Surinam (Dutch: Suriname), also unofficially known as Dutch Guiana, was a Dutch plantation colony in the Guianas and the predecessor polity of the modern country of Suriname. It was bordered by the fellow Dutch colony of Berbice to the west, and the French colony of Cayenne to the east. It later bordered British Guiana (modern-day Guyana) from 1831 to 1966.
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The Netherlands began its colonization of the Americas with the establishment of trading posts and plantations. The first forts and settlements along the Essequibo River in Guyana date from the 1590s. Actual colonization, with the Dutch settling in the new lands, was not as common as by other European nations.This colonization preceded the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia, as the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 in present-day Indonesia.
Many of the Dutch settlements were lost or abandoned by the end of the 17th century, but the Netherlands managed to retain possession of Suriname until it gained independence in 1975. Among its several colonies in the region, only the Dutch Caribbean still remains to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands today.
Berbice (/bɜːrˈbiːs/) is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1792 a colony of the Dutch West India Company and between 1792 and 1815 a colony of the Dutch state. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the latter year, it was merged with Demerara-Essequibo to form the colony of British Guiana in 1831. It became a county of British Guiana in 1838 till 1958. In 1966, British Guiana gained independence as Guyana and in 1970 it became a republic as the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.
After being a hereditary fief in the possession of the Van Peere family, the colony was governed by the Society of Berbice in the second half of the colonial period, akin to the neighbouring colony of Suriname, which was governed by the Society of Suriname. The capital of Berbice was at Fort Nassau until 1790. In that year, the town of New Amsterdam, which grew around Fort Sint Andries, was made the new capital of the colony.