Essequibo

The Essequibo is one of the great rivers of the Guianas, flowing north from the forested interior to a broad Atlantic estuary. Dutch traders established a foothold in its basin during the early seventeenth century. Fort Kyk-Over-Al stood on a small island at the meeting of the Essequibo with the Cuyuni and Mazaruni, commanding routes into the interior and the trading networks along those rivers.

The Dutch colony grew around trade and plantations. In the eighteenth century its centre moved downriver to Flag Island, where the brick Fort Zeelandia replaced an earlier wooden defence. By 1748 Kyk-Over-Al had been abandoned as the seat of government. Plantation expansion depended on the labour of enslaved Africans, while the rivers remained routes between the coast and Indigenous communities inland.