Wild Coast

by John Gimlette

  One of the first English-language histories of the Wild Coast was Guiana British, Dutch and French (London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), written by the curator of the Georgetown museum, James Rodway. It’s a surprisingly even-handed account, despite some trenchant observations about the French (‘Cayenne was unfit for even a dog’), and is still in print today. Now, however, apart from the usual websites (CIA, BBC and Wikipedia), The South American Handbook (Bath, Footprint Handbooks) is as good a source as any for the basic comparative data.

  I could find few other travel writers who have made the journey through all three Guianas. However, V. S. Naipaul provides a rich and damning account of the region’s colonies in Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies – British, French and Dutch – in the West Indies and South America (London, Andre Deutsch, 1962).

  To understand the military resources of the late 1980s, a period of great significance to newly-emerging Guyana and Suriname, I turned to Adrian English’s Latin America Regional Defence Profile (London, Jane’s, 1988).

  Guyana – General

  For an overall guide to the country, I was indebted to my friend, Kirk Smock’s book, Guyana (Chalfont St Peter, Bradt Travel Guides, 2008). However, for a general history of Guyana (or British Guiana, as it was), I turned, as everyone does, to Vere T. Daly’s A Short History of the Guyanese People (Oxford, Macmillan, 1975) and The Making of Guyana (London, Macmillan, 1975). Although well-written and useful, both books tend however to reflect the nascent nationalism of the 1970s.

  Three remarkable accounts of life in Georgian Guyana (then the Dutch colonies of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice) are provided by Edward Bancroft’s An Essay on the Natural History of Guiana (London, 1769), Henry Bollingbroke’s A Voyage to the Demerary (Norwich, 1807) and George Pinckard’s Notes on the West Indies (London, 1806). In my research on the Dutch forts of this period, I was also greatly assisted by the Journal of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, Archaeology and Anthropology, volume 10, 1995 (Georgetown, Walter Roth Museum, 1995). Some interesting Afro-Guyanese perspectives on slavery can be found in Emancipation (The African-Guyanese Magazine, volume 2, No 15, 2007–8), and Alvin Thompson’s The Berbice Revolt (Georgetown, Free Press, 1999) provides a helpful Guyanese analysis of the slaughter of 1763.

  Meanwhile, Victorian British Guiana is subjected to splendid analysis in Graham Burnett’s Masters of all they Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado (University of Chicago Press, 2001). It’s a perfect companion to Robert Schomburgk’s sombre memoir, Travels in British Guiana 1840–1844 (London, 1847). There’s also a worthy study of Guyana’s early Indian heritage in Dale Bisnauth’s The Settlement of Indians in Guyana 1890–1930 (Leeds, Peepal Tree, 2000).

  As far as indigenous or Amerindian culture is concerned, there has – over the centuries – been a wealth of interest. Raleigh was one of the first to document the various rumours, but it was left to the Georgians to provide rather more scientific accounts. Aside from Bancroft and Bollingbroke, Charles Marie de La Condamine makes some fascinating observations about the lives of the aboriginal people (and, in particular, their use of curare) in ‘Relation abregée d’un Voyage fait dans l’Interieur de L’Amerique Meridional &c’. A little later, Edward Goodall provides us with a last glimpse of a way of life that was becoming rapidly extinct with his Sketches of Amerindian Tribes 1841–1843 (Oxford, Macmillan Caribbean, 1977). I was also drawn to a slim and rather impenetrable volume by an old missionary hand, W. Grainge White, called At Home with the Makuchis (Ipswich, Harrison & Sons, 1920). But for a more modern exposition of Amerindian culture, I turned to Janette Forte’s Amerindian Testimonies (Georgetown, Janette Forte, 1989) and Iwokramî Pantoni: Stories about Iwokrama (edited by Janette Forte, Makushi Research Unit, 2001). There are countless other anthropological texts on the subject but I would particularly single out William Brett’s Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana (Whitefish, MT, Kessinger Publishing, 2003).

  The modern history and politics of Guyana, however, proved a difficult subject to grasp, if only because it’s steeped in obscurity and loyalties based on race. Former president Cheddi Jagan provides waspish accounts of everyone else’s failings in The West on Trial: My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom (Antigua, Hansib Caribbean, 1997) and A New Global Human Order (Harpy, 1999) but there is little analysis of his own unfortunate rule. For a more detached view, I often found myself relying on the findings of judicial enquiries such as the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the disturbances in British Guiana in February 1962 (London, HMSO), or – more recently – the report of the Canadian Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Guyana: Criminal Violence and Police Response (Ottawa, July 2003). As for the unhealthy life spawned by the gold-mining industry, I would strongly recommend Marc Herman’s Searching for El Dorado (New York, Doubleday, 2002).

  Guyana has a rich legacy of travel literature. Anthony Trollope penned some charming sketches of the erstwhile colony in his The West Indies and the Spanish Main (London, Chapman and Hall, 1860). Then there was the redoubtable Edward Knight, who describes a short but typically colourful visit in The Cruise of the Falcon (London, Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1887). Another visitor was Paul Zahl, who explored the interior by air just before the war (an experience described in To the Lost World, London, George G. Harrap, 1940). But perhaps best known of all is Evelyn Waugh’s gruelling account of his 1933 journey, 92 Days: Travels in Guiana and Brazil (London, Duckworth, 1934). Not only is it a deeply unflattering picture of the colony, it also provides the setting for one of the greatest English novels of the century, A Handful of Dust (London, 1934). V. S. Naipaul (above) provides an equally bleak view of British Guiana but more recent travel writers – particularly the naturalists (to whom I shall return) – have found things much more to their liking. Not all of them make great literature but there’s much to enjoy in Margaret Bacon’s Journey to Guyana (London, Dennis Dobson, 1970), W. M. Ridgewell’s The Forgotten Tribes of Guyana (London, Tom Stacey, 1972), and Stan Brock’s All the Cowboys were Indians (Pelham, AL, Synergy South 1999).

  This is not to ignore the local contributions. Matthew Young’s account of a life spent in the bush, Guyana: The Lost El Dorado (Leeds, Peepal Tree Press, 1998) is earthy, occasionally raunchy, and often surprising. Former mayor Hamilton Green has provided a wonderfully eccentric take on his city in Georgetown – an anthology of Georgetown (Georgetown). But it is perhaps in their fictional descriptions of their country that the Guyanese excel. I would particularly recommend Brenda DoHarris’ A Coloured Girl in the Ring: A Guyanese Woman Remembers (Lanham, MD, Tantaria Press, 1997), and Pauline Melville’s wonderfully torrid novel, The Ventriloquist’s Tale (London, Bloomsbury, 1997).

  Guyana – The Natural world

  Again, however, it’s the writer-naturalists who’ve always got the best from Guyana. Leading the way is Charles Waterton, with his brilliant and chaotic journal, Waterton’s Wanderings in South America (London, Macmillan, 1880). And, as to his Yorkshire legacy, I am indebted to Richard Bell’s Waterton’s Park (Wakefield, Willow Island Editions, 1998). In the final years of British Guiana, this was followed by three other enormously popular books: David Attenborough’s Zoo Quest to Guiana (London, Lutterworth Press, 1956), and Gerald Durrell’s The New Noah (London, Collins, 1955) and Three Singles to Adventure (London, Penguin, 1964).

  Balram Singh’s An Introduction to the Birds of Guyana (Georgetown, Guyana in Colour series, 1994) does exactly what the title suggests, and has the additional merit of being very slim and light.

  Jonestown

  The literature surrounding the People’s Temple grows daily, thriving mostly on wild conjecture. It’s hard to know exactly what’s reliable, and even Deborah Layton’s eye-witness account, Seductive Poison (New York, Doubleday, 1978), has to be viewed with a little circumspection.

  That said, there is solid material there to be found. A good starting point is The Assassination of Representative
Leo J Ryan and the Jonestown Guyana Tragedy (Report of a Staff Investigative Group to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1979). Rather more lively is reporter Charles Krause’s compelling account of the last few days, Guyana Massacre (New York, Berkeley Publishing Corp, 1978). As to what happened afterwards and why it happened at all, Shiva Naipaul provides as sober an assessment as any with Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1980). I should also mention as worthy of reading Gina De Angelis’ Jonestown Massacre: Tragic End of a Cult (Berkeley Heights, NJ, Enslow Publishers, 2002).

  Suriname – General

  Again, I struggled to find useful material in English on Suriname. This is surprising given the country’s early appearance in European literature. It features in both Voltaire’s Candide (translated by John Butt, London, Penguin Classics, 1947), and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave (London, W. Canning, 1688).

  That said, I’m indebted to the work of another friend, Toon Fey, for his lavishly illustrated Suriname Discovered (Schiedam, Scriptum, 2007). Also, in addition to the usual internet sites, I found helpful insights into the country in V. S. Naipaul’s The Middle Passage (above) and Nicol Smith’s slightly bizarre work, The Jungles of Dutch Guiana (New York, Blue Ribbon Books, 1943). The only recent work of travel writing that I could lay my hands on was Andrew Westol’s excellent The River Bones (Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 2009).

  I did however find plenty of material specifically about the Maroons and their history, and I shall return to this below. The Maroons aside, I found that the Journal of the Suriname Museum (Mededelingen van het Surinaams Museum) was a good source of historical material, particularly volumes 27, 29, 30, 33, 38, 40, 42 and 44 (published by the Suriname Museum, Paramaribo. Note: it is published in both English and Dutch).

  In relation to the civil war of 1986 to 1992, I found reliable and useful material in the judgement of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, dated 15 June 2005, in the case of Moiwana village v Suriname. I also read the heartless, amoral memoir of the mercenary, Karl Penta, Have Gun will Travel (London, John Blake, 2003), although it’s hard to know whether all he says is true. An idea of Desi Bouterse’s own warped perspective on his seizure of power can be seen in an old government publication Suriname in Ontwikkeling: 25 Februari 1980 (Paramaribo, Dubois, 1980).

  Suriname’s Maroons

  The Maroons have – deservedly – attracted a great deal of interest from both historians and anthropologists.

  However, for me, the starting point had to be the work of a soldier and traveller, John Stedman. His memoir, Expedition to Surinam, Being the Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America, from 1772 to 1777 (&c) (Reprinted by the Folio Society, London, 1963) is a fabulously exciting and compassionate account of the most turbulent time in the country’s history. In providing the context for the book, I was also greatly helped by Louise Collis’ Soldier in Paradise; The Life of Captain John Stedman 1744–1797 (New York, Harcourt, Brace and World Inc, 1966).

  As to the history, however, I relied heavily on Wim SM Hoogsbergen’s The Boni Maroon Wars in Suriname (Leiden, Brill, 1990). In addition, I found useful supplementary material in John Thornton’s Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998).

  As to the anthropology, I owe much to the leading authority on this area, Richard Price and his two works, The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) and First Time: The Historical Vision of an African American People (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2002). In relation specifically to the Saramaka people, however, I also found fascinating – if a little outdated – material in Morton Kahn’s Notes on the Saramaccaner Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana (American Anthropologist volume 31, number 3, 1929). I should also mention Melville and Frances Herskovits’ Rebel Destiny: Among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana (New York, Whittlesey House, 1934).

  French Guiana – General

  Aside from the general histories already mentioned, I found the following helpful: Richard Burton’s French and West Indian: Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana Today (1995) and Jean-Michel Tissot’s Guyane: Des Hommes en Amazon (Paris, Les Créations du Pélican, 2003). As to the early colonial history, and the background to my own ancestor’s unfortunate sojourn, I am indebted to the work of Joyce Lorimer, English and Irish Settlement on the River Amazon 1550–1646 (London, Hakluyt Society, 1989).

  Peter Redfield’s Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000) was interesting for its study of the relationship between the old penal colony and the modern space port. I also enjoyed a number of works by explorers, all dating from the immediate post-war period: Hassoldt Davis’ The Jungle and The Damned (London, The Travel Book Club, 1955); Henry Larsen’s Behind the Lianas: Exploration in French Guiana (Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1958). Perhaps the most compelling of all, however, was Raymond Maufrais’ deathly tale, Journey without Return (London, William Kimber, 1953).

  For some understanding of Hmong culture, I drew on Robert Cooper’s The Hmong: A Guide to Traditional Life (Lao-Insight books, 2008). The arrival of the Hmong in Cacao is described in Pierre Dupont-Gonin’s L’operation Hmong in Guyane Française de 1977.

  Meanwhile, John Young’s The French Foreign Legion (London, Thames and Hudson, 1984) provides a background to the legion, and its role in Guyane

  The penal settlement of French Guiana

  It was the literature generated by the bagne that finally brought about its closure. During the 1930s and 1940s there was an outpouring of books describing the iniquities of the French penal settlement, most famously René Belbenoit’s Dry Guillotine: Fifteen Years amongst the Living Dead (New York, Blue Ribbon Books, 1938) and his Hell on Trial (New York, Blue Ribbon Books, 1941). In the 1960s, the subject was revived by Henri Charrière, with his memoir Papillon (translated by Patrick O’Brian, Granada, 1970). The storyline may be contrived but the descriptions of settlement life are accurate enough. Later, of course, the book became the basis for a highly successful movie.

  A more sober overview of the bagne is provided by Marion F. Godfroy’s Bagnards (Paris, Editions du Chêne, 2002). There is also a local, and slightly eccentric, guide to the islands by Eugène Epailly, called Les Iles du Salut (Cayenne).

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank the following for their help with this book.

  In Guyana – Major General (Ret’d) Joe Singh, Judge Patterson, Suria (Teri) O’Brien of Wilderness Explorers (www.wilderness-explorers.com), Gwendoline Tross, Zaman Bachus, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, Premchand Dass (Deputy Archivist at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre), Krishna Mandata, Mr Arjun and Kelvin George at the Wales GUYSUCO factory, Joey Jagan, Nigel and Cathy Hughes, Gary Serrao of the Toucan Inn at Meten-Meer-Zorg, Leon Moore on Baganara Island, Judy Karwacki of Small Planet Consulting, Indranath Haralsingh of the Tourism Authority, Godfrey Chan-a-Sue and Jud Wickwire of Mabaruma, Denise Duke and Caroline George of Port Kaituma, Fr Hildebrand Green and Brothers Matthias Farrier and Paschal Jordan of the Benedictine Monastery near Bartica, Bradford Allicock (the headman of the Makushis in Fairview), Archer Moses and Cassius Williams of Iwokrama, Colin Edwards of ‘Rockview’ near Annai, Paulette and Daniel Allicock of Surama, Fred and Francisca Allicock, Sidney Allicock, Diane McTurk, Ashley Holland of Yurupakari, Brian Li, Dr Marta Ware of Manari, Gordon Forte of Lethem, Ester Parks, Duane and Sandy de Freitas of Dadanawa, Oswald Isaacs, the capataz at Dadanawa, Cyril Andrews, the tanner, Alex Mendes of Peereboom, Mrs Georgiana Grimmond, the caretaker at Fort Nassau, Gloria and Edmund Kertzious of de Velde (Berbice), Colin Kertzious of New Amsterdam and his sister Maylene.

  In Suriname – Glenn Firama, former prime minister Willem Udenhout, Mike White of J. P. Knight and Co, E
rik Kuiper of METS, Hilda Neus, Lester Mansbridge (Captain of the MT Kite) and Chief Engineer Ian McLwraith, Guinio Zebeda and Charlie Beck.

  In Guyane and metropolitan France – Alain Hermes at Tikari travel agents (Cayenne), Philippe Soler of ‘Le Planeur Bleu’ in Cacao, M and Mme René and Maysy Siong, Christian and Cathy Gomis, Patrick Monier of Kourou, Jérôme Rémont (the artist of St-Jean), and Christophe Allwright of Les Compagnons de Route.

  In Israel – Paula Betuzzi for her help in establishing contacts in Guyana.

  In the USA – Kirk Smock for his friendship and advice, and of course for his excellent book, Guiana: The Bradt Travel Guide.

  In Australia – Tony Thorne of Wilderness Explorers (www.wilderness-explorers.com), for his invaluable logistical and moral support in putting this journey together.

  In Holland – Annemarie Slotboom, Arnold Karskens (the distinguished radio reporter who covered the Hinterland War), and Toon Fey for his companionship and wisdom on my visits to the maroon areas.

  In England – thanks first to those travel experts who provided logistical support for the Guyanese section of these travels, namely Cox and Kings (www.coxandkings.co.uk), Andean Trails (www.andeantrails.co.uk), and Wildlife Worldwide (www.wildlifeworldwide.com). Special thanks, however, go to Claire Antell of Wilderness Explorers (www.wilderness-explorers.com), for her tenacity and ingenuity in getting this project going.

  Also thanks to Col John Blashford-Snell, Dr Ahmed Jethu, the Surinamese Honorary Consul, Dr Claire Fuller, David Kerry, Martin Forde, QC, Richard Knight of J. P. Knight and Co, Sheila Markham (the wonderfully knowledgeable librarian at the Travellers Club), Bruce Hubbard, Samantha Tross, FRCS, Fraser Wheeler (the British High Commissioner to Guyana) and his wife Sarah, Yvonne Constantinis, Keith Waithe, Emmanuelle Simon, Judith van Holten, Dan Linstead at Wanderlust, Michael Kerr at the DailyTelegraph, my agent Georgina Capel, Diana Coglianese at Knopf, and Peter Carson at Profile. I also extend my special thanks to my parents, Dr and Mrs TMD Gimlette, for all their help and encouragement with this book, and for their invaluable suggestions on the draft manuscript.