New Amsterdam, Guyana
| New Amsterdam | |
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New Amsterdam Town Hall (1950)
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 New Amsterdam
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| Coordinates: 6°15′N 57°31′W / 6.250°N 57.517°WCoordinates: 6°15′N 57°31′W / 6.250°N 57.517°W | |
| Country |
 Guyana
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| Region | East Berbice-Corentyne |
| Population | |
| • Total | 33,000 |
New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) is one of the largest towns in Guyana, located in the East Berbice-Corentyne Region, 62 mi (100 km) from the capital, Georgetown. It is located on the eastern bank of the Berbice River, 4 mi (6.4 km) upriver from its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean, and immediately south of the Canje River. New Amsterdam's population is approximately 33,000.
New Amsterdam has its origins in a village which grew up alongside Fort Nassau in the 1730s and 1740s. The first Nieuw Amsterdam, as it was called then, was situated about 56 mi (90 km) up the Berbice River on the right bank. Before the 1763 slave uprising it comprised a Court of Policy building, a warehouse, an inn, two smithies, a bakery, a Lutheran church and a number of houses, among other buildings. Built in 1740 by the Dutch, New Amsterdam was first named Fort Sint Andries. It was made seat of the Dutch colonial government in 1790. In 1803 it was taken over by the British.
The little township was a pioneer in several by-laws; it boasted the first sanitation regulations on record (no privies near the public path, drains to be dug and places kept weeded) and the first price controls in the only hostelry in town. The serious imbibers in this society would be happy to learn that many of these applied to alcoholic beverages, including madeira, genever (Dutch gin), kilthum (the forerunner of rum) and even a drink made by the Amerindians. Of course, alcohol was not considered an indulgence in those days, but rather a necessity, since it was erroneously believed that it warded off diseases like malaria, which it was claimed came from exposure to 'miasmas'.
In March 1763, the rebel leader Cuffy made the Court of Policy building in the little town his headquarters, and on either side of its doorway he placed two cannon, which had been repaired for him by the blacksmith Prins. When the revolutionaries were forced to retreat upriver in 1764, New Amsterdam was torched under the supervision of Prins, and only the brick Lutheran church survived. After the uprising was crushed, he was charged with arson and executed.
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