While the British held little value on the land and few ethnic British settled, the Dutch encouraged settlement and made the region one of their strongest footholds in the Americas. This divide later separated the lands into what is today Suriname (which the Dutch essentially controlled) and what is today Guyana (which the British essentially controlled).
The Dutch continued the trend of slavery and agriculture into the 1700s as they grew cotton, coffee, cocoa, and sugarcane among others. They also continued bringing in slaves from Africa, while the economy expanded as it relied heavily on trade with the Netherlands.
Although the economy was improving, the individual land owners struggled as slaves often escaped the plantations. Many of these escaped slaves had nowhere to flee to except the nearby forests, which were dense. These escaped African slaves began a new culture in the forests as they were called "maroons" as they regularly raided the plantations for supplies and people.
This division among the people, between the native people, the maroons, the slaves in captivity, and the Dutch was quite pronounced. Each developed, or maintained, a unique culture over time with an entirely different focus and way of life. As more slaves were brought into the country the slave and maroon culture began to become the most populous, although these people had no economic or political control.
The end of the 1700s and the early 1800s were a tumultuous time for Suriname. In 1799 the British took over the country as the Netherlands was pre-occupied with war as France. The British legally freed the slaves, although in reality they weren't granted freedom until 1873. However, at this time they stopped bring in new slaves so their working population suffered and the Dutch turned to Chinese, Indonesian, and Indian (East Indian) immigrants for a new workforce.
Although the Dutch economic base in agriculture and their control over the political system didn't change in the 1800s, the population and dynamic did. Despite the fact that many of these new immigrants weren't granted full rights, they, along with the former slaves, dominated the population as they introduced new foods, languages, religions, and customs.
Into the 1900s this economic state continued, but there was more interest in the land as gold and bauxite were discovered and the new labor force from Asia provided much needed labor to exploit these mines. However political stability was again a question as war broke out in Europe and the Netherlands was occupied with World War I, then World War II. During this time little attention was paid to Suriname and at the end of World War II the people began demanding greater rights.
In 1945 Suriname had a primarily free election and in 1954 they gained self-rule, but not complete independence, which they didn't obtain until 1975. Independence arrived with great growing pains and little optimism. Many people, including most of the ethnic Dutch immigrated to the Netherlands. Then the violence started as the early 1980s were riddled with coups. By 1982 the government was run by a military dictatorship, which was killing opposition party members without much hesitation.
The tensions have eased in recent years as free elections were held in 1985 and have been held since, but political division and violence has not ended. These protests seem to stem from control and culture as the maroons regularly initiate the protests and the government regularly responds with violence.