How Guyana Was Made

Guyana is a place of deep, deep social fractures. It has the 20th highest homicide rate in the world, almost three times the global average. Almost anywhere here in the capital city it’s strongly advised not to walk alone at night.

So how did this tiny paradise get so violent? Unlike Brazil or Colombia or El Salvador, the story of Guyana is a little different. This video looks at how the Europeans smashed together the people of three different continents to create this little colony of sugar.

Books
- John Gimlette, Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge, 2011
- John Hemming, Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon, 2008
- Charles C. Mann, 1491: The Americas Before Columbus, 2005
- Charles C. Mann, 1493: How the Ecological Collision of Europe and the Americas Gave Rise to the Modern World, 2011
- McNeill, J. R, Mosquito Empires; Ecology and War in the Greater Carribbean, 2010
- English colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, 1604-1668, James A. Williamson, 1923

Articles
- The Economist
- Tim Merrill, ed. Guyana: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1992.
- ‘A New History of the First Peoples in the Americas’, Adam Rutherford The Atlantic, 2017
- ‘Genome-wide Ancestry and Demographic History of African-Descendant Maroon Communities from French Guiana and Suriname’, Fortes-Lima et al, Am J Hum Genet. 2017
- FREIRE, José R. Bessa. “Da ‘fala boa’ ao português na Amazônia brasileira”. Amerindia. Revue d’Ethnolinguistique Amerindienne, Paris, 1983, 8, pp. 39-83
- ‘MI5 files reveal details of 1953 coup that overthrew British Guiana's leaders’, Associated Press, The Guardian, 2011
- Richard Price, ‘Maroons in Guyane: Getting the Numbers Right’, Brill, 7th December 2018
- Scott B. MacDonald, ‘Has anything changed since French Guiana’s 2017 social upheaval?’, April 20, 2021
- ‘A Path to Prosperity for Oil-Rich Guyana’, Harvard International review, 27 September, 2023
- ‘Venezuelans to vote in referendum over large swathe of territory under dispute with Guyana’, AP, December 3rd 2023

00:00 Intro
01:22 Background
02:23 Dutch Guyana
06:47 Essequibo and Bartica
11:41 Fort Island
17:00 The British
19:40 Indentured Labour
21:30 The PPP and PNC
26:30 Racial Division
29:20 Independence

[Lost_in_Context]

*Note: A very conscientious viewer has reached out to bring to my attention some important context around the 1964 attack on Wismar that I was unaware of. That attack appears to be a response to the earlier bombing of the Son Chapman ferry in which approximately forty people were killed (I've read different numbers), mostly Afro-Guyanese. My video does not make it sufficiently clear that this was part of a cycle of violence in which both Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese played their parts in escalating. Apologies for any offence caused.

[jaswantjagnarain]

i am from Guyana living in America. tears flow from my eyes when i watch these videos. living in America, i miss so much of Guyana that left me hearth broken. nice job

[itsi]

I'll be visiting Guyana this year for the first ever time. My family is Afro-Guyanese, and my dad left the country aged 2 as the last of my grandparents children to be born there before coming to work in England as part of the Windrush.
I am so looking forward to learning more about my heritage and seeing where my beloved grandparents grew up for myself. Especially as neither of them liked to talk about their time in Guyana that much. They suffered greatly there, particularly my Nan.

This video was insightful and I learned a lot. Thank you! 🇬🇾❤️

[suddie]

I'm Guyanese; my username reflects the fact that I was born at Suddie Hospital, Essequibo. My father was killed in the 1969 Rupununi Uprising and my mother and siblings all migrated as soon as we were able to do so. I've lived in the U.S. since 1980. This is an excellent video although some details were misunderstood or misrepresented. The current problems in Guyana are not all attributable to colonialism; much rests on the fact that starting around 1972, practically the entire middle class migrated in search of better economic opportunities and there are now more Guyanese living overseas than in the actual country. This decapitated the economy as the people who could be relied on to run the country all left and it has resulted in generations with poor education and work ethic and dependent on remittances of foreign currency and "barrels" from relatives living abroad. The end result is a wide gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" which explains much of the crimes that occur in Guyana today.

[kahluaqueen]

This is the kind of journalism that’s lacking. Hard and unpleasant truths - reality and good research.

[elsafischer]

I’m from Colombia and always wanted to visit this countries. Now after your videos I will tried to go. Thank you for ALL your wonderful information

[goldenboy._]

This is Top tier journalism!!! Love mi country… one people, one nation, one destiny🇬🇾

[alaricboyle-poirier]

Everything about this film is good: the filming, the sound and music, the editing, the host and the presentation, and a fascinating subject. Thank you for this.

[ThiagoTasepDJ]

Extreme storytelling skills; bumped across the first episode, immediately went for the second and I still can’t get no sleep! 👏🏽👏🏽

[TakeHerTo]

I’ve been waiting patiently. This series is amazing

[DAVIDSTOUT-unyt]

I am so pleased to find your site. I'm 70 tears old, living in Texas. If I could live my life again and could have afforded to live, I'd have been living as you -- an anthologust/historian. I live vicariously through your excellent videos. Thank you.

[RequestToSpeak]

This is incredible work and an example of what modern journalism can be. Well done.

[gireshmeghan]

Every Guyanese living abroad must go back to visit Guyana now and see how much it has changed and developed. We have come a long way and it is truly remarkable

[Antonio-whoq]

I am a recently naturalized American from Guyana, and I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I especially liked how you touched on the nuances surrounding the origins of Guyanese ethno-politics. Accurate and remarkably well done! Kudos. 👍

[stevehenry]

I was born in Guyana, and I am one of the many who migrated aftercare hostilities. This series is a well-done history lesson for me. I started visiting Guyana recently and loved every minute of it. The people and the foods are just spectacular.

[willcowan]

I'm looking forward to the next one. Great research and presentation.

[vigilante]

Alex, we love your series!! Please never sell out like Johnny Harris. Please stay true to your intellect and

[Joel_Buer]

Amazing series, Alex! Keep up the great great work! I am a backpacker from Germany currently going from french guyana to venezuela via the guianas and your videos are helping me A LOT understanding the countries and its people.
Cheers,
Joel

[Thatveganlifestyle]

I am from Suriname 🇸🇷. Thank you so much for highlighting the unfathomable cruelty of Dutch rule. I live in the Netherlands currently and it gets swept under the rug in Dutch history books.

[tsgoten]

Your videos are amazing! Just finished the Sri Lanka series, very excited about this one. Great work Alex