Berbice (Dutch colony)
Substate | Defunct
1790 CE to 1815 CE
Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which is between 1627 and 1815 a colony of the Netherlands.
After having been ceded to the United Kingdom in the latter year, it i merged with Essequibo and Demerara to form the colony of British Guiana in 1831.
In 1966, British Guiana gains independence as Guyana.After being a hereditary fief in the possession of the Van Peere family, the colony is governed by the Society of Berbice in the second half of the colonial period, akin to the neighboring colony of Suriname, which is governed by the Society of Suriname.
The capital of Berbice is at Fort Nassau until 1790.
In this year, the town of New Amsterdam, which grows around Fort Sint Andries, was made the new capital of the colony.
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The Dutch West India Company is no longer capable of defending its own colonies, as had become apparent after the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, in which Sint Eustatius, Berbice, Essequibo, Demerara, and some forts on the Dutch Gold Coast had been rapidly taken from them.
The Dutch government in 1791 elects not to renew the charter of the Dutch West India Company, whose principal activity has remained the slave trade, and assumes the Company’s possessions and debts.
All territories previously held by the Dutch West India Company will on January 1, 1792, revert to the rule of the States-General of the Dutch Republic.
In addition, the British cede the island of Banca (Bangka) off the island of Sumatra, in exchange for the settlement of Cochin, India.