The Pomeroon River (also ''Río Pomerón'' ''or Pomaron'') is located in

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

, situated between the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

and the Essequibo rivers. The area has long been inhabited by

Lokono The Lokono or Arawak are an Arawak people native to northern coastal areas of South America. Today, approximately 10,000 Lokono live primarily along the coasts and rivers of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Barbados and French Guiana. They speak t ...

people. The Pomeroon River is also one of the deepest rivers in Guyana. Pomeroon is within the Guyana coastal plain and the area is populated with

mangrove swamp Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fre ...

vegetation. Siriki Creek is an estuary of the Pomeroon River. The mouth of the river has been deflected from pouring straight into the Atlantic ocean by a sandy spit that redirects the river to the northwest via the Cozier Canal.

History

According to the London Encyclopaedia of 1829, this river was the western boundary between the Demerara and Essequibo Colony and Spanish Guiana.

Use

Coconuts are a major agricultural product in the Pomeroon area, grown for their water and

copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...

. Tapakuma is a tributary of the Pomeroon River that was developed into a water conservancy which greatly improved cultivation of rice.

Settlement

Shell mounds associated with early human burials dated to the pre-ceramic Alaka phase have been unearthed in the area. In 1581, the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

founded a

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

on the banks of the river. The settlement was destroyed by Arawak People in alliance with Spaniards in 1596. In 1658, lured by the Dutch advertisement to colonize the Essequibo, a Jewish colony settled within the Dutch lands on the Pomeroon. Their plantations were destroyed when the British of Barbados invaded in 1665 and most moved on to

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

. An Anglican mission was established in 1840 by W. H. Brett. In Brett's travelogue, the eastern bank of the mouth of the Pomeroon was called Cape Nassau, and the river's source was in the

Imataka Mountains The Imataka Mountains are located in the north-west of Guyana and north-east of Venezuela. The area is extremely rich in forest, water and mineral resources. Huge deposits of iron ore are known. Manganese deposits are found in north-west Guyan ...

. The largest tributary was the Arapaiaco River, located 43 miles from the sea. Bouruma was another name for the river. He observed various Amerindian tribes settled along the river, including Warao and

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Great ...

, as well as former plantation slaves. Settlements on the Pomeroon include the town of

Charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Ch ...

, and

Kabakaburi Kabakaburi is an Amerindian village in the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region of Guyana on the Pomeroon River, from its mouth. The village was founded in 1845 by William Henry Brett on the location where Fort Durban used to be. The name of the village ...

(an Amerindian mission settlement founded by Brett, located 16 miles up from Charity).

References

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Pomeroon River The Pomeroon River (also ''Río Pomerón'' ''or Pomaron'') is located in Guyana, South America, situated between the Orinoco and the Essequibo rivers. The area has long been inhabited by Lokono people. The Pomeroon River is also one of the deepes ...

History

Use

Settlement

See also

References