ABSTRACT
Industrial unrest and racial conflicts checker the history of Guyanese society. Industrial disputes, often escalating into riotous disorder, were a commonplace feature between East Indian indentures and the white planter class over exploitative and repressive working arrangements. Strikes and protests by the urban black proletariat against employers in the commercial sector were also a prevalent feature. Bitter racial conflicts between whites and blacks, East Indians and whites, East Indians and blacks, Portuguese and blacks, and sometimes all together were also definitive features of the turbulent colonial history. In each and on every occasion, the police were actively involved in more or less effectively restoring order or else preceding the other institutions of the military in attempting to do so. The restoration of social order was always accomplished under conditions favorable to the colonial state system and the dominant plantocracy.
