ABSTRACT
A highly centralized system of administration is thus essential to the maintenance of the political domination of the cultural minority. In post-emancipation Guyana, the key factors which determined the viability of the villages as socio-political cum economic institutions were the system of land ownership and the problem of coastal drainage. It was the excessive financial burdens imposed in fulfilment of this principle which ultimately resulted in the political subordination of the black villages to the direct authority of the central government. The problem of drainage intensified, eventually becoming the pretext for the assumption of direct control of village administration by the central government during the sixties; the race issue served as an important underlying factor. For all practical purposes, therefore, the 1866 ordinance effectively undertook to force the political subordination of the black villagers to the absolute authority of the central government.
