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Guyana

The three old Dutch sugar colonies of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice, stitched together by Britain into its only mainland South American colony, a land of coastal seawalls and vast forested interior.

Endures: independent from Britain on 26 May 1966, a republic since 1970, still contesting Venezuela's claim to the Essequibo west of the river.

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Moments from the Chronicle

• 1966 Guyana independence British Guiana, the colony Britain assembled in 1831 from the Dutch sugar settlements of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice, became the independent nation of Guyana on 26 May 1966, a republic from 1970.
• 2017 Warao exodus from the delta As Venezuela's economic collapse deepens, thousands of Warao leave the Orinoco delta on the long road to Pacaraima and Roraima in Brazil, and on to Guyana and Trinidad — one of the largest displacements of an Amazonian Indigenous people in modern times, scattering the ancient 'boat people' across borders.

Further reading

• A New History of Modern Latin America Emeritus Department of History Lawrence A Clayton · 2017

  A standard single-volume University of California Press survey of modern Latin America, giving the same broad regional context for the citing states and colonies.

• The Cambridge History of Latin America Leslie Bethell · 1984

  The Guianas' colonial and post-colonial history within the Cambridge survey (broad context).

• Palace of the Peacock Wilson Harris · 1960 · fiction

  Landmark Guyanese novel, an allegorical journey up a Guyanese interior river on the eve of independence.

Sources

• Guyana — Wikipedia