Guyana Basic History

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The Cooperative Republic of Guyana, which gained independence in 1966, is a sovereign nation about the size of Idaho on the northern coast of South America. In the century before its independence, the area was known to Europeans as British Guiana. The etymology of “guyana” is likely from “guiana”, a local Amerindian word meaning “land of many waters”. The inhabitants of Guyana today include many English-speaking citizens, as well as a large indigenous population, known locally as “Amerindians”, whose ancestors inhabited the area long before European colonization. It is estimated that there are over 50,000 Amerindians living in Guyana’s territory which constitutes for about nine percent of Guyana’s population. About ninety percent of the Amerindians reside in the remote interior of the country, while the majority of Guyana’s people live in the narrow Atlantic coast strip. The Amerindians have gone through a major cultural shift since European colonization, and many of their people have married European and East-Indian settlers.3 The Amerindians’ ancestors were the original inhabitants of the varied geographic zones of northern South America. Many of the groups occupied the mountains, savannahs, and rainforests of the region, and some were coastal dwellers. There were three major language families in the region, and the most predominant was Arawak-Taino which was also spoken in the Caribbean basin.2 In Guyana, the Arawak-Taino population called themselves the Lokono. The Lokono had many tribes, which were agricultural-based matrilineal societies. These people placed a high value on peace and were accommodating to the Europeans. Many of the Lokono became employed as fishermen when the Dutch began colonization, and later, as voluntary laborers for coastal British sugar plantations. Fortunately, the Lokono avoided most of the diseases and enslavement that

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