The history of Guyana begins before the arrival of Europeans, when the region of present-day Guyana was inhabited by Carib, Arawak, and Warao peoples. The word Guiana probably comes from the Arawak words "wai ana" which means (land of) many waters. Some 70,000 amerindians still live in Guyana, primarily in the country's interior.
Christopher Columbus sighted Guyana in 1498. The coastline of the country was first traced by Spanish sailors in 1499 and 1500; and during the 16th and early 17th centuries, the search for the fabulous city of El Dorado - forever linked in British minds, with exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh - stimulated exploration of this region. Little is known of the first settlements, though they were almost certainly Spanish or Portuguese.
The Dutch began exploring and settling in Guyana in the late 16th century, followed by the English. Both began trading with the Amerindian peoples upriver.
The first Dutch settlement was established on the Pomeroon River in 1581. The settlers were evicted by Spaniards and Indians, probably in 1596. The evicted settlers retired to Kyk-over-al (Look-over-everything) on the Essequibo River, where the Dutch West India Company established a fort in 1616-1621 in what they called the County of Essequibo.
In 1627 a settlement was founded in the Berbice River by Van Peere, a Flushing merchant, and held by him under a licence from the Company.
Attempts at settling inland failed, forcing the Europeans to settle on the coast in the mid-1700's, where they created plantations worked by African slaves. The main crops were coffee, cotton, and sugar, the last of which soon become the main crop. The soil quality was poor, however. The slaves, led by Cuffy, (Guyana's national hero), revolted in 1763 in what became known as the Berbice slave revolt.
Britain took the region from the Dutch in 1796. The Dutch took it back in 1802, before being ousted again by the British in 1803. The colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice were officially ceded to the United Kingdom in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 and at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1831 they were consolidated as British Guiana.
A further rebellion by ten to twelve thousand slaves in Demerara in 1823 resulted in the trial and execution of thirty-three slaves and the trial and conviction of missionary John Smith.
When slavery was abolished in 1834, the Afro-Guyanese refused to work for wages, and many scattered into the bush. This forced many plantations to close or consolidate. Thousands of indentured laborers were brought to Guyana to replace the slaves on the sugarcane plantations, primarily from India, but also from Portugal and China. This provided the basis for the racial tension that was encouraged and manipulated later, at the point where Guyana made its bid for independence, and to the present day. However, Guyanese culture is in many ways homogeneous, due to shared history, intermarriage, and other factors.
The British stopped the practice of importing labor in 1917, by which time around 250,000 people had settled in Guyana. Many of the Afro-Guyanese former slaves moved to the towns and became the majority urban population, whereas the Indo-Guyanese remained predominantly rural. A scheme in 1862 to bring black workers from the United States was unsuccessful.
A fall in sugar prices in the late 19th century led to an increase in logging and mining.
Guyanese politics occasionally have been turbulent. The first modern political party in Guyana was the People's Progressive Party (PPP), established on January 1, 1950, with Forbes Burnham, a British-educated Afro-Guyanese, as chairman; Dr. Cheddi Jagan, a U.S.-educated Indo-Guyanese, as second vice chairman; and his American-born wife, Janet Jagan, as secretary general. The PPP won 18 out of 24 seats in the first popular elections permitted by the colonial government in 1953. Dr. Jagan became leader of the house and minister of agriculture in the colonial government. However, Jagan's Marxist views caused concern in Washington.
On October 9, 1953, five months after his election, the British suspended the constitution and landed troops because, they said, the Jagans and the PPP were planning to make Guyana a communist state. These events led to a manipulated split in the PPP, in which Burnham broke away and founded what eventually became the People's National Congress (PNC). Colonial interests, which hoped to thwart the Guyanese independence movement, instigated conflict between Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese. The PPP, which was a multi-ethnic, nationalist party, was depicted as a vehicle for the majority Indo-Guyanese population, and the PNC posed as an alternative for Afro-Guyanese. This ethnic divide in politics continues to this day.
From the latter part of 1963, through the early part of 1964, came the period euphemistically called "The Disturbances" by the British. The governments of The UK and the USA joined forces to destabilize the Guyanese political landscape, with the U.S. providing intelligence and infiltration (through the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD)), while the British brought in brute force. AIFLD operatives instigated a 90 day strike of primarily urban and Afro-Guyanese unions, which brought the nation's economy to a halt; the strike was also the occasion for outbreaks of racial violence, as it was used to pit the predominantly Indo-Guyanese government against the predominantly Afro-Guyanese service unions. The British alternately moved to crush the altercations, or to simply allow them to run their course. During this period, PPP leaders such as Jagan, Brindley Benn, and the man who came to be regarded as Guyana's poet laureate, Martin Carter, were frequently imprisoned and harassed by the British. Around 200 people died in the riots.
Guyana achieved independence on May 26, 1966, and became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana on February 23, 1970 - the anniversary of the Cuffy slave rebellion - with a new constitution. From December 1964 until his death in August 1985, Forbes Burnham ruled Guyana in an increasingly autocratic manner, first as Prime Minister and later, after the adoption of a new constitution in 1980 (declaring Guyana to be in transition from capitalism to socialism and allowing an elected President and Prime Minister appointed by the president), as Executive President. During that time-frame, elections were viewed in Guyana and abroad as fraudulent. Human rights and civil liberties were suppressed, and two major political assassinations occurred: the Jesuit priest and journalist Bernard Darke in July 1979, and the distinguished historian and WPA Party leader Walter Rodney in June 1980. Agents of President Burnham are widely believed to have been responsible for both deaths. Burnham also nationalised many industries, such as sugar and bauxite, and fostered links with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.
In 1974 the Guyanese government allowed the religious group the Peoples Temple, led by the American Jim Jones, to build a 300-acre settlement (called Jonestown) in the north-west of the country. Following increasing concern about abuses at Jonestown, US Congressman Leo Ryan agreed to conduct a fact-finding mission to the settlement, accompanied by concerned relatives and media persons, on 14 November 1978. Whilst boarding a plane, the company was fired upon; several people, including Ryan, were killed. This was then followed by the mass-suicide, at Jones's instigation, of all 900 people at Jonestown.
Following Burnham's own death in 1985, Prime Minister Hugh Desmond Hoyte acceded to the presidency and was formally elected in the December 1985 national elections. Hoyte gradually reversed Burnham's policies, moving from state socialism and one-party control to a market economy, industry privatisation and unrestricted freedom of the press and assembly. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited Guyana to lobby for the resumption of free elections, and on October 5, 1992, a new National Assembly and regional councils were elected in the first Guyanese election since 1964 to be internationally recognized as free and fair. Cheddi Jagan of the PPP-Civic was elected and sworn in as President on October 9, 1992, the first time the PPP had won power since independence, reversing the monopoly Afro-Guyanese traditionally had over Guyanese politics. The poll was marred by violence however. A new IMF Structural Adjustment programme was introduced which led to an increase in the GDP whilst also eroding real incomes and hitting the middle-classes hard.
When President Jagan died of a heart attack in March 1997, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds replaced him in accordance with constitutional provisions, with his widow Janet Jagan as Prime Minister. She was then elected President on 15th December 1997 for the PPP. Desmond Hoyte's PNC contested the results however, resulting in strikes, riots and 1 death before a Caricom mediating committee was brought in. Janet Jangan's PPP government was sworn in one 24th December having agreed to a constitutional review and to hold elections within three years, though Hoyte refused to recognise her government.
Jagan resigned in August 1999 due to ill health and was succeeded by Finance Minister Bharrat Jagdeo, who had been named Prime Minister a day earlier. National elections were held on March 19, 2001, three months later then planned as the election committees said they were unprepared. Fears that the violence that marred the previous election led to monitoring by foreign bodies, including Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile a High Court judge ruled that the 1997 elections were invalid. In March incumbent President Jagdeo the election with a voter turnout of over 90%.
Meanwhile tensions with Suriname were seriously strained by a dispute over their shared maritime border after Guyana had allowed oil-prospectors license to explore the areas.
In December 2002 Hoyte died, with Robert Corbin replacing him as leader of the PNC. He agreed to engage in 'constructive engagement' with Jagdeo and the PPP.
2005 saw the country struck by the worst flood in its history, causing much damage.