The Indian Policy of the Dutch. 



By the Editor. 



|HEN Guiana was discovered the coast and lower 

 distrifts must have been fairly well populated. 

 Of the four tribes which then came in contaft 

 with the traders, the Caribs were estimated at something 

 like 140,000, about a fourth of whom lived between the 

 Corentyne and the Essequebo, and the remainder in 

 Caribana, which included the North-West district and 

 the delta of the Orinoco. If we take this estimate as 

 being anything like exaft then Caribana must have con- 

 tained a population of a hundred thousand besides 

 Arawaks and Warrows. There appears to have been 

 four great Carib centres known as the Kingdoms of 

 Pawrooma, (Pomeroon), Moruga, Waini and Barima, the 

 chief towns of which were Maripa, Cooparoore, Tocoo- 

 poima and Pekwa, each community being under one or 

 more war captains. The estimate of Major JOHN ScOTT, 

 made in 1666, puts down the population of what is known 

 as British Guiana, up to the delta of the Orinoco, as 

 28,000 families of Caribs and 8,000 of Arawaks, besides 

 Acawoios and Warrows. While making every allowance 

 for exaggeration, we are bound to admit that the Indian 

 population was a fa6lor to be reckoned with in any 

 attempts to settle. That the natives were somewhat 

 different from the scattered communities now living in 

 the interior is proved by the fa6l that cargoes of tobacco, 

 cotton, and other produce could be obtained at regular 

 intervals, and that it paid to send small trading vessels 



