After the initial rush to find gold in the New World waned, the Dutch found the climate to be suitable for growing sugar cane, converting large tracts of the Guyanese coast into plantations and supplying with labor from the Atlantic slave trade. The country and economy were run by a small European planter elite which continued on when the colonies of the territory were merged and the land was given over to the British Empire in 1814. Upon emancipation in 1838, almost all of the former slaves abandoned the plantations, and Indians were brought to the country under indenture contracts from 1838 until the end of the system in 1917.