The Guianas

The Guianas, sometimes called by the Spanish loan-word Guyanas (Las Guayanas) refers to a region in north-eastern South America which includes the following three territories:

• French Guiana, an overseas department of France;
• Guyana, known as British Guiana from 1831 until 1966, after the colonies of Berbice, Essequibo, and Demerara taken from the Netherlands in 1814 were merged into a single colony;
• Suriname, until 1814 a part of Dutch Guiana, together with Berbice, Essequibo, and Demerara;

Some also consider the region to contain:

• The Guayana Region, formerly the Guayana Province, in south-east Venezuela.

Historically the following adjacent area was also included in the Guianas:

• Portuguese Guiana (Brazilian Guiana), in north-west Brazil, originally part of the Portuguese Empire;

History

Philip II of Spain gained nominally control of the country, uniting the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns in the Iberian Union, a personal union that would last for 60 years, during which time the Portuguese Empire declined. In this age The Guianas had not Iberian settlers yet.

Sir Walter Raleigh and some Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French and Portuguese expeditions were looking for the wonderful Guiana empire that named these present day countries. Over the next two centuries the Guianas changed hands between the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English.

In 1498 Guiana was first visited by Europeans when Christopher Columbus sailed to the region on his third voyage and named it the "Land of pariahs".

In 1594, Walter Raleigh came into possession of a Spanish account of a great golden city at the headwaters of the Caroní River. A year later he explored what is now Guyana and eastern Venezuela in search of Manoa, the legendary city. Once back in England, he published The Discovery of Guiana (1596) an account of his voyage which made exaggerated claims as to what had been discovered. The book can be seen as a contribution to the El Dorado legend. Although Venezuela has gold deposits, there is no evidence Raleigh found any mines. He is sometimes said to have discovered Angel Falls, but these claims are considered far-fetched. In 1608 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany did an expedition to the area in order to create an Italian colony for the commerce of amazonian products to Renaissance Italy, but his sudden death stopped it.

In 1621 the Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie, during Dutch–Portuguese War was surprised by easy gains in the East Asia against Portugal, and the Republic quickly decided to exploit Portugal's weakness in the Americas from collonies located in The Guianas and Caribbean sea. The Dutch Company benefited from a large investment in capital, such as Isaac de Pinto, by origin a Portuguese Jew.

In particular, the relations between the Dutch and South America were established by Jews; they contributed to the establishment of the Dutch West Indies Company in 1621, of the directorate of which some of them were members. The ambitious schemes of the Dutch for the conquest of Brazil were carried into effect through Francisco Ribiero, a Portuguese captain, who is said to have had Jewish relations in Holland.

In 1624 most of the white inhabitants of the town Pernambuco (Recife), in the Dutch colony of Brazil were Sephardic Jews who had been banned by the Portuguese Inquisition to this town at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. As some years afterward the Dutch in Brazil appealed to Holland for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil; about 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars - Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and Moses Raphael de Aguilar. In the struggle between Holland and Portugal for the possession of Brazil the Dutch were supported by the Jews.

The Dutch were established settlement in Essequibo (1616), Berbice (1627), and Demerara (1752), in 1624 France attempted to settle in the area. The area Marshall's Creek was named after an Englishman. Disputes arose between the Dutch and the English. But French, British and Dutch were forced to abandon it in the face of hostility from the Portuguese and Spanish, who viewed it as a violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas. The Dutch invasion began with a series of temporary conquests by the Dutch of some principal ports in Portuguese Brazil such as the capital Salvador and Olinda. The whole Brazilian northeast was occupied and Recife was renamed Mauritsstad. The Dutch were opposed by the general government's efforts to expel them, directed from Salvador, Olinda and the countryside.

The turning point in the war occurred in 1625 with the arrival of an Iberian fleet consisted of 34 Spanish ships, 22 Portuguese ships and 12,500 men reconquesting the strategically important city of Salvador da Bahia. However English, Dutch and French settlers returned. In 1630 and in 1643 managed to reestablish early and new settlement at Cayenne along with some small-scale plantations. The Portuguese campaigns to oust the Dutch from most of Brazil were expanded over the next two decades. Subsequent treaties divided the region between the contenders.

See also

• Guiana Shield