After considering their social condition, in a letter to the press in 2009 I concluded that ‘if the indigenous people are within a reasonable time to share equitably in what Guyana has, they need to develop their specific political organisation and agenda and use their statistical weight to force its implementation. Of course, I am not for one moment denying that Guyana needs a new management arrangement and that Amerindians are well located to facilitate a change, but even here I will argue that they will be better able to aid that transformation if driven by their specific needs and agenda.’
It is not precisely as I imagined, but if properly orchestrated, with Ms. Juretha Fernandes as his prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Aubrey Norton is suggesting an end to hundreds of years of relative Amerindian marginalisation and poverty.
In March 1778, the first Great Durbar between representatives of the government of the day and Amerindians was held at Fort Island. According to ARF Webber, ‘The Indian chiefs were … presented with sticks with large silver knobs … hats with large silver pointed plumes, blue drill-coloured cloths, axes, ribbons, looking glasses, and other articles, and asked to visit the Fort from time to time. The visitors were thereafter entertained in high revels, with ‘kiltum’ (cheap rum), bread, and provisions. On their part, the Indians promised to be faithful, and to render assistance whenever called upon.’ (Centenary History: Handbook of British Guiana’ 1931).
In 1793, Amerindian slavery was abolished and in 1802, a Protectors of Indians was appointed to, inter alia, catch the slaves who had escaped the plantations. Indeed, in about 1810, a Convention of Friendship was concluded between the British and the Caribs at which the Great Carib Chief Mahanarv in his presentation to the Court of Policy stated that if no one was willing to purchase the slaves in his possession he would have to kill them! In exchange for the promise of annual gifts, the governor prevailed upon the chief to forswear such a radical solution. ‘These revels and presentations were maintained from year to year but discontinued when the menace of revolting Negro slaves no longer existed.’ (Ibid).
Given this backdrop, in 1828, before the abolition of African slavery, William Hillhouse, Quarter Master General of Indians, made the following succinct but prophetic statement as to the trajectory of the Amerindian condition. He claimed that ‘the Indian policy of the Government was transforming the Indians into pauperized pensioners.’ He was immediately sacked and ordered ejected and not to again trespass on any Indian settlement. Webber made the interesting comment that ‘Hillhouse was right; but the way of the reformer, like that of the transgressor, who but transgresses against established things, must always be hard’ (Ibid).
Coming some 200 years after the first Durbar, writing on the dawn of the Co-operative Republic, Hon. H. O. Jack, a minister in the government of the People’s National Congress (PNC), bemoaned the fact that the hinterland remained totally underdeveloped. According to him, ‘Development of the interior was actively discouraged since this might have meant competition with the sugar planters and a threat not only to their financial but also to their social and political position.’ (Co-operative Republic, Guyana” 1970).
The PNC did make a substantial effort: for example, the 1976 amendment to the Amerindian Act designated 77 areas comprising about 16% of Guyana as Amerindian land. And, perhaps because of his determination to grow an authentic national culture and his rumoured Amerindian heritage, Forbes Burnham left significant national indigenous imageries: the Golden Arrowhead, Mashramani, the Cacique Crown, Timehri (now Cheddi Jagan) Airport, the Umana Yana, etc. The People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP/C) government continued with the efforts in health, education, etc., introduced a new Amerindian Act and began land titling.
However, the World Bank 2009 Country Assistance Strategy stated that: ‘The Amerindians, the minority group largely residing in isolated rural interior areas, experience the highest poverty incidence in the country (around 78 percent). This ethnic group represents only 9.2 percent of the population in Guyana but contains one third of the extremely poor population.’
The 1973 ‘Manifesto of the Quechua and Aymara Indians’ of Bolivia made the seminal point. ‘Neither formal education nor party politics nor technical advancement has brought about any significant change in rural life. … We peasants are convinced that development will take place in the countryside and in the country as a whole only when we become the designers of our own progress and masters of our destiny.’
Today, after 30 years of PPP rule, the indigenous people are still the poorest, and where governance is concerned, the president of the Amerindians Peoples’ Association (APA) at the 2025 United Nations Permanent Forum on indigenous issues made a plea for help from the international community.
Among many other things, he claimed that ‘while the government often highlighted indigenous community benefits from the low carbon development strategy this narrative does not tell the full story the process in arriving to this agreement where deeply flawed; again we were not properly consulted on how our forest and land would be used in this scheme we were not allowed to consent to this program with the mandate of our people and we were not part of any negotiation to determine how our people could have benefit from the national initiative according to our needs prior to the carbon sale agreement.’
‘The government current practices violate the indigenous people’s collective rights to self determination and land ownership our sacred lands that have been handed down through generations with care and reverence are being stripped, our rivers poisoned …. We also ask that the Permanent Forum monitor the government’s process to ensure that Guyana Indigenous Peoples are part of this national exercise that will determine the future of our rights, culture and lives. (https://nycaribnews.com/un-amerindians-of-guyana-have-no-rights-to-land-title-forum-says/)..
As the oligarchy that controls the largely East Indian-supported PPP seeks to entrench itself in government, the story has been similar for other ethnic groups. As noted above, urgent constitutional reforms to make the political system inclusive is vital and so too are transparent efforts to identify and deal with ethnic, gender, sexual and other disparities. But in the meantime, the present constitution could facilitate a shared vision and given the opportunity, Mr. Norton should use it to create sufficient policy space to put an end to indigenous marginalisation and relative poverty by their becoming, within the ethnic context of Guyana, ‘the designers of their own progress and masters of their destiny’.
