconsistent with his own review of his career. (Eodway, History of British Guiana, i, p. 130; Netscher, Geschiedenis, p. 118; Extracts, pp. 318-321.) That he may have gone with the miners sent in 1746 to investigate in the upper Essequibo (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 87, 88) is not improbable; but, in that case, it was doubtless as a guide. 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 86, 327. Extracts, pp. 318-321. Atlas, map 61. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 86. 3 Extracts, pp. 304, 305. 4 It is true that in 1770 several Capuchin Fathers and a couple of Spanish func- tionaries testified at Santo Thom6 that the Cuyuni post destroyed in 1758 had existed since 1747 (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 281-290; Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 187-213) ; but it is more likely that these could be mistaken, borrowing the error one from another, than that such a post should exist unknown to pay-rolls and muster-rolls, and unreported by the governor either by letter or in the explicit account of the colony submitted by him in person in 1750, or that, in such case, the Cuyuni post could in 1755 appear on the muster-rolls as the "new post." It will be noticed that these same Spanish witnesses agree in stating that tidings of the post did not come to Spanish ears until 1757. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 90. "Extracts, pp. 318-324. Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 102. Digitized by Microsoft® 320 BURR. the founder of a landed family, was, though long considered, never accepted by the Company; but of his road to Orinoco I find no later mention in the extant records of the colony. 1 In 1755 we find him importing cattle by water. 2 A Cuyuni post, indeed, was not long after established, but not on Courthial's road. On November 1, 1754, according to the pay-roll, Johannes Neuman, of Thaube, was taken into service as outlier in the river Cuyuni. 3 It was the time of the great panic over the rumor of a projected Spanish invasion. Fears were somewhat allayed, but on October 7 the Esse- quibo Council had learned that the commander of the troops in the Orinoco had caused a fugitive Dutchman there to make him a drawing of the course of the Cuyuni. 4 On November 26 the Director-General speaks of having sent spies to the Cuyuni, and of a promise of the Indians there that they will well guard the passage. 5 What was the connection, if any, between all this and the new post, or what, if anything, the earlier grievance of the approach of the Spanish missions may have had to do with it is matter for inference only. 6 In 1750, the governor being then in Holland, the acting gov- ernor, in speaking of these Spanish missions, had deprecated the opening of a trade in cattle with them "unless a good Post 1 For a Spanish reminiscence of it in 1787, see Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 327. It is rudely laid down in the Spanish map handed in by Storm in 1750. (Atlas, map 61.) 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 103. 3 " Johannes Neuman nytlegger in de Eivier van Cajoeny. Wint permaendf. 14. Doer voor door den Heer Directeur Generael den eersten November in dienst genomen." And, on the credit page, a statement of his wages earned " sedert p m " Novemb. tot heden." He appears accordingly in the muster-roll of April 14, 1755. In June, 1755, it was still " the new post in Cuyuni." (Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 104.) < Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p, 102. 5 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 102. (No. 115. ) B Complaint of them had been unceasing. Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 86-88, 92-95, 99, 100. Extracts, Nos. 155, 157-161, 164, 167, 169, 173, 181. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 321 were established" on the route. 1 But this proposal "I have thought it best simply to mention," he said, "trusting' that as the commandeur in person is near you he will have spoken thereof also." Commandeur Storm, now bearing the higher title of Director-General, had returned in 1752, 2 and perhaps not without instructions on this point. But there is in his cor- respondence no mention of this Cuyuni post until, in a letter of May, 1755, Storm speaks of "the Post located by order of the Council up in the Cuyuni," as if the Company already knew all about it. Extracts from the minutes of the colonial Council (Court of Policy) were from time to time transmitted to the Company; but if one reciting this action was forwarded it has now escaped from the records. An explanation of the new post is clearly not in the Director-General's intent; but the environment of this earliest mention of the new post is interesting. The Spanish invasion, he thinks, is at a standstill, but "they will try to creep in softly, and, as far as possible, to draw near us and shut us in." 3 ' 'And it is certain, " he adds, ' ' that they have now complete possession of the creek Orawary, 4 emptying into the Cuyuni, which indisputably is your territory. The post located by order of the Council above in Cuyuni is situated not more than ten or twelve hours from the Spanish dwellings." Whether or no there is here aught to suggest the purpose of the post, there is apparently a clew to its site. The Orawary at once suggests the Yuruari, and of the dates and places of the Yuruari missions much is known. Yet, before weighing the testimony, it will be well to wait till the evidence is all in. Year by year the post reappears in the pay and muster rolls 'Extracts, p. 335. 2 He landed in Essequibo on March 20, having been gone " exactly two years." » Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 103. 4 Not " Iruwary," as in the Blue Book. Both in Storm's autograph, at London, and iu the duplicate at The Hague, the "O" at least is beyond question. VOL 1 21 Digitized by Microsoft® 322 BURR. until 1758, 1 but without description of its site or distance. Once it is mentioned in a letter of the governor, but only to announce the discharge of an unworthy postholder. Suddenly, on September 9, 1758, he makes it the subject of a special letter. 2 Nearly all the Caribs of the Cuyuni, he writes, "came down the stream last week, and informed your Creoles, 3 living just below the great fall of that river, that the Spaniards of Orinoco, according to their computation about one hundred strong, had come down the stream, and made a successful raid upon your post." They had carried off, the Caribs said, the postholder and bylier, with a Creole and his wife and children, and had laid waste "everything about the post." 4 Yet, while protesting that the post was not on Spanish ground, the Director-General does not describe its site, but instead claims the whole river, citing in his support the map of D'Anville, whereon "you will see our boundaries themselves depicted, of which, it appears, he was instructed on good authority." 5 1 The pay rolls show Neuman alone at the post until 1757, when he was replaced as outlier by "Johan Stephen Iskes, of Germany, taken therefor into service November 15," 1757. Iskes had been an assistant miner under Hildebrandt, and had taken a large part in the work up the Cuyuni, as may be seen from Hildebrandt's journal. In 1758 "Guilliaam Patist de Bruyn," of Biervliet, first appears at the post as bylier. The muster-rolls in point are those of June 30, 1757, and of August, 1758 — an extract from the latter is printed in Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 109. 2 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 109-110. 3 So I understand the word which in the Blue Book is translated "agents." In the manuscript, which in this case is not Storm's autograph, but a copy, is written plainly " Onclen," which is no Dutch word and can be explained by nothing, except, perhaps, the French "oncle." "Uncles" might conceivably mean old negroes; but it was not the old negroes who lived here. I think it a mere miswriting of Criolen, " Creoles." This error would be especially easy to one copying Storm's handwriting. To begin this word Criolen with a capital was customary. And it is well known that the Creoles then lived in Cuyuni, just below the falls. They are mentioned, too, by Storm himself in this very connection in later letters. (Blue Book "A r enezuela No. 3," pp. 114,118,120.) l " Allea rontom depost." 6 . . . "en daerop selver onze limiten afgeteeJcent zien,waarvan het schynt hy van goeder hand onderregt was." What makes this puzzling is that D'Anville's map does not give the whole river to the Dutch. (See Atlas, maps 39, 40.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 323 But the West India Company was not so sure. At least, though in the official remonstrance drawn by them and at their instance addressed in July, 1759, by the States-General to Spain, 1 they stoutly protested that from time immemorial they had been in undisturbed possession of the Essequibo and its branches, and especially of its northernmost arm, the Cuyuni, they at the same time asked the governor to inform them exactly "where the aforesaid post was situated on the river Cuyuni." 2 The governor's reply was prompt and explicit. On September 1, 1759, he answered: "The post which was surprised in a fashion so contrary to the law of nations was situated about fifteen hours above the place where the Cuyuni unites with the Mazaruni." "Yet," he added, "this can not much matter ; even if it had lain fifty hours higher, it was a thing which did not concern the Spaniards." 3 Even before receiving this reply, the Company had further requested "a little map of the river Cuyuni, with indication of the places where the Company's post, and also the grounds of Old Duinenburg and of the Company's coffee and indigo plantations, were situated, and finally the place of the so-called Blaauwenberg, where the miners worked on our behalf." 4 This map, an extract from D'Anville's with these places indicated on it by the governor himself, was sent and received. 5 In addition to the sites of the post and of the plantations in the Cuyuni, he had marked also "the dwelling place of the half- free Creoles, to which," he said, "the Spaniards came very close." 6 The map, alas, can no longer be found; but this statement about the near approach of the Spaniards to the iBlue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 111. Extracts, pp. 381-386. * Extracts, p. 381. 3 Extracts, pp. 386, 387. "Extracts, pp. 388, 389. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 114, 116, 117, 118. Extracts, p. 393. «Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 114. Digitized by Microsoft® 324 BURR. Creoles (whose place, at the foot of the lowest falls, is else known 1 ) is a helpful clew to the site assigned on it to the post. These three passages — that about the creek Orawary and the distance of the post from the Spanish dwellings, that stating its distance from the mouth of the Cuyuni, and that implying its nearness to the home of the Creoles — are, I think, the whole of the evidence in Dutch documents as to the location of this Cuyuni post of 1754-1758. But to these should perhaps be added the testimony of a Dutch witness who may possibly have had access to a document now lost. This witness is Jan Jacob Hartsinck, a functionary of the Amsterdam Admiralty, who in his well-known Beschryving van Guiana, published in 1770, deals at some length with the attempts to explore the region of the fabled Lake of Parima. "For the same reasons," he says, after speaking of the alleged repulse by the natives of certain Spanish expeditions of 1755, "our governor of Esse- quibo in the year 1756 sent thither an owl, or chief, of the Panacays, in order to get leave to send some white men, but in vain. He likewise at this time placed the post on the Cuyuni some 50 miles higher up, which in the following year was raided by the Spaniards, who carried off as prisoners the whites who there kept the post." 2 Now, Hartsinck in his preface expressly thanks a certain learned friend, whose modesty forbade the mention of his name, for accurate infor- mation regarding the explorations made in the colony of Essequibo and the neighboring rivers by order of Governor Storm van 's Gravesande. 3 This learned friend may not improbably have been that Professor Allamand, of Leyden, who is known, as Storm's own friend and correspondent, to 1 See p. 305, above, aDd note, p. 322. 2 Beschryving van Guiana, i, p. 265. 3 Beschryving van Guiana, pp. xi, xii. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 325 have been informed by him on such points. 1 A certain veri- similitude is further given to Hartsinck's narrative by the fact that in the very letter in which Storm speaks of the creek Orawary and the distance of the Spaniards, he mentions the presence at his house of "the chiefs of the Panacay nation, dwelling up in Cuyuni." 2 But it will be noticed that Hart- sinck's story is in contradiction not less with Storm's statement of 1755 as to the post's distance from the Spanish dwellings than with his statement of 1759 as to its distance from the mouth of the Cuyuni. Hartsinck's mijl was, as we know well, the normal one of fifteen to a degree — equal, that is, to 4 English nautical miles. 3 And Storm's hour (with him always a measure of distance, not of time) is equally certain; for, in the map prepared with his own hands for the Company in 1748, 4 the scale laid down is of uuren gaens, "hours of travel." They are apparently the same as those of D'Anville's scale 5 — equal to a little more than 2 J English nautical miles, a little less than 3 English statute miles. 6 If, then, the Cuyuni post was in May, 1755, only ten or twelve hours from the Spanish dwellings, it would hardly have been moved 50 mijls higher in 1756. But there is still other evidence to reckon with. Two other Dutchmen, best likely of all to know the site — the j)ostholder himself and his assistant — were required by their Spanish captors to testify on this point; and their sworn statements, preserved in the Spanish archives, have lately been printed 'Extracts, pp. 387, 414. 2 Extracts, p. 364. 3 See, e. g., the scales on all his maps — his own work. (Atlas, map 54.) ■■Atlas, map 60. "Atlas, map 39. 6 This is borne out by a comparison of Storm's map with that of Hartsinck. Taking, for example, the distance so often traversed between Kykoveral and Fort Zelandia, we find it a little less than 9 of Hartsinck's miles, a little less than fifteeD of Storm's hours. Digitized by Microsoft® 326 BURR. both by Great Britain and by Venezuela. 1 Though open, of course, to some suspicion of duress on the one side or bad faith on the other and to the doubts attaching to testimony in a language foreign to the deponent, there is little or nothing in their contents to warrant incredulity 2 The place where the post was, they said, was named Cuiba, or Cuiva, 3 and situated on the banks of the Cuyuni. The lands about it were flooded lands, uu suited to cultivation; but there were good lands higher up. Asked its distance from the -'colony of Essequibo," one replied that, though very short, "three whole days were needed for the journey;" the other that it was "three days, more or less." This estimate of the distance seems in full 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 246-248; Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 26, 31. 2 The fact that both the postholder and his assistant, on their release from Spanish custody, were in such ill plight physically that the under-postholder soon died and that the postholder was in 1762 barely able to walk (Blue Book pp. 117, 122) savors unpleasantly of the use of the torture — an aid by no means foreign to Spanish procedure. But the testimony itself is not of a sort to give color to this suspicion; it seems free both from tendency and from artificial concurrence. The one statement which seems in sharpest conflict with what is else known is that declaring the post to have been " maintained in that place for many years" (muchos anos). The interpreter may not impossibly have misunderstood eenige, "some," for menige, " many " — though, for that matter, menige need mean no more than "several." And as neither the postholder nor his assistant had been at the place more than eight months (the " eighteen," in the British translation of the latter's testimony, is but a misprint — conflicting, at least, not only with the Venezuelan translation, but with the certified Spanish transcripts filed with the Commission) their testimony to this could in any case have no such value as that part of their depositions where they speak as eyewitnesses. It is to be noticed, furthermore, that the Orinoco Com- mandant himself, in a subsequent statement, reported these witnesses as testifying that the post was established "during the last few years" and "had been kept there for a few years." (Venezuelan " Documents," II, p. 119.) 3 According to the certified extracts from the Spanish archives filed with the Com- mission, the name is " Cuiba" in the deposition of the postholder, where it is once mentioned; "Cuiva" in that of his assistant, where it occurs twice. (To any who know Spanish it needs no pointing out that b and c were thus interchanged at will. "Felix pnpulus, ubi vivere est bibere et bibere est Hrere," runs the apostrophe of an envious Frenchman — I owe the mot to Mr. Coudert. ) The spelling is, of course, only an attempt to reproduce the sound of an Indian name : one may expect it in Spanish ears to take indifferently the form Cuiba, Cuiva, or Cuigua; or at Dutch hands to be spelled with an initial K or Q as freely as with a C. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 327 concurrence with the governor's reply to the Company as to the site of the post; for we know from his own lips that he reckoned "two or three days' journey" up such a river at "12 or, at the utmost, 15 hours." 1 But there follows in each of these depositions an explanation of this estimate which is very puzzling, in view of the geographical conditions. Both post- holder and assistant explain that three days are needed for the journey because the navigation is dependent on the tides (mareas) and takes its route through bayous (canos). 2 That this is the meaning of the Spanish seems to me clear. Such navigation by the aid of the tide, and through bavous navi- gable at the flood, was, as we abundantly know, a common thing in the coast districts and familiar to both Spaniards and Dutch. That the words could have suggested anything else to Spanish ears it is hard to believe. But the Cuyuni is not in the coast region; and, though the tide comes up into it, it comes only as far as its lowest falls, a couple of "hours" from its junction with the Mazaruni. Moreover, as its banks are high to its very mouth, a bayou is a thing else unheard of. Whatever may have been in the thought of the Spanish ques- tioner, I can not believe that the two Dutchmen could have understood by "the colony of Essequibo" anything less than the whole body of plantations; still less that they could have taken as the starting point of their reckoning any place more remote than Fort Kykoveral, which up to this year 1758 had still its garrison, and which within the memory of one, if not of both men, had been the very center of the colony. I can only conclude, therefore, that the Spanish words must represent 1 Extracts, p. 369. 2 lakes "Besponde: Que es muy corta sin embargo de que se gasian tres dias naturales, por razon de que solo se navega con las mareas, y su navegacion es por canos." Bruyn "Besponde: Que tres dias poco mas, oien entendido que solo se navega con las mareas por ser canos anegadisos." (Cf. Bine Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 246, 247 ; Venezuelan " Documents," II, pp. 28, 30.) Digitized by Microsoft® 328 BURR. rather what the answer of the Dutchmen meant to their Spanish hearers than what they really intended to say. That the navigation of the Cuyuni, not less than that of the tidal streams, depends on the height of the water is a fact well known ; and that certain channels are available only at flood for the passage of the rapids is adequately vouched for. That some such statement of the Dutch prisoners may have been misunder- stood by the Spanish functionaries is at least more plausible than three days of tide water and bayous in the Cuyuni above "the colony of Essequibo;" and this thought may have guided the British translators in a rendering of these passages which is almost too free to be called a translation. 1 But this rendering explains, after all, only why the Cuyuni should be navigated at certain seasons, not why a given journey should take always three days; in fact, it proves rather that the required time should be greater at one season than at another. While convinced that there must here be a misunderstanding, I confess myself unable as yet to suggest a satisfactory expla- nation. But, even yet, not all the evidence is in. The Spaniards who raided the post had also discovered where it was, and they have left on record its distance from their own starting- point. By the sworn testimony of these witnesses 2 it was about noon of the ninth day after their departure from the mission village of Yuruari when they first came upon a Dutch- man, the under-postholder, 3 at a point in the river where, as 1 They render thus the reason given by lakes for the slowness of the journey : "The rivers could only be navigated when they were high, and then only in the chan- nels." And that of Bruyn : " The navigation could only be carried on when the rivers were high, and (he channels full of water." (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3,'' pp. 246, 247.) 5 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 242, 244 ; Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 17, 19. 3 "Como a la hora del medio dia." On the night preceding they had arrived at a Carib village. "A los ocho dias de navegacion llegaron d una Itancheria de Indios Carives, . . . y al dia siguiente" they captured the said Dutchman. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 329 he himself explained, 1 he was helping some Indians make a clearing ; 2 and it was two days farther on down the river that they found the post itself. 3 The return journey upstream to the village whence they set out took them twenty-two days — thirteen by water, the rest by land. 4 No names of places are mentioned as landmarks on this journey; but, happily, we pos- sess a detailed journal of a similar expedition made by the same route forty years later. This journal of Antonio Lopez de la Puente, 5 in 1789, gives us the day by day progress of the expedition from the mission village of Tupuquen to the mouth of the Tupuro, at the head of the Camaria rapid, less than a dozen miles from tide water on the Cuyuni. This journey of La Puente seems to have been a somewhat more leisurely one than that of 1758, and occurred later in the season, when the falling of the water probably made the downward passage a little slower, the upward a little swifter; but with slight allow- ance for these differences, the one seems a fair basis of inference for the other. The starting point was, indeed, not the same; and the site of the mission village of Yuruari is not known with certainty. Yet it may with fair probability be located on the river of its name at the confluence of the Aima, and it could not in any case have been far from this. 6 It was, then, ■Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 247; Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 30. v'Besponde que por Direction de su cdbo avia renido a dicho parage en solicitud de unos Indios para que los ayudase a travar an la Bosa que ahrian y que a poco tiempo de estar alii llegaron los Espanoles." 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 242; Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 17. 4 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 243-246. "... y que del expresado parage doude tenian su Mancheria que es en el Bio Coiuny gastaron a la Mision de donde salieron veinte y dos dias, trese de navegaeion Bio arriva, y los Bestantes por tierra." By an odd conjunction of accidents, the "thirteen" (trese) is omitted in the British translation and rendered "three" in the Venezuelan. 5 Not to be confused with the Luis Lopez de la Puente of the first expedition. 6 For a discussion of this site, on which no light is thrown by Dutch documents, 1 may refer to my paper On the Historical Maps (vol. iii of this report, pp. 205, 206). Tupuquen itself had been the site of an earlier mission until 1750, when thi? Caribs destroyed it; it was not restored till 1770. Digitized by Microsoft® 330 BURR. at most, less than a day above Tupuquen. As the expedition of 1789 loitered for half a day at Canayma, 1 this difference in starting point may almost be ignored. Now, as we have seen, the expedition of 1758 reached the Dutch post at some time in the course of the eleventh day of its journey. That of 1789, at night of its tenth day had reached a point a little below "the mule pass of Notupicay," clearly the "Otupikai" of Schomburgk, the "Watoopegay" of Hilhouse, at the end of what Mr. Schomburgk calls "the second series of falls or rapids." Just three days later, at the end of the thirteenth clay, it arrived at the Camaria rapid, the end of the journey. In returning from this point to Tupu- quen (by way of the Curumo, the probable route also of that of 1758, since it traveled partly by land), the expedition used twenty-live days — fourteen and a half by water, the remainder bv land; but two of the latter were spent in halts. One might fairly infer, then, that the site of the Dutch post was somewhere within a day's journey below Notupicay (Otupikai); and it will not have escaped notice that this loca- tion answers remarkably to the governor's "fifteen hours" from me confluence with the Mazaruni and to the "three days" from "the colony of Essequibo" of the postholder and his assist- ant. 2 And, in singular confirmation of the conclusion to which this agreement points, there is found just here (and, so far as a careful search through travels and maps can determine, here alone) a place which still bears the Indian name of the post's site, Cuiva. On the maps of Mr. Schomburgk, and in both •Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 337; Venezuelan " Documents," II, p. 248. 2 Hilhouse, the first Englishman to ascend the Cuyuni, in 1837, declares the Payuca Rapids "47 miles west from our departure'' — i. e., from a point an hour below the low- est fall of the Cuyuni. Hilhouse Lad been four days reaching there, but his boat was overloaded, his crew made up, as he complains, of "half-starved Caribs" (it was during a famine), and lie traveled only from four to six hours a day. Hil- house's distances, in general, have been thought overrated. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 331 maps and text of the colonial geologists Brown and Sawkins,. there appears, as a branch of the Cuyuni on its northern side, halfway from the Payuca Rapids to the mouth of the Cutuau, 1 a little river named Quive-Kuru, "Quive Creek." 2 A closer concurrence in the spelling of the Indian sound one could hardly expect. In support of this conclusion as to the distance of the Dutch post from the Spanish missions might be cited the testimony, 'From the Payuca Bapids to the Quive Creek there is only a short stretch of smooth water. 2 This Indian suffix, kuru or cum, is to be found in the names of many streams, both in the Cuyuni and Mazaruni regions and in the Carib region of the coast. That it means creek is but an inference from the fact that, in these Carib regions, it so constantly occurs in the names of creeks and that some of the most experienced travelers detach it by a hyphen from the rest of the name. It appears, as would be expected, under varying spellings : leuru, cura, Tcura, cura, kourou, courou, kooroo, cooroo, kyuru, kuroo and sometimes under the longer form of icuru (aikura, Dutch eikoeroe — the Dutch oe has the sound of the English oo or German u). Thus one finds on the maps- the creeks or rivers Accourou, Acayuekyuru, Akekyuru, Amacura, Cura Curu, Corowa- aikura, Imanikurru, Ipotaikuru, Kashiwaikura, Maniakura, Muracaraicura, Murissi- curu, Wassicuru, Yanecuru, as well as Quivekuru — all these in varying spellings. One may add, perhaps, the slightly differing caru and curi, as in Maurocaru and Waicuri. Hildebrandt, the miner, calls the two creeks up in Cuyuni, in which he carried on operations, "Tiboko-eykoeroe" and " Moroko-eykoeroe " (Extracts, pp. 289, 290, 292). The Dutch planter sent in 1756 to take the testimony of a Carib chief in the Barima region, dates the document at " Aymara-Aykoeroe" (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 107) ; and the Carib witness speaks of Tawa-aykoere, in Maza- runi, where his bread-plantation was. Aymara-Aykoeroe is very probably the Aymara-Cabura (Haymarakaboera, Moracabura, Haimuracabara) of other docu- ments — a branch of the Moruca, lying thus at the border between Carib and Arawak — cdbara, cabura (Dutch spelling, caboera), frequent in names of creeks, being perhaps the Arawak equivalent of the Carib icuru. Im Thurn knows in the upper Essequibo a creek which in 1880 he spelt " Haimarakura" (Proceedings of the lioijal Geographical Society, 1880, p. 473), but which in 1883 he changed to "Haimara-kuroo" (at page 22 of Among the Indians of Guiana, where the same passage is but reprinted). The form Kuril (Curu, Cura) is found also at the beginning of names, notably those of rivers or falls, as Curabiri, Curabele, Curacura, Curaparu, Curasanie, Curatokoa, Curiebrong, Curiye, Curiyopo, Curumo. In the scanty Carib vocabularies acces- sible to me I have found no word resembling this unless it be that for canoe, found in the English derivative "corial" and in sundry compounds chronicled by Adelung (Miihridates, iii, 2). The real meaning of the form is, after all, of less account to the present research than its separable character and its association with names of streams, which hardly admit of doubt. Digitized by Microsoft® 332 BURR. in 1770/ of those concerned in the expedition, that it was "seventy leagues" from the then extreme missions of Guasipati and Cavallapi; but, as this is in all probability only an infer- ence from the duration of the journey, it can serve only as a confirmation of our reckoning. But there is another statement of the Spanish witnesses to the site of the Dutch post which must be discussed more fully, not only because I believe it to have been misunderstood, but because it has an important bearing on the political signifi- cance of the expedition of 1 758. The appeal of the prefect of the Capuchin mission, Fray Benito de la Garriga, in June, 1758, which led to the dispatching of the expedition, said nothing whatever of a Dutch post. What it complained of was the presence " at the mouth of the river Curumo " of certain Dutchmen buying slaves, though it did at the same time report a rumor of the Caribs that "three Dutchmen and ten negroes, with a large number of Caribs, are building houses and clear- ing the forest for the forming of a settlement in the Cuyuni." And the decree of the provisional Commandant of Guayana which created the expedition says likewise nothing of a post, but only that "on the island of Curamucuru, in the river Cu- yuni," "there is a Dutchman named Jacobs, with a negro of the same nationality, living there established in houses and carrying on the inhuman traffic of enslaving Indians;" where- fore it instructs the expedition in question to proceed "to the said island of Curamucuru secretly for the purpose of appre- hending the said Dutchmen." Now, the expedition, so far as appears from the testimony of its members, never found any island of Curamucuru. It certainly never found a Dutchman named Jacobs. The name ■Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 281-291. Venezuelan "Documents,'' II, pp. 187-217. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYCNI. 333 Curamucuru (Curumo-curu?) seems to mean simply Curumo Creek; and I am fain to suspect that the Orinoco Comman- dant's deficient knowledge of the Carib tongue may have led him into an error. In any case it is probable, as was long ago suggested by British scholars, that this name has some relation to that of the river, and that the site it denotes is not far dis- tant. It is true that, in a memorial addressed in 1769 1 to the King, Fray Benito, again prefect, stated that in the year 1758 he "reported to the Commandant of Gruayana that in the Cuyuni River, under the guise of a post, there was a settlement of two Dutch families with house and plantations," and that "he sent a detachment to seize them," 2 with more, showing that the capture of the post was in his thought. 3 But in the same paper "the prefect stated that other Hollanders had been domi- ciled at a point very high up the Cuyuni, near the mouth of the Curumo, not far from Cavallapi, and had since with- drawn." 4 If the prefect mentioned to the Commandant a Dutch post, it was in some communication yet unprinted; and, 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 117-119; Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 141- 150. In the Venezuelan publication this memorial of Father Benito is described (p. 141) as dated in 1760; and with this the certified Spanish transcripts submitted to the Commission agree. But this date is quite impossible, since the memorial mentions events of years as late as 1766. The British version of what seems the same memorial dates it in 1769, and this is doubtless right, though another document, described in the Venezuelan publication as of 1767 (id., p. 150), certainly seems to have been its letter of inclosure. 2 " Que el afio de58, avis6 el exponente al Comandante de Guayana que en el Rio- Cuyuni con capa de posta estaban de asiento dos familias Olandesas con Casa y labranzas y que mando & cojerlos y les hallaron una patente del Governador con las ordenes que devian observar . . ." 3 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 1," p. 118. Venezuelan " Documents," H, pp. 147, 148. 4 "Siguiendo su representacion el Prefecto expuso que otros Olandesas se avian domiciliado muy aca arriba de Cuyuni cerca de la boca de Curumo que no distaba mucho del Cavallapi y que despues se retiraron." (Cf. Venezuelan "Documents," p. 149.) This final clause is lacking to the document as printed by the Blue Book (p. 119), perhaps accidentally omitted. It is unimportant, as the tense of the verb implies the same thing. Digitized by Microsoft® 334 BURK. even if his memory be quite trustworthy and his statement correctly reported, it is nevertheless evident from the Comman- dant's order that, not the post, but the slave catchers at the mouth of the Curumo, were therein aimed at. The prefect never mentions " Curamucuru ; " but he certainly could not confuse "the mouth of the Curumo, not far from Cavallapi," with the site of that Dutch post, which he himself declared " seventy leagues" from Cavallapi. 1 The most plausible explanation, then, of the whole matter is that the Spanish expedition of 1758 was really intended for the arrest of a Dutch slave trader at the mouth of the Curumo, but that the Orinoco commandant by error defined the place as an island in the Cuyuni; and that his expedition, finding neither island nor Dutchman, pushed on down the river till other Dutchmen and a Dutch post rewarded their quest Nor can it affect the plausibility of this explanation that none of those concerned in the error cared later to point it out. 2 The enterprise having met with success, it was clearly good policy to make the most of it. Before passing from this episode it will be well to look once more at the two passages which seem in conflict with the remainder of the evidence. In interpreting that about the creek Orawary and the post's distance from the Spanish dwell- ings, two assumptions have been made which more careful study shows unwarranted by the passage. In the first place, it is not certain that by Orawary the Yuruari is meant. Noth- ing in what we know of the advance of the missions in this year along this river warrants Storm's statement about its being taken into complete possession by the Spaniards; the only mission known to have been founded in 1 755 on that 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 282. Venezuelan " Documents," II, p. 189. - In the investigation of Dutch complaints, a decade later, by the Spanish Council of the Indies. (See Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 280-291.) Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 335 river is that of Yuruari (San Josef de Leonisa), and this, as is believed, above the site of Tupuquen, which had been occupied until 1750. 1 Nor is the Yuruari the only stream which resembles Orawary in name. At a point which is only some ten or twelve hours above the place (Cuiva Creek) where I believe the post to have stood, there joins the Cuyuni from the south the creek Toroparu, important as the route of an Indian path to the Puruni and so to the Mazaruni. 2 Now, it is not known that the Spaniards were ever in possession of this stream; but there is evidence that in the following' year (1756) they were established in the Mazaruni, 3 and at a site which on quite other grounds is believed to have been at the junction of the Puruni with the Mazaruni. 4 Spanish occupation of such a creek would better have justified Storm's alarm than a new mission on the Yuruari, in whose upper valley the Capuchins had been established for a couple of decades. But, admitting that the Yuruari was probably meant, it is further to be noticed that Storm does not say that the Spanish dwellings so near to the Dutch post were in the creek Orawary. True, the order of the sentences suggests this ; but Storm was a diffuse and sometimes a hasty writer, and it would not be hard to cite from his letters graver lapses from continuity of thought than another interpretation would here require. And, when all is said, there remains the possibility that he was mistaken — a solution less violent than that which would assume his ignorance of the distance of the post from the Essequibo. As for Hartsinck's statement about the removal of the post 50 mijls higher up the river, it has perhaps been noticed that in 1 See pp. 205, 206 of vol. iii. 2 Mr. Schomburgk, in Blue Book "Venezuela No. 5," p. 19. s Extracts, pp. 369, 370. 4 See pp. 400, 401, below. Digitized by Microsoft® 33f> BURR. the letter of Storm which describes the site of the post there is a clause which in a carelessly written copy may easily have given rise to error. The site of the post, he wrote, '' can not much matter; even if it had lain fifty hours higher up, it was a thing which did not concern the Spaniards." 1 A very slight change or misreading could make this mean "although I had placed it fifty hours higher up;" and a mistake of Dutch hours for Dutch miles is not a grave one. But there is some reason to believe that a removal of the post up the river may indeed have been in prospect. It will be remembered that the Spanish expedition found the under- postholder two days above the post, and that he testified that he was busied there in helping some Indians make a clearing. He testified also, as did the postholder, that the lands about the post were not suited for cultivation, being marshy, though there were good lands higher up. 2 Now, it is at least not improbable that the clearing on which the under-postholder was engaged was intended as a new site for the post, and was that which the Capuchin prefect had reported as in progress. 3 And this conjecture is made much the more plausible by the fact that, when a few years later the Dutch post was reestab- lished, it was established, with bread grounds attached, at a point just two days above Cuiva Creek — at the island of Tokoro. 4 It is my belief that it was about being transferred to that island at its destruction in 1758. The destroyed post was not at once restored. Both the colonial authorities and the West India Company hoped that the Spanish Government would make reparation for the act of 1 Al had deaelve vyftig uuren hoger gelegen, was een aaek die de Spanjaerds niel en raekte. (Extracts, p. 387.) 2 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 247. Venezuelan " Documents," II, p. 30. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 235. Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 5. 4 For the proof of this see pp. 341-345 below. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 337 violence. 1 But they waited in vain. The postholder, with his assistant, sent by the Orinoco commandant to the governor at Cumana, was at length released from Spanish custody. He was not sent back to the Cuyuni, however, but was given a subor- dinate position at another post. 2 The Cuyuni was now, however, too familiar a route to be left open with impunity. A rascally colouist went up the river and misused the Indians under pretense of authority. 3 Spaniards or Spanish Indians repeatedly came all the way down to the Dutch plantations. 4 The Caribs, in dismay, were all withdrawing to the Essequibo. 5 Smugglers availed them- selves of this door. 6 Runaway slaves found the river an open road ; 7 they even began establishing themselves there. 8 Under these circumstances, it was not strange that in 1763 9 the gov- ernor should suggest to the Company the quiet reoccupation of the post in Cuyuni. 10 He recommended that a subaltern 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 115, 119. Extracts, pp. 393, 394, 396. s Down to 1760 he remained on the pay-roll as "outlier atthe Company's late post in Cuyuni." On September 30, 1760, however, he was paid up, and then " discharged from service, and continues to live iu this colony" (uyt den dienst wort ontslagen, en in dese Colonie blyft resideren). On February 1, 1762, he was again taken into service as bylier at Moruca. (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 117, 122.) 3 Blue Book •' Venezuela No. 3," p. 113. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 117, 120, 130, 134. 5 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 115, 120, 121, 126, 148, 149. B Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 118. 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 115, 118, 123, 126, 131. 8 In a passage omitted by the British translators from the governor's letter of May 28, 1761 (Blue Book, p. 116 — the passage immediately follows the second paragraph of the extract), he complains that "in the meantime the runaway slaves already begin to sojourn there, at present two of the Company's, with several others, being there, whom, up to now, in spite of all efforts used, I have not been able to get hold of." (Ondertusschen beginnen reels de ivegloopende slaeven sig daer op 1e houden, werkelyk twee van d' Ed: Comp. en eenige andere daer synde welke ik tot nu toe niettegenstaende alle aengewende devoiren niet magtig hebbe Tconne ivorden.) 9 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 123. 10 " I could greatly wish," he writes in this passage (not all of which is given by the Blue Book translation), "that your further memorial to the States-General might finally have the desired effect, and that an end might be reached of that matter, for VOL 1 22 Digitized by Microsoft® 338 BURE. officer, with ten or twelve men, be placed there as a guard. 1 The Company at once approved this project; but its execu- tion was delayed by the outbreak of the great slave revolt in Berbice and its spread to Demerara. In July, 1763, twenty soldiers were sent to aid in suppressing this revolt, 2 where- after ten or twelve of them were to be used to garrison the post in Guyuni. But it was long before any could be spared. 3 In June of 17. 34 the governor wrote of his hope to "make the necessary arrangements with the Caribs in Cuyuni to station an under-officer there with eight men." 4 But nothing could be done till the rainy season was over; and then Indians could not be had to aid in the reestablishment : 5 they feared the Spaniards. Yet the}' were at last won over by a promise of protection; and, to make sure of their loyalty by pro- viding for their support, it was resolved to plant bread- grounds at the post, which should be worked by disabled slaves no longer of use on the plantations. 7 The growing boldness of the Spaniards called for haste. 8 A postholder was found in the person of the corporal Pierre Martin, a French- man by birth, who on October 1, 1765, was engaged for this service and sent up the Cuyuni to make preparations. 9 It was, however, more than a year before the buildings and bread- which I very much long. But could you not find it good that meanwhile, without use of the least violence, possession should be again taken of the post in Cuyuni?" (Ik toenaclie seer TJEGA nailer memorie aen H. H. M. eyndelyk ran een gewenscht effect saJ wezen, en ren eynde van die saek sal gemaekt worden, timer seer nam- rerlange. Maer soude TJEGA niet goed konne vinden dat ondertusschen, sonder net initiate gewelt teplegen, weder bezit van de Post in Cajoeny wierd genomen.) literally, "to guard if (tot oeivaring detclce). ^Extracts, p. 399. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 126, 130. i Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 128. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 134. 6 Extracts, p. 404. 'Extracts, pp. 404, 406. Cf. Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 137. 8 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 134, 136, 138. * Extracts, p. 450. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI 339 grounds were ready; and though the postholder and his two assistants were on the ground before the end of 1766, 1 it was not until 1767 that they entered regularly on their duties. 2 In vain did the governor search for even a half-dozen soldiers for the garrison of the post; 3 he could find only Catholics and French- men, and these he would not trust there. As early as March, 1767, there was a rumor that the post had been sacked by the Spaniards. 4 This proved a false alarm; but Spanish influence over the Indians was such that thev would do nothing for the postholder, and even passed the post in their canoes in defi- ance of his summons to lie to for inspection. 5 In September there was again rumor that the post had been raided. 6 This was again an error; but the governor a few weeks later declared to the militia officers of the colony that there were no Indians left there, and that the new postholder could scarcely maintain himself. 7 In December the postholder, who had suf- fered much there from illness, asked on this pretext to be relieved; 8 and in February, 1768, on the ground that the Indians would have nothing to do with a Frenchman, he was allowed to withdraw, and was stationed elsewhere. 9 His place was never filled, nor were soldiers found for the post; the two byliers alone remained there, the elder in charge. 10 By 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 140, 141. Extracts, p. 422. 2 Meanwhile a Creole had been stationed at the foot of the falls, with instructions to patrol the river, reporting monthly to the governor. (Blue Book, p. 139.) He was captured by the Spaniards, but escaped and resumed his duties on the river. (Blue Book, pp. 142-144.) 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 138, 139, 142, 144. Extracts, p. 428. "Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 144. » . . "en seh'er wanneer hy de voorhy gaende vaertvygen belast aen te leggen" — the Blue Book translation, as will be seen, is not exact. (Blue Book, p. 144.) 6 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 147. 7 Extracts, p. 439. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 149. o Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 151-153 10 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 158. Digitized by Microsoft® 340 BURR. February, 1769, one of them had reported to the governor the abduction by the Spaniards of Indians from above the post, and the threat of a raid, not only upon the post, but even into the Mazaruni; 1 and a month later the governor complained that the remaining Indians, frightened by this abduction, were drawing off. 2 Anxiety was now constant; 3 and early in May there came once more tidings of a Spanish attack on the post. 4 This news was speedily corrected by a letter from the senior bylier, reporting not an actual but only a threatened attack. 5 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 6 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 sur- prises" 7 — 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." 8 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. 9 He remained there, however, through the 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 158. 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 160. Cf. also p. 161. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 164. J Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 166. 6 Extracts, pp. 454, 455. 6 Extracts, p. 493. Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 176. 'Bine Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 176. 8 " Hy is daar nu, is veel heter bedekt voor surprisen maar legen myn intentie volstreM, wyl ih die Post om goede reedenen gaeren hoe langer hoe hooger op de rivier wilde hebben." 9 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 176. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 341 following year and into the next, apparently undisturbed by the Spaniards. 1 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. 2 Thus quietly, but forever, the post in the Cuyuni disappeared from the records of the colony. Often as this third and last of the Cuyuni posts finds men- tion in Dutch documents during its troubled half-dozen years of existence (1766-1772), its site is never named save in the postholder's mention of its transfer to Toenamoeto, the island between two falls; and its distance from any other point is not once recorded. 3 It is true that its reestablishment was at the time commonly spoken of as a mere "restoring" or "replacing," 4 but the establishment of bread grounds makes it unlikely that it was at the old site, which both the postholder and his assist- ant had in 1758 declared unsuited to cultivation. 5 Again Span- ish records afford a help. In his letter to the King in 1769 6 the Capuchin prefect, Fray Benito de la Garriga, informs him that, "according to what the Indians tell us, . . . from the mouth iBlne Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 180. 2 All this is gathered from the pay-rolls. 3 No tenable argument can be drawn, I think, from a, comparison of the dates of the postholder's letters with those of the governor mentioning their receipt. These letters of the governor, filling often thirty, forty, even fifty pages with the finest script, were the desultory work of many days, and the single date they bear (usually at the end) shows only when they were finally sealed and committed to the letter bag. The dates of their earlier pages and of their postscripts can only be guessed at, and the identity of their "yesterdays" and "last weeks" must be inferred from the context alone. 4 The word used is " kersiellen" or "herplaatsen;" only once (Extracts, p. 422), verplaatsen, "to remove to another place." 5 Yet it is not quite certain that they meant more than unsuited to sugar cane or other commercial crops, not including the native cassava. H Blue Book " Venezuela No. 1," p. 118. Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 147. Digitized by Microsoft® 342 BURR. of the Cuyuni, upstream from Essequibo, at eight days of navigation, they (the Dutch) have a guard of six soldiers, and it is said that in this distance of the eight days there are no plantations because the ground is sandy." 1 With all allowance for the slowness of Indian travel when Indians travel alone, this must mean that the post was consid- erably above the former site, and, in view of Dutch silence on the point, it would be hard to believe, were there not from another source evidence more definite and cogent. When in 1837 Hilhouse, the first Englishman to ascend the Cuyuni, made his expedition up that river, the first trace he found of earlier occupation by white men was when early on the tenth day of his slow journey he reached "Tocro Island, where a white man, most likely a smuggler, is reported to have resided some years before." 2 The place is not hard to identify, because, according to his journal, it is midway between a well-known creek, "Torupaaru," and an equally well-known fall, the " Wohmuypongh." One of these he reached a day earlier, the other a day later. Four years later Mr. Schomburgk, approach- ing from the opposite direction and with a keen ear for all evidence of Dutch occupation, reached the same spot. Already before leaving the Barima he had "understood from some Indians, who were well acquainted with the Cuyuni, that there had been once a Dutch post at an island called Tokoro," which, he adds, "was much farther to the west than that part of the Cuyuni where, from the information I had received previously to my submitting the memorial on the boundaries of British Guiana, I considered the boundary line ought to 1 "Segunnoticiasquenosdan loslndios . . . de dichabocadc Cuyuni, rio arriba de Esquivo, a ocho dias de navegacion, tienen una guardia de seis soldados, y se dice que en esa distancia de los ocho dias, no hay plantages, por ser tierras avenosas." The Venezuelan translation of this passage seems not only an impossible rendering of the Spanish, but is irreconcilable with the sentence just preceding. = Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of Loudon, vol. vii (1837), p. 449. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 343 cross to the river Cuyuni." 1 Just where he had been taught to look for it is suggested a little later in his journal, when (speaking of Dutch trade via the Cuyuni at the middle of the eighteenth century) he says, "It was at this period (1750-1760) that the Dutch possessions extended to the foot of that series of falls of which Kanaima is the most considerable." 2 Now, this is precisely the location of Hilhouse's "Tocro;" for, according to Mr. Schomburgk, the Wohmuypongh, or, as he spells it, the Womuipong, 3 is near the lower end of the Kanaima "series of falls," 4 and if the island is in reality east instead of west of the point where the boundary line described by him in 1839 5 would cross the Cuyuni, this suggests only his ignorance of the precise geography of that river prior to his exploration of it. "About eight miles below Arakuna," where the falls end, Mr. Schomburgk himself (whose narrative betrays no knowledge of Hilhouse's) found "the island Tokoro (Tokoro-patti), where, towards the close of the last century, the farthest outpost of the Dutch was situated." "Although gener- ations have elapsed," he adds, "the circumstance that a Dutch postholder once resided here has remained traditionary, and our guide, an old Waika, assured me that his father had frequently mentioned it to him, and that the postholder's name was ' Palmsteen.' The post was afterwards destroyed by the Span- iards and the postholder withdrawn nearer towards the culti- vated part of the colony." 6 Thus Mr. Schomburgk. He "reached in the afternoon the Toruparu," and a day or two later, less than two days before iBIne Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 216; "Venezuela No. 5," p. 12. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 224: "Venezuela No. 5," p. 18. 3 Thus his map. His journal, as printed, has "Wounnipong" (Blue Book "Vene- zuela No. 1" ), or "Wommipong" (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 5"). "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 224; "Venezuela No. 5, p. 19. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 184. " Blue Book " Venezuela No. 1," pp. 224. 225 ; " Venezuela No. 5," p. 19. Digitized by Microsoft® 344 BUEE. his arrival at the mouth of the river, at the head of "the third [and last] series of falls," he came to "the Cataract Tonomo, where the postholder resided after his station had been withdrawn from Tokoro Island." 1 Now, when it is remembered how well-nigh impossible it is that Mr. Schom- burgk could have known anything of the mention, in a letter of the acting postholder nearly a century earlier, of the island of Toenamoeto, and how intrinsically probable it is, on the ground both of name and of situation, that that "island between two falls" was at this cataract Tonoma, 2 respect must grow for his Indian tradition. At first blush, " Palmsteen," the Indian's name for the postholder, seems far enough from Pierre Martin, which we know to have been the true one; but when one stops to think that by the Dutch this would have been pronounced "Peermarteen" (with the accent on the last syllable), and that these Indian tribes, like so many other peo- ples, fail to distinguish the liquids I and r, so that "Peermar- teen" would be also "Peelmalteen," the unlikeness is not so great. 3 And when it is also borne in mind that Mr. Schom- burgk was of course trying to make the word spoken by the Indian sound like a Dutch name, the resemblance makes more credible the Indian story. That the Spaniards destroyed the post of 1766-1769 is indeed unknown to us from the Dutch records; but, since the tradition of the withdrawal of the postholder implies that this destruction took place after his removal, it is anything but improbable. That this island of Tokoro would also well answer to that 'Blue Book " Venezuela No. 1," p. 225; " Venezuela No. 3," p. 19. 2 What the termination "-oeto" (-ooto, -uto; the Dutch oe is pronounced like our oo) may mean I can not say. Father Pelleprat reports a Carib word auto, "house." May there not earlier have been a rest-house there? 3 In the Carib speech "the letters I and r," according to Adelung (Mithridatea, Th. 3, Abth. 2), "are pronounced alike and are interchangeable." The speech of theWaikas, to whom Sehomburgk's informant belonged, is a variety of the Carib. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 345 spot, two days above the earlier post, wherein 1758 the under- posthoider was arrested while engaged, as he claimed, in help- ing to make a clearing, and that it is by no means impossible that even then a transfer to this site was in prospect, I have pointed out above. 1 If this inference be justified, it is no longer strange that, when reestablished, the post, with its bread grounds, was placed here without mention to the home authorities of any change of site. In view of all this cumulative evidence and suggestion, no reasonable doubt can obtain, I think, as to the sites of this latest of Dutch posts in the Cuyuni. That it was the latest may, however, need some further demonstration. It never appears again in pay-roll or muster-roll, and no paid servant of the colony could have been stationed there. That it was not the intention of the West India Company to abandon it is shown by the provision for it, in the regulations for the reorganization of the colony in 1773, 2 of the stated post- holder and byliers ; and in the project of Heneman for the defenses of the colony in 1776 3 a garrison also is once more planned for it. But already in 1769 Storm van 's Gravesande had declared that, owing to the multitude of inland paths, the post was no longer of use ; 4 and Trotz, who succeeded him as Director-General in 1772, was a disbeliever in the efficacy of posts for the stoppage of runaways. 5 Having authority to man the posts at his discretion, but obliged to report his action to the Company, 6 he never manned that in the Cuyuni 1 See p. 336. 2 Extracts, p. 500. a Extracts, pp. 520-527. ■■Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 159, 160; cf. Extracts, p. 439. 6 Extracts, p. 558. e A resolution of the Ten, June 22, 1778, gave him express authority "' tot de aanstelling der vaceerende Byleggers en Posthouders plaatsen, met byvoeging, omme daervan, aan deeze Fergadering, met den eersien kennis te moeien geeven." It was but the confirmation of a power earlier exercised. Digitized by Microsoft® 346 BURR. at all, for lie never reported it. 1 When in 1785, after the resto- ration of the colony by the French, Trotz's successor and the colonial Court of Policy were embarrassed by the return of the old M oruca postholder, Dyk, after they had chosen another for that post, they did indeed suggest that he might perhaps be stationed at the " old post in Cuyuni, still without a post- holder." 2 But the suggestion was ignored by the Company, and we presently find Dyk filling the more edifying and diver- sified office of sexton, chorister, school-teacher, and comforter of the sick to the colony. With the transfer of the colony's cen- ter to the new capital in Demerara the Cuyuni seemed remote indeed, and in the last quarter of the century the river's name rarely appears in the colonial records. When in 1789 the Spanish officer Lopez de la Puente made his armed reconnois- sance down the Cuyuni to its mouth, he found nobodv on guard except a Carib, who dwelt at the foot of the lowest fall; him he carried off. 3 A year later, in 1790, 4 the same officer heard through the Indians that the Dutch had "thrown out an advance guard at the place Onore-rama, 5 or 6 leagues up from the mouth of the Cuyuni," but he counted this infor- mation "not very reliable;" and the absence of all confirma- tion of it in the Essequibo records justifies us in sharing his skepticism. In short, then: 1. While the Dutch occupation of the mouth of the Cuyuni goes back to the earliest presence of the Dutch in the Esse- quibo, plantations were not pushed up that river until the eighteenth century, and were never at any time carried above the lowest falls. ' I need hardly say that his letters, which are all preserved, have been searched through with care. 2 Extracts, pp. 584-586; of. p. 588. 3 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 338, 339 ; Venezuelan " Documents," III, p. 250. ■•Venezuelan " Documents," III, p. 61. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE CUYUNI. 347 2. Mining in the Cuyuni was attempted in the years 1741- 1743, its farthest operations being about two days' journey from the mouth of the river. 3. Thrice for brief periods the Dutch maintained a post in the upper valley of that river — (1) in 1703, from May to Sep- tember, at a point unknown, but in the savanna, and most probably on the Curumo; (2) in 1754-1758, at Cuiva (proba- bly Quive-Kuru), three days' journey up the river; (3) in 1766-1772, first at the island of Tokoro (1766-1769), then at that of Toenamoeto, in the Tonoma Eapids (1769-1772). Digitized by Microsoft® 348 BURR. 9. THE DUTCH IN THE MAZARUNI. It was in the Mazaruni that Dutch settlement in the Esse- quibo began; for Kykoveral, though near its confluence with the Cuyuni, was always reckoned in the Mazaruni. In that river, under shelter of the fort, probably lay the earliest plan- tations. Of these, at Van Berkel's visit in 1671, there were but three, of which the greatest was an hour 1 above Kykoveral, 2 doubt- less, therefore, in the Mazaruni, near the head of tide water. By 1687 the number of free planters had risen to eighteen, 3 of whom some two-thirds probably dwelt in the Mazaruni;* and when in 1701 the colony was divided for military purposes into two districts the plantations in the Mazaruni formed one, those in the Essequibo the other. 5 Though the plantations seem to have dwindled then to a dozen, the good ground was so taken up that in 1704 it was found necessary to gain more by moving above the falls in Mazaruni the Company's plantation of Poelwijk, 6 which lay ■To apply this Dutch measure of distance see the scale on map 60 of the Atlas. 2 A van Berkel, Amerikaanache Voyagien, pp. 42-44. 3 Letter of Commandeur Beekman, November 4, 1687 (printed by Netscher, pp. 374-377). 4 At least, a list of the planters "up in Essequibo" (boven in Ysequebe) appended to the governor's letter of January 15, 1685, names but five; and it is unlikely that at that date there were plantations below the confluence of the rivers. In thus speaking of the Mazaruni I include, as was then and later commonly done, the united Mazaruni and Cuyuni, to their junction with the Essequibo. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. %" p. 68. ^Extracts, p. 208. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE MAZARUNI. 349 just at their foot. Whether or no this was fully carried out, the earliest extant map of the colony, 1 in 1706, represents the Mazaruni- as occupied nearly or quite to the falls, 2 as is the Essequibo above the confluence; and this map is confessedly incomplete. 3 Yet, if Poelwijk was actually moved above the rapids, the experiment can hardly have proved a success; for in 1722 the engineer Maurain-Saincterre reported of the Mazaruni, as well as of the other rivers, that thus far no European had cared to establish a sugar plantation above the falls; 4 and in 1731 the colonial Court of Policy included the Mazaruni as well as the Guyuni in their statement to the Company as to the impossi- bility of plantations above the falls. 5 Later grants, however, show that so sweeping a statement must be taken with a grain of salt. Thus, in 1745, the colonists Christian Finet and Daniel Couvreur asked for the same lands "above in Mazaruni," and were put off till they should come to an understanding. 6 Whether either obtained the grant does not appear; but on 1 Atlas, map 59. 2 These falls are a series of rapids beginning just at the head of tide water. Those of the Mazaruni are much lower and less dangerous than those of the Cuyuni; hut in both rivers they form a dividing point recognized in Dutch documents by the use of the terms " boven" and " beneden," literally "above" and ''beneath." The "boren " river was the whole river above these rapids; the " beneden" river, the short tide- water reach below. These phrases, appearing in such form as "in de boven rivier," sometimes as " boven in Mazaruni," and sometimes simply as " boven Mazaruni," are not easy to translate. "Up in Mazaruni" implies too little; " in the upper Maza- runi" suggests too much; " above in Mazaruni " is hardly English. There is reason, too, to believe that, as the drift of the colony to the coast made these rivers even more remote, "boren in Mazaruni" sometimes meant " in the Mazaruni " in general. For illustration see p. 305, note. 'See (iu vol. iii) my report on "Maps from Official Sources," p. 127. Poelwijk, as shown on this map of 1706 (Atlas, map 59), is wholly on the island of Caria, which is below the rapids; and just above it, mainly on smaller islands in the river, is shown another plantation, " het Loo." 4 Extracts, p. 248. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 83. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 85. Digitized by Microsoft® 350 BURR. the map of 1748 a "Gr." Finet — perhaps by error for "C." Finet — is named as the owner of a plantation in that river, while Convreur's name is not shown. 1 But the latter also must soon have obtained land there, for in 1754 another colonist, Appelhans, was granted, "above in the river of Mazaruni," not only "the so-called Grerbrandes Island," but on the river bank "to 500 rods above the land of Daniel Couvreur;" 3 and in 1756 the Director-General writes of the coming down of Couvreur "from up in Mazaruni where he lives," to report the alarming tidings brought by "certain Indians who had retreated to him from above." 3 Important though it is to determine the exact site of Couvreur's plantation, I am unable to do so with certainty. The rule, which later obtained, that new lands granted must adjoin those already granted was perhaps not yet in force. The map of Bouchenroeder, in 1796-1798, 4 which almost certainly rested on the land records of the colony, 6 though it contains a long stretch of the Mazaruni, shows no plantations above the falls ; while it does show on the west side of that river a plantation above the highest plantations marked on the map of 1748. Yet this can hardly be that granted to Appelhans in 1754, for in that case the owner of the estate below it should have been Couvreur; while in fact in the map 1 Thus, at least, in the copy of this map reproduced by the Commission (Atlas, map 60) ; bnt so slight a variation may perhaps bo attributed to a copyist's error. Finet was, in 1748, a planter in Demerara also (see map), and in 1755 was resident there (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 147). He seems to have been a surveyor also, and on occasion an explorer; we hear of journeys made by him to the upper Cuyuni and Mazaruni, and also to the Waini and the Barima. (Blue Book, pp. 86, 130, 146, 147.) Possibly the rover (p. 90; Extracts, p. 322), whose name is spelled Pinet, was the same man. It was Finet who joined the German Von Rosen, in 1755, in inviting the Prussian King to take possession of the Barima and the Waini. (Blue Book, p. 147.) 2 Extracts, p. 350. 3 Extracts, p. 369. 4 Atlas, map 70. 6 See, in vol. iii, pp. 163-173 of my report on Maps from Official Sources. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE MAZAEUNI. 351 of 1748 this is marked as the bread plantation of Pieter Mar- chal; and Pieter Marchal, as is known from his part in stirring up the Carib-Accoway war, was in 1755 still living in Maza- runi, and, as it would seem, above the other plantations. 1 Inas- much as early in 1756 the Accowa)^ forced Marchal to leave his plantation, it is of course not impossible that it was there Couvreur was living in July of that year; but this would not explain the land owned by him in Mazaruni in 1754. As, however, Couvreur was a planter, it is at least exceedingly probable, in view of the habits of the colony, that his lands adjoined those earlier in cultivation. There is certainly noth- ing elsewhere in the Dutch records which suggests that he or any other lived up the Mazaruni at a distance from the other planters. In 1757 there was granted to Gerrit Dirkse van Leeuwen 2 "the island of Noriwaka in the upper Mazaruni," 3 provided that island should prove to contain not more than five hundred acres. 4 Later mentions of grant or occupation in that river above tide water I have not found in the Dutch records. 5 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 106, 107. 2 A decade later Gerrit Dirkse van Leeuwen was second bylier at the restored post on the Cuyuni. (See, e. g., Blue Book, p. 158; the full name often appears.) The island of Noriwaka, like Gerbrandes Island, is not to be identitiedby the maps. "I. e., "above in Mazaruni." "Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 109. 5 Of a grant of 1773 (known to me only through the report of the British Guiana land commissioners in 1855) of lands described as "situate in the upper Massarou- ney," but known to lie even below Kykoveral, I have elsewhere spoken (p. 305, note). As the minutes of the colonial Court of Policy, which contain the record of the land grants, were prior to 1773 forwarded only in extracts to the home authorities, and as the extracts thus sent do not include the grants of land, which are knowu only through transcripts recently made for the British Government in the colonial archives at Georgetown, I can not state with confidence that the grants mentioned in my text are all that pertain to the "upper Mazaruni." Yet it is perhaps fair to assume that, as these were what were especially sought by the agents of Great Britain, none have been omitted. The only lands in Mazaruni which were reported by the colonial land commissioners in 1855 as still claimed, besides the lot mentioned just above, are (1) Cartabo, at the junction of Mazaruni and Cuyuni, (2) a piece of Digitized by Microsoft® 352 BURK. In 1739 the colonial authorities sent the Company speci- mens of ores from the Mazaruni as well as from the Cuyuni, 1 and when in 1741 the mining engineer Hildebrandt was sent over, he began his operations in the Mazaruni. 2 But he went no higher than a little above the plantation Poelwijk, and even here, though he opened a shaft, his work was not long continued. For fishing and hunting and for trade with the Indians the upper Mazaruni was in use by the Dutch colony from an early date. 3 By 1686, at least, they had there an "annatto store," 4 and the Company's monopoly of trade there in that dye and in Indian slaves was long maintained. 5 But there is no record of the existence there at any time of a post, 6 or of any other resident occupation by the Dutch at any point beyond that reached by the plantations. Exploration in the upper Mazaruni was seldom or never attempted by the Dutch. "The colonist E. Pipersberg," wrote the. Essequibo governor in 1764, "is the only man to my knowledge who has been any distance up the river." 7 His errand thither was the capture of runaway slaves; and he reached tribes there which had never before seen a white man. 8 land ou the east bank of the Mazaruni which is described as '' intersected by Uni- peeru Creek," and (3) "a certain tract of Government land situated on the eastern bank of Massarooney River, the southern bank of Cayooney, bearing due west 100 roods facade and 300 deep, and containing 100 acres" — apparently in Cuyuni, there- fore, rather than in Mazaruni. ■Extracts, pp. 282, 283. - Extracts, p. 285. = Extracts, pp. 149, 233. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 62. f'Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 82, 83. Extracts, No. 118. fi It is, of course, possible that the "annatto store" was such a post; but, if so, it had ceased to exist by 1691, for there is no mention of it in the muster-roll of that year, nor does it ever appear therealter. 'Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 130. "Extracts, p. 413. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DUTCH IN THE MAZAEUNI. 353 The only landmark left on record by his trip was a high "pyramid" seen at his right on his way back. Another col- onist, C. Finet, 1 had been far enough up the river to testify that it could be navigated without danger. 2 Of other explora- tion we do not hear. In brief: 1. The Mazaruni was the earliest seat and center of the Dutch in Essequibo. 2. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the planta- tions had reached the head of tide water, and during that cen- tury were in two or three instances pushed higher, though probably only far enough to secure fresh ground. 3. Trade with the Indians in the upper river began early, but no regular post was ever maintained there. 4. No thorough exploration of the river was ever attempted, and its upper reaches were virtually unknown. 1 Cf. pp. 349, 350, above. - Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 130. vol 1 23 Digitized by Microsoft® 354 BUKR. 10. DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 1 Neither in connection with the early trading expeditions to Guiana nor with the first projects for its colonization is there now to be found in Dutch records a claim to definite territory there. 2 The most that is anywhere urged is that this region is not yet occupied by the Spaniards or the Portuguese, and is therefore open to trade or to settlement. According to Jan de Laet (writing in 1625), a charter was granted by the States-General to a Dutch colony in the Corentyn, probably that known to us from Spanish records as existing there in 1613. This charter can not now be found. There is nothing in De Laet's mention of it to suggest, that the territory speci- fied in it included aught else than that river itself. 3 When, in 1621, there was conferred upon the Dutch West India Company (1621-1674) by charter a monopoly of trade on all the coasts of America, with authority to "promote the settlement of fruitful and uninhabited districts," no specific mention was made either of Guiana or of any other stretch of territory, the only limits named being the extreme points of 'I speak here of claims made by the Dutch Government, or in its name by those who had some right to speak for it — as the Dutch West India Company or the colo- nial authorities. Claims made to the Company or to the State by these colonial authorities or by individuals have been mentioned in my discussion of the occupa- tion of the several rivers. 2 This silence, if real, is the more notable because as early as 1613 the English King, as the Dutch must have been aware, granted a patent of all Guiana from the Amazon to the Essequibo. 3 De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt, ed. of 1625, p. 474. The passage runs : " Op dese rieviere Coretini Tiebien ons Nederlandere gkeliandelt ende oock voleh ghehouden reel jaren gheleden, de Hog. Mog, Heeren Staten Generael hadden daer Octroy van verleent." Cf. note, p. 160, above. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 355 America — Newfoundland, the Strait of Magellan, and the straits we now know as Bering's. On the territorial rights of the Dutch West India Company under its charters I have already made a special report to the Commission (pp. 99-117 of this volume), and to that I must here refer, adding only that nothing I have learned in my researches in European archives suggests modification of the conclusions therein reached. In 1628 Jan de Laet, then the foremost Dutch authority of his time upon America and a leading director of the West India Company, wrote for the little geographical series of the Elzevirs a book on "Spain, or on the realms and resources of the King of Spain," in which he clearly set forth his views as to the claims of European states in Gluiana — views very prob- ably shared by his colleagues of the Company. "From the River Orinoco," he writes, "the continent extends through vast expanses of territory to that other river, far the greatest of all, which is called that of the Amazons, and thence onward to the river or island Maranon. In all this space, which comprises vast provinces, and in which a multitude of rivers issue into the ocean, the Spaniards possess almost nothing except on the left bank of the River Amazon, at its mouth, a certain fortress, which they call Para, from which they seek to gain for them- selves an entrance into the interior provinces. The English, however, and especially our people [the Dutch], visit frequently all this coast and these rivers and carry on trade with the natives." And this is all he says of Gruiana. 1 '"A flumine Oronoque continens magnis terrarum spatiis ad alteram flumen longe vastissimum extenditur quod vulgo Amazoniim vocant, atque ab illo porro ad flumen sive insulam Marahnon; toto autem hoc spatio, quo ingentes provincife eomprehen- duntur, et quamplurimi amues in Oceanum exeunt, nihil fere possident Hispani, pneterquam ad sinistram ingredientibus flumiuis Amazoniim ripaua, arcem quandam quam vocant Param, e qua sibi adituni in iuteriores provincias parare satagunt. Angli autem et nostrates maxime, omnem hauo oi'am et hos ainnes crebro adeunt et cum indigenis commercia exercent." — Hiapania, sive de Regis Hispanice regnis et opibus commentarius (Leyden, 1629), p. 225. Digitized by Microsoft® 356 BURR. In similar phrase the West India Company itself, in a remonstrance addressed to the States-General in 1633, declared that "from New Spain eastward the whole coast of Incanata, Honduras, and Terra Firma (as the Spaniards call it) to beyond Trinidad is all occupied by Spaniards, and not only the coasts but also the islands ; except next to these, the regions of Guiana, which we call the "Wild Coast; this coast and divers rivers are yet unsettled and inhabited by free savages, and in these regions are many products which might be advanta- geously brought hither. But what of it ! These nations are so barbarous and have so few wants (inasmuch as they have no desire for clothing and need nothing else for their sub- sistence) that all the trade which exists there can easily be carried on with two or three ships a year, and be main- tained with trifling capital. This region is bounded by the great river of the Amazons, which also is not free from occu- pation by Spaniards, as our people have experienced to their damage." x To the West India Company, under its charter of 1621, belonged, of course, the right to plant Dutch colonies on the ■"Nil van Noua Hispania voorwaerts naer 't oosten de gantsche Custe van Inca- nata, de Honduras ende Terra Firma (als de Spangiaerden dat noeinen), tot voorby de Trinidad, is niet alleen de Custen, maer ooek de eylanden al met Spangiaerden beset ; alleen so volgen hieraen de landen van Guiana, welck wy noemen de wilde Cust; dese Cust ende verseheyde rivieren sijn nog oiibeslaegen ende bewoond by vrije wilden, ende in dese landen vallen met verscheyden goederen, die met pronijt in dese landen connen gebracht worden ; uiaer wat ist, dese natien sijn soo barbaris ende soe onbehoefticb (door dien sy noch lust tot cleedinge hebben, noeh yts anders tot onderhoud des levens van doen hebben), dat alle den handel die hier valt, ligt met twee a drie schepen jaerlyox can gedreven, ende met gering capitael can onder- houden worden. 'T selve is van de groote rivier des Amasones de welcke ooek niet vrijen is van de besettinge van Spangiarden, gelyek de ouse met haere schade hebben bevonden." This passage is among those transcribed at The Hague by Brodhead in 1841 for the State of New York, and is printed (in translation) in the Documents relative to the Colonial History of New York (vol. i, p. 66). Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 357 coasts of America. 1 And the Zeeland Chamber of that Com- pany claimed, as against the other Chambers, the exclusive right to colonize the coast of Gruiana. The Amsterdam 1 Of interest in this connection is an " Order for the West India Company touching the. "boundary in Neic Xetherland," issued by the States-General on January 23, 1664 : "The States- General of the United Netherlands, to all who shall hear or see these, Health : — Be it known, Whereas, for divers and weighty reasons, we thought proper, in the year 1621, to erect and establish in our country a company called the West India Company, through the same alone, and to the exclusion of all others, to resort and trade to the coasts and countries of Africa, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and the countries of America, or the West Indies, from the south end of Terra Xova through the Straits of Magellan and Le Maire, or other passages and straits situate thereabouts, unto the Strait of Anjan, as well on the North as South Sea, and all islands lying on the one and the other side and betwixt both, and ex- tending to the Australian or southern countries, and lying between both meridians, including in the east the Cape of Good Hope and in the west the east end of New Guinea. Granting, by the second article of the charter of the 3d of June, 1621, given to them under Our great seal, further and more particularly, that they, in Our name a,nd by Our authority, may, within the aforesaid limits, make and conclude con- tracts, treaties, and alliances with the Princes and natives of the countries contained therein, erect fortresses and strongholds there, appoint, remove, and dismiss Gov- ernors, soldiers, and officers of justice necessary for all requisite services for the con- servation of the places, the maintenance of good order, police, and justice, together with the promotion of trade, aud others in their places to appoint, according as the snmc shall be found proper; and especially as it may best promote the peopling of fruitful and uninhabited countries; and the aforesaid company having, from the beginning, by virtue of the aforesaid charter, in conformity with Our sincere inten- tion, established their population and colonists on the coast of America, in the coun- try called New Netherland, notwithstanding which some persons evil disposed towards our State and the said company, endeavor to misrepresent Our good and honest meaning, as the same is contained in the said charter, as if We had privileged the said company only to trade within the said limits, and not to colonize nor to plant settlements, nor take possession of lands, calling the company's right thereto in question. "Wherefore We, being desirous to assure all, each, and every one whom it may concern, of our intention in the aforesaid charter, hereby declare Our meaning well and truly to have been and still to be, that the aforesaid company was and is still empowered to establish colonies and settlements on lands unoccupied by others, within the limits aforesaid." . . . The document is printed by Luzac, in his Hollands Bijkdom, ii, Bijlaage L, and is translated in full in the Documents relative to the Colonial History of Xew York (ii, pp. 228-229). The documents of the controversy between the English and Dutch in New Netherland, most of which are to be found in the collection last named, are full of suggestion as to the nature of the territorial claims of the Dutch. Digitized by Microsoft® 358 BUEE. Chamber, however, protested in 1658 that "the whole Wild Coast, it being from the first degree to the tenth more than two hundred [Dutch] miles," could not possibly be colonized by the Zeeland Chamber alone. 1 The matter having been brought before the Nineteen, it was, on September 3, 1659, agreed that "As regards New Netherland where the Amster- dam Chamber, and the Wild Coast where the Zeeland Cham- ber, have their colonies, respectively, it shall be open to the other Chambers ... to establish there also their colo- nies, at suitable and unoccupied places, and to allow others, private individuals, to come with their colonies, always with prior notification to, and knowledge and approval of, the Board of Nineteen, and on such an equitable footing, and under such order and regulations, as not to conflict with the colonies already established by Amsterdam and Zeeland." 2 In the sundry bodies of inducements to colonists in Guiana drawn up and promulgated by the West India Company from 1627 to 1657, it is repeatedly assumed that the whole "Wild Coast" is open to Dutch colonization. 3 This is once defined as extending from the Amazon to the Orinoco, 4 once as reach- ing from the Amazon to an unnamed degree of north latitude, 5 once is even made to stretch "from the Amazon to the Wild or Caribbean Islands, both inclusive." 6 Oftener the term is left undefined, as self-explanatory. Extracts, pp. 130,131. 2 "En wat aengaet Nieuw Nederland, daer de Kamer van Amsteldam, en de Wilde Kust daer de Kamer van Zeeland, ieder hare Colonien hebben, zoo zal het de andere Kameren vry staen (blyvende de Resolution te voren genomen in haer geheel), op bekwame en onbebeerde Plaetsen, ook hare Colonien, aldaer te stabileren, en andere particulieren onder bare Colonien te laten komen, alles met voorgaende Notificatie, Kennis en Approbatie van de Vergaderinge der Negentienen, en op eenen egalen voet, Ordre en Eeglement, niet strydig tegens de alreede gestabileerde Colonien van Amsteldam en Zeeland." — (Nederlandsehe Jaerbotken, 1751, p. 1098. ^Extracts, pp. 47, 56, 57, 60, 113, 118, 120, 121, 124, 125. •■Extracts, p. 60. 'Extracts, p. 113. "Extracts, p. 56, note. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 359 When, in 1657, the provincial Estates of Zeeland were be- sought by the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company to take under their patronage the new Guiana colony about to be established, this was described as "on the Wild Coast of Essequibo and adjacent places, stretching from the first to the tenth degree of north latitude, between the rivers Orinoco and Amazon;" 1 and when, later in the same year, the direction of the colonization of Guiana was transferred by the Company to the three Walcheren cities, they were empowered by the Com- pany to "establish and plant colonies on the continental Wild Coast between the first and the tenth degree." 2 How the Dutch looked on Guiana at this period is suggested by a little tract written in 1659 in the interest of the coloniza- tion of this region — a "Description of Guiana," under the form of a dialogue between a countryman, a townsman, and a sailor. The townsman, having asked the sailor "Where is this land Guiana situated?" and having learned that "This land is situ- ated between the great rivers Amazon and Orinoco," next inquires "Has this land its own government, or have the Span- iards and Portuguese anything to say there?" and is told: "This land has its own kings and governments; neither Span- iard nor Portuguese has anything to say there — they do not even come thither, inasmuch as the Guianese are mortal foes of the Spanish and Portuguese nations." It is clear that by "the Guianese" and their governments are understood the Indians, and that Guiana, though not Spanish or Portuguese, is not thought of as belonging to the Dutch. 3 •Extracts, p. 124. ^Extracts, p. 125. 3 Stee-man: "Waer is dit Landt Guiana gelegen?" Schipper: "Dit Landt is gelegen in 't zuyder America . . . bepaelt tusschen de vennaerde Rivieren, Amazonas, en Oroneque, ofte Worroneque." Stee-man : " Heef t dit Landt syn eygen regeeringe, of hebben de Spangiaerts en Portugesen daer oock wat te seggen?" Schipper: "Dit Landt heeft syn eygeu Koningen en Kegeeringe, den Spangiacrt Digitized by Microsoft® 360 BURR. But, while there is thus abundant evidence of a claim of the Dutch to plant colonies freely on the coast of Guiana from the Amazon to the Orinoco, I have found in Dutch records no claim, as against other European States, of an exclusive right thus to colonize Guiana; and no protest at any time against the similar attempts which, throughout the greater part of this century, the English and the French were likewise making to plant colonies on this coast. 1 The Treaty of Minister, by which in 1648 Spain for the first time formally recognized the independence of the Dutch and the existence of their colonial possessions, makes no mention of Guiana or of any other region by name ; nor do the records of the negotiations, preserved to us in great fullness, show any mention of that district. Equally silent are the treaties of the Netherlands with England and with France. Nor are the Guiana colonies matters of discussion in the diplomatic corre- spondence between Holland and Spain. And when, in 1674, the old West India Company was dis- solved, the charter given by the States-General to its suc- cessor granted it, not as before the entire coast of America, nor even the Wild Coast of Guiana, but on the American noch Portugese, en heeft daer niet te seggen, sy komen daer oock niet, vermits de Guianesen doodt vyanden zyn van de Spaensche en Portngeesche natie." (Beschryvinge van Guiana . . . Discourerender wy se voorgestelt, tusschen een Boer ofte Landt-man, een Burger ofte Stee-man, een Sehipper ofte Zee-man, een Haegsche Bode: Hoorn, 1676, pp. 13, 14.) Although not printed until 1676, the book was written, as its preface tells us, in 1659. ■Addressing the English ambassador, in 1664, A propos of the controversy over New Netherland, the Dutch States-General maintained "that property which lies wild, desert, sterile, and vacant belongs to him who happens to occupy it; that this title of occupation constitutes that of the inhabitants of this state to the lands of New Netherland, and that the English themselves have no other title to the lands which they possess in those countries;" and that " possession is a real taking up, . . . and therefore an act which must be verified by witnesses, and can not in the remotest degree be proved by the granting of any patent or royal charter." Foi the whole passage, see Documents relative to the Colonial History of Xew York (vol. ii, p. 380). Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 361 mainland only "the places of Essequibo and Pomeroon." Berbice, of course, and Surinam remained Dutch possessions, though not now granted to the West India Company. 1 But what became of Dutch claims, if such there were, to those portions of the Wild Coast unoccupied at the date of this new charter is a question for the lawyers. No light is thrown upon it by the contemporary records of the States-General's action. The boundaries of "the places of Essequibo and Pom- eroon" the charter did not define; and it was long before the West India Company itself attempted such a definition. The suggestion of the Essequibo governor in 1 683-84 that they take into their possession the river Barima did not elicit so much as a response. 2 Even as to the Pomeroon the Company seems to have had some doubts as to its title; for the proposal to throw open that river, in 1686, met with protest from the Zeeland deputies, and it was not until after a careful investi- gation by the Zeeland Chamber of the history of the earlier colony in that river that the Pomeroon was again opened to settlement. 3 When, in 1689, the colony in that river was for- ever brought to an end by a raid of the French and Caribs, the Company instructed the Essequibo governor to leave there three men with a flag "for the maintenance of the Company's possession" there, 4 but said nothing as to frontier. 1 The Company claimed Berbice, nevertheless, and there resulted » controversy between it and the heirs of the patroon Van Pere. The outcome was the recogni- tion, in 1778, by all parties and by the States-General, of the colony as a fief of the Company, to be held by the Van Peres, subject to feudal dues, as long as the Com- pany's charter lasted. Surinam remained in the hands of the province of Zeeland till 1682, when it was bought by the Company, which in 1683 sold a third interest to the city of Amsterdam and another to the house of Sommelsdijk, retaining but a third for itself. These relations of the Company with Guiana territories n( it specified in its charter are not without interest to the present problem. 2 Extracts, pp. 158-171; and cf. pp. 262-268, above. 3 Extracts, pp. 175-180; cf. also p. 139. 4 Extracts, p. 191. Digitized by Microsoft® 362 BUER. The earliest mention I have anywhere found in Dutch records of a boundary between the Dutch and the Spanish possessions in Guiana is that in 1712 by the Lord of Som- melsdijk, head of the great Dutch family which was one- third owner of the colony of Surinam. There was then under negotiation the Peace of Utrecht, by which the rela- tions of Spain and the Netherlands were afresh to be defined. In a session of the Society of Surinam, at Amsterdam, Mr. Van Sommelsdijk urged the regulation in this treaty of the "boundary in America between the subjects of the States- General and those of the King of Spain, as regards the prov- ince of Surinam with the rivers and districts adjacent thereto." The matter was actually put into the hands of the Dutch plenipotentiary; but it was never brought up for discussion in the formal negotiations. 1 Where Mr. Van Sommelsdijk and his colleagues would have wished the frontier set does not appear; and, though the West India Company was a member, to the extent of a third, of the Society of Surinam, and must, therefore, have known of this effort for a delimitation of the boundary, no action on this head is to be found in its own minutes. Puzzling questions are raised as to the notions of the West India Company regarding the district lying beyond its north- western post of Wacupo by its attitude toward the traders of the neighboring Dutch colonies of Berbice and Surinam, whose trade "in the district lying under the charter" they restricted or forbade, 2 while their trade west of this post was tolerated, and it was even proposed to legalize it by a toll. 3 The Surinam traders carried on, indeed, on the testimony of the Essequibo governors, a larger trade with the Indians west of the Moruca 'Extracts, pp. 233-236. s Extracts, pp. 196, 207, 208. Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 70. "Extracts, pp. 229-232, 238,239, andpaaaim. Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3,"p. 72-71'. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 363 than did the Company's colony itself. 1 What bearing, if any, this fact may have upon the territorial claims there of the Company or of the Dutch is a problem. Not to be overlooked in this connection is the evidence from a later period that the passes granted by the Surinam governors for this trade were recognized by the Essequibo postholders. 2 To be noted, too, is the Company's assertion, in answer to the request of the Essequibo colonists to be allowed freedom of trade in the neighboring Spanish territory, that " although Orinoco, Trini- dad, etc., is under the power of the Spaniards, still it also lies within the charter of the Company, where nobody has the right to trade except the Company and those to whom the Company gives permission to do so — so that it all is the terri- tory of the Company, even though we have no forts there."* It is, of course, the trade provisions of the charter which are here in thought. Thus, too, in a letter of 1752, the other Dutch colonies on this coast are declared to be " also situated under the district of the States-General's charter."* A claim as to territorial frontier the Company was slow in making. Neither the recommendations of the engineer, Maurain-Saincterre, in 1722, for the establishment of planta- tions in the Waini and the Barima, 5 nor the report of Governor Gelskerke, in 1734, as to the project of the Swedes for occupy- ing the Barima and the plans of the Spaniards for dispossessing them, 6 won from the Company a word as to its rights in this region. 7 The removal of the Wacupo post westward to the ' Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 91. Extracts, pp. 278, 332. Cf. also what Father Gumilla says of Governor Gelskerke's reply to his protest against the slave trade. (Orinoco, ii, p. 92.) ^Extracts, p. 403. 3 Extraets, p. 241. ^Extracts, p. 339. 5 Extracts, p. 248. <= Extracts, pp. 257-265. 7 Equally unanswered was a later appeal from an Essequibo governor (April 14, 1753 — Extracts, pp. 340, 341) for instructions as to his conduct in case the Swedes should renew their designs on the Barima. Digitized by Microsoft® 364 BUEK. Monica, in 1726, took place without comment from the Com- pany, and when, in 1737, Governor Gelskerke wrote them that this post, though declining in commercial value, must be kept up because "established for the maintenance of your frontiers," 1 they said nothing of the frontier in their reply. Another interesting territorial question was raised in 1 744 by the Essequibo governor's taking possession of a Dutch slave ship stranded on the coast between the Moruca and the Waini. Certain Dutch jurists are said to have held the territory Span- ish. But the Company seems to have pronounced no opinion on this point; and no protest came from Spain. 2 Even the advance of the Spanish missions in the basin of the Cuyuni did not at once stir them to a claim. In July, 1746, when Governor Storm van 's Gravesande first reported the presence of these, he added that he dared not check this Spanish advance because of his ignorance of "the true frontier line." 3 In December he again lamented to them that "the boundaries west of this river [Essequibo] are unknown to me." 4 In March, 1747, he once more explained his inaction by the fact that he was not "rightly conscious how far the limits of your territory extend, both on the eastern and north- em sides as well as back to the south and westwards," and he added that no documents regarding these boundaries were to be found in the archives of the colony. 5 The Zeeland Cham- ber could only reply that it must await the action of the Ten. 6 And when the Ten finally met, in September, 1747, it could but adopt a resolution requesting that "all the respective 'Extracts, p. 278. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 85, 86; Extracts, p. 328. 3 Extracts, p. 306. 4 Extracts, p. 309. 6 Extracts, p. 311. 6 Extracts,p.311. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 365 Chambers, each by itself, investigate and inquire whether it can be discovered how far the limits of this Company in Essequibo do extend;" 1 and to this effect it wrote the gov- ernor. 2 Meanwhile he had found in the colony itself a source at least of suggestion. "According to the talk of the old men and of the Indians," he wrote the Company in December, 1748, "this jurisdiction should begin to the east at the creek Abary and extend westward as far as the river Barima." Yet "this talk," he added, "gives not the slightest certainty;" and he still wished "that, if it were possible," he "might know the true boundary." 3 But no answer to this qtiestion was found by the Chambers; and, when in 1750, Governor Storm van 's Gravesande came home to Holland and laid in person before the Company the needs of the colony, he had again to point out that "it is urgently necessary that the limits of the Company's territory be known." 4 This time he was told that "the determining of the limits" was an object of attention to His Highness, the Stadhouder, and that the latter's advice thereon must be awaited. 5 Whether in private conference it was confidentially agreed between the Stadhouder and Gov- ernor Storm van 's Gravesande that, provisionally, the basis of Dutch claim should be the newly published map of the French geographer DAnville, which Governor Storm van 's Gravesande was shown by that prince, 6 can not be known. Even if so, the death of the prince in 1751 left matters as before. When, in 1754, the Spaniards were again pushing forward with their missions, Governor Storm van 's Gravesande again addressed to the Company a prayer for "the so long- 1 Extracts, p. 313. 2 Extracts, p. 314. 3 Extracts, p. 322. Extracts, p. 330 6 Extracts, p. 333. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 118. Digitized by Microsoft® 366 BURR. sought definition of frontier." 1 "Is not this," he asked, "regu- lated by the Treaty of Miinster?" The answer of the Zeeland Chamber, sent on January 6, 1755, is of the highest interest. 2 "We would we were able," they wrote, "to give you such an exact and precise definition of the proper limits of Essequibo as you have several times asked of us ; but we greatly doubt whether any precise and accurate definition can anywhere be found, save and except the general limits of the Company's territories stated in the preambles of the respective charters granted to the West India Company at various times by the States-General." Now, as has been shown, the only American limits named in the first of these charters are Newfoundland and Bering's Strait, while the second and final one names no limits at all, but only "the places of Essequibo and Pom- eroon." But the Zeeland Chamber is not yet through. The letter goes on: "And except the description thereof which is found in the respective memorials drawn up and printed when the well-known differences arose concerning the exclu- sive navigation of the inhabitants of Zeeland to those parts, wherein it is defined as follows: ' That region lying between those two well-known great rivers, namely, on the one side, that far-stretching and wide-spreading river, the Amazon, and, on the other side, the great and mightily flowing river, the Orinoco, occupying an intermediate space of 10 degrees of north latitude from the Equator, together with the islands adjacent thereto.'" Now, the memorial from which this grandiloquent clause is borrowed is the well-known one ad- dressed in 1751 to- the States-General by the Zeeland Chamber itself; but a glance at the context shows that what was there described was by no means the colony of Essequibo. The memorialists were speaking of the earliest Dutch colonizers of Guiana. These praiseworthy colonizers, they declare, 1 Extracts, pp. 347, 348. ^Extracts, pp. 357, 358. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 367 "among other places of that broad continent [of America], cast their eyes on" the region thus described, i. e., on Guiana. The descriptive phrases above quoted are followed by these words: "Which aforesaid region, stamped by the Spaniards, as its first European possessors and inhabitants, . . . with the name of Guiana, was afterward by our people — at least the greater part of it — called by the name of the Wild Coast; probably because the chief portion of the aforesaid coast, reckoning from the river Amazon to the said great stream, the Orinoco, was at that time inhabited by no others than the natives . . ." But, if the passage thus quoted could hardly with justice be interpreted as a definition of the limits of Essequibo, it must be added that later passages of the memorial in question left no doubt that its authors in fact held the Dutch colonies to extend to the Orinoco. Thus, a little later, discussing the trade-regulation of 1633 by which the Caribbean coasts "from the Orinoco westward" were thrown open to Dutch cruisers, they argue thus: "Your High Mighti- nesses, in specifying the limits within which navigation shall be confined begin precisely with the district above the tenth degree of north latitude — the river Orinoco westward — just where the possession of the Zeeland Chamber ended. What reasons could there have been why the navigators should not have been admitted also within the aforesaid ten lowest degrees excepting only that this distance and that region and the rivers there situate were lawful possessions of the Zeeland Chamber?" 1 Whatever one may think either of this reasoning or of the appositeness of 1 the quoted description, there can be no doubt that the Zeeland Chamber in its reply to the Essequibo gov- ernor in 1755 did actually suggest the Orinoco as a boundary. Almost as much had already been done by the shareholders 1 Kederlandscke Jaerboeken, 1751, pp. 1084, 1094. In another passage (p. 1089) of the same memorial, the colony of Esseciuibo is described as "lying on the Orinoco, and therefore 8 or 9 degrees further north " than the Amazon. Digitized by Microsoft® 368 BURR. of the Zeeland Chamber in 1751, 1 when in a memorial to the States- General they had spoken of "Essequibo with all her appurtenant rivers from the river Berbice down as far as the river of Orinoco." 2 Unfortunately for the importance of these claims by the Zeeland Chamber, that Chamber had now, and even before its memorial of 1751, lost the right to speak, even as to Guiana, for the West India Company as a whole. The long-festering struggle over the Zeeland monopoly of the control of Essequibo had in 1750 burst into open quarrel; and the remainder of the Company had, pending the decision of the States-General, washed its hands of the colony altogether, refusing to allow it to be a subject of discussion in the meetings of the Ten. More- over, the counter-memorials addressed to the States-General by the Amsterdam Chamber contested the statements made by the Zeelanders, not excepting those as to the limits of the colony. They even denied that the colony of "Essequibo and appurtenant rivers" included of right anything more than the Essequibo and its tributaries, and did not fail to point out that the various utterances of the Zeeland Chamber itself were inconsistent with each other in their statement of the boundaries. 3 However historically untenable the contention of the Amsterdam Chamber, it must, especially in view of the final award of the colony to the latter's control, go far to neu- tralize the assertions of the Zeelanders. But we are not yet at the end of the Zeeland Chamber's 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 96. 2 In like fashion these Zeeland shareholders, a decade later, in another memorial, declared that the colony of Essequibo, "is crossed not only by the chief river, the Essequibo, but also by several small rivers, such as Barima, Waini, Moruca, Pome- roon, and Demerara." (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 133.) ''Extracts, pp. 428-433. This memorial was the joint reply of the Amsterdam Chamber and of the representative of the Stadhouder, calling itself Deductie van den Repreaentant van sijn Hoogheid en Bewindhebleren der Westindische Compagnie ter nrcsidiale Kamer Amsterdam. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 369 answer to Storm van 's Gravesande. "For," they add, after thus referring to the charters and quoting the memorial of 1751, "neither in the Treaty of Miinster (mentioned because you suggested this to us), nor in ai^ other, is there, to our knowl- edge, anything to be found about this." With such an answer, giving the colony no boundaries but those of all Guiana, the governor had to be content. Already, in 1754, before receiving this answer, the colonial authorities had planted a post up the Cuyuni; and when, in 1758, this was destroyed by a Spanish raid, it was not the Orinoco boundary, as suggested by the Zeeland Chamber's answer, but the bound- ary laid down in the map of D'Anville, which the Essequibo governor, in his letter of protest to the Spanish Governor of Orinoco, claimed for the Dutch and avowed his purpose to maintain. 1 It was to this map of D'Anville, too, that he appealed in his report to the Company regarding the Spanish attack, saying that on it they would "see even our bound- aries portrayed, whereof it appears he was informed on good authority." 2 The Zeeland Chamber itself, startled into the drafting of an 1 Extracts, pp. 377, 378. 2 "En daerop selver onze limiten zien, waarvan het schynt hy van goeder hand onderregt was." In view of the fact that this map was shown to Storm by the Prince of Orange, and of the fact that in 1750 the boundaries were said to be " an object of His Highness's attention," it may be asked if the source of D'Anville's line may not possibly have been that Prince himself, to whom it certainly would not have been strange for the French royal geographer to address himself for such information. But this seems 'to me very improbable. In that case Storm, who had talked with the Prince, would almost certainly have known it, and could not have failed to name to the Company, confidentially at least, so high » sponsor for the claims he was urging. In that case, too, it is incredible that the Company itself should not know what map of D'Anville he meant or could have needed to receive a copy from the Essequibo governor. Nor would Storm in that case have made, without reserve, his appeal of 1754 for a definition of the boundary. D'Anville's line, too, seems but a modification of that of the earlier French geographer, Delisle, as is cogently pointed out by Secretary Mallet-Prevost in his report on The Cartographical Testi- mony of Geographers (in vol. iii). VOL 1 24 Digitized by Microsoft® 370 BURR. energetic remonstrance for presentation by the States-General to the Court of Spain, made in that document no such demar- cation of its claim. 1 It affirmed only its immemorial posses- sion of the Essequibo and all its branches, and hence its surprise at being disturbed in the quiet enjoyment of its post on the Cuyuni. What it asked was not restitution of territory, but only "that reparation may be made for the said hostili- ties, and that the Remonstrants may be reinstated in the quiet possession of the said post on the river of Cuyuni, and also that through their High Mightinesses and the Court of Madrid a proper delimitation between the Colony of Essequibo and the river Orinoco may be laid down by authority, so as to prevent any future dispute." Adopted without change by the States-General, July 31, 1759, this remonstrance was at once transmitted to the Court of Spain. It was, so far as can be learned, the earliest mention, in the intercourse between these governments, of the Guiana boundary. No formal answer from Spain was ever received. Before submitting this remonstrance the Zeeland Chamber had written to the Essequibo governor, asking "to be exactly informed where the aforesaid post on the river of Cuyuni was situated," and also to be given "a more specific description of the map of America by Mr. DAnville." 2 The reply of Gov- ernor Storm, written on September 1, 1759, 3 came much too late for use in the remonstrance ; but his claim to the whole of the river Cuyuni so impressed them that in their reply of December 3 they asked him to lay before them "everything which in any way might be of service in proof of our right of ownership to, or possession of, the aforesaid river, because, after receiving it, we might perhaps present to the States- General a fuller remonstrance on this head, with a statement ■Extracts, pp. 383-386. ^Extracts, p. 381. 'Extracts, pp. 386, 387. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 3 ( 1 of facts joined thereto." 1 They asked further, also, the grounds upon which he made "the boundary of the colony toward the side of Orinoco to extend not only to Waini, but even as far as Barima." It was ten years before the fuller remonstrance thus fore- shadowed was actually presented. Spanish aggressions had in the meantime not ceased. They had called the attention of the Company not less forcibly to the frontier on the seacoast than to that in the basin of the Cuyuni. The "great remon- strance," drawn up by the Zeeland Chamber and urged by the Stadhouder, which on August 2, 1769, was adopted by the States-General and duly transmitted to Spain, differs strik- ingly in its attitude toward the boundary from its predecessor of 1759. What it asks is no longer "that a proper delimita- tion be laid down by authority." It assumes, instead, that such a delimitation already exists, and implies in unmistaka- ble terms the limits of Dutch territory. It is now not alone of the Essequibo and its branches, but also "of sundry rivers and creeks on that coast which flow into the sea," of which the Company claims to have been "in almost immemorial possession." It asserts this especially of the Cuyuni, where, it avers, "from all old times" there had been a post of the Company; but it does not dispute the rightful presence of the Spaniards in that river. Two new missions reported in Febru- ary, 1769, though "not far above the Company's aforesaid post in Cuyuni," are "apparently, however, on Spanish terri- torj';" and it is complained only (in a phrase italicized both in the manuscript and in the official printed impressions of the remonstrance) that they are "so near to the Dutch territory." The river Moruca, "where from time immemorial the Com- pany had likewise had a trading place and post," "is a small 'Extracts, p. 388. Digitized by Microsoft® 372 BURR. river, or creek, south of the river Waini and lying between it and the river Pomeroon," and "beyond contradiction belonged also to the Dutch territory. But on the coast, the territory of the Dutch extends from the river Marowyn, at the east, "to beyond the river Waini, not far from the mouth of the river Orinoco;" and this not, so far as is alleged, on the basis of treaty or of occupation, but "according to the existing maps thereof, particularly that of M. d'Anville, reckoned for its accuracy as one of the best." 1 Such are the territorial claims, express or implied, of the document which alone in all the diplomatic correspondence of the Netherlands with Spain suggests the whereabouts of the Guiana boundary. These claims were never answered by Spain, 2 and never reiterated by Holland. Spanish aggressions continued to cause anxiety in the colony, and occasionally a complaint to the home government; but they were overshad- owed by the more pressing grievance of the harboring by the Spaniards of the runaway slaves of the Dutch. Whatever of negotiation or of protest regarding the Guiana colonies is to be found during the next quarter century or so in Dutch records 'Extracts, pp. 457-462, 468-475. 3 Less fortunate than the British searchers, I have not been able to find even that oral answer which (in the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 14) the Dutch ambassador at Madrid is said to have received from the Spanish prime minister : ' ' that he would send orders to the (Spanish) governor to discontinue all hostilities and to leave those of the Dutch Colony in quiet possession as they had possessed the same until now." I find, indeed, that the Dutch ambassador asked this in precisely these words (see his letter of September 7, 1769, printed in the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 174) ; but the answer he reports is a much less reassuring one. His Excellency "said he knew nothing of the matter," and replied, in substance, that it should be looked into. What can be found as to relations in Guiana in the letters of the Dutch am- bassador at Madrid to the States-General during the next quarter century has been printed in the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3" (pp. 182, 188, 189). I have read also with care the more private correspondence of the ambassador with the Secretary of the States-General and with the Eaad-Pevaionaris throughout the period 1756-1796 without finding any passage like that quoted, or any mention of boundary or of ter- ritorial rights in Guiana. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS IN GUIANA. 373 turns on this and not on questions of boundary; and when, in 1791, a cartel was at last concluded for the reciprocal return of such fugitives, no mention of territorial claim is to be found either in that convention itself or in the diplomatic cor- respondence attending its negotiation. The question of the Gruiana boundary does not seem to have been again brought forward in Holland until, at the close of the year 1801, a great European Congress was again arranging the affairs of nations. The colonies in Guiana, which since 1796 had been in the hands of the British, were about to be restored to the Dutch; and the Dutch "Council of the Amer- ican Colonies," with the approval of the Government, secretly sent an envoy to the Congress of Amiens, there to act as adviser to the Dutch plenipotentiary and care for colonial interests in the pending negotiations. 1 In the confidential instructions given him (December 22, 1801) he was charged, "in case the negotiations at the Congress should also extend themselves to the regulation of the interests of this Republic with other Powers, and this should lead to a precise definition of the boundaries of one or other of their respective possessions," to "try to have the limits between the Batavian [Dutch] and Spanish possessions in South America irrevocablv defined, either by the eastern bank of the Orinoco or by the river Barima." 2 But, on reaching Amiens, this envoy, Ruysch, was at once made to see that, in view of the certain opposition of the English, it would be unwise to so much as mention the Guiana boundary in the Congress. Ruysch accordingly wrote this to his principals, the Council of the Colonies, recommending that the negotiation as to the boundary be rather intrusted to the Dutch ambassador at Madrid: "that he should be empowered, 'Extracts, pp. 639-643. 2 Extracts, p. 644. Digitized by Microsoft® 374 BURR. with full authority, to fix the boundary fifteen or twenty Dutcli miles below [i. e., west of] Barima." 1 " Incase this should not find favor, then at Barima; and, if this should not go, then, in order to obviate all cavil in future, to pay therefor a certain sum." 2 The Council seems to have acquiesced without protest in this conclusion, and the matter is heard of no more. 3 If, however, it was their intent to intrust it to the Dutch ambassador at Madrid, that intent was not carried out. 4 Neither Spain nor the world were the wiser for this confidential scheming of the Dutch Council of the Colonies. The speedy reopening of the European war and fhe loss of the colonies again, in 1803, to the British, soon put further action out of the question. Yet, just before this catastrophe, the submission by the Council of the Colonies to the Dutcli Governor- General of Demerara and Essequibo of a body of petitions for land grants between Moruca and Waini, with a request for his advice, not as to the Dutch ownership of this territory, but only as to the expedience of now opening it to cultivation, 5 plainly shows (if the docu- ment to this effect still extant among the colonial papers rep- resents action actually taken) the attitude and policy of the Batavian Government toward this region. In fine, then: 1 The whole coast of Guiana was, from the beginning of 1 " Barima being held among us as the frontier line," explains Ruysch. By "among us" he probably means "in the colony." Extracts, pp. 646-647. 3 Extracts, p. 651. 4 I have examined the letters throughout 1802 and 1803 of the Dutch ambassador at Madrid, and of the Charges d' Affaires (Nieuwerkercke) who during much of that period was in charge there. A few are in cipher, but a contemporary decipherment accompanies them. Guiana is scarcely mentioned, and the boundary never. The only trouble between the Dutch and Spanish colonies touched on is the old one about the return of runaway slaves. •'■Extracts, pp. 659-662. Digitized by Microsoft® DUTCH CLAIMS 1ST GUIANA. 375 the seventeenth century, looked on by the Dutch as open to colonization; but no exclusive claim to that coast, as a whole, seems ever to have been made by them. 2. From 1621 to 1674 the right to colonize that coast on behalf of the Dutch was vested in the Dutch West India Company, which was empowered by its charter to settle unoc- cupied districts. That Company, while freely exercising this right of colonization, and granting lands for its exercise by others, has left on record no definition of the limits of its occupation in Guiana, and no claim as to a boundary on the side of the Spanish colonies. 3. From 1674 a new West India Company, which had re- ceived by its charter no other lands on the American Continent than "the places of Essequibo and Ponieroon," owned and gov- erned the Dutch colonies in western Guiana. The boundaries of these "places," undefined by the charter, were left undefined by the Company, and (save for certain claims put forth by the Zeeland Chamber when in schism with the rest of the Com- pany) remained undefined until the year 1769. 4. In 1758, the Governor of these Dutch colonies addressed to the Governor of Spanish Guiana a remonstrance against Spanish aggressions, in which he claimed for the Dutch the boundary laid down on the map of D'Anville. This claim was made, however, without authority from the West India Com- pany or from the State, and was not urged in the remon- strance (1759) addressed on this occasion at the instance of the Company by the States-General to the Court of Spain. 5. But, in 1769, another remonstrance to the Spanish Court, drawn by the Zeeland Chamber of the West India Company, urged by the Stadhouder, and adopted by the States- General, stated or implied definite claims as to territorial boundary in Guiana. On the coast the Dutch territory is represented as Digitized by Microsoft® 376 BURE. stretching to beyond the Waini; in the interior, to a point between the Dutch post on the Cuyuni and the nearest Spanish missions. This is the one document known to the diplomatic correspondence of the two countries which suggests the place of the boundary. 6. In 1792 the Guiana colonies reverted to the State, but no fresh claim was made as to this boundary; and, though in 1801-1802 the Dutch Council of the Colonies conceived a project for the delimitation at the Congress of Amiens of the Guiana boundary, fixing it, if possible, at the Orinoco or the Barima, the project was abandoned and remained a secret. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 377 11. SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM IN GUIANA. The only Spanish settlement on the Orinoco or east of it which is known to Dutch records before the eighteenth century is that of Santo Thome*. At least I have found no mention of a Spanish settlement which may not readily be identified with Santo Thome"; 1 and the careful accounts of these coasts given in 1598 by Cabeliau 2 and in 1637 by Ousiel 3 show that at those dates, at least, the Dutch had no knowledge of other Spanish occupation in this region. 4 It was, indeed, not until almost the middle of the eighteenth century that there is mention in the Essequibo papers of that spread from the Orinoco inward of the Indian missions of the Catalonian Capuchins, which, from Spanish and ecclesiastical records, we know to have begun as early as 1724. On July 20, 1746, Governor Storm van 's Gravesande wrote to the Dutch West India Company, on the word of an Esse- quibo trader, confirming a report received some months earlier from the Caribs, that the Spaniards had established a mission up the Cuyuni, and had built a small fort there, and that they were" busy making brick with the intention of founding in the 'Extracts, pp. 26, 30, 54, 77, 81. 2 Extracts, pp. 13-22. 'Extracts, pp. 77, 83-95. 4 There was, indeed, a Dutch tradition as to an early Spanish occupation further east (see pp. 182,367, above). The evidence for the presence of the Spaniards in the Essequibo is discussed by Professor Jameson (pp. 46-52, above), and in my paper On the Historical Maps (vol. iii, pp. 188-191). Digitized by Microsoft® 378 BURR. next year yet another mission and fort some hours further down the river toward Essequibo. 1 Six months later he again wrote of the mission and fort "erected by the Spaniards up in Cuyuni," and of that to be founded next year; 2 and in March, 1747, he could not only renew his mention of "the mission and fort up in Cuyuni, and of the intention to build this year yet another fort there, but some [Dutch] miles lower," but could add: "which they are now proceeding to do, according to the report of those who come down that river with mules." On December 2, 1748, however, he corrected this, stating that a trader, who had been requested carefully to spy out the goings of the Spaniards in that region, "has made report to me that the Spaniards had not yet undertaken the building of any forts or missions lower down, as had been their intention." 3 On learning of these Spanish movements in the Cuyuni the West India Company had asked the Essequibo governor for an accurate chart of the colony. 4 He had undertaken the task himself; and, v/hen his first map was lost on its way to Hol- land, he made another. This map (dated August 9, 1748, though not completed or sent until late in 1749) is still extant. 5 In the letter of transmission (September 8, 1749) he thus writes of the Spanish missions: "Having written to the Governor of Cumana, that, if the design of founding a mission on the river Cuyuni were persisted in, I should be obliged forcibly to oppose it, he replied to me that such was without his knowledge (not the founding of the new mission, but the site) and that it should not be progressed with ; and, in reality, nothing has been done in the matter. On the map you will find the site marked, as also that of the one already established." 6 Now, it is evi- dent, 1 think, that the two missions thus spoken of- — the one 'Extracts, p. 306. * Extracts,' pp. 313, 314. 2 Extracts, p. 308. 5 Atlas of the Commission, map 60. 3 Extracts, p. 322. ''Extracts, p. 327. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 379 established, the other projected — are the same two of which he has heretofore written, the only two of whose actual or intended existence in the upper Cuyuni he has had knowledge. Yet it is evident, even before looking at his map, that his con- ception of their place has been modified. It is now only the pro- jected mission which is " on the river Cuyuni." The map bears this out. At a point on the upper Cuyuni where it receives a tributary from the north — the only such tributary shown by the map — is marked a cross, with the words (in Dutch): "Place where the Spaniards purposed to establish a mission." On the same tributary, some miles higher up and on its opposite bank, is shown a house, with the name "Spanish mission." A few mouths later Governor Storm visited Holland, and there in person complained to the Company of the neighbor- ing Spaniards, "who, under pretext of establishing their mis- sions, are fortifying themselves everywhere." 1 To illustrate this he submitted a map, which he declared to be "drawn up by the Spaniards themselves." This little map, which is also still extant, 2 and which is doubtless the one elsewhere described by Storm as copied from that drawn by the Jesuits sent a year or two before with an exploring expedition to the sources of the Cuyuni, shows likewise, at points answering to those on Storm's map, what seem meant for two Spanish missions.* That at the junction of the Cuyuni with its northern tribu- tary is marked (in Dutch) "New Mission." That above, which here seems on the eastern bank of the stream, is marked " Missions 4 of the Capuchins." But the map adds an 'Extracts, p. 330. 2 Atlas of the Commission, map 61. 3 For a more detailed discussion of this map, see in vol. iii the report on Maps from Official Sources, pp. 131-134. ''This plural, Missieu, is puzzling. It may be suggested that this inscription is meant to denote these missions as a whole. But this is unlikely, for there is also on the map the title "Missions of the Catalonian Capuchins," corresponding to ■'Missions of the Jesuits" and "Missions of the Aragonese Capuchins." It is more probably only an error for mission or missie. There are other such slips on the map. Digitized by Microsoft® 380 BURR. interesting aid to the identification of these sites: the tributary here bears a name — " Meejou." 1 Storm, too, knows this name, 2 for, in a letter of September 2, 1754, reviewing this episode, he wrote: "You will certainly recollect that I had the honor some years ago to inform you that they [the Spaniards] had located a mission on the creek Mejou, which flows into the Cuyuni, whereupon you did me the honor to command that I must try to hinder it, but without appearing therein. I do not discuss the reasons which induced you to command this secrecy, when that mission was so absolutely and indis- putably in our territory; but before I was honored with that order I had written to the Governor of Cumana and made my 'In the reproduction of this map (from a free-hand copy) in the atlas (Appendix No. Ill, map 5) to the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," this name is spelled Meejon; and the British translators have also read as an n the final letter of this word in Storm's missive of September 2, 1754. It is on this reading that is based the identification of the stream with the Miamo. But the reading is an error. In the map the letter (as will be seen from the photographic reproduction in the atlas of the Commission) is unmistakably a ». I have examined the word repeatedly, and with a magnifying glass, in the original of this map at The Hague. The m's of the map are made very differently ; its it's are all like this. In Storm's letter of September^ 1754, the char- acter looks more like a u than an n; but, as Storm had the bad habit of making his a's and his m's alike, little weight can be attached to this. But in his account of the Company's trading posts, transmitted in 1764 (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 129), Storm writes of another " creek Meejou, also called Maho," in the region of the Rupununi ; even the British translators here read u. And what puts Storm's spelling of the name beyond question is a letter of June 3, 1769 (Blue Book "Vene- zuela No. 3," p. 167). Speaking again of this southern Meejou, he here writes : " The river called Maho on D'Anville's map is called Mejou here by the Indians. There is one of the same name up in Cuyuni." It may be added that Indian names of streams are often derived from those of familiar objects, and that Mejou is the Carib word for cassava bread. (Thus Adelung, Mithridates, Th. 3, Abth. 2, citing both Boyer and Biet.) Hartsinck, too, who knew of Storm's explorations through another channel than his letters to the Company, spells the name Mejou — "the creek Mejou, where the Spaniards founded » mission." "And further up," he adds, the Cuyuni "is joined by the Juruary [Yuruari]." (Beachryving van Guiana, i, p. 264.) 2 If Storm's map, as is else not improbable, derived from the Jesuit map its loca- tions for the missions, it is strange that it omits this name. It may in the Jesuit map be only an addition of the Dutch copyist. And it is not impossible that the indication of the two missions on the creek Mejou has been added to the map by Dutch hands. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 381 complaint, requesting that lie would cause that mission to remove from there, and adding that I should otherwise be compelled, though unwillingly, to use means which would cer- tainly be disagreeable to him. This had the desired effect, for I received a very polite reply, and not only was that mis- sion actually withdrawn, but one of its ecclesiastics was even sent hither with the assurance that this had been done unwit- tingly." 1 The secretary, Spoors, who had been left as acting governor in the colony during Storm's visit to Holland, had also men- tioned these Spanish missions (September 8, 1 750), 2 taking a different view as to the territory involved. Concerning those missions "which are said to have been constructed up in the River Cuyuni, " he wrote, "I am instructed that they are decidedly nearer to the side of the Spanish than to our terri- tory." As for "a new mission close by here," which Storm, at his departure, had given him " to understand that there was information that the Spaniards were beginning to construct," he had carefully informed himself about it through a colonist who in person had gone thither, and had been assured " that the last mission which is being constructed is in a certain little river called Imataca, situated far off in Orinoco." This, in the secretary's opinion, was " certainly far outside the concern of this colony." Six months later (March 6, 1751) 3 Acting Governor Spoors informed the Company, on the word of the same Essequibo trader, that "in the month of January the Carib nation made a raid upon three Spanish missions and murdered four or five priests;" and Storm van 's Gravesande was scarcely back in the colony before he could report (August 'Extracts, p. 348. 2 Extracts, pp. 334, 335. 3 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 95. Digitized by Microsoft® 382 BUER. 4, 1752) 1 that the Caribs "lately overran two missions and have murdered everyone there." A year or two later (August 19, 1754) a Dutchman resident in Orinoco, writing to warn the Essequibo colony of a projected Spanish invasion, declared that the project "comes from nowhere but from the priests here in Orinoco, for in the year 1751 they informed the King, when the Caribs here in Orinoco raided and burned the mis- sions," that Dutchmen lurking among the Indians incited them to the mischief. 2 Such is, in full, the evidence of the Dutch records as to the Spanish missions existing prior to 1754. Before attempting its interpretation it will be well to call to mind what we know from Spanish records of these missions in the Ouyuni basin. From these we learn, mainly on the testimony of the mission- aries themselves, that as early as 1733 3 they pushed across the divide into the region drained by the Cuyuni and planted a mission at Cupapuy, near the head waters of a tributary of the Yuruari; that in 1737 they established on the Yuruari itself the mission and cattle ranch of Divina Pastora; that in 1743 they created 10 leagues to the east of Divina Pastora, on the Ounuri near its junction with the Miamo, the village of Cunuri, composed at first of Panacays, then of Caribs; 4 that in this 1 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 96. s Extracts, pp. 344, 345. 3 For these dates of the missions I may refer to the table appended to my paper on the Historical Maps (vol. iii of this report, pp. 211-213), and also to pp. 195-203 of that paper. I am sorry that when compiling the table I lost from sight the inter- esting report of these missions (printed in the Venezuelan if Documents,'' II, pp. 263- 269) made by their prefect to the governor on September 12, 1770. Save for two or three trifling variations in dates (1753 instead of 1755 for the founding of Aima, 1769 iustead of 1768 for Maruanta, 1769 instead of 1770 for Panapana), it only confirms what is shown by the table ; but I might have learned from it, in addition, the invoca- tion (saint's name) of Cavallapi (Nuestra Senora de La Soledad), of Maruanta {Santa Rosa), and of Panapana {La Pwriaima Conception), with one or two minor details possibly worthy of note. 4 Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 67, 68. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 383 same year 1743 it was their plan to place "on the banks of the Yuruari River, the Carib frontier," a da}* and a half beyond Divina Pastora, a settlement, "where a fort is to be constructed, with four swivel guns, six armed men" 1 — doubtless that first Carib mission of Tupuquen which was destroyed by a revolt of its Indians in 1750, but was reestablished at this spot twenty years later. These, as seems clear from the request for garri- sons presented in 1745 by the prefect of these missions, 1 were the only missions then in existence in this advanced region. For the next few years there is a dearth of documents. From sources of much later date it appears that 1746 was the year of the founding of the mission of Palmar, and at somewhere about this time there was transferred from the Orinoco to a site a little farther westward on these same slopes the old mission of Santa Maria; but both of these were too far in the rear of those just mentioned to have caused alarm to the Dutch in 1746. In 1748 a Carib mission bearing the name of Miamo was founded on the river of that name above the Cunuri. This, too, though nearer, was still remote from the Dutch. Two other missions, however, whose existence though brief is none the less certain, must have lain between all those already named and the outskirts of the Dutch colony. These were Curumo and Mutanambo. Their sites are partially suggested by their names, for it was the custom of the missions to take the name of the streams by which they stood, and these are the names of well-known rivers — the Curumo a tributary of the Cuyuni, the Mutanambo 2 of the Curumo. The date of their ■Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 70. _ a The name Mutanambo (spelled also Butunaml>o, Botonamo — variations which will surprise no student of phonetic laws) is given to the second great northern branch of the Curumo in the journal of Lopez de la Puente in 1789 (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 338; Venezuelan "Documents," III, p. 251) and in the map of Codazzi (than which two there can be for this region no higher authorities), as well as in many later maps, such as the great colonial map of British Guiana (Atlas, niap 49). Digitized by Microsoft® 384 BURR. foundation is nowhere given, but, for reasons above stated, it must be later than 1743. "There was a revolt in the year 1750/' wrote, in 1769, the man who of all men must best have known — the veteran prefect of the missions, Father Benito de la Garriga, who had himself in 1750 been a resident at that of Tupuquen — "when all the Caribs of our five missions of Miamo, Cunuri, Tupuquen, Curumo, and Mutanambo rose and killed four soldiers of the escort and eight Spaniards, commit- ting many other kinds of outrages." And Father Benito relates how the Caribs, returning after a year, revealed "that they had done what they did at the instance of the Hollanders, who taught them the way of doing it, selecting ten Caribs before- hand to each father and ten more to each soldier." 1 Nay, Father Benito had even learned the cause of the plot, and that the special grievance was the site of the mission of Curumo. "On one occasion," he said, he had "complained to a Dutch Hollander (arrived from Essequibo to reside in Guayana) about the cause of the revolt of the Caribs of our missions in 1750, and he answered that it was because the fathers made the sites of their missions within their [i. e., the Dutch] terri- tory; that that of Curumo overstepped the line they drew from the mouth of the Aguire River to the south." 2 Father Benito's is by no means the earliest mention we have of this Curumo mission. More than a dozen years earlier, in 1755, Colonel Don Eugenio Alvarado, who had been sent by the And see, too, the words of Fray Caulin, quoted in the note on p. 387. According to Mr. Dixon (Geographical Journal, vol. 5, p. 340), who in 1895, on his journey up the Cuyuni, passed the mouth of the Curumo, the latter river is now "called by tbe Venezuelans Botonamo ; " and it is perhaps on his authority that this is made an alternative name for the Curumo on the sketch map of the Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3." But Mr. Dixon does not state the source of his knowledge, and it is hard not to suspect a misunderstanding. 'Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 143, 144; Blue Book "Venezuela Xo. 1," p. 118. 2 Venezuelan "Documents," II, p. 151. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 385 Spanish Rear- Admiral, Iturriaga, the commander of that Span- ish force in Orinoco whose presence caused such panic in the neighboring Dutch colony, to make secret reconnoissance among these Capuchin missions, speaks, in his report, of "the destroyed missions of Cuniri, Tupuquen, Curumo, and that of Miamo, which were swept away by the relentless furv of the Caribs." 1 Regarding one of these he had, indeed, been expressly charged to report. "In regard to the mission of Cuniri, burned down by the Caribs a few years before, which takes its name from a river of that name which flows into the Essequibo, according to general opinion, Alvarado is instructed to inform himself of this, as well as the distance to the said river Essequibo, and if this way be open at present and prac- ticable, for many have traversed that route and found it very short." Is not the suspicion irresistible that Cuniri is but a slip, and that Curumo was the mission meant 1 ? 2 But Alvarado took his instructions literally. "The village of Cuniri," he reported, "was burned and destroyed by the Caribs in the year 1751, with various others, . . . and the river which passes close to it gave its name to the mission." And he pro- ceeds to explain that the Cuniri flows, not directly into the Essequibo, but into the Yuruari. 3 Could the general in chief have failed to know that from the friars f Of the existence or the destruction of the missions of Curumo and Mutanambo, one finds other mention in the records of this period; 4 but it remained for a later prefect of 'Bine Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 85. 2 For the importance of the river Curumo as a short route to the Essequibo, see p. 313, note. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 85, 86. ■•Strickland, Documents and Maps on the Boundary Question, p. 22 ; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 118; Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 270. ("Cummu" in the translated passage last named is a palpable misreading of Curumu. "Cumamo," suggested by the editor, is impossible; all authorities agree that the mission of Cumamo was first founded in 1767.) VOL 1 25 Digitized by Microsoft® 386 BURR. the missions to throw fresh light on their site. When in 1788 it was objected to the new foundation of Tumeremo, near the river Curumo, that this new mission was too near the Cuyuni, Father Buenaventura de San Celonio replied that "the site of Curumo was less distant." 1 Had Mutanambo also lain below, that, too, would have been named. But on this point there is graphic evidence. The great Spanish map of South America put forth at Madrid in 1775 by the royal geographer, Cruz Cano y Olmedilla, 2 shows, on the branch of the Curumo still known as Mutanambo, a mission marked with that name. It shows no mission named Curumo, nor any mission lower than Mutanambo in that region; but on the map of Spanish Guiana (Nueva Andalucia), officially prepared three years later in the Spanish archives of the Indies, 3 and published under royal sanction in the history of that province by Fray 'Caulin, this want is more than made good. Two missions are shown below Mutanambo ; one of them on the east of the Curumo, near the junction of the Tocupo, the other near the site of the later Tumeremo. Neither bears a name. These maps have their errors, and these may be of them; but what they show as to missions beyond the Curumo is not contradicted by the evidence of the documents. Least of all by the Dutch documents. Let us return to these. Which of all these missions known to Spanish records could have been that one mission — on the creek Mejou, not far from the Cuyuni — of whose existence alone the Dutch of Esse- quibo seem conscious at the middle of the eighteenth century? Was it Tupuquen, on the Yuruari 1 But the Yuruari was already known by that name, not only by the Indians and by the Spaniards, but (if the stream meant in Storm's letter of May >Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 333; Venezuelan "Documents," III, p. 218. 2 Atlas of the Commission, map 50. 3 Atlas of the Commission, map 71. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 387 31, 1755, x was, as is assumed by the British scholars, and as at least is probable, really the Yuruari 2 ) also to the Dutch. And Tupuquen, if established, as planned, in 1743, should have startled the Dutch, if at all, before 1746. Why not Curumo, on the river of its name? That stream, unless it be the Mejou, bears no name in Dutch records; yet it was ay ell known to the Dutch traders. It was that stream, not the Yuruari, so reported the Spanish missionaries, which the Dutch made the avenue of that slave traffic with the Caribs which especially took them into these parts. From its upper waters, ascending by its main stream or by its branch, the Tocupo, or doubt- less by the Mutanambo as well, they made their way across the Orinoco watershed, the hills of Imataca, to the Aguire, the Barima, or the Barama, and so homeward by the Moruca; or, as perhaps more often, reversing the journey, they crossed from Barama, Barima, or Aguire to the head waters of the Curumo, and pushed down to its junction with the Cuyuni, whither to meet them, by way of the Avechica and the Yuruan, came the slave-bringing Caribs of the upper Orinoco. Such, at least, was the belief of the Spanish missionaries ; 3 and the belief of 1 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 103. Extracts, p. 364. 2 For discussion, see pp. 321, 334, 335, above. 3 We know it especially from Father Benito de la Garriga, more than once their prefect. See Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 235-237 (also in "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 93-96 ; Venezuelan " Documents," II, pp. 3-9) ; Venezuelan " Documents," II, pp. 141-152. "The Cnrumo," says Fray Caulin, writing in 1759, "receives the waters of the Mutanambo and the Tocupo, which have their source iD the hills of Imataca; and it would be most expedient that at the mouth either of the Curumo or of the Yuruari there should be built, from the materials offered by this region, some sort of fort, with a garrison of sis or eight men. For, in the first place, since the passage of the Dutch [up the Orinoco] has been hindered by the citadel of Guayana and barred anew by the closure of the Limones channel, the rivers Cuyuni and Yuraari offer to them free passage for the abduction of slaves, as also to the Caribs for the conveyance of these to them. In the second place [this is needed] for the security of the new Gnayana missions at Abachica [Avechica] and Yuruario, which they can now attack, as they are well skilled in doing, for the success of the missions makes impossible their slave trade, which is their most lucrative business. And, in Digitized by Microsoft® 388 BURR. the Spanish missionaries counted for not less than the facts, for it was they who located the missions. 1 * Their location of the missions can be understood only by remembering that its chief directing motive was their constant, inveterate crusade against the trade in Indian slaves. It was not to them merely a sentiment: it was, on their own testimony, matter of life and death. If they would win the Indians or hold them in their missions, they must protect them against the Caribs; and there was no protecting them against the the third place, in order that, being restrained within the limits of the colonies they have already founded, they may gain no more territory, and may not with their ingress undertake other serious encroachments in points of much importance." — (Sistoria de la Nueva Andalueia, p. 56.) See also his passage as to the traffic through the Aguire, quoted in the note on p. 299. ■It was not necessary for the missionaries to obtain first the consent of the Spanish authorities to the establishment of a new mission, or even to notify them of it. In 1788, the Capuchin prefect, writing to the Spanish governor, Marmion, who grumbled (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 335, 336) at the incompleteness and inaccuracy of the reports received by him of the missions, explicitly declared (Blue Book, pp. 332, 333) that the selection of a site for a new mission was a, matter for the friars alone. " By virtue," he said, "of an ordinance approved by the King, we have received commands that, among other things, the prefect and assistants are to assemble for the purpose of deliberating upon the sites for new reductions. This has always been done whenever it has been considered necessary to found any village oi Indians. Precisely as ordered, and in the manner prescribed, those sites have been sought which would most conduce to the well-being of the Indians and the service of our Sovereign. And this appears to us to be quite in conformity with the laws relating to the foundation of villages of Indians." He adds, it is true, that the friars did not therefore deem it superfluous to request the governor's approval of a new mission, since the latter was always at liberty to inform them that such a site was not adapted for settling, and since, to obtain the grant pledged by the crown for the equipment of the new mission church and the added clergy requisite for the new villages, the approval or mediation of the governor was needed. But the initiative lay with the friars, and it is clear that a report might lag much behind their act. It is to be noticed, too, that such information as they did give the governors might be given "very confidentially." (Blue Book, p. 336.) It is inter- esting, in the present connection, to note that, in the same letter in which the Capuchin prefect thus sets forth to the governor the right of the friars to the initia- tive, he says of the mission of Curumo, in particular, that in spite of its nearness to the Cuyuni "there was no difficulty made by one of your predecessors in allowing it to be founded, although, on account of the Caribs having risen, who were dwelling in that place, it has not been again founded." Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 389 Caribs, unless by barring the rivers, which were the only high- ways, they could keep out the Dutch traders with their gew- gaws and their rum. Therefore it was that, pushing far afield, they had fortified and garrisoned themselves at Tupuquen, at Cunuri, at Miamo, and so cut off the Caribs of the upper Orinoco from their shortest route by the Yuruari and the Miamo to the Dutch traders in the Aguire. Thus it was, a little later, that they cut off, by planting a mission at Avechica or Supama, the route from the Caroni to the Cuyuni. Thus it was that, having secured the Yuruari by the founding of Tupuquen, it was next the most natural step to push across and plant them- selves on the Curumo. From the one stream to the other stretched that savanna country where they were safest from the surprises of the Caribs and where throve the cattle which were their greatest source of revenue — the cattle for which in this very year, 1746, when the Dutch first complain of the mis- sions, there seemed a new and most tempting market opened to them by Courthial's road from Essequibo, issuing from the forest just east of the Curumo. 1 And that the new mission, if on the Curumo, should be placed on the east of the stream at its junction with the Tocupo, where it might bar both those avenues (at the site where it is shown by the map of Surville, and apparently also by the little Jesuit map), 2 was at least extremely likely. If, too, the Curumo were really that creek Mejou on which the mission was planted in 1746, it is no longer so strange that Governor Storm should write of it as if it were the ear- liest of its sort. To the traders who brought him the tidings, the closing of this cardinal route might well seem the first 1 Cf. pp. 313, 314, 318-320, above. '■"Atlas, maps 71, 61. The map of Storm van 's Gravesande (Atlas, map 60), if I interpret it rightly, differs only in placing the mission on the west of the Curumo at this point. Digitized by Microsoft® 390 BURR. real invasion of Dutch rights. On the Yuruari the Spaniards had been for a decade, and their presence there may have become a commonplace before Storm's advent in the colony. Nor is the name a serious obstacle. Curumo, or Curumu (as it was often spelt), hardly suggests Mejou or Maho. Yet, when one remembers that curu was through all this region a common Carib suffix for creek, 1 appended still to the names of many streams, it does not seem improbable that to the ear of Storm van 's Gravesande or of his trader informants "Curumo" or "Curumu" should have sounded like Curu- Maho or Curu-Mejou, "creek Mejou." Be all that as it may, at the middle of the eighteenth century there existed Spanish missions named Curumo and Mutanambo. If they existed, they almost certainly existed on the rivers bearing then and still those names. And if they existed on those rivers, it is they, and not the missions of the Yuruari, which were likely to catch the attention and stir the alarm of the Dutch. Yet it is not of two missions actually established in the creek Mejou that the Dutch reports speak, but only of one actual, another projected but withdrawn. The site of the pro- jected mission, as appears clearly at last both from the letters and the maps, was at the junction of that creek with the Cuyuni. This falls in, too, with all else we know. That, having shut off the Curumo, the Capuchins should next seek to shut off the Cuyuni was natural ; and it was not less natural that they should attempt it by way of the more navigable Curumo instead of the Yuruari. 2 But we are not left wholly to inference. In 1758, the Capuchin prefect, Father Benito de la Garriga, was urging this as the proper site for a garrisoned 1 Cf. note, p. 331, above. »Cf. pp. 313, 314, above. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 391 village. 1 It is ir no wise improbable that Father Benito, who had been here since 1746, 2 may have urged it before, or as prefect may have attempted to carry it out alone, until checked by the Spanish governor at the protest of the Dutch. A little later in this same year 1758 another Capuchin reported to the prefect that he too had written the governor urging "the projected village of Accoways with fort and garrison, and had asked "ten soldiers for the Accoway village of the Cu- yuni." 3 Of this project of a village at the junction of Curunio and Cuyuni one hears much before in 1792 it was finally realized by the establishment there of a Spanish post. 4 And Mutanambo? Is it improbable that the incipient mis- sion thus drawn back at Dutch request in 1749 from the mouth of the Curumo 5 was placed at Mutanambo, above on that river? The mission lists know, at least, of no other established in that year. In thinking the advance of the Spanish missions permanently checked, the Dutch governor had deceived himself. "I have at this moment received information." he wrote the West India Company on September 2, 1754, "that the Spaniards . . . have established two missions above in Cuyuni, and garrisoned them with men. . . . These two missions are not in the creek Mejou, but some miles lower, on the river Cuyuni itself." 6 One, at least, of these two missions was not long to cause 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 235-237 (also in "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 93-96, and Venezuelan "Documents," II, pp. 3-9). So, too, in 1759, was Fray Caulin. See his -words quoted in the note on p. 387. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 282. 'Strickland, "Documents and Maps," pp. 6, 7. ■•Report of the Commission, vol. ii, pp. 665-671; cf. vol. iii, p. 208. It would even appear from later documents (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 345, 347) that a royal order for its establishment was issued as early as December, 1763. 11 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 92, 99; Extracts, pp. 327, 348. ^Extracts, p. 348. Digitized by Microsoft® 392 BURR. anxiety. Scarcely a month later, on October 12, 1754, Gov- ernor Storm could report that he had learned from a chief of the Caribs, how, furious at the Spaniards because they had located a mission in Cuyuni between them and the tribe of the Panacays, and thereby tried "to hinder their communication with that nation, and entirely to prevent their whole slave trade on that side," they had made an alliance with the Pana- cays, and both together had surprised the mission, massacred the priest and ten or twelve Spaniards, and had demolished the buildings. 1 "This sad accident for the Spaniards," adds the governor, "has covered us on that side." It can hardly be rash to conjecture that the mission which was thus summarily ended, perhaps not without Dutch prompting, and which could not, according to Storm's earlier description, have been higher up than the mouth of the Curumo, was at that much-mooted site. That precisely that site would be occupied at the earliest fresh advance of the missions was probable, and that it would be especially vexatious to the Caribs was not doubtful. In default of further data for inference, it may hesitantly be ascribed to that site. 2 What may have been the relation of these occurrences to the establishment in the Cuyuni of a Dutch post, of whose existence we first learn from the governor's letter of May 31, 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 100. 3 1 regret that, by oversight, iu my historical maps, as printed (Atlas of the Com- mission, maps 11, 15), a question mark does not appear after this ascription of site. A location had to be assigned, at least conj ecturally, and the sources of our knowl- edge (quoted in full above) required it to be either here or below on the Cuyuni. That it was here, rather than below, is merely probable, and the sources are too scanty for positive ascription of any sort. The passage next to be discussed, might, if Governor Storm's estimate of distance be taken seriously, suggest the belief that one of these missions was much lower down. Of circumstances which seem to make this possible, at least, I have spoken fully on pp. 395-398, below. But I should be sorry to base aught save the most hesitant conjecture on evidenre so vague and so unsupported. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 393 1755, is matter for inference only. It can hardly be doubted, however, that this fresh Spanish advance was the foremost of the "weighty reasons" why, as he reports in the same letter, he has at his house the chiefs of the Panacay tribe from up in Cuyuni, and "must absolutely keep it friendly." For he was convinced that the Spaniards would "try to creep in softly, and, as far as possible, to approach us and hem us in; and it is certain," he adds, "that they now have taken complete posses- sion of the creek Orawary, emptying into the the Cuyuni, which indisputably is your territory. The post located by order of the Council above in Cuyuni, is situated not more than ten or twelve hours from the Spanish dwellings." In another connection, 1 1 have already discussed the bear- ing of this passage on the location of the Dutch post. Suf- fice it here to repeat that, though probable, it is not certain that Orawary means Yuruari, and that it is still less certain that by the Spanish dwellings not more than ten or twelve hours above the post are meant those of the creek Orawary. 2 In any case, this passage can hardly help to interpret the preceding ones, for neither the one Spanish mission known to have been founded in this year on the. Yuruari (that called at first by the name of this river and later by that of the Aima, at whose confluence it perhaps originally stood), 3 nor any other possible establishment there, could answer the 1 See pp. 321, 334, 335, above. 2 It may be farther remarked, however, that, if Storm had located on the map of D'Anville, at a point fifteen hours above the mouth of the Cuyuni, the site of the Dutch post, and had then laid off ten or twelve hours up the Cuynni from that point, he would nearly or quite have reached the mouth of the Yuruari, as shown by that map. (See atlas of the Commission, maps 39, 40, 62.) True, we do not know Storm to have owned a copy of this map till later; but it was shown him in 1750, ami it is more than possible that he retained a tracing of it. (See pp. 365, 369, with notes, and also pp. 134, 135, of vol. iii.) Yet it is strange that, if he used D'Anville's map, he did not use D'Anville's spelling. 3 See vol. iii, pp. 205, 206. Digitized by Microsoft® 394 BURR. description of the "two missions . . . on the river Cuyuni itself," or be counted to lie on the road between the Caribs and the Panacays. A document transmitted by the governor in the following year offers more of suggestion. This is a letter addressed him on July 7, 1756, by the under-postholder in charge of the post Arinda, in the upper Essequibo, near the mouth of the Sipa- runi. Its contents are startling, and its tone too panic-stricken to inspire the fullest confidence. Three Europeans, reports this functionary, have made themselves masters of the entire savanna above. He believes that they are Spaniards, and that these Spaniards, who are taking possession everywhere, come byway of Cuyuni. "You must know," he writes, "that they have three fast places, one in Wenamu, a branch of Cuyuni, the second up in Mazaruni in Queribura, the third up in Sipa- runi at Mawakken; those places are all gruesomely strong." And he adds much as to the strange conduct of the Indians. 1 The governor himself, though skeptical as to the report, found in it much reason for anxiety. And as he was writing of it to the Company there arrived a colonist from up in Mazaruni to give information which seemed to him to confirm the report of the bylier. This colonist, Couvreur, reported "that various Indians from above have retreated to his place; that between two and three days' journey above his plantation" (which is equal, explains the" governor, to about twelve, or at most fif- teen, Dutch "hours") "there live some whites who have there a great house and more than two hundred Indians with them, whom they make believe a lot of things and are able to keep under absolute command." Couvreur proposed, with the gov- ernor's approval, to form a party, go up the river, and kidnap 1 Extracts, pp. 370, 371. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 395 these interlopers; and the governor provisionally accepted the project. 1 Couvreur's tidings seem unmistakably to point to a Spanish mission; and, remembering the forts that always attended these missions, the bylier's may mean nothing more. Nor is it nec- essary to suppose them permanent missions. It was on their entradas, the organized expeditions for the gathering (often by constraint) of Indians for the mission villages, that the friars ventured farthest afield, and their sojourns for this purpose were sometimes of considerable length. 2 Such an entrada into the immediate neighborhood of the Dutch would doubtless have fortified with some care the places of its halts; yet the "gruesomely strong" forts of the bylier's letter, if it may be credited, seem to imply something more than a mere entrada. Two or three things in the circumstances of the time make the story less surprising. In the first place, the presence in Spanish Guayana at this time of a large military force for the prosecution of the great boundary survey between the domin- ions of Spain and Portugal in South America must of itself have emboldened the missionaries to fresh enterprises. The panic created in the neighboring Dutch colony by the neigh- borhood of this Spanish force and the chronic foreboding which followed play a great part in the correspondence of Essequibo, and even of the Dutch Government, during this period. But, what is more to the purpose, we now know that all this anxiety was justified. The secret correspondence between Spain and Portugal lately published by Great Britain* 'Extracts, p. 369. 2 Father Strickland prints (Documents and Maps, pp. 48-52) an account, by one of these Capuchins, of such an entrada into the upper Caroni in 1788, in which the party consisted of two friars, nine Spaniards (doubtless soldiers), and enough Indians to make the whole number a hundred persons. They were out from April until the vigil of St. Peter's day. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 70-83. Digitized by Microsoft® 396 BURR. contains not only full evidence of an explicit agreement between those two Governments for crowding the Dutch out of Guiana, but gives in detail the method to be pursued. Spain and Portugal were to form settlements, each from its own side, thus by degrees "forming a semicircle in the interior, above and beyond the territory they [the Dutch] occupy." "In keeping them thus surrounded," says the document setting forth the scheme, "we are in front of the territory where the revolted negro slaves of the Dutch dwell, and can easily give them help covertly for their raids against those colonies." 1 Accordingly, before leaving Spain in 1 754, Iturriaga, the com- mander on the Orinoco of the Spanish expedition, received confidential instructions to learn fully about the Capuchin mis- sions, and whether they continued advancing their villages toward the Dutch; 2 to use the most effective means possible for the dislodging of the foreigners on the coast of Guiana, or for hemming them in; 3 and, especially, to communicate with the colonies of fugitive slaves dwelling at the back of the Dutch, sending and leaving among them some Spanish ring- leaders to head them in their raids. 3 To this end, early in 1756, Iturriaga arranged with the Capuchin prefect (again Father Benito de la Garriga) to undertake in person the errand to the revolted negroes of Surinam, promising him a Spanish guard, but leaving him free as to route, time, and manner. The journey, according to the Indians, was one of twenty days; but, in Iturriaga's opinion, it would be "one of a month and a half for the priests, with Indians and a guard of soldiers." Father Benito wished to wait until the following January, maintaining that to be the proper season; but Iturriaga was "trying to make him undertake the journey this summer," and, 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 73. *Id., p. 80. 2 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 79. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 397 with the help of a "cedula" demanded, still hoped to succeed. Thus wrote the Spanish commander in May, 1756. 1 The strange letter of the Arinda bylier was written in July of that year. In 1755, moreover, report had been made to the Spanish commander that the Dutch had explored the Essequibo up to the immediate neighborhood of Lake Parima, and had even surveyed an affluent of the Rio Negro offering a way of com- munication with the Amazon. 2 Now, the use of such com- munications by foreigners he had been expressly charged to prevent. 3 It should be further pointed out that he was instructed "to make an effort to see if it be possible to pacify and reduce the Carib nation, and bring them into our missions." 4 In view of all this, it is possible that neither the new mis- sions of 1754 on the Cuyuni nor the Spanish doings reported beyond that river in 1756 will seem so strange. There was one other circumstance not less worth remem- bering. The Indian nation which held the paths from the Cuyuni savanna to the upper Essequibo, that of the Accoways, or Gruaicas, 5 was now at open war with the Dutch. Enraged at a settler, who had incited their hereditary foes, the Caribs, to an ■Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 86, 87. "■Id., p. 86. 3 Id., p. 80. It is true that, iii the light of our present knowledge, the communi- cation by the Cassiquiare might seem alone meant. But this communication waB then problematical, Father Gumilla himself denying its existence ; and Iturriaga was unlikely to draw fine distinctions. 'Blue Book " Venezuela No. 1," pp. 81, 82. 6 By some a distinction has been attempted between Accoway and Guaica; though, if not identical, they are admittedly closely akin. But to the Dutch and to the Capuchins, at least, they were identical — the name Accoway alone being used by the Dutch, the name Guaica by the Capuchins. Hilhouse, the first Englishman to ascend the Cuyuui, who had been colonial surveyor and protector of the Indians, unhesitatingly identifies them. "All the old inhabitants, both Accoway and Cari- bisce above this," he wrote in his journal at the mouth of the Curumo, "were con- verts of these missions." — (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 1837, p. 450.) Digitized by Microsoft® 398 BURR. assault upon them, they had in the summer of 1755 attacked the Essequibo colon)', and had so frightened the planters in the Mazaruni that these had retired to an island with their slaves and valuables, and dared not sleep on their plantations. 1 At midsummer of 1756 the danger was still at its height; and, at the time of receiving the report of the Arinda bylier and the message brought by the Mazaruni planter, the governor, on account of this Accoway war, since he could not yet "imagine how this matter will turn out," and counted it "of the extremest importance to this colony," had found it necessary to leave a garrison at the old fort Kykoveral. 2 The Spanish Capuchins, on the other hand, seem now on the friendliest terms with this most warlike and powerful of the up-country tribes. Their mew village planted on the Yuruari in 1755, was composed of these. 3 A Dutch spy, sent in 1765 up to the missions, found there "swarms of Accoway s," and reported that "the mission- aries are the cause of the war between the Caribs and that tribe, the natives being incited and provided with arms by them." 4 It need not, then, have been extremely hazardous for the Spanish Capuchins to undertake at this juncture to estab- lish themselves beyond the Cuyuni. Of the three forts named by the bylier, that "in Wenamu, a branch of Cuyuni," lay nearest their point of departure. The Wenamu joins the Cuyuni from the south about midway between the mouths of the Yuruari and the Curumo. ' The mission "in Wenamu" may have been (as so often with these missions) near the junction of that river with the Cuyuni. A half century ago Mr. Schomburgk found an Accoway village at 1 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 104-107. 2 Extracts, p. 368. °Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 324; Strickland, pp. 58, 59; or other mission- lists. Note, too, the projected Accoway village of p. 391, above. 4 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 136. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 399 this point. 1 It will be remembered that in 1754 two missions were founded on the Cuyuni. 2 One was destroyed at once by the Caribs. The other may possibly have been here founded, or withdrawn to here. 3 From the Cuyuni savannas to the upper Mazaruni the natural and traveled route was by the Weuamu, crossing from its head waters to those of the Caramang, or Camarang, 4 the largest of the western tributaries of the Mazaruni. It was by this route that later Mr. Schomburgk crossed from the Mazaruni to the Cuyuni,, finding rude Indian ladders fixed in the sand- stone terraces of the northern slope to make possible the pas- sage. 5 The Camarang was, at the time with which we are dealing, an Accoway stronghold. In 1755 the Dutch colonist who stirred up the Carib chief against the Accoways told the former that the Accoways were plotting to kill certain Carib leaders and then to take flight "to Camoeran, above Maza- runi." 6 From the mouth of the Camarang an Indian path led 'See map in Kichard Schomburgk's Beisen (Leipzig, 1847). 2 See p. 391 above. 'Governor Storm's assertion that both the new missions of 1754 were "below the creek Mejou ought not, perhaps, to be pressed too literally; and, although his state- ment as to the distance of Spanish dwellings from the Dutch post, if accurate, sug- gests a lower site for the mission not destroyed in that year, the fact that neither Dutch nor Spanish records report a later Carib foray in this quarter, coupled with the fact that the Spanish expedition sent down the Cuyuni in 1758 found clearly no mission on that river, throws much doubt on the whole matter. The fact that the Capuchin Fathers, in their affidavits of 1770 (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 281- 288), ascribe to the Caribs the destruction of only seven villages, points to the pos- sible persistence for a time of one of the two missions of 1754; for they must have had in thought Tupuquen, Cunuri, Miamo, Curumo, Mutanambo, Avechica, and that known to have been destroyed in 1754. Or do they here omit Miamo, which survived? 1 Mr. Schomburgk called it "Carimani, or Carimang" (see Eichard Schomburgk's Beisen, ii, pp. 343-348). On the older Spanish maps of Cruz Cauo and Surville it appears as " Camaran," or " Camaron." The geologists of the colony, Brown and Sawkins, call it "Camarang." 6 At the date of Mr. Schomburgk's visit both the Caramang and the Wenamu were occupied by Accoways, though the uppermost village in each was of Arekunas. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 107. Digitized by Microsoft® 400 BURR. over the mountains, avoiding the circuit caused by the great bend of the Mazaruni, and, following on the further slope the course of the Carubung, another branch of that river, reached the Mazaruni at a point much lower down. 1 The name Caru- bung suspiciously resembles the " Queribura up in Mazaruni" of the bylier's story; and suspicion gathers strength when one finds the first Englishman who visited this place, in 1831, re- porting that "no white man had ever been seen there before, except, twenty years ago, three Spanish padres, who had lived for a month or two at the mouth of the creek, and persuaded many Indians to accompany them to the missions of the Oroo- noco." 2 But, in locating "Queribura," one has to reckon also with the testimony of the Mazaruni colonist, Couvreur. Just where he dwelt "up in Mazaruni," can not be learned; 3 but that any colonist in this river ever dwelt remote from the general body of plantations near its mouth is nowhere intimated in the papers sent by the colony to Holland; and it is peculiarly improbable in 1756, when for a year the Accoways had been holding in such terror the planters of Mazaruni. And, if we may assume that Couvreur's place was, at most, not far above the lowest falls of the Mazaruni, the "two or three days' journey above his plantation" could hardly carry one farther than the mouth of the Puruni.* More definite is the "about twelve or at most fifteen hours of travel" by which the gov- ernor interprets Couvreur's phrase. The Dutch "hour of travel" (uur gaans), like the German Wegstunde, is a measure, 'Brown and Sawkins, Geology of British Guiana, pp. 50, 261; cf. also the great colonial map (atlas of the Commission, map 49). 2 Hilhouse, as reported by Capt. J. E. Alexander, in the Journal of the Royal Geo- graphical Society for 1832, p. 69. 3 For discussion of this, see in the section on the Mazaruni, pp. 349-351 above. ■"'With Indians the longest day's journey is four [Dutch] miles," wrote Governor Storm van 's Gravesande in 1769. (Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 167.) Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 401 of time, but of distance, and what Storm understood by it ut beyond all question by the scale of his own map of the my, 1 which is in "hours of travel." By a glance at this Le it will be seen that the distance from the old fort Kyko- al to the new fort on Flag Island, a stretch which Storm iw so well, concides almost exactly with the "fifteen hours travel" which is his extreme estimate of the distance to uvreur's strangers. This distance also, measured up the zaruni, on any modern map, from the point where the rap- begin, falls somewhat short of the mouth of the Puruni, 1 reaches less than halfway to the mouth of the Carubung. w, the mouth of the Puruni, the main northern branch of the ,zaruni, and an important route toward the Cuyuni and : coast, was a strategic point of importance for the purposes s Spanish missionaries had at heart. And the falls over ich the Mazaruni rushes just at the confluence of the Puruni ir the Indian name of Curabiri. 2 This is, of all the Indian mes shown in the region of this river by the maps, that uch is nearest in sound to Queribura. To the precise whereabouts of the third "fort" named by the inda bylier — that " up in Siparuni at Mawakken" — I have md no clew. Remote as was the Siparuni from the Capu- in missions of the Cuyuni, there can be no question of the mtity of that stream; and the bylier, whose own post of inda was close by the spot where it united with the Esse- ibo, should be especially trustworthy as to this nearest Drt." It is perhaps safe to conjecture that, if actual, it was newhere on the upper reaches of that river, whose southeast- ,rd direction might make it a link in the Spanish route to the ipununi savannas, and in that cordon of occupation in the &.tlas of the Commission, map 60. Spelt Coorabeery by Hilhouse, who prefers to give vowels their English sound. vol 1 26 Digitized by Microsoft® 402 BURR. rear of the Dutch, which, as we have seen, was an object of Spanish and Portuguese policy. The more violent Spanish aggression of 1758 which de- stroyed the Dutch post on the Cuyuni has been discussed in connection with the Dutch occupation of that river. 1 The Spaniards left no garrison to hold the captured site; and, though the Capuchins made an effort to have the whole upper Cuyuni closed against the enemy by "establishing a vil- lage, if not exclusively of Spaniards, at least of chosen Indians, with a garrison of ten soldiers," "at the mouth of the Curumo or on one of the islands in the Cuyuni," 2 nothing seems then to have come of it. Notwithstanding the much passing up and down the Cuyuni, by the Spaniards and their Indian allies, which gave umbrage to the Dutch, nothing is heard of permanent sojourn there; and it was not till 1765 (August 13) that Governor Storm van 's Gravesande reported to the Company, on the testimony of a half-breed sent up to the mission as a spy, that "preparations are being made to establish a new mission between Cuyuni and Mazaruni"— "that is," he adds, "in the middle of our land." 3 And early in 1766 (January 18) 4 he again com- plained that, according to the Spanish Indians, "there is a desire to establish new missions in and beyond Cuyuni." 5 He hoped this would be checked by the Dutch post, then about to be established; and, in point of fact, one hears complaint, in his letters of the next two years, of no new mission, but 'See pp. 322-334, above. 2 See Father Benito de la Garriga's letter of June 9, 1758 (Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 235-237, etc.), and compare that addressed to him by another Capuchin on December 12 of that year (Strickland, Documents, pp. 6, 7). 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 136. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 138; of. Extracts, p. 418. 6 Not "in Cuyuni and above Cuyuni," as translated in the Blue Book. The Dutch is: "dat men nieuwe missien in Cajoeny en over Cajoeny wil aenleggen." Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 403 only of that which he variously describes as ' ' the mission close to the river" Cuyuni, 1 as "about two or three hours' distance from the banks of the Cuyuni, in a creek flowing into that river," 2 or as "situated about four hours from Cuyuni on the west," 3 but which can hardly be any other than that known to Spanish sources as Cavallapi — a village of Accoways, on the Yuruari, founded in 1Y61 and ruined in 1770 by the desertion of its Indians. 4 Yet by 1769 (February 21) the governor was obliged to write that the Caribs of the Cuyuni had reported "that the Spaniards have established a mission not far above the post in that river and yet another a little higher up in a creek flowing into the Cuyuni, both of which have been strongly manned." 5 Where may have lain the two sites thus described, I can not so much as conjecture. There is in the published Spanish rec- ords, secular or ecclesiastical, no mention of foundations of this date which by any possibility can be identified with these; and the data given by the Dutch governor are too vague to tempt a guess. I may, however, point out, as Father Strick- land (who alone has had access to all the Capuchin docu- ments, and who is no exponent of Spanish claims) has already done, that "the location of some of the missions was changed several times for various reasons, and many missions were started which were never definitely established;" 6 and I may add that the relations of the Capuchins with the Spanish 'Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 143. s Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 159, 160; Extracts, pp. 451,452. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 136. "Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," p. 118; "Venezuela No. 3," pp. 289, 290; Vene- zuelan "Documents," II, pp. 144, 145, 149,209-214, 265; Strickland, " Documents and Maps," p. 22 ; and especially the Capuchin map of 1771 (reproduced in the Atlas of the Commission as map 73), with the note on its margin. 6 Extracts, pp. 450, 451. 6 Strickland, "Documents and Maps," p. xvii. Digitized by Microsoft® 404 BURR. governor were not such as to make it strange if they failed to report all their enterprises to the civic authorities. 1 If it seem idle to credit at all such Dutch and Indian rumors as to their activity, it should be remembered that even Mr. Schom- burgk, writing after the completion of all his researches in this region, was of the belief that "the missions of the Cata- lonian Capuchins extended formerly from the eastern bank of the Caroni as far as the banks of the Imataca, the Curuma, and the Cuyuni." 2 Whether or no they again planted mis- sions on or near the Cuyuni, the Spaniards so disquieted the Dutch post- that before the end of this year, 1769, it was drawn nearer to the Essequibo. 3 With the year 1772 it ceased altogether its existence, perhaps because the missions gave no more reason for vigilance here. At least, Dutch interest in them was at an end. There is nothing more to be learned from the Dutch records as to Spanish occupation in the upper Cuyuni. Of any occupation by Spaniards in the coast region between the Orinoco and the Moruca, save that involved in the Orinoco- Essequibo trade, which in the last half of the eighteenth cen- tury passed wholly into their hands, 4 the Dutch seem never to have known. They knew, indeed, of desultory raids not a few, like that which purged the Barima of settlers in 1768 or those which in 1769 and 1775 took momentary possession of the post on the Moruca; but, if these left behind them any attempt at occupation of the territory overrun, it found no record in the Dutch papers. The Spanish captain who, in 1775, 1 See, e. g., Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 294-305, and the documents published by Father Strickland, passim. As to the right of initiative possessed and exercised by the friars, see note, p. 388, above. 8 In his edition (1848) of Raleigh's Discoverie of Guiana, p. 79, note. 3 See pp. 339, 340, above. "See pp. 210, 211, above. Digitized by Microsoft® SPANISH OCCUPATION AND CLAIM. 405 seized the Moruca post threatened the postholder that a Spanish guard should be placed at the Waini entrance of the island passage ; 1 but there is no evidence that it was more than a threat. Of the Spanish raids and reconnoissances themselves it is not my task here to speak. In the upper Essequibo the only Spanish aggression to be noted is that complained of by the Arinda bylier in 1756. 2 The allegation that the Spaniards had instigated the murder of the Dutch postholder at Arinda, which formed an item of the complaint to Spain in 1769, turned out later to be a canard. 3 Of other Spanish occupation in the disputed territory I have not learned from the Dutch records. Spanish claim, of any formal, official sort, as to the boundary in Guiana, I have nowhere found in the diplomatic corre- spondence preserved in Dutch archives. As already pointed out, the Dutch remonstrances of 1759 and 1769, which alone from the Dutch side seem to have asked Spanish attention to the question, never received a formal answer. Once or twice, in communications from the Spanish authori- ties of the Orinoco to the Dutch governors of Essequibo, a claim was implied or asserted — as when, in 1734, Don Carlos de Sucre wrote of his intent to expel the Swedes from the Barima; * or as when, in 1758, the Governor of Cumana, in reply to the Dutch governor's demand for the restitution of the men seized with the Cuyuni post, answered that they had been found "on an island in the river called Cuyuni, which is, with its dependencies, a part of the domains of His Catholic Majesty." 5 Oftener ■Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 190. 2 See pp. 394, 401, above. 3 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 3," p. 165. "Extracts, pp. 258, 259. 6 Blue Book "Venezuela No. 1," pp. 103, 104. The phrase is, perhaps, intention- ally equivocal. Digitized by Microsoft® 406 BURR. such claims came to the Dutch only through subordinates or by hearsay, like the rumors in 1769-70 of the Spanish claim to all west of the bank of Oene 1 (at the mouth of the Essequibo), or the claim of "the whole of Moruca," ascribed by the postholder to the Spanish captain who seized that post in 1775. 2 But among them I have found none (except it be the equivocal one of the Cumana governor) which has the form of an official utterance, or which undertakes to state with definiteness the rightful course of a boundary. Respectfully submitted. George L. Burr. Note. — I can not close this report, and with it my service of the Commission, with- out acknowledgment of my debt in its preparation, as in that of my earlier reports, to the custodians of the Library of Congress and of the library and archives of the Department of State, at Washington, to those of the Astor and Lenox libraries, at New York, and to those of the library and archives of the State of New York, at Albany, for full and free access to the treasures in their keeping. To Mr. Wilber- force Earues, the learned and acute librarian of the Lenox Library, I owe wise suggestion as well as ungrudging help. 1 Extracts, pp. 467, 468, 495 ; Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," pp. 175, 176. 2 Blue Book " Venezuela No. 3," p. 190. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft®