Manoa Company - New York 1885

Beautifully engraved $1000 bond bearing 7% interest from the Manoa Company, Limited issued in 1885. This historic document was printed by Franklin Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with triple vignette at top center of a worker picking cotton, a cattleman with his heard and workers unloading cargo at docks. . This item has the signatures of the Company's President and Secretary and is over 121 years old.








Certificate Vignette

Manoa Company, Limited was granted a concession to cut wood in Barima, Guyana by the Venezuela Government.

At the time the first Europeans arrived in the area around 1500, Guyana was inhabited by Arawak and Carib tribes of Amerindians. European invasion/settlement began in the early 17th century with the Dutch, who established three separate colonies; Essequibo (1616), Berbice (1627), and Demerara (1752). The British assumed control in the late 18th century and the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814. The three became a single British colony known as British Guiana in 1831.

The abolition of slavery in 1834 led to black settlement of urban areas and the importation of indentured laborers from Madeira (Portugal) (beginning in 1834), Germany (first in 1835), Ireland (1836), Scotland (1837), Malta (1839), China and India (beginning in 1838) to work on the sugar plantations. In 1889 Venezuela claimed the land up to the Essequibo. Ten years later an international tribunal ruled the land belonged to British Guiana; however, the dispute continues.

Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1966 and became a republic in 1970, remaining a member of the Commonwealth. The CIA and United States State Department along with the British government played a strong covert role in influencing who would control Guyana during this time.

History from Wikipedia and Encyberpedia.