From Berbice to Exxon: Mapping Power, Land, and Legacy in Guyana

A Sunday Perspective on History, Oil, and the September Elections

In 1741, Jan Daniel Knapp drafted a meticulous map of the Berbice River that was more than a geographic survey—it was a ledger of power. Each bend in the river was flanked by narrow rectangles of land, each rectangle bearing the name of a plantation: Dageraad, Dankbaarheid, Hollandia, Lilienburg. These were the building blocks of a colonial economy designed for extraction. Sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton flowed down the Berbice, Canje, and Demerara rivers, enriching distant investors in Amsterdam and Zeeland while enslaved Africans bore the brutal weight of production.

Today, nearly three centuries later, Guyana finds itself mapped again—not in coffee and cane, but in crude oil. ExxonMobil’s offshore fields have contributed to the country’s transformation into the world’s fastest-growing economy. Billions of dollars in projected revenues promise a new era of prosperity, but the echoes of Knapp’s map raise uncomfortable questions: who owns the land, who controls the wealth, and who truly benefits from the nation’s resources?

The Knapp map, now housed in the Dutch Nationaal Archief, is a haunting blueprint of Guyana’s past. It documents how the Society of Berbice and private Dutch planters divided the river into productive concessions. The plantation names—Dageraad (“Daybreak”), Goed Fortuin (“Good Fortune”), Magdalenenberg—were equal parts aspiration and irony, given the systemic violence that underpinned them. This was a colonial economy without a nation-state. Decisions about Berbice were made in distant boardrooms in Amsterdam, disconnected from the lives and agency of those who actually lived and labored on the land.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the terrain may be offshore rather than riverine, but the logic of extraction remains familiar. ExxonMobil, Hess, and CNOOC have staked claims in the Stabroek Block that are as meticulously defined as Knapp’s rectangles. Contracts are signed in Houston and Washington. The invisible boundaries of oil concessions have replaced the visible survey lines of plantations, yet the question persists: whose development is this?

The scale of Guyana’s oil boom is staggering. Guyana’s GDP grew by 43.8% in 2024, marking the highest global increase. Meanwhile, real oil GDP increased by nearly 58% in 2024, and real non-oil GDP expanded by over 13%. Oil production in Guyana had soared to approximately 645,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2024, marking a significant increase from 98,000 bpd in its initial full year of production. Guyana plans to further boost its production capacity to approximately 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027 through the development of new projects, including Yellowtail, Uaru, and Whiptail. Yet, the poverty rate, which is the share of the population living below the U.S. equivalent of $ 5.50 a day, is approximately 38.8 percent, among the highest in the Caribbean and Latin America. Rural and hinterland communities lag behind coastal urban areas.

This disparity is fueling debate as elections approach. Can Guyana avoid the “resource curse” that has hollowed out other petro-states? Can it translate windfall oil wealth into broad-based, sustainable development?

On September 1st, Guyanese voters head to the polls amid this oil-fueled transformation. The political contest is more than a choice between the ruling PPP and a fragmented opposition; it is a referendum on resource sovereignty in the 21st century. President Irfaan Ali, seeking re-election for a second and final term in keeping with Guyana’s Constitution, defends the PPP’s stewardship of the oil boom. Meanwhile, opposition parties have formed various coalitions, with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) signing a coalition agreement, and Forward Guyana, The People’s Movement, and the Vigilant Political Action Committee agreeing to contest the election as the “Forward Guyana Movement”. Adding complexity to the electoral landscape is the surging We Invest In Nationhood (WIN) party, led by businessman Azruddin Mohamed, who, despite being sanctioned by the United States for alleged tax evasion and gold smuggling, has gained significant momentum and successfully formed a joint agreement with A New and United Guyana (ANUG). Even ruling party officials acknowledge WIN’s growing popularity, with some suggesting the party is drawing support primarily from traditional opposition voters rather than the incumbent PPP.

The Berbice Slave Rebellion of 1763, led by Coffy (also known as Cuffy or Kofi) and his deputy Accara, erupted along the same plantations meticulously noted on Knapp’s map. This was the first major slave revolt in South America and came closer than any previous uprising to overthrowing slavery and establishing an independent state controlled by formerly enslaved people. The rebellion lasted from February 1763 into 1764, with rebels numbering about 3,000 and threatening European control over the Guianas. For almost a year, the rebels held southern Berbice while the Dutch could only maintain control of one plantation (Dageraad) and the ramshackle Fort St. Andries near the coast. Coffy was installed as the political leader, and Accara was the military leader. In April 1763, Coffy even wrote to the Dutch Governor proposing a formal partition of Berbice, with whites occupying the coastal areas and the formerly enslaved controlling the interior—a remarkable diplomatic attempt to legitimize their revolutionary state. It was a profound statement against an extractive order that dehumanized the many to enrich the few.

The Berbice Slave Rebellion of 1763 reminds us that economic systems built without justice are ultimately unstable. It suggests a lesson for today: if Guyana’s oil wealth is not managed transparently, inclusively, and sustainably, the fractures could deepen—between the coast and the hinterland, Afro- and Indo-Guyanese, and present generations and those yet to come.

ExxonMobil’s rigs now sit where Knapp’s survey lines once ended, beyond the horizon of colonial imagination. Yet the choices facing Guyana are no less profound. The September 1 elections will decide who navigates the next decade of oil governance. But the deeper challenge is whether Guyana can redraw the map from an extractive economy to a productive, diversified one, from rent-seeking politics to genuine participatory governance, from historical inequality to a future of shared prosperity.

Knapp’s map is a reminder that geography is never neutral. It encodes power, privilege, and exclusion. As Guyanese citizens prepare to vote, we must consider how to prevent the new oil economy from becoming another cartography of inequity, like the plantations of Berbice.

As Guyana stands on the threshold of a new era, voters are not just choosing political parties—they are deciding on the foundational values that will guide the country’s oil-powered transformation. The nation’s oil revenue increased to $2.57 billion in 2024, comprising crude sales made by the government and $348 million in royalties received from the Exxon group. Meanwhile, the Natural Resource Fund accumulated over US$1.1 billion in 2024, reaching a total of US$3.1 billion. Yet the stark reality persists: Guyana has experienced a decline in poverty over the past decade, from 60.9 percent in 2006 to 48.4 percent in 2019, using a poverty line of US$5.50 per day; however, more recent data show that progress has stalled.

To ensure that history does not repeat itself—with wealth extracted by a few, leaving the many behind—Guyana needs more than just votes. The country requires broad-based civic engagement, robust dialogue, and vigilant stewardship. Citizens must demand clarity on how future oil revenues will be invested in education, healthcare, diversification, and green infrastructure, rather than being merely absorbed into annual budgets. Beyond Georgetown, engagement must reach hinterland and rural regions, particularly Indigenous communities and those historically marginalized in the plantation economy. Civil society must monitor electoral integrity, spending plans, and resource allocation to ensure transparency in the management of the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Every citizen has the right to know how oil royalties are managed and whether infrastructure deals benefit the nation or entrench dependence. Guyanese should attend or organize town hall meetings focused on oil revenue priorities, encourage civic groups to host debates on the oil-finance framework, support election monitors in ensuring September 1 remains peaceful and credible, and question candidates about their commitments to publishing detailed oil-spending plans, ensuring parliamentary oversight, and establishing citizens’ advisory boards.

The Berbice River plantations on Knapp’s 1741 map once symbolized the control of resources by distant powers. Today’s oil concessions risk replicating that model unless Guyanese citizens map their own destiny. As Guyana enters the oil era, the elections represent more than a ritual; they offer a moment of collective agency, where Guyanese can insist on a cartography of the future that includes justice, inclusion, and true national ownership.

September 01, 2025, isn’t just a vote. It’s a moment to re-chart Guyana’s course, ensuring the rivers of oil benefit every Guyanese, not just the powerful few. September 01, 2025, is an opportunity to be present, engage actively, vote for accountability, and protect and secure the nation’s future.