Society Of Berbice
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Society of Berbice ( Dutch: ''Sociëteit van Berbice'') was founded on 24 October 1720 by the owners of the colony of Berbice currently in
Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...
. These owners (Arnold Dix, Pieter Schuurmans, Cornelis van Peere, and brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn) had acquired the colony from the French on 24 October 1714, who in turn had occupied the colony which was previously a hereditary fief in the possession of the Van Peere family. In 1720, the five owners of the colony founded a Society of Berbice in a similar fashion to the Society of Suriname, which governed the neighbouring colony, in order to raise more capital for the colony. Both brothers shared one quarter of the company, and could only cast one vote. The Society was a
public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...
listed on the
Amsterdam Stock Exchange Euronext Amsterdam is a stock exchange based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Formerly known as the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (), it merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext. The ...
. In the years following, Berbice became the second most flourishing Dutch colony in the Guianas after Suriname, consisting of 12 plantations owned by the society, 93 private plantations along the Berbice River, and 20 plantations along the Canje River. The colony was dealt a severe blow when a slave uprising broke out under the leadership of Coffy in February 1763. The uprising led to a steep population decline, abandonment and destruction of many plantations, and serious financial problems for the Society. In 1795, after the dissolution of the
Dutch West India Company The Dutch West India Company () was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647), and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was gra ...
, the company decided to sell its possessions. The company remained in operation after Berbice was ceded to Great Britain. In November 1818, their last plantations were sold to Davidson’s, Barkly & Co, and after selling out the last investors, the company closed their offices in 1821. Dutch National Archive
Inventaris van het archief van de Sociëteit van Berbice, (1681) 1720-1795 (1800)
/ref>


See also

*
List of trading companies A trading company is a business that works with different kinds of product (business), products sold for consumer, business purposes. In contemporary times, trading companies buy a specialized range of products, broker, shopkeeper them, and coordina ...


Notes


References

* * Boston Rare Maps
"The Dutch colony of Berbice in full period color"
* *


External links

* Dutch National Archive
Inventory of the archive of the Society of Berbice (1681) 1720-1795 (1800)
{dead link, date=April 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Chartered companies 1720 establishments in the Dutch Empire Companies established in the 18th century Trading companies Dutch colonisation of the Guianas Trading companies of the Dutch Republic Berbice