An interview with Joan Flores-Villalobos, “‘Our Country’: Extractive Colonialism and Labor in the Essequibo Borderland”
Joan Flores-Villalobos is an associate professor of history at the University of Southern California. She received her PhD in African diaspora history from New York University. Her first book, The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal, was published in 2023 with the University of Pennsylvania Press in and won multiple awards. You can read her article “‘Our Country’: Extractive Colonialism and Labor in the Essequibo Borderland” in HAHR 105.4.
Interview by Rebeca Martínez-Tibbles
1. What inspired you to explore the history of the Essequibo borderland and its connection to extractive colonialism and labor?
This project was inspired by a 2023 trip to Caracas, Venezuela, to visit my family. It was my first time visiting in a decade. I was struck by how prominent the issue of the Essequibo had become—billboards around the city claimed the area as Venezuelan, t-shirts and tote bags similarly espoused the notion that the Essequibo was “ours”. The mosaic mural with which I open the article [ed.—it also appears at the top of this post] sits around the corner from the apartment where I was staying (also my childhood home), so I saw it every day. I grew up in Venezuela and had never heard of this issue before. Political commentators speculated that this was simply a move by the state to distract from their own failures in governance and to elicit support for the primaries of October 2023. I became interested in the state’s investment in selling the Essequibo as “Venezuelan” and the historical antecedents of this claim. This eventually led me to the area’s nineteenth-century history.
2. What were some of the unique features of the Essequibo gold rush compared to other mining frontiers in Latin America during the nineteenth century?
Three main features distinguish the Yuruarí gold rush from other extractive mining projects funded by foreign capital in the region during the nineteenth century. The first is the juxtaposition of the newly independent nation of Venezuela with the only remaining British colony in the mainland. The second is the diversity and mobility of Amerindian communities there, composed of multiple tribes such as the Akawaio and the Warau. Lastly, the gold rush there depended on West Indian migrant labor from islands under British colonial rule like St. Lucia, Trinidad, and Dominica. West Indian migration to the region was so significant that even today people in the town of El Callao, Venezuela celebrate Carnival with West Indian traditions. The gold rush thus occurred in an area of overlapping national, imperial, and Indigenous sovereignties, and was shaped by Afro-Indigenous relations on the ground.
3. How did the arbitration trial of 1899 reflect the broader colonial ideologies of the time, particularly regarding sovereignty and Indigenous subjecthood?
One of the things I found most interesting is that both Venezuela and Britain relied on the opinion of Indigenous people as arbiters of colonial power. Who did Amerindians recognize as the region’s ruling authority? This was a key question during the trial, particularly for the British, who sought out a series of affidavits from local Indigenous leaders recognizing British rule. These affidavits, however, evidence a far more complicated landscape of sovereignty. Every respondent recognized British rule and had relied on British administrators to settle complaints, but they clearly did not see this as an extension of British ownership or complete sovereignty over the area. Rather, as they expressed repeatedly, this was “our country”—a region that, by practice and custom, was understood as Indigenous land under incomplete British rule.
4. How do you think the historical narratives surrounding the Essequibo borderland have influenced modern-day territorial disputes between Venezuela and Guyana?
The historical narratives are a key part of the contemporary territorial disputes. Both Venezuela and Guyana use the same justifications their predecessors did in 1899. Venezuela claims that Spain’s “right of discovery” places the Essequibo under their jurisdiction, while Guyana repeats the arguments of the British colonial government that the area was administered and made productive by the Dutch and British. Both sides rely on historical documentation gathered for the original arbitration case. As they did then, both sides continue to ignore that the historical evidence shows a fragmented borderland space from the perspective of those who inhabited it. In these fights over territory, sovereignty, and access to mineral wealth, contemporary policymakers and international legal bodies neglect the lived experiences of people in the region who face increasing violence, poverty, and precarity in the face of growing extractive regimes.
5. Read anything good recently?
One of the best books I read last year was Alvaro Enrigue’s Tu sueño imperios han sido / You Dreamed of Empires, which is a reimagining of the meeting between Cortés and Moctezuma. It’s wonderfully atmospheric and has an excellent twist.