English: View from inside the ruins of Fort Zeelandia toward the armory in the back. The barrel roof is meant to deflect incoming cannon balls.

Fort Island in the Essequibo River delta was originally called Flag Island due to a large flag that was a guide to ships. In 1740 the Dutch commenced building a small brick fort with African slave labor to replace a rotting wooden redoubt from 1726. The fort was named Fort Zeelandia as many of the area’s original settlers had come from the County of Zeeland in the Netherlands. The lower story was a warehouse for provisions and powder magazines while the upper story was living quarters for soldiers. The roof held mortars and swivel guns. The southwestern bastion was an armory. Flag Island was renamed Fort Island in 1775. Although initially a very substantial defense, by 1781 the fort had deteriorated and was captured by the British, taken over by the French the next year, and then back in Dutch hands two years later. The fort had entered into a long period of decline by 1796.

Guyana means “land of many waters” in an indigenous Amerindian language and was the original name for an entire region covering northern South America between the Orinoco (in Venezuela) and Amazon (in Brazil) Rivers. Christopher Columbus saw Guyana on his third voyage in 1498 and Sir Walter Raleigh published a fanciful description in 1595, but the first European colony was not established until 1616 with the arrival of the Dutch. They created two more colonies (in 1627 and 1752) before the British gained control in 1796 (when fighting the French who occupied the Netherlands) with the Dutch formally ceding the area in 1814. It officially became British Guiana in 1831. The economy was driven by sugar plantations worked by African slaves—more than 100,000 by 1830. Upon emancipation in 1838, agricultural production plummeted. Replacement workers were eventually found in India, with 240,000 indentured servants having been brought over by the time indentured labor was abolished in 1917. Bauxite mining beginning in 1914 created an industry that equals sugar (and rice) today (but gold is by far the leading export). Independence from the United Kingdom was achieved in 1966 with Guyana becoming an official republic within the British Commonwealth of Nations in 1970. Guyana is the only country in South America where English is the official language (but the majority of the population speaks Guyanese Creole, a version of Creole with a basis in English).

On Google Earth:

Fort Island 6°47'32.83"N, 58°30'28.80"W