Hopetown Chinese Settlement
The first village experiment in Guyana
By Basdeo Mangru PhD
Guyana Journal, November 2006
The importation of Chinese and other immigrants (Africans, Indians, Portuguese, Europeans) into post-emancipation Guyana was part of a continuing search by the sugar planters for a labor force that was docile, reliable and amenable to discipline under harsh tropical conditions. Through immigration the planters hoped to diversify the cultural and ethnic composition of the workforce so as to prevent powerful labor combinations against management, and to reduce wages as well. An influential Attorney of sugar estates emphasized succinctly this divide-and-rule policy:
I think the safety of the whites depends very much upon the want of union in the different races of labourers, and I shall be glad to see some more Madeiranese, and if possible, Chinese coming; the Coolies too will always hold by the whites.1
Chinese Immigration and Settlement
A proposal to introduce Chinese workers from mainland China had been discussed a few years after slave emancipation, but although an Ordinance was passed by the Court of Policy, the colony’s legislative body, the proposal did not bear fruit. In 1851 James White, the colony’s Immigration Agent, visited China. (as well as India) to promote the emigration of Chinese workers.2 Consequently, in 1853 three ships left Amoy in China’s Fujian Province with a total of 1,549 laborers. Other shipments followed so that between 1853 and 1879, when Chinese immigration ended, a total of 13,541 Chinese landed in Guyana to work as indentured laborers on sugar estates. Throughout this period, the Chinese formed a small minority, never constituting more that 4% of the colony’s total population.
Besides Amoy, Chinese immigrants were also recruited from Canton which was seized by the British following their victory in the Anglo-Chinese Opium War of 1840-1842. The recruiting system became more organized when the Guyanese authorities set up recruiting agencies in both Canton and Amoy. The local authorities in China permitted emigration once they were satisfied that the recruits understood the terms of engagement and their prospects overseas.3
As with Indian indentured workers, Chinese laborers were indentured for five years and assigned such specific tasks as weeding, hoeing, planting and cutting. At the termination of their contract, they, like Indian workers, were offered a bounty of $50 to re-indenture for another five years. Chinese workers were required to work 6 days a week at 91/2 hours a day, for which they could earn between 24 and 40 cents a day. Generally, like indentured Indians, Chinese laborers were overworked, underpaid and brutalized by the lower echelons of the estate hierarchy. Chief Justice Joseph Beaumont produced authoritative descriptions of the abuses perpetrated on indentured Chinese in his revealing book, The New Slavery. He cited, inter alia, the “ shocking and harrowing” case of Low-a-Si who was brutally beaten and kicked to death by estate personnel in full view of a crowd of onlookers, including fellow Chinese. What was most shocking to Beaumont was that both the crime and its perpetrators “remained unavenged and unpunished.”4
While some Chinese accepted the re-indenture bounty, which was equivalent to a year’s pay, many became tailors, butchers, cooks, carpenters and tinsmiths. A few turned to shopkeeping, providing rural workers and others with various items of foodstuff. In Georgetown and New Amsterdam, the two main towns, Chinatown districts emerged with trading stores, small restaurants (called cookshops) and laundry and jewelry establishments. But the Chinese transition to business was difficult because the Portuguese, who preceded them as immigrants, soon established a monopoly of the retail trade largely through preferential treatment, planter patronage and their own business acumen.5
Generally, Chinese immigrants, unlike Indians, did not meet the planters’ expectations. Not only was the flow from China irregular, but also there was a paucity of Chinese women willing to emigrate. When the emigration system began, women were obtained largely through purchase. Women whose husbands had died during inter-clan feuds were brought from rural to urban areas to be sold as concubines, domestic servants and laborers. Through a tempting monetary offer from recruiting agents, intending male emigrants purchased wives from these groups and emigrated with them.6 However, with the cessation of inter-clan feuds, colonial emigration agents found it impossible to obtain the requisite number of 33 women to every 100 men.7 This difficulty produced widespread kidnapping in the streets of Canton, particularly for service in Cuba and Peru. Consequently, it was estimated that only about 15% of Chinese emigrants were women.8 This shortage of females discredited the system and constituted a significant reason for this short-lived emigration scheme. Moreover, it impeded the establishment of a settled family life.
There were other problems as well. The Chinese government vigorously demanded protection of its citizens and laid down stringent emigration measures. Moreover, reports reaching Chinese authorities alleged that Chinese laborers in Cuba were living under servile conditions.9 In Guyana, the planters and others viewed Chinese emigration as an expensive undertaking without a commensurate return. Not only were many Chinese laborers non-agriculturists, but also many were considered “turbulent and refractory”. Some were also noted for their nocturnal adventures and systematic theft of poultry and ground provisions. These activities, together with their twin vices of gambling and opium smoking, seemed incompatible with the type of discipline labor desired on sugar estates.10
The Hopetown Experiment
By the mid-1870s the system of re-indenture, which gave the planters “an undue control” over the workforce, was abolished. The fundamental reason was financial. An Ordinance passed in 1873 reduced the colony’s share of immigration expenses to one-fifth, instead of one-third, of the total cost.11 This increased the liability of the planters, leaving them with correspondently less financial resources to pay re-indenture bounties and re-indenture fees since they were committed to accepting all new arrivals. To ensure that the planters concentrate solely on meeting this increased expenditure, the Court of Policy raised the indenture fee12 from $50 to $95, then to $120 and eventually to $200. The effect of this steep fee increase was a virtual prohibition of re-indenture.13
The cessation forced the planters to give serious thought to settling time-expired immigrants (those who completed their contract) on the land. The idea in fact was first mooted in 1854 by The Royal Gazette14 which advocated the promotion of settlements for time-expired workers so that many other tropical products could be cultivated commercially. The proposal went unheeded because the planting interests feared that such schemes would attract valuable plantation labor.15
It was not until 1865, a decade later, that the first experiment in land settlement began when a Chinese settlement was established at Hopetown, 22 miles up the Demerara River, on a grant of Crown lands. The settlement began in response to a petition from Wu Tye Kam, a British subject of Chinese extraction, to found a Christian agricultural settlement. Noting that a large number of disgruntled time-expired Chinese immigrants were contemplating leaving the Colony, Kam, a Missionary and former Revenue Surveyor for the Government of Singapore, argued that their repatriation would prove a poor advertisement and could stifle further Chinese emigration. Conversely, such a settlement could stimulate further Chinese emigration, resulting in increased trade through the beneficial utilization of unused land.16
The scheme stimulated the interest of the pro planter Governor, Sir Francis Hincks, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Kimberley, and the local press.17 Initially, the powerful planting interests opposed it for fear that it would serve as “a refuge for deserters” fleeing from the sugar estates, and for “fugitives from justice”. They reluctantly agreed because of the tremendous enthusiasm shown, particularly in the Colonial Office.18
Through a local government grant of £600 ($2,880G), the land was drained and it soon supported a thriving community engaged in agriculture, livestock rearing, woodcutting, shingles and charcoal manufacture. E.G Yewens, Inspector of Villages, described the course followed by the Chinese settlers in agriculture and charcoal manufacture: “. . . on taking up a piece of Bush land they first build a coal pit, they then cut down all the hard wood trees and convert them into charcoal which is shipped to Georgetown, when the land has been all cleared they plant it up.”19 They built rainproof houses with manicole palms nailed to runners.
Within two years the Chinese constructed some 40 charcoal ovens. They were producing a better grade of charcoal and more economically than the Portuguese, which broke their competitor’s monopoly in that field.20 The Chinese economic advantage in the charcoal business stemmed from the fact that they built dome-shaped ovens in which the logs were stacked vertically. Under this method, the charring process was much more efficient than the conventional method utilized by the Portuguese. The charcoal business became a prosperous one through export to the Caribbean islands.
Despite sanguine expectations, the scheme collapsed following a brief period of rapid progress. A poor location on low-lying area which led to constant flooding, a paucity of Chinese women and the reluctance of Chinese youths to cultivate the soil were significant contributory factors.21 Moreover, many settlers who amassed small fortunes left the settlement to engage in business in the populated areas. The planting interests, too, continued to regard the settlement with distrust.
The fundamental reason for its failure was the sudden and unexpected disappearance of Kam from the scene. As custodian of the revenues, he became the backbone of the whole venture and the architect of the settlement’s initial progress. It was rumored that this Chinese Missionary developed an intimate relationship with a colored woman in Georgetown who became pregnant, and that he fled, (with two accomplices) to Trinidad to avoid embarrassment, since he had a wife and family in Singapore. Whether this was the real reason for his sudden exit could not be reliably substantiated. What seemed strange was his sudden disappearance with the settlement’s boat and without accounting for the finances.
When Yewens visited the settlement in 1874, he found that most of the original settlers had abandoned their holdings. The principal occupation of those still resident there continued to be agriculture and charcoal manufacture. He noticed heaps of Chinese tannias extensively cultivated but the price per bag had fallen by more than 50 percent. Flooding continued to be a major problem. Additionally, the settlers had abandoned rice cultivation because of the “severe losses they sustained from birds which took half the crop.” Nevertheless, from personal interviews, he reported “a spirit of contentment and a state of admitted prosperity.”
Consequently, he urged the government to provide the necessary financial assistance “to prevent the total abandonment of the settlement”, and to appoint a Chinese Catechist to assist in religious instruction. However, the following year The Royal Gazette reported that the settlement22 “affords a pitiable picture of preserving industry, unsuccessfully battling against the want of drainage and its attendant train of diseases.”23
Despite the apparent failure of the Hopetown settlement, its brief prosperity was significant as it indicated that with careful planning and adequate supervision the utilization of Crown Lands for the promotion of similar settlements was feasible. Furthermore, a vigorous debate occurred in the Colonial Office and in the local press regarding the urgency of establishing private land schemes, especially as it was disclosed that 30,000 Indians were entitled to a free return passage to India at an estimated cost of $250,000.24 If suddenly all opted for repatriation, not only would the planters’ resources be depleted, but employers would be deprived of the services of skilled, acclimatized laborers. It was this stark realization which galvanized the planters into experimenting with land settlement schemes to anchor Indians in the colony and prevent their repatriation.
Notes
1 Parliamentary Papers (P.P.) 1847-1848, XXII, pt. II, (206), p. 7.
2 B. Moore, Race, Power and Social Segmentation in Colonial Society. Guyana after Slavery, 1838-1891. New York, 1987, pp. 45-46.
3 See T. Sue-A-Quan, ‘Chinese Migrants from British Guiana in the 19th Century’. (Unpub. paper), pp. 1 & 3.
4 J. Beaumont, The New Slavery. London: W. Ridgeway, 1871, pp. 69-71.
5 Sue-A-Quan, p. 3.
6 See Minutes of the Court of Policy (M.C.P)., 16 Feb. 1867.
7 Colonial Office (C.O.) 114/24. W. Murdoch to F. Rogers, 20 Dec. 1866.
8 Sue-A-Quan, p. 2.
9 See C.O. 384/109. H.A. Firth, ‘Report on Mission to China’, 10 July 1875.
10 See The Royal Gazette, 13 April 1869.
11 See Ord. 7 of 1873. Articles 19 & 20.
12 The planters were required to pay reindentured immigrants a bounty as well as a reindenture fee to the Immigration Fund for immigration purposes.
13 Gov. R. Longden to Lord Carnarvan, no. 161, 4 Aug. 1875, National Archives of Guyana (N.A.G.).
14 This newspaper originally printed official notices but gradually brought in news items and editorials expressing an opinion.
15 See B. Mangru, Benevolent Neutrality. Indian Government Policy and labour migration to British Guiana, 1854-1884. London: Hansib Publishing Ltd., 1987, pp. 202-203.
16 See C.O. 114/24. M.C.P., 30 Jan. 1865; The Royal Gazette, 2 Feb. 1865; C.O. 386/96. C. Murdoch to F. Rogers, 30 Jan. 1866.
17 See C.O. 111/350. E. Cardwell to F. Hincks, no. 184, 25 May 1865; also The Colonist, 25 Feb. 1865.
18 Mangru, p. 203.
19 E.G. Yewens, ‘Report of Chinese Settlement of Hope Town, Demerara’, 6 May 1874, p. 1.
20 Moore, p. 176.
21 For details of the reasons for failure see F.A. Low, ‘Chinese Hopetown Settlement’. Timehri, 6 (Sept. 1919): 66-67.
22 Yewens, ‘Report’ p. 4.
23 The Royal Gazette, 14 Aug. 1875.
24 For details see Mangru, pp. 203-207.
Dr. Basdeo Mangru teaches Caribbean Studies at York College (CUNY) in Queens, NY. He has written a few books and many papers on immigration to Guyana.
The first village experiment in Guyana
By Basdeo Mangru PhD
Guyana Journal, November 2006
The importation of Chinese and other immigrants (Africans, Indians, Portuguese, Europeans) into post-emancipation Guyana was part of a continuing search by the sugar planters for a labor force that was docile, reliable and amenable to discipline under harsh tropical conditions. Through immigration the planters hoped to diversify the cultural and ethnic composition of the workforce so as to prevent powerful labor combinations against management, and to reduce wages as well. An influential Attorney of sugar estates emphasized succinctly this divide-and-rule policy:
I think the safety of the whites depends very much upon the want of union in the different races of labourers, and I shall be glad to see some more Madeiranese, and if possible, Chinese coming; the Coolies too will always hold by the whites.1
Chinese Immigration and Settlement
A proposal to introduce Chinese workers from mainland China had been discussed a few years after slave emancipation, but although an Ordinance was passed by the Court of Policy, the colony’s legislative body, the proposal did not bear fruit. In 1851 James White, the colony’s Immigration Agent, visited China. (as well as India) to promote the emigration of Chinese workers.2 Consequently, in 1853 three ships left Amoy in China’s Fujian Province with a total of 1,549 laborers. Other shipments followed so that between 1853 and 1879, when Chinese immigration ended, a total of 13,541 Chinese landed in Guyana to work as indentured laborers on sugar estates. Throughout this period, the Chinese formed a small minority, never constituting more that 4% of the colony’s total population.
Besides Amoy, Chinese immigrants were also recruited from Canton which was seized by the British following their victory in the Anglo-Chinese Opium War of 1840-1842. The recruiting system became more organized when the Guyanese authorities set up recruiting agencies in both Canton and Amoy. The local authorities in China permitted emigration once they were satisfied that the recruits understood the terms of engagement and their prospects overseas.3
As with Indian indentured workers, Chinese laborers were indentured for five years and assigned such specific tasks as weeding, hoeing, planting and cutting. At the termination of their contract, they, like Indian workers, were offered a bounty of $50 to re-indenture for another five years. Chinese workers were required to work 6 days a week at 91/2 hours a day, for which they could earn between 24 and 40 cents a day. Generally, like indentured Indians, Chinese laborers were overworked, underpaid and brutalized by the lower echelons of the estate hierarchy. Chief Justice Joseph Beaumont produced authoritative descriptions of the abuses perpetrated on indentured Chinese in his revealing book, The New Slavery. He cited, inter alia, the “ shocking and harrowing” case of Low-a-Si who was brutally beaten and kicked to death by estate personnel in full view of a crowd of onlookers, including fellow Chinese. What was most shocking to Beaumont was that both the crime and its perpetrators “remained unavenged and unpunished.”4
While some Chinese accepted the re-indenture bounty, which was equivalent to a year’s pay, many became tailors, butchers, cooks, carpenters and tinsmiths. A few turned to shopkeeping, providing rural workers and others with various items of foodstuff. In Georgetown and New Amsterdam, the two main towns, Chinatown districts emerged with trading stores, small restaurants (called cookshops) and laundry and jewelry establishments. But the Chinese transition to business was difficult because the Portuguese, who preceded them as immigrants, soon established a monopoly of the retail trade largely through preferential treatment, planter patronage and their own business acumen.5
Generally, Chinese immigrants, unlike Indians, did not meet the planters’ expectations. Not only was the flow from China irregular, but also there was a paucity of Chinese women willing to emigrate. When the emigration system began, women were obtained largely through purchase. Women whose husbands had died during inter-clan feuds were brought from rural to urban areas to be sold as concubines, domestic servants and laborers. Through a tempting monetary offer from recruiting agents, intending male emigrants purchased wives from these groups and emigrated with them.6 However, with the cessation of inter-clan feuds, colonial emigration agents found it impossible to obtain the requisite number of 33 women to every 100 men.7 This difficulty produced widespread kidnapping in the streets of Canton, particularly for service in Cuba and Peru. Consequently, it was estimated that only about 15% of Chinese emigrants were women.8 This shortage of females discredited the system and constituted a significant reason for this short-lived emigration scheme. Moreover, it impeded the establishment of a settled family life.
There were other problems as well. The Chinese government vigorously demanded protection of its citizens and laid down stringent emigration measures. Moreover, reports reaching Chinese authorities alleged that Chinese laborers in Cuba were living under servile conditions.9 In Guyana, the planters and others viewed Chinese emigration as an expensive undertaking without a commensurate return. Not only were many Chinese laborers non-agriculturists, but also many were considered “turbulent and refractory”. Some were also noted for their nocturnal adventures and systematic theft of poultry and ground provisions. These activities, together with their twin vices of gambling and opium smoking, seemed incompatible with the type of discipline labor desired on sugar estates.10
The Hopetown Experiment
By the mid-1870s the system of re-indenture, which gave the planters “an undue control” over the workforce, was abolished. The fundamental reason was financial. An Ordinance passed in 1873 reduced the colony’s share of immigration expenses to one-fifth, instead of one-third, of the total cost.11 This increased the liability of the planters, leaving them with correspondently less financial resources to pay re-indenture bounties and re-indenture fees since they were committed to accepting all new arrivals. To ensure that the planters concentrate solely on meeting this increased expenditure, the Court of Policy raised the indenture fee12 from $50 to $95, then to $120 and eventually to $200. The effect of this steep fee increase was a virtual prohibition of re-indenture.13
The cessation forced the planters to give serious thought to settling time-expired immigrants (those who completed their contract) on the land. The idea in fact was first mooted in 1854 by The Royal Gazette14 which advocated the promotion of settlements for time-expired workers so that many other tropical products could be cultivated commercially. The proposal went unheeded because the planting interests feared that such schemes would attract valuable plantation labor.15
It was not until 1865, a decade later, that the first experiment in land settlement began when a Chinese settlement was established at Hopetown, 22 miles up the Demerara River, on a grant of Crown lands. The settlement began in response to a petition from Wu Tye Kam, a British subject of Chinese extraction, to found a Christian agricultural settlement. Noting that a large number of disgruntled time-expired Chinese immigrants were contemplating leaving the Colony, Kam, a Missionary and former Revenue Surveyor for the Government of Singapore, argued that their repatriation would prove a poor advertisement and could stifle further Chinese emigration. Conversely, such a settlement could stimulate further Chinese emigration, resulting in increased trade through the beneficial utilization of unused land.16
The scheme stimulated the interest of the pro planter Governor, Sir Francis Hincks, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Kimberley, and the local press.17 Initially, the powerful planting interests opposed it for fear that it would serve as “a refuge for deserters” fleeing from the sugar estates, and for “fugitives from justice”. They reluctantly agreed because of the tremendous enthusiasm shown, particularly in the Colonial Office.18
Through a local government grant of £600 ($2,880G), the land was drained and it soon supported a thriving community engaged in agriculture, livestock rearing, woodcutting, shingles and charcoal manufacture. E.G Yewens, Inspector of Villages, described the course followed by the Chinese settlers in agriculture and charcoal manufacture: “. . . on taking up a piece of Bush land they first build a coal pit, they then cut down all the hard wood trees and convert them into charcoal which is shipped to Georgetown, when the land has been all cleared they plant it up.”19 They built rainproof houses with manicole palms nailed to runners.
Within two years the Chinese constructed some 40 charcoal ovens. They were producing a better grade of charcoal and more economically than the Portuguese, which broke their competitor’s monopoly in that field.20 The Chinese economic advantage in the charcoal business stemmed from the fact that they built dome-shaped ovens in which the logs were stacked vertically. Under this method, the charring process was much more efficient than the conventional method utilized by the Portuguese. The charcoal business became a prosperous one through export to the Caribbean islands.
Despite sanguine expectations, the scheme collapsed following a brief period of rapid progress. A poor location on low-lying area which led to constant flooding, a paucity of Chinese women and the reluctance of Chinese youths to cultivate the soil were significant contributory factors.21 Moreover, many settlers who amassed small fortunes left the settlement to engage in business in the populated areas. The planting interests, too, continued to regard the settlement with distrust.
The fundamental reason for its failure was the sudden and unexpected disappearance of Kam from the scene. As custodian of the revenues, he became the backbone of the whole venture and the architect of the settlement’s initial progress. It was rumored that this Chinese Missionary developed an intimate relationship with a colored woman in Georgetown who became pregnant, and that he fled, (with two accomplices) to Trinidad to avoid embarrassment, since he had a wife and family in Singapore. Whether this was the real reason for his sudden exit could not be reliably substantiated. What seemed strange was his sudden disappearance with the settlement’s boat and without accounting for the finances.
When Yewens visited the settlement in 1874, he found that most of the original settlers had abandoned their holdings. The principal occupation of those still resident there continued to be agriculture and charcoal manufacture. He noticed heaps of Chinese tannias extensively cultivated but the price per bag had fallen by more than 50 percent. Flooding continued to be a major problem. Additionally, the settlers had abandoned rice cultivation because of the “severe losses they sustained from birds which took half the crop.” Nevertheless, from personal interviews, he reported “a spirit of contentment and a state of admitted prosperity.”
Consequently, he urged the government to provide the necessary financial assistance “to prevent the total abandonment of the settlement”, and to appoint a Chinese Catechist to assist in religious instruction. However, the following year The Royal Gazette reported that the settlement22 “affords a pitiable picture of preserving industry, unsuccessfully battling against the want of drainage and its attendant train of diseases.”23
Despite the apparent failure of the Hopetown settlement, its brief prosperity was significant as it indicated that with careful planning and adequate supervision the utilization of Crown Lands for the promotion of similar settlements was feasible. Furthermore, a vigorous debate occurred in the Colonial Office and in the local press regarding the urgency of establishing private land schemes, especially as it was disclosed that 30,000 Indians were entitled to a free return passage to India at an estimated cost of $250,000.24 If suddenly all opted for repatriation, not only would the planters’ resources be depleted, but employers would be deprived of the services of skilled, acclimatized laborers. It was this stark realization which galvanized the planters into experimenting with land settlement schemes to anchor Indians in the colony and prevent their repatriation.
Notes
1 Parliamentary Papers (P.P.) 1847-1848, XXII, pt. II, (206), p. 7.
2 B. Moore, Race, Power and Social Segmentation in Colonial Society. Guyana after Slavery, 1838-1891. New York, 1987, pp. 45-46.
3 See T. Sue-A-Quan, ‘Chinese Migrants from British Guiana in the 19th Century’. (Unpub. paper), pp. 1 & 3.
4 J. Beaumont, The New Slavery. London: W. Ridgeway, 1871, pp. 69-71.
5 Sue-A-Quan, p. 3.
6 See Minutes of the Court of Policy (M.C.P)., 16 Feb. 1867.
7 Colonial Office (C.O.) 114/24. W. Murdoch to F. Rogers, 20 Dec. 1866.
8 Sue-A-Quan, p. 2.
9 See C.O. 384/109. H.A. Firth, ‘Report on Mission to China’, 10 July 1875.
10 See The Royal Gazette, 13 April 1869.
11 See Ord. 7 of 1873. Articles 19 & 20.
12 The planters were required to pay reindentured immigrants a bounty as well as a reindenture fee to the Immigration Fund for immigration purposes.
13 Gov. R. Longden to Lord Carnarvan, no. 161, 4 Aug. 1875, National Archives of Guyana (N.A.G.).
14 This newspaper originally printed official notices but gradually brought in news items and editorials expressing an opinion.
15 See B. Mangru, Benevolent Neutrality. Indian Government Policy and labour migration to British Guiana, 1854-1884. London: Hansib Publishing Ltd., 1987, pp. 202-203.
16 See C.O. 114/24. M.C.P., 30 Jan. 1865; The Royal Gazette, 2 Feb. 1865; C.O. 386/96. C. Murdoch to F. Rogers, 30 Jan. 1866.
17 See C.O. 111/350. E. Cardwell to F. Hincks, no. 184, 25 May 1865; also The Colonist, 25 Feb. 1865.
18 Mangru, p. 203.
19 E.G. Yewens, ‘Report of Chinese Settlement of Hope Town, Demerara’, 6 May 1874, p. 1.
20 Moore, p. 176.
21 For details of the reasons for failure see F.A. Low, ‘Chinese Hopetown Settlement’. Timehri, 6 (Sept. 1919): 66-67.
22 Yewens, ‘Report’ p. 4.
23 The Royal Gazette, 14 Aug. 1875.
24 For details see Mangru, pp. 203-207.
Dr. Basdeo Mangru teaches Caribbean Studies at York College (CUNY) in Queens, NY. He has written a few books and many papers on immigration to Guyana.
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