Coffee Cultivation in Berbice, 50 years ago, 
By Alexander Winter, 
[LTHOUGH there is no coffee-estate now in 
Berbice, and has not been for many years 
past, yet coffee cultivation was at one time a 
very important industry here, even more so than sugar. 
At the time of the junction of the colony of Berbice with 
those of Demerary and Essequibo, forming the united 
colony of British Guiana, which was in 1831, there were 
in full operation in Berbice 31 sugar-estates, 40 coffee- 
estates, and 8 cotton-estates. Of the 40 coffee-estates, 
1 7 were situated on the right bank of the Berbice River, 
1 7 on the left bank, and 6 in Canje. 
These were owned partly by resident proprietors, living 
on their own estates, such as the late WOLFART Katz, 
Esquire, said to have been the most extensive resident 
proprietor in the West Indies*, partly by English mer- 
chants residing in London or Liverpool, and partly by 
Dutch merchants residing in Amsterdam and repre- 
sented by Dutch planters living in Berbice. 
The history of some of these estates is rather curious. 
Several of them were owned by the once well-known 
PAUL BENFIELD, a large capitalist, the Rothschild of his 
* Mr. Katz lived in a fine mansion on his Plantation Vryheid, a 
coffee-estate near New Amsterdam ; besides which he was sole owner 
of Plantations Philadelphia, Gebroeders, S'Gravinhague, Cotton 
Tree, and Pelair or Number Six, on all of which there were large 
gangs of negroes. Although the compensation allowed by Government 
at the time of emancipation, was only 8s. in the £ on the appraised value 
of the property taken, Katz's share of this was over i'Ci5,. r )00 sterling ! 
