A/HRC/10/11/Add.2 page 7 Government of Guyana website,3 and the websites of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)4 and People’s National Congress (PNC)5 political parties. It is also consistent with personal interviews conducted by the independent expert. 10. Colonization, first by the Dutch (1598-1803) and then by the British (1803-1966), has had a profound influence on modern-day Guyana. Plantation farming of sugar, coffee and cotton was established during the early colonial period and developed into the mainstay of the Guyanese economy. The labour-intensive plantation economy was initially fed by the slave trade, which began in 1640 and introduced a sizeable African population in excess of 80,000 by the time slavery was finally abolished in 1838. “Freed” slaves had to endure an “apprenticeship” period prior to their full emancipation and received no compensation for their years of servitude. When this period ended they began to demand higher wages and better working conditions, demands which were generally not met. Former slaves began to leave the plantations, often pooling their capital to purchase abandoned cotton plantations, and establish villages and small holdings. By 1852, Africans had established 25 villages on lands that they purchased.6 The subsequent need for new labour sources by expanding plantations led to the shipment of initially Portuguese labourers and subsequently thousands of “indentured” Indian labourers, often working under slave-like conditions, during the period from 1835 until 19177 when the practice ceased. Labour migration later included significant numbers of West Africans and Chinese. Interviews reveal that the influx of low-paid workers created early tensions between emancipated African communities and indentured communities blamed for reduced employment opportunities for Africans, artificially low plantation wages and increased taxes to fund new shipments of workers. 11. The colonial era thus radically altered the demographic characteristics of pre-independence British Guyana. By structuring society along ethnic lines and employing “divide and rule” policies between Indians and Africans the colonialists sowed the seeds of future ethnic division. Indo-Guyanese sources noted that Indian indentured labourers largely remained in rural areas and closely tied to the estates and plantation economy even after their indenture period had ended. While some Africans remained on sugar estates and in rural areas, many moved to towns where they became the majority of the urban working class. They took on roles as unskilled and semi-skilled workers, teachers, low-level public administrators and in the police service and military, professions in which they remain disproportionately represented today. With the 3 http://www.guyana.org/history.html. 4 http://www.ppp-civic.org/history/historyppp.htm. 5 http://www.guyanapnc.org/index2.htm. 6 http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter54.html. 7 It is estimated that approximately 239,000 Indian indentured labourers were transported to British Guyana between 1838 and 1917.