The most westerly Dutch settlement on the Wild Coast was on the Pomeroon river where, shortly after 1656, emigrants from the province of Zeeland established Nieuw Middelburgh. Already in 1689, though, this pioneers’ colony was prematurely abandoned after having been attacked and plundered by French privateers.
More than a century elapsed before plans for plantations on the banks of the Pomeroon were resumed. This followed the ending of the WIC in 1791 and the transfer of Essequibo and Demerara to the Council for the Colonies when, under the newly appointed governor, Willem August Sirtema, Baron van Grovestins (1791-1795), a period of economic recovery was initiated.
