New Amsterdam, Berbice (II)

From 1627 onwards the Dutch colonized the area around the estuary of the Berbice river, nowadays in British Guyana. Straight across from an island named Crab Island, on the east bank of the river, the Dutch built a stone fort ringed with a palissade, named Fort Andries, after the governor of the colony Johan Andries Lossener, who ruled the colony from 1732 onwards. The fort would gain in importance after 1763, when a slave revolt drove many of the inhabitants of the colony's headquarters, located upriver near Fort Nassau, down to this region, to seek protection at Fort Andries. After 1785, the new capital of Berbice was founded here. It was named New Amsterdam, just like the now abandoned headquarters further upriver.