This month I have gotten a coin from Britain’s only colony on the mainland of the South American continent.
In the picture above you can see a Stiver coin from the colony of Essequibo and Demarary, dated 1815. These two regions now form parts of the larger state of Guyana which borders the states of Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname.
Guyana was first sighted by Columbus in the late 15th century, and an account was written down by Sir Walter Raleigh a century later. The area was first settled by the Dutch in the early 17th and mid 18th centuries. Britain took control of the colony in 1796 during hostilities with the French during the French Revolutionary Wars, who had at that time taken over control of the Netherlands. The colonies were then returned to the Dutch in 1802 under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, but were then retaken by the British a year later when hostilities in the Napoleonic Wars broke out.
The colonies were officially ceded to Britain in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, and in 1831 the territories were consolidated into the single colony of British Guiana.
The British mainly developed the colony for sugarcane plantations, with many African slaves being brought here to work on them. The process of resource exploitation would continue throughout the 19th century, with some minor diversification to exploit the bauxite deposits in the latter half, and early 20th century. The territory would gain it’s independence from Britain in 1966, changing it’s name to Guyana.
Numismatic Exploits 