The American Takeover

"The American Takeover" the slightly revised edition of a dissertation defended in 1983 deals with the aluminium and bauxite industry in Guyana and Suriname. Basing himself on extensive archive studies, the author describes the emergence of the bauxite industries during and after the First World War, when the Aluminium Company of America (Alcoa) extended its activities to these countries. In Guyana at that time a British colony the British government reacted firmly to the penetration by Alcoa's subsidiary, the Demerara Bauxite Company, thus guarding the bauxite deposits against Alcoa's exclusive control. This proved a successful strategy. The British succeeded in maintaining a greater degree of national control over the bauxite sector by demanding refining of the ore on British soil. This was not the case in Suriname. Between 1915 and 1920 the Dutch authorities pursued an open-door policy in Suriname. This enabled Alcoa to get a quite easy hold on the most important bauxite areas in Suriname. According to the author, this American takeover was to a great extent due to the ignorance, indifference and sometimes even illegal actions of the then Governors of Suriname. All this cleared the way for Alcoa to bring about the de facto denationalization of Suriname's bauxite ores within five years."