| This dissertation is an examination of the impact of colonization on the rights of Guyana's indigenous peoples, with particular emphasis on issues of land, resource-use and governance. It is conducted within the framework of the common law, which became applicable to the territory as an incident of British sovereignty. It considers various doctrines on the subject of indigenous rights articulated and developed in other common law territories with a similar colonial history, and identifies through this comparative analysis several principles that have emerged as part of the common law. Although historical materials provide much of the data for this study, the focus is not on policies or discerning motivations, but rather on an analysis of specific laws, and the extent to which these either support or deny a normative framework of recognition of indigenous rights in the present.This study concludes with an examination of legal reforms in the post-colonial period. It argues that while there have been some positive developments, notably in the recognition of indigenous land ownership rights, similar sensitivity has not been evinced towards other rights short of title. In certain instances, legislative changes may even be unconstitutional, given the entrenchment of key indigenous rights in the reformed Constitution.Commencing with an overview of the period of Dutch colonization, this study provides an outline of the legal and institutional structure that was established and the trajectory of relations between the newcomers and the territory's indigenous inhabitants. This is followed by a detailed examination of laws enacted by the British that impacted either directly or tangentially on Amerindian sovereignty, land and resource rights. Based on the Ordinances and regulations considered, this study demonstrates that while positive recognition was not accorded to customary indigenous rights of land ownership during the British period, neither did the wholesale legal dispossession of Amerindians occur. Where physical displacement took place, this was contrary to the common law and unlawful. Indigenous rights other than rights to ownership of land were regulated in increasing detail throughout the course of the nineteenth century, though these were not extinguished altogether. |
