THE AMERICANS OF THE INTERIOR OF 
BRITISH GUIANA. 
By Rav. JAMES WILLIAMS. 
The stranger who arrives in Georgetown and desires information concern- 
ing the native Indian, the true “ American,” will soon discover that generally 
speaking, the population of the capital and indeed of the whole sugar producing 
area of the colony knows nothing about him and perhaps caies even less. 
The term “‘ Indian” on the coast is used almost always of people who belong 
to a distar.t quarter of the world. If anyone should happen to refer to the 
native Indian, as likely as not it will be under the disparaging term of the 
“poor buck.” And the height of abst rdity was reached e few years ago when 
persons whose ancestors only came to the colony 100 or 200 years ago were so 
entirely unmindful of the original ownership of the land that they called them- 
selves “‘sons of the soil”’ a title which only the native Indian can rightly claim. 
Thus the true American has completely vanished for all practical purposes 
from the life and thought ofthe inhabitants of the Coast. The sameis true to 
a great extent even of the Government. A Government Official is styled 
Protecto of Indians but no money is supplied with which he may carry out the 
dut es of the office, and not long ago the Combined Court grudged the expendi- 
ture of a few dollars which would have provided a shelter where the few Indian 
visitors to town during their short stays might have hung their hammocks. 
All this serves to point out one characteristic of the native Indian, his retiring 
nature and lack of self-assertion. The Spaniard used him as a labourer aed 
used him up; he occupied his land and the survivors retired. The Britisher 
comes with his native “ push” and Philistine energy to develop the land and 
ifit may be, make his fortune and one day suddenly wonders what has become 
of the original occupier, the native Indian. And even the ordinary black 
man separates h mself in mental attitude from the denizen of our forests and 
plains in that the latter in his native haunts makes light of clothing while the 
former has chosen out this particular item from among the characteristics 
of the governing race and has decided that this is civilization. The retiring 
dispos tion of the Indian ; his resolve not to intrude where he thinks himself 
unwelcome ; his d sinclination to grumble at another, but, instead of this, to 
leave him so that each may go his own way ; this, in at least one aspect, 1s 
surely a practical exhibition of the temper of mind enjoined upon all of us in 
the Sermon on the Mount. It is certainly not due to any lack of intelligence 
as ethnologists tell usthat the American race is high up in the general intelli- 
gence ofthe world. Thus the Indian retires before self-asserting peoples whose 
outlook is for the most part of the earth, earthy. 
During a residence of several years at Bartica Grove the writer became 
acquainted With the native Indian brought into contact With the civilization 
which consists in mercantile stores, gold-digging expeditions and rumshops 
With their frequenters. The Indians inthis neighbourhood were not numerous 
from time to time their numbers received accessions by new arrivals from the 
