Download or read book 'Original Lords of the Soil'? Amerindian Rights and the Expansion of State Power in Guyana written by Janette Bulkan and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The consequences of State claims to, and controls over, the territories of Guyana's Indigenous Peoples (Amerindians) are traced through successive Dutch and British colonial to post-Independence governments. From the mid-eighteenth century, a numerically small sugar plantocracy wielded influence within local government and ensured that colonial policy served its interests located on the coastland. Hinterland policies extended the capitalist approach to natural resources extraction and favoured the dominance of the small stratum of monied interests over the majority of Crown licences for forestry, mining and ranching, issued over claimed Indigenous lands. The colonial government's approach to Amerindians was protectionist, but their land rights were not settled in law. Authoritarian post-Independence governments have used the discretionary power in the inherited legislative framework to expand the numbers of, and areas covered by, logging and mining licences. The State is aided by the lack of a reservation process for forests and/or a settlement process to determine and settle pre-existing customary rights of Indigenous Peoples, twin processes that were instituted in the majority of British colonies. Indigenous rights and privileges on their customary lands have been steadily eroded in law, policy and practice. Amerindians receive few economic benefits from natural resources operations on either their legally titled communal lands or customary lands.