tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868243754653835502024-03-19T04:17:41.297+01:00LIFE IN THE SHADOWSSlavery and slave culture in SurinamSKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-68035581340444443662008-12-30T13:24:00.021+01:002009-02-12T18:19:05.408+01:00Chapter 14: To rise or not to rise.<div align="justify"><strong><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285625375900092978" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-7ni21WtznqL1qfFu238jRvryGUp5YGhD5VnoNaqny-_bq5_9BW8JF4gIuDYUs6EnjKr9uaKMmaLRmLKe3BFJykphKML-EXUEyaDGz6lhOe_rq7jeNG32F12-tUCHIRuaadWeaWbaQc/s400/bronnen-Jodensavanne.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />The opportunities for a large-scale slave revolt.<br /><br /></strong>A casual observer of the 18th century Surinam slavery system might have predicted a development akin to that in Saint-Domingue. All the conditions for a large-scale rebellion by the black population seemed to be present in <em>optima forma</em>. Eugene Genovese has outlined the circumstances leading to a higher probability of slave revolt:<br />(1) <em>The master-slave relationship had developed in the context of absenteeism and depersonalization as well as greater cultural estrangement of whites and blacks;<br /></em>(2) <em>economic distress and famine occurred;<br /></em>(3) <em>slaveholding units approached the average size of one hundred to two hundred slaves, as in the sugar colonies, rather than twenty or so, as in the Old South;</em><br />(4) <em>the ruling class frequently split either in warfare between slaveholding countries or in bitter struggles within the slaveholding country;<br /></em>(5) <em>blacks heavily outnumbered whites;<br /></em>(6) <em>African born slaves outnumbered those born into American slavery (Creoles);<br /></em>(7) <em>the social structure of the slaveholding regime permitted the emergence of autonomous black leadership;<br /></em>(8) <em>the geographical, social and political environment provided terrain and opportunity for the formation of colonies of runaway slaves strong enough to threaten the plantation regime.”<br /></em>It seems at first sight that the situation in Surinam fitted this model rather well.<br /><br /><em>Absenteism and cultural estrangement.</em><br /><br />Absenteeism was rampant in Surinam. Apart from the earliest period, few Surinam planters lived on their estates. They preferred to reside in Paramaribo and in many instances, it took them days to reach their plantations by boat. Consequently, they were only dimly aware what went on there most of the time. The majority did not seem to be very interested anyway. They were driven by an <em>animus revertendi</em>, a desire to return to their homeland with their fortune made. In many instances, their eagerness for maximum profit overrode any humanitarian concerns they might have had. As the saying goes in Holland: what one does not know does not hurt. The Surinam plantation owners preferred not to know. After the Amsterdam stock-exchange crisis of 1773, the situation worsened. Many of the new plantation owners were Dutch investors, who had little knowledge of agriculture and who only tried to recoup their losses as much as possible. They gave free reign to callous administrators and directors. The latter, in the 17th and 18th centuries especially, were mostly recruited from the lower rungs of white society, in particular from the ranks of former soldiers and sailors. Accustomed to harsh discipline themselves and obliged to deliver a maximum crop by their patrons, they were not unduly bothered by altruistic feelings either. So, Surinam exhibited the classic features of too much absenteeism.<br /><br />Just as important was the fact that masters and slaves had totally different cultures, with only limited influence on each other. This was partly the result of the fact that the bondsmen formed a large numerical majority and spent most of their time with little or no white supervision. However, it was also partly the result of a deliberate policy of the whites. Being such a tiny minority, they were in danger to be swallowed up by their subjects: biologically through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation">miscegenation</a> and culturally through ‘negroization’. Therefore, they strove to keep people of color apart from white society and to keep some cultural accomplishments exclusively their own, in particular those with a ‘boundary defining character’ (like language and religion). The whites jealously guarded these: they did not want their slaves to speak Dutch, or to become Christian. In later times, they relented a bit and saw some advantage in converting slaves to Christianity, but by then it did not matter anymore.<br /><br /><em>Economic distress.</em><br /><br />Surinam has shown the characteristics of a <em>volksplanting</em> only for a very limited period. By the time slavery became entrenched, it was already clear that Surinam would be an exploitation colony <em>par excellence</em>, geared to produce commodities for the world market and largely oblivious to the needs of its own population. One result of this attitude was the fact that production for the home market was often neglected. This was the case with timber, for example: Surinam had an abundance of high quality wood, but people were often forced to import timber from the United States to build their houses. It was even more apparent in the production of food. All through the slavery era, there were plantations that specialized in the cultivation of victuals, but most of their products went to Paramaribo and they never produced sufficient quantities anyway. Especially during the early period, the lowland planters preferred to put all their energy into the cultivation of cash crops, hoping that they would be able to buy the foodstuffs they needed for their slaves at home or abroad. Often this was indeed possible, but when droughts, floods, or other calamities resulted in a particularly meager crop, the slaves went hungry. Some planters were even forced to let them fend for themselves in the forest. In the 18th century, the situation improved somewhat because the coffee grounds often produced more plantains than they had use for, but even then, many planters could buy only a minimal amount of food –just enough to keep their slaves from running away or being unable to work. The ‘frugality’ of the planters was even more visible in the distributions of ‘luxuries’ as meat, fish, salt, tobacco and clothes. These always had to be imported, which drove up the prices, and they were often unavailable when the trade routes were cut off during one of the many wars that plagued the Caribbean during this period. However, it was not only stinginess that withheld food and clothing from the slaves: in later times, many plantations fared so badly that they could hardly afford the barest necessities.<br /><br />In the eyes of many people, even the inhabitants, 18th century Surinam was the epitome of a prosperous plantation colony. In the early part of the century, when the prices of the commodities it produced were high, this was indeed the reality. Money poured in and the planters were quick to spend it in the most conspicuous manner possible. The apparent prosperity made the planters eligible for ample credits and generous loans and this enabled them to maintain a high level of consumption a few decades longer. However, during the latter part of the 18th century, Surinam lived far above its station. The conditions for plantation agriculture were not exactly ideal. Land was plentiful, but land suitable for plantations was not and it had to be prepared by a costly procedure. Slaves were hard to come by and the fact that Surinam was located outside the main trade routes made them very expensive. As a result, the production costs compared unfavorably with those in other parts of the Caribbean, especially the French colony Saint-Domingue and (in later times) the Spanish colony Cuba. Fortunately, the Dutch market could absorb all of Surinam’s production (in fact much more).<br /><br />In the 19th century, the number of plantations fell drastically and the remaining ones barely survived by a process of shifting to sugar, modernization of the production and much subsidy (mostly by hapless stockholders, who wasted the chance to invest their money more productively in the Netherlands). What it boils down to, is that Surinam has been a genuinely prosperous colony only during a few decades: it merely managed to give that impression a while longer because of high prices in the developing world market and the misuse of credit that was never paid back. Economically speaking, the situation of most Surinam plantations for most of the time was precarious and only in favorable circumstances the slaves were not victimized by this.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285630435878524514" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 326px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDg84d3YS6I7c5RtyrTszQIMKazbOTPpneJDrpBdHWevakKJG7R1ncy-cXyH992Lj4xZqvLi5NSXTHVbvLMfnGGg9fXDcEnKMK5q7mnctDoxy8auoN_a0Zz0lFHrRdgwlbqSBhUAo4lg/s400/kaart5.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>A predominance of large plantations.</em><br /><br />During most of the slavery era, sugar plantations formed the majority of Surinam estates. They were condemned to a certain minimum size to make it possible to exploit an expensive sugar mill profitably. In the early period, when most of these mills were simple, animal-driven constructions, Surinam plantations could be small: a force of 10 to 20 slaves was not unusual. However, when water mills (and in later days steam mills) came in vogue, the production capacity increased and additional slaves were needed. Plantations with more than a hundred bondsmen became the norm in the 18th century. Even the coffee grounds, though much more flexible in the number of hands they employed, were comparatively large. In other plantation colonies, they were often relegated to marginal lands, but in Surinam, they took up some of the most fertile grounds, especially in the Commewijne district. Their overall size was somewhat smaller than that of sugar plantations, but they had more land under permanent cultivation. In the United States, planters owning more than 100 slaves tended to split up their holdings into several independent units, because it made supervision easier and the cotton plantations that predominated there hardly profited from the economies of scale. In Surinam, on the other hand, the few plantations specializing in cotton belonged to the largest in the colony.<br /><br />While the coffee grounds lost terrain in the latter part of the slavery era, the remaining sugar estates grew in size steadily through a process of concentration: many 19th century estates boasted 200 to 400 slaves. Although this did not facilitate close supervision (which had never been a prime concern for many Surinam planters anyway), it made technological innovation -on a modest scale- possible. For the slaves, this process of concentration held little promise and they often protested the fusion of slave forces vehemently. With regard to the United States, it has often been maintained that the treatment of slaves was much better on small units than on larger ones. In Surinam, size seems to have made little difference. The slaves on large plantations were in some ways better off: they had less supervision and fewer problems to recruit the personnel for a large-scale rebellion.<br /><br /><em>A divided ruling class.</em><br /><br />Surinam whites were divided in many ways. Their backgrounds were more diverse than anywhere else in the Caribbean. In all other plantation colonies, the citizens of the mother country made up a large majority of the white inhabitants. A take-over by another nation usually meant the substitution of most of the old planters by ambitious newcomers. In Surinam, Dutch planters indeed replaced most their English colleagues in the 17th century, but not because these were forced out. The Dutch wanted a strong and prosperous colony and welcomed everyone who could contribute to that. The varied backgrounds of the planters hardly ever posed a problem: Dutch, French, German, English, Scandinavian and Iberian planters all found their niche in Surinam society. However, since France and England were among the worst enemies of the Dutch Republic in the 17th and 18th centuries, the danger of a split along national lines in the ruling group always lurked in the background.<br /><br />Religious differences also divided the white group. On the whole, Surinam exhibited a degree of religious tolerance that was quite remarkable for the age and the area, but some animosities remained. The largest minority, the Jews, had every reason not to challenge the status quo, because they could not expect a more favorable situation anywhere else in the region. It was different for the Catholics. Although they were no longer discriminated against openly in later years, they were mistrusted because of their alleged bias in favor of Catholic countries like France and Spain.<br /><br />Class differences played an important role as well. Surinam was largely ruled by the planters and their allies. They provided the councilors for the courts and many higher civil servants and schemed to further their own ends (modest taxation for one). A small middle-class, consisting of traders and government employees, only took shape in the 19th century. Members of the lower classes (artisans, soldiers, sailors and <em>blankofficieren</em>), though numerous, were wholly dependent on the upper echelons and rarely stood up for their own rights. An exception was the mutiny against Governor Van Aerssen, but this was suppressed effectively.<br /><br />Political differences were the most important. There was a continuous strive between the representatives of the planters and those of the Society of Surinam and the Dutch government, who vied for ultimate control. The first signs of this animosity could already be discerned during the 17th century, when the question arose who should substitute for an absent governor: the Commander (usually an outside appointee) or the members of the Court of Police. The earliest evidence of this fundamental opposition was the conflict over the defense of the colony in the aftermath of the attack by Jacques Cassard and his cronies. From then on, the relations remained strained. Sometimes they deteriorated so much that outside intervention was necessary to restore law and order. When the Dutch government took over control of the colony at the end of the 18th century, the planters were increasingly stripped of their power, the deathblow being given by the English occupancy during the Napoleonic Wars.<br /><br />In the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, the Caribbean was one of the main theaters of war: no European conflict went by undetected in these parts. The Napoleonic Wars in particular had serious repercussions. Though not the finest prize of the Caribbean, Surinam was worth plundering at the very least and the danger thereof was present during any conflict, whether the United Provinces were directly involved or not. The inhabitants of Surinam were painfully aware that their defenses were woefully insufficient –and so were the slaves, who patiently waited for a chance to break their shackles every time a conflict broke out. Surprisingly, they were often well informed about the events abroad.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285625785919388210" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-kVv0m5QkTcdsTH1RMVuR8gEak6MvDvBRE6r9AXswzdXVa0ttZYyyt4yIw1WcInTXnK6CMFmFFYjn0o4lyaP23Va6huR8hhnjrOpJ6aAy_Mvl13ZbxOUQR8TDj6wz7LPVZ1GY5m19eT8/s400/taki-taki.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Blacks outnumbering whites.<br /></em><br />In few areas of the Caribbean, blacks have outnumbered whites so heavily as in Surinam. During the heighdays of slavery, there was less than one white for every 20 slaves. Only some of the smaller Caribbean islands, which were less vulnerable to slave revolt by virtue of their situation, topped this. Because of the uneven distribution of whites over the colony, this ratio rose to 70 : 1 in the plantation area. This made the supremacy of the whites an extremely shaky one, which did not escape the slaves. The possibilities for communication were limited, so in times of trouble a beleaguered master could not count on timely aid from the outside.<br /><br /><em>Africans outnumbering Creoles.</em><br /><br />Surinam has exhibited the characteristics of a frontier society for an inordinately long time. Compared to the normal life cycle of plantation colonies, this meant that the first phase, the phase of building a stable society, took longer than normal. Although Surinam chose the road it was to travel in an early stage of its colonial evolution, the obstacles encountered (lack of settlers, lack of slaves, lack of funds) delayed the onset of the second phase, the phase of the mature and prosperous plantation colony, for a considerable period. Moreover, this phase had lasted only a few decades before clouds started to gather on the horizon. The last phase, the period of decline, dragged on for nearly a century, although most of that time the inhabitants remained optimistic about the possibilities of recovery.<br /><br />The development of the demography of the slaves generally corresponds with the life cycle of the plantation colony. During the period in which the Surinam plantation area expanded, the slave population grew fast, in the absolute sense and in relation to the number of whites. Mortality was high and fertility extremely low. The sex ratio was skewed: males greatly outnumbered females. During the period of stabilization, the percentage of <em>zoutwaternegers </em>fell and although mortality remained at a fairly high level, the sex ratio became slightly more normal and fertility increased. The period of decline was ushered in by economic hardship and later accompanied by a ban on the transatlantic slave trade. The planters had to depend largely on natural increase to keep their slave force intact. The sex ratio became more balanced and fertility rose. Mortality declined as result of better treatment and improvements in medical knowledge, though it remained too high for a ‘third world population’ during the whole slavery era. Because of this evolution, the African-born bondsmen heavily outnumbered Creoles during the 17th and most of the 18th century. Only after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, this situation gradually changed.<br /><br />The importance of this observation lies in the fact that African-born slaves were more apt to resist oppression and more willing to risk their lives to gain freedom, partly because they had less to lose. The Creoles tended to bide their time and to strike only when they were reasonably certain of success.<br /><br /><em>Black leadership.<br /></em><br />Surinam provided excellent opportunities for the development of black leadership. Not on the plantations: though the <em>bastiaans</em> could wield a great deal of power, they were chosen primarily for their loyalty to their masters and their ability to make the slaves do their masters’ bidding. The struggle to survive in the jungle, on the other hand, allowed talented leaders to emerge. In Surinam, able warriors could amass a strong following and form a real threat to the continuance of white domination. Their main problem was that they did not connect very well with the majority of the slaves.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285635132154210754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 272px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_den9M5dS9gvt5G3V7v7RvcAod23OiMcHzKZyLIDAkPSQt3wgJB2BbR-ZTm2ZqUegA7q1sNgBHSi8xrcpno6Iymrxndii5hcY4feEijje3K9Pq2U7e5XOPepxKE5GlsLkVVhFVEB76Q/s400/rivierzicht.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Possibilities for marronage.<br /></em><br />In essence, Surinam was little more than a large jungle in which tiny groups of people carved out small and often only temporarily granted footholds. The forest always threatened to reclaim the plantations. Although the whites managed to tame the elements up to a certain point, they could never influence sufficiently those factors that made Surinam such an inhospitable place: the climate, with its predictable excesses of rain and unpredictable occasional droughts; the vermin that plagued the inhabitants regardless of skin color; the weeds against which a perennial war had to be waged; the soil whose fertility was often so precarious. The slaves suffered from these hardships as well, but the harsh environment also offered them opportunities to win their freedom. Once swallowed up by the jungle, they were hard to track down and they could always evade their white pursuers by retreating deeper into its recesses. Even when they chose to stay in the proximity of the plantations, the forest hid them comfortably. Thus, they could build up their communities relatively undisturbed. The jungle also gave the Maroons cover while they waged a guerrilla war against the colonists. If slaves and Maroons had joined forces and had striven in earnest to overthrow the supremacy of the whites, who knows what might have happened.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The obstacles to a large-scale slave revolt.</strong><br /><br />We have seen in the preceding chapter why the Maroons were not particularly eager to overrun the plantation area. This is one of the main reasons why no large-scale slave revolt ever shook Surinam. It is hardly likely that the slaves would have remained idle during an all-out Maroon attack. Whatever their initial objections to such an undertaking might have been, when forced to choose sides, most would have supported their own kind. Without the stimulus of such a Maroon offensive, however, the factors working against the outbreak of a slave revolt proved too strong. Moreover, the circumstances that favored the possibility of a successful rebellion only form half of the story. Although, for example, absenteeism and depersonalization of the relations between owners and slaves was prevalent and the cultural estrangement between whites and blacks was nowhere as large as in Surinam, but this may have had different consequences than Genovese postulated.<br /><br />The slaves of Surinam were neglected by their masters in many ways, but on the other hand, they were not constantly bothered by them either. Consequently, they had a large measure of freedom to arrange their own affairs. Surely, they often had to work hard and the daylight hours belonged to the master, but the nights, holidays and Sundays were their own. The slaves could develop an independent culture with profound African influences. It set them apart from their overlords, it signaled a silent protest, but it also helped the slaves to adapt and it blunted the worst onslaughts of slavery on their psyche. The planters were reluctant to interfere in the social life of the slaves as well, so the slave community was, in fact, independent in many ways. To give up this satisfying social and cultural life for an uncertain and often dangerous existence in the jungle was the inevitable price of freedom: a price that was considered too high by many of the slaves.<br /><br />The Surinam masters often failed to provide their slaves with sufficient provisions, let alone food that was varied and of good quality. As a result, many slaves went hungry from time to time. This would certainly have prompted them to rebel, if they would not have had ample opportunities to add to their diet themselves. In the eyes of the slaves, this did not absolve their owners of the duty to provide for them, but it made them less desperate to challenge masters who failed to do so. The slaves could get additional food by hunting, fishing, collecting shellfish and robbing other plantations (although the latter was not without risk). Moreover, they had their own gardens and fruit trees and they raised fowl (sometimes even -in secret- pigs). Many slaves were sorely tried by masters who neglected to furnish other necessities, especially clothes, but this usually did not inspire them to a spirited protest: the Surinam climate was mild enough to go without if the need arose.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285625505010237058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 260px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYnYEjMLI8AaB1Q91UppdHayk41RojQjW6DN0bLUYygH7gLX42zTV6O4Ze8IMtlyj_-yjsXB3u46Es2Qtg58CG5RT1ktOFDhEABoubjFrKxqHPjcXCBjXgJnMUtrYrBbSolC2zWazwzk/s400/slavendans.jpg" border="0" />While the slave force of a large plantation might be strong enough to keep attackers at bay and even beat them in combat, it was seldom sufficient to stage a genuine revolt. For that, cooperation between slaves of different plantations was required and this was not easy to organize. There were always slaves ready to reveal a plot -either for material gain, or because they feared being dominated by other blacks even more than being dominated by whites.<br /><br />Although the white colonists were divided in many ways, they were also very much aware of the precariousness of their situation and they tried their best to hide their differences as much as possible from the slaves. They were determined never to give the slaves a chance to set them up against each other and they usually cooperated loyally in case of any outside threat. Irreconcilable political differences, like the one that split the whites in Berbice (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots_(faction)">Patriots</a> vs. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangist">Orangists</a>) did not exist in Surinam.<br /><br />Blacks may have greatly outnumbered whites, but this advantage was upset by two factors. Firstly, a large percentage of the black population was in no condition to wield any resistance: they were too young, too old, or too ill. A much larger percentage of the whites than of the blacks belonged to the category of ‘men capable of bearing arms’. Secondly, the whites managed to enlist the support of the Indians and did everything in their power to drive wedges in the black front, setting up the pacified against the not-pacified Maroons and runaway slaves, former slaves against Maroons, privileged slaves against their less favored colleagues, etc. On the whole, solidarity between the various groups of blacks was limited and the whites saw to it that it stayed that way.<br /><br />Perhaps because of their scarcity, the Surinam whites had a lot of confidence in their Creole slaves, especially the Mulattoes. They deliberately tried to increase their loyalty by a preferential treatment. Also, the Creoles had good reason to fear the Africans because of their supposed magical powers and that distrust was mutual: Creoles were kept out of conspiracies as much as possible. In the 19th century, African runaways disliked the Creoles so much that they often killed any Creole who dared to enter their camp. The distrust between Africans and Creoles created another gap in the black front, which weakened it considerably. Moreover, for most of the slavery era the Creoles were not numerous enough to concoct their own revolts (which in the perception of Genovese were more sophisticated and therefore more dangerous).<br /><br />Surinam slave society permitted the emergence of black leaders, but they were Maroon leaders. Their interest primarily lay with their own people, not with the black population in general. Most of them had little objection against slavery as such (they often treated the runaways that had drifted to their villages little better than slaves), but only to the fact that they had been degraded to slavery themselves, or had been mistreated. Once they had reached their goals -freedom, peace with the whites and a steady supply of European goods- they were quite willing to support the status quo.<br /><br />The geographical situation of Surinam gave the slaves the possibility to withdraw from an unbearable situation individually, but at the same time it created so many obstacles that only the most desperate and the most brave ventured far into the hinterland. Runaways could fairly easy form independent communities beyond the grasp of the whites. The forest provided them with food and other necessities, but the Maroon societies continued to need the whites for many other goods (pots, knives, cloth, guns, gunpowder, etc), which made them less eager to drive their adversaries from the colony. Once the whites realized it was not a matter of conquer or be conquered, they learned to live with independent Bush Negro communities tucked away in the hinterland.<br /><br />In Surinam, the situation was favorable for the articulation of various forms of protest: from sabotage and strikes to running away and small-scale revolts. However, these very same factors hampered a large-scale rebellion aimed at overthrowing the slavery system. The pressure was siphoned off the kettle in so many ways that the bursting point was never reached. </div>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-30548224288134906782008-12-23T21:52:00.047+01:002009-10-08T14:14:32.666+02:00Chapter 13: The Maroons and their adversaries.<strong><div align="justify"><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 297px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285210130518316130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMFPrRYbSceVp4YEcEcFz5JoYcKjAvg15EZuFfvwGlOGwhjfHQlL9r_mcSrpw2w4OVqWTDjA45CKcuz3Yw9MqI0MUK5A9zI7AL5m9N0nDbd84aUzdEPiitOk8AOg9jH5Hg94PYsM52jfM/s400/granman.jpg" /><br /><div align="justify"><br />The development of the Maroon societies.<br /><br /></strong></div><div align="justify">If history has taught us anything, it is that in some instances a small but ruthless minority can keep a large majority subordinated for a long time. However, this is a lot easier if these suborinates are not needed for production. In concentration camps the inmates were used for slave labor, but the main object was to eliminate them. Consequently, the Nazi overlords lost little by starving and terrorizing them and the threat of a violent death was ever present. The slaveholders in the New World could not go a similar route. It has often been maintained that it was economically most expedient to exploit the slaves mercilessly until they dropped dead from exhaustion (generally after about seven years) and then buy new ones. However, even if the average slave could give a mere seven years of service in some places during some periods, this was not the result of a deliberate strategy. Most slaves did not die from starvation or maltreatment, but from the ravages of contagious diseases –against which the masters were as powerless as their chattels. Few masters could afford to transform their slaves into walking zombies: they needed their energy, strength and even their wit for the work that had to be done.<br /><br />The inevitable consequence was that they also had to cope with resistance. The Surinam planters, with their woefully inadequate force of supervisors, had to expect more resistance than other slaveholders. They were, however, fortunate in having an endless stretch of forest behind their estates, ready to swallow up the most intransigent slaves. It could be surmised that the formation of warlike Maroon societies meant an additional threat to the slavery system, but it turned out this was not the case. It is far more likely that the very presence of Maroon tribes in the hinterland helped to preserve the system, until external developments heralded its demise.<br /><br />Most Surinam slaves fled alone or in small groups and many of them soon returned to their plantation, sadder and wiser. A considerable percentage of those who sought freedom did so mainly because they did not fit into the plantation community and by their departure removed a (potential) source of conflicts. Others were the (innocent) butts of their masters’ frustration and ran away to save their own skin, but did not want to leave their loved ones behind and hid nearby –sometimes even on the plantation itself. Aiding and protecting them also united the slave community. The last category of single runaways were the <em>schuylders</em>. They settled close to the plantations and lived mainly from stealing and from whatever food they could gather, or cultivate in secret. Because they needed companions to survive, strangers often congregated in small communities, but remained distrustful of each other.<br /><br />Runaways preferred to join groups of the same ethnic background. Hazard, a fugitive from the plantation Cannewapibo, stumbled upon a Coromantine and an Abo village in the forest, which had no contact at all with each other, even though they were situated within walking distance. After a short stay in the Coromantine village, he felt no longer secure, because the inhabitants, 10 men and 3 women, continuously threatened to kill one another. He then moved to the Abo village, which counted 14 men and 3 women, but after a <em>landsman</em> of his had been slain, he preferred to surrender to the whites.<br /><br />Sometimes, these groups were so keen on reinforcement that they accepted any newcomer, but if the slave in question belonged to a different nation, he was likely to become the scapegoat when trouble arose (often fights over women). Many escapees came, like Hazard, to the conclusion that it was safer to brave the ire of their master than to stay with belligerent <em>weglopers</em>. Jaba, who had been kidnapped, decided after nine long years to flee back to the whites, when her captors started quarreling amongst each other, resulting in the death of all the (20) slaves they had in their power.<br /><br />Constant infighting undermined the stability of many <em>wegloper</em> communities. This is illustrated by the sad odyssey of Cartoes of Meulwijk (alias Voeyoereman). Cartoes fled his plantation because of continuous beatings<em>.</em> In the forest behind Meulwijk he met two other runaways: Cottica of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/perou/index.nl.html">Perou</a></strong> and Adam of Halle in Saxen. They took him to their cabin, but the peaceful cohabitation did not last long. Adam imagined that Cottica was a poisoner and killed him in his sleep. Thereafter, he took Cartoes to Upper Cottica where they met the Maroon leader <strong>Baron</strong>, who had just plundered a plantation. They participated in a few unsuccessful raids and later followed Baron to his village in Upper Cottica. They were attacked there by a patrol and the group, consisting of 13 men and 10 women, had to flee to the Commewijne. Baron argued with a Coromantee named Benbonwa and left with his wife and child. The remaining runaways established a village on the Patamaka River, <strong>Tammaroe wa Hey</strong>, which was situated so close to a military post that they could hear the soldiers felling trees. Benbonwa was killed by his companions because they feared that he was a poisoner. When the remaining runaways went to Upper Patamaka to clear provision grounds, they discovered a Coromantine village, led by Quamie, and settled there. After some time, Cartoes left the group in the company of Adam and Tekkie and they were later joined by Coridon. Cartoes abandoned them because he suspected they wanted to kill him and briefly sought the company of Profijt and Sambo of Vossenburg who, however, he considered a threat to his life as well. While he was fetching provisions with Profijt, Kwamie joined the little group. Cartoes mistrusted him too, so he moved again. Along the way he met Lont, also of Vossenburg, who told him that he had escaped from the Maroon stronghold <strong><a href="http://www.suriname.nl/discus/messages/1389/6517.html?1083164967">Boekoe</a></strong>. They stayed together for a while, but Cartoes mistrusted Lont and he went back to Quamie, who had not gotten any friendlier in the meantime. Thereupon Cartoes decided to go to Perica alone, built a cabin and lived there peacefully for a while. When he was looking for food, he was nearly caught by a group of <em>weglopers</em>, but he managed to reach his cabin undetected. When he heard the axes of a patrol, he did not feel safe anymore and he returned to Patamaka, where he had to live off <em>cabbes</em>. In the end, he decided that the existence in the jungle was too demanding, so he swam across the Patamaka and surrendered to a group of Negroes on patrol. He told the Court of Police that he had never experienced any charity, neither in his own land, nor in Surinam, neither from blacks, nor from whites and he pleaded that he “<em>shall be killed with no malicious thought, but that he shall be punished with a rope so he can go to his god with an easy death”</em>. His wish was granted.<br /><br />When larger groups of slaves ran away together, the situation was different. They often acted to preserve their community when it was threatened by measures of their master, for example attempts to put them together with the slaves of another plantation. Sometimes, their escape was merely a protest and they went back voluntary once they had been given proof that the hated decision had been overturned. In cases like this, the slaves often ran away unprepared and were glad to be able to return to their cherished home. When the whites remained obstinate, such a spontaneous protest could escalate into a full-fledged rebellion, as happened in Tempati. Sometimes, a whole slave force resolved to flee into the forest without any direct cause, either because of the influence of a strong leader who did not want to live in slavery anymore, or because the situation made it feasible. This was, for example, the case during periods of external warfare.<br /><br />The Court of Police was well aware of this possibility and warned that in case of an enemy attack the slaves had to be kept under close surveillance <em>“because there is not one negro, who does not know, that it is then the time for him, to free himself or to run away without peril and therefore two or three planters who are based close together must form a patrol with their Creoles on such occasions with orders to shoot all negroes found outside certain limits under their feet”</em>. After the plunder of the colony by Jacques Cassard, the councilors observed how vulnerable the country was when the planters were forced to leave their estates <em>“exposing those, as well as the women and children, to the good, or bad intentions of the slaves, who then being alone without supervision, or work get used to a libertine existence that makes them long for their freedom, and seek it, like the experience during the last attack has partly taught </em>[us]<em>”</em>.<br /><br />The first large concentrations of runaways formed after the massive defections during such emergencies. Many slaves owned by English planters made off when their masters lost the control over Surinam to the Dutch. The Indian Wars added more recruits to the nascent Maroon communities. Some observers claim that more than 700 slaves ran away during this period. The attack of Cassard also provided an ideal opportunity for gaining freedom to a large number of slaves, most of them recent arrivals. Bondsmen of one (or a few) plantations escaping together formed the cores of the various Maroon tribes. In the initial stages, they are likely to have accepted newcomers eagerly, especially females, for they were in need of reinforcement. Those newcomers will have been even more welcome if they were familiar: either slaves from neighboring plantations, or belonging to the same nation as the dominant group.<br /><br />Evidence of this scenario is found in the names of many of the Bush Negro clans, which are copies of the ‘Negro name’ of the plantation most early members came from (a name that was usually derived from the name of a former owner). A prominent Djuka clan is named <strong>Pata</strong> (after Gerrit Pater, one of the richest planters of the 18th century, who owned the plantations <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/groot-jalousie/index.nl.html">La Jalousie</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/beekhuizen/index.nl.html">Beekhuizen</a></strong>). Another clan is named <strong>Ansoe</strong>, the Negro name of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/meerzorg/index.nl.html">Meerzorg</a></strong>, derived from the name of former owner Paul Amsinq. The <strong>Pinasi</strong> clan got its name from the Negro name of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/frederiksburg/index.nl.html">Frederiksburg</a></strong>, which derived from L’ Espinasse. The <strong>Dominé</strong> clan was named after a plantation once owned by a minister. The <strong>Missidjan</strong> clan originated from <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/palmeniribo/index.nl.html">Palmeniribo</a></strong>, called Missidjan by the slaves, after the wife of former owner Jonas Witzen. Legend tells that the slaves fled from the plantation after murdering this ‘Missi Jonas’ (whom they hung from a ring fastened to the <em>kankantrie </em>where the slaves were tied for a whipping). The murderers were worthless trackers and could not find their way to the Saramaka. They were taken in tow by some ‘Ansoe Negroes’ and brought to the Djuka Creek. Another part of the Djuka tribe, with Boston as the common ancestor, is called the <strong>Compagnie </strong>clan (<em>compagnie </em>being the designation for a group of shipmates).<br /><br />The Saramaka have a clan called <strong>Kardoesoe</strong>. It was named after a trader called Cardoso, who brought a shipload of slaves to Surinam during the attack of Cassard and hid them in the forest of Poelepantje, from where they escaped. A part of the fugitives came from Angola and they congregated in a village and clan they called Kardoso. Nepveu remarked about these Maroons that they were rumored to be the descendants of a brother and sister. Though most inhabitants of this village were healthy and able-bodied, some were malformed and this was considered a punishment of the gods for the supposed incest. Other clan names also point to a group of <em>weglopers</em> from one plantation: the <strong>Papota</strong> clan very likely got its name from <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/tawaycoerekreek/vierkinderen/index.nl.html">Papot</a>, a well-known planter family; and the <strong>Nassy</strong> clan from another prominent family, of Jewish extraction.<br /><br />Life was hard for the Maroons in the Surinam jungle. Many died from starvation, illness, or attacks of enemy runaways, hostile Indians, or patrols. The ones who survived did so because of their own resourcefulness and courage. The early Maroon communities, conscious of their vulnerable position, were therefore only willing to include newcomers who were ready to pull their own weight. The leaders of those early groups, meriting their position because of their capacities (although it probably helped if they represented the most numerous nation) were, in the words of <a href="http://history.jhu.edu/Faculty_Bio/knight.html">Franklin Knight</a>, <em>“rigidly authoritarian and often needlessly cruel”</em>. They had little choice if they wanted to survive: many slaves arrived at their premises believing that from now on they would have an easy life. They were to be bitterly disappointed, as Hurault discovered: <em>“the rebel chiefs</em> [were] <em>indifferent and even hostile to the wellbeing of the mass of the slaves. They feared that the combativity of their troops would be reduced by parasites, desirous to escape the condition of slavery in order to be no longer forced to any work. Boni imposed heavy tasks on the escapees who reached him, years of hard work, before he trusted them with arms. Countless among them gave up and preferred to throw themselves at the mercy of their masters.”</em><br /><br />Genovese has remarked that it was very difficult for the Maroon groups to avoid the parasitic existence that alienated them from the slaves. It was the tragedy of the Maroons in Surinam that they could not afford to retire so deeply into the jungle that the whites were unable to track them down, because they were dependant on their products. Although some groups had learned Indian crafts, they could not provide for all of their own needs. They were unable to weave cloth, work iron, or make gunpowder. They had to steal the necessary goods from the estates and consequently had to stay fairly close to the plantation area, within reach of the patrols. When they robbed the plantations, they could not avoid harming the interests of the slaves as well, especially since they were not above kidnapping women and children to swell their ranks.<br /><br />The larger Maroon groups could not depend on the provisions they stole from the plantations, so it was <em>“the manner of the Weglopers to plant in the environment where they settle here and there some provisions & make shelters”</em>. They cultivated rice, cassava, tayer, yams and sometimes corn. The provision grounds were a vulnerable source of food. Often, these were discovered and destroyed by patrols and then the Maroons were forced to subsist on stolen food and <em>cabbes</em> until they could harvest anew. They satisfied their need for protein by hunting, fishing and sometimes trapping, though this might give away their presence as well. The provision guard of Cortenduur, who followed the trail of a couple of runaways, discovered two to three hundred snares. The <em>commando </em>pursuing the trail stumbled upon a big house with two guards in front who resisted capture fiercely. One surrendered aften having been cut several times, the other had to be shot. Their companions managed to escape. The patrollers found earthenware, bows and arrows, machetes, deer meat and fowl in the house, as well as pots with plantains buried in the ground.<br /><br />Genovese has classified most of the 18th century Maroons as ‘restorationalist’ in worldview. This holds true for the Surinam Maroons in particular. Moreover, they never reached the ‘revolutionary’ stage, like most of their 19th century Caribbean counterparts. The reasons for this are threefold. Firstly, they could not afford to lose the source of European goods they so badly needed. Secondly, the strongest groups were able to force the whites to concede to a peace treaty that gave them a large measure of independence. Thirdly, the Creole slaves did not gain more influence among the Maroons, as they did in other parts of the New World. On the contrary, while Creoles seem to have made up a reasonable part of some Maroon groups in the 18th century [the famous ‘Claas villages’, for example, incorporated a ‘Papa village’ and a ‘Creole village’; and the slave woman Fortuna, who had been kidnapped by Maroons, reported that the ones she had met were <em>“mostly Creoles”</em>], during the 19th century, practically all Maroons were (recently imported) Africans. The restorationalist character of the Surinam Maroon tribes is illustrated by their culture, that, although an original Afro-American creation, displayed the most pervasive African influence to be found anywhere in the Caribbean.<br /><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 250px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 357px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285210270910310530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVGGilNtSww1q2_owCBy-7MQ_cMVzVNBJNtL5jIehan8Yzsds3MlKuJhKR9up_d5BoujqbNXiY_DmsNmFLJZckNw7NuWDNF_-4-fiVuU1QMwWU6susb1lO4s124ik2fpWK1gQ_lm54Pk/s400/Bosnegerchefs.jpg" /> <p align="justify">The situation of the major Maroon tribes changed for the better when the authorities concluded peace treaties with them: with the <strong>Djuka</strong> in <strong>1760</strong>, the <strong>Saramaka</strong> in <strong>1762</strong> and the so-called Bekoe-Musinga Maroons (nowadays called <strong>Matuari</strong>) in <strong>1767</strong>. These tribes were known from then on as the <em>Bevredigde Bosnegers</em> (‘Satisfied’ or ‘Pacified’ Bush Negroes). The pact was signed on the plantation <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/auca/index.nl.html"><strong>Auca</strong></a> (for this reason, the Djuka were called <em>Aucaners</em> by the colonists). According to Wolbers, the whites had to swear a blood-oath in the following manner: <em>“Each party let a few drops of blood, which had been obtained by a small cut in the arm, fall into a calabash with pure spring water, in which a bit of dry earth was mixed. All those present had to drink from this, after a few drops had been sprinkled on the ground. Next their Gado-man or priest laid a curse over all, who would break this covenant”</em>. The peace treaties drove a wedge between the ‘satisfied’ and the ‘not-satisfied’ Maroons and permitted the whites keep the latter in check.<br /><br />The Pacified Bush Negroes were not easy to deal with. Governor Nepveu complained that the authorities suffered <em>“continuously much harassment and teasing”.</em> However, <em>“considering our weakness one shall incessantly be forced to yield to them in everything, to keep the peace, however onerous it might be”</em>. His successor Texier was no more optimistic: <em>“the more one gives in to them, the bolder, more arrogant and more malicious they become”</em>. Some Bush Negroes from Upper Suriname, for example, asked him for the freedom of a slave woman owned by the Society. She was old and useless, so in itself this was not a problem, but Texier was afraid to create a precedent since many of them still had relatives among the slaves. The whites had to treat them with severity <em>“because then they are peaceful, humble, fearful and compliant, and behave with Respect & Submission”</em>. In the end, they proved to be reliable allies though.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Indians and Maroons.<br /></strong><br />The early <em>weglopers</em> would probably have perished in large numbers if the Indians had not aided them. During the Indian War, they collaborated on many levels and one group of runaways even amalgamated with Indians to form the so-called <em>Karboegers van de Coppename</em>. Some groups of Indians also took in runaways in later times and intermarried with them. Since the former slaves were often stronger and more ferocious than their hosts, some of them rose to prominent positions within the Indian tribes. Nepveu claimed that they were not above abusing their Indian subjects.<br /><br />The plantation slaves often had friendly relations with the free Indians who hunted and fished for the planters and these were frequently willing to guide them to a Maroon settlement. Some Indian groups had an amiable rapport with these settlements, partly because they needed them to obtain valued European products (which the runaways had taken along from the plantations). The proto-Saramaka enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the Acouri Indians (a tribe that moved to the Brazilian side of the border in the middle of the 18th century and only returned to Surinam in the beginning of the 20th century). They married Acouri women and the Indians demonstrated them how to weave hammocks and how to make pots and baskets. They also taught them to fashion covers of woven cotton, which they sold in Paramaribo after the peace treaty. The Djuka did not know any of these handicrafts. In later years the tables were turned: the Indians became the easiest source for those western goods the Maroons could not do without: they traded cassava, cotton, roucou and the like for axes, machetes and iron pots. Sometimes, the Indians even received hammocks from the Saramaka. The whites were well aware of this symbiosis and they decided to stop trading with the Indians, who from then on could only get the desired products if they delivered a runaway, dead or alive.<br /><br />Quite a few Indians were arrested for aiding runaways. Among them were Ariamono, an Indian captain, and his brother Jary. They had been caught with the help of the slave Tam, who had feigned that he wanted to flee to the Maroons. Ariamono testified in court that he and his brother had met runaways from Palmeniribo, led by <strong>Claas</strong> and <strong>Jankie</strong>, 15 years ago. These had escaped in 1712, with 20 persons. Claas and Jankie had established separate villages. Jary revealed that these Maroons had a lot of fowl and large provision grounds. One of their villages counted 80 adults, 12 adolescents and a couple of children, the other about a hundred people. The inhabitants of the most populous village had built a large house, which they used for ‘<em>joelen</em>’ (festivities), and many other houses. They had constructed traps for catching game, but had no bread. They came to fetch this in the Indian village, which was located about four days traveling. Both Claas and Jankie could speak the Indian language.<br /><br />During the 18th century, the relations between Maroons and Indians deteriorated steadily. Partly because the Indians were seduced by the rewards the planters offered for hunting runaways; partly because the Maroons, in their search for guns and gunpowder, did not hesitate to overpower unsuspecting Indians and plunder their villages. The Indians were not very eager to attack a Maroon village, except when they were clearly in the majority: they feared the military prowess of their opponents too much. They were occasionally willing to guide patrols to Maroon hideouts and most of the lonely runaways they came upon were no longer welcomed into the tribe, but were delivered to the whites in return for goods and money.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 310px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285210783811861762" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij9l8VJEbIqPIIHy3Ztq23JXpe493ltG82zoKyDeXe9VKNQ-fX_79Nf9laElD3jkMBcwawykoQcEPvi__hxlrIIJq6ThbGBnhfZ56kSzXJcLKdjWCvqxjMH4oH5XSViDTcIWDouIjemLo/s400/indiaans-gezin.jpg" /></p><p align="justify"><br /><br /><strong>Slaves and Maroons.</strong><br /><br />Despite the fact that their interests were not always parallel, many slaves had a lot of sympathy for the Maroons, which they showed in various ways. Bondsmen regularly warned Maroons for coming patrols. The Court of Police complained in 1717 that these <em>bostochten</em> often yielded little result <em>“because of continuous correspondence with negroes of some plantations by which</em> [the Maroons]<em> are informed of ordered patrols”</em>. On their part the Maroons were the cause that <em>“many planters do not have the service of their slaves that should be, even less </em>[they] can <em>punish wrongdoers as merited”</em>. The slaves rejoiced in the failures of the soldiers. Herlein noted that if patrols were sent out and <em>“some of</em> [the runaways]<em> are bought back as prisoners, the Slaves all over the Country are very fearful, because one tells the other, and if the voyage ends unsuccessfully, then they are much prouder again”</em>. After a successful <em>bostocht</em> against a Maroon tribe that by then already counted 800 members and had lived in freedom for so long that some of them had married children who had never seen a white, <em>“there was much dismay among the Slaves of Zuriname”</em>.<br /><br />Slaves and Maroons sometimes cooperated admirably when the latter raided a plantation. During an attack on La Paix, it was apparent, according to the government, that the slaves had <em>“agreed with the Weglopers and went with them voluntary, the attack having only been staged and continued to prevent the soldiers that were present to track the fleeing”</em>. Not without danger to their own safety, <em>weglopers</em> situated their camps often in such a manner that <em>“in one or two days the slaves from all sides reach it”</em>, noted the government in 1772. After the disappearance of the slaves of Planteau and Picolet, <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Bernard Texier wrote that it is <em>“undeniable that such a considerable force of slaves could not have been taken away with violence if there had been only a few well-intentioned among the bunch who had resisted, made noise and by their opposition had given as well the owner as the militia that was posted on the plantation the possibility to learn of the attack”</em>.<br /><br />There was not always friendly cooperation though: bloody confrontations between Maroons and slaves were frequent as well. The Maroons who attacked the plantation Marseille several times in 1774 were driven back by the slaves each time and pursued far into the forest. This brought Governor Nepveu to the conclusion that “<em>when they have no correspondence at all with some of the most prominent slaves, the attack does not go that easy”</em>. Many times the Maroons did approach plantation slaves beforehand, but got the cold shoulder. If they proceeded with the attack anyway, it could cost them dearly.<br /><br />Sometimes, Maroons who tried to entice slaves to run away with them were lured into a trap, as happened in the following case. One day, the slave woman Jana of L’ Esperance came back from the field in a very agitated state. She grabbed her child, who was being cared for by an old woman, and wanted to make off with it. Her unusual behavior alarmed the other slaves, who brought her to the director. She confessed that she had been approached in the field by a runaway from the plantation, called Jupiter. He took her to the Bottel Creek, where two others were waiting. They tied her hands behind her back and wanted to take her with them, but she begged to be allowed to fetch her child first. They agreed to this and she promised that she would return to the same spot the next day with her child. As a precaution, they cut off half of her hair (probably to conduct <em>wisi</em> with). At the designated moment, the director laid himself in ambush with some of his <em>schutternegers</em>. Jana and her child functioned as bait. However, the runaways must have noticed that something was wrong, for they did not show up.<br /><br />The slaves had good reason not always to rejoice in the visits of Maroons. These frequently had only plunder and women on their mind. Not rarely, the plantation slaves were driven to a furious pursuit to save their loved ones from the hands of these ‘liberators’. They ocasionally asked bondsmen from adjoining plantations for help. In 1751, the slaves of Zorghoven, with the assistance of some of their colleagues from Onoribo, managed to free several children and two women from the clutches of a group of Maroons (at least one of them a survivor of the revolt on Bethlehem the year before). They killed three of the culprits. A group of ten armed slaves followed the trail of the remaining kidnappers, who still had 2 men, 5 women and 4 children in their power, but they were unable to retrieve them. The bondsmen were well aware that such a display of ‘loyalty’ merited a token of gratitude. The slaves of Marseille were rewarded by the authorities as well as by their owners, who resided in Holland. They were greatly hurt when it turned out that their heroism was forgotten soon.<br /><br />Many of the slaves ‘liberated’ by Maroons were not exactly grateful for their deliverance. They were torn away from their familiar surroundings and found themselves in a situation of great uncertainty. They could depend on no one. The women, especially, were treated hardly better than slaves. They were taken as wives by the most influential Maroons, without having any say in the matter. Often, they were used as a kind of breeding mares by men desperate for offspring. Until they had been around long enough to earn the trust of their companions, the new recruits were forced to perform the heaviest and dirtiest work, which made the prospect of continued slavery lose much of its horror. Many of the new additions, especially the involuntary ones, tried their utmost to return to their plantations. Therefore, they were watched closely and killed on the slightest suspicion that they wanted to escape.<br /><br />The Maroons had good reason not to allow anyone to return to the whites, even when the persons in question had come to them on their own initiative and had merely found the joys of freedom somewhat disappointing. Many of the returnees were willing to betray the Maroon hideouts in order to escape punishment, or revenge themselves. To avoid this possibility, the Maroons often made new recruits swear a solemn oath (<em>sweri</em>), enforced by the drinking of blood, that they would never betray their comrades, on the penalty of being stricken with instant death. Jupiter of the plantation Elk Het Zijn told the Criminal Court how he had been captured while on patrol and had been brought to <strong>Boekoe</strong>, the stronghold of the Maroon leader <strong>Boni</strong>. Because he refused to participate in raids, he was employed as a provision guard. When Boekoe was attacked by the <em>Vrijcorps</em>, he was grabbed in the provision grounds, together with Janconie of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/roosenbeeck/index.nl.html">Roosenbeeck</a></strong>. The next day, the commander freed Janconie of his shackles and ordered him to lead them to Boekoe. Along the way, Janconie suddenly dropped dead (without having been touched in any way) and Jupiter attributed this to the fact that he had not kept his oath to Boni.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 317px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285210995818077154" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53tJMFxbAxc0HTNtIlYer-g8G4vsD4UABji-sF1OIaNLmjELLaffxH6SxJa2m9rXuAX125s1NpBpmi6o9pH2qxGjNQ-dd1jNNxm9wpMpWLt59HHYyRkSO8CDakSMRS-_V8krJ66fBZko/s400/offerplaats-bosnegers.jpg" /> </p><p align="justify">Captured runaways were put under heavy pressure to betray their fellows and since that sometimes meant the choice between a horrible execution and freedom plus a reward, some of them were willing to comply. Others only professed to cooperate, but in reality lured the soldiers on the wrong trail, so their comrades would have more time to flee. Markies, for example, had promised to guide a patrol and he brought it to two villages, which were both deserted. He said he would lead them to another one, but instead he steered the patrol though so many swamps that the commander, sergeant Krijgslaen, became suspicious. Markies tried to desert, but was caught and severely whipped. The chance to find the village was lost, however, and the soldiers decided to return. Markies later explained to the Court of Police that he had sworn never to betray his leader Coffy and when he was on the verge of breaking his oath, his <em>“eyes had twisted” </em>and he could not find the way anymore. The leaders of the patrol were of the opinion that he had led them astray on purpose and had tried to warn the Maroons, because when they stumbled upon a large <em>barbacot</em> along the way, with a fire still burning underneath, Markies had asked for a calabash of water in a very loud voice and had started to rattle his chains, whereupon a Negro, who had been hiding under the <em>barbacot</em>, jumped up and ran away. Markies claimed he had not been a <em>wegloper</em> but a <em>schuylder</em>. What further happened to Markies the story does not tell, but Profeyt of Wajampibo, who on a similar mission had been plagued by a <em>“twist in his head” </em>and had also not been able to find the right track anymore, was beheaded for his failure.<br /><br />Since runaways often claimed to have been kidnapped by Maroons to save their life, whites were not very gullible when confronted with this claim. Even slaves who really had been dragged away by force had much trouble to prove their innocence. In 1771, the administrators of Rustlust, Kennedy and Backer, wrote a request to Governor Nepveu, begging clemency for some of the women of their plantation, who had been captured by a patrol under the command of Ensign Sebulo. Maroons had attacked the plantation in the expectation that the slaves would follow them willingly, but a great deception had awaited them. Though unarmed, the slaves had resisted with all their might and had even managed to free some of the maids who had already been overpowered and bound. After this feat, they had continued to work to the full satisfaction of the director, even though they were very sad about the loss of their women. When Sebulo visited the plantation during his patrol, the bondsmen had asked him if he had any suspicion against the slaves of Rustlust who had fallen into the hands of the Maroons and he had denied he had. The administrators requested that the women would be sent back to the plantation, for <em>“what kind of impression will it give to the well-meaning, loyal and especially Creole slaves who shall have the misfortune to see everyone who is dear to them in this world confined this way on their return or capture and treated the same way as those who have conspired and plotted with the runaways”</em>.<br /><br />The peace treaties of the 1760’s included the provision that the ‘Pacified Maroons’ were obliged <em>“to return all the slaves or slave women who might come to them or who are encountered in the forest to the whites without any distinction and to deliver them to the nearest magistrate or burgerofficier”</em>. The Bush Negroes kept their part of the bargain, but they did not like it very much. They made it clear that they had little desire to hand over slaves who had fled because of cruel mistreatment and they wanted to make sure that the slaves they delivered would not be condemned to death, except when they were guilty of murder. The Saramaka Bush Negroes (who returned only two of the twenty slaves already residing in their midst) complained that the wails of abused slaves caused much <em>“commotion and resistance”</em> in their villages, especially among the women and children.<br /><br />It should, however, not be presumed that the Bush Negroes were motivated by humanitarian reasons only. Not only could they use the labor of the fugitive slaves very well, but they also saw a perfect opportunity to manipulate and blackmail the whites. Often, absconders were kept in semi-thralldom for a considerable period and only handed over after much pressure and the payment of bribes by the whites. Ensign Daunitz, the<em> posthouder</em> (government representative) with the Saramaka, made himself very unpopular by reporting to the authorities that they had hidden a large number of runaways in the forest. Chief <strong>Etja</strong> even threatened to kill him, but he later relented and acknowledged that peace had only been saved by the mediation of Daunitz.<br /><br />Runaway slaves were often treated as pawns by the Bush Negroes, who held out for the best bargain. This is illustrated by the behavior of the Bekoe-Musinga Bush Negroes. They were closely allied with the Saramaka, but had not shared in the presents distributed to the Saramaka chiefs, and consequently were not included in the peace treaty either. Although they were not yet pacified, they often visited the plantation of Mr. Planteau and consumed <em>dram</em> with the slaves. Because this led to frequent disturbances, Planteau forbade them further entrance. Moreover, <strong>Musinga</strong> was refused free passage over the Para River and was very annoyed about that. He proposed to the elite slaves of the plantation to come with him and they agreed. To prepare for the flight, the housemaids and the<em> voetebooy</em> hid the possessions of the master in the forest. The other slaves butchered all their fowl and took it along half roasted. Musinga forced the unwilling slaves to follow him with the help of some of his Maroons and the slaves who participated in the conspiracy. At the same time, <strong>Bekoe </strong>enticed the bondsmen belonging to the plantations of Picolet and Latterman to flee with him. The slaves of the latter he gave to the Saramaka chief <strong>Donkie</strong>. Musinga gave some of ‘his’ slaves to chief <strong>Quakoe</strong> of the village <strong>Coffy Sambo</strong>, who returned them to the whites without delay and pocketed a handsome fee (probably shared by Musinga). The same happened to some slaves who were donated to chief <strong>Samsam</strong>. In retaliation for these kidnappings, a patrol under the command of ensign Dorig burned down Musinga’s village, but it had already been deserted because a <em>lukuman</em> had predicted the attack. When a peace treaty was concluded with Bekoe and Musinga in 1767, they returned some of the remaining slaves as a token of goodwill, but these were, of course, not the most useful ones. Susanna, for example, realized very well that she was only handed over because she was <em>“old and sick and cannot work”</em>. The other stolen slaves were kept behind to toil in the provision grounds and only after urgent requests some of them were sent back.<br /><br />Less prominent Bush Negroes also delighted in the possibility of harassing the whites. A Saramaka named Soesa had <em>“received if not taken away”</em> a slave <em>“to spite the white”</em>, had given him to an <em>Aucaner</em> and had taken another one in return. He refused to hand over this slave to the authorities on the pretext that he belonged to the <em>Aucaner</em> <em>“which game these two have invented to elude restitution according to the peace treaty”</em>. There was nothing the authorities could do, except to threaten Soesa that they would arrest him the moment he showed his face in the capital.<br /><br />In 1721, the death penalty had been made obligatory for runaways (except when they had been driven away by abusive planters, or had been kidnapped by Maroons). After the peace treaties, the authorities faced a problem, because they had promised the Pacified Bush Negroes that returned slaves would not be punished with death unless they were <em>“wrongdoers, murderers and poisoners”</em>. However, they did not dare to send the runaways whose lives they had to spare back to the plantations, out of fear that they would incite the other slaves to rebellion. Therefore, they decided to keep them at the fortifications to work in chains for the rest of their lives and they paid the masters 200 guilders as indemnification. In 1788, when the worst dangers were over, the whites could afford to be more lenient: from then on, the death penalties would be reserved for proven murderers only. In 1828, it was ruled that runaways could only be condemned to death if they had drawn blood while resisting capture. Finally, in 1838 the following decree was issued: <em>“The escape of a slave from the colony Suriname, with the apparent aim to remove himself from his lawful master, will be punished with forced labor on one of the Government Establishments, or the plantation of his master, for the time of ten years at most.” </em>This penalty will not have inspired much fear in the slaves, but by this time, although some Maroons groups continued to plague the colony, the real danger had long passed.<br /><br />It can be concluded that the existence of Maroon settlements in the hinterland had profound repercussions for the position of the slaves. On the one hand, it proved that their situation was not hopeless, which gave them solace; on the other hand, it added to the dangers already lurking in the jungle. The slaves could never be sure of acceptance among the Maroons and if they were unlucky, they might be taken for a spy and be killed without mercy. Even when they were accepted, they might very well have bartered one kind of slavery for another and they might be treated by their new masters just as heartlessly as by their former owners. After the conclusion of peace treaties with the major Maroon tribes, they were no longer welcome there. From then on, they were locked in between the plantation area and Bush Negro territory. Though the Bush Negroes certainly did not sympathize with cruel slaveholders, runaways could not trust them and many deemed it prudent to stay out of their reach. Consequently, they were often forced to stay much closer to the plantations than they would have preferred.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The war against the Maroons.</strong><br /><br />During the Indian War of the 1680’s, runaway slaves became a threat to the colony for the first time. Cornelis van Aerssen was the first governor to take the problem of the <em>weglopers</em> seriously. He concluded a peace treaty with a group led by <strong>Jermes</strong> in 1685. After that the position of the remaining <em>weglopers</em> was weakened so much that they quietly disappeared from the scene for several decades. Although individual attacks could endanger isolated plantations, the Maroons only became a problem to the colony again after their numbers had swollen considerably by runaways profiting from the chaos that ensued after the attack of the fleet of Jacques Cassard in 1712. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Maroons made up about 10% of the black population.<br /><br />During the post-Cassard period, the number of patrols that were dispatched increased and the awareness of the danger the <em>weglopers</em> posed grew. Governor Temming wrote in 1722: <em>”the runways who are very numerous and are spread far and wide over the whole colony start to become very insolent, and not without reason they are feared on some plantations, yes even here in Paramaribo to the side of the new expansion: if I had some more soldiers here, I flatter myself to be able to root out this scum in due course”</em>. During the reign of Governor De Cheusses (1728-1734) one patrol after the other was sent out and three decades later Pieter Brouwers gloated that <em>”by fire and by sword this brave Hero had them pursued into their holes, and if he had not been stopped, he would have gone to war in person; alas! Surinam may morn the loss of this Warrior up to this moment”</em>. De Cheusses’ successors were even more burdened by the duty of fighting the Maroons: by the middle of the 18th century they made up about 10% of Surinam blacks.<br /><br />To stimulate members of the <em>Burgerwacht</em> to search for <em>weglopers</em> more actively, Governor Van Scharphuys decided in 1691 to reward them with a hogshead of sugar for every fugitive they apprehended and he promised anyone who participated in a <em>bostocht</em> 50 pounds of sugar a day. The premium for catching a runaway increased steadily: first to five guilders, than to 300 pounds of sugar (= 15 guilders) if the captive had been hunted on purpose and 100 pounds if he had been caught by sheer luck. Still later, the reward rose to 25 guilders if the runaway was captured in the territory enclosed by the major rivers and 50 guilders if he was captured outside this area -to be paid by the owner. In 1717, it was decided by the Government and Court of Police that everyone was free to organize a commando, which would be rewarded with 1500 guilders for the discovery of one of the so-called <strong>Claas</strong> or <strong>Pedro</strong> villages and 600 guilders for the discovery of another Maroon settlement. Slaves or runaways who guided a patrol to a Maroon village were rewarded with freedom. At the height of the Maroon Wars, the fee for a captive rose to 150 guilders.<br /><br />During the first stages of the Maroons Wars, they were fought mainly by the planters themselves. When a <em>burgercapitein</em> decided to assemble a patrol to track runaways or raiders, the planters in his division had either to participate themselves, or hire replacements. When most owners moved to Paramaribo, this left only the directors and <em>blankofficieren</em> as recruits and understandably, they were not very eager to risk their lives for the possessions of others. A few planters seemed to enjoy these expeditions: David Nassy, for example, led one patrol after the other and he trained Indians in the use of rifles when he could not persuade enough whites to enlist. However, by 1730 it had become clear that the militia could not handle the situation and regular soldiers were sent on patrol as well. The jungle patrols were extremely hard on the participants. Governor Nepveu wrote that the soldiers <em>“melted like snow before the sunsine </em><em>and those who are still alive carry around an impotent and miserable body”</em>.<br /><br />In the beginning of the 18th century, Governor De Cheusses was already well aware that it would be difficult to beat the Maroons: <em>“while they don’t have to do anything, but hide about six behind trees here and there on the Route of our march, and from there shoot at our men, and then flee again further, since it will be impossible to discover them before they shoot, or to pursue them after the shooting, while they are in their Element there, and are very knowledgeable, and if one or two of our men are wounded in this manner, they will need bearers again, to traverse the forest”</em>. Half a century later, Nepveu had similar reservations <em>“even if there were 1000 yes 3000 men in those Forests, they could not do more than is done now, while it is impossible to engage them, if they want to retire, and the same with hungering them out even if one could suppose that one would find all their provision grounds, while they will never lack cabbes, wild fruits, fish and game”</em>. </p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 237px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285211901912330818" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcr0nhAUnIdZSjIiqZYPomghYiIuS86Sg-IZM1m48pT5e-ZruWbkJ86KBq2ggPoBKxRTXWvO0ApAF_Bm1Gj6rUka7i2cnfLaQPWwwqLstJTBOvEi4Tb6cshoqu-JHeA2jVqoyc4gWKDk4/s400/Stedman-doorwaden.jpg" /> <p align="justify">Despite this prevailing pessimism, patrol after patrol was dispatched. The soldiers experienced hell on earth. Van Sypesteyn explained: <em>“Often they had to wade for hours and sometimes during half a day through the deep swamps, sinking to the hips in the swamp at every step, and obliged to carry the weapons and the ammunition on the head, to prevent them from getting wet. If the night fell, before they had reached a dry spot, then they were compelled to tie the hammocks to trees above the water or above the swamp, or to spend the night on a raft, which had been fashioned hastily from felled trunks … Sometimes it happened that, while they were wading through the swamp with the water reaching to their armpits, they were shot at by the ever-lurking bush negroes from a safe hideout, without being able to defend themselves much, because they, standing in the water, could not load their discharged rifles.”<br /></em><br />Fortunately for the soldiers, the rebels had a constant shortage of guns, gunpowder and ammunition. According to Stedman, their shots often did not do much damage, because their rifles were loaded with small pebbles, buttons, or coins and they used a potsherd instead of a piece of flint for ignition. Sometimes, the Maroons were driven to attack military posts to obtain guns and ammunition, a risky venture that could go very wrong. <strong>Boni </strong>was rumored to make his own bullets.<br /><br />Logistics was always the weak point for patrols. Governor Mauricius reported: <em>“All the provisions have to be carried on the head by slaves and easily spoil in this heat. And everything depends on the loyalty of these slaves, who have been scraped together from all plantations, and usually are those which the owners or directors of the plantations want to get rid of. So it is usually the end of all patrols that one has to return for lack of provisions.”</em> Governor Crommelin observed: <em>“when a Load-carrying Negro has to carry provisions for four weeks for himself, one can easily understand that one cannot give him much to bear for the white Patrollers”</em>.<br /><br />Many of the Maroon villages were not that far away as the crow flies, but it often took weeks to reach them: <em>“one reckons from Auka being a Jewish plantation, situated just below the Blue Mountain, at least 14 days travel, over Mountains, Creeks and Valleys, before one nears their Villages”</em>, Thomas Pistorius observed. The Maroons usually situated their settlements in swampy areas, on the higher sand ridges. In the rainy season, they were practicably unreachable. During the rest of the year, they were well protected too. Some were surrounded by stakes, who functioned as man-traps: “<em>From this we can see, that the Bush Negroes are not as simple as one thinks, and even shame us, while they do everything in their ability that is conductive to their Defense”</em>, Governor Nepveu noted. One of the larger settlements was called <strong>Pennenburg</strong>, because <em>“around the Village they had made double Diamonds, Crosswise over each other, in the manner of a Draught-board, with square holes, in which sharp pins had been put, which properly distributed, like a fence of Palisades, surrounded the Village”</em>, wrote Pistorius. <strong>Boekoe </strong>had similar fences and was also protected by swivel-guns. When a village was attacked, the Maroons often did not defend themselves, but retired into the jungle, tried to hide their trail and brought their women, children and ‘house gods’, <em>“in whom they have much confidence”</em>, to safety.<br /><br />Because of <em>“bad judgement and fear”</em> white soldiers were useless for battling Maroons. Moreover, the costs of dispatching so many patrols soon became prohibitive. Not infrequently, these amounted to more than 100.000 guilders for the average sojourn. Although a special <em>cassa</em> had been established for this purpose in 1749, it was emptied much quicker than it could be filled. It became increasingly clear to the whites that they could not win this war on their own.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285212238396160722" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMbzpR1HclPe3Vc-Q-vSUByEnyiruH37LBcPtC_oHHrg2T4FJjV99ab6pFFH4tJCbFxwZ5wMO_k5hVqS20svVBho8KKV78lRiw3wVbf09M3KZD7R_JPrlsU0Mm5m9nHZixSZK5BiBPtAk/s400/Oayana.jpg" /> </p><p align="justify">From the beginning, they had put their hope on the abilities of the Indians. In 1690, for example, Governor van Scharphuys informed the Society that <em>“fourteen days ago a troupe of 17 Coromantees have run away which</em> [I]<em> immediately have had pursued, but until now</em> [I]<em> got back no more than 8 of them the Indians have gone out in search of the rest who</em> [I]<em> hope return</em> [with]<em> good success”</em>. Using Indians had its drawbacks though. The authorities observed in 1712 that <em>weglopers</em> had continuous contact with the Indians <em>“who function as Instruments to debauch the Negroes on the plantations to Desertion”</em>. Many runaways sought refuge with the Indians along the Saramacca and Coppename rivers and made ‘plantations’ for them. Later, the lure of rewards made the Indians more willing to track absconders, but they were put off by the fact that they often did not receive the promised premiums.<br /><br />The bravery of the Indian warriors left much to be desired as well: <em>“The Carib Indians are Lazy and Peaceful</em> [and]<em> fear the Weglopers a lot; they also don’t need any kargasoenen </em>[trading goods] <em>since they get enough kargasoenen from the Ruijlders</em> [and don’t need]<em> to barter for them, </em>[they]<em> also don’t want to do anything, and </em>[they] <em>would themselves</em> <em>not easily be able to find the places where those Weglopers hide”</em>, Commander De Raineval complained. Governor De Cheusses was just as pessimistic. The Society should keep in mind <em>“that the indians even though they knew some hideouts of the weglopers would never betray those, because it is a fearful people, and they would be afraid to be employed to point out these weglopers”</em>. According to Teenstra, the Waraus were much better suited for hunting Maroons than the Caribs or the Arawaks and much less addicted to alcohol. The half-black Coppename <em>Karboegers</em> were deemed the most courageous. It was forbidden to trade with them to make sure they did not obtain guns. Governor Mauricius proposed in 1747 to ply them with gifts to get them on the side of the whites.<br /><br />The battle against the Maroons could never be decided with the help of the Indians, so the colonists were forced to enlist Negro troops, who were much more suited to guerilla warfare. Slaves made up a valuable part of the various <em>bostochten</em> from the beginning, especially the <em>schutternegers</em> accompanying their masters. A more or less typical expedition to the Sara Creek, for example, consisted of a lieutenant, an ensign, 40 planters, 37<em> schutternegers</em> and 83 carriers. The owners did not always like to see their slaves employed for this purpose. One of them complained to the Court of Police: <em>“I do not give slaves to have them burn houses and to have them beaten with clubs as has been done here continuously for three years”</em>. Other whites saw more possibilities.<br /><br />Already in 1716, some colonists proposed that <em>“The best and most loyal Negroes can be encouraged by favorable promises and compensation, and the service one would get from them, would in all probability have an even greater effect, than that of the Indians, because they are usually bolder”</em>. Shortly after this, Commander De Raineval concluded: <em>“Therefore, in my opinion, there will never be found a good remedy for this scandalous desertion, as with a group of freed Negro Creoles and Mulattoes, with four to five whites as their Chiefs, who could be divided</em> [into]<em> one group on the Upper Zuriname River and one group on the Upper Commewijne River, provided that first sufficient housing, provision grounds are made for them, the premiums for the catching and shooting of the maroons could be split, one half for the Mulattoes and Negroes and the other half for the whites … To animate and reassure these Mulattoes and Free Negroes one should supply those who had caught and killed a certain number of runaways with a wife to be paid for partly from their premium, and what was short from the public means of the land”</em>. In this period, the authorities were not ready for these extreme measures yet. Governor Van de Schepper observed: <em>“with regard to the Blacks one cannot Form a regular Corps and supply them all with guns, since this</em> [is] <em>too dangerous and would often lead to our own ruin, but most whites ordinarily whether on Patrol or otherwise take along two or three of their loyal slaves who they can trust supplied with riffles and use them”</em>.<br /><br />As the hostilities dragged on, the whites came to reason. The peace with some Maroon groups in the 1760’s had not ended the troubles with belligerent runaways. A new group under the command of <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boni_(guerrillaleider)"><strong>Boni</strong></a> and his lieutenants <strong>Baron, Jolicoeur </strong>and <strong>Coromantin Codjo</strong> harassed the whites as never before. Governor Nepveu observed: <em>“The terrible Insolences of these Negroes is without Example; however it appears that their principal goal is, to force us to make peace with them too, which is surely all the more questionable, since others will not fail to assemble in this Manner again from time to time: so this is an evil of which one cannot humanly speaking expect the end as long as one has Slaves”</em>.<br /><br />Since the expenses of fighting the insurgents nearly brought the colony to bankruptcy, Governor Nepveu concluded in 1769 that <em>‘if the slaves are made willing, they alone are able to track and catch runaways”</em>. The best way to make slaves ‘willing’ was to promise them freedom. So three years later, the Governor and Court of Police decided to buy the freedom of 300 of the best slaves in the colony. Most of the candidates were eager to accept this opportunity. Only a few, owned by timber grounds in the Para, declined. These ‘Black Chasseurs’ (also called the <em>Vrijcorps</em> or <em>Redi Moesoe</em>) turned out to be singularly efficient and Governor Nepveu reported with glee that <em>“the Negroes are incomparably more competent for this than Whites, and that one has always to expect much Benefit of them, provided one lets them act on their own without hindrances & without beings charged with Whites, for whom it is impossible to act with dexterity and obstinacy in the Forest, when it matters”.</em><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 244px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285212584589235106" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4grgDCwwl8Sjmll0IEfixE5NOmXDJz2ubdD-RrRwoPWWPeFE5gNBaCW7YuT9PDUBcOXF-Fiy7upEY7rXMzl7gndGRHrCgMcl8dAbKxjZTAGgrvtcfMJUObqT4yzq-A5BdeyO74RONnw/s400/Stedman-redi-Moesoe.jpg" /> </p><p align="justify">The Maroons considered the <em>Redi Moesoe</em> traitors of the worst kind, but in the beginning, they wanted to give them a chance to defect. One <em>chasseur</em> reported to the Court of Police that he had been captured by the Maroons along with twelve comrades. Their captors had given them the choice to join them or die. Their leader Vigilant thereupon pronounced that they preferred to die and all of them were sentenced to death. The gun pointed at the survivor, however, failed twice and the Maroons regarded this as a sign from the gods. They killed his comrades with machetes, but decided to let him go, after whipping him soundly, cutting off an ear and shaving off his hair. Jupiter, the kidnapped slave of Elk Het Zijn, had witnessed this execution and later testified that the Maroons had brought the captives to their place of worship, had retracted their oath that they would not kill any Negro and had replaced it with an oath that from now on they would kill any <em>chasseur </em>that fell into their hands. The <em>Redi Moesoe</em> did not give quarter to the Maroons either. They gained some remarkable victories, the conquest of Boni’s stronghold Boekoe being the most remarkable.<br /><br />During the height of the <strong>Boni War</strong>, Governor Nepveu finally found support for a favorite plan of his: the establishment of the so-called <strong>Cordon Pad</strong> around the inhabited part of the colony. The construction took from 1774 tot 1778. Kappler gave the following description: <em>“The right branch of it stretched from the Suriname to the Commewijne, the left from the latter to the sea. The paths were about 80 feet wide and where they went through the forest, ditches four feet deep and 10 feet wide lay on both sides, in which the water seeping out of the forest gathered, and which discharged into the rivers and creeks. At a quarter of an hour distance of each other sentry posts and pickets were situated, which were partly manned from the main post, partly had a regular crew. The call-to-arms traveled the cordon pad from one end to the other in a few minutes.”</em> In a way, the colonists had become the prisoners of their own former slaves.<br /><br />In their desperation, the Surinam whites requested the help of the motherland and in 1773 the first contingent of State soldiers arrived under the command of Colonel Louis Henri Fourgeoud, who had gained valuable experience during the suppression of the Berbice rebellion in 1763. Nearly 2000 soldiers were sent to Surinam and when they left after five years of skirmishes only <em>“a sad few hundred”</em> were still alive. A minority had been killed in actual battle. Liquor and diseases had taken the heaviest toll. The debaucheries of the soldiers in Paramaribo, where they spent most of their time, angered the inhabitants and the fact that they had to bear a large part of the costs of the expedition did not please them very much either.<br /><br />Colonel Fourgeoud was appointed the commander of all troops in Surinam, the soldiers of the Society included -thus surpassing the governor in importance. It is therefore not surprising that the relations between Colonel Fourgeoud and Governor Nepveu were strained from the beginning. Nepveu wanted the State troops to engage the Maroons whenever possible and to hunt them without mercy. Fourgeoud preferred a more restrained tactic. Nepveu complained that <em>“with his Caresses, Benefactions, Promisses he tries to get</em> [the Bush Negroes] <em>on his side and on the other hand denigrates us with them”</em>. Fourgeoud concentrated on destroying the provision grounds of the Maroons and in the end, this proved successful: desperately short of food and exhausted by the constant pursuit the remaining ‘unpacified’ Maroons (led by Boni) crossed the Marowijne River to French Guyana.<br /><br />The troubles were not over though. Fortunately, the whites could depend on their new ‘pacified’ friends. When the Boni Maroons, in search of provisions and utensils and gunning for a similar peace treaty, returned to plunder the colony in 1788, the whites enlisted the help of the Djuka to suppress them. The Djuka were hesitant at first, but in 1792 a group led by captain <strong>Bambi</strong> attacked the village of <strong>Boni</strong> and killed him. This signaled the definitive end of the Boni Wars. Although a peace treaty was denied them, the Boni Maroons (nowadays called <strong>Aluku</strong>) were permitted to stay in Surinam as wards of the Djuka and they posed no longer a threat to colonial society. Other groups continued to trouble the plantations and until the last months of the slave era, patrols were dispatched to root them out, but although they remained a nuisance, they never constituted a real threat anymore.<br /><br />For the whites it had been a bitter moment when they were forced to acknowledge that they could not defeat their rebellious slaves on their own. Coming to depend on their own former bondsmen to protect them was not an easy step, but it was a necessary one. The <em>Bevredigde Bosnegers</em> were never happy with the situation they had been obliged to accept and up to this day have retained a deep suspicion of whites and their motives, but the peace between them and the colonial government endured, to the benefit of both. This is certainly more than can be said about the peace treaties with Maroons groups elsewhere.</p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-31069301550077491432008-12-11T19:21:00.049+01:002009-02-13T18:50:26.699+01:00Chapter 12: Resistance to slavery.<strong><div align="justify"><br />Heroes and villains: some views on slave resistance.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280885203077449026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzyG7mXnReR2UGaJtElx5KN2MkWGjm6WGg8qn4TYm0VadtJkVioKe-Lw-eNvVw2NqS5KV-S0E-BtazIeVKYJl6WYR3UT9vldDFo3XCjAKjzWf9xqt3X-pN-HaZVgNXV8gtJY5USD2grG4/s400/slavery.jpg" border="0" /></strong> <div align="justify">Resistance in all its forms was a popular subject for academics in the last decades and most writers about slavery indulged in lengthy discussions about it. For many of them the thought that slaves meekly accepted their lowly condition was unbearable and when they could not find clear signs of rebelliousness, they practically invented them. Sometimes, all acts of slaves that purposely or accidentally harmed the interests of the masters were taken as proof that a heroic struggle for the Dignity of Man was going on. From this perspective, suicide, laziness and stupidity all had revolutionary virtue.<br /><br />Experts on slavery in the United States were hard pressed to come up with evidence of a heroic zeal among the slaves. A mere three or four abortive uprisings in a slave population of millions over a period of nearly 200 years do not constitute a very impressive record. Especially not, when one compares this with the rebellious attitude of the Caribbean bondsmen. With the help of an imaginative definition, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Aptheker">Herbert Aptheker</a> could dredge up several hundreds of ‘rebellions’ in the Old South, but most of them were no more than unsuccessful schemes and mere rumors. The crux of the matter is that many modern authors, most emphatically those of Marxist hue, find it hard to believe that slaves would have been able to live under such degrading conditions without a constant struggle against their oppressors. Unfortunately for them, the revolutionary potential of subjected peoples tends to be greatly overstated.<br /><br />Eugene Genovese therefore warned against too simplistic a view: <em>“Unable to challenge the system as such, unable to resist it frontally except on desperate occasions and then with little hope of success –they accepted what could not be avoided. In its positive aspect this accommodation represented a commitment, shared by most peoples, however oppressed, to the belief that a harsh unjust social order is preferable to the insecurities of no social order at all.” </em>People with such harrowing experiences as the slaves soon learn to distrust all <em>“utopian nostrumy”</em>. Sidney Mintz voiced a similar opinion: <em>“That slavery is inherently degrading, that it degrades both master and slave, goes almost without saying. But this does not mean that men are incapable of living in degraded conditions, nor does it guarantee that they will wage an unremitting struggle against them.”</em><br /><br />For most black writers, however, it is unthinkable that the slaves will not have resisted with all their might -if not with violence, then in some other way. <a href="http://www.paulagordon.com/shows/patterson/">Orlando Patterson</a>, for example, warned not to underestimate the capacity for playacting in the slaves. They may have fooled the slaveholders of the Old South by their contented appearance, but the ancient Greeks knew better: <em>“Never once did they commit the lamentable error of those modern bourgeois historians who confuse the aggressive duplicity of the oppressed with a psychology of servile conformity”</em>. For <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Rawick">George Rawick</a> every slave contained a rebel, struggling to get out: <em>“Man … do not move in their own behalf or make revolutions for light and transient reasons. Only when they no longer can stand the contradictions of their own personalities do they move in a sharp and decisive fashion. The victim is always in the process of becoming a rebel, because the contradictions demand this solution.”<br /></em><br />Some slavery authors were so eager for displays of a revolutionary fervor by the slaves that they, in the words of Rice, were pushed into <em>“a characteristically American double standard on the violence of the anti-slavery years into the assumption that violence was distasteful when used to defend slavery but excusable when used to attack it.” </em>The most extreme representative of this position was <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm">C.L.R. James</a>, who wrote about Haiti: “<em>The massacre of the whites was a tragedy; not for the whites, for these old slave owners, those who burned a little powder in the arse of a Negro, who buried him alive for insects to eat, who were well treated by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_L">Toussaint</a>, and who, as soon as they got the chance, began their old cruelties again: for these there is no need to waste one tear or one drop of ink. The tragedy was for the Blacks and the Mulattoes. It was not policy but revenge, and revenge has no place in politics.”<br /></em><br />It is remarkable how blandly these authors condone the most vicious kinds of violence by black insurgents, even when aimed at their fellow slaves. Eugene Genovese, who in the beginning of the 1970’s warned the proponents of the ‘burn, baby, burn’ philosophy that it were the blacks who would be burned first and most, in his latest book on this subject not only defended the use of terror against whites, but also against blacks who were reluctant to revolt just because it was politically expedient.<br /><br />One thing most slavery authors agreed on is the fact that the resistance of the slaves could hardly be called political. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm">Eric Hobsbawn</a> regarded slaves as <em>“prepolitical beings in a prepolitical situation”</em>. Their rebellions did not represent deliberate strategies to overthrow the system, according to Frederickson and Lash: <em>”They do not aim so much at changing the balance of power as at giving expression on the one hand to apocalyptic visions of retribution and on the other to an immediate thirst for vengeance directed more at particular individuals than at larger systems of authority.” </em>This was even true for the Maroons. Genovese concluded that especially in the 18th century, when Africans predominated in the Maroon groups, their goals were ‘restorationalist’ in character (they wanted to recreate African communities) and only when Creoles gained more influence later in the century <em>“the historical context of the slave revolts shifted decisively from attempts to secure freedom to attempts to overthrow slavery as a social system”</em>. Only in Haiti, these attempts met with success.<br /><br />Different groups had different ways of resisting. The Africans moved in a sudden and violent fashion: all or nothing, freedom or death. The Creoles chose an alternative approach: they knew the ropes, they could manipulate the rules and they could cleverly undermine the system by gnawing at its roots. This did not mean that they acted more ‘cowardly’: <em>“the African predominance among the Maroons does not indict the Creoles for lack of militancy, but, rather, delineates different paths of struggle”,</em> Genovese maintained. </div><div align="justify"><br />In this context, some writers came to regard the whole way of life of the slaves as a constant, silent protest against their oppression. Consequently, the concept of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>as a</strong> <strong>form of resistance </strong>could develop. This view has some merit. If the ideal is that the slave is merely an extension of his master’s will, a working robot with no feelings, no ambitions, no pride, then the mere fact that slaves had a culture of their own contradicted this image and signified a manner of resisting the pervasive power of the master. Elkins disagreed with this view because of the pathology inherent in the culture of the slaves, which made clinging to this culture an unhealthy form of adaptation.<br /><br />Some slavery authors opposed the unfavorable picture painted of slaves in the traditional literature so militantly, that they ended up too far on the other side of the fence. They created heroes where there were none. They claimed, for example, that just the ability to endure is a quality to admire -in a slave: <em>“it is presumptuous in posterity to dismiss contemptuously the methods that enabled generations of slaves to endure their harsh lot in life and to snatch from it a few human satisfactions”</em>, wrote Rose. Others bombarded common thugs and bloodthirsty maniacs into revolutionary heroes. <em>“According to the myth, which does have a strong kernel of truth, every lower-class badman is a Robin Hood, avenging the poor and downtrodden and harassing the Man”</em>, remarked Genovese. No doubt, when a slave killed a white or burned down his plantation (for whatever reason) he helped to undermine the system, but at the same time, these actions “<em>strengthened the slaveholders’ self-esteem and sense of commanding a moral system”.</em> Therefore, anarchistic violence was largely self-defeating.<br /><br />The level of resistance encountered in the various slave societies largely depends on one's definition of resistance. However, overt slave resistance in the United States was slight by any definition. There were many obvious geographical, demographical and cultural reasons for this, but in the opinion of Stanley Elkins, they cannot explain this phenomenon satisfactorily. He pointed to the necessity of taking the influence of the slavery system on the psyche of the slaves into account. In the Old South this influence resulted in a certain degree of <strong>infantilization</strong>. Consequently, many of the American slaves displayed the traits of ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(ethnic_slur)">Sambo</a>’: <em>“Sambo, the typical plantation slave, was docile but irresponsible, loyal but lazy, humble but chronically given to lying and stealing; his behavior was full of infantile silliness and his talk inflated with childish exaggeration. His relationship with his master was one of utter dependence and childlike attachment: it was indeed this childlike quality that was the very key to his being.”</em><br /><br />On the whole, there was little sympathy for this theory, although some authors conceded that there might have been a few genuine Samboes around. Earl Thorpe wrote: “<em>Any historian who denies that Sambo, <strong>often feigned</strong>, but sometimes genuine, was <strong>one side</strong> of the bondsman’s personality is probably guilty of being unrealistic. What is known about human behavior and totalitarian systems calls for a change in some aspects of the slave image which some Negro historians have favored. Since these were their immediate blood and cultural forbearers and in view of the overly narrow image of them which slavocracy projected, it is understandable that they sometimes have put great stress on the neater side of the bondsman’s personality and character. Thus, in reacting against one stereotype, they have been in danger of creating another one, equally false.”<br /></em><br />It cannot be denied, as <a href="http://www.caribvoice.org/Profiles/laport.html">Roy Bryce-Laporte</a> stressed, that the circumstances on the plantations had an <em>“intense mortifying and dehumanizing impact”</em>, but if the slaves had <em>“fully succumbed to those conditions they would have all been zombified or psychologically dead”</em>. On the other hand, he did not believe in the continuous resistance of the slaves, because then <em>“they would have all been physically dead or absent by way of escape, exodus, or revolution”</em>. Neither was the case, so they must have found a workable compromise. Few slaves wholeheartedly accepted their lowly position as their proper station in life. Most of them showed some resistance, actively or passively, but as Genovese remarked: <em>“The practical question facing the slaves was not whether slavery itself was a proper relation, but how to survive it with the greatest degree of self determination.”<br /><br /></div></em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280877766426294898" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 296px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsngvo_odxez-rKcpvdVJRDAePwA0Rp9958H5D7v_y4OPtjfMdLnm5RZYlcw1S3FYV8Y30a-88LywL7q-4tVgCeiDeYWGQHX1d4MqugzRjOtIeWbGIm8u1-1f6u44rkp2aNGJH59X9ho/s400/wegloper.jpg" border="0" /> <em><p align="justify"><br /></em></p><p align="justify"><br /><strong>Resistance in Surinam.</strong><br /><br /><em>An uneasy balance.<br /></em><br />In the eyes of many slavery authors with a comparative perspective, Surinam slaves wrote one of the most ‘heroic chapters’ in the history of slave resistance. In Surinam alone, Maroons not only created viable communities in the interior, but they forced the colonial government to acknowledge their freedom and independence and they managed to survive as distinct tribes until this moment. Thousands, of slaves escaped into the jungle over the years. Most remarkable, however, is not the fact that so many ran away, but the fact that so many stayed on. The slaves of Surinam did not flee at the slightest provocation. The ties that bound them to the plantations were hard to severe. Many slaves were willing to undergo manifold deprivations in order to remain in their cherished community.<br /><br />Even if they did not resist their overlords actively, the slaves were not totally helpless. The masters wanted their subjection and unfailing obedience, but first of all, they wanted their labor and they were willing to compromise their principles for a higher production. Consequently, they often ‘negotiated’ with their chattels. Sometimes this resulted in decisions that undermined their very authority (not to punish erring slaves, for example). As early as 1670, the Political Councilors reported that it had come to their notice that <em>“sometimes some planters have negroes who rise up and rebel against their masters, and from fear of losing them do not dare to punish them or bring them in for punishment; </em>[and] <em>that some negroes having received freedom from their patrons wander around lazy and idle and thereby give other negroes a pretext to run away from their masters”</em>. Therefore, the councilors<em> </em>demanded that planters who had been opposed by their slaves would be obliged to turn them over to the authorities for punishment.<br /><br />There was a perennial tug of war between slaves and masters and although the latter had the power of violence and law at their side, they had to be careful not to lose the battle at the very beginning. Blom warned that slaves tried out any new master. The first few days of an administration were decisive: <em>“When the negroes have gotten a new master, be it Planter or Administrator, the most daring often will try to reach their goal; but having failed once, they keep quiet from then on, and everyone bows to the orders of the Director; all is quiet, in order, and the plantation fares well; but if they succeed, these will play the master over the innocent negroes; make them work for them and serve them, everything is upset, and the plantation fares badly.”</em><br /><br />In the opinion of Blom, the slaves should never be given the chance to ‘divide and conquer’. It was vitally important that the owner/administrator and the director never quarreled about the management of the plantation in public. Also, the <em>grootmeester</em> should never allow the house servants to report on the behavior of the director: <em>“not that sometimes when one has taken a man of bad comportment as his Director, it would not be expedient for the Planter; when he is informed of this; but for reason that one can never trust such reports; that if</em> [a slave]<em> has found such a way to get the ear of his master, they will only look up to such a favorite, lose the awe they should have for the Director, and consider him a man, in whom their master has no confidence himself. Once a Director has lost the respect of the negroes, he is not able to govern such a plantation well, but even when he was totally wrong, and the negroes were wholly justified to complain, a Planter should not show his displeasure in front of the negroes.” </em>When a <em>grootmeester</em> had reason to be dissatisfied, he should make the director account for his actions in private and complaining slaves deserved to be <em>“punished immediately and without mercy”. </em>Sometimes, this was exactly what happened. Given the isolation of many plantations and the heavy losses owners could sustain when they left a sadistic director in charge, they often had no choice, however, but to lend an ear to the grievances of the bondsmen.<br /><br />Surinam slaves clung to the principle that they had certain modest, but inalienable rights and that their masters ought to respect these. Especially when they ignored the rules laid down by the government, the slaves were encouraged to rebel. The authorities could not dismiss justified complaints without courting the danger of widespread unrest, so they often felt obliged to placate the slaves, as they did in the following instance. Councilor Hatterman was dispatched to the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/paix_cottica/index.nl.html">La Paix</a></strong> in 1772, when trouble arose between the slaves and the new owner (and former director) Jean Rivière, who accused each other of wrongdoing. He tried to pacify the bondsmen by offering them a <em>soopje </em>but remarked: <em>“if we were in different Circumstances of Time, it would have been very necessary that of two or three of those Cockerels the head was cut off, because</em> [I] <em>attest never to have seen such impertinent Slaves”</em>. Hatterman prevailed upon Rivière to appoint another director, but he refused because he had to satisfy his creditors. The Court of Police summoned Rivière and persuaded him to turn over the government of the plantation to someone else. The slaves were admonished about their misbehavior, but ‘at the request of their owner’ they were not to be punished, provided they promised to obey their new director.<br /><br />So, even when the slaves were clearly in the wrong in the eyes of the mediators, they sometimes felt obliged to give in to them. When a plantation was located in a sensitive area, the leverage of the slaves was even greater, especially when they threatened to run away <em>en masse</em>: Mr. Tribulon of <strong>Timotibo</strong> had to promise his slaves 30 acres of new provision grounds and the distribution of the crops from it among them, before they gave in.<br /><br />At other times, the whites refused to be blackmailed. Two councilors were dispatched to deal with the slave Prince, who was accused of opposing and threatening his director. According to Prince, the director had kicked in the door of a house where his sister lay to recuperate from a bad miscarriage she had suffered three weeks before. He had beaten her with a stick, from which she had still not recovered. Prince claimed to have merely tried to dissuade him. It turned out that the slaves had ample reason to be dissatisfied with the director and the investigators had the impression that they planned to kill him and run off. The accused vehemently denied any such intention. The wise gentlemen thereupon decided to urge the bondsmen to work harder <em>“in the hope that in the future, like on other Plantations, they will receive their distributions”</em>.<br /><br />Not rarely, the masters themselves appealed to the authorities for help. Some of them were not able to keep their slaves in line and asked for military support to teach them a lesson. The events on the plantation <strong>Maalstroom</strong> provide an example. This estate had been sold to a new owner and the slaves believed that they would be delivered from the strict government of the old director Ranitz. They let it be known that they preferred Mr. Tekenburg as their new master. A wise choice, because Tekenburg was the owner of a plantation himself and administered several others, so he would have little time to interfere in the affairs of Maalstroom. But alas for the slaves, Tekenburg was on the verge of returning to Europe. The resistance of the slave force had been animated by the old hand Quamina, who <em>“has had the authority over the plantation before</em> [and who tried] <em>to mount the throne again”. </em>Although Ranitz showed himself willing to compromise, the unrest continued and he was forced to ask for assistance. A sergeant and six privates were sent to his aid. When the slaves found out that he intended to put the main culprits behind bars, they took off. Most of them were apprehended soon, but forty fugitives managed to evade their pursuers. Very worried now, Ranitz asked the Court of Police to investigate his behavior and two members arrived to examine the captured slaves. They concluded that these had earned most of the blame themselves and had them soundly whipped. This intervention proved successful, because several days later most of the runaways returned and discipline was restored.<br /><br />It is undeniable that some directors and administrators had serious problems establishing their authority. Sometimes a thunderous speech by the owner worked miracles, but just as often, the authorities had to lend a hand. These were often hesistent to sent in the troops for fear of escalation. Therefore, they not only ispatched envoys to mediate, but gratefully accepted the intercession of slaves of neighboring plantations. When unrest occurred on <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/wajampibo/index.nl.html"><strong>Wajampibo</strong></a> (because the slaves refused to accept the authority of the newly appointed administrator Rotarius), the slaves of the adjoining plantation <strong>Vossenburg</strong>, who evacuated the desperate man to Paramaribo, offered to reason with them. This diplomatic gesture was much appreciated. They were received by Governor Nepveu, who was greatly impressed by their loyalty. Before they could commence their mission, however, the slaves of Wajampibo proved that they did not reject the authority of a master out of principle. When Maroons attacked the plantation, the bondsmen did not join them, but instead tracked the culprits down and caught two of them. Nepveu thereupon concluded that <em>“they hold themselves very well and work well, but do not want to be commanded by Mr. Rotarius”</em>. In the end, the mediation of the slaves of Vossenburg was obviously successful, because their colleagues of Wajampibo were reconciled with Rotarius, who no doubt returned to the plantation and wiser and milder man.<br /><br />Masters who failed to establish their authority were not always supported, though. When the director of the plantation <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/pericakreek/cortenduur/index.nl.html"><strong>Cortenduur</strong></a>, J. Snebbeling, asked for replacement because he feared a plot against him, the Court was not convinced that his accusations had any foundation and pointed out that he had run into had similar trouble on other plantations.<br /><br />In some cases, the government contemplated interference not because planters were too cruel, but because they were too lenient and spoiled their slaves. Governor Texier, for example, was seriously worried about the situation on the plantation <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/goed_accoord/index.nl.html"><strong>Goed Accoord</strong></a>, which was about to be sold. <em>“There is a considerable force of the best Creole Slaves … who however are not used to work very hard, who have been left to do what they pleased, and who have had Whites on the plantation but only Pro Forma, and because this had to be according to the laws of the Land; The administrators have had to use all this Leniency, to avoid upsetting these Slaves, who have always been considered a security against the enterprises of the Runaways for upper Commewijne; If these Slaves upon Sale fall into the hands of someone who wants to Compel them to more Work and another Way of Life by force and severity, one runs the Danger that they become obstinate, and start the same Game as those of </em><em>La Paix</em><em> in Cottica, who were like these formerly the bulwark of that river, until having been sold to Rivière, and having been treated badly by him, they started those Extremities that have been so harmful for the whole Colony, and of which the after-effects are still felt”</em>. He needed not to have worried, because the plantation was bought by a former <em>blankofficier</em>, a friendly man who was well known to the slaves.<br /><br />Although the masters tried to prevent it, the slaves often got the advantage by playing them against each other. If there were several owners, the opportunities multiplied, as is proven by the following case. Abraham Cores jr., married to Susanna van Ortena, reported to the Court of Police that his wife had inherited the plantation <strong>Crispinapie</strong>, together with Jan van Vliet. When he and his wife wanted to take possession of their new domain, the slaves (encouraged in their obstinacy by Van Vliet, he claimed) refused to acknowledge him as their master and every time he showed his face, he was treated with the utmost insolence. The Court sent two members to investigate and these found that the slaves wanted Jan van Vliet as their sole master. They stated categorically that they would rather die than work for Cores, who was reputed to be very cruel. They promised to be faithful slaves to any other master, but as long as Cores kept coming to the plantation, they would continue to run away. Cores gave in and offered Jan van Vliet the opportunity to buy him out in 10 to 12 years, which Van Vliet declined. He also refused to rent Cores’ part of the plantation, or even to administrate it. Therefore, the representatives of the Court advised to appoint a neutral director who was acceptable to all parties.<br /><br />These examples support the impression that slaves were sometimes listened to, if they had ‘reasonable complaints’ and that in these cases their resistance was tolerated and appropriate measures were taken -sometimes even to the point of allowing slaves sometimes to see a ‘difference of opinion’ between their superiors. An illustration of this was given by Bartelink. In the 1850’s, he worked on the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/parakreek/onoribo/index.nl.html">Onoribo</a></strong>, where corporal punishments had been abolished. Wrongdoers were locked up during the night and it was his duty to release them at four o’ clock in the morning. Once, he overslept and only let them out an hour later. By then “<em>it was however too late for the people to cook their meal and be ready in time to go to the field; they refused to come out.</em> [The director] <em>turned to me and gave me such a reprimand that the ground trembled.” </em>Going without food did not absolve the slaves from the duty to work, though.<br /><br />The bondsmen considered themselves rightfully entitled to annual distributions, sufficient food and the usual holidays, but most of the time material deprivations were not enough to unite them in a common protest, as the following example shows. One day, the slaves of the plantation <strong>Berlijn </strong>attacked the <em>bastiaan</em> when he tried to punish one of them. Thereafter they threatened the director with machetes and knives. They warned him that they would bash in his head and retreat into the forest when he did not mend his ways. To show their resolve, they went on a strike and the director was powerless to break it. Instead of going into the fields, they tended their provision grounds. The authorities could end this protest easily because there were only 38 able-bodied men on the plantation. The rest of the 200 slaves were women, children and seniors. It quickly turned out that the bondsmen had every right to be annoyed. They had not received their usual distributions in years (“<em>not even something to cover their humbleness”</em>) and they had not bothered to clear land for provisions now because the director had told them that he would take them to Nickerie, so they considered it a <em>“useless occupation”</em>. They complained that they had always worked well (they even did more than the <em>landsmerken </em>proscribed), yet, if they needed clothes, they had to buy them from the director with timber.<br /><br />These slaves had quietly suffered material deprivations for years and only when their master threatened to move them, they revolted. With success: the transfer to Nickerie was canceled. Faced with the prospect of being forced to leave their familiar surroundings, many slave communities rebelled. The majority of them elected to follow the safest route: disappearing into the jungle.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280877050399974114" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 324px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRXa1pYXFQqq4MWiGVGivFR_JBL_ZMv165jaUSBOCJqzLQcKshTUYr533O6rHyixXwK18EneGPz1icvke1FQsaRVwU4TW1lT7zd6H5Mh1vioR38jvJ9p4IPJZ5F7dFihvGYVRiV-o915E/s400/Maron.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><em>Desertion.</em><br /><br />Nowhere in the Caribbean were the circumstances so ideal for escaping the plantations as in Surinam. The estates were all situated along the rivers and creeks and extended only a couple of kilometers into the hinterland. Behind them, the unspoilt forest beckoned. Runaways merely had to cross the back dam of the plantation and they were swallowed up by a jungle so impenetrable that they could hide for years without being detected, even when they stayed close to home. If they ventured deeper into the interior, the chances that their masters would ever find them again evaporated. Therefore, it is no wonder that many dissatisfied slaves took this course.<br /><br />Several hundreds of bondsmen ran away each year. Roughly two thirds of them returned to their plantations eventually, mostly voluntary. Often, they had only been hiding in the cane fields or the coffee grounds because they feared punishments, or because their tasks were too heavy. When the air cleared (of which they were often informed by friends who knew their whereabouts), they generally ventured back, hoping to come off with a light penalty. Other runaways lived, sometimes permanently, in the <em>kapoewerie</em> behind the plantations (these were called <em>schuylders</em>). Most of them kept in touch with their relatives and when they received notice that it was safe to return (for example because a vindictive director had been replaced), many of them did. The <em>weglopers </em>with the most courage and the least ties burned their bridges behind them. They went deeper into the jungle, grew their own food, enticed other slaves to join them, or kidnapped women to establish a family. When a large group absconded, or some smaller groups amalgamated, the first Maroon communities were formed. For their very survival, these waged an unremitting war against the whites.<br /><br />Often, slaves had to be severely provoked before they decided to leave their plantation and their companions forever. Many famous Maroon leaders had been model slaves before an inexcusable act of cruelty drove them away. Hartsinck told the story of Quakoe, a captain of the <em>Aucaners</em>, who had been the property of Sara de la Parra. He hated her because <em>“she had plagued him many Years, even though he had brought her many benefits,</em> [and] <em>as reward she wanted to cut off his Nose and Ears; this he could not endure, as he understood, that his countenance would be disfigured by this more or less, therefore he did not want to suffer this, having seen the bad figure of his companions, of which one was still with him, and consequently felt obliged, to leave for the Bushnegroes”</em>.<br /><br />Not only the valued ties of kinship and religion withheld them from running away merely to escape economic exploitation, the forest harbored untold dangers as well. Few slaves dared to flee during the wet season, because then it was very hard to find food and to get about. But even under more favorable circumstances, the runaways often went hungry and had to steal food from the plantations –a hazardous undertaking because they might be captured, or even be shot on sight. Other runaways were forced to live on roots and <em>cabbes</em> for months. Not a few decided to return and face retribution for this reason. If runaways succeeded in establishing provision grounds, there was a good chance that these would be discovered by patrols. The Indians, at first allies, later became enthusiastic bounty hunters, who turned in many fugitives.<br /><br />Often, other runaways proved to be the most dangerous adversaries. A fugitive could never be assured of hospitality or acceptance. In the 18th century, many Maroon communities, except when they were desperately short of manpower, were reluctant to accept male strangers, especially when they were of different ethnic stock. In the 19th century, most new Maroon groups consisted almost wholly of recently imported Africans and did not hesitate to kill any Creole who dared to show his face. Many runaways<em> </em>therefore preferred to stay on their own.<br /><br />These factors limited the number of (permanent) escapees considerably, but there were still enough to worry the whites seriously. Innumerable measures were taken to stem the tide, but generally with little effect. For example, the Court of Police decreed that slaves needed written permission from their master to leave the plantation, but there was hardly any control. It was pure coincidence when slaves without a pass were caught and the chances were good that these were not fleeing at all, but were just innocently visiting an adjoining plantation. It was all but impossible to keep slaves from congregating. The planters could hardly lock all of them up during the night and only notorious deserters were treated to a ball and chain.<br /><br />When slavery was abolished in the French and English territories, many Surinam slaves crossed the waters to the Promised Land. Some were caught, like Dicky and Askaan, who had sneaked onto the English schooner Lady of the Night, but were discovered and delivered to the authorities by the captain. Another slave, owned by Mr. Camijn, was picked up on open sea, put on board of a ship and send back. What he had in mind is not clear; perhaps he believed the emancipated islands were close. Some runaways were captured near the Moravian mission post Saron while building a ship with which they planned to return to Africa. A few lucky ones did manage to reach freedom by the sea: Phillip and his companions escaped in a stolen schooner, despite the fact that guards had been posted.<br /><br />Masters could do little to retrieve an escaped slave. They had to warn the militia and if the fugitive had committed a crime, or if a group had fled, a <em>commando</em> (patrol) was dispatched. In the absence of tangible success, the patrol usually returned quickly and then the escapee(s) would usually only be found by pure chance, as happened in the following cases. (1) Three slaves of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/groot_marseille/index.nl.html">Marseille</a></strong> discovered a small path in the <em>kapoewerie</em> behind their plantation one day. They followed it and found a cabin, inhabited by a man, his wife and their child. During the ensuing fight, the man was killed and the woman and child were taken prisoner. They were brought to the director of Marseille. The irony of the matter was that these runaways had lived for three years at a distance of only 15 minutes from the military post Vredenburg, where members of the <em>Vrijcorps</em> patrolled daily. (2) The provision guard of <strong>Mon Affaire</strong> found some cut off plantains one day and discovered a path leading into the forest. He warned his master and three whites, accompanied by two slaves, went to investigate. After walking for two hours, they found a cabin with three <em>schuylders</em>. Two managed to escape, but the third was captured, wounded in several places. It turned out they had been living there for ten years (<em>“which is unbelievable”</em>). All the time, the captive had closely watched everything that happened on the plantation. He was clearly not very eager to return, because the director had to carry him from the forest hanging from a branch like a pig.<br /><br />Sometimes the owner of a runaway placed an advertisement in the <em>Surinaamse Courant</em>, but this was only likely to have success if the culprit had chosen to stay in Paramaribo, hoping to disappear into the mass. Such advertisements went like these: (1) <em>“The cooper negro with the name of Frederick, reddish of color and marked with G.K., belonging to the widow Rocheteau hiding himself in the city here and probably sometimes working on board of ships, a premium of fl. 50,- is promised to those who can give information on the aforementioned slave in the office of the undersigned so he can be apprehended”</em>; (2) <em>“For some time is absent from the plantation De Twee Kinderen a negress named PRINCESS, formerly belonging to the free ASTREA van SCHANTZENBACH, who catches her and delivers her to the undersigned or Mr. P.E. PEYREYRA in the Saramakka Street, will enjoy the premium of Hundred guilders: everyone being warned not to hide or keep the aforementioned negress.”</em><br /><br />Surprisingly, not all masters were eager to reclaim their property. The Court of Police complained that many recaptured deserters incarcerated in Fort Zeelandia had not been retrieved by their owners. These were reluctant to pay the expenses of apprehension, detention and punishment, which could amount to more than the value of the slave. Therefore, it was decided that captives had to be reclaimed within six weeks, or they would be sent to Fort Nieuw Amsterdam to work in chains.<br /><br />In some instances, a slave had been such a nuisance on the plantation that his owner was ambivalent about the advisability of getting him back, even if he was worth more than the costs. The director of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/pericakreek/eendracht/index.nl.html">De Eendracht</a></strong>, Mr. Jantzen, reported to his employer: <em>“The Negro Toon is still with the posthouder</em> [government representative with the Bush Negroes]<em> on Sienaba who wants for him a Bounty of 23f & 4 jugs of dram, the Negro is outside danger for </em>[I]<em> have let the Negro Solieman already take out 1 Bullet and the other does not hurt him anymore, if Your Hon. desires that I pay the demanded Bounty for this, so </em>[I]<em> shall fetch the Negro, because if he comes to the fort it sometimes will cost more, and if he is fully recovered Your Hon. had better put him on a boat, that will be the best for the Villain because on the plantation the Negro will never do.”<br /></em><br />Slaves who tried to win their freedom were often betrayed by their peers, out of spite or for gain. However, sometimes they would be aided and sheltered, most frequently by other slaves, but occasionally by a <em>vrijneger</em> (who often had an ulterior motive). For example, the free Negress Candace hid the runaway Quakoe (a plantation slave) for three months. He showed his appreciation by helping her husband, a mason, with his work. Candace pleaded for mercy in the Court, claiming poverty drove her to this deed.<br /><br />The Moravian Brothers seemed to have a ‘good’ influence on slaves contemplating desertion. Convinced that they would receive a just reward for their loyal services in the afterlife and of course not wanting to lose their sheep to the forest, they urged the slaves to stay on the plantations and to try to better their circumstances peacefully. The planters greatly appreciated these sermons. Director Wohlfahrt of <strong>Breukelerwaard</strong> told a proud missionary that the EBG-influence had changed his slaves a lot, and for the better: <em>“they were a very bad sort of Negroes, when I wanted to punish them in the past, they often ran into the forest in a whole group, now however, this does not happen anymore”.</em><br /><br />The ease of escape may have kept the slavery system of Surinam from ruin, because it acted as a safety valve: the most rebellious elements, who might have become the leaders of an uprising, removed themselves from the premises. They also showed the other slaves that their situation was not hopeless, that there was always a way out when life in captivity became unbearable, as long as they were willing to take the risk. It was, however, not always the cream of the crop that made off. Undoubtedly, slaves will have been quite pleased to get rid of some of the worst troublemakers this way.<br /><br />I have gathered information on about 500 slaves who had to appear before the Criminal Court for unwarranted absence. Most of them (86%) were males, as might be expected. However, contrary to what might be expected, only a minority (15%) could be classified as a <em>nieuwe neger </em>(they had been in the colony less than three years). Most of these did not know the slave language yet. Nearly a fifth of the recaptured slaves claimed to have been kidnapped by Maroons when they were in the forest and 8% (mostly females) said they had been dragged from their plantation by other slaves (males, of course) by force. These figures must be taken with a pinch of salt, since their life or limb depended on their desertion being classified as ‘involuntary’. Many of the absentees (17%) had not run into the forest, but had set forth in the direction of Paramaribo, trying to reach the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>, the Court of Police, or their <em>grootmeester</em> to complain about their situation. The majority absconded because of mistreatment. A considerable part (8%, usually <em>nieuwe negers</em>), claimed to have been mainly brutalized by fellow slaves, but with a share of 33%, whites certainly made up a major portion of the abusers. The rest of the slaves had been mistreated by black officers at the behest of the master. The grievances varied from stinginess (sometimes in an extreme degree: Prins of Mr. Ladesma received only two plantains a day) to tortures that shocked even the most hardened judges. Finally, 10% of the deserters had fled because they feared, or had been threatened with, punishment. In most of these cases, the slaves knew from bitter experience what they were running from, but Frinkie, a slave of the plantation <strong>Clifford Kockshoven</strong>, had never been beaten in his three years of thralldom and had immediately deserted when the director suggested it was time he got acquainted with the lash.<br /><br />Most of these slaves had fled alone or in small groups, often in the spur of the moment. Consequently, they were ill-prepared for their new freedom and were often very glad to return to the safety of the plantation. It was different when a large group of slaves made off together. Although this could also be the result of a sudden panic (for example when a slave had killed his master during a fight and incited his fellows to run off with him because they might be held responsible as well), most escapes of this kind were carefully planned, and occasionally even advertised in advance. If they were sensible, the plotting slaves made sure they had some food stowed away to tide them over and waited for an occasion when the director would not be able to follow them right away, so most traces would have been lost when a patrol was finally sent in pursuit. Only a few of such planned mass desertions took place during the rainy season, because of the logistic problems. When the flight was not primarily meant as a protest, or as a way to obtain leverage for bargaining with the masters, it was hard to capture these groups of slaves again. They might develop into stable Maroon communities that the whites would get to know much more intimately than was good for them.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280877506217487058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 259px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqiUaQ8TMWSXjG8fbcK9WFGajRA555Ri6TR2u9WeUJZFWKfF6948hLHzjZ6rBBjZaG093OF2fX-FYW40o1qm_uLuO5hn3QK2Vw1P7k448IOIS3S5yFKv7IAmB01DaOiAVcFa-uo29mw50/s400/slaaf-dood-opzichter.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><em>Violence against whites.<br /></em><br />Because the facility of desertion removed the most dissatisfied, obstinate and ruthless bondsmen from the scene of possible confrontations, actual physical violence of plantation slaves against their master was comparatively rare. It seldom happened that a slave killed or seriously wounded a planter, but (perhaps because of this) these events were etched into the minds of the white inhabitants. In their conflict with Governor Mauricius, for example, the members of the <em>Cabale</em> dredged up attacks on planters that had taken place 40 years earlier, in order to demonstrate the dangers of living in the colony. When a planter was murdered, it usually happened in the heat of the moment. In 1752, Willem van Gorcum of the plantation <strong>Cipibo</strong> was killed by a slave in the field, who made off immediately. The other slaves had been too far away to prevent it.<br /><br />The authorities tried to limit the possibilities for violence as much as possible, for example by ordering to keep guns away from slaves, or by forbidding the presence of a blacksmith’s shop on the plantations. Governor Nepveu warned against issuing guns to slaves on many occasions because <em>“they run away with them and thus turn these weapons against us”</em>. The masters had their own reasons to sabotage these measures, however. Many privileged slaves were allowed to possess guns to hunt and others were trained as <em>schutternegers </em>(marksmen) to accompany their masters on patrol. Add to this the incalculable number of axes, machetes and hoes, and it follows that the armament of the slaves was not exactly inferior to that of their masters.<br /><br />Although the usual rumors about uprisings and killings also circulated in Surinam, most whites do not seem to have been very paranoid. They had little reason to fear overt violence from their own slaves: most slain whites were the victims of outsiders, although occasionally these outsiders were their own former chattels, who had come back to settle scores. Even then, their anger was usually reserved for specific persons. Malouet reported for example: <em>“I have seen the mistress of the celebrated Baron, captain of the enemy maroons, who received from her revolting slave the most touching signs of respect and attachment. This negro only wanted his master, who had treated him with cruelty: he has come ten times on the terrain with the plan to burn everything down; but the mistress and her children were for him a safeguard he respected. He threw himself at their feet, embraced his little masters, and went away without doing any harm, when he saw that the master was absent.”<br /></em><br />In rare instances, the white victims were not only killed, but tortured as well. During an attack on the plantation <strong>Welgevonden</strong>, owned by Abraham Meyer, his son fell into the hands of the attackers and was cruelly slaughtered: <em>“the hands were cut off first, and then the throat, then the Breast was split open and the Heart taken out”</em>. The same fate befell Mr. Hartdegen and in addition, his body was roasted over a fire, reported the <em>Surinaamse Almanak</em> in 1796. Whether it was eaten as well, the story did not tell, but there have been documented cases in which the remains of a slain white disappeared into the stomachs of his murderers. Kappler recounted how in 1832 a patrol in the Upper Commewijne region was ordered to bring some papers from Post Willem Frederik to Post Oranje (which was done every month). The patrol consisted of three soldiers. One corporal stayed behind to defecate and his comrades lost sight of him. He was never seen again. A year later, a group of <em>weglopers </em>attacked an Indian village and kidnapped a girl. The Indians asked for a patrol, which was duly sent. During their search, the soldiers discovered a large village and occupied it. In the debris, they found a uniform, a gun and a golden watch that had all belonged to the missing corporal. Their captives confessed that they had butchered and eaten him.<br /><br />Like their counterparts elsewhere, the Surinam colonists suspected that their slaves lusted after white women and would kidnap and rape them whenever they got the opportunity. Few deserters seems to have entertained this ambition in real life, although there was a group, inhabiting a kind of ‘robbers den’ near Paramaribo, whose leader liked to indulge in fantasies of this kind. There is no proof that he ever acted them out. In some instances, women were indeed molested, however. When Maroons attacked the plantation of Cornelis Fok in the Para region, they <em>“stripped the Wife of Fok naked (and God knows what they did to her) finally cut her in the cheek with a machete, and let her go”,</em> lamented<em> Cabale</em> member Salomon Duplessis. Since very few of the white women lived on plantations (most were safely tucked away in the capital), there was little chance that they would meet with a fate worse than death.<br /><br /><em>Poisoning.</em><br /><br />Although not many Surinam slave masters honestly feared that one of their slaves would pick up an axe and crush their skull, many were apprehensive about the possibility of being poisoned. <em>“Such suspicious directors then took a child five or six years old from the most influential slave family in their home, as a kind of hostage. Of everything they eat or drink, the child had to taste first. This way they believed to be protected against secret attacks”</em>, Bartelink reported. Not only slave masters felt threatened. <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Jacobus van Halewijn wrote to the Society in 1742: <em>“I have said to be endangered by many things, of which not the least is</em> [that]<em> the use of poison by many of the slaves, on whites, as well as blacks, has much increased lately because of overindulgence</em>, <em>and this tolerance has brought the slaves to an unbearable temerity, indeed in such a degree, that one nowadays does not stand, go or eat without fear, and because the investigation of the commited evil, and the punishment following that is vested in my office as Fiscaal, I am exposed more, than others.”</em> Gouvernor Mauricius had a similar observation in 1745: “<em>One of the greatest unpleasantnesses of this Land is, the continuous Fear, one has to live in, for the poison of the Slaves, which is more prevalent then ever. The Lord Commander with his wife and the Lord Collector Couderc, who is lodged with him for the time being, having been unable to find a house yet, have been on the verge of losing their Lives by a plate of soup, which already had been ladled out. Those who are guilty of this, were the Commander’s best and old house slaves. However constant and generous one might be, I confess that these cases scare one. And what can one do, as this Rabble does not fear death, and endures the cruelest torments with a laughing face. Also neither goodness nor badness helps and there are Examples of the most magnanimous masters, who nevertheless have been poisoned.” </em><br /><br />Kappler noted that the poisons were all of vegetable origin and left little or no trace. It is likely that many a hated slave master gradually weakened and finally died without anyone imagining that he had been poisoned. Sometimes slaves suspected of such a misdeed were caught. In 1748, a woman was executed for an attempt to kill Mrs. Pater, a daughter of former Governor Van de Schepper and the wife of one of the most prosperous planters of the colony, by putting poison in her coffee. In most cases, the slaves who employed poisons did not aim to kill their master or mistress, but to harm them indirectly by destroying their most valuable property –their slave force. Lans (who did not believe that poisoning was as prevalent as many masters and slaves thought) wrote: <em>“it is terrible, when on a plantation a poisoner hides who, either because of hatred against the master, or, as sometimes seems to be the case, merely because of a desire to do evil, by a kind of monomania, practices his disgusting art on the children”</em>. Stedman also acknowledged poisoning as a plague and he described how the culprits sometimes went about: <em>“they carry it under their nails, and by only dipping their thumb into a tumbler of water, which they offer as a beverage to the object of their revenge, they infuse a slow but certain death. Whole estates, as well as private families, have become the victims of their fury, and experienced their fatal vengeance, even putting to death scores of their own friends and relations, with the double view of depriving their proprietors of their most valuable possessions.” </em>The same phenomenon has been observed in other colonies: McCloy, for example, noted that in Saint-Domingue the slaves <em>“rarely attempted to poison the whites but endeavored to destroy their master’s wealth by killing off his slaves”</em>.<br /><br />It has never been proved conclusively that these mass poisonings really happened, let alone that they were solely done to hurt the masters in their wallets, but there can be no doubt that some planters suffered losses because their slaves poisoned others, usually because of private grievances. Some slavery writers would like to classify this kind of behavior as ‘resistance’. If one defines as resistance all actions that harm the interests of whites, this is accurate of course, but it is at the very least a sadistic and nihilistic kind of resistance. These same authors like to classify suicide, abortion and infanticide (as well as theft and arson) as forms of resistance as well. Sandew Hira modified this classification by calling these merely ‘defensive actions’, meant to end intolerable suffering. These kinds of ‘resistance’ were exclusively private and were never coordinated into a politically significant form of rebellion.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280877284439832530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 286px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Tt2yy5qsnZY1-VIT7bsR_giVqi7qQHl94QbMlOwaJKICdqBUhKwdbqcdrJ5YD-Ioggce-00xOmHFk3vBwmILwtJfyXdvFv19OGova2wsrqe-EfqEbAcnxyUbQLoW4-MZaDMRVtSg24o/s400/Maron2.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p align="justify"><br /><em>Destruction of property.</em><br /><br />With so many possibilities for escape, <strong>suicide</strong> was relatively rare in Surinam. Most suicidal slaves killed themselves before reaching the colony: by jumping overboard, refusing to eat, or by swallowing their tongue. In Surinam, the suicides were mostly <em>nieuwe negers</em>, who often took their life only after an unsuccessful attempt to flee. Most Surinam victims died in an unspectacular way: by eating earth and rubbish. It is not even clear how many of them were genuine suicides and how many merely resorted to eating dirt because of a ravenous hunger. Sometimes, it took a year before they had wasted away. Serious suicides would have resorted to alternative measures long before that.<br /><br />It was quite common that slaves committed suicide after a failed uprising. In Curacao, for example, most participants in the unsuccessful revolt of 1750 hurled themselves from the cliffs, or took their life in a cave nearby. In Surinam, however, this was relatively rare. The rebellious slaves of <strong>Bethlehem </strong>and <strong>Killestein Nova</strong> bravely faced their trial and subsequent execution. Only one, the mulatto Dirkje, took his own life. Even slaves caught after performing a capital crime (like murdering their master) seldom killed themselves, nor did most captured Maroons -even though they could expect a horrible execution and had ample opportunities to end their suffering before they fell into the hands of their pursuers. They preferred to show defiance. There were exceptions, of course: one runaway tried to kill himself with his rifle when he was about to be caught, but it blew up in his face and he was badly hurt. He was hung by the authorities.<br /><br />Two groups of slaves were known for their propensity to commit suicide, but for very different reasons. The Ibo slaves (Calibaries) were easily discouraged, susceptible to depression and often killed themselves by hanging or eating dirt. They were notorious for this all over the Caribbean. For many planters, it was the main reason to avoid buying them. Coromantees killed themselves frequently also, but mostly because of hurt pride, for example when they were accused of a lowly crime, or were punished unfairly. The young slave Jacky of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/katwijk/index.nl.html">Katwijk</a></strong>, for example, was lashed because he had not rinsed the glasses properly. After this mortification, he went to his master’s room, put the muzzle of a hunting rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger with his toe. From then on, no Negro dared to enter that room for fear of being haunted. In circumstances like these, Coromantees might just as well kill their master as themselves. When a punishment was deserved, however, they took it in stride.<br /><br /><strong>Abortion</strong> was probably quite common in Surinam, but it took place in secrecy and it can hardly be called a form of resistance. Maybe some women aborted because they resented bringing another slave into the world, but most did it for purely private reasons and sometimes even at the instigation of their masters, who did not want to be burdened with rearing young slaves, or to be embarrassed by mulatto offspring. <strong>Infanticide</strong> was also a hidden phenomenon. It was nearly impossible to prove whether a baby died from natural causes, or because it had been deliberately neglected or killed. It is undeniable, however, that some mothers were suspected by their master, or by other slaves, of having practiced infanticide. Most of the time, the slaves did not take kindly to this. When a mother killed her baby out of desperation, both the master and the Court often proved to be remarkably forgiving –much more so than her peers.<br /><br />Slaves usually revenged themselves by manhandling their master’s property in different ways. <strong>Theft</strong> (as defined by the masters) was epidemic in plantation colonies. Surinam was no exception. On the plantations, the stealing of food was most prevalent. When the master failed to provide the necessities, the slaves had no scruples at all to add to their diet on their own initiative. All plantations had provision guards, to keep not only runaways and slaves belonging to adjoining plantations from plundering the provision grounds, but also their own comrades. Since most of these guards were were old men, they were easily circumvented. When caught stealing on another plantation, a slave might be in peril of his life, but on his own estate, he usually got off with a few lashes. In the city, the temptations were much larger. Few slaves were tormented by hunger there, so food was not their main target. [Although there were exceptions: when the supplies in Colonel Fourgeoud’s warehouse continued to dwindle mysteriously, pilfering soldiers were suspected, but in the end, two Negro boys were caught red-handed.] Paramaribo thieves were mostly after money and valuables.<br /><br />Genovese has argued that by stealing slaves proved that the masters’ low opinion of them (as being a lazy, thievish, untrustworthy bunch) was correct and that they diminished their self-esteem by performing an act they considered morally wrong themselves. As far as Surinam goes, he was mistaken. Undoubtedly, some slaves may have felt ashamed of being forced to steal, but mainly because they had failed to get what was due to them in another way. Blom concluded, accurately in my view, that <em>“stealing is nothing to be ashamed of among them, neither is the punishment they receive for this, when their theft is discovered”</em>.<br /><br />It may seem that <strong>arson</strong> was the easiest way revengeful slaves could get even. However, the number of cases of arson is astonishingly low. Upon reflection, this outcome is not so strange. It was indeed easy for a slave to set fire to the cane fields, but only if he planned to run away, because his master would be deprived of (part of) his income and as a result might no longer have been able to provide for his slaves, so they suffered along with him. Consequently, most of the cases of arson on plantations were the work of <em>schuylders</em> or Maroons. These either torched the place to keep the whites occupied while they made off with slaves and goods, or they deliberately burned the buildings down out of revenge, which was usually instigated by a fugitive from the estate. Sometimes, the plantation slaves cooperated with the attackers. The <em>bastiaan</em> of <strong>Halifax</strong> in the Perica region was accused of conspiring with Maroons to set fire to the buildings and lead away the slaves. The fire was kindled according to plan, but discovered in time and extinguished. The <em>bastiaan</em> was arrested. Plantation supervisors were certainly not paranoid about the danger of being smoked out: when in 1770 an enormous fire laid waste a large part of western Surinam, they believed Maroons had ‘unintentionally’ kindled it.<br /><br />The inhabitants of Paramaribo were equally vulnerable, but they seemed not to have been unduly worried either. It took the authorities decades to ban the use of <em>tras</em> as roofing for houses and in later years they tried to abolish the use of shingles in vain. In 1832, a devastating fire destroyed a large part of the houses in the Jodenbreestraat, Heiligenweg, Steenbakkerijstraat and along the Waterkant, but even then the whites at first did not suspect foul play. One of the accomplices of the arsonists was later picked up on another charge and he revealed that the fire had been laid by Cojo (alias Andries), Mentor and Present, three young <em>schuylders</em> who hid in the Picorna forest near the capital and lived from theft. They had planned to use the chaos resulting from the fire to plunder to their heart’s content. The damage amounted to 800,000 guilders, so the culprits could expect little mercy: they were burned at the stake on the spot where they had started the fire (even though such vicious punishments had been formally abolished by this time).<br /><br /><strong>Sabotage</strong> of work and utensils has been hailed as the most widespread form of resistance. It is, however, difficult to ascertain how much of this was deliberate and how much was the result of indifference, laziness, or ineptitude. The whites sometimes suspected sabotage. When Governor Van de Schepper complained about the dismal quality of the wheelbarrows sent over, the suppliers suggested that the slaves wrecked them on purpose, so they would not have to work so hard. Mostly, however, the masters meekly accepted these problems as the inevitable consequence of employing Negroes. The slaves had every reason not to exert themselves too much and since the masters often had no yardstick to measure their performance by, they usually got away with it. Only when whites engaged in the same job, it became apparent that the performance of the bondsmen was clearly substandard. Also, the slovenly work habits necessitated constant supervision, which the planters often found difficult to provide.<br /><br />A special form of sabotage was the <strong>abuse of animals</strong>. Most of this was probably a form of venting frustrations, but sometimes there seems to have been a deliberate ploy to rob the master of valuable property -with a slim chance of being caught. The high mortality among the draught animals of the sugar mills may even have been primarily the result of neglect and abuse by the slaves, who knew very well that they were hard to replace. Slaves also regularly mistreated the animals grazing in the <em>Gemeene Weide</em>, because these wandered into their provision grounds. The Court of Police threatened them with heavy penalties, but also reminded the owners of their duty to fence their gardens properly.<br /><br />Most sabotage took the form of foot-dragging, feigning illness (a route that did not hold much promise in Surinam though: often, a slave had to be near death before he was allowed entrance to the <em>jaashuis</em>), feigning excessive stupidity, etc. The masters were frequently at a loss and they either resolved to punish anyone they suspected of shirking work (with the result that they sometimes caused the death of a slave who was genuinely ill), or they resigned themselves to a less than optimal level of production.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Plantation uprisings.<br /></strong><br />Genuine plantation revolts were exceedingly rare in Surinam, considering the circumstances. In most cases, they were limited to one plantation and the rebels made little effort to enlist the help of the slaves of adjoining estates. This was caused by the fact that most of these uprisings were sudden outbursts of frustration and not bold, well-planned bids for freedom.<br /><br />An example is the unrest on <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/palmeniribo/index.nl.html">Palmeniribo</a></strong> in 1707. The slaves of this plantation rebelled against director Christiaan Westphal, who, according to their testimony, harassed them continuously. He had shot their pigs and goats (because these damaged the crops), destroyed their boats (because they used them without permission) and had even fired at them when they protested, hurting Charl. Finally, the slaves decided that enough was enough. They took their sabres, lances and guns and went to the director’s house, threatening to kill him. The intended victim was saved by other whites and the leaders of the rebellion were cruelly punished. Whether their complaints were justified did not interest the Court. Waly, Baratham, Mingo (three Creole brothers), Charl and Joseph were condemned to be <em>“burned alive and during the burning, be pinched with glowing tongs, and so be killed in the most painful and prolonged manner”</em>.<br /><br />The severity of this penalty was brought on by three considerations. Firstly, the white officers of Palmeniribo had repeatedly complained about the insolent behavior of the slaves. Mingo had made a real spectacle of himself after he found his corjaer broken: <em>“seeing this</em> [he]<em> trampled and stamped with his legs against the ground, and pressed his hat against his eyes with both hands, beating against his head with his fists repeatedly”</em>. Charl had wanted the partner of another slave for a second wife, because his own wife was ill (which the director did not condone) and had beaten her and stolen her possessions out of jealousy. Secondly, the day before the aborted rebellion, twelve slaves had run away (eleven were caught again with considerable effort and one died). Thirdly, about the same time, all the slaves of the plantation of David Montesinos had absconded because of his strict government and they had taken everything belonging to the plantation with them. They had offered to come back on the condition that an honest man would be appointed as director, which the owner had been forced to concede to. In this tense situation, the slaves of Palmeniribo had overstepped the boundaries a bit too far and the Court decided to make an example of them.<br /><br />Most conspiracies floundered. Especially when slaves of several plantations schemed together, they would often be found out long before the plot had matured, usually because they were betrayed by fellow slaves. An example is the failure, in 1771, of the conspiracy led by the <em>bastiaan</em> Frater of the plantation <strong>Driesveld</strong>, owned by the later Governor Bernard Texier. Frater gathered a group of slaves around him and made them swear a solemn oath to keep silent about his plans. He then proposed to kill the director, steal guns and and gunpowder and run away. One of the initiated, George, went directly to the carpenter David and revealed the plot. David warned the director, who put two of the conspirators in chains. Frater managed to escape, but was later apprehended at the Motkreek. Texier acknowledged that this could have ended badly <em>“had it not been for the Loyalty of the Negro George who notwithstanding the Oath he had sworn with them, had made this known to the Whites at the first opportunity”</em>. He considered Frater especially devious because <em>“he will surely have used his Authority to seduce the others, particularly with regard to the Negro Pierrot, who has always been a good & loyal, but simple and very timid Negro”</em>. While the other conspirators were executed, Pierrot only got a <em>Spaanse Bok</em>.<br /><br />In many cases, personal grievances caused slaves to betray their fellows. Venus, for example, confessed to the Court of Criminal Justice that her husband Quamie had suggested to her and some others to run away. She claimed she had refused this because she did not want her child to be subjected to danger and she had little reason to complain about her master. She warned her shipmate and <em>landsman</em> Tromp, who informed their master of the plot. Together they went to the governor, who advised Tromp to invite Quamie and his accomplice Coffy for a drink behind the Government Palace. The governor had Quamie arrested there. It became clear during the investigation that Venus had been annoyed about the fact that her mate courted the new slave girl Truy. His intended already had a white lover, who showered her with presents, but she was not adverse to Quamie’s advances if he would buy her some skirts and other pieces of clothing. Quamie and Coffy paid with their life for Venus’ jealousy.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280876905777040962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 237px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpag_wTw-nbQjkHYw8zaMGlUN8NL6VHc0xc0yEjK5WT_6MioiP7KeT6mRsZQA8dtiTi44-8FUdDJ0KR_uc31FyrXryWnMGbbmd09oSlAHjHJIIK48hDAYWE-mTuAAb_hdx-bM6wCvy2c/s400/Stedman-Marron.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p align="justify"><br /><em>Bethlehem & Tempati.<br /></em><br />Even when no betrayal was involved, an uprising might still fail, as is proven by occurrences in the Commewijne district in 1750. In this revolt, conspiritors from four plantations (<strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/bethlehem/index.nl.html">Bethlehem</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/killestein_nova/index.nl.html">Killesteyn Nova</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/hazard_commewijne/index.nl.html">Hazard</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/concordia/index.nl.html">Concordia</a></strong>) participated. The ‘brain’ behind the plot was a mulatto named <strong>Dirkje</strong>, owned by Killesteyn Nova, where chaos had reigned for a while. Dirkje was inspired by lofty visions, though he remained rather vague about the way to realize them. It appears he wanted to get control of the whole Commewijne district, kill all the whites who were guilty of mistreating slaves or resisted his authority and search for a ‘new land’ where he and his companions could live in peace. He did not manage to attract sufficient followers, so he sought the support of slaves from adjoining plantations. In <strong>Coridon</strong> of Bethlehem he found a willing ally.<br /><br />Coridon was described by witnesses as the most influential slave on Bethlehem and he was undoubtedly someone with great capabilities. He had enjoyed the favor of his master <strong>Amand Thoma</strong> for a long time. Thoma had, for example, permitted him to have two wives and had even given him a recent addition to the slave force, the beautiful Bellona, for a spouse. Unfortunately, Thoma fell for her charms himself. Coridon’s two wives did not get along, so this was a good excuse for Thoma to take Bellona into his own bed. He also donated Coridon’s other wife to his rival Hector. Coridon would later maintain that he had not been jealous on account of Bellona and that <em>“he had always brought her to his Master himself at night”</em>. The fact that Thoma had given his other wife Bessolina to a fellow slave was a humiliation that was hard to swallow though. Furthermore, Coridon detested the woman Thoma had given him in exchange. Probably out of revenge, he got involved with his master’s favorite, the <em>Bokkin</em> (Indian woman) <strong>Eva</strong>.<br /><br />Because of all this male attention, Eva soon found herself in a blessed condition and (according to the testimony of other slaves -which was however disputed by Eva) she was not sure who the father was. Coridon, fearing that he would be in grave danger if Eva bore a <em>karboeger</em> child, decided to get rid of his master. Faithful slaves warned Thoma repeatedly that Coridon plotted his demise, but he does not seem to have taken these ominous signs seriously until it was too late. By the time he resolved <em>“to do away with him, which the negro shall have noticed”</em>, Coridon was already deeply involved in the plot hatched by Dirkje. They had been able to brood out their plans undisturbed for about three months and were ready for action.<br /><br />One evening, when Thoma was contentedly smoking a pipe in his living room, Coridon entered with a sledgehammer in his hands and bashed in his skull. Another slave, Gallien, killed the bookkeeper, who had been immersed in his work elsewhere. Thoma had not been a particularly humane master (he was bad-tempered and drank a lot) and most slaves were glad to be delivered of his tyranny. They dragged his lifeless body outside and vented all their pent-up frustrations on it. The corps was mauled with a whip and some slaves pushed it repeatedly into the dead mouth, saying <em>“eat the whip now”</em>.<br /><br />After these murders, the slaves had no option but to run away. Not all of them were enthusiastic about the prospect of trading in the unpleasant but secure existence on the plantation for the uncertainties of living in the jungle. Slaves of Killesteyn Nova, armed with guns, had to change their minds for them. Eva steadfastly refused to come along, though. Coridon reluctantly speared her life, because he did not want to risk killing his own child. Some <em>malinkers</em>, who would be of no use in the jungle, were left behind as well. The other slaves made off with the spoils, consisting, among other goods, of 30 rifles and some casks of gunpowder. Brashly, they placed the cannon of the plantation on the riverbank to shoot at the vessels passing by.<br /><br />The sounds of the cannon and the gunshots alarmed the neighbors, who hurried to the scene of the rebellion and immediately realized the danger of the situation. In all haste, a Christian and a Jewish patrol were assembled and started to track down the rebels. These were forced to leave behind their women and children in the <em>kapoewerie</em> behind Bethlehem, where they soon fell into the hands of the militia. Probably in an attempt to get food, the remaining rebels attacked the plantation <strong>Wederhoop</strong> on the Cassiwinica Creek, but they were repulsed and suffered several casualties.<br /><br />The militia meanwhile reestablished order on the plantations. Contrary to the plan, most of the slaves of the other estates that were involved in the conspiracy did not join the rebels, but on suspicion of aiding and abetting them, eight slaves of Killesteyn Nova and six of Concordia were taken into custody. The commandoes soon tracked down the fugitives and during the first skirmish with the Christian patrol, the rebels suffered 15 casualties, while 31 were taken prisoner. The Jewish patrol was successful as well: first catching 12 rebels, some days later 15 more and finally another 12. One runaway was killed. The situation of the remaining rebels soon became hopeless: they were threatened from all directions, their best warriors were dead and they had no provisions. They tried to find refuge on other plantations, but were repulsed by the slaves there. In the end, 10 of them were captured on <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cassewinica/onobo/index.nl.html">Onobo</a></strong> and 6 on <strong>Wajampibo</strong>. It was rumored that Coridon was among them, but this turned out to be premature: he was taken prisoner a few weeks later by slaves of Hazard.<br /><br />At the trial, the arrested slaves were grouped into four categories: (1) those who <em>“actually did the murder”</em>; (2) those <em>“who have known in advance”</em>; (3) those who <em>“have resisted in the forest”</em>; and (4) those who <em>“have been carried along out of fear”</em>. For the accused that fell into the first three categories the death penalty was obligatory and it was executed with the usual ruthlessness. A total of 28 offenders paid with their lives: three were hung from a hook, among them Gallien and Pensé (who had helped to kill Thoma); two were burned to death over a slow fire, while being nipped with glowing tongs; three were broken on the wheel; the remaining were hung. Most executions took place a few days after the culprits had been caught. The trial of Coridon took months, however. He was interrogated at length, because the judges really wanted to know what had driven him. His execution was exemplary: after having been tortured in every <em>“ordinary and extraordinary way” </em>for hours, he was <em>“torn apart alive by four Horses”</em>. His head was cut off and displayed on a stake and the four parts of his body were hung at several places in the savanna to rot there as a warning for the other slaves. Dirkje did not await his fate: he hung himself in his cell a day before his execution. His body was hauled to the gallows and burned there. Thoma's son-in-law Isaac Godefroy received 5600 guilders compensation for the 28 executed slaves -half of what they were worth.<br /><br />Most slaves belonging to the fourth category got off better. The Court merely tried to infuse them with a <em>”deadly fear”</em>: they were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)">decimated</a> after a lottery. One of the losers was pardoned because of his youth. After the first execution, Governor Mauricius wrote that <em>“it would be a good policy to be satisfied with the terror inspired by the first public execution here in Paramaribo, and to expedite the other condemned quietly in the river, or have them punished on the plantation: but the anger is too great”</em>.<br /><br />Eva, the <em>causa proxima</em> of all this trouble, escaped punishment. Soon afterwards she bore a light-colored child, <em>“which is very conductive for her pardon”. </em>She was a real enigma for Mauricius: <em>“I have seen this Helena, who caused all this misfortune. A terribly ugly creature!”</em> The real reason for this drama was not a mystery to him, though: the <em>“detestable mingling of the Master with the loathsome refuse of his Black Slave”</em>.<br /><br />The aftermath of this tragedy was not devoid of hilarious events. Some months later, it came to light that a slave woman of Thoma, though cleared of guilt by the Court, had been whipped and branded because of an administrative error. This would have hardly been worth mentioning, if Governor Mauricius had not noticed something strange about her sentence: <em>“the most absurd thing is that in the aforementioned Sentence the condemned is banished from the colony, on penalty of being broken on the wheel, and afterwards being sold to the English or others”</em>.<br /><br />The Commewijne uprising failed because of the inherent weaknesses of the plot and the strong opposition of the whites. Firstly, it had been planned carelessly: the rebels did not make sure that they had enough provisions, nor did they take care that the women and children were evacuated properly. Secondly, they could not depend on the other slaves. Even those who had been involved in the conspiracy did not deliver enough accomplices. Only a few slaves of Killesteyn Nova supported the rebels. Although almost all of the slaves of Bethlehem participated in the uprising, the majority of them did so reluctantly and only because they feared they would be blamed for Thoma’s death just as much as the killers. The slaves of Hazard and Concordia and most of those of Killesteyn Nova not only failed to participate, but in the end they also turned against Coridon and his men. Finally, it was remarkable that the militia acted so swiftly and decisively.<br /><br />Perhaps the most fatal flaw in the plot was the fact that there was no common vision behind it. Dirkje had megalomanical plans that were shared by few and he was not a charismatic personality. Coridon was involved because of private grievances and his predicament elicited little sympathy with the other slaves. Like most would-be revolutionaries, Coridon did not hesitate to warn his companions that their only option was to fight to the end, but most of them were obviously not very motivated to risk their lives in battle.<br /><br />The <strong>Tempati</strong> uprising of 1757 was more successful. It was an unplanned revolt that shook the colony in its vestiges and freed several hundreds of slaves. The Tempati area was dominated by timber grounds, whose slaves had gained extensive privileges because they had resisted Maroon attacks in the past. These included ample provision grounds and large flocks of fowl. They were also allowed to sell the remaining pieces of timber in Paramaribo for their own profit. One of the plantation owners, the Political Councilor Martin, made the fateful decision to move a few of his slaves to his sugar estate in the lowlands. The affected bondsmen begged him not to separate them from their loved ones, but Martin was adamant. On the advice of his director Bruyère, he even sent soldiers to take them away by force. When the slaves got wind of this, they rebelled. They attacked Bruyère, cut off his hand and wounded two soldiers. Joined by slaves from other plantations, they retired into the forest with an army of 150 warriors, accompanied by many women and children. The pursuing whites were overpowered and lost many casualties. These rebels, with some survivors of the Bethlehem uprising and other groups of runaways, later formed the <strong>Djuka</strong>.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Conclusion.<br /></strong><br />The slaves of Surinam did not accept their subjection meekly. They were conscious of their rights and when these were trampled upon, they were quick to retaliate. The most effective way was to flee into the jungle, either as a way of putting pressure on the planters, or as a bold move towards freedom. Although most of the runaways eventually returned to their plantation, hundreds of Maroons kept endangering the stability of the colony.<br /><br />The slaves expressed their dissatisfaction in various ways -mostly by more or less individual protests, like malingering, feigning illness, sabotaging tools, abusing animals, etc. Though these could harm the interests of the planters considerably, they were not a menace to the slavery system as such. Even most plantation uprisings, who were rare anyway, did not present a real threat. Rebellious slaves could always retreat into the forest, so they were never obliged to make a ‘last stand’ against the militia that might have roused the other bondsmen to come to their aid. Consequently, the slave revolts always remained localized. Once swallowed up by the jungle, runaways might continue to harass the whites, but, with the exception of would-be dictators like Dirkje of Killesteyn Nova, it was not their objective to overthrow the Surinam slavery system by force.</p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-63373867595295814412008-12-02T20:37:00.041+01:002009-07-18T18:55:21.959+02:00Chapter 11: Facing the law.<div align="justify"><strong></strong></div><strong><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 292px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276069980796422466" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAZWCYrcLtmFkP9m5iRd6uCAk_Kyy0MHdc6P5dzVjSeUsL6jRaKyepkgkGiT__ye4f5prnJTIVB0gnCRuFMPLUj1hDfftsTHjmemUXBhwDqiOONTD9tFKI-Od0floGrLl7EzObNFIU6Vc/s400/afranseling.jpg" /><br /><br />Justice in Surinam.<br /></strong><br />The judicial system of Surinam retained the characteristics of the ancient Dutch penal law for a long time. One of the main guiding principles was the fact that for a condemnation either the <strong>testimony</strong> of two eyewitnesses or the <strong>confession</strong> of the accused was needed. Circumstantial evidence was not legally acceptable. To get the confession of a suspect, all means were permitted: the use of threat or intimidation, withholding food or sleep, even physical torture. In normal circumstances, the manner of tormenting was regulated, but since it usually was not done in public, the most horrible abuses could take place undetected. An admission under torture did not constitute legal proof: it had to be repeated ‘voluntary’ during the court case. Naturally, when a victim renounced a previous confession, he would be tortured even worse afterwards, but the principle had to be adhered to formally. A truly voluntary confession was considered much more valuable, of course. A second feature of Surinam justice was the <strong>lack of jurisprudence</strong>. The judges were not lawyers by profession, most of them were wealthy plantation owners or administrators. They decided every case on its own merits, often guided more by their own delusions and prejudices than by sound juridical principles.<br /><br />These observations hold true for white suspects as well as black ones. The Surinam whites were better off than their counterparts in the Low Countries in some respects. Often, mere fines were given for felonies which back home would have merited a long detention. On the other hand, the penalties could be considerably more severe as well. This was most apparent in the treatment of soldiers. The Surinam planters and civil servants regarded soldiers as scum. They had to be kept in line by strict discipline. The display of a mutinous disposition was unforgivable. Deserters were punished harshly as an example to the others. They were not condemned to death automatically, but in time of war (or slave resistance on a grand scale), they could expect little clemency. A few examples from the second quarter of the 18th century, when the worst excesses were already a thing of the past, suffice. In 1731, five deserters were sentenced by the Military Court to be hung, and their bodies to be left to vultures and vermin. Governor De Cheusses felt obliged to interfere and changed the sentence: the erring soldiers had to draw lots and the two losers would be <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebuse">harquebused</a>. In 1741, several deserters were hanged, while five others had to draw lots with the loser having to face the firing squad as well.<br /><br />The execution of whites was somewhat problematic. There were no white executioners, only black ones, and to be disposed of by a black was to be subjected to insult as well as injury. In 1739, the whole garrison pleaded with the authorities to let condemned soldiers be shot by a firing squad of their peers, instead of letting them suffer the indignity of being killed by an inferior. The Court of Police agreed, for it had experienced <em>“how the Negroes, who are used here to do Criminal Justice often go to work very unwisely, which creates all the more disgust, when one had to see, that white people were mistreated thus”</em>. They asked for a white executioner to be sent to the colony, but as far as I know, he never materialized.<br /><br />Not all deserters were condemned to death. As a rule, only the ones who ran off in times of war, spilled blood, or resisted their capture were executed. The others were usually obliged to ‘run the gauntlet’. For example: in 1704, Hendrik Claesse van Nimwegen was sentenced <em>“to run the gauntlet of the whole garrison three days in a row four times, and to be severely beaten with rods, also to be chained to the mill to work here in the fortress Zeelandia a year long from the date of this sentence on, enjoying nothing but provisions and clothes”.<br /></em><br />Although there was little mercy for murderers, the worst punishments were reserved for sexual offenders, especially sodomites. Sometimes these were even meted out without the benefit of the Court, as Captain Jacob Corse Visscher of the ship Morgen Star did. He wrote to the directors of the Society of Surinam in 1691 that <em>“the 10th </em>[of July] <em>in the evening the first mate Anthonij de Wilde and one of his cabin boys were brought from here and each in a sack were thrown into</em> [the water at] <em>the mouth of the River because they had had relations with each other”.</em> In official custody such a culprit was hardly better off, as Matthijs de Goyer [a son of the former governor] found out. He was sentenced <em>“to be half strangled </em><em>and then further scorched </em><em>and strangled until he will have died”</em>. After his demise, he was thrown into the sea with a weight attached. Christiaan Junkas had been propositioned by De Goyer and, instead of showing holy indignation, had demanded money of him. Not receiving it, he had nevertheless refrained from reporting the ‘crime’, so he was sentenced to be soundly whipped and banished from the colony, after having witnessed the execution of De Goyer. Jan Brouwer was sentenced in 1731 to be tied to a stake and strangled for the same crime, although the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> had demanded that he would be <em>“smothered in a barrel of water”</em>. Captain Dirck Swart and his accomplice, also a cabin boy, met the same fate as De Goyer. Not only homosexuality was punishable by death. Jan Laurensen, a forty-year-old soldier, earned the rope for having violated and killed a <em>cabriet</em> (goat). He was not alone in paying dearly for his ‘perverted’ appetites. It seems however, that only (lowly placed) soldiers and sailors were held to such high moral standards: the behavior of neither white planters and civil servants, nor that of Negroes was scrutinized in quite the same way.<br /><br />The penalties for non-capital crimes were sometimes quite baroque as well. When Aubin Nepveu, a lawyer and the older brother of the later Governor Jan Nepveu, had insulted Pierre Dupeyroux, a member of the Court of Police, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Van Sandik, who happened to be Dupeyroux’s brother-in-law, wanted him whipped, branded and above all to have his tongue pierced a by glowing awl. This last refinement was the usual punishment for <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02595a.htm">blasphemy</a>, because the <em>Raad-Fiscaal </em>was of the opinion that the members of the Court were <em>“Gods on earth”, </em>so<em> </em>any insult to them was blasphemous. Luckily for Nepveu, Governor Mauricius would have none of such nonsense.<br /><br />Detention was not a regular feature of 17th and 18th century justice. Forced labor abounded, with the convict usually being chained to a mill. Corporal punishment, banishment and fines (often very heavy fines) were the mainstay of justice. Only rarely, an offending white was put on water and bread in Fort Zeelandia for a couple of days. An exception was the sentence meted out to Lucia Susanna Nawick, who was condemned to 50 years in prison -despite the fact that being of advanced age she could hardly be expected to last that long. Formerly, she had been banned from Paramaribo for ‘scheming’ and for selling <em>dram</em> to slaves, but she had continued her deplorable habits in Para. Later, she had moved back to Paramaribo and had resumed her old vices immediately. The Court felt its patience had been taxed enough. A sentence like forced labor was much more often demanded than actually executed. When <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Cornelis de Huybert wanted Joost Lont, who had threatened and insulted Councilor Gerhard Wobma and had cut one of his slaves, to be chained to the mill of Fort Zeelandia for six years, he was merely sentenced to a fine of 500 guilders instead.<br /><br />The system of justice in Surinam had very much the character of <strong>class justice</strong>. Rich planters with connections at the courts could get away with practically every crime, while the poor and despised, black and white -sailor, soldier, or slave- had to drink the cup of pain and humiliation to the bottom.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 245px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276075977846640962" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjXIFcvdgn4Q7325Wiui5R-gJ-rLTPXfyAmOJF6A_br59EvoRhN47VTiJ6tZXRivE2vDsreGvAk-pNTiuzQJXge-pMuaqyHQ9xVZJz39pe7IN1uTyoL8KSSiXljcukxyyTW6-YAUeUkeo/s400/ketting2.jpg" />The cases mentioned above prove without doubt that Surinam justice could be quite callous towards whites as well, but there remained, of course, important differences between the treatment of whites and blacks by the law. One of the most important factors was the recognition (included in the slave regulations of 1686) that any planter had <strong><a href="http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_mommsen_1_5_2.htm">domestic jurisdiction</a></strong> over his slaves and (in a more limited sense) also over other slaves found on his premises. This entailed that they had to obey him in everything and that he had the right to punish a slave physically if he refused him respect or obedience, failed to perform his tasks properly, or broke any plantation rules. It did, however, not entail the right to kill or maim the slave, as Governor Van Aerssen established early during his reign. White (and black) plantation supervisors were only allowed to beat slaves with a whip and were forbidden to use sticks or kick them, on the penalty of losing half a year's wages in addition to paying for the damage and getting a fine. Slaves had in many respects the same position as minors, but were nevertheless liable for their actions and had to answer for their misdeeds. As the master was ultimately responsible for any damage his slaves did (since most of them were penniless), domestic jurisdiction could result in heavy expenses.<br /><br />The primacy of the authorities with regard to the punishment of slaves is illustrated by the trial of Christiaan Bisschop (1733). An investigation by the Court of Criminal Justice (after complaints by his slaves) revealed that he had beaten a mulatto woman so badly that pieces of flesh had fallen from her body and the inquiring councilors also found the heads of two slaves he had killed on a stake. He was forbidden ever to set foot on his plantation again and was obliged to install a director because <em>“notwithstanding that they are his slaves he is not permitted, not according to worldly even less to divine laws to beat them to death, but this is left only to the government.” </em>When bondsmen were guilty of crimes seriously enough to merit capital punishment or maiming, they had to be turned over to the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>. In the early period, the Court promised another slave in return for an excecuted villain. Later a sum of money (never enough of course) was paid for the loss of the slave or his full capacities.<br /><br />When a suspect was the slave of someone else, dispatching him to the Court of Police was even more urgent, for no owner accepted that his property was dispoiled by someone not in his employ. So, when Mr. Gossling, the owner of the plantation <strong>De Uytvlucht</strong>, caught the runaways Cesar and Bienvenue, who had <em>“molested and violated”</em> the house of his <em>bastiaan</em>, and did not deliver them to the authorities, but instead <em>“arrogating himself the right of justice”</em> had them punished in an <em>“inhuman and totally unpermitted way”</em>, he caused a serious moral dilemma for the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>. Cesar and Bienvenue had <em>“in the light of their perpetrated malicious and prolonged desertion and display of violence … incurred capital punishment”</em>, but <em>“against this the gross mistreatment they had suffered now runs counter”.</em><br /><br />When an owner viciously abused his own slave, the case became even more sensitive. The Court of Police voiced the opinion that <em>“although an owner never can arrogate himself the right over life and death of the slaves, it is nevertheless of the utmost importance, that the slaves are not led to think, that their masters do not have the Jus Vitae Denecis, and that they could not be restrained, if they were aware that their master could imperil body or life for beating a slave to death”</em>. The servants of the Society shared this view. Moreover, every colonist was convinced that no man would voluntary destroy his own property, so any excessive mistreatment by an owner must be accidental. It was also very difficult to prove satisfactorily that a master had acted on purpose when a slave died during, or as the delayed result of a ‘not unusual’ punishment.<br /><br />Their superiors in Holland, who had gotten wind of the abuses going on in Surinam and who did not want to be associated with that, exerted pressure on the Surinam authorities. The directors of the Society advised their employees in 1760: “<em>to watch with all vigilance, and have the Fiscals watch, the behavior and conduct of the Patrons and Owners there, in dealing with their slaves, but to treat them as humans and not as animals; castigating them moderately and in case they have committed crimes that merit a more severe punishment than a moderate beating they will have to turn them over to the</em> [Court of] <em>Justice to be punished by them with a proper Punishment as an example to the others: and insofar whites have overacted by cutting off the ears and noses of their slaves, or mutilated them in any other way and have punished them unreasonably or have mistreated them grossly or have even killed them such whites shall be responsible for this before the law, as will be decided according to the exigency of the matter”</em>.<br /><br />Their views were largely ignored by the planters of Surinam and even by their own representatives, as these lacked the means to enforce such recommendations. The planters behaved as they saw fit and the authorities tried to steer a course between the Scylla of disorder and the Charybdis of unrestrained cruelty. As <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Wichers mused: <em>“It will always be a Gordian Knot for the government of these lands to find the right balance, so that on the one Hand the authority of the Master over his Slaves is not undermined, A limitless licentiousness introduced; and the Land exposed to disorder and dangers: and on the other Hand the Slaves are not driven by dispear to leave their master’s property because of arbitrary treatment and severe punishments; run into the forest and together with others like them; because of the hatred against their masters, </em><em>against all of the same statue and color, seething with a bitter rage, inflict irreparable harm to the Land”</em>.<br /><br />It turned out to be nearly impossible to solve this problem. Until far into the 18th century, the government did very little to combat the mistreatment of slaves by callous overseers. With the threat from Maroons mounting, however, the conviction grew that the aberrations of cruel and sadistic masters could set the whole colony aflame. The authorities were aware that it was their duty to act as fireguards, but since they had few official representatives in the more remote areas, their hands were tied. Officially, it was one of the duties of the <em>burgerkapiteins</em> to keep an eye on their neighbors, but as they were mostly planters themselves, they were loath to mingle in the ‘private affairs’ of others. Moreover, they lacked the means for effective action. When a witness to cruelty did interfere, it often only made things worse. Therefore, the authorities for the most part only stepped in when law or order were threatened, not to ensure the well-being of individual slaves. Most civil servants were no unfeeling louts and they were often genuinely shocked by the abuses that came to their knowledge, but this did not prompt them to act more forcefully.<br /><br />Complaints of slaves were often only taken seriously when they were corroborated by white witnesses. These would only speak out against their peers in special circumstances, for example, when they suffered themselves from the consequences of the abuse (a planter who did not feed his slaves properly, for instance, provoked them into stealing food from his neighbors). Not a few planters were sincerely concerned when confronted with the piteous victims of abuse and rightly feared unrest among their own slaves because of this. Sympathetic whites were stormed by complaining slaves whenever they set foot on a plantation. In the 1770’s, for example, the political councilors Bedloo and Van der Mey enjoyed an overwhelming popularity as mediators. A second reason for action might be that the interfering white had ulterior motives. In the case of owners and administrators who denounced abusive employees, these were often very apparent. The law gave them the possibility to sue for compensation if someone had harmed one of their slaves and they were naturally eager to reclaim as much of their losses as possible.<br /><br />Mr. Lestrade, the owner of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/mon_souci/index.nl.html">Mon Souci</a></strong>, for example, lodged a complaint against his director Runge, who had beaten a slave to death and, being fearful of the consequences, had run away and hid in the forest. The <em>blankofficieren</em> were willing to testify against him to oblige their patron. The Court of Police decided that Runge had gone too far in his attempts to discipline the slave and had to compensate Lestrade. Repeated offenses occasioned more drastic measures: director Agenbach of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/orleanekreek/montpellier/index.nl.html">Montauban</a></strong> was banished from the colony in 1772 for mistreating slaves (children not excluded).<br /><br />Some owners even tried to retrieve their money when the director was not directly responsible for the death of the slave. One day Mr. Hieronymie, the director of <strong>Anna’s Rust</strong>, ordered some slaves to drain the bottom of a sluice and when they did not succeed, he condemned them to 25 lashes. The master carpenter Geluk managed to escape after five lashes. He later came back to the plantation, fetched his gun, returned to the forest and, feeling dishonored, shot himself through the head. His owner Sydow demanded a compensation of 1500 guilders from the hapless director and when he refused to pay, Sydow lodged a complaint against him. The Court of Police did not grant him the compensation and limited the punishment to a fine of 100 guilders.<br /><br />When a director had the audacity to seriously wound, maim, or kill a slave belonging to another plantation, he could be certain of being denounced by the enraged owner. Director Ossenbrugge of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/oud_bellevue/index.nl.html">Bellevue</a></strong> once caught two slaves of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/munnikendam/index.nl.html">Munnikendam</a></strong>, Hendrik and Manille, on his premises. He had them strung up and horribly beaten. Hendrik was taken home in bad shape and his director brought him to a doctor in Paramaribo immediately. Manille, who had been put in chains after his ordeal, was sent back to his plantation a few days later. He was wounded so grieviously that he could not speak anymore and although the director, who had just returned from Paramaribo, took him to the doctor as well, it was too late: he died shortly after arriving in the hospital. The administrator of Munnikendam lost no time in bringing Ossenbrugge to justice and in demanding a generous compensation, which was duly awarded: he had to pay 550 guilders for the dead slave, 100 guilders for the doctor’s fee and in addition a fine of 100 guilders.<br /><br />This had little to do with real justice, of course. The Court did not protect the slaves as persons, only as property of their masters. Nevertheless, the prospect of losing so much money probably restrained sadistic directors somewhat and it gave the slaves a tiny measure of retribution. The crux of the matter is however, that these were more civil cases than criminal ones (although they were dealt with by the Criminal Court) and that the owners had to act in their own behalf. The authorities did not take the initiative.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 292px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276071360911759218" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXeNlk504GDKhv8gCsFjJ1c5L7fT8UrRYNctZW3DAjzQ7Vv-AJKFZCWrWV99k5YKBBG5NmyAKK5ETdHTE2WV13Q3f-dOzq_ya_np-m_xm_kLl9lnIpSulw7d3WKAjWB_XUeSBbikhYS8Q/s400/zweep.jpg" />Although the civil servants were fearful of giving the slaves an opportunity to ‘divide and conquer’ the white front, they were sometimes obliged to lend a willing ear to the grievances of the slaves. Most of the time, mistreated bondsmen appealed to their owner or administrator first, rather naively believing that he would never condone the abuses perpetrated in his name. More often than not, they were sent back to the plantation after a good thrashing. Sometimes, especially when this happened frequently, a <em>grootmeester </em>visited his estate to investigate the charges, but more often, he let the director do as he pleased, as long as he did not kill too many slaves and produced a satisfactory crop. When the slaves realized that they could not expect help from this quarter, they appealed to the authorities; sometimes to councilors living nearby, more often directly to the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>.<br /><br />They were not assured of a sympathetic ear there either, as the slaves of Mr. Bendt, who came to complain about the fact that they were obliged to work on Sundays, found out. Because they had permitted themselves certain ‘insolences’ on the plantation, the Court of Police decided to punish <em>“everyone with a Spaanse Bok, the principal culprits around Paramaribo for reason of Opposition and Disrespect towards their masters”</em>. If repeated complaints reached them, the authorities would in most cases command the owner or administrator to go to his plantation to sort out his business. Sometimes, official representatives were dispatched, because the government could not risk ignoring the plight of bondsmen living in a sensitive area. When 23 slaves from a plantation in the Perica region came to voice their annoyance about the behavior of their master Kurth, they were (with the exception of the rowers) all detained in Fort Zeelandia, but the deputy bailiff and the <em>burgerluitenant</em> of the Cottica Division were sent to the estate to investigate the matter.<br /><br />In most instances, the envoys decided that the complaints were largely unfounded and then they threatened the slaves with corporal punishment if they did not shape up. To be on the safe side, they sometimes gave in partly to their demands, for example by warning the director who had incited their wrath to govern them with more mildness. Occasionally, they even agreed that the director had overstepped his bounds and recommended his dismissal. When no slaves had been killed or maimed such a brutal director would rarely be indicted for his mismanagement and it was usually not even possible to prevent him from taking another post.<br /><br />If the misdeeds of his slaves did not harm a planter’s own interests, he was often not very eager to hand them over to the authorities for punishment. Although he would be compensated if they were executed, the payment was usually not generous enough to cover the loss of a valuable slave. If they were ‘only’ whipped, this could endanger their capacity to work, or make them harder to handle. Even if a planter did suffer damage himself, the fear of escalation of the problems often made it preferable to overlook crimes for which the law demanded a stiff penalty.<br /><br />Many cases featuring slaveholders who had sadistically abused their slaves can be found in the archives, but it is naïve to suppose that all Surinam sadists were white. The planters were children of their time –and that time was still rather brutish.<br /><br />Blacks could be extremely ruthless towards other blacks. The Moravian Brother Riemer was greatly shocked when he witnessed the execution of a Negro suspected of <em>wisi</em>: <em>“The relatives of the deceased, with their chosen helpers, put the delinquent in a boat, and bring him to a remote spot, where they have already built a pyre the day before. Here they tie him to a thorny tree standing near the pyre, cut off first of all his nose and ears, roast these over a coal fire and constrain him with violence, to eat these whole. Then they cut open his back, rub pepper and salt in the wounds, and drag him with his mutilated back several times up and down the thorny tree, to which he is tied, during that one can often hear his pitiful wails at a great distance. After this they subject him to every possible barbarity, for which the human nature shudders and which the morality forbids to mention. Finally they light the pyre erected next to him, and they let him roast little by little, so the unfortunate must often languish slowly and torturously for several hours more, without awakening the slightest pity in his executioners and the assembled onlookers.”<br /></em><br />The Indians showed their foes little clemency either. Commander Laurens Verboom, for example, wrote about the Arawaks who were his alies during the Indian War: <em>“They had also caught one of our enemies who they first wanted to burn alive and then eat … The 26th of December last we beheld that spectacle, they danced with the captive three days long, inflicting in the meantime every possible torture on him, one whole night they have continuously tormented his naked body with torches. Being wholly naked half roasted and scorched, </em>[he]<em> was finally dispatched of with an arrow in his chest and his arms</em> [were]<em> cut off to cook that was the end of this unhappy and at the same time heathenish tragedy.”<br /></em><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 294px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276072242708927506" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULYZC-dAGd-MBnskMpv4uI9G2KbzTb03AEfGcoZ7GYwdUHowr9dMBzufPUZfc19XXLe02uBIwzY9TXbs-RSUJ4Ec6OIMCReZJ84lebtXj9vsAMsTGo0kcmUL-Az6cFc_VNXclEWSVDtE/s400/blok.jpg" /><br /><br /><strong>The (lack of) punishment of slave abusers.</strong><br /><br />The authorities took their responsibility for maintaining law and order seriously and this led them occasionally to the point of revenging slaves that had been abused by their master. They were rather handicapped, though: for the conviction of any criminal they needed the testimonies of two eyewitnesses and when a Negro had been mistreated, these were often hard to find. Not surprisingly, the Court of Criminal Justice was adamant in its refusal to have whites tortured in cases involving the abuse of slaves. [In fact, it was reluctant to torture whites at all, except when sodomy was suspected.] Negroes were not allowed to testify against whites, so only white witnesses could secure a sentence. It can be safely concluded that these were not very keen to testify against their peers on behalf of a slave, unless, as we have seen, they had a stake in a condemnation themselves.<br /><br />Sometimes, the abuses were so horrible that there was sincere indignation in the white community. An example was the case of Jacob Watsch, who had viciously tortured his slave Januari by way of <em>“having cut the tendons of his heels, and furthermore having cut out both his</em> [testicles] <em>with a knife and thereafter having broken off or chiseled off some of his teeth, and then, wanting to pull out one of his eyes with a corkscrew, the apple of the eye emptied, and the eye water ran out of it, so he cannot see from that eye anymore ... his master has furthermore given him a Spaanse Bok and thrashed him with a whip, the scars of which are visible”</em>. All of this because Januari had gone into hiding out of fear of being beaten. Confronted with the physical evidence, Watsch denied the charges categorically and maintained that <em>“Januari had surely been treated this way in other places, because every time the negro had been caught again he heard that he suffered from one or the other of the defects, that have been listed”</em>. Though the Court was little inclined to believe this, it is doubtful that he was punished with more than a fine.<br /><br />A similar case was that of Hermanus Beeke, a former baker, who had rented a tract of land and played at being a planter there. He sold timber and demanded of his slaves that they cut two <em>vaams</em> (=12 feet) of wood a day. When they complained that this was too much and that they received insufficient food, he slashed the ears of the spokesmen. Furthermore, he had cut a woman named Sophie in her ‘femaleness’ and he had put her in a tube of scalding water with a cask over her head, which she did not survive. The <em>chirurgijn</em>, who examined her body, testified that Sophie had severe external and internal injuries, which without doubt had caused her death. The neighbors of Beeke agreed that he was an incorrigible drunkard and a troublemaker, who chased his slaves away with his aberrations, so they were driven to stealing food elsewhere. However, since none of them had been an eyewitness to the abuses, the Court concluded that there was <em>“no complete proof”</em> of any misdeed, but there were only <em>“strong presumptions”</em> against Beeke. Therefore, he could not be sentenced to corporal punishment. His plantation and slaves were nevertheless taken from him.<br /><br />Some whites who proved willing to testify on behalf of a slave clearly had their own benefit in mind. Director Schröder of the plantations <strong>Meulwijk</strong> and <strong>Sophiasburg</strong> made such a mess of things that two of his own officers submitted written complaints. Christiaan Veyth, the <em>blankofficier</em> of Sophiasburg, declared that Schröder and his crony Degon indulged in overconsumption of liquor and that they <em>“did not behave like humans but like mad and raving animals”</em>. They beat up innocent slaves and chased after them with loaded guns. His colleague Jacob van Dorp of Meulwijk testified that the cook Januari, who had been visiting the plantation <strong>Brouwershaven</strong> to wish the owner, Mrs. Dahlberg, a pleasant journey back to Paramaribo, had been accused by Schröder of having informed her of the intolerable situation on Meulwijk, in the hope that she would warn the owner. Schröder had Januari lashed so viciously by two <em>bastiaans</em> that he <em>“was fleeced from head to toe”</em> and from then on had him beaten for the smallest infraction. When Januari failed to track down two runaways, Schröder thrashed him so mercilessly with a stick that he collapsed and he forbade Van Dorp to take care of him. The poor cook succumbed to his injuries soon after. This remarkable willingness to testify was not only inspired by reasons of morality. Veyth had gotten into an argument with Degon and Schröder had taken the side of the latter. Even more important, their patron had made it clear that the behavior of Schröder repugned him and that he wanted compensation for the dead slave. In such cases it was possible to get a convinction: Schröder was recommended by the <em>Raad-Fiscaal </em>for <em>“arbitrary correction”.</em><br /><br />Often, the testimony of one white was not enough. For example: the master carpenter Zondervan testified in court that Mr. Meyer, the director of <strong>Eedenburg</strong>, had ordered the slave Primo to be strung up and had him beaten so horribly that he fainted three times during the ordeal. Each time Meyer had brought him to his senses by sticking a piece of burning coal in his mouth. The next day, he had him hauled into the fields and tied to a pole along the road. When Zondervan came back after an absence of two weeks, he heard that the tormented slave had died. The <em>bastiaan</em> of Edenburg, Minos, corroborated this testimony and told the Court that Meyer had forbidden the slaves to give Primo any water or food. Minos had tried to feed him something, but his mouth was burned so badly that he could not eat. In spite of these frank statements, Meyer could not be convicted, because the testimony of only one white, even when supported by those of all the slaves in the world, did not constitute <em>“complete proof”. </em>He could only be fined.<br /><br />Sometimes, these rules harmed the interests of the white colonists themselves: namely, when slaves were the only eyewitnesses to a crime perpetrated by a white against another white. This is illustrated by the case of the <em>blankofficier</em> Meyer of the plantation <strong>Charlottenburg</strong>. In a state of intoxication, he had beaten director Heuver half to death and had pushed him out of a <em>corjaer</em>, with fatal consequences. The only witness to this crime was the slave woman Patientie (who had ample reason to resent the defendant because he had the habit of forcing her to share his hammock and raping her). Therefore, premeditated murder could not be proven and Meyer could only be banished from the colony for inflicting grievious bodily harm.<br /><br />A white could be convicted solely on the testimony of slaves only in special circumstances. These included cases of high treason, when the safety of the colony as a whole was endangered, and cases involving the sale of alcohol to slaves. The fine for the latter misdeed was often much higher than the fine for killing or maiming a slave. Jan Pens, for example, had to cough up 300 guilders for <em>“felonies committed by giving the possibility for drinking bouts to slaves and selling liquor to them”</em>. Christian Crewitz earned a fine of 500 guilders for <em>“having given beer and drinks to several slaves sitting in his house at his table”</em>.<br /><br />By the end of the 18th century, the rules regarding the admission of testimonies of slaves were somewhat relaxed, due to the influence of <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> J. G. Wichers. He wrote: <em>“It is true that the testimony of negroes cannot lawfully constitute sufficient evidence but it should be considered that in cases, in which one cannot get complete proof because of the place or manner of the crime, one may then give some credence to presumptions”</em>. Later he added that the testimony of slaves was admissible when it was corroborated by: (a) the <em>“general rumor”</em>, or the testimony of neighbors that the accused was guilty of <em>“severe government”</em>; (b) signs of abuse on the bodies of the slaves; or (c) the fact that such accusations had been lodged before.<br /><br />Not only was it difficult to get whites to testify on behalf of slaves, but there was also little willingness to interfere when they witnessed acts of cruelty themselves. This inevitably led to tragedies that did not leave public opinion unruffled, but changed nothing in public behavior. The principle of non-intervention was strictly adhered to.<br /><br />One of the most tragic cases was the death of the slave girl Premiere. Her mistress, Judig Aron, was held in contempt by most whites because of her <em>“scandalous and unpermitted cohabitation”</em> with the much older Jacob d’ Oliveira. Yet nobody cared to intervene when she took out her frustrations on Premiere (who was weakened by a long ilness and could not perform the work demanded of her) and tortured her so mercilessly that her screams could be heard far and wide. Only when this kept going on for days, the deputy bailiff Vriend went to investigate, urged by a free mulatto woman who had witnessed some of the abuse. He found Premiere in a horrible state. Judig Aron had let her be beaten so viciously (by the slave girl Eva) that she was swollen from her waist to her feet and her lower intestine hung from her rectum. She had prodded Premiere in her ‘femaleness’ and anus with a red-hot poker, had burned her all over her body and had wrenched open her mouth to force her to eat. The late intervention of the bailiff was of no avail, of course: she died the same night.<br /><br />Even when the circumstances permitted action, most colonists were too cowardly to risk antagonizing another white, who might retaliate in an unpredictable way. When the carpenter Samson of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/ephrata/index.nl.html">Ephrata</a></strong> was caught on the premises of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/geertruidenberg/index.nl.html">Geertruidenberg</a></strong>, director Hulzebosch warned his colleague Wagenaar of Ephrata. The latter hurried to Geertruidenberg and had the fugitive strung up with a weight of 50 pounds tied to his feet. After that he had him whipped so furiously, that the whip was shredded. Hulzebosch could not bear the sight and repeatedly asked him to terminate the punishment, but Wagenaar advised him to mind his own business. When he finally released to tortured slave, Samson could not stand up. Hulzebosch gave him a <em>soopje</em> and Samson dragged himself with his last strength to the porch of the <em>kokerom </em>(cooking shed)<em> </em>where he succumbed. When Hulzebosch was demanded by the Court why he did not stop this scandalous treatment (on his own terrain he had every right to do so), he excused himself feebly by maintaining that in the beginning he had not realized the seriousness of the situation. Samson had received ‘only’ 80 to 100 lashes and he had seen young Negroes brave 300 to 400 lashes without any lasting damage.<br /><br />In the 19th century, white supervisors who had killed a slave did not escape so easily. Director Veeger of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commetuanekreek/solitude/index.nl.html">La Solitude</a></strong>, who had killed a woman by mistreating her several days in a row, was sentenced to be whipped, branded and banished from the colony. Three other directors, who had been present but did not intervene, were also banished and fined 2000 guilders.<br /><br />Not rarely, their reluctance to take decisive action against tyrants would cost the colonists dearly. The slaves took justice into their own hands and once they had wounded or killed a hated master, they had no option but to flee into the forest and resist their pursuers with all their might. The slaves of Timotibo, for instance, had visited the Court of Police repeatedly to complain about the actions of their owner. But the wise councilors had contented themselves with recommending the culprit <em>“to abstain from all unbecoming behavior towards his slaves”</em>. The owner was not very impressed by this admonission, but the Court did not dare to go any further because as a result of <em>“the complaints that all who are corrected here do in Holland, the Raad-Fiscaal as well as the Government have become extremely cautious, if not much too fearful”</em>. In 1778, the slaves finally took revenge themselves.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 293px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276070874645716514" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwE6fLT8h9B5za2aOzz6CBwjuVjr8zTpzBAshg6SHbSksC0emQ7c5E_r9fyXpwthkuc2kaMmbbUIPePJSU3UyuqhgUM6UtM3T1ME5QAamo_dfwe2txTO7APXfJuAsqfo5-g7hJXD3M7I/s400/radbraken.jpg" /><br /><br /><strong>The punishment of blacks.</strong><br /><br />Maybe the most remarkable thing about the treatment of slaves by the guardians of justice was the fact that the sentences meted out to blacks differed from those meted out to whites (even in the Netherlands) more in degree than in kind. This may not be too obvious when we compare the punishments the masters were subjected to with the punishments the slaves could expect, but, as has been argued earlier, the system of justice in Surinam was very much a system of class justice. Consequently, the courts treated lower class whites (especially those equally subjected to a strict discipline, like soldiers and sailors) almost as harsh as slaves. For the members of all these groups ‘mutiny’ was a capital crime and, in some circumstances, desertion as well. The sentences heaped upon the slaves may generally have been more cruel, but on the other hand, no slave was ever punished, let alone executed, for ‘sexual perversions’ like sodomy or bestiality. The ruthlessness exhibited towards erring slaves was not unique. Most Surinam sentences will have been regarded as somewhat archaic in the heartland of the Low Countries, but they were not considered improper in the more unstable parts, as is proven by the treatment of the so-called <strong>Bokkerijders</strong>.<br /><br />The <em><a href="http://www.kgv.nl/wiki/index.php/Bokkerijders">Bokkerijders</a></em> were a group of robbers and murderers who terrorized a large part of the province of Limburg in the 18th century. They consisted mostly of people of extremely lowly stature, who were heartily despised by the rest of society because of the infamy of their regular trade (skinning animals). It is important to note that Limburg had a very peripheral position during this period, being disputed by Holland and Austria, and that this increased the feelings of uncertainty among the inhabitants. On top of this, they were initially unable to combat the <em>Bokkerijders</em> successfully. This partly explains the ferocious retribution they lavished on any <em>Bokkerijder</em> they could lay their hands on. One can distinguish three phases in the procedures against <em>Bokkerijders</em>: during the first and second phase, torture was common and death penalties not only obligatory, but also executed with such cruelty that they were on a par with the worst excesses in the New World.<br /><br />In 1743, for example, one of the <em>Bokkerijders</em> was condemned to be “<em>tied to the scaffold by the executioner, with a rope around the neck, and then the right hand, covered with a combustible material and lighted, shall be cut off and thrown into the fire, after which </em>[he shall be]<em> slowly broken on the cross from below, stuck with a knife in the side, and hit on the head with a club four times, and then still alive be burned with the aforementioned cross, as an example and warning to others”</em>. Fellow <em>Bokkerijders</em> were disemboweled before being roasted alive over a slow fire. The bodies of executed <em>Bokkerijders</em> were often hung in iron chains from the gallows and were left there until they had rotted away. During the last phase of the trials against <em>Bokkerijders</em>, the penalties were somewhat more ‘civilized’. Most of those found guilty were simply hung. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Blok">Anton Blok</a> called this kind of theatrical punishments <em>spiegelstraffen</em>: they mirrored the misdeeds of the condemned. The desire for them started to wane once the central government got a more impersonal and bureaucratic structure.<br /><br />The situation of Surinam had close parallels to that of 18th century Limburg. The inhabitants felt themselves as being on the edge of the civilized world; misunderstood by the motherland and left on their own to deal with the enormous dangers inherent in being surrounded by a mass of slaves. For a long time, their attempts to stem the rising tide of absconding slaves were largely fruitless. Therefore, they came to believe that only by merciless retribution and making a disheartening example of the runaways (and other major offenders) that fell into their hands, they could keep their chattels subdued. Consequently, the executions of slaves had a strong theatrical flavor. This was most obvious with the execution of capital punishments. They were undeniably orchestrated as a horrifying spectacle for the slaves, who were often forced to attend (there is however little evidence that whites came in great numbers to gloat over the sufferings of the condemned). Unfortunately for the master class, the goal was hardly ever attained. Instead of being shocked by the unsavory proceedings, the slaves rejoiced at the intransigence of the men being tortured.<br /><br />Herlein has vividly described the execution of ‘a certain Slave’ who had fled from Paramaribo, but had frequently returned at night to conspire with others. He had finally been caught by his master, who had laid himself in ambush with four companions, waiting for his reappearance. He was so badly wounded that his master feared he could not be cured, so he gave him to the authorities to be made an example of: <em>“His sentence was pronounced, that he would be quartered alive and the pieces thrown into the River; he was then put on the ground without chains, his head on a long beam, the first blow that he received in the lower abdomen, made all the water burst from his bladder, without him giving the slightest sound and</em> [he]<em> looked at it himself; the second blow with the Axe he wanted to ward off with his hand, but the hand and the upper abdomen were chopped through, still without a sound; the Slaves and Slave Women laughing about this, said to each other that is a Man! finally the third blow on the breast and heart killed him, his head was cut off, the body further in four pieces, and thrown into the River”</em><br /><br />The Moravian Brother Riemer witnessed in 1779 how two condemned slaves, about to be beheaded, taunted their executioner: <em>”The executioner lifted his axe and chopped off his right hand, after which he lifted the bloody arm very resigned and shouted loudly: ‘Now I am free again, but my arm is too short.’ The only one left shouted to him laughing: ‘Your head will soon be shorter too’.”<br /><br /></em>Stedman was present at the execution of Neptunus, a ‘young and handsome’ freedman, who had killed the overseer of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/parakreek/altona/index.nl.html">Altona</a></strong> (where he worked as a carpenter) and had been condemned to be broken on the wheel: <em>“Informed of the dreadful sentence, he composedly laid himself down on his back on a strong cross, on which, with arms and legs expanded, he was fastened by ropes: the executioner, also a black man, having now with a hatchet chopped off his left hand, next took up a heavy iron bar, with which, by repeated blows, he broke his bones to shivers, till the marrow, blood, and splinters flew about the field; but the prisoner never uttered a groan or sigh. The ropes being next unlashed, I imagined him dead, and felt happy; till the magistrates stirring to depart, he writhed himself from the cross, when he fell on the grass, and damned them all, as a set of barbarous rascals; at the same time removing his right hand by the help of his teeth, he rested his head on part of the timber, and asked bystanders for a pipe of tobacco, which was infamously answered by kicking and spitting on him, till I, with some American seamen, thought proper to prevent it. He begged that his head might be chopped off; but to no purpose. At last, seeing no end to his misery, he declared ‘that though he had deserved death, he had not expected to die so many deaths: however … you christians have missed your aim at last, and now I care not, were I to remain thus a month longer’.”</em><br /><br />Public execution remained an important principle, even though the whites knew very well that condemned slaves considered it a point of honor to defy the executioner as best as they could and that the involuntary spectators took pride in the fact that they bore even the worst tortures stoically. This may have increased the sufferings of the condemned considerably, because the executioners aimed to break their spirit before they expired. This haughtiness and contempt for pain was especially characteristic of the Coromantine slaves. It is not impossible that the slaves employed some kind of self-hypnosis to make themselves if not oblivious than at least much less sensitive to pain, but it is more likely that they prepared themselves for their ordeal the same way Indians did: by concentrating on showing defiance.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 284px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276070442387915938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn2u0XhyYNCiZ77-sTMkq3_HhALefewnt0TiFE1wEPOnCV1LnnutTw5sW9QiR-iWKqElYosxaLAfuy86cvjwUVxINYTEQC0Ozf85ZRCMsj4YjdK-1v_je1rFZyvWpsrt4ltXjo0Byu4QA/s400/haak.jpg" />The death penalty was pronounced for slaves very frequently, often for ‘crimes’ that were only crimes when slaves were guilty of them, like defending oneself against an attempted murder. In the early years, the executions were carried out with a baroque creativity that resulted in spectacles unheard of even in other plantation colonies. The most perverse manner of execution was to hang a condemned from the gallows with a hook through one of his ribs and to leave him there to die, which often took many days. Although most of the criminals dispatched off this way were Negro slaves, at least one was white: a Portuguese sailor who had killed some English colleagues while trying to steal their ship. The most famous case, however, was the runaway <strong>Joosje</strong>, immortalized by Stedman, who was executed with ten companions in 1730. Wolbers named 11 other slaves that were executed in this fashion (2 of them were female). Such a sentence was not given frivolously, however: all the condemned were quilty of premeditated murder. Another horrible manner of execution was being roasted over a slow fire while being nipped with glowing tongs. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered">Quartering</a> was a favorite during of the early period, either by axe, or, more sporadically, by horses. The somewhat less culpable were (slowly) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel">broken on the wheel</a> and occasionally left to die (more often, they received a <em>coup de grace</em> on the heart). Most of these executions were preceded by ‘preliminary tortures’ that could last for hours. The bodies of the condamned were either left for the birds or (in later times) buried under the gallows.<br /><br />The theatrical aspect of these sentences was clearly intended by judges and owners alike -even when the execution itself failed to take place. In 1689, Cornelis Snelleman reported that he had quartered one of his slaves and had exhibited the four parts on his plantation. The slave in question had killed a woman and had then jumped into the sugar kettle (out of remorse or fear of punishment). He succumbed to his injuries half an hour before Snelleman had returned on the plantation to execute him. He asked for compensation, which was granted. The head of a slave offender was always cut off and sometimes it was exhibited on a stake. As Mr. L. Chaillet, the owner of the executed slave Leopold wrote, in a letter asking for his head, his aim was <em>“to stick it on a pole and place it on the riverbank of his plantation, to be exhibited there as an example for all such faithless slaves”</em>. Usually, the head was buried separately under the gallows.<br /><br />The most important reason for cutting off the head was to rob the slaves of the hope that they would return to their homeland after death. Without a head, the departed would either be unable to go back, or they would be forced to wander around headless for eternity. According to Père Labat, cutting off the head was considered to be the best way to keep slaves from committing suicide in the French colonies. In Surinam, it was also the habit to behead suicides, as well as Maroons who died from natural causes. This is illustrated by the fate of an ancient Maroon, called Sylvester. He had been one of the first successful <em>wegloopers</em>, having escaped during the chaos that ensued after the attack of Jacques Cassard in 1712. He had established a village and had ruled there as chief for almost fifty years. He had just passed on command when he was caught. Some days later he died (apparently not as a result of abuse) and he was beheaded to show the slaves that there was no escape from bondage, not even after death.<br /><br />The death penalty was made obligatory in 1721 for Maroons who had established ‘stable villages’. There were, however, some exceptions: slaves who had been driven away by inhuman treatment would be spared, as would those who had been taken along by others, or had been ‘misled’ by them. When a slave had resisted capture or had shed blood, nothing could save him. The execution of the group of Joosje in 1730 was not characteristic of the usual treatment of <em>wegloopers </em>(two of these Maroons were burned over a slow fire and several women were beheaded). However, this was the first execution of inhabitants of the so-called Claas-villages, whom the authorities had hunted in vain for more than a decade, so they were not inclined to show much mercy. Usually, a <em>weglooper</em> was hung, beheaded, or, if he had killed someone, broken on the wheel. In 1790 (when the Maroon Wars were over), the sentences were ‘softened’ according to Lammens.<br /><br />The slaves executed in the particulary vicious ways described above were practically all murderers. Remarkably, it did not make much difference whether they had killed a white or a black. Murdering a fellow slave, especially by poisoning, was considered just as heinous a crime as murdering a white. The offender was held wholly responsible for such a felony. When he killed a slave belonging to another owner, for example, his master was not obliged to compensate the loss (as he was in the United States) and the penalty was much heavier than it would be when he, for example, had caused the same amount of damage to a house. This way, the Surinam justice system acknowledged that the life of a slave was worth more than his market price alone (although the judges tended to forget this when the culprit was one of their own).<br /><br />During the 18th century, the manner of execution became slowly more civilized. Quartering, burning at the stake and stringing on a hook became increasingly rare (although the slaves who intentionally distroyed a large part of Paramaribo by fire in 1832 were put on a pyre themselves). During the latter part of the 18th century, the ways the condemned were disposed off were mostly limited to hanging, beheading and breaking on the wheel. The most likely reasons were that the inhabitants of the colony started to feel more secure and that the influence of the central government increased. By this time, the colonists had managed to ‘pacify’ their most dangerous Maroon enemies. It had taken some painful adjustments, but they could be reasonably sure that they would not be driven into the sea. At the same time, the direct influence of the motherland grew; because of the fact that the Dutch government, implored for help in the battle against the Maroons, got more interested in the colonial affairs and because of the fact that many of the new plantation owners resided in the Netherlands permanently. In addition, the dispensers of justice had become more versed in Dutch penal law. The government preferred to appoint trained jurists as <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>, not rich plantation owners with spare time, and although these did not decide the imposed penalties themselves, they modernized the procedures. Circumstantial evidence was taken into account and the first steps in ‘forensic medicine’ (feeding supposed poisons to dogs and chickens) were set. Some Negroes even got the benefit of the doubt.<br /><br />A typical case for this period was the trial against the slave Augustus, owned by Jacob Juda. He had been punished several times in the past, the last time with a <em>Spaanse Bok</em> for wounding an old Negro and wrecking his master’s house while drunk. Finally, he went too far and <em>“disregarding all respect owed to whites in general and His Master in particular, gives himself over to the utmost excesses up to the point of attacking and abusing a white”</em>. He was sentenced as follows: his right hand was chopped off (the usual punishment for a slave who had lifted his hand against a white), he was hung by the neck until death, his head was cut off and exhibited on a stake and his body was buried under the gallows.<br /><br />Free Negroes were treated with no more leniency than bondsmen were. Especially in case of a capital crime, a manumitted slave was no better off than one still in bondage would have been. The case of Paay, a manumitted Creole, who had formerly belonged to Joshua Pardo and was working as a carpenter on the plantation of Thomas Day, is illustrative. One day, a sheep of the plantation was found missing. The director accused Paay of stealing it and threatened to punish him. They had an argument during which Paay took a gun and shot the director in the back. The wounded man tried to fire back, but did not have the strength anymore and tumbled to the ground. Paay then took his machete, chopped off the left hand of the still living director and slashed his right hand, brow and neck. After this mutilation, he shoved him into a ditch. The director was found there later by plantation hands –dead. At the hearing, it was revealed that some slaves had butchered the sheep and had given Paay a morsel. Some of their colleagues, who had not received anything, had denounced him to the director. Paay was convicted for murder and after being declared a slave again, he was to be brought to the execution ground reserved for slaves, tied to a cross or wheel, his left hand was to be chopped off and he was to be broken alive. After this, his head was to be cut off and displayed on a stake.<br /><br />The members of the <em>Vrijcorps</em> were not wholly on a par with white soldiers either. For them one of the worst offenses was to part with their rifle. Rabbi had sold his gun to the <em>Aukaner </em>Coffy for 40 <em>stuivers </em>and was not able to perform his duty on patrol. For this offense he was hung, after being declared a slave again. His body was buried under the gallows, but contrary to ordinary ex-slaves, his head was not cut off.<br /><br />Much worse had been the crime of Neptunes, Isaac and Hannibal. Neptunes had picked an argument with Mr. Van der Mey (a member of the Court of Police) and instead of following orders and reporting to the military post Vredenburg, he had gone fishing in the Wanica Creek. At the request of his wife, Hannibal and Isaac went to look for him and managed to persuade him to return to Paramaribo. On the way, they stumbled upon a Negro with a stack of wood on his head and ordered him to stop. He tried to escape into the <em>kapoewerie</em> and Isaac shot him. Fearing punishment, the companions did not dare to show their face in Paramaribo again and decided to go to Saramacca. They persuaded the slaves Quami and Louis to accompany them, because they wanted them to work on their provision ground. Then they got word that they would not be blamed for the death of Isaac's unfortunate victim and resolved to return to the capital. However, Quami and Louis were now a liability. Neptunes ordered the others to shoot them. Quami was fatally wounded, but Louis was only left for death. When the culprits were already back at their quarters, Louis was found and the truth came to light. The three offenders were declared slaves again, beheaded and their heads were displayed on a stake.<br /><br />Freeborn Negroes and Bush Negroes could not be degraded to slavery again and they were executed in another spot. Their head was not cut off. The Saramaka Bush Negro Cardinaal (formerly a slave of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/parakreek/houttuin/index.nl.html">Houttuin</a></strong>), who was sentenced to death for abducting two slave women and a boy, was simply hung.<br /><br />Most slaves that appeared before the Court were not accused of a capital crime. They were charged with less serious infractions: theft (although this could also lead to the death penalty when it became a habit), insolence, failure to do the work demanded of them, etc. Even the majority of runaways escaped the ultimate penalty (making it for the most obstinate possible to try again). For these offenders a whole repertoire of retaliations was available. In the beginning of the 18th century, the following punishment was the norm, according to Herlein: “<em>the criminal his hands tied together with a rope, after having been hoisted up a Tree (or up the Beam of the House to a certain height from the ground) and having been fastened there, has 50 pounds standing on the ground fastened to his feet and these tied together, to prevent swinging and kicking with the feet by that</em> [after he has been forced to confess his sins] <em>he is beaten and lashed … in such a way with a Whip (braided of Water-Pinans, a kind of very though Reed with sharp thorns), that he sooner resembles a skinned or fleeced Dog, than a Human … and when it has been decided that they have been castigated enough, having been released, the torn fleeced skin </em>[is] <em>rubbed with the sharp acid of Lemon-juice mixed with gunpowder, which serves to increase the preceding miserable pains for a short while, helping further to suppurate and wholly heal the wounds, the signs thereof however remaining as Brands on the body”. </em>The authorities did not condone this kind of torture for long. In 1761, the Court of Police (at the request of Governor Crommelin) forbade the whipping of a ‘bound’ slave, but rejected his other proposal that allowed punishment only in the presence of two white witnesses, because it undermined the authority of the master too much. Hoisting up a slave was replaced by tying him around a pole: the so-called <em>Spaanse Bok </em>(<em>Spanso Bocko</em>).<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 297px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276072714971750242" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijUSGO2PSmb3kTcmagSwMIi7i2AlY5wN6FlQGhxtHWfuGZB_miQPcfgw1YhN_KlT4tyKUNSvv6qMElnYGf_ORoKUjCWlqZRmqyHT76LOh4VN_OthSl0Llbdc1CuGJJZs4Z_p3dG8QrJP0/s400/Spaanse-Bok.jpg" />The <em>Spaanse Bok</em>, the habitual form of correction in later times, was only marginally less painful: a pole was stuck into the ground and the slave was placed around it with tied hands, so the pole was clamped between his elbows and knees. He was beaten with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guava">guava</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarind">tamarind</a> branches, first on one side and then on the other. In an earlier stage the much heavier <em>hoepelstok </em>was used, but such a beating often proved fatal, even when it was applied with restraint. Employing a <em>hoepelstok</em> was forbidden in 1761. The lightest variation of the <em>Spaanse Bok </em>was given in Fort Zeelandia, in the more serious cases, it was done ‘around the fort’ and for the most devious culprits a performance was staged on the principal corners of Paramaribo. There were ‘four corner’ and ‘seven corner’ varieties.<br /><br />Branding was very common. All slaves were branded with the mark of their owner to identify them, but it was also done as retaliation, mostly in cases of theft. Mutilation was a penalty regularly resorted to in the early period, but for obvious reasons, one could not make a habit of it. Many planters had little objection to cutting off the ears or nose of incorrigible offenders: it did not decrease their usefulness as workers, although it often made them into even more intractable enemies of all whites. For this reason, the authorities were very much opposed to maiming and forbade it in the first plantation regulation of 1686. Nevertheless, the Court of Police sometimes ordered mutilation in a sentence.<br /><br />In the early period, the severing of the Achilles tendon (for the first offense), or the amputation of a leg (for a repeat performance) was the usual penalty for a runaway. In 1731, for example, Amand Thoma of the plantation <strong>De Vrijheyt</strong> was given permission by the Court of Criminal Justice to amputate the leg of a slave who had absconded several times. This had, however, the negative consequence of making a slave virtually useless for any work but rowing. Therefore, the less invading procedures became the more favored, although instances of amputation could be found until the end of the 18th century. Lammens identified at least 16 cases of such a punishment in the years 1765 to 1787 (plus 4 cases in which the Achilles tendon had been severed). I have encountered one case in which a leg was amputated at the instigation of the owner, while the Court was clearly more inclined to give the death penalty. Many victims of such a mutilation died shortly after. Most likely because the wound got infected, but Stedman learned of one case in which the amputee committed suicide by removing the bandages, so he bled to death. I have found no proof for the practice of an even more despicable form of mutilation: castration. As has been remarked before, slaves were hardly ever persecuted for ‘sexual perversions’ and when one was found guilty of an affair with a white woman he was quietly disposed off.<br /><br />A slave who refused to come clean in court was subjected to examination under torture in the early period. At first he was only whipped, but when he proved to be exceptionally stubborn, a weight of 50 pounds was tied to his legs before he was whipped some more. If he was still refusing to confess, screws were applied to the toes and shins (the better-known thumbscrew seems not to have been used in Surinam). Fortunately for the slaves, fire and rack were not employed in examinations. An illustration of the proceedings is supplied by the description of the examination of the <em>dresneger</em> Dikkie: <em>“two shin screws having been fastened and weights tied to the feet</em> [he was]<em> hoisted up and whipped”</em>. The whites firmly believed in the veracity of confessions under torture, because they were convinced that a Negro would never confess to anything he had not done, even if he was tortured to death. In their opinion, torture was just necessary to overcome the reluctance of Negroes to tell the truth to any white. If a slave steadfastly kept denying the accusation and no other proof was supplied, he might, in less serious cases, be set free. More often, he was condemned anyway, because with a slave defendant legal proof was no real prerequisite and the judges rather erred on the side of caution.<br /><br />During the latter part of the slavery era, especially during the 19th century, the system of punishments changed considerably. The habit of examining slaves under torture died out slowly, partly because <em>“confessions without pain and bonds”</em> had always been preferred. The <em>Spaanse Bok</em> was officially abolished on the plantations in 1784 and although it did not disappear entirely, it became increasingly rare. Corporal correction was mostly given in the form of lashes and the number of them that could be legally applied decreased as well. Domestic jurisdiction was abolished in 1851. After that, planters were no longer permitted to whip their slaves themselves, but had to take them to the <em>Piket van Justitie</em>, where an official would apply the lash for a fee, with special consideration for the women and children. Non-corporal forms of punishment came in vogue. In many instances, detention and forced labor replaced death penalties. Despite these ameliorations, Dutch abolitionists protested the fact that corporal punishment remained an integral part of the Surinam slavery system.<br /><br />A restricted form of detention was the only sanction the masters could legally use in the application of domestic jurisdiction in later days. The planters opposed this, because they feared they could no longer uphold discipline when they were restricted like this. Before, they had been able to lock up their slaves indefinitely and in any way they wanted: in chains, nailed in the block, in a dark shed, etc. Since a slave could not perform very well in such circumstances, most detentions will not have lasted long, but sometimes a planter became so frustrated that he disregarded all economical gain and locked up a slave for months.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Conclusion.</strong><br /><br />The conclusion is warranted that while the black population of Surinam on the whole was not treated by the law in the same way as whites, it was more a difference in degree than in kind, especially if one compared it with the treatment of lower-class whites. The principle that masters had domestic jurisdiction over their slaves weighed heavily, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries. This did not mean that an owner could do everything he wanted with a slave, but the authorities were unable to deal adequately with a sadistic master, or with one who lost sight of his own economic interests. [There is, however, little fundamental difference between their reluctance to intervene on behalf of the slaves and the reluctance of officials (and bystanders) nowadays to interfere in someone’s ‘private affairs’ (especially those going on behind closed doors) to protect women and children from abuse by husbands and parents. Even when such miscreants are indicted, they usually get off with a ridiculously light sentence. The principle of domestic jurisdiction is still very much alive.]<br /><br />Surinam blacks were punished more severely for comparable offenses and corporal punishment was more often resorted to (partly because they had no money to pay a fine). Putting them on water and bread was not considered to be much of a penalty by the whites (although the slaves thought otherwise). Blacks were believed to be of a courser nature, so in the opinion of the whites they were not only able to withstand corporal punishment better, but they were also less humiliated by it –a misconception that would cost some colonists dearly. </p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-58988914893136369142008-11-24T19:03:00.029+01:002009-02-12T02:09:51.052+01:00Chapter 10: The meeting of the twain.<div align="justify"><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273478209530218802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 278px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA1yMhPdVK7h6oDBLMpv782C6fe7dHk78tjYvrZ2PEWzs_ikX8VeAoggnvfOigivCef9cYQiqli_LlLnmIFrKFbLvmISvZ8PH-okk2z5kamX3YmVYOUK_SnhJhXSWk1agYE46xg1cCMW4/s400/Waterkant.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>Paternalism.</strong><br /><br />Eugene Genovese has given ample thought to the workings of <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism">paternalism</a></strong> in his inspiring book <a href="http://www.common-place.org/vol-01/no-04/reviews/johnson.shtml"><em><strong>Roll, Jordan, Roll</strong></em></a> (1974). This part of his work has attracted the most criticism and although much of it was justified, many of his insights turned out to be very valuable when studying slavery in Surinam.<br /><br />In the opinion of Genovese, the animosity between masters and slaves, which undeniably existed even in the most favorable of settings, did not preclude the development of genuine feelings of responsibility for the welfare of the slaves on the part of the master and attachment and dependency on the part of the slaves. Tied together, against the will of the latter, in an admittedly unjust and oppressive system, masters and slaves had no choice but to make the best of it. Paternalism smoothed the relations between these natural antagonists. It took the edge off black discontent and therefore in some ways increased exploitation, because the slaves were led to believe that much of it was in their own interest, or at least that this state of affairs was inevitable. Paternalism certainly helped the masters to maintain their position. As Genovese put it: <em>“Wherever paternalism exists, it undermines solidarity among the oppressed by linking individuals to their oppressors.”<br /></em><br />Although some measure of paternalism can be found in every slave society, it was in the opinion of Frank Tannenbaum primarily a characteristic of the Iberian slavery systems, in particular in Brazil. Genovese, on the contrary, found the purest form of paternalism in the United States, which in the eyes of Tannenbaum was the major exponent of the harsh slavery systems created by the nations of northwestern Europe, which lacked any tradition that may have promoted a paternalistic attitude. Genovese sought the cause of this development not in traditions but in circumstances. In the Old South, the plantations were mostly small and, even more important, most owners lived there permanently, sometimes for generations. Having grown up on the premises, being cared for by indulgent ‘mammies’ and cavorting with the young slaves, the masters not only knew their chattels merely by name, but they knew them intimately and in fact regarded them more as loyal family retainers than as simple property. Many planters were loath to sell any of their hands and often they tolerated a degree of slovenliness, laziness and sassiness that a Yankee would never have accepted from a servant.<br /><br />It certainly goes too far to suppose that a community of interest existed between master and slaves. Paternalism may have made the slaves less eager to run away, attack whites, or perform acts of sabotage, but it did not stifle their desire for freedom, nor did it transform them into more productive workers. In the opinion of Genovese, it made the masters dependant on their slaves, rather than the other way around: <em>“The whites required that the house servants, like the field hands, work to provide for them, but in addition they required their love and emotional support far beyond anything the slaves needed in return. In the reciprocal dependency of slavery, especially in the Big House, the slaves needed masters and mistresses they could depend on; they did not need masters and mistresses to love them. But, the whites needed their servants’ love and trust. The slaves had the upper hand and many of them learned how to use it.”</em> This may be a little exaggerated, but the distinct sense of betrayal that many masters displayed when their ‘loyal’ retainers deserted or opposed them, lends some credence to this observation.<br /><br />In the early days of slavery, most Surinam plantation owners lived on their estates. During the 18th century, this changed gradually, until by the end of the century most owners were absentees, either living in Paramaribo and visiting their domains once or twice a year at most, or residing overseas. Although the administrators took over the tasks of the owners, the emotions of the slaves towards them were different. For a full-fledged paternalism to develop, a longstanding, intimate relationship between overlords and underlings was necessary, so in Surinam this sentiment had little chance of growing, not only because of the prevalence of absenteeism, but also because plantations were sold frequently. Few estates were in the hands of the same family for more than two generations. Many owners had no descendants, so their estate often fell to distant relatives. Planters went bankrupt because of high living and were obliged to divest themselves of their property. Eager immigrants with little money but much ambition bought up derelict estates. They had neither aptitude nor inclination for the management of slaves and gladly left that task to (often equally inexperienced) directors, who in the eyes of the slaves were nothing but callous exploiters.<br /><br />Despite the lack of direct contact, or perhaps because of it, the feelings of the slaves towards their owners seem to have been remarkably positive. In fact, the more remote the <em>grootmeester </em>was, the more positive the feelings appear to have been. When an owner from Holland visited his possessions for the first time, the joy of the slaves can hardly be imagined. They believed that all their sorrows were over at once.<br /><br />Most slaves projected their anger over their exploitation solely on the director, unaware of, or simply disregarding the fact that it took place with the tacit consent, if not the active cooperation of their owner. When the owner or the administrator showed his face, the slaves flooded him with complaints, sincerely believing that now the brutal director would get the sack, or at least a thorough dressing-down. It was a great disappointment to them that they mostly found a less than willing ear for their grievances. The trust went so far that many mistreated slaves did not seek refuge in the forest, but trekked to Paramaribo to tell their woes to their <em>grootmeester</em>, who usually sent them back after a good trashing. The <em>grootmeesters</em> knew the danger of undermining the authority of their directors by listening to the slaves and they only interfered in a dire emergency. Their interest in the well-being of their bondsmen was at most superficial and was dictated more by the fear of loosing valuable property than by feelings of responsibility or humanity.<br /><br />The only planters in whom one might look for manifestations of the true paternal spirit were the Jews. Most of them lived on, or at only a short distance of, their plantations. If they were not bankrupted, they retained their estates for generations. Furthermore, they can be regarded as representatives of the ‘Iberian mentality’, which in the opinion of Tannenbaum was so conductive to the development of paternalism. There are indeed some indications of this attitude to be discerned. They treated their colored offspring much better than the Christians did. They allowed them to serve as director on their estates, long before other colonists would even consider them as <em>blankofficier</em>. They supported the organizations of the Jewish coloreds, kept in close contact with them and they were, at least until the end of the 18th century, eager to make them part of their religious community. Other manifestations of this paternalistic attitude are more negative: in some instances, their reaction to the ‘defection’ of a slave seemed rather pathological.<br /><br />This is amply demonstrated by the behavior of Izak de Meza after a <em>faux pas</em> of his mulatto slave woman Adjuba. She had the nerve to complain about her situation to the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>. He did not take her seriously and sent her back to her master, who had to pay for the costs of the proceedings. De Meza was admonished <em>“not to do anything to this slave woman because of the complaints lodged against him”</em>. Not surprisingly, this warning did not make a deep impression on the humiliated master. His disobeyed the order to keep her in Paramaribo indefinitely and dragged her home. Some time later, the Court of Police learned from a slave of the plantation of De Meza that Adjuba had been severely beaten and put in irons. This message was sufficiently alarming to prompt the Court to send <em>Burgerluitenant</em> Vinke to investigate, with the order to bring Adjuba back to Paramaribo if any of these allegations proved to be true. When Vinke arrived on the plantation, he did not find De Meza and a ‘big mulatto’ denied that any woman there had been abused. Vinke went to look for himself and found poor Adjuba in a shed. Her legs were distended and fastened in a block and her mouth was so swollen that she could hardly drink. He did not dare to free her without the permission of her master, so he went to the neighboring plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/rama/index.nl.html">Rama</a></strong>, owned by Jacob de Meza, a brother of Izak. Jacob refused to do anything, except sending for his brother. Vinke managed to persuade Izak to let Adjuba go. She arrived in Paramaribo with no lasting damage and was able to tell the tale of her suffering to the Court.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273478524381940802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNqt_MpjYd7H2lcQaCrtYL2DHDCyMNyj8ocNYwNzpvKIclkr91OzxkTh2QL61AKXYUxmdgbR6EjPC4K3iMxMTkTBIfrvi7OY_RdiVBKrGNrt6H39-4K-GypNJbC7D8T6Rs1FmHEU5jbPY/s400/Jodensavanne2.jpg" border="0" />After a stay of about ten days in the house of a certain De Mesquita in Paramaribo, her master had come to fetch her. He put her in a <em>corjaer</em> and as soon as they were out of sight, he tied her hands behind her back and let her lie without food on the bottom of the boat for the entire journey of two days. When they arrived on the plantation, Adjuba had fallen to her knees and swore that she would never complain again, but De Meza merely replied that the next time she went to see the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>, she could show him more solid proof of abuse: the scars of a <em>Spaanse Bok</em> on her behind (until now she had only been whipped). The next day, he burned her on both arms, cut off her hair, took away her clothes and gave her a <em>maka paantje</em>, with the promise that from now on she would never wear anything else. When she aroused his anger over a triviality, he kicked and beat her, sent away her relatives to the <em>Joden Savanne</em> and threatened her with a <em>Spaanse Bok</em>. Because she feared that she would not survive without her family to care for her, Adjuba decided to run away to the <em>Joden Savanne</em>, hoping to be able to persuade a white to put in a good word with her master. She was caught and brought to the house of De Meza. He locked her in irons under his hammock and left her there for two weeks without any food or drink –an ordeal she only survived because her relatives occasionally managed to slip some victuals to her. Afterwards, De Meza dragged her back to the plantation and tied her to his bed during the night. The next day, he submitted her to the promised <em>Spaanse Bok</em>. From then on, she had to work around the house and was thrashed so often by De Meza and his wife that she begged to be allowed to work in the field (a great humiliation for a mulatto woman). She was denied that privilege. Finally, De Meza nailed her in a block and said she would stay there for the rest of her life as an example to the other slaves. Luckily, she was rescued in time.<br /><br />What had kindled the hatred of De Meza most was not the fact that Adjuba had run away, but the fact that he had lost face when she voiced her grievances to the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>. He declared that he would rather see his slaves run into the forest than have them tattle to the authorities –even though in the latter case the chances of getting them back were infinitely larger. Though De Meza denied any mistreatment of Adjuba (he claimed that her mouth was swollen because of a tooth ague), <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Wichers was convinced of his malice, because he had branded her, which was never done to a mulatto in Surinam.<br /><br />I think it is more accurate to describe the attitude of the Surinam owners as a kind of <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avunculism">avunculism</a></strong>: they shied away from direct involvement in the lives of the slaves and only interfered when they learned of repeated excesses. Yet many of them exhibited a generous attitude on the rare occasions they visited their plantation and they genuinely seemed to enjoy presiding over the distributions and the following outbursts of merriment among the slaves. Some were even willing to forget their dignity for a while and join in the festivities.<br /><br />In general, the Surinam slave owners preferred to stay aloof. On the one hand, this may have stimulated the development of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype">stereotypes</a> about the slaves, which however in essence departed little from the stereotypes entertained about all the lower and subjected classes. On the other hand, they had less need for negative prejudices to rationalize the oppression of blacks than the planters in the Old South had, who felt obliged to defend their cherished institutions against the onslaughts of abolitionists and skeptic northerners. It is doubtful whether the slaveholders of Surinam put much score on the ‘love’ of their slaves. It is clear that they appreciated the professions of attachment showered on them when they graced the plantation with their presence, but they were realistic enough to grasp the relationship between this good cheer and the fact that a considerable amount of goodies was likely to be distributed on such an occasion. The slave owners who lived in Paramaribo only wanted the services of their house slaves. They did not need them for company or distraction and the rumors about poisonings will have stirred their suspicions enough to make them wary of any real intimacy.<br /><br />It was different for the directors. They lived on an isolated estate and were only permitted to leave it in case of an emergency. Their tenure was uncertain and even if there were white officers, they were supposed to keep a certain distance from them. Most directors were only surrounded by their black charges, however. Since in Surinam the owners insisted on their remaining unmarried, they were dependant on black women for sexual release. The reason for this demand is not entirely clear. One hypothesis (though unlikely) is that the wife of the director would hobnob with the wives of the white officers, which might undermine his authority. More likely is the theory that the director, being practically obliged to take a black housekeeper, would be better informed about the goings-on in the slave quarters. In the neighboring colony Berbice, on the contrary, the planters preferred their directors to be married, because they believed it would make them more stable and less vulnerable to the lure of alcohol. Whatever the reason, the archetypical mixed couple was the director and his slave concubine.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Sexual relations between the races.</strong><br /><br />One of the foremost traits of a frontier society in the Western Hemisphere was the lack of women, white women in particular. Black women were scarce too during most of the slavery era, but whites, by virtue of their superior position, could monopolize the most desirable ones for their ‘own use’. Having a white wife did not necessarily prevent a man from acquiring a colored mistress, but this habit seems to have been less widespread in Surinam than in other plantation areas. Many (lower class) white men were unable to procure or support a wife. The directors have already been mentioned. The miserably underpaid soldiers could barely feed and house themselves, let alone take on the responsibility of supporting a family. Even for the officers this was not always feasible and if they did marry, many of them chose a rich older widow, preferably one with a plantation. Ambitious immigrants mostly came alone and few of them sent for a wife from back home.<br /><br />The authorities did their utmost to prevent white men from taking colored lovers. The Servants’ Regulations of 1686 stated: <em>“All inhabitants are sharply forbidden to become intimate with the Negro or Indian women even less with the free Indian women and have carnal conversation with them”</em>. The penalty was a fine of 2000 pounds of sugar. It was considered particularly mortifying when white men got into a dispute over a colored woman. The brothers Benelle of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commetuanekreek/nieuwsorgh/index.nl.html#1aqL">NieuwSorgh</a></strong> fought with swords over a slave girl. One was killed, the other died a few days later of his wounds. As a punishment and to spoil her beauty, one of the eyes of the girl was gouged out. Consequently, the slave name of the plantation became <strong>Lasai</strong> (loss eye).<br /><br />For white women the scarcity of acceptable partners had the dubious advantage that few of them remained unmarried for long. They tended to live to a much riper age than their husbands (whose debaucheries often brought them an untimely grave) and usually found a successor within a couple of months -often one considerably younger: Dirk Hatterman was only 19 when he married Henriëtte de la Jaille, nearly thirty years his senior. One indomitable lady, Governor Mauricius’ archenemy Mrs. Audra, buried no less than five husbands. Their situation, however, was often far from pleasant. They had to suffer the humiliation of their husband’s philandering without being able to stop it. Their only way of protest was to revenge themselves on the girls involved. The much reviled Susanna Duplessis was rumored to have stabbed a beautiful mulatto girl in the chest nine times, because she suspected her husband of being enamored with her. She also branded an attractive Negress, who had just been purchased, on the cheeks, mouth and brow and in addition cut her Achilles tendon. Moreover, white wives had absolutely nothing to do: servants took care of the housework and children, politics were out of bound, if they owned a plantation the husband or administrator saw to that, etc. This only left charity, church, visits and gossip –and idleness often bred malice.<br /><br />Even the possibility of a relationship between a black man and a white woman was regarded with the utmost horror. If something of the kind did occur, the secret was closely guarded. However, two such unions, which came to light in 1711, prompted the Governor and the Court of Police to the following statement: <em>“as we have found to our profound regret that some female persons do not scruple to have carnal intercourse with negroes and while these are affairs giving a great scandal to the whole colony</em> [so is it that] <em>to prevent this kind of whoring and fornication in the future, we have decided ... that in case it shall be discovered that any white female person being unmarried, shall have carnal intercourse with a negro, that female person shall be severely whipped and banished from this colony for life. And in case any married female person shall stoop to this, she shall not only be severely whipped, but also branded and banished from this colony for life and the negro with whom this has been done shall be punished with death without any connivance.”<br /></em><br />Stedman also claimed that the black lover would be <em>“put to death without mercy”</em> and it seems likely that this has indeed happened on several occasions. Though I never encountered an actual case of a black being executed for this reason, I found an Indian slave (Jantie) who did fall victim to this kind of injustice, even though the woman involved (Janna Levie) acknowledged that she had seduced him. She was banished from the colony, but the Court of Police did not grant the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> his wish to thrash her soundly.<br /><br />White society did not look upon the liaisons of white men with tinted women in quite the same way, though there was a lingering residue of ambivalence about these relationships. Because of the circumstances, they were common enough and the man in question incurred little stigma, but he was supposed to keep his private life scrupulously private. Governor Van Sommelsdijck, for example, refused to accept Lucas Couderc as a member of the Court of Police, because he was “<em>living very scandalously with a</em> [black]<em> house maid”</em>. The fact that the church denounced such relationships as sinful (even though church servants indulged in them just the same) and that the authorities had officially forbidden them (deluding themselves that they could actually be stopped), made it ill advised to flaunt them. The social control exerted by white women may not have been sufficiently stringent to oblige the erring men to mend their ways, but at least it made them careful not to confront these matrons with their unwanted presence during social gatherings.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273479160442662578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwDcfDChTUTr_tRlGYl-1aYBuoOUqtv_BnJGzDZa9lhGHLowFfaxgi5gbG6YrLKQGnTi4AmgfENtNXZ1xnrppg9VJrjq10q2W5snZWg6xHmiZvniWsQeDz9Edef26bR5LIff8NKqkfYk/s400/missies.jpg" border="0" />The element of force in the establishment of such liaisons must not be discounted. Many colonists were in an excellent position to force non-white women into relationships that disgusted them. The women on the plantations were especially vulnerable in this regard. Some cautious owners explicitly forbade their employees to trifle with the ‘married’ women, but it was a rare one indeed who declared all plantation women taboo. Some directors, either too drunk or too insensitive to care, did not shy from actually raping their unfortunate charges. Several instances of such scandalous behavior became known and the culprits were brought to trial. In one case, the director obliged female slaves to lie side by side in his room, while he amused himself with one or the other. A suckling woman was instructed to leave her child with a friend while she awaited her turn. Usually, more subtle forms of pressure were sufficient.<br /><br />Sometimes slave men functioned as a kind of pimps. Coridon of the plantation <strong>Montauban</strong> was on patrol when his commander Rodenkirchen asked him to procure a girl for him. Coridon fortunately knew several girls without husbands and sent him one. The girl was not very cooperative, though. After her second visit, she declared that she loathed him and refused to come again. Rodenkirchen blamed Coridon for this humiliation and the farce ended in a fight between them.<br /><br />It was not unusual for slave women to refuse the advances of a white suitor and if he was neither her owner, nor her director, she had a good chance of getting away with it. A girl named Nanoe, who belonged to Willem Bedloo, a member of the Court of Police, had been hired out to the <em>chirurgijn</em> Oeting, who had forced her to become his concubine. He treated her so badly that she fled back to her master and refused to have any connection with him anymore. Twice, Oeting tried to speak with her, but she would not give him the time of day. One night, Oeting and a couple of friends, in an inebriated state, kicked in the ‘Negro gate’ of Bedloo’s domicile, beat up the stable boy Donné and scared the hell out of Bedloo's aged mother, whose door they also assaulted. All in a vain attempt to get Nanoe back. Though no real harm was done, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> recommended Oeting for punishment.<br /><br />Often, little force was necessary because the women got tangible rewards from a liaison with a white, especially a plantation director. At the very least, it lightened their workload considerably. Many of the<em> sissies</em> had few tasks beyond supervising the household and pleasing their lord. Sometimes, they only had to do the latter. Kappler once visited the director of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/parakreek/onverwacht/index.nl.html">Onverwacht</a></strong> in the Para region. He noticed that after breakfast the director climbed on his horse and rode to the plantation “<em>where he visited the pretty negresses, who willingly subjected to his sultanic pretenses, but though they were entered as house maids in the slave list, since no director lives there, they did not have to perform the least work and spent their time in idleness”</em>. Other directors spoiled their favorites terribly. Director Mamin of <strong>Vrouwenvlijt</strong> had a series of concubines. The first one, Adjuba, “<em>continuously</em> <em>received presents of money from his meager wages”</em>. She was replaced by Animba for whom <em>“he tries to move heaven and earth to get her on the plantation with him”</em>. Finally, Neeltje came along: she was promised her freedom in his will, but as she had misbehaved after his demise and had been sentenced to forced labor, it is doubtful that she was actually manumitted. Another reason that slave women may have preferred white lovers is the fact that their children could hope for a less difficult existence and even freedom.<br /><br />In a number of cases, there seems to have existed a lasting and genuine affection between a director and his concubine. The director and<em> blankofficier</em> of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/pauluskreek/eylant_en_puttenzorg/index.nl.html">‘t Eyland</a></strong>, for example, were much surprised when their <em>bastiaan</em> Hendrik caught four slaves of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/santa_barbara/index.nl.html">Santa Barbara</a></strong> who were bringing back the slave woman Mimi in the middle of the night. It turned out that the director of Santa Barbara often sent slaves to fetch Mimi on Saturday night and to bring her back on Monday morning very early. He had formerly been the director of ‘t Eyland and had started a relationship with Mimi that had resulted in five children. Mimi confessed that she still felt a great affection for him and this was obviously mutual. Both lovers were punished, not so much because of the affair, but Mimi because she had left her plantation without the permission of her master and director Hoth because he had undermined the authority of his colleague by fetching slaves from his plantation without his consent and because he had endangered the slaves he had sent to fetch Mimi. They could have easily been mistaken for runaways and shot, or they could have come into conflict with the slaves of ‘t Eyland.<br /><br />The concubines of plantation directors were mostly slave women, but in the city, the majority of the mistresses of white men were free or freed. Many employees of the Society had a relationship with a slave girl and attempted to buy her freedom. Jacques Richard, the assistant tax collector, for example, bade Governor Nepveu for the freedom of Dorothea and her two mulatto children in 1770. He was willing to give a good slave in compensation for each of them. Nepveu was tempted to accept the offer: <em>“I must say that these Slaves even the Mother though she is still a Maid in the prime of her Years, are now so weaned from doing anything that they are of no use to the Hon. Society nor any governor who may come here at any time”</em>. She was not the only one who was indulged like that: <em>“there are several Other Maids who are in the same position, and as it seems have done nothing, but to Divert themselves and to breed Mulattoes”</em>. Some of them had lost all sense of decorum: they had received baptism and occasionally they <em>“had themselves driven to church in a carriage”</em>. Nepveu concluded: <em>“Certainly such spoiled People can do little Service here anymore”</em>.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273479975003704802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Khf9KzwtBjd2LNvVW-dNgRBYP6a28lHKb0pfdAcoEpMnpSEmj5c3GDU2eLwZs_f6jE9roafOmYj7IzRS4DEqM-fY9qlGBXS2wZw0D8ZSrEbqC3vAgqBbIOpiXAuVWMzHELuz_YxR_nI/s400/dooptocht.jpg" border="0" />Sometimes a man wanted to free his concubine, but because of the circumstances was not able to and when he did not own the woman himself, this could lead to tragedy. Benoit witnessed how a beautiful young Creole woman, the mistress of one of his friends and the mother of his two children, was auctioned off. The man had vowed to buy her freedom, but died on the day he had planned to go to Paramaribo to arrange this.<br /><br />Whatever the feelings of a white man for his colored mistress, he would never treat her as an equal. She was not allowed to accompany him when he went out, because even though most white men did not mind this, white women would never tolerate their presence. Therefore, the <em>missies </em>were limited to each other’s company, which consequently they sought out frequently. Theirs was an idle, but not unpleasant existence, according to Lammens: “<em>The housekeepers confine themselves,</em> [in order to] <em>to maintain authority and direction in the house and among the slaves: to do little or nothing with regard to housekeeping; -they pursue pleasure, their parties, visits, dus, all these affairs make for large posts on the credit side”</em>. Only the lowliest whites would seat themselves at a table with them to eat. A man might speak of his colored offspring as his son or his daughter, but he would never refer to their mother as his wife.<br /><br />The female partner in such a relationship was usually very loyal. When the man went to Europe and she expected him to return, she would refuse any other commitment. When she did not count on seeing him again, however, she would try to find another white to take his place. If she was beyond her prime, she was often reduced to relationships with privates and other common folk. Sometimes, a man was willing to take his mistress to Europe with him, especially if she was light in color, but in most instances the women refused, because they feared they would be looked down on in Europe. Such was, for example, the stance of Joanna, the beloved of John Gabriel Stedman, who reluctantly left her behind in the care of a good mistress. These steady relationships between a white man and a colored woman were called <strong>Surinamese marriages</strong>.<br /><br />In spite of all the tolerance for such bonds, an official marriage was definitely out. In the eyes of many colonists, a white man who wed a colored woman disgraced himself beyond redemption. The Court of Police wrote to the directors of the Society on this matter: <em>“The objection against such a marriage is that it is repugnant and repulsive, utterly disgraceful for a white person, whether out of sexual perversion or for food, to enter in such a marriage, which has always been despised here. It is also true that in order to maintain our upright position in the middle of such a perverted and twisted people we must rely more on the feeling of the negroes for our preeminence over them, as if we are of a better and nobler nature, than on our real power. What will they believe about that excellent nature if they see that they need only to be free in order to join with us in a solemn bond of marriage and thus have their children the companions of our own? Should not the laxity of whites who so debase themselves be singled out for criticism?”<br /></em><br />The case that brought on this outburst was the request of Nanette Samson to be permitted to wed a white man. She was one of the richest of women in Surinam, whose plantations yielded a yearly income of more than 80.000 guilders -an excellent catch for a penniless white. The Court refused permission, but the Society decreed it had no right to do so. The first candidate having died in the process, Nanette Samson then appeared with a second one and was duly married. Agnes de L’Isle also wed a white man, Herman Stukkenbroek. <em>“She is the daughter of a Negro, born on the Plantation named ‘t Eyland, of which she then has adopted the name L’Isle”</em>, noted Samuel Duplessis. After her husband had died, she was accused of operating a brothel in her house and even of performing abortions. There were more colored women with a white husband, but they remained a rare phenomenon. For the man in question such a marriage often proved a handicap for his career. When Lieutenant Cremer got engaged to a colored woman, the Governor muttered that <em>“her grandmother had never been married”</em> and had borne children from several men. Her whole family was dark-skinned and she herself was so dark that he doubted that white Mr. Adolf <em>“really was her father”.</em> For a colored woman, the official marriage to a white man was the ultimate triumph. It could only be attained by the most prosperous and cultivated and placed them at the top of their class. It did however help little towards their acceptance in white society. Only at the end of the slavery era, when some exceptionally talented, light-skinned men, like attorney-at-law <a href="http://www.encyclopediabelgica.com/index.php/Hendrik_Charles_Focke">H. C. Focke</a>, gained acceptance in the highest circles, this attitude slowly changed.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The wages of ‘sin’.<br /></strong><br />The Tannenbaum-Elkins thesis is that the easier acceptance of interracial sexual relationships and their fruits (probably caused by a greater familiarity with swarthy persons) lubricated the communication between black and white in the Latin-American territories. Interracial liaisons were much more common in these parts and consequently, the slavery system was considerably less harsh. <a href="http://www.cultural-materialism.org/cultural-materialism/harris.asp">Marvin Harris</a> has objected vehemently to this theory: <em>“In general, when human beings have the power, the opportunity and the need, they will mate with members of the opposite sex regardless of color or the identity of grandfather. Whenever free breeding in a human population is restricted, it is because a larger system of social relations is menaced by such freedom.” </em>In his view, the libido of West-Europeans was no more 'monochromatic' than that of their Latin counterparts.<br /><br />It is true that the frequency of such encounters did not differ fundamentally -but the attitude towards them did. Many Protestants were crippled by feelings of guilt because of their weakness in the eye of temptation. The whites of Surinam, although mostly stiff Calvinists by heritage, did not seem to have been much troubled by such feelings, though. Their attitude with regard to the fruits of interracial liaisons was, however, closer to that of the Anglo-Saxons.<br /><br />Inevitably, the peccadilloes of white men with their colored mistresses yielded results. These were carefully classified according to tint. In fact, the colonists seem to have been just as precise in distinguishing various shades of brown as their Brazilian colleagues were. The offspring of a white and a black was called a <strong>mulat</strong>, that of a <em>mulat </em>and a white a <strong>musties</strong>, the offspring of a white and a <em>musties</em> was a <strong>casties</strong> (or <em>quateron</em> in the parlance of Stedman), while the mating of a white and a <em>casties </em>produced a <strong>poesties</strong>. Beyond that, no further distinctions were made and people with more European blood were quietly allowed to pass for white. The offspring of a mulatto and a black was called a <strong>karboeger</strong>. No other names for the children of a <em>musties</em>, <em>casties</em> or <em>poeties</em> and a black were known, indicating that these unions were rare indeed. The Indian seemed to have held a position equal to that of a mulatto on the color scale, because the child of an Indian and a white was also called a <em>musties</em> and that of an Indian and a black a <em>karboeger</em>.<br /><br />Contrary to the situation in the United States, a careful distinction was made between the black and the colored slaves. A mulatto slave did not have to labor in the field. The men were mostly taught a trade and the women worked as house servants and were in much demand as concubines. The lighter-skinned slaves proved more of a problem. A <em>musties</em> could not be forced to do the same work as a mulatto. The boys were therefore taught a more sophisticated craft, like cabinetmaker or silversmith, or they traded in valuables; while the girls were taught to sew and embroider, or were trained as a ladies’ maid. Slaves of even lighter hue were a bit of an anomaly: it was difficult to find the right employment for them. At the same time, their numbers increased steadily because of the preference of the white men for lighter partners. Consequently, they made up the majority of the manumitted slaves.<br /><br />Not all men took good care of their children by colored women. Some were (still) too irresponsible to face the consequences of their actions. Nassy complained, for example, that boys of no more than twelve years already sired children with slave women. This occurred more frequently among the Christians than among the Jews, in his opinion, because the Jews guarded their children much closer -especially the girls, who were never allowed to be alone with a Negro. It made a difference, of course, whether the father lived on the plantation, instead of being a former resident or a passing visitor. A director had no reason to be particularly indulgent towards the children of his predecessors. The presence of white women played an important part as well. Hoetink maintained that after the stock exchange crisis the Surinamese marriage gained in respectability: <em>“several fathers taking care of their Surinamese children with a dedication which would have been almost unthinkable if the number of European women had been sufficiently great to exert ‘normal’ social control”</em>.<br /><br />When a father went back to Europe, he was expected to provide for his former mistress and his children. Sometimes he even took his children along. Stedman traveled back in the company of his son Johnny and he saw to it that the boy received a good education. In the 19th century, some men even sent their sons to university. Several of these ‘chosen ones’ later returned to the colony and gained a prominent position. The offspring of the many casual matings were not so fortunate. With little or no support from their father, who was often dead poor himself, they lived like paupers on the fringe of society -an inevitable outcome in a colony that was not really geared for the accommodation of non-whites who had escaped slavery.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273479581758333938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 394px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 234px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9c8rVZKxfmd0LiY0FZBhIpEnJELKgOnfD5I7M3wileRI4sfFfKztKFX7b8lNKBL5WYU4qOCAUvJEP_tjUare13Gj9y1kZhxd3VqPwDtY7ccWiDtW0odFdtXndRL1Qf2GtqkcUSDT6V18/s400/theevisite.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>The price of freedom.</strong><br /><br />Until far into the 18th century, the number of free Negroes (<em>vrijnegers</em>) in Surinam was so small that it did not merit separate attention in the yearly census that was sent to the directors of the Society of Surinam. The figures concerning whites and red and black slaves were all that mattered. By various ways, their numbers steadily increased, however, and they became a factor that had to be taken into account.<br /><br />There were three ways in which a slave, if he was talented and dedicated enough, could win his freedom. Firstly, he could be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumission">manumitted</a> by his owner, as a reward for faithful service, or by virtue of being his offspring. Secondly, his freedom could be bought by someone else for the same reasons. For example, the government sometimes purchased and freed slaves who had denounced a conspiracy. Lastly, he could buy his freedom himself, though this happened only sporadically. The percentage of free Negroes in Surinam was among the lowest in the whole Caribbean. Obviously, manumission was not stimulated by the desire to have a group that functioned as a buffer between whites and slaves, or performed tasks for which no white workers could be found and that could not be done by slaves –which, according to Harris, were the main reasons free coloreds were so plentiful in Brazil.<br /><br />In Surinam, being manumitted was the privilege of the lightest and of the most favored slaves and for most of the slavery era, it was a comparatively rare occurrence. It necessitated a complicated and rather expensive bureaucratic procedure. In the early period, there was already a stringent manumission code. It decreed that the prospective freedman had to be able to earn his keep. Furthermore, he was obliged to show the proper respect to all whites and especially to the ex-owner, who was to be awarded <em>“all Honor, Respect and Reverence”</em>. In case he forgot his station to the extent of hitting his former master or mistress, he could be reduced to slavery again. If his former owner sunk into poverty, the manumitted slave had to contribute to his support. He was not allowed to marry a slave woman and if he had offspring by one, he would loose his freedom when the third child was born (the first two only carried a fine). If he died without issue, the former owner was entitled to a quarter of his estate. Owners seeking to manumit a slave were obliged to have him educated and brought up in the Christian faith.<br /><br />At the end of the 18th century, when scores of planters manumitted slaves merely to spite their creditors, new obstacles were put in the way of freedom. The owner had to post a bond of several hundreds of guilders, which would be used for the support of the ex-slave if he was no longer able to care for himself. The freedman had to donate 100 guilders to the Runaway Fund, or serve for three years in the <em>Vrijcorps</em>. Manumission by will was declared null and void if the estate was not solvent. The former owner had to keep an eye on the freedman and make sure that he was able to support himself, or he could appoint a guardian (called <em>straatvoogd</em>) to do so. In that case, the caution was not necessary. In 1832, it was reaffirmed that, in order to qualify for freedom, a slave had to be a baptized member of an officially recognized denomination, be it EGB, Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, Catholic, or Jewish.<br /><br />The amount of money the owners had to pledge rose steadily over the years, to 500 guilders in the beginning of the 19th century. Few of them were prepared to lay out so much cash. To circumvent this kind of extortion, the slave was sometimes ‘sold to himself’. As long as the ‘new owner’ did not pay off his debt, he legally remained a slave. He then got the status of <em>piekie-njan</em> (literally ‘one who is looking for food’). The number of these quasi-slaves rose so fast in the beginning of the 19th century, that it was decreed in 1829 that they had to report for registration, on penance of becoming government property. In principle, they were supposed to earn enough money to pay for their emancipation, but few bothered: it was better to be one’s own slave than to be free. In 1843, the caution was lowered to 200 guilders and it could be bought off by donating 75 guilders (for children under 12), or 50 guilders (for adults) to the colonial treasury.<br /><br />The costs also included the fee for drawing up the official manumission letters: in 1843 16 guilders for a single slave and 25 guilders for a woman and her children. An example of such a deed is the following declaration of Gratia Grandis (1754): <em>“I the undersigned declare to relieve from slavery and give freedom to my negress named Filidas, with her three children named Betina, Datú and Sipion, and this in reward and compensation for Filidas’ loyal services, rendered to me from time to time, she will however not be allowed to enjoy her freedom sooner, then after my demise, like she will then also be able to live where she considers it best, without anyone, whoever it may be interfering with her or disturbing her”</em>. It has been well documented that provisions like these prompted slaves that did not want to wait any longer into poisoning their benefactor.<br /><br />Not all freedom papers came with no strings attached. The testament of Simon van Halewijn (a notorious troublemaker who got himself embroiled with half the colonists) stated: <em>“I relieve from slavery the following; my Negro Isaac, the First Negro Officer of my plantation het Eiland, for his faithful services, his Wife Affrica, with their Children and descendants, as well as the children he will have with his second Wife Lisabeth, who he will recognize as his own. I also give freedom to my negro House Servant Leveille and his Wife Mauri and the Children and descendants that they may have in the future. Under the condition that Isaac and Leveille and their aforementioned Wives and Children and the descendants that they may have in the future continue to live on one of my Plantations on the Paulus creek or the so called Peperpot situated between the Plantations Meersorg and Laliberté in Surinam, and that they will continue in the service they perform at the moment”</em>. They were to receive a salary of 150 guilders a year and a ration of meat and clothes, which would be theirs even when they could not work anymore. Their children would be taught a useful trade. A slave called Coffy was freed as result of the deathbed request of Governor J.A. de Cheusses, whom he had nursed during his final illness. However, were his widow to leave for Europe, Coffy had to accompany her, whether he liked it or not.<br /><br />In the 19th century, an owner who wanted to free a slave had to place an advertisement that announced the happy occasion, so other colonists were able to voice their objections. One such an advertisement read like this: <em>“As Mariana Isaak Nathan Samson has addressed the Court of Police and Criminal Justice, with a request to His Excellency the Governor, asking, for reasons included, with dispensation of the normal period of Session, to be allowed to obtain letters of freedom for the negress named Affiba and her two children by the names of Bébé and Fannij, belonging to her. So be it, that now everyone who claims to have any right or pretense on the said slaves is advised to state these, at the secretariat of the said Court, before the 29th of this month: since after expiration of this period the request will be decided on as shall be deemed proper. Paramaribo 15th of March 1826”</em><br /><br />When the freedom of a slave was bought by others, it could be for several reasons. The authorities sometimes freed a slave who had performed a meritorious deed, occasionally with the provision that he had to (continue to) serve them. In 1772, they also decided to buy and free slaves who had yet to perform their heroic acts: as members of the <em>Vrijcorps</em>, who had to fight the Maroons. In an orgy of frenzied spending, they bought 300 of the best slaves of the colony, some at prices surpassing 1000 guilders. The recruits received a salary of 9 guilders a month while on patrol, but had to provide their own sustenance when not. To this end, they were given a tract of land near Paramaribo: <em>Frimansgron</em>.<br /><br />They were assured that they would have free access to the plantations to visit their wives and children, but it turned out that this was an empty promise in many cases. Quite a few directors did not allow them on the premises, fearing trouble and the envy of the not so fortunate slaves. For this reason, the Governor and Court of Police issued the following statement in November 1772: <em>“Since some planters and administrators or their directors refuse, to receive and tolerate the aforementioned freedmen on their plantation, by which they are wholly separated from and deprived of their wives, children and families, which causes such great desperation in them, that not only all the courage and willingness disappear from them, but even despising the awarded freedom,</em> [they] <em>would rather choose slavery again than remain separated from their relations … And since the affair is of such vital importance for the survival and well-being of this precious Colony and its inhabitants …</em> [we] <em>have approved and considered</em> [it]<em> necessary to recommend every citizen, to permit the aforementioned freedmen to stay in the most suitable manner, when they are not on patrol or used for the common good, on the plantations with their wives or families”</em>.<br /><br />Few slaves were able to save enough money to buy the freedom of themselves or their loved ones. One exception was the baptized Dorothea van Paramaribo, who succeeded in buying her own and her children’s freedom for the impressive sum of 1600 guilders (unfortunately it is not clear how she managed to procure such a fortune). Some successful artisans were very well able to buy their freedom, but refused to do so because of the protection their slave status provided: they could rely on their master for help to secure payment for their services; they did not have to pay taxes, nor serve in the militia and they were less subject to arbitrary treatment than <em>vrijnegers</em>. Stedman remarked about this subject: <em>“I have known a negro, being a smith, and named Joseph, who had, because of his long and faithful services, been offered freedom, but who refused this with great conviction, and preferred to remain slave with a good master. This man owned several slaves himself; he lived in a comfortable and well-furnished house, and he even owned some pieces of silverware. When his master and mistress came to see him, he offered them delicious wine and sherbet.”<br /></em><br />Most of the slaves who were manumitted by a white owed this fortunate turn in their circumstances to their intimate relation with the man concerned. He often had to make a considerable sacrifice. Governor Texier, for example, advised the Society in 1780 to divest itself from the mulatto slaves Coba with her son, Andrea and the boy Pietje if <em>“6 young sturdy Man Negroes” </em>were given in return. This was a good deal for the Society, as the women were ordinary house servants and Pietje was retarded because of convulsions.<br /><br />Some bondsmen gained their freedom by the simple fact of having been in Europe. Their owners had decided to take along their favorite servant when returning to their homeland to recuperate and it turned out that it was most expedient to free them in advance. Otherwise, the slave had a good chance of securing his freedom papers by a decision of the Court, as can be inferred from the following case. In 1717 an alleged slave woman arrived by boat from Holland. She had formerly been owned by a Mr. Groenwoud, but claimed to be free and showed a letter signed by the Reverend Hibersma from Amsterdam, stating that he had accepted her as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church (the implication being that she was not a slave at the moment). However, the director of the plantation of Mr. Groenwoud claimed she was still the property of the estate. The case was left to be decided by the Society.<br /><br />Dutchmen, though accepting slavery in principle, were not prepared to deal with it in their own country. Their presumptions were in favor of freedom. The alleged owner had to prove unequivocally that the slave in question had not been freed before departure. Most of the time, black servants got the benefit of the doubt and were treated as free persons. The Burgomaster of Middelburg, for example, wrote to the Governor that a servant named Eva <em>“here totally is and was acknowledged & regarded as a Free Person”</em>. When Eva returned to Surinam, she wanted to have her free status confirmed. Her mistress Jacoba Nullings strongly disagreed.<br /><br />How great a risk an owner took by sending a slave to Holland, is further proven by the trials of Salomon Duplessis. His correspondent in Amsterdam, Jean Couderc, informed him that the slave Gideon, who had accompanied his son as a tutor and whose return he had demanded, had run away and had sought the protection of Mr. Erbefeld, the agent of the King of Prussia. Erbefeld had sent Gideon to Germany, where he had entered the employ of a prominent man. Couderc declared not to be able to reclaim him, because <em>“to force such a person with violence is not permitted here”</em>. If he tried to kidnap him, he could be fined 3000 guilders. When a slave had spent six months in the Low Countries, he was, for all intents and purposes, free.<br /><br />In the 19th century, a few slaves could thank the awakening abolitionist sentiment in the Netherlands for their release. It had taken a remarkably long time for this to happen, especially since by then it had been a red-hot issue on the other side of the Channel for over 30 years. The Christians in the Low Countries had never been much in favor of emancipation, because they felt that as the descendants of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham">Cham</a> blacks were destined to be ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’. Neither had they forgotten the bloody revolution in Haiti. Nevertheless, during the 19th century they gradually adopted the Negroes of Surinam as charity cases. Some of them joined the Liberals (who were not deluded by the teachings of the Bible and considered slavery to be an economically unviable institution at the very least) in the <strong>Maatschappij ter Bevordering van de Afschaffing der Slavernij</strong> (Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery). They raised money and eventually bought the freedom of about 200 bondsmen. This was an almost negligible percentage of the slave population, of course, but important as a token of their compassion.<br /><br />Towards the middle of the 19th century, the opposition against slavery became increasingly vocal and put a heavy pressure on the members of the Dutch parliament, who in turn forced the government to better the treatment of the slaves and to come up with a scheme for peaceful emancipation. The government dallied with various strategies, until a date was finally set: the first of July 1863. The owners received a compensation of 300 guilders per slave and the ex-slaves were required to stay on as plantation laborers for a period of 10 years.<br /><br />Their new status brought little joy to most of the freedman during slavery times. Apart from the very light-skinned coloreds with well-to-do and indulgent fathers, most ex-slaves barely scraped by. The majority of them had either been artisans or house servants. The first group was in theory excellently prepared for their new position, but often it did not work out as planned. The white inhabitants preferred to hire slaves when they had the chance, even when this was more expensive, and they had great trouble collecting the money due to them. For the others it was even more difficult to make ends meet. They had an indestructible disdain for plantation labor, so they tried to keep their head above water with odd jobs, or by becoming itinerant traders. Many were dependent on subsistence farming. They hovered along the outskirts of Paramaribo, looked down on even by the slaves.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285624242028719586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 242px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglv7af2e4Z1OhOpXh1uiVn6Vnoc6XOl3HsbMdJYZiR5DdEbj7GtcjqMzKIWYMHDwWr76I5FwLWzkwS1oZn9arPMpBORTeThF_iep05XQRD6zTI-lkStA5TjCUIJB76ivpv9g485kx6Ttg/s400/quadroon.jpg" border="0" />Most colonial authors did not have a very favorable opinion of the freedmen. Lammens, for example, grumbled: “<em>They stroll along the streets of Paramaribo with nothing to do: -abandon themselves to all debaucheries –the philosophy of the day, this unbound charity changes an industrious class, into a true burden to society. A large part of the ones freed this way would, without the loving support of their former masters perish from want, or help themselves to other people’s property illegally. Though one can gain a considerable daily wage here, and needs for the living expenses only the work of two days a week; many of them are not able, to pay the poll-tax, but are in deep misery, are needy, without any apparent cause, but laziness. We would need a tropical Frederiksoord here.”</em> Westphal was even less charitable: <em>“The Creole or native of Surinam, not belonging to a highly civilized class, is on the whole very lazy, indolent and imperious, very fond of jewelry and beautiful clothes, the dance parties are his beloved pastime, agriculture is a horror in his eyes, when the Master or Owner frees a slave, be it Negro or Mulatto, the freed slave may then wear shoes and receives from his countrymen the Honor of being called Masra, which in the Dutch language means Lord, even if the Owner of this freed slave gave him a beautiful and fertile piece of land the freed slave would not work that piece of land himself! And when one asks such a person why he does not work that piece of land, one gets as the answer of this freed slave, I have no hands, meaning I have no slaves!”<br /></em><br />Even if a freedman had a good education, he often did not display the least initiative. Kappler was extremely irritated by one of his travel companions, a <em>“thick, idle, bloated mulatto”</em>, who had been trained as a<em> chirurgijn</em>, but did nothing with his precious knowledge. Some freedmen made good use of their opportunities though: Governor De Goyer noted in 1711 that a free Negro named Jan Wittekar worked his grounds with the aid of two whites and two slaves.<br /><br />According to Harry Hoetink, <em>“a paternalistic slave system which through frequent manumissions produces a relatively large number of free people for whom there is hardly any place in the economic structure may tend to intensify unfavorable attitudes toward them among the whites. The situation in Surinam would then suggest that a cruel slave system tends to interest the whites into the creation of alliances with free people, which may lead to the improvement of the latter’s social and economic position.”</em> There is a lot to say for this hypothesis. For their very survival, the Surinam whites were obliged to create alliances with several groups of non-whites: Indians, the ‘satisfied’ Maroons (later called Bush Negroes) and ultimately the ex-slaves of the <em>Vrijcorps</em>. However, it goes too far to say that this improved the social and economic position of the freedmen class as a whole, because Surinam society did not really have a niche for them either, nor did it improve the attitude of most whites towards them, as we have seen. The free coloreds without specialized skills were especially difficult to integrate. Moreover, the lighter their hue, the bigger the problem. Only at the end of the slavery era, when (as a result of the growing scarcity of educated whites) the government came to depend more and more on colored civil servants, they found their place in society.<br /><br />Many writers have castigated free Negroes for their lack of revolutionary zeal, but Genovese has eloquently defended the American freedmen against these allegations: <em>”If, under the circumstances, the free negroes never rose against the regime in a suicidal gesture, neither did they ever give clear evidence of their loyalty and reliability to the master class. They kept their own council and held on to what they had as best as they could. Their course may have lacked the theatrics that nowadays pass for revolutionary heroics in middle-class circles, but it had dignity, purpose and wisdom.”</em> This goes for most of the Surinam freedmen as well.<br /><br />It is a little naïve to believe that slaves and freedmen had many common interests just because they had a common skin color. Most Surinam whites never really feared an alliance between the <em>vrijnegers</em> and the slaves. They established the <em>Vrijcorps</em> to fight against the Maroons and to perform other military duties, with little suspicion that military training and armament might make them better allies of slaves trying to escape bondage, or Maroons trying to drive them out of Surinam. The <em>Redi Moesoe</em> proved indeed to be singularly successful in battling the forces that threatened stability. The authorities also created a <em>burgerwacht</em> platoon of free coloreds, which, however, turned out to be virtually useless. Not because the members consciously tried to sabotage the efforts to subject the Maroons, but because they simply lacked the fighting spirit of the ‘redhats’. The freedmen just reacted to the circumstances. In Surinam, they had no reason to believe they would be better off in a ‘black republic’ under the domination of Maroon leaders. Yet, an uprising of the <em>vrijnegers</em> and the slaves together would have had a good chance of success in Surinam. In this light, it is all the more remarkable that the whites did not exert themselves more to court their favor.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273483535057889218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 232px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAupVkYjdjRjA8V6FMeg30FDEp1peaXDXxuLl2TN3828zOIZ7cg-lk47zfyBfHGx_UBppSiyfRuiBoym4VizmuxV26yBcv3Jk4hf6qrVT2BrF1-6ZpzzCBNbcmHwwX78ucLuMOnlbFIKI/s400/Stedman-Quassi.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>A black superman.</strong><br /><br />An interesting departure of the usual pattern is the remarkable career of <strong>Quassi van <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/pericakreek/nieuw-timotibo/index.nl.html">Nieuw Timotibo</a></strong>. Born on the coast of Guinea in 1692 and dying at a ripe old age in 1787, his very lifespan is already intriguing. The first time he gained attention was when he rang the alarm bell of his master’s plantation during the attack of Jacques Cassard in 1712. This started a long career of devotion and service to the whites, who proved themselves properly grateful.<br /><br />Quassi was soon singled out by his master because of his intelligence and was employed as a trader with the Indians (<em>bokkeruylder</em>). During his sojourns among them, he learned their languages and all he could about their use of medicinal herbs. Around 1730, he discovered the remarkable qualities of the plant that became known as <em>kwassibita</em>. It soothed fever and stomach troubles. Linneus, who received a sample from the planter Dahlberg, classified it as Quassia amara L. During the next 50 years, Quassi established an enviable reputation as the best<em> dresi</em>- and <em>lukuman</em> of the colony. He was regarded with awe by black and white alike.<br /><br />Quassi started to get into trouble with his (new) master after he had been employed by the Court of Police as a guide in the campaign against the Maroons. If we believe the testimony of director D’Anglade, he may have had good reason to be dissatisfied with the behavior of Quassi, which was not befitting of a humble slave. In a long letter to Frederik and Abraham Camijn, the administrators of Nieuw Timotibo, D’Anglade complained that <em>“he goes, he comes, he moves, he brings along and takes away again some Negroes, and as many as pleases him, without condescending to inform me”</em>. When he objected to such irregularities, Quassi turned insolent and replied: “<em>I may be a Negro, but such a Negro as I am, is worth more than ten whites”</em>. The much-plagued director came to hate him so much that he wrote: <em>“wouldn’t it be better if the heads of all the Negroes, who are like Quasje, would be used to decorate the tops of the gallows, in my opinion this is the only place where one should allow them, I know no better one”</em>.<br /><br />Governor Mauricius explained to the States-General (in his defense against accusations that he employed a criminal): <em>“The truth is, that he, shortly before I bought him, has been in jail, and his whole crime had been, that he had been used to be treated as a free Negro under the former Administrators</em> [but]<em> nowadays had to live under the severe Government of a Frenchman, named Danglade, and possibly well-known in the Fatherland, who, being more demanding than another, wanted to employ this Negro, who sometimes had advised him too boldly for his taste on the Direction of the Plantation, for the dirtiest Jobs. When Quasje did not answer respectfully enough, d’ Anglade sent him to the Fort, as the Owners often do who do not want to punish a Negro themselves.”<br /></em><br />To alleviate these problems and to retain Quassi’s invaluable services for the government, Mauricius proposed to the Society to buy him for the Mineral Company and when he did not receive permission to do so, he bought Quassi himself (giving in return two slaves valued at 600 guilders). He employed him as a scout and <em>bokkeruylder</em>. [The profits of the trade with the Indians had traditionally accrued to the Governor, but by the time Mauricius came to power, they had dwindled to almost nil.] The contract of sale explicitly forbade Quassi <em>“strictly and at the peril of his life … to come directly and indirectly on the aforementioned Plantation Nieuw Timotibo, or even to traverse the River Perica”</em>. Neither was he permitted to wander around freely in Paramaribo, but he had to go straight to the Waterkant to preclude ‘correspondence’.<br /><br />The Court of Police was soon convinced of the usefulness of Quassi. Jan van Sandik, for example, informed the members that many of the young slaves on his plantation <strong>Correpinibo</strong> had died and that he suspected poisoning, but had been unable to ferret out the culprits. Therefore, he asked the Court permission to employ Quassi, who was believed to be a clairvoyant, but only discovered the truth <em>“by his Intrigues during</em> [the]<em> examination of several slaves, when he spent a couple of days on such a Plantation, and also by the fear the other Negroes feel for him,</em> [pretending] <em>as if he could see it like a clairvoyant, and also only for this reason playing this this way, so they would fear him, because he has always uncovered the deeds in advance, as he has proven repeatedly”</em>. The Court mused that <em>“no honest man will believe in the superstitions of clairvoyancy, and in order to discover such evil-doers who are so ruinous for every planter, one should use the best measures available, to bring a people like</em> [the] <em>Negroes who are so obstinate, that before they would confess anything to a white</em> [they]<em> would let themselves be beaten to death, to Confession by this superstition they are afflected with”</em>.<br /><br />For more than forty years, Quassi was also the most prominent intermediary between the colonial authorities and the Maroons, “<em>serving first as a scout, then as a negotiator, and finally as the spiritual and tactical advisor of the specially selected black troops who fought alongside European mercenaries in the great battles of the 1770’s and 1780’s”</em>, according to Price. The Saramaka still feel a enormous hatred for the ‘traitor’ Kawsimukamba. What made them so angry was the following: in 1754, Quassi came back to his patron after a long absence and told him that he had been living among the Saramaka for a year and was willing to direct a patrol to their hideout. Within a year, a force of 500 men, commanded by Captain E.G. Hentschel and guided by Quassi, mounted an attack. The mission was a dismal failure, however. When years later the Saramaka were sounded out about the possibility of a treaty, they demanded Quassi’s head as part of the deal. Not surprisingly, this was refused. In the memory of the modern Saramaka, Quassi lives on as a <em>“self-appointed secret-agent, a spy who almost brought about a terrible defeat which, thanks to the Saramakas’ gods, was transformed into a famous victory”.</em> In their legend about these events, the Saramaka cut off one of Quassi’s ears in revenge, and Price saw their claim substantiated in the drawing made of him by Stedman, in which he indeed seems to miss an ear.<br /><br />Quassi was showered with rewards for his services. To name but a few: in 1730 he was presented with a golden breastplate stating <em>“Quassi, faithful to the whites”</em>; in 1747 the Court of Police allowed Mauricius to give Quassi his freedom, because this would increase his loyalty even more; in 1776, Governor Nepveu sent him to the Netherlands, where he was presented to the <em>Stadhouder</em>.<br /><br />After helping to bring about the peace treaty with the Djuka at the end of the 1760’s, Quassi became a planter himself. He established a plantation on the Perica Creek and persuaded some Carib Indians to work for him. In order to lure more of them to his plantation, he spread the tale that the earth would be destroyed in the near future by apocalyptic floods and fires and that only his plantation would be spared. Many Indians took refuge with him, some coming from as far as the Coppename River, but most of them soon realized that nothing was about to happen and they left again. In 1772, Maroons burned his plantation to the ground and Quassi, who had already celebrated his eightieth birthday and was <em>“grey like a dove”</em>, in vain tried to put together a patrol of slaves to pursue them.<br /><br />In 1777, Governor Nepveu reported that Quassi, at his own request, had been presented with a yard in Paramaribo. The Society paid for the construction of a sturdy house with a lean-to kitchen, which cost about 4000 guilders. He was cared for by a couple of slaves, also donated by the authorities. Quassi was not granted his other request: freedom for three relatives who were still living on Nieuw Timotibo.<br /><br />During his lifetime, his fame not only spread all over Surinam, but to Europe as well. He was deluged with letters by European admirers, addressed to <em>“The Most Honorable and Most Learned Gentleman, Master Phillipus of Quassy, Professor of Herbology in Surinam”</em>. His was a remarkable life, but of course utterly different from that of most freedmen. </div>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-77295289897932654232008-11-18T19:42:00.041+01:002009-02-11T18:03:02.589+01:00Chapter 9: The limits of expression.<div align="justify"><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271214716697534562" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 270px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqsuGr-FzfZVOcbgKObUhgIj1-dOkxIbjeN9NbEjkjJBzKc5hU7HxETPRhyphenhyphenrfAiRxKTDCR489TCbxFDLBV7TXtDFp2z37eO7T9iaXwC3NqfnCzm-ZrXoQGIq8OurtY_0MuUYbmPKWDHA/s400/dansmeester.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><br /><strong>Names.<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/what-s-name-that-which-we-call-rose">Shakespeare</a> wondered ‘what’s in a name’ and the answer must certainly be that there is a hell of a lot in a name. One’s name is an integral part of one’s personality and to abuse it is to humiliate the person himself. The process of becoming a slave took away all individuality of the victims. To their dismay they discovered that their physical integrity was no longer assured: they could be branded, shaved, stripped naked, whipped, etc. For their capturers they were no more than faceless creatures, interchangeable and only valued for their physical abilities. An important feature of this process of dehumanization was the loss of their name: Surinam slaves were stripped of their birth names just as they were stripped of all other reminders of their past. The original African names were often hard to pronounce and hard to remember for whites. Names also identified class and status and elicited the proper degree of respect from one’s fellows. The last thing the masters wanted was for some slaves to feel superior because of descent and for the slave nations to cling to their old status patterns. By bestowing new names on their chattels, they forced them to accept their reversal of fortune symbolically.<br /><br />The birth names of the new slaves were replaced by epithets given to them by the masters. Most of these were specific ‘chattel’ names that a colonist would not dream to use for anyone but a slave or an animal. These included ridiculous and insulting names like <em>Siekedoos</em> (Sickbox)<em> </em>or <em>Dommekragt </em>(Jackscrew); demeaning names like <em>Lakey </em>and names reflecting the pecuniary expectations the master had of the ownership of the slave: <em>Winst</em>, <em>Geluk</em>, <em>Fortuin</em>, <em>Profijt</em>, <em>Present</em>, etc. A mulatto house servant on the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/peperpot/index.nl.html">Peperpot</a></strong> was called <em>Matras </em>(Mattress). Many slaves were known by the (Dutch) names of the days of the week -a good African usance, but any correspondence between their African day names and these new acquisitions was probably pure coincidence. The names of the months were popular as well (one plantation had slaves from Januari to September), so were classical names (Hector, Achilles).<br /><br />Dutch-sounding names were the most frequently bestowed and not all of them had demeaning connotations. Not a few slaves went through life with perfectly ordinary names like Hendrik or Willem. All the baptized slaves chose a (Dutch) Christian name, the most popular being Johannes. Many slaves sported rather pompous French names like Jolicoeur or Lafleur, although names like François or Pierre were also popular. The women often had more pretentious names like Amarentie, Candasie, etc. Some English names were also in use, but less frequent than one would have expected in a former English colony where an English-based creole was widely spoken. They also displayed less creative zeal than the French-sounding names mentioned above.<br /><br />This did not mean that all African names were out. Strangely enough, quite a few slaves went about with popular African names. Whether these were their own original names, is not sure, however. The masters seemed to employ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_name">Ashanti day names</a> eagerly, which in the Surinam versions were for boys (from Sunday to Saturday): Kwassi (also written as Quassi), Kodjo, Kwamina, Kwaku, Jaw, Koffi and Kwami and for girls: Kwassiba, Adjuba, Amba, Animba, Acuba, Jaba, Afiba, Abeniba. In Africa, the day name was in principle a ‘secret name’, which was supposed to have magical connotations. Often, strangers were not allowed to know it. All this makes it highly unlikely that the day names the slaves sported were their own (accept by accident). This is further substantiated by the fact that some of these day names were bestowed frequently, like Kwassi or Koffi, and others hardly ever, like Jaw. Among the women, there was less variety in the names used, so some of the day names, like Amba or Jaba, were especially popular. Sometimes, slaves had African names that may have been their own, Masongo or Jambo for example. Maybe the ingenuity of their masters had temporarily petered out.<br /><br />It should not be thought that the slaves meekly accepted the names bestowed on them by their owners. The whites used them, but frequently their peers did not. Therefore, slaves often had several names (just as the Bush Negroes still have): their <strong>‘official’ name</strong>, given to them by their master; their <strong>day name</strong>; a <strong>‘Negro’ name </strong>used by their fellows and sometimes a <strong>nickname</strong> as well. It is obvious that the whites were aware of this practice, because in the archives they frequently listed ‘aliases’. Slaves that were caught in runaways’ camps were only known to their companions by their ‘Negro’ name.<br /><br />Surinam slaves lacked a surname. In some ways, the plantation name functioned as a surname. A slave was known as <em>Pluto van </em><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/twijfelachtig/index.nl.html"><em><strong>Twijfelachtig</strong></em></a>, for example. In the 19th century, it became the habit to take the surname of an ex-owner after manumission and to add Van (of) to it. This could lead to strange combinations (in Dutch eyes), especially when the name of the ex-owner already started with Van. This could result in surnames like Van van Onna. In some instances, when the former owner was a <em>vrijneger </em>(free Negro), the name of the freedman would become even more elaborate since his/her first name was also added. Such a manumitted slave could then be called something like <em>Johannes van Lydia van van Onna</em>. When the number of manumitted slaves increased, it was realized that there ought to be rules governing the process of choosing a surname. The authorities decided that slaves would not be permitted to borrow the name of their former master or any (other) Dutch surname present in the colony. The ex-slaves circumvented this problem by taking an anagram of their ex-master’s name: for example, Dessé became Essed and Gerholt became Holtreg. Others changed just a few letters. This rule did not stretch to foreign names.<br /><br />When slavery ended, all former slaves had to select a surname and for some this posed a problem. Civil servants were sent to the plantations to register the freedmen and the chosen family names. There was no objection if slaves proposed a name themselves, but most did not care very much, or could not think of an acceptable name. Therefore, most of the surnames registered were the creation of the civil servants themselves. This resulted in many Dutch-sounding, but to Dutch ears somewhat ridiculous names, like <em>Azijnman</em>, <em>Braafheid</em>, <em>Nooitmeer</em>, <em>Treurniet </em>and the like. Other ex-slaves were graced with the names of Dutch cities (<em>Staphorst</em>, <em>Hilversum</em>), or countries (<em>Rusland</em>). Groups of people who considered themselves a family took the same surname and this gives some insight to the composition of the households. Many slaves were single and their surnames would die out soon.<br /><br />Names reflected the individuality of the slaves in several ways. In the first place, the choice of a ‘Negro’ name showed that the slaves did not meekly accept their master’s decision in this matter. The bestowing of nicknames, especially, afforded a large measure of creativity. They were inspired by special occasions, strange habits, distinguishing marks, etc. and often this name changed several times during a person’s life. Furthermore, the slaves not only renamed themselves, but also their plantations. In this respect, however, they showed a remarkable lack of inventivity: scores of plantations were known as <em>Santigron</em>, which did not reveal anything but the fact that they were located on sandy soil. Another frequently employed name was that of the (former) owner: one estate was called <em>Kaukanasi</em> after the first French owner Caucanas, for example. The Maroons took over this custom: their clans were named after the plantations their core members came from. Just like people, plantations were also renamed after remarkable occurrences: the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/beneden-commewijnerivier/johan_en_margaretha_en_buitenrus/index.nl.html">Johan en Margaretha</a></strong>, for example, was rechristened <em>Kerkigron</em> when the Lutheran church became the owner. With their naming practices, the slaves expressed their independence and made the plantations symbolically their own. Many of these names have endured longer than the fancy epithets (like <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/va_comme_je_te_pousse_en_nouvell/index.nl.html">Va Comme Je Te Pousse</a></strong>) bestowed by the owners.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271213719247666834" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 317px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATvvtizbs6J-JJbQOuvLUDt3yzH9yHvhcA3S1_MSdZJ0Avq3k-bFjrnAR3vCa0pDAV1G3PmJJBF2SLfxBgLOzDPVRANPUOBKqzrCwyPgsJZOD83KcRmtbl7Jff28Eo5Eq1PreSlZV1pU/s400/Bosneger.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><strong><br /><br />Art.</strong><br /><br />It is remarkable that the slaves seemed to have had so little tradition in handicrafts. Most crafts that were widely known in Africa (iron and copper work, basketry, pottery, weaving, etc.) were largely lost by the slaves of Surinam (though they were partly revived by the Maroons). Even woodcarving receded to the background. The slaves probably fashioned some crude furniture, bowls and spoons for daily use, but it never became much of an industry with them. Among the Maroons, woodcarving became the most prominent craft, in which they attained a high level of mastery. Even with them, though, the very African-like designs only were developed in the 19th century, in all probability, as Jean-Marcel Hurault claimed, without much direct African influence. The ‘rebel’ objects that Stedman collected were <em>“of a crude fashion and bore no ornaments at all”.</em><br /><br />Only around 1845, Coster detected the first decorations on the properties of the slaves. These were probably carvings on calabashes, which were the first to develop among the handicrafts. The slaves seem, for the most part, to have limited their passion for decoration to their own bodies. Since the majority of the utensils they used were ready-made (often of iron), they had little impetus to beautify them. Crafts like weaving and pottery were abandoned because they were of no use to them: clothes and pots were issued by the masters. Even the rebels in the forest did not reinvent the skills needed to fashion them. They remained dependant on the goods of the whites, which they stole with glee. Only the Saramaka learned to make pots from the Acouri Indians. If the slaves had any artistry, their talents did not lie in designing but in expression.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Appearance.</strong><br /><br />Clothes are not only pieces of fabric to cover one’s nakedness or provide warmth. If they were, the slaves would have contented themselves with the stingy allowances the masters provided, because these were (just) sufficient for these purposes. Clothing was for slaves a prime way to adorn and distinguish themselves. Slaves wanted to show off to each other, especially during dances. Consequently, these were a colorful sight: <em>“The girls not seldom wear the clothes and jewelry of their mistresses at these occasions and there is a splendor that amazes”</em>, wrote Kappler and he added: <em>“It is indeed a beautiful sight to see this mass dressed up in all colors, glittering with real and phony gold and jewels by the sheen of a mass of lamps and by the din of a horrible music in a perpetual movement, so one imagines having been transported to the East”</em>. Von Sack mentioned that one could see <em>“all the fashions of half a century on their bodies”</em>.<br /><br />Without doubt were the slaves of Paramaribo dressed much better than their plantation counterparts. They were a walking advertisement for their owner’s wealth, so the mistresses vied with each other in dressing up their maids and supplied <a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-chintz.htm">chintz</a> dresses and other finery. The most elegant of the house slaves were dressed like princesses in: “<em>a silk skirt with on top one of flowered gauze and a narrow short jacket of East Indian chitz or silk, laced in front; between this jacket and the skirt a hand’s breath of fine linen showed; the hair more or less frizzed, was covered with a black or white beaver hat, which was decorated with a feather or a golden button or loop”</em>.<br /><br />Although the usual garb of the plantation slaves was rather drab, on Sundays and feast days they vied with the city slaves in dressing up. Many spent a large part of their hard-earned money on festive garb (although there were also slaves who bartered the clothing issued to them for liquor). In their desire for beautiful clothes, some bondsmen resorted to theft, which may have improved their appearance temporarily, but endangered their skins, since the usual punishment was a thorough whipping.<br /><br />Famous were the <em>koto missis </em>(literally: girl in a dress), because of the intricate headkerchiefs they proudly displayed. Wearing headkerchiefs was more than a way of enhancing one's appearance. They all had names, often a proverb or an expression about the joys and sorrows of love. Genovese has pointed out that <em>“the custom of wearing these headkerchiefs originated in Africa and appeared most strongly in those areas of the world in which African values retained their greatest strength –the same areas in some cases, in which revolutionary resistance to slavery had been most pronounced and successful”</em>. This does not mean that in Surinam the display of such headkerchiefs was a kind of protest, at least not in the eyes of the masters, who were probably much more bothered by the fact that their slaves greedily adopted their discarded Parisian fashions. It was, however, significant that, despite their desire for clothes like these, the slaves remained true to the maxims of beauty they brought from Africa.<br /><br />In later times, some female slaves received strings of glass beads from their masters, but most had to be satisfied with the strings of teeth that some slaves had brought from Africa and bartered to others, or with the ones they made themselves from kernels and shells. Personal adornment was a major preoccupation for many slaves. Some of them put much of their earnings into valuable pieces of gold (not very wise because these were frequently stolen by jealous rivals), gems, jewelry etc.<br /><br />Lammens had the impression that the slaves were careless with their clothes. In all probability, they will not have taken much trouble to mend their working garb, but Benoit pointed out that blacks ridiculed everyone who dared to appear in public in mended garments and taunted the unkempt by calling him a: “<em>poor man aben abie no pikien monie to baay n'joen kloosio” </em>(pauper with no money to buy new clothes).<br /><br />Many observers were favorable impressed by the slaves’ penchant for hygiene. Stedman concluded: <em>“The cleanliness of the negro nation is peculiarly remarkable, as they bathe above three times a day. The Congo tribe in particular are so fond of the water, that they may, not improperly, be called amphibious animals.”</em> The bondsmen also regularly brushed their teeth. To do so <em>“he uses nothing but a sprig of orange-tree, bitten at one end, until the fibres resemble a small brush; and no negro; male or female, is to be seen without this little instrument, which has besides the virtue of sweetening the breath”</em>. This may have contributed to the whiteness of their teeth, so often remarked on by contemporary authors.<br /><br />The slaves tried to distinguish themselves by their bodily appearance as well as by their clothes. However, they seem to have been reluctant to continue the African custom of beautification by mutilation. There is no sign that the Creoles ever adopted the habit of cicatricion. Imported Africans proudly displayed their tribal marks, which made it possible to distinguish them: <em>“The Coromantyn negroes, who are most esteemed, cut three or four long gashes on each of their cheeks … The Loango negroes, who are reckoned the worst, distinguish themselves by puncturing or marking the skin of their sides, arms and thighs with square elevated figures, something like dice. ... These also cut their fore-teeth to a sharp point, which gives them a frightful appearance”,</em> wote Stedman. Perhaps the Creoles regarded this custom as too primitive, perhaps they could not find the right occasion for making these marks (often connected with rites of passage). Probably their masters did not allow it anyway. Some slaves had roses or stars burnt into their skin by gunpowder. According to Hartsinck, many slaves adorned their body with <em>laan</em>, a blue paint that also protected them against insect bites. The men usually wore their hair short, the women sometimes longer in the shape of a spout. Occasionally, they made designs with a razor or comb.<br /><br />Mintz and Price have pointed to the willingness of the slaves to try out new ‘fads and fashions’ and have perceived this as a commitment to change. This may have been true, but it was a commitment to change on a rather trivial terrain, because the slaves tended to be as conservative as possible in other respects. In my opinion, this sensitivity to the currents of fashion must be explained primarily from a desire to distinguish themselves among people who had few alternative possibilities to excel. Along the way, they may have voiced a veiled protest, because, as Genovese remarked, there often was <em>“something impudent, and therefore subversive, about the slaves’ finery”</em>.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271214453809839490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 283px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9p1wkScA-TGQWEnhhyphenhyphenBKn2vYWPevsEde77LQ9cSQ4CwmUOo_wUL4ZOEpgwGlKyj5vaEa7zYofCyq8pcOPzydyvMDwdrqDnD_2qrytqeuqbp1uQ67mF3b8Hj4O66ZXFKRNVihsiuicjM/s400/op-weg-naar-doe.jpg" border="0" /> </p><br /><p align="justify"><br /><strong>Distraction.</strong><br /><br />Benoit noted that <em>“many of the colonists are driven by humanity, and even more by interest, to keep the attachment, the confidence and especially the love of the negroes by an honest distraction”</em>. This ‘honest distraction’ was in most cases a dance (<em>baljaar</em>) party. Whatever their private thoughts on this subject and their fears for trouble resulting from this may have been, they also knew that a <em>baljaar</em> party now and then let the steam out of the kettle and helped them to retain the upper hand. The authorities, who only thought about the possible repercussions for law and order, tried to suppress them. In 1722, for example, they recorded with distaste that partying slaves were guilty of much insolence: they roamed the streets <em>“yelling and raging”</em> and <em>“their assurance has come so far that they even refuse to give the whites encountering them right of way”</em>. But they were never successful, because, as Governor Nepveu explained, not even the death penalty would keep the slaves from attending.<br /><br />Sometimes, the masters flaunted the regulations just as openly as their slaves. Governor Mauricius was very much annoyed by the actions of a carpenter named Berkhof, who <em>“has let his negroes dance, without permission, for two nights in a row, and at that occasion has fired </em>[a gun]<em> the whole evening until ten o’ clock, as I and the whole city were able to hear, so I even sent my orderlies the second night to stop it, which he has resisted violently”</em>. He was quite vitriolic about the <em>“useless train of a legion of House Slaves and Slave Women, who having nothing to occupy them, sleep, booze, play and do malice”</em> as well as about the <em>“costly splendor of the finest chintz </em>[dresses], <em>coral necklaces, gold, silver, even gems, with which the creole Missis vie with one another in decorating their Slave Women”</em>.<br /><br />The authorities finally realized the futility of their exertions and permitted the city slaves to dance in the yard of their master with soft music until 10 o’ clock in the evening. The plantation slaves were officially permitted to dance only four times a year, but this was even more difficult to control. Many planters would not only let them <em>baljaar</em> when they wanted, but even provided refreshments.<br /><br />Great feasts were held at least twice a year. The most festive occasion was <strong>New Year</strong>. In Paramaribo, the slaves trekked along the houses, firing their guns and asking for a New year’s gift, which resulted in many disorders. The plantation slaves had a holiday of several days, the owner or administrator visited the estate and the major distributions took place. <em>“The owners of the slaves spend during this period not a little money to entertain their slaves: pastry, wine and liquors are distributed in abundance at these occasions”</em>, noted Kappler. Another highpoint was the formal visit of the master at the beginning of the dry season: <em>“When in the great dry season the family came to stay on the plantation, often with a large retinue, then the people would be feasted for 3 or 4 days, and sometimes longer. At the end of this, the slaves brought as an expression of gratitude a large quantity of fowl and eggs as a present for the administrator. The present was accepted graciously, but nothing reached the city. Everything was left for the director and the officers”</em>, relayed Bartelink (who profited himself).<br /><br />The ordinary entertainment was on a much more modest scale. Kappeler revealed: “<em>Often small dance parties are held in the negro cabins on Sundays, which usually end before midnight, and for which only a few families, however not but with permission of the director, gather. The music then consists only of the sound of a drum (a hollowed piece of wood, over which a pig or deer skin has been stretched) and of the sound, made by beating pieces of iron in tune on some old hoes or similar objects.” </em><br /><br />The manner of dancing was somewhat anarchistic, even indecent, in the eyes of the whites: <em>“everyone dances to his own preferences, and seems bound by no fixed rules: - the posture of the women, however, slightly bended forward, with the hands in front of the body, the wrapped-around cloths moving up and down continuously, seemed to me indecent, and does not agree, with the exterior chastity, that they otherwise display”</em>, complained Lammens. In the opinion of some, it was also rather primitive: <em>“I hardly trusted my eyes, when I saw in the year 1826 on the plantation Anna Catharina, situated in Surinam on the Matapicca Creek, by the light of the moon a hundred young Negroes and Negresses, arranged in two half circles, at the sound and to the beat of a drum, amuse themselves by dancing. They managed to imitate so accurately and regularly all the movements (those of the face as well) of the African great ape species, that I was reminded of these animals involuntary”</em>, confessed Hostmann.<br /><br />There was a clear difference between the ways men and women danced. Women participated in larger numbers, but were restrained in their movements. The men danced more boisterously. Stedman observed that the slaves danced in couples: <em>“the men figuring and footing, while the women turn round like a top, their petticoats expanding like an unbrella”</em>. This movement was called <strong>waey-cotto</strong> (swaying petticoat). In another dance called <strong>banya</strong>, men and women stood opposite each other: <em>“Then one dancer separates himself from the row, and approaches dancing any person in the opposite row he or she desires, up to a distance of two or three feet, and then turns back in cadence, until the sound of the drums warns them to approach one another and join, bumping the thighs and bellies together, the men against the women. After this they turn back, and repeat soon these same movements, link arms, turn this way two or three times, make many indecent gesticulations and kiss.” </em>A dance with a strong athletic component was the <strong>susa</strong>. It was a dance of African origin that was performed most often by two pairs of men competing with each other. They had to execute certain steps while the audience clapped and sang. The first one to make a wrong move lost. It was described as follows: the dance <em>“consists of jumping opposite one’s dancing partner, beating the hands on the hips to keep in tune. They are so hot for this kind of exercise, that it often happens with seven or eight pairs at the same time, which, because of too much violence, has caused the death of several of them more than once; therefore the government of Paramaribo has forbidden it”</em>.<br /><br />The slaves were so fond of dancing that it can be appreciated how much they sacrificed when they joined the Evangelische Broeder Gemeente. They were not only expected to refrain from participating, but even from watching –and to make things worse, they had to pretend that they did not mind. When Brother Wietz visited the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/breukelerwaard/index.nl.html">Breukelerwaard</a></strong>, for example, the slaves had a <em>baljaar</em> party and the baptized refused to join in. The director asked him how that was possible and Wietz answered smugly: <em>“we have not forbidden it, but they themselves have no desire for such things anymore”</em>.<br /><br />Most slaves were not very particular about whom they danced with. They would visit the <em>baljaar</em> parties of their worst enemies if they could. This may have been one of the reasons why so many of them ended in brawls. The Bush Negroes could afford to be choosier. When Von Sack was traveling in their company, he offered them a dance at the plantation <strong>L’ Hermitage</strong>, as a token of gratitude for their good care. <em>“Barely the dance had started when a new quarrel arose, since the Bush Negroes considered it demeaning to dance with the Negroes of the plantation, while these asserted that they, as their masters gave the party, had the right to participate. To end the quarrel, we told the Negroes of the plantation, that they had to look for another place to dance, and that they would have their just share of the meal, that had been prepared for all.” </p></em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271213930364157634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 284px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3CDoN3GJornU6zsnsi81i0TA0lVgCHTjHNvKl1wDNL3Vk-Q_PRAz-Ktlb2zQ6VoEXagxO9JFFTVsJT_Mi9v0caFGFbeBWuq2S34H5uQFYJLC_415qz16QCuqq9SqGrNthXHHZP3KjQE/s400/Du.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The favorite entertainment in the city was the <strong>du</strong> (<em>doe</em>). These were song-and-dance gatherings that were mostly held in the beginning of the year. The initiators were associations of freedmen and/or slaves and they had names and mottos. These <em>du </em>societies (also called <em>Du/Doe</em>) organized splendid feasts, the costs of which were sometimes borne by one of the members and sometimes by all of them together. Some <em>Dus</em> were only for free coloreds, others accepted free Negroes and/or slaves too. When one of the members died, the organization often paid for the funeral. Although they had religious underpinnings, their activities were primarily secular in character.<br /><br />The gatherings were held in an open shed, or a tent covered with tasseled silk, which was set up for the occasion. These were beautifully illuminated by lanterns. Most of the time, the participants danced to ‘secular rhythms’. They were dressed up in their best clothes and food and drinks were passed around. If it was a ‘singing <em>du</em>’, the invited gathered in a house and sung solemnly. Since the cost of a <em>du</em> was very high (the organizers had to pay for the refreshments and the tent), it was believed that these festivities encouraged the <em>Du</em>-members to steal. Therefore, organizing a <em>du</em> was forbidden unless the <em>Raad-Fiscaal </em>had given his permission.<br /><br />Many of the <em>dus</em> had ornaments of gold displaying their motto in Dutch (although this was officially forbidden). Famous <em>Dus</em> were: <em>Biggie Doe</em>, <em>Goutho Doe</em>, <em>Vertrouwd op God</em>, <em>Barnsteen Doe</em>, <em>Monny Principale</em>, <em>Kaneel Doe</em>. The free women of color used the singing <em>du</em> as a kind of trial before a ‘court of women’. If someone felt insulted or humiliated, she rounded up her female slaves and those of her friends, dressed them in their finest clothes and marched them to a special terrain where a tent had been put up. The insulted party sang libelous and humorous verses with the slave women forming the choir. Afterwards there was a dance. The next week it was the turn of the opponent. This often went on for several weeks before big audiences. Even the most prominent citizens came to watch. Sometimes such a contest was staged just for fun and then bystanders fell victim to the wit of the participants.<br /><br />Around 1780, many free Negroes and the principal slaves had joined in two <em>Dus</em> that competed fiercely: <em>Biggie Doe</em> and <em>Goutho Doe</em>. This resulted in <em>“discords and angry disputes”.</em> Even whites got involved. The head of <em>Goutho Doe</em>, the free ‘wench’ Cato van Vuijst was arrested because she gave a feast in the yard of her house, despite the fact that the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> had expressly prohibited this. She explained to the Court of Criminal Justice that the slaves had made a ‘purse’ for the occasion: each had contributed one guilder and she and her sister had added three ‘cards’ of ten guilders. When the feast was forbidden, they had decided to hold a meal instead. She claimed that only freedmen and whites had been invited and that the slaves who were present had ‘crashed’ the party. The Court did not believe her and she had to pay a fine of 500 guilders. [The same fine was levied on the ‘free Negress’ Amimba, when she gave a <em>pley</em> in remembrance of the old woman who had raised her, without the permission of the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>.]<br /><br />Because of the disorders, the <em>du </em>societies were forbidden in 1828. Freemen caught at a <em>du</em> were fined 200 guilders and slaves received 100 lashes and a monetary penalty -to be paid by their masters. Later they were revived under the protection of highly placed whites, who misused them for political purposes. Governor <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhart_Frans_van_Lansberge">Van Lansberge</a> (1859-1867), for example, was patron (<em>jobo</em>) of <em>Boenhatti Gi Ondroefinnie</em>.<br /><br />The <strong>laku</strong> was also a kind of musical comedy, but more elaborate. It featured many costumed actors. Before emancipation, it used to be staged at several plantations, performed by a solo singer and a choir of plantation women. The cast of characters was rather limited and full of symbolism.<br /><br />According to Von Sack, the slaves had secret societies with many committed members, who had to take an oath not to reveal its secrets, to be obedient to the chosen leaders (only known under pseudonyms) and to use the money they raised for a common cause. These institutions also originated in Africa. Women were not admitted as members, but they had their own associations. It is not entirely sure what their function was. They may have been burial societies, <em>kas moni</em> (communal saving) associations, or, more likely, they may have been pseudo-military companies, like the ones discovered in Paramaribo in 1780.<br /><br />The slaves of Paramaribo had formed three companies, patterned after those of the Black Chasseurs. They gathered regularly. The most ancient one counted 90 members, congregated behind the Governor’s Palace and boasted a full hierarchy, including a ‘general’. The second company was called England, had a green banner and counted about 50 members. They gathered in the former house of the deputy bailiff. The most recent addition had only 24 members and was not yet complete. They had their headquarters in an empty house, owned by the widow Brandon (whose slave Adam had the key). Usually the exercitions were held from 7 to 8 o’clock in the evening. The members were ‘armed’ with wooden sabers and lances decorated with tassels. After the training, the participants celebrated with a fair amount of liquor. The activities came to light when some members were caught in the house of the widow. The authorities did not suspect a conspiracy, but the ‘officers’ were shown the error of their ways by a number of <em>Spaanse Bokken</em> executed around Paramaribo.<br /><br />Not much is known about the games the slaves played. Most were probably incorporated into the <em>baljaar</em> parties. One popular African game that survived was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oware">(<strong>a)wari</strong></a>, a kind of tric trac.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271220841062116754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 353px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPbWmm16kyPmtUDH4jY4Ck4qGysKZz2p6Dnpqytr5rekqfIBuOY9eLbGvk3hXXE0oZUnj4mDX-v0Vmf3N3TpnkWoHyDjAm0Q0Y7ohC4CaAIFLjew2N_jgq_IWZeNOtFjLz9Eb_Rd5MzJA/s400/awari-bangi3.jpg" border="0" /> </p><br /><p align="justify"><br /><strong>Music.</strong><br /><br />Despite their sometimes difficult situation, slaves were usually rather gay and extroverted. Many authors noticed their habit of singing when performing a heavy task and although their songs might have an undertone of melancholy, they were usually not expressions of sadness. Governor Crommelin remarked that slaves were somewhat reluctant to sing in the streets of Paramaribo, because then they often encountered a white <em>“who would lay the stick on them”</em>, but otherwise they sang continuously (especially when rowing) and sometimes their songs had lyrics that were rather rebellious. These songs had two functions: they gave the slaves the possibility to express their frustrations and ridicule their masters and they contributed to social cohesion by providing them with an innocuous way to criticize each other.<br /><br />The manner of singing amounted to a virtually pure <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/719112/African-music/57095/Polyphonic-vocal-styles">African polyphony</a>, as Stedman observed, who equated it with a ‘clerk performing to the congregation’: <em>“one person constantly pronouncing a sentence extempore, which he next hums or whistles, and then all the others repeat the same in chorus”</em>. According to Von Sack, the solo singer, when rowing, would beat the rhythm on the water with his oar.<br /><br />The lyrics of the following songs, which have been collected in the last century, suggest that they date from slavery times. For example:<br /><em>Sing san de na mofo sing de kong.</em> (Sea, what comes from you.)<br /><em>Peroeng peroeng mi patron.</em> (The turkeys cackle my master.)<br /><em>San wanni kong meki a long.</em> (Let come what may be.)<br /><em>Ingrissiman sa tjari pranga</em> (The Englishman will move the planks)<br /><em>go na Jobo plang.</em> (to Jobo plantation.)<br />According to Van Capelle, this song is based on a historical event: when the English attacked, the turkeys started to cackle and warned the population. The whites had nothing to fear, because the attackers were certain to bring them to Jobo’s Rust (a graveyard where Jobo had been the first customer).<br /><br />Another song went like this:<br /><em>Toto grinjing Willing Willing</em> (Still Willem has run away)<br /><em>na wan gama gama</em> (to an old woman)<br /><em>na wan singge singge wasi kaiman.</em> (who has washed the caiman.)<br /><em>Batoto nenge nenge sa begi granman.</em> (The Bantu Negroes will ask the chief [of the plantation] for forgiveness.)<br />During slavery, the caiman was venerated by the blacks. Almost every water hole housed a ‘mama’ or ‘tata’ on the bottom. There was a<em> treef</em> connected with the caiman: no woman wearing a <em>maka paantje</em> (a <em>paantje</em> made from course material, perhaps a signal that the woman was menstruating) was allowed to come near it. The water otherwise would be polluted and had to be purified. Willem had to stand guard, but left his post. An old woman came to the water hole and was frightened by something. She yelled for help and beat around with her stick, <em>“after which the power</em> [of the water hole] <em>rose and helped the old lady”</em>, explained Van Capellen.<br /><br />The songs sometimes revealed a keen insight from the part of the slaves. This was sung at a <em>du</em> in Paramaribo in April 1832, according to Teenstra:<br /><em>The country of Surinam<br />is like the hole of a crab<br />that has only one opening.<br />Things go like a crab.<br />The country is like a crab without a head.<br />Nothing goes right, but everything awry.<br /></em>The land of the whites is good.<br />It is like a rabbit hole.<br />It has many openings.<br />Surinam has only one opening<br />that we cannot pass.<br />We are kept prisoner.<br /><br />Some songs that are recited during ‘prees’ (<em>pleys</em>) nowadays almost certainly date from slavery times and reflect the longing of the slaves for the homeland they will never see again. A <em>Kromanti</em> song from Para, recorded by Charles Wooding, goes like this:<br /><em>Nengre Kondre moi so te.</em> (Negroland is very beautiful.)<br /><em>Nengre Kondre moi so te.</em> (Negroland is very beautiful.)<br /><em>A weti fan.</em> (It is snow white.)<br />And another one:<br /><em>Nengre Kondre, ma Negre Kondre, farawé.</em> (Negroland, but Negroland, [is] far away.)<br /><em>Nengre Kondre, n’ Ashanti Kondre farawé.</em> (Negroland, that is Ashanti-land, far away.)<br /><em>Nengre Kondre, n’ Ashanti Kondre farawé.</em> (Negroland, that is Ashanti-land, far away.)<br /><em>Mis Animba, Mis Adjeo, farawé.</em> ( Mother Animba, Mother Adjeo, far away.)<br /><br />Sometimes the slaves clearly voiced a protest against their oppression and this lives on in the songs performed until today. Wooding recorded the following ‘<em>Jorka </em>song’:<br /><em>Un jere, famiri-man, un jere</em> (2x). (We hear, relatives, we hear.)<br /><em>Langu-wipi na un baka.</em> (The long whip on our backs.)<br /><em>Tjapu-tiki na un anu.</em> (The hoe in our hands.)<br /><em>Un jere, famiri-man, un jere</em> (2x). (We hear, relatives, we hear.)<br />He also found a ‘<em>Susa </em>song’ in which the slaves reviled stingy masters:<br /><em>Basja taki pondro doro</em> (The basja says that the boat has arrived)<br /><em>ma njanjan no kon.</em> (but has brought no food.)<br /><em>Kabito Nengro o</em> ... (Well, Negroes in slavery)<br /><em>pondo doro na njanjan no kon.</em> (the boat has come but without food.)<br /><em>O kabito sonde.</em> (What slavery on Sunday.)<br /><em>O kabito sonde.</em> (What slavery on Sunday.)<br /><br />The slaves often celebrated the feats of the Maroons and succesful revolts in their songs, for example the Berbice uprising of 1763 –which did not go unnoticed by the authorities. All over the Caribbean, the slave songs displayed this characteristic. Alan Rice summarized the findings of his study as follows: <em>“a song could be the resting place for hidden allusions to coming liberation, to hatred of the plantation or to the idiosyncrasies of the whites”</em>.<br /><br />The songs also functioned as a means of enforcing social control in the slave quarters. <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sid=672409410a01edce9ef82da1bc94863a;type=boolean;view=reslist;c=surinamica;;rgn1=surinamica_par;q1=990">Gerard Voorduin</a> remarked about this: <em>“The improvisations recited by negroes during those</em> [baljaar]<em> parties are often naïve, and usually have as subject what on the plantations and in the private sphere of the negro population, deserves criticism or ridicule.”</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271212051308865442" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 292px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEaUNmm7J3R5RRJTqkLNBFH4bkp-VUX2SCPWsU3dXf0C3dY1iQPpdxpXUaJwwtvVdCyZuLKXKlxkjsSwIyB5T1ZQnpwFP-ddUN5pjfIS6YaQxl3gECCv_kI0lSG55x8pZ3h73FRvdnOKw/s400/muziekinstrumenten.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p align="justify">When singing and dancing, the slaves were accompanied by a variety of instruments, mostly of African origin, or variations on African examples. Stedman provided the following list (between parentheses: the often more accurate names supplied by Lammens): (1) <strong>qua-qua</strong> (<em>kwakwa</em>): <em>“a hard sounding-board, elevated on one side like a boot-jack”</em>, it was played with two sticks or bones; (2) <strong>kiemba too-too</strong>: <em>“a hollow reed, which is blown through the nostrils”</em>, it had two holes, one for blowing and one for the fingers; (3) <strong>ansokko bania</strong> (resembled the <em>kwakwa</em>): <em>“a hard board, supported on both sides like a low seat, on which are placed small blocks of different sizes”</em>, it was likewise played with two sticks; (4) great <strong>Creole drum</strong> (<em>mandron</em>): <em>“a hollow tree, open at one end and covered at the other by a sheep-skin”</em>, the player sat astride and beat with the palms of his hands; (5) great <strong>Loango drum</strong>: closed with sheep-skin on both sides; (6) <strong>Papa drum</strong> (<em>papadron</em>): the largest drum, according to Lammens played with sticks; (7) small<strong> Loango drum</strong>; (8) small <strong>Creole drum</strong> (<em>pouia</em>); (9) <strong>coeroema</strong> (<em>kroema</em>): <em>“a wooden cup, ingeniously made”</em>, it was covered with sheep-skin and played with sticks; (10 & 11) <strong>Loango bania</strong>: a piece of dry wood mounted on a <strong>calabash</strong>, with elastic splinters of palmwood that were snapped by the fingers with <em>“a soft and very pleasing effect”;</em> (12) s<strong>aka-saka</strong> (<em>zakka zakka</em>): <em>“a hollow gourd , with a stick and a handle fixed through it, and filled with small pebbles and pease”</em>, it made a rattling sound; (13) <strong>conch</strong> (not used as an accompaniment to dancing, but to sound the alarm); (14) <strong>benta</strong>: <em>“a branch bent like a bow by means of a slip of dry reed, or warimbo; when held to the teeth, is beaten with a short stick and by being shifted backwards and forwards sound not unlike a jews-harp”</em>; (15) <strong>Creole bania</strong>: half a gourd covered with sheep-skin, on which a long neck was fastened; it had four strings, three long ones and a short one, which made the bass tones, and it was played with the fingers [According to Fermin, the strings were made of silk or the intestines of birds that were rubbed with date oil and it was the forefather of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo">banjo</a>.]; (16) <strong>too-too</strong>: war trumpet; (17) <strong>horn</strong>: used on the plantations to call the slaves back from the fields; (17) <strong>Loango too-too</strong>: a flute with four holes for the fingers, played the ‘European’ way. Lammens mentioned in addition the <strong>jorre-jorre</strong>: nuts strung on a cord, which the women shook in a ‘waving movement’ and the <strong>doura</strong>: <em>“a piece of iron of a certain shape that is beaten with another piece of iron”.</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271212737186352898" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGqVbltU6xLVGDR5o8MbwwqfWGNiPBaP8RnUqNQP0XCBweMVAduy0I-9LoSHXI404uiVltmE2XInI6QFxTn3dI1_0OE9bzjrr5G4ipn-BNdMJmSUoWqKT1AiTvmJMaLX10PRpWCNphS0/s400/fluiter.jpg" border="0" /> </p><br /><p align="justify"><br /><strong>Folklore.</strong><br /><br />The slaves had many <em>odo</em> (proverbs).<br />Some commented their situation:<br />(1) <em>Ningre wani fri, vo weri soesoe hedi; a no sabi, taki da likdoren a de go kisi. </em>(The slave wants freedom, so he can wear shoes, but he does not know that he will get corns.)<br />(2) <em>Sranan-kondre da hasi-tere: tida a wai so, tamara a wai so. </em>(Surinam is a horsetail: today it flies this way, tomorrow the other way.)<br />(3) <em>Mi da koti-jesi, mi no ha wroko nanga resiga-man trobi.</em> (I am the earless man, I have nothing to do with the troubles of the earring man.)<br />Others were inspired by European proverbs:<br />(4) <em>Wan han wasi trawan, ala toe sa krin.</em> (When one hand washes the other, two shall be clean.)<br />(5) <em>Te joe habi glasi-fensre, joe na taki ston, broko vo trawan</em>. (When you have glass windows, you do not take a stone and break the one of your neighbor.)<br />(6) <em>Da bigi balki na tapa joe noso joe no de si, ma da pikin spinti na mi huida dati joe de si.</em> (The big balk on your nose you do not see, but the tiny splinter in my skin you do see.)<br />(7) <em>Apla no fadom farawei vo hem boom.</em> (The apple does not fall far from the tree.)<br />(8) <em>Spiti na tapo a fadom ne joe fesi.</em> (Spit upwards and it falls in your face.)<br /><br />Storytelling was important in Africa and it became no less vital in Surinam. It was one of the few remaining venues that made it possible to keep the remembrance of Africa vibrant. Rethoric skills were highly admired and many slaves were consummate orators and raconteurs. The usual stage for storytelling on ordinary evenings was the slave cabin and the importance went beyond mere amusement. The prime time for tales was during the wake for a deceased companion (<em>dede hoso</em>). On these occasions, <em>lai tories</em> (riddles) were a popular diversion. There were four categories of subjects: stars and other natural phenomena; plants and animals; the human body (including its discharges); and human activities. Even more popular were the ‘fairy tales’, called <em>Anansi tori</em> in Surinam. In many of them, a smart spider called <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi">Anansi</a></strong> was the hero. According to <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=9ixcMDktv-0C&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=Levine+%2B+Anansesem&source=bl&ots=i1pU67AiRG&sig=Coowr-IumjUGnvmNfHLP9WK6Yck&hl=nl&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result">Lawrence Levine</a>, the habit of referring to all fairy tales indiscriminately as Anansi toris derived from the Ashanti habit of calling them <em>Anansesem </em>(spider stories). Anansi himself had undeniable Gold Coast roots and the stories in which he stars are still found in all Caribbean areas where Gold Coast culture figured prominently in the past.<br /><br />In Jamaica, Anansi was, according to Charles Beckwith, usually depicted as a <em>“little bald headed man with a falsetto voice and a cringing manner in the presence of his superiors, who lives by his wits and treats outrageously anyone upon whom he has the chance to impose his superior cunning. He is a famous fiddler and something of a magician”</em>. Sometimes he was also depicted as a spider. He had a wife and a couple of children. Beckwith added that in Jamaica, <em>“it was regarded as ‘not good’ to tell Anansi stories … before dark or on Sunday”</em>. Anansi stories were popular on Curacao and Barbados as well.<br /><br />Levine, who has made a thorough study of the tales of the North American slaves, divided them into <strong>moralistic tales</strong> and <strong>trickster tales</strong>: <em>“the trickster tales could make a mockery of the values preached by the moralistic tales –friendship, hard work, sincerity”</em>. There were, however, <em>“important lines of continuity” </em>as well<em>.</em> He regarded these stories as an essentially sane response to the hardships imposed on the slaves. Stanley Elkins was far less smitten with these tales. He reflected that the ‘king of the tricksters’, <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brer_Rabbit">B’rer Rabbit</a></strong>, was nothing but ‘one nasty little hustler’: <em>“The world he confronts and in which he survives, he also helps to perpetuate. He certainly does nothing to improve it. In that world of lying, stealing, duplicity and murder there is no friendship, no affection and no mutual trust; ‘family’ counts for nothing and of ‘community’ there is not a shred. If this particular body of lore presents a form of psychic adjustment to slavery, as Levine seems to have proved, one is reluctant to take it as a very positive one.”<br /></em><br />It is tempting to conclude that the moralistic tales showed the slaves how to behave in their own community, while the trickster tales exemplified the proper attitude towards superiors and competitors. Nothing is further from the truth, alas. B’rer Rabbit and Anansi both used their cunning to trick and often maim or kill the rich and powerful (fox, tiger, bear), but they did not hesitate to exploit the weak with the same tricks, not even sparing their own kind. Anansi sacrificed his wife Acuba and his countless children to his greed many a time. So, there was indeed a considerable residue of pathology in these tales.<br /><br />Some of the modern Surinam fairy tales are called <em>srafutentori</em> and relive slavery times. The historical truth is uncertain, although names of real plantations and plantation owners frequently appear. A terrifying and well-known theme is the tale of the callous <strong><a href="http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DVN/lemmata/data/Plessis,%20Susanna%20du">Susanna Duplessis</a></strong>, a historical figure, who is rumored to have drowned a slave child during a boat trip because its incessant crying annoyed her.<br /><br />There was a strong vein of protest in the slave folklore. As <a href="http://history.ucr.edu/people/stuckey/stuckey.html">Sterling Stuckey</a> remarked: <em>“folklore is depending for its survival upon the accuracy with which it speaks to needs and reflects sentiments”</em>. There can be no doubt that one of the strongest sentiments in slave society was the conviction of being treated unjustly. The slaves’ tales served as a means of catharsis for their pent-up frustrations. In this manner, they also helped to maintain the status quo. When Anansi tricked his opponents, when the cunning underdogs beat and killed the stronger animals, the slaves identified with them and applauded their feats, while at the same time the need to perform such feats themselves diminished. The Surinam slaves lacked the promise of retribution, which the slaves of the United States gained from their conversion to Christianity. Their gods were powerless against the wiles of the whites and if they wanted vengeance, they had to look for it in this life. This may have led to an even tinier dose of tolerance in their tales and an even lesser veiled anger in their songs. No Moses would deliver them from the desert, so they had to deliver themselves -or accept their fate.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301569177118129762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 283px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMqbo1tKyyxCnThtvLKXDtPZVf5WV4i5pQoHy1nsM4o1qZlhyphenhyphenRuk4vCiJo7cYROcRKZWsNh2Ak-loQGFFWE8IEPpJ8yawHLTcGmmPNl-GYcGaYPGTHvXjg8shSGqE8AgbDDL1iOWwvJw/s400/begrafenis.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><br /><strong>Funerals.<br /><br /></strong>With a death rate that was as high as 10% during a large part of the slavery era, it is clear that the slaves had a profound need for ritual therapy in order to face these continuous crises. Mortality was staggering in Africa as well, of course, but nothing like what the slaves faced in Surinam, especially during the seasoning period. In some captives, this may have aroused a sense of doom, which made them even more vulnerable. Most newcomers decided to fight as best as they could, however, and religion was a powerful aid in their struggle. They believed <em>“that they / when they come to die / will be reborn / and returning in their Fatherland / will live on in the world in a continuous transformation”</em>, wrote the English Governor Warren. This created hope, but to make sure that the transfer was smoothly, certain rituals were necessary. In later times, the expectation of returning to Africa lost ground, but the proper rituals were still indispensable to insure that the spirits of the deceased would not go on haunting the living. The beliefs as to what constituted the right procedure differed of course between the various ethnic groups. While on the one hand the slaves were probably highly motivated to come to terms with one another on this subject, on the other hand they were afraid that departure of the old habits would be dangerous.<br /><br />In the early period, there was still a reasonable variety in funeral customs, if we are to believe Herlein. In some instances, the dead were painted to resemble devils <em>“with many mouths and glass eyes”</em>. Sometimes sacrifices were made. Some nations burned the bodies (a habit that was soon abandoned, except for witches). In other cases, the slaves fashioned coffins of planks. The body was laid therein on plantain leaves with two ells of linen, a razor and some coral beads under the head. It was then lowered into the grave and a plate of soup, cooked with the meat of a cock, was poured over it, so the deceased had something to eat when he rose again. The cock would herald the moment of resurrection. Some time later, the relations went back to the grave, walked around a couple of times and had a meal. This was repeated a second time. Occasionally, they planted some branches of the lemon tree on the grave. Meanwhile, the attendants danced around them drinking and sang the praises of the deceased. When a slave had died, all his relatives and friends gathered in mourning <em>“crying and moaning miserably, ceaselessly, as long as the dead is not buried”</em>. Some slaves did not consider it worth the trouble to go through six months of mourning themselves and they <em>“hire women, who for the time of six months cry over their dead every day three times”</em>.<br /><br />The rituals of the various tribes will have had enough common features to make a compromise possible and during the initial period of creating their community, the slaves may have simply combined the different practices. They had little choice but to be open to new influences and will probably have hoped that the more elaborate the ceremony, the better the chance of success in those uncertain circumstances. The various rituals will have slowly fused into one common ceremony. The first sign of amalgamation will have been that the different nations each made their own contribution to the burial ritual.<br /><br />When a Popo slave was interred in 1745, the Moravian missionary Zander, who witnessed the occasion, wrote: <em>“The body was carried out by negroes and everyone, that could, went along; especially the family and friends of the deceased. In front of the body went the most important nation, the Coromantees, who carried some flags and made music with drums and pipes. In the graveyard they put down the body next to the grave, which had been decorated very beautifully with precious cloths or silk and things like that, then they put the coffin in the grave. As soon as that was done, a large number of negro women came, who threw cloths in the grave in the customary fashion. Afterwards earth was thrown on the coffin, until the grave was half filled. Then the whole bunch of friends approached and positioned themselves in a circle around the grave. A woman approached with a calabash and passed it around to the friends in the circle; there was a liquid inside, of which everyone took a draught, then the grave was closed, after which one of their sorcerers and conjurers approached, who had a large bottle with brandy in his hand. He positioned himself on the grave, repeatedly sprinkled some of the brandy on the grave, accompanied by some very serious words and jumped and stamped around on the grave, which he repeated so long until the brandy was all gone and the grave was completely level. After this everyone went home again.”<br /></em><br />Integration of the various funeral practices would have been easier after the influx of new recruits, who undoubtedly incited their compatriots to stick to the old customs, had diminished. It is clear that by the end of the 18th century, the slaves had a standard ritual, which was satisfying to all of them. Blom described a typical funeral during this period: <em>“They bury their dead with much solemnity: when one of them has died, the corpse is washed and put in a coffin; their relations, as well as others who are somewhat well-off, each bring a piece of 6 to 8 ells of linen, with which the dead body is clothed, so that sometimes the whole coffin is filled with linen; they then go in large numbers to the corpse and make a lot of noise and clamor; thereafter they play on pipes and drums and make noise and cry as if they are inconsolable the whole night through, until they inter the corpse in the morning; then everybody who is able follows the corpse, crying as before, clapping in their hands and singing their death songs: the corpse having been interred, all is done, and everyone goes back to his house: some months after the demise the family holds a dance party, on which they, according to their custom, are very gay: afterwards they pour water on the grave of the deceased; in whose honor this party is given, and wish him that he may rest well.”<br /></em><br />In the city, the funerals were even more impressing. According to Benoit, sometimes two to three hundred slaves attended. They obviously did not all belong to the same master, so these gatherings aroused the suspicion of the whites. Their objections were twofold. In the first place, the funerals became much too expensive and they feared that the slaves wanted to surpass their masters in the elaborateness of their mourning and would resort to stealing to cover the costs. Furthermore, they were afraid that the slaves would use these occasions to foment conspiracies. Even the directors of the Society got wind of the accusations that the slaves became ever more insolent during funerals and that they committed illegal acts afterwards. They advised the governor to station a guard at every corner of Paramaribo to keep an eye on them. Other measures were taken as well.<br /><br />The inhabitants of Paramaribo were warned in 1731, that they <em>“shall not let their slaves be buried but in the ordinary graveyards and that this funeral shall not be permitted but between 6 o’ clock in the morning and the same hour at night”</em>. In 1742, the complaint was registered that <em>“during funerals the slaves do not only use much ceremony, as with regard to the coffin bearers of such a slave, who are issued laurels, and more of such ceremonies, which are habitual when white inhabitants are buried, but also these slaves on the occasion of a funeral come together with many, yes in large numbers and then come through the streets of Paramaribo with much noise of dancing, singing and also laughing, until the door behind which the slave has died</em> [is reached]<em> and there make a lot of commotion”</em>. Therefore, it was spelled out by the government that slaves could only be buried in a special graveyard for Negroes, that only a limited number of mourners could be present and that, as long as the procession was within the city limits of Paramaribo, all noise was strictly forbidden. The bailiff had to supervise the ceremony. Slaves who abused these rules would be punished with a severe whipping. The owners were obliged to report any death and the time the funeral was to take place. The slaveholders who owned fields outside Paramaribo were permitted to let their slaves be buried there, if it already was the resting place of some of their relatives, but the bailiff had to accompany the procession and they had to pay 10 guilders for the privilege. In 1750, it was ordered that slaves <em>“shall be buried with the least ceremony; that no cloths or other weavings shall be allowed to be laid on top of the coffins and especially that no beautiful or extraordinary coffins with copper handles or screws and reeves, or any other extravagant decorations as what is usual on ordinary coffins will be tolerated”</em>.<br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271213369000346866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 255px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8YGpXctahvxnwZl03mEfKhtPSQZTUiS-8kWm-rZgMCODtEVgvupheJlfGbLOMWH-o01rFLsWyGT1VphRTQrI4dHl1ZGP1p9nFtJiqeNdSKqqWjaPzC-jGH4iAhDFML1nSDtGtKsSrLkU/s400/rouwenden.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The relatives of a deceased wore mourning garb for a considerable period. Some older women never laid it off again. Lammens remarked that close relatives wore round hats with broad sloping edges that were called <em>huylebalken</em> (crybabies). The wearing of special colors for mourning seems to have been most popular in the city. The usual colors were black and blue for the men and white and black for the women. The slaves who belonged to the household of a deceased had a white handkerchief tied around their head as a sign of grief. Sometimes, women shaved off their hair (self-mutilation was unknown, though).<br /><br />In general, slaves were willing to waste large sums of money on funerals. An ordinary coffin cost about thirty guilders, but the slaves spent much more when they had the possibility. Just like many whites, they did not want to appear stingy when burying a loved one and they often dispensed of much more cash than they could afford. To bury someone in the most prestigious graveyard could cost a colonist as much as 500 guilders and an run-of-the-mill funeral set him back at least 150 guilders, but still the whites feared to be outdone by their chattels.<br /><br />When a slave had been baptized, the old rites were frowned upon. At an EBG-funeral the mourners went to the graveyard in a long procession, dressed in white and walking two by two quietly. For them there was no maximum to the number of attendants. The missionaries followed these ceremonies anxiously, because this was one of the occasions that their converts were most likely to relapse –and ‘pagan customs’ at funerals had to be avoided at any price. It was a bit of a problem how and where to bury a freedman who had not converted to the Christian faith. He could not be buried among the slaves (even whites agreed that a certain measure of distinction was proper), but he could not be interred among the Christians either. In some instances, the authorities allowed freedmen to be put to rest with lower-class whites (who were not considered particularly upstanding Christians by their betters): a freedman named Pasop, a former member of the Black Chasseurs, for example, was buried by his comrades <em>“in a good coffin covered with a black cloth”</em> on the <em>“seamen’s graveyard”</em>.<br /><br />Officially, a slave owned nothing. When he died, the master could theoretically take away everything he had possessed, but, as Blom remarked <em>“I would not recommend anyone to exercise, and especially after their demise, this right; because they would regard this as a sacrilege, that would not stay unavenged; and they are capable, in such a case, to get rid of their master by poison: if a negro dies unexpectedly, his descendants distribute his goods, according to their sense of justice, and about this there is never any dispute among them”</em>.</p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-65452446436960469282008-11-07T00:18:00.044+01:002009-02-11T02:03:32.730+01:00Chapter 8: The boundaries defined.<div align="justify"><strong><br />The African Heritage.</strong><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268142706254127762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 215px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHE_NIDFzSUKyLuEvPbV36q4L5KGo1gPPbzy2-6jubClvk_7rV0oFbcCR2C8vLjUSRB_btHBXsAH7aV594Qiow6g8dfjBk2xBCDXBar4JKU1YzUGles72aRcx_jrg-gADqRZlRQc8z7o/s400/bosnegers.jpg" border="0" />In the opinion of Melville Herskovits, the Surinam <a href="http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/ethnoatlas/hmar/cult_dir/culture.7834">Bush Negroes</a> and Creoles are at the top of the scale as far as the <em>“New World Africanisms” </em>in their culture go. They rank above the peasants of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti">Haiti</a>, although the yoke of slavery was lifted there a lot earlier. Their slave ancestors managed to preserve the African heritage remarkably intact, thanks to favorable circumstances and their tenacious mentality. The Surinam slaves were privileged in the sense that they enjoyed a numerical majority that hardly had a parallel in the Caribbean. Even if their white overlords had wanted to, these would have found it extremely difficult to control the personal life of their chattels. The remarkable fact, however, is that the masters allowed, quite voluntary it seems, their bondsmen a large measure of autonomy in their personal and cultural life -even in areas they could (and perhaps should) have controlled. The probable reasons for this ‘generosity’ were their own laziness and their desire to make their slaves more willing to work and less inclined to run away.<br /><br />The overall influence of Africa on the Surinam slave culture was considerable, but this does not mean that it was equally discernable in all aspects of life. It’s most pervasive presence was in the sphere of expression. Rudolf van Lier mentioned the following areas: religion, narration, music and some of the dances and plays. Sidney Mintz, writing about the Caribbean in general, was even more specific: <em>“many motor habits, the emphasis on the folktale as a pedagogical devise, ceremonial use of the drum, the trickster motif, and certain features of verse-singer and chorus refrain might be parts of the West African cultural substratum; possession by specific gods with specific characterological attributes would be attributable –at least in some measure- to culture specific African traditions; some social-organizational features having to do with descent are conceivably traceable to lineage organizations; and –though very doubtfully- aspects of mother-child relationships may have been perpetuated in a matricentral ‘cell’ unit in plantation life”</em>. Roger Bastide concluded that ‘motor sequences’ and ‘patterns of ritual’ were more likely to survive than ‘images’ or <em>“any accumulation of intellectual memories”</em>. He pointed out that even in cases of unmistakable similarities between African and Afro-American cultural patterns <em>“a clear and careful distinction must always be drawn between form and evolutionary process. The actual form may be African, yet, in order to survive, be forced to adapt itself functionally to conditions of existence that often differ substantially from those it originally employed.” </em>Therefore, the aspects of culture that helped the slaves to adapt to their new circumstances, changed most profoundly: technology, social organization and material culture.<br /><br />All groups of slaves imported in Surinam contributed in one way or the other to the residue of African cultural elements, but, as Knight and Crahan wrote, <em>“no direct correlation exists between the absolute size of the African and Afro-American population and the strength, cohesiveness and pervasiveness of variants of a discernable Afro-American culture”</em>. In other words, the slave nations that formed the numerical majority did not necessarily determine the development of Afro-American culture most. The slave cultures in the New World were all new creations: it was impossible for the bondsmen to recreate their old way of life, even if some Maroon groups did their utmost to achieve exactly that. The circumstances had changed too drastically for them to succeed. However, Barbara Kopytoff hit the nail on the head when she remarked: <em>“Culture, as a system of ideas generating not only standard responses but a range of variations, can be adapted to new situations without loosing its distinctiveness”</em>.<br /><br />The shipments of slaves imported during the first period of colonization in the Caribbean were relatively homogenous, especially compared to the situation later on. This made it easier for the slaves to organize themselves in ‘nations’. These informal groups of slaves with the same ethnic (though not necessarily tribal) backgrounds were found all over the Caribbean, even in areas where one would not have expected them. Herbert Gutmann discovered such organizations among the slaves of New England, complete with chosen ‘governors’ and even ‘kings’. Bastide remarked that although their customs might continue to be based on the traditions of the homeland, the personnel of such a ‘nation’ was not always linked to the original by blood ties.<br /><br />In Surinam, the whites also spoke of ‘nations’ among the slaves, although this concept usually did not just refer to voluntary associations with common rituals. When referring to the Jewish community, it carried connotations of a certain independence in the juridical sense and shared descent as well as shared traditions. Such enthnically based organizations were primarily active on the plantations and not in the city, as was the case in other regions. For example, in 1745 a Moravian missionary witnessed how at the funeral of a ‘Popo’ slave, the most important ‘nation’ (the Coromantees) took the lead. Governor Nepveu, astute observer as he was, described the different dancing styles of the various nations (and of the Creoles as well). The slave nations were no functioning political units, but the term presupposed a certain measure of solidarity and mutual support. The following nations were distinguished in Surinam: the <strong>Coromantees </strong>(Gold Coast Negroes), the <strong>Loangos </strong>(Bantus) and the <strong>Fidas</strong> (Dahomeans). All these groups have put their mark on the culture of the Surinam slaves, though of course not all in the same way, or with the same pervasiveness.<br /><br />Many writers have pointed to the earth-shattering changes in the lives of the unfortunate Africans that were dragged to the New World. In some ways, they may have been less shocked than whites would have been in comparable circumstances, because as <a href="http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/patterson/">Orlando Patterson</a> observed, <em>“the institution of slavery was <strong>known</strong> to almost every West African: it was a culturally meaningful institution even if never actually experienced by the great majority of Africans”</em>. In other ways, however, their world was turned upside down. Mintz has argued that <em>“the relatively highly developed industrial character of the plantation system meant a curious sort of ‘modernization’ for the slaves –an aspect of their acculturation that has too often been missed because of the deceptively rural, agrarian and pseudo-manorial quality of slave-based plantation production”</em>. Patterson concurred: <em>“once we recognize the simple, stark truth that the typical African who ended up in the New Word came from a pre-literate, small, kin-based community and was then required, within a period of six months, sometimes less, to become a rural proletarian in an agro-industrial firm that was part of a world-wide socio-economic network, his enslavement ceases to be problematic”</em>.<br /><br />The drastic turn of events in their life made the slaves feel lonely and beleaguered. They needed comfort and protection, so they forged new social relations and a new culture to provide that. <a href="http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/carneiro_robert.html">Robert Carneiro</a> has described culture as <em>“something which man interposes between himself and his environment in order to ensure his security and survival”</em>. This may be an overly narrow view of <a href="http://www.carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html">culture</a>, but with regard to the slaves and the crisis in which they found themselves it has much relevance. This is especially true when religion is concerned, because the need of the slaves to protect themselves against ‘bad magic’ was one of its most important features.<br /><br />If the African captives interposed a newly forged culture between themselves and their masters to protect themselves from the onslaughts of the slavery system, it could be expected that the whites would do everything in their power to tear down these walls. In some regions, they indeed seemed to have tried, but in Surinam, they showed little interest. This was especially true with regard to <strong>language</strong> and <strong>religion</strong>, the two aspects of culture that have, as Harry Hoetink maintained, the most outspoken <em>“boundary defining”</em> character. The Spaniards and the Portuguese in particular (but also the French and in a hesitant way even the English) seemed to believe that in order to dominate a subjected group properly, one should force them to speak one’s language and adhere to one’s religion. Why this was different in Surinam, will become clear in the following parts.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268142870493954434" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 396px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 242px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgomBd04HTG2MxTOQSmTS-mUXRyrhQBqtEn14ZlicMGiiujDlx5Ype-zn61-Xs6PYIrd6OBHUDGxwUua2Ba-tesRPCo69hSfJSdkWwZ57guMAnGA12wxLC2KgbwEaMRPYExfU6gLwqDWTA/s400/bosnegerdorp.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>Language.</strong><br /><br />Harry Hoyer has pointed out that <em>“when a group undergoes rapid changes in its non-linguistic culture linguistic change may similarly increase in tempo”</em>. Few human beings will have experienced such a profound change in their situation as the slaves of the New World. Many of them realized that their very survival depended on their ability to communicate with the strangers that fate had thrown in their way. In the barracks, a slave may have found fellows that spoke the same (or a similar) language, or were conversant in an African <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca">lingua franca</a></em>, but it was often even more vital to be able to communicate with their (white) captors. They might be able to get away with only the most rudimentary knowledge of a <em>lingua franca</em> in the barracks and aboard the slave ships, but on the plantation it was a different matter. There is no proof that the slaves of Surinam were ever forced to learn Dutch, or were punished if they spoke an African tongue, but there was a ‘tataesque’ pressure on them to learn to communicate in the <em>lingua franca</em> of the plantation and the newcomers had little choice but to oblige.<br /><br />In most places, the slave language was a ‘creolized’ version of the tongue of the master class and in Surinam, the first slaves indeed learned the rudiments of English. The English planters disappeared after 15 years, however, and it would not have been unreasonable to assume that the bondsmen would then have adopted the language of their new Dutch masters, who were to lord it over them for nearly two centuries. This has happened all over the Caribbean, because most islands changed hands a couple of times. Even in Trinidad, where a full-fledged French-based <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language">creole</a> had developed, an English-based creole replaced it, even though this took some time and trouble. Not in Surinam: the English-based creole proved very tenacious, perhaps because it had already been refined far enough to make easy communication about all aspects of life possible. Had it only been a rudimentary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin">pidgin</a>, the linguistic evolution might have taken a different route, most likely resulting in the creation of a Dutch-based creole with only a few English words surviving. The Dutch, however, never put any pressure on their seasoned slaves to change their manner of discourse, which would not have been very difficult considering the large influx of fresh bondsmen. It would have taken a deliberate policy though, because, as DeCamp pointed out, <em>“a mere change of official language probably has relatively little immediate effect on a pidgin or creole”</em>.<br /><br />Not only did the Dutch exhibit indifference towards teaching the slaves to use their language, they even expressly forbade it. Only in the 19th century, one could find a reasonable number of slaves who were able to understand Dutch and a few who were able to speak it. The reason for this reluctance, apart from the apparent need to distance themselves from their chattels as much as possible, might have been that <em>“the Dutch have long been used to other peoples’ ignorance of their language and have themselves shown a great aptitude for learning foreign tongues”</em>, as Taylor hypothesized. Practically all Surinam whites spoke the ‘slave language’ [formerly called <em>Ningre</em> (or <em>Nengre</em>), nowadays <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sranan_language">Sranan Tongo</a></em>] fluently. Governor Nepveu remarked about this: “<em>Most whites learn the Negro English Language very easily, being broken English, which since the English occupation has been preserved until now”</em>. Even on board of their own ships, many Dutch slave traders employed an Afro-Portuguese pidgin as their ‘business language’. I therefore do not believe that the slave language changed as fast as Hoetink surmised it did, when he wrote: <em>“It is not unthinkable that within a Portuguese port a Portuguese lingua franca, on a Dutch slave ship a Dutch pidgin, and in a British colony an English-based language, were all learned successively within perhaps a few years”</em>.<br /><br />What also may have contributed to the lack of influence of the Dutch language was the fact that Surinam did not display the usual colonial pattern, described by Mintz, <em>”the pattern of social encounter of a small, powerful, monolingual European minority with a large, powerless, multilingual African majority”</em>. The white minority in Surinam was anything but monolingual. Dutch may have been the official language, but for many planters it was not their native tongue. The Jewish planters spoke Portuguese (sometimes Spanish), plus <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language">Yiddish</a> or German; the Huguenots (and many upper-class Dutchmen) spoke French; there was a residue of English planters left and later in the 18th century many German and Scandinavian soldiers arrived, some of them ending up as plantation supervisors. So it is not strange that the Dutch did not push their language very vigorously. However, the Surinam planters did not go as far as to adopt the slave language as a <em>lingua franca</em> for their conversation with other whites, as happened in Curacao.<br /><br />In the second half of the twentieth century, there was a raging controversy between those believing in the ‘polygenetic’ and those believing in the ‘monogenetic’ development of the creole languages in the Western Hemisphere. The first category believed in the (largely) independent origins of the various creole languages. The similarities between them were supposed to stem from the ‘psychical unity of Mankind’: when people speak to foreigners or babies, they all tend to simplify their utterances the same way. The latter category believed that these similarities (not only between the Caribbean creoles, but also between these and some creoles used in Africa and the Far East) are more profound than can be explained by any psychical unity. This theory, which is the most popular one nowadays, holds that the recorded parallelisms derive from the fact that these creoles have the same origin, namely a Portuguese trade pidgin that was widely spoken in West Africa and the Far East. This pidgin probably evolved from a Portuguese version of <em>Sabir</em>, the <em>lingua franca</em> of the Mediterranean. In those parts of the West-African coast that were later conquered by the English, an English pidgin developed out of the Portuguese predecessor and was later expanded into proper creoles, like <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone_Krio_language">Krio</a></em> (spoken in Sierra Leone). The captives who landed together in a barracoon or on a slaver often spoke mutually unintelligible languages and by necessity they acquired a basic knowledge of the Afro-Portuguese trade pidgin quickly. From this common background, the Creoles of the Caribbean developed their own languages through <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relexification">relexification</a></strong>. They became more versatile this way and evolved into full-fletched creoles, without dramatic changes in the grammatical structure.<br /><br />In the case of Surinam, there are theoretically two possible ways the <strong>English-based creole</strong> could have taken root: (a) the slaves brought along an English pidgin already created in Africa (alternatively, they ‘relexified’ the Portuguese trade pidgin); or (b) the slaves arrived without much inkling of an European language and learned their first foreign words from the experienced slaves on the plantations, who had acquired a passable knowledge of English in Barbados. The last hypothesis seems untenable: it is highly unlikely that captives would have spent so many months in the barracoons without having picked up some knowledge of a <em>lingua franca</em>.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268143122691362402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 293px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJfWcRmW2KJQfyGDdgizc8c9OAYuSx6BaMDSn-hhWqFpXCyT0M1XLHrcJfJ9uszuLH-0ENVKcZHLrFY82MzyP2JCqaTolzx-QGu6EmobrBU8RlugTXdbY8vbaWUb0shoy0PDKq_XemHs/s400/praatje.jpg" border="0" />It is difficult to establish whether the first slaves imported by the Dutch arrived with a Portuguese pidgin, or an already anglicized one. <a href="http://www.fss.uu.nl/ca/bss20.htm">Jan Voorhoeve</a> postulated that it was both the case, but in different periods. The fact that there are many Portuguese-based words present in modern day <em>Sranan</em> and presumably also in the slave language, points in his view to the conclusion that the first slaves arrived with some knowledge of the Portuguese trade pidgin. Later in the 18th century, the majority of the slaves were procured in parts of West Africa where the Portuguese pidgin had been replaced and these came with a luggage of English rather than Portuguese words. According to Voorhoeve, many of the forbearers of the Djuka Bush Negroes belonged to this category when they escaped and from this, he explained the differences between <em><a href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ndjuka.htm">Ndjuka</a></em> and <em>Sranan</em>.<br /><br />Richard Price had some difficulties with this theory. Although he believed that some Portuguese words might have entered the slave language through the process described above, he assumed a more pervasive influence of the Portuguese speaking Jews. He pointed out that the language of the Saramaka Bush Negroes has a much larger percentage of Portuguese words than both <em>Ndjuka</em> and <em>Sranan</em>. According to him, the reason for this is the fact that the majority of the forbearers of the Saramaka came from plantations owned by Portuguese Jews and that they learned these words from them. He believed, in fact, that until far into the 18th century, there were two distinct slave languages: an English-based creole spoken by the slaves on the ‘Christian plantations’ and a Portuguese-based (and English-influenced) creole spoken by the slaves on the ‘Jewish plantations’. As proof for this theory, he cited a ‘German missionary’ (Brother Stoll), who reported in 1767: <em>“The language of the Fort Negroes is somewhat different from that of the Plantation Negroes. They have many broken Portuguese words; many things they can name in 3 or 4 ways.”<br /><br /></em>Price chided Voorhoeve for equating <em>Dju-Tongo</em> with Saramaccan: <em>Dju-Tongo</em> was merely the name for the language spoken by the slaves on Jewish owned plantations. Martin has described how this language slowly disappeared: <em>“<strong>ningre</strong> and <strong>dju-tongo</strong> supplemented each other, since the negroes of the different, english and portuguese, plantations came into contact with each other, and ... with the impoverishment of the portuguese planters dju-tongo retracted more and more”.<br /></em><br />Price was right to question Voorhoeve’s explanation for the provenance of the Portuguese words in <em>Sranan</em>, but he seems to have been overzealous in his conclusions, because (1) as Voorhoeve rightly argued <em>“runaways were recruited mainly from freshly imported slaves, who had not had time to adapt themselves fully to the linguistic habits of the slaves on the plantations”</em> and because (2) he suggested that the two slave languages, <em>Ningre</em> and <em>Dju-Tongo</em>, were entirely different, instead of two variations of a common base. Price drew conclusions that were much too far-reaching from the words of the missionary. The way the slave language evolved becomes clearer if we follow the suggestion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Hancock">Ian Hancock</a> and do not speak of relexification but of <strong><a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=LyBWt13kY7gC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=supralexification&source=bl&ots=xv35ppkWw4&sig=WbipRVdMXtxsWQ1ZaR4DxM5ivf0&hl=nl&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result">supralexification</a></strong>: words were not replaced right away by synonyms that derived from another language, but two synonyms might continue to exist side by side for a considerable period of time. [Contemporary English still has two words (a ‘posh’ one derived from French and a ‘plain’ one derived from Anglo-Saxon) for many objects.] I believe this is what the missionary meant: many plantation slaves (especially those of the Upper Suriname region) knew three or four synonyms for a multitude of things, probably words of both English and Portuguese origin, plus possibly words of Dutch and African (sometimes even Indian) origin. The ‘Christian’ and ‘Jewish’ slaves did not have different languages: although the vocabularies may not have overlapped wholly, the grammar and syntax were the same. This is also the reason that <em>Dju-Tongo</em> disappeared quietly and without a trace. Price conceded that his objections against the theory of Voorhoeve were <em>“only about the extent to which differential New World experiences must be taken into account”</em>.<br /><br />Despite the fact that there were different percentages of Portuguese-derived words in the various plantation creoles, the slaves of Surinam formed one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_community">speech community</a>: they could converse with each other without problems, even if they sometimes employed different designations for the same objects. The Portuguese contribution to the slave language was strictly limited to the vocabulary: Rens found very little influence on the grammar, syntax and phonology. He also pointed to the fact that Portuguese-derived words never referred to common articles of use, or to plantation activities, but mostly to delicacies -although more basic words from Portuguese origin were not entirely absent (for example: child/little is <em>pikin</em>, from the Portuguese <em>pequeño</em>).<br /><br />Measuring the <strong>African</strong> influence on <em>Ningre</em> is even more difficult. Saramaccan has a larger percentage of African words than either <em>Ndjuka</em> or <em>Sranan.</em> [Although not for the most common items: if one employs the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swadesh_list">Swadesh</a> 200 items list, it turns out that <em>Sranan</em> has 118 English, 25 Dutch, 7 Portuguese and 4 African derived words, while Saramaccan has 72 English, 6 Dutch, 50 Portuguese and 6 African derived words.] Price explained this by pointing to the fact that the ancestors of the Saramaka escaped in a much earlier stage of history (the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century) than the ancestors of the Djuka (who only started to abscond around 1720, when the last substantial groups of runaways that amalgamated into the Saramaka were already safely ensconced in the forest). It is even more difficult to establish which African languages provided these words. A Belgian priest claimed to have found countless Congolese expressions in Saramaccan, but Price countered that many of those words (or very similar ones) were used all over West Africa. Therefore, it is rather useless to quarrel about the their provenance. The name <em>Asase</em>, for example, could be derived from an Ashanti god, from the Dahomean word for earth, from both, or from neither one. The more common the expression, the more chance it had to survive. Only <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric">esoteric</a> cult languages are easily retraceable to a specific African tongue. For example, <em>Kromanti </em>(the language of the sky gods) is largely of Fanti-Ashanti origin (Herskovits even claimed that his Ashanti informants could understand most of it).<br /><br />Nepveu concluded in 1770 that ‘Negro-English’ <em>“is now mixed somewhat more with Dutch”</em>. Slowly some words derived from the <strong>Dutch</strong> language had been incorporated into <em>Ningre</em> and some had even replaced former English-based words (for instance: <em>hansom</em> gave way to <em>moy</em>). Dutch words were also used to designate objects and ideas the slaves previously had no term for. However, because of the reluctance of the Dutch to let the slaves learn their language, most slaves could speak no Dutch at all and as a result, according to De Bruyn, <em>“the slaves</em> [were]<em> debarred from the opportunity, to become acquainted even in the slightest with the mores, customs and thoughts of their masters”</em>. Van der Smissen saw no problems: most slaves could understand sufficient Dutch to understand simple teaching. Hostmann was even more optimistic: he claimed that many slaves spoke some Dutch and all could understand it more or less.<br /><br />Whatever the exact limits of the bondsmen’s knowledge of Dutch may have been, it was not sufficient to influence the development of the slave language substantially. Therefore, the Surinam <em>Ningre</em> changed much less than, for example, the Jamaican creole. In Jamaica, the slave language was based on the official language and through the centuries adapted itself more and more to its grammar and syntax -with the result that a ‘post-creole continuum’ (a fluid transition from the broadest creole to the most sophisticated English) has evolved. Each speaker commands a part of this spectrum, the breath of which is determined by his social status, his education and the variety of contacts he entertains. In Surinam, this did not happen, so the slave language survived in a much purer form.<br /><br />The only thing that has ever threatened to mar its natural beauty was the construction of a special language for religious purposes by the Moravian Brothers. These realized that they could only reach the slaves if they addressed them in their own tongue, but <em>Ningre</em> had no words for many of the phenomena Christian theology tried to explain and some of the words used by the slaves were not considered proper enough by the missionaries. So they tried to uplift the vocabulary. In the opinion of Voorhoeve, their efforts amounted to little more than <em>“institutionalized mispronunciation”</em>, but they did help to make the slave language more respectable. The ‘church creole’ was mainly employed by blacks aspiring to acceptance by the whites and has become practically extinct in the 20th century. It has not made a lasting impression on the language used by the so-called <em>Volkscreolen</em>.<br /><br />Brother Kersten voiced the opinion of many whites when he wrote in 1766: <em>“The Negro language is terribly poor and has barely enough </em>[words]<em> for daily use, so that the people must speak almost just as much through signs … In the beginning I did not know myself, where exactly the problem was; now I would explain it thus, that with every three words of them one has to think ten words that they <strong>don’t</strong> have.” </em>It was true that the number of words taken from the donor languages to stock the new vocabulary was rather limited. Nevertheless, <em>Ningre </em>was not lacking the means to designate less-used objects, or express abstract ideas. The vocabulary was expanded by weaving <em>“a network of meanings around single terms”</em>. This could be done by <strong>analogy</strong>: for example, <em>bere</em> originally meant ‘belly’ and later also came to mean ‘intestines’ and ‘clan’. It could also be done by <strong>linking components</strong> to form new meanings: for example <em>(h)oso</em> (house) and <em>pikin</em> (little) can mean little house, but also toilet.<br /><br />Steinberg has listed some transformational principles whereby an English word became a <em>Sranan</em> word: (1) the s at the beginning of the word was dropped (story became <em>tori</em>); (2) the th changed into f (mouth became <em>moffo</em>) or s (cloth became <em>klosi</em>); (3) the l was replaced by an r, or the other way around (plank became <em>pranga</em> and river <em>liba</em>); (4) letters changed places (work became <em>wroko</em>). Nouns mostly ended with a vowel, often (but not always) repeating the one already present in the word. Phrases were often condensed into words (how do you do became <em>hodi</em>). Expressions were made more concrete: to comfort is <em>tapu sari </em>in <em>Sranan</em>, which literally means ‘to cover grief’. Some of the principles that have been mentioned above have also been unearthed in African languages, but Herskovits erred in the belief that <em>Sranan</em> has an African grammar and syntax. If there are similarities, they probably stem from the fact that the African languages concerned are basically creoles themselves, just as English is rooted in a creole (one of the reasons it is so easy to learn).<br /><br />The Surinam slaves may have formed a speech community, but that is not to say that there were no regional differences, because the circumstances made it difficult for the slaves to travel. These regional varieties were mostly <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dialect">dialectical</a> in nature. However, the differences in speech between the old (Suriname, Commewijne) and the new (Coronie, Nickerie) plantation areas were more profound than that. The latter had many English and Scottish inhabitants, which made the slave language much more authentically English than in the rest of the colony. Because of the freedom of movement inaugurated by emancipation, few of these varieties remain.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Religion.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5269769771838224530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 222px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFQ8Z4PXe9aIWTyUMEV3rkq0obR9EJ6zaHCPd5Obxm1KDKM6NjJgjm6GyjeXhj3XTJsb4H4ER1hVgXzztF1WEeuXfrUDRFUzd3WuM69hMSX8RMd0LpT92-H-zkBv6syMbge79fBL1fPs4/s400/kerktoilet.jpg" border="0" /><br /></strong><em>Syncretism.</em><br /><br />Religion was the most important focus of African life and in the New World, the need for support from the gods was even greater than in Africa. The slaves were assailed by crises that demanded ritual therapy. There were many rituals associated with death and burials, which had to be executed with a depressing regularity. The slaves also were desperate to ward off the witchcraft aimed against them (so they believed) by whites, especially the evil influence of their spirits. The slaves, seeking protection against the powers of darkness surrounding them, enlisted all the help they could get and they were not very particular about the origins of their saviors. Old beliefs were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism">syncretized</a> into new creeds. This way, religion became the first area of cultural cooperation. Religion proved to be an invaluable support for the slaves in their fight for dignity and a better future.<br /><br /><em>“In Surinam religious neglect and a standard of cruelty extreme even for the Caribbean contributed to strengthen African religious life and with it a state of constant agitation and rebellion”</em>, Eugene Genovese claimed. As often, he is partly right. The Surinam planters indeed wanted to leave their slaves in the dark. They were, like most mainstream Protestants, not very eager to have them converted to Christianity. In the back of their minds, the uneasy belief reigned that it was not particularly charitable to keep fellow Christians in bondage. Since they had no desire to give up their costly property, they preferred their slaves to stay heathens. Furthermore, the Dutch, when it suited their purpose, generally displayed an unusual measure of religious tolerance, especially abroad. In Surinam, they did not actually accept the faith of their slaves, but neither did they oppose displays of paganism out of moral conviction. Their reasons for trying to stop large religious gatherings were purely pagmatic, namely (1) the fact that these brought together a considerable number of blacks and might evolve into a hotbed of rebellious and conspirational ideas; (2) the fact that many slaves got drunk at such occasions and disturbed the peace; (3) the fact that during religious ceremonies (<em>pleys</em>) the slaves often danced and feasted all night (sometimes even the whole weekend), so on Monday morning they were exhausted and not fit for work and (4) the fact that religious institutions might provide an organizational vehicle for uprisings.<br /><br />That the whites were very much aware of these dangers is proved by their objections against the <em>Watramama</em> dance, which will be explored in more detail later. It goes too far, however, to conclude that the religious life of the slaves in itself created a state of ‘constant agitation and rebellion’. Often, it was the other way around: permitting the bondsmen a certain measure of freedom to practice their religion took pressure of the kettle and contributed to maintaining the status quo. This was the reason why many planters preferred to close their eyes to pagan manifestations, in spite of all the official prohibitions. Furthermore, it was not cruelty in itself that promoted religiousness (since genuine sadism kills all emotion) -although maltreatment contributed to high death rates, of course, which in turn stimulated the performance of religious ceremonies.<br /><br />In spite of the difficult circumstances under which the slaves had to live, they could develop their ‘idolatry’ largely undisturbed, as long as they were not too obvious about it. The fact that they often kept their religious activities ‘secret’ makes it difficult to retrace the development of slave religion. Mintz and Price have tried to do just this. They believed that in Surinam the slave religion sprouted from inter-African syncretism with some Indian influences. The new creed started to be forged from the moment a slave from one culture gave ritual aid to a slave from another culture. They provided the example of the ‘twin-birth ritual’. The birth of twins was a crisis that urgently required ritual therapy in most African cultures. If the mother had no knowledge of such a ceremony herself, she would undoubtedly have asked the help of others. An older woman who had been a priestess of the twin cult, or who remembered seeing a relative perform the ritual, would have carried it out as best as she could. This may have meant a rather radical reinterpretation of the original ritual. She would thereafter have been recognized as the specialist in cases of twin births. Later, she may have expanded her activities and ultimately, she may have passed on her interpretation to others. This way, religious specialists with specific bodies of knowledge were created.<br /><br />This is a plausible theory, although twin births were probably a rare occurrence in young slave colonies. More likely, the focus of religious activity will have lain in the rituals surrounding sickness and death. Moreover, the way they sketched it, the creation of the new religion was a private and rather ad-hoc affair, inevitably resulting in much religious variation -of which there is little proof.<br /><br /><em>African beliefs.</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5269770106812983394" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 251px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUcP4ZO558I00oPC4WmlWo-U2jvl4WuzStX73hcjBW3BdGjknCPydfM6k8hon4vLlkyEdFfQdq6V5OdRMTnWOzmzMEvwLe0-OAOhNEys1CtdYUQGEfEXMt5YQpI4rDzjWHqDz4x_XtsmM/s400/religieuze-dans.jpg" border="0" />African, especially West-African, religions have many characteristics in common, which gave the slaves a sturdy base for developing their syncretic version. <a href="http://www.geocities.com/solarguard/africa/aftrad.html">E. Bolaji Idowu</a> has listed some of the basic principles. Perhaps because he was a Christian himself, he resented the suggestion that Africans do not believe in ‘God’ (Deity): <em>”We find that in Africa, the real cohesive factor is the living God and that without this one factor, all things would fall to pieces. And it is on this ground especially –this identical concept- that we can speak of the religion of Africa in the singular”</em>. Africans do not have a clear image of this <strong>Supreme Being</strong> though. He is generally believed not to involve himself in the ways of the world directly and sometimes he is so remote and the divinities are so powerful that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheism">polytheism</a> seems to prevail, in which case Idowu prefers to speak of ‘diffused monotheism’. The concept of God is shaped by <em>“the sociological structure and climate”</em>. He is usually perceived as male, but some tribes speak of God as being female or androgynous in nature. God cannot be manipulated into granting his worshippers what they desire. Consequently, he is usually only worshipped through his divinities -although he has his own priests and shrines in some cultures. “<em>With regard to the essential person, it is illuminating that the African concept is generally that it is only Deity who can put this into man and thus make him a person.” </em>Apart from the belief in a supreme being, African religions share the following elements: <em>“belief in the divinities, belief in spirits, belief in the ancestors, and the practice of magic and medicine, each with its own consequent, attendant cult”</em>.<br /><br />The <strong>divinities</strong> are more in the foreground than Deity. Especially in West Africa, they are extremely important, <em>“but even here, we have variations from a very crowded pantheon to a very thinly populated one, and even to a situation where they appear to be scarcely in existence”</em>. The divinities are <em>“brought into being”</em> by, or are thought to be <em>“derivatives from” </em>Deity. Each divinity has a local name in the local language <em>“which is descriptive either of his allotted function or the natural phenomenon which is believed to be a manifestation or emblem of his being”. </em>Nevertheless, divinities with similar names, similar traits and similar functions are found in widely seperated cultures. They are in essence <em>“functionaries in the theocratic government of the universe”</em>. They either administrate parts of Deity’s realm, or act as intermediaries between Deity and Man. They are governed by an arch-divinity (or two) <em>“who is more closely related in attributes to Deity”</em>.<br /><br />The <strong>spirits</strong> are less personalized, they have no individual names and are only recognized as categories. A prime example are the ghosts, for <em>“it is believed by Africans that a person whose dead body is not buried, that is, with due and correct rites, will not be admitted to the abode of the blessed departed ones, and therefore will become a wanderer, living an aimless, haunting existence”</em>. This also happens to the unfortunates who suffered a ‘bad death’ by downing, hanging, or complications during childbirth. The Africans believe that witches can send out spirits to harm other people, but a potential victim can be protected by a guardian spirit, either the <em>“essence of man’s personality”</em>, which splits off and becomes a sort of double (spiritual counterpart), or a separate entity.<br /><br /><strong>Ancestor worship</strong> is of vital importance as well, because all over Africa, parents are believed to have the power to <em>“bless or curse an offspring effectively”</em>, so everyone needs a parental blessing for every <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage">rite of passage</a>. When they have entered the realm of death, their power is enhanced infinitely and so even more sought after. Thus, <em>“while technically Africans do not put their ancestors, as ancestors, on the same footing with Deity or the divinities, there is no doubt that the ancestors receive veneration that may become so intense as to verge on worship or even become worship”</em>. Africans generally believe that the dearly departed can only become ancestors after they have been mustered by Deity, or the <em>“court of ancestors”</em>. Depraved people will be denied a place in ‘heaven’ and will be cast into <em>“a place of rubbish heap”</em>, the <em>“hell of midden”</em>, or the <em>“hell of potsherds”</em>. In some instances, they become eternal wanderers in a place of <em>“no abode”</em>. Veneration of the ancestors is important for their offspring, not for themselves: their after-life is a reality, not dependent on the actions of their descendants.<br /><br />In most African societies, belief in <strong>witchcraft</strong> plays a major role. The basic beliefs take on many shapes. Witchcraft can be seen as an expression of inherently evil powers, or as the result of the manipulation of ordinary materials. The kind of persons who are usually suspected of witchcraft and the kind of remedies sought against them vary from place to place. Most societies differentiate between good and evil practitioners of magic. The same powers can often be employed for curing or for destruction.<br /><br /><em>The pantheon of the Surinam slaves.</em><br /><br />The process of syncretizing the various African creeds created a system of beliefs that was totally new in some respects, but reflected on the other hand the contributions of the ethnic groups that made up the slave population. Many writers have found a clear dominance of specific tribes in the various regions of the Caribbean, especially in the field of religion. Roger Bastide has been most active in searching for distinctions. Even within the tight confines of the Old South, he discovered two cultural cores: Gold Coast culture on the Gullah islands and in Virginia, and Dahomean culture in Louisiana. Yoruba culture was preeminent in Trinidad and Cuba and in northeastern and southern Brazil. Haiti and northern Brazil were dominated by Dahomean influence. In Jamaica, the religion and folklore of the Gold Coast shaped the slave culture and in Surinam and French Guyana we find, in his opinion <em>“Fanti-Ashanti culture in its purest form”</em>, particularly among the Bush Negroes. That, at least, was the impression he got from the work of Herskovits. Mintz and Price objected strongly to this kind of simplification. They certainly had a point, but they leaned too far to the other side and denied that one can distinguish the influence of any specific culture at all. No doubt one can find contributions of all the three main cultural congregates (Gold Coast, Dahomean, Bantu) everywhere, but in greatly varying proportions.<br /><br />The Dahomean slaves seem to have set the tone in Surinam: Governor Nepveu claimed that it were the Papa, Nago, Arrada and others groups usually designated as ‘Fida Negroes’, who had introduced certain <em>“devilish practices”</em> during dances, which were adopted by the other slaves. When they played and sang in a special way, they got into trance and they later told him that their <em>Winti</em> had taken hold of them during this time. Dahomeans also dominated the pivotal snake cult. They were, however, later overshadowed by the Gold Coast Negroes. Their pantheon fitted in snugly with the hierarchy of the Dahomean gods and their conceptions of the Supreme Being and the soul became preeminent. The Bantu slaves seem to have been awed by the comprehensiveness of their competitors’ worldview. According to Bastide, their religion was less systematized than that of the Guineans and was based mainly on ancestor worship. Furthermore, they were predominantly field hands, so they had less bearing on religion (which was the domain of the higher placed slaves) than on folklore. We know that in Surinam, Loango slaves were oppressed by the others, so it is likely that they adapted themselves more to the Guineans than the other way around.<br /><br />Like most Africans, the Surinam slaves believed in a supreme deity. According to Hartsinck, they called him <strong>Jan Compaan</strong> (a Dutch mispronunciation of the Ashanti name <em><a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=1B2VdWzjmrkC&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=Nyankompon&source=bl&ots=uRG3RXeWhm&sig=C-LvXkyTM2BfI4V6JdGyMWpzNOk&hl=nl&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result">Nyankompon</a></em>) -a name that still lives on in one of the names of the Djuka supreme god: <em>Jankumpani</em>. The Moravian missionary Zander wrote in 1745 that the slaves believed in a <em>God na dapé</em> (good God in Heaven) <em>“with whom they do not have much communication, however”</em> and a <em>God na bron</em> (devil), whom they held responsible for any bad luck. They claimed to be the ‘chickens’ of the good God, who butchered one when he felt like it. The Supreme Being did not play an important part in the daily life of the slaves.<br /><br />Divinities were pivotal in the religion of the Surinam slaves, just as they were in West Africa. They were called <em>Winti </em>(wind). Some were thought to have come from Africa with the deported slaves and to have been prevented from returning because their worshippers had eaten salt in the New World. Others, like the <em>Indji Winti</em>, were indigenous to Surinam and had been ‘tamed’ by religious specialists. [Nowadays there are even <em>Bakra</em> (white), Chinese and Hindustani <em>Winti</em>.] The pantheon of the slaves could be divided into four different groups: the Sky Gods (<em>Tapu Kromanti</em>, especially fierce and powerful gods); the Water Gods (<em>Watra Winti</em>), the Earth Gods (<em>Gron Winti</em>) and the Bush Gods (<em>Busi Winti</em>). It is not clear whether the slaves distinguished arch-divinities. [The Djuka have two: <em>Grantata</em> and <em>Gedeonsu</em>. Most of these <em>Winti</em> are still worshipped by modern-day Creoles and Bush Negroes.]<br /><br />The powerful <strong>Tapu Kromanti </strong>were largely of Gold Coast (Ashanti) origin. They were extremely aggressive and given to furious (and for the mediums sometimes dangerous) outbursts. They were associated with iron, weapons and invulnerability. Being ‘high’ <em>Winti</em>, they were not malicious by nature, but could harm people unintentionally and punished them (or had them punished by lower <em>Winti</em>) when they disobeyed the rules. The mediums of the Sky Gods spoke an esoteric language called <em>Kromanti</em> when in trance. This contained many original Ashanti words. They made their face white with clay and wore white (for the Thunder Gods), or blue (for the <em>Kromanti</em>) clothing. Important Sky Gods were <strong>Opete</strong> (the vulture) and <strong>Jaw Kromanti</strong>.<br /><br />The <strong>Watra Winti </strong>were also high <em>Winti</em>, but stood below most Sky Gods. The most venerated one was <strong>Watramama</strong>, which was awarded the utmost respect by the slaves. Lammens noted: <em>“when</em> [the slaves] <em>come in a creek or water they have not navigated for a long time or which is unknown to them, they take off their hat, baptize themselves and offer an egg, plantain or the like to the watramama”</em>. The <em>Watramama</em> dance was feared very much by the whites, because it often brought trouble. <em>”Under the name of Watramama they have a Religious dance, in which she or he, who dances, persists, so long that he or she faints, or gets into trance, and what is then ordered, must happen: -as such practices are very dangerous, they are strictly forbidden, and are punished –the watramama is therefore as much as possible, danced in secret”</em>. Not rarely, <em>Watramama</em> ordered through her mediums that the slaves killed certain whites, or incited a rebellion. Blom nevertheless did not take the danger of this dance very seriously <em>“as </em>[the slave force]<em> usually consists of several nations, of which the one does not trust the other, thus there is, when they dance this dangerous dance (which does not happen but furtively) always only a part of the force present, and the other negroes who do not trust this presumed oracle of a God they do not worship as much, would not be so easily ready to support them; even on a well-run plantation surely the one or the other would warn the whites for the danger that threatened them; therefore one still has no examples, that they have dared to carry out such an intention as result of a so-called divine oracle”</em>. The <em>aboma</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda">anaconda</a> snake) was venerated because the slaves believed it was the locus of a <em>Watra Winti</em>. Of all the <em>Indji Winti</em> (particularly esteemed because they were at home in the country and could be used for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divination">divination</a>), the <strong>Watra Indji</strong> was one of the most important.<br /><br />The prime <strong>Gron Winti</strong> was the Earth Goddess (<strong>Mama </strong><strong>Aisa/</strong><strong>Asase</strong>). Her husband was <strong>Tata Loko</strong>. She was believed to live in a <em>kankantrie</em> (cotton wood tree) and could present herself in the shape of a deer, tiger, crocodile, <em>dagowe</em> or <em>aboma</em> snake. It was therefore forbidden to kill these animals. Each plantation had such a goddess, who was worshipped at every dance. She was a high <em>Winti</em> who protected the plantation slaves against harmful influences. Since she was bound to the land, the slaves could not take her with them (as they could other <em>Winti</em>) when they fled from a plantation.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268143856479169458" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-pJCZkyIze22GM4Xy-ssLtHsDAWmbrdak7CUIZdlH4Qc6iFwGIxxaYBrUP-W6SYxu5LOxbxzVMrTR0ZUrxeKDp_ZclUjWjYcBeoD0aFBVoHGAf1JCaIdhJ_u-I94YPEFo39Q1i4zTCg/s400/mama-sneki.jpg" border="0" />The <strong>Busi Winti</strong> pantheon was very crowded. Most prominent divinities were the Snake Gods (<strong>Papa Winti</strong>, for example). He inhabited a so-called <em>Papa sneki</em> (or <em>dagowe</em> = boa constrictor). Consequently, the slaves did not dare to kill such a snake. Even when they did this unaware (while burning vegetation, for example), they would fall ill and die. The name Papa betrays that this cult originated in Dahomey. The Papa slaves often kept snakes as pets. Stedman revealed that they <em>“are happy to see it enter their huts”</em>. Some women were skilled in enticing a snake to come to them “<em>by their voice” </em>and managed to make them come down from a tree. If such a woman succeeded in tempting a snake <em>“it is common to see this reptile twine and writhe about their arms, neck and breast as if the creature took delight in hearing her voice, while the woman strokes and caresses it with her hand”</em>. Governor Nepveu claimed that some slaves kept a snake in a separate room in their house, or even in a special house with a verandah. Their worshippers lured them into the house by singing softly. They were pampered and fed copiously. The room in which the snake stayed could only be entered by the ‘mama’ and only in a kneeling posture. From time to time, the disciples brought sacrifices, always white in color, like a white chicken or pigeon. They wore white kerchiefs on their head.<br /><br />Another well-known <em>Busi Winti</em> was <strong>Busimama</strong>. She looked like a human being, but her feet were turned around and she had a strangely formed head wit lots of hair. She knew all medicinal herbs and was not very friendly to people. Whenever she met one in the bush, she started a fight and nearly always won. This was the reason that someone who got lost in the jungle almost never returned. The <em>Tigri </em><em>Winti </em>(<strong>Ajaini</strong>) was just as fierce as the Sky Gods. Benoit observed the ceremony: <em>“When they celebrate the feast of Ajaini Winti, or the sacrifice to the tiger, one has to have forty to fifty birds. At a sign given by the sacrificer, whose clothes are white with spots like a tiger skin, these poor birds are torn apart by the assistants under convulsive movements and terrible cries. They are then prepared and served by the hands of the sacrificer, just like the drinks and the other spirits that have been deposited in advance at the foot of the tree by the most devoted and the most fanatical of them”</em>.<br /><br />Hostmann considered<strong> Ampuku</strong> the foremost <em>Busi Winti</em>. This was an anthropomorphic divinity, usually portrayed as tall and black skinned. He was a lower <em>Winti</em>, under the command of the higher gods, who could order him to torment erring men. He could also by ‘trained’ by a sorcerer and be made to harm people. Like most of his peers, he was somewhat malicious by nature and a clever imitator. He liked to impersonate other <em>Winti</em> during <em>pleys</em> given in their honor, thereby spoiling the whole show.<br /><br /><strong>Leba</strong>, another of the <em>Busi Winti</em>, had clear Dahomean origins. Some believed that he was small in stature and dressed in rags. He served as a messenger for the higher <em>Winti</em>. He was not malicious, but easily insulted and liked to tease. Van Lier presented Leba in a different light: as being mean by nature and swathed in palm leaves that made the sound of a <em>sakka sakka</em> (rattle) when he moved. He was worshipped at crossroads and near sluices.<br /><br />An equally humble <em>Busi Winti</em> was <strong>Akantamasi</strong>, who lived in a termite nest and was also at the beck and call of the higher <em>Winti</em>. He was very belligerent and if anyone urinated or defecated at close range, he punished the culprit with sickness and death: he could cause, among other things, the bloody flux.<br /><br />The <strong>Bakru spirits</strong> resembled Ampuku in various respects. Their origins are not clear. They were probably not ‘brought along’ from Africa, but a later addition to the pantheon. Steinberg claimed that the <em>Bakru</em> cult “<em>penetrated the colony in the beginning of the</em> [18]<em>50’s from the Forestland along the Para and Suriname and has raged, like an epidemic, on the plantations for about 30 years”</em>. This occurrence gave rise to a new group of religious specialists: <em>“When the cases of Bakru possession multiplied a sort of guild of bakru exorcists arose, who with their cures –mostly consisting of merciless canings- made a nice profit”</em>. It was rumored that some people did not survive their ‘treatment’. Martin witnessed such a procedure with his own eyes. When visiting the former plantation <strong>Berg en Dal</strong> in the 1880’s, he was struck by the sight of a girl flashing past him crying, chased by two men who finally brought her back <em>“coughing with nervously clenched hands”</em>. They explained to him that <em>“she was possessed by the devil (Bakru), an evil, which the negroes believe they can exorcise by whipping and which is set on them by a man”</em>.<br /><br />Vernon has studied about the belief in <em>Bakru</em> spirits among the Djuka. It seems they only got acquainted with them by the end of the 19th century, when the first gold prospectors entered their territory. They considered <em>Bakrus</em> to be<em> </em>the enslaved ghosts of evil persons that had attached themselves to visitors and had been sent to them as a kind of avenging spirits (<em>kunu</em>) in retaliation for theft. Contrary to other <em>Winti</em>, men could not only train <em>Bakrus</em> to do their bidding, but also mould them. According to Vernon, the Djuka believe that a <em>Bakru</em> is the “<em>shade of an unknown (and probably evil) dead, which has been captured and tinkered with by a Creole or Chinese magician, and made to inhabit a mannekin. The little body is composed half of flesh, half of wood, its wooden half serving the Bakru as a shield to foil its assailants”</em>. According to other sources, a <em>Wintiman </em>could form a <em>Bakru</em> out of the slime of plants. Then it was placed under a plantain tree and after the recitation of certain formulas, it was ready to fulfill his master’s wishes. Although it was thought to be small, with the statue of a three year old boy, it was enormously strong and could wrestle the most muscular men to the ground.<br /><br />Steinberg claimed that the belief in <em>Bakrus</em> originated in the bush (probably the Saramacca region), but others held that it was a coastal invention. Vernon hypothesized: <em>“it is possible then, that the Bakru belief was not part of the original cosmology elaborated on the plantations but that it evolved on the coast after the escapes and was not imported to the Maroon societies until the feverish years of rainforest fortune hunting”</em>. It is a mystery why the fear of <em>Bakru </em>created such a hysteria<em> </em>in the second half of the 19th century. Although <em>Bakrus</em> share some traits with Ampuku, they are not ordinary <em>Winti</em>. <em>Winti </em>cannot be exorcised: they can be trained to a certain degree and be enticed to leave a person alone, but they can never be driven away by a whipping.<br /><br />To recapitulate: the <em>Winti </em>formed a hierarchy in which the lower <em>Winti </em>had to obey the orders of the higher ones. The highest-placed <em>Winti </em>featured: the <em>Kromanti</em>, <em>Aisa</em>, <em>Watra Mama</em>, <em>Papa Winti</em> and <em>Tigri Winti</em>. Low on the scale were most of the <em>Busi Winti</em>. Many <em>Winti</em> were of Gold Coast origin, the <em>Kromanti </em>being the most prominent. The snake gods and <em>Leba</em> were of Dahomean stock. The Bantu made a modest contribution in the form of <em>Loango Winti</em>. Important were also the <em>Inji Winti</em>. The higher <em>Winti</em>, in particular the <em>Kromanti</em>, were often very fierce, making their mediums tear apart live chickens, run through fire or glass, etc. They were just, but indifferent towards humans. Lower <em>Winti</em> were often mean and petty, they could be bought with presents and be trained to terrorize people. The <em>Winti</em> that accompanied them on their horrible journey to the New World were a great comfort for the slaves during their ordeal and it must have been an enormous relief for them to find their new habitat teeming with <em>Inji Winti</em>, who helped them to adapt.<br /><br />The spirits of the ancestors were called <strong>Jorkas</strong> (in the archives sometimes listed as <em>Jurki</em>). According to Van Lier, this name derives from the Indian word <em>Yoroka</em>, meaning devil. Van der Smissen mentioned that the word <em>Yurka</em> was used by the slaves for a <em>“ghost or invisible transcendental being”</em>. It was vital to appease the ancestors, because they could both protect and harm the living. When a descendant broke the rules, they could haunt him and his family as a kind of avenging spirit for generations. The most influential <em>Jorkas</em> were called <em>Gran Jorkas</em>. In order to prevent their evil ghosts from tormenting the living, suspected witches were burned alive by the Maroons. In 1777, for example, it was reported from the mission post Bambey that two “<em>Götzenpriester” </em>had been burned alive, because they had confessed that they had poisoned several children at the instigation of evil spirits.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268144282962324274" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 289px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPoiMYqypBbmCX44_vG3o4GJcpkeH-a2utkbu6ttLKT2HbvE7_j39WCxBunOVZvM7_lIfs39PvWPSEidWx9vGjwC6yMwNzD4H0DvZAzSxt2FhkDQjL41YRYfUA_noWkBTNgV6kpV6rt1Y/s400/spook.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Azema </strong>(a Dahomean word meaning vampire) was much feared by the slaves. Lammens described her as <em>“a ghost who feeds itself with the flesh of men and animals”</em>. She went out at night and sucked the blood of humans, women in particular. She usually inhabited the body of a person (mostly an old woman) who was called <em>azeman</em>. Engel wrote in 1916: <em>“Not long ago any shriveled-up old woman, especially one leaning in a bent position on a cane, particularly if she had red-inflamed eyes, ran the danger to be reviled as Azéman and pelted with stones in the streets of Paramaribo”</em>. Some people believed that the <em>azeman</em> could shed her skin at night (like European witches) and that one could prevent her from returning to her normal form by sprinkling pepper or salt on it. It was also believed that <em>Azema, </em>when flying, radiated a bluish light.<br /><br />The concept of the <strong>soul </strong>was largely shaped by the beliefs of the Gods Coast Negroes: to denote it, the slaves used the Akan word <strong>(a)kra</strong>. The <em>kra, </em>constisting of a male and a female part, was sometimes also conceived as a kind of spiritual <strong>shadow</strong>, that could wander around and bring trouble to its owner. It had the task to protect the body from invasion by evil spirits and was aided by spiritual helpers (nowadays called<em> djodjo</em>). In the view of some authors, there were two <em>djodjos</em>, a male and a female one; others distinguised seven pairs (one pair for each day of the week) and perceived a close relationship between <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_name">day names</a> and spiritual helpers. The <em>djodjos</em> were usually believed to be powerful <em>Winti</em> (preferably an <em>Inji Winti</em> or a <em>Kromanti</em>), but it was not unthinkable for a (<em>Gran</em>) <em>Jorka</em> to perform the same functions. According to the <a href="http://www.suriname.nu/701vips/belangrijke96.html">Penard</a> brothers, Creoles believe that a person who is robbed of his <em>kra </em><em>“speaks gibberish, becomes listless and often dies”</em>. As long as the <em>kra </em>is strong, no harmful spirit can enter the body. So, when the <em>kra </em>had become weak, it had to be strengthened by a special meal: <em>“The negroes, when they want to have a religious feast, put these beans</em> [negerpesiën]<em> in water an evening in advance and remove the pods the next morning, prepare the flour by pounding, and fry the well-kneaded dough in rapeseed oil to a kind of oilcakes, which they call akra (food for the gods)”</em>, Teenstra reported. He was not entirely accurate: what probably happened was that the slaves made these cakes for a <em>kra-tafra</em> (special meal to strengthen the <em>kra</em>), or a <em>pley</em> in which the <em>kra</em> was celebrated.<br /><br /><em>Witchcraft and possession.</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.drbilllong.com/CurrentEventsIII/Raboteau.html">Albert Raboteau</a> claimed that Afro-American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft">witchcraft</a> beliefs are generally European in origin, but this was certainly not the case in Surinam. The similarities that exist rather point to the fact that the basic tenets of witchcraft in Europe and Africa were very much alike, as Herskovits has argued. The slaves of Surinam lived in mortal fear of witchcraft (<em>wisi</em>). They felt especially vulnerable to persecution by the ghosts of whites (while being convinced that it did not work the other way around). Benoit, for example, noticed that Negroes refused to sleep in a house where a white had died, <em>“because they are persuaded that the dead will return during the night to torment them”</em>. The slaves had more reason to dread the evil intentions of their fellows, though. Some were believed to posses a kind of ‘evil eye’ in the form of an <em>Azema</em>, which they easily fell prey to if they were consumed by jealousy. Others (the <em>wisimans</em>) intentionally used black magic. They trained potentially evil divinities and spirits (<em>Ampuku</em>, <em>Bakrus</em>, <em>Jorkas</em>) to haunt their enemies. Sometimes, they kept a snake in order to gain wealth and poison their fellows.<br /><br />It was nearly impossible to root out this belief, even with Christian slaves. A black ‘sister’ on the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/fayerfield/index.nl.html">Fairfield</a></strong> told an EBG-missionary in 1798. <em>“I do not believe in the sorcery of the Negroes, but when my daughter (a servant sister in Paramaribo) was still young, she got blind in both eyes. My husband, a white, sent her to a doctor, who however could not help her, just as little could another wise man do. When after that many donkeys on the plantation died, the master started to suspect a negro and had him put in chains. Soon after that a new director came, who asked the negro, why he had earned this punishment. Answer: Master, do you not see this Mulatto woman, who walks around with sore eyes? I have blinded her; but if you let me loose just long enough, so I can go to my house and take that, what I have buried for her eyes out of the ground again, she will get better. The director informed the administrator, who however ordered, not to let the negro loose. So they guided him tied-up to his house, where he dug several things out of the ground; to me he gave some herbs, which I should cook and wash the eyes of my daughter with, after which they were cured completely soon. He had gotten hold of the cloth with which my daughter had dried the sweat of her face, and with that performed his sorcery.”<br /></em><br />If a slave died, it was necessary to determine the cause of death to make sure that no <em>wisi</em> was involved. To that end, the ceremony of ‘<strong>carrying the coffin</strong>’ was performed. This ritual was known all over West Africa and naturally, the slaves had hung on to it. During the performance, either the coffin with the body itself, or some hair and clothes of the deceased were carried around the compound and if the bearers were guided towards a house and the coffin touched it, this was considered sufficient proof that the inhabitant was guilty of witchcraft. Sometimes, the alleged culprits were handed over to the master in the hope that they would be put to death (preferably on the funeral pyre of their victims), but it also happened that they were horribly tortured and then burned alive by their fellow slaves. This was, for example, the horrible fate of Jean of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/esperance/index.nl.html">L’ Esperance</a></strong>. He had been accused of <em>wisi</em> by the<em> Jorka</em> of the late slave Dikki of Mr. Penneux. Sometimes the masters handed the accused over to the authorities and during interrogation many of them confessed that they had practiced witchcraft. [This was a rather common phenomenon. Patterson wrote about Jamaica: <em>“since the people accused of obeah were themselves the victims of the system and therefore usually maladjusted persons, we find that the accused invariably pleaded guilty to the preposterous charges made against them”</em>.]<br /><br />Even some whites feared black witches: in 1772 the widow Polak accused her slave woman of being an <em>azaman</em>. Although the Court of Criminal Justice dismissed the complaint as <em>"frivolous",</em> the <em>raden </em>were aware that she could not be returned to her mistress and ordered that she should be sold outside Paramaribo.<br /><br />It is understandable that many blacks were terrified of being taken for a <em>wisiman</em>. Hostmann provided some examples. A Negro called Augussie had, by accident, shot a Bush Negro while hunting, mistaking him for a <em>tigri</em>. <em>“Suspected as sorcerer, and therefore in constant mortal fear, Augussie succumbed, even before it had been decided whether or not he should be considered guilty of sorcery”</em>. Another Negro stepped on a poisonous snake and was killed. His companions believed that a man who lived eight days of travel from the place of the accident had sent the snake. <em>“The accused negro is from now on persecuted, his life is forfeited and if he does not dispose of it himself, he has to fear the funeral pyre.”</em><br /><br />‘Black’ magic could by fought with objects fashioned with ‘white’ magic, often called <strong>obia</strong> (an Ashanti word). The practitioners were called <em>obiaman</em> or <em>dresiman</em>. There were two kinds of <em>obias</em> [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amulet">amulets</a> and other items (eggs, feathers, pipes, mirrors), often put in calabashes]: the <em>opo</em> was used to get something; the <em>tapu </em>was used to ward off something. Hartsinck informed us that the practitioners <em>“make all kinds of enchanted Ropes with Knots, which are carried around the body or at the Hands and Feet; the one to ward off Poisoning, Diseases and Hardships; the other to be loved; to be strong in fighting; to be spared beatings etc, that are all generously paid for”</em>. Brother Zander reported in 1745 that he had met a runaway who had hung living turles all over his body, because he felt so haunted by evil spirits that he did not find any rest anymore. The slaves and Bush Negroes firmly believed in the power of these <em>obias</em>, sometimes with tragic results. Lammens related the story of two <em>Aukaners</em> (Djuka) who disputed the strength of a certain <em>obia</em>, an iron ring of which the owner claimed it made him invincible. He taunted the other, a relative, to shoot him. After repeated refusals, the latter obliged and fired a shot of pellets at him. The proud <em>obia</em> owner was severely wounded at the head and died shortly after, but not before he had uttered a statement absolving his kinsman of all responsibility. This did not spare him arrest.<br /><br />The<em> dresiman</em> (plantation ‘doctor’) mostly used herbs and other natural materials, but he might also perform miraculous feats with supernatural aid. Sometimes he was also a <em>lukuman</em>, a specialist who diagnosed ailments with the help of a <em>Winti </em>(generally an <em>Indji Winti</em>). The slaves believed that many illnesses were the result of bad relations, either with the supernatural world or with one’s fellows. It was the task of the <em>lukuman</em> to ‘look’ what was wrong with the patient and of the <em>obia/winti/bonuman</em> to cure him. These functions could be united in one person, but many specialists were only competent in one sphere –it depended on the <em>Winti </em>that possessed them. The most famous of these specialists were called <em>Grantata</em> (grandfather) in the case of a woman, or <em>Granmama</em> (grandmother) in the case of a man <em>(“the reason for this</em> [I]<em> cannot fathom”</em>, Nepveu remarked about this reversement). To the chagrin of many authors, these ‘quacks’ were even consulted by whites. Hostmann noted with disgust that the religious specialists were usually drunk when performing their miracles, yet their utterances during trance influenced their fellows with <em>“the power of oracles, of divine messages”.</em><br /><br />Black ‘doctors’ jealously guarded their secrets, especially from whites, even when they concerned harmless herbs and remedies. Fermin complained that he had <em>“many times visited several black slaves, who are versed in the knowledge of a great number of these plants; but these people are so envious of their skills that I have not been able to learn anything from them, not for money, not for flattery, and</em> [I]<em> have never been able to persuade one, on any condition whatsoever, to give me any tutoring”</em>. A specialist could command high fees from the believers in the form of money, goods and food items. A fee of 25 guilders for a cure (more than the monthly wage of a lower-class white) was not at all unusual. This could make them very rich, but they were also vulnerable, especially the <em>lukumans</em>: when they gave the wrong prediction and, for example, a supposedly succesful attack failed, it could cost them their head.<br /><br />The religious specialists were not the only persons who could be possessed by a <em>Winti</em>. A considerable percentage of the slaves was a medium too, but only the specialists knew how to train and use their <em>Winti</em>. For the ordinary mediums, possession was often an ungrateful burden: they had to keep their <em>Winti</em> happy by giving them presents and organizing dances to honor them and this was rather costly. On the other hand, a powerful <em>Winti</em> could give them protection against an invasion of harmful spirits and the machinations of their fellows. <em>Winti</em> were often inherited by descendants and passed from father to son and from mother to daughter. The Moravian missionary Zander, who claimed that the slaves all had their own ‘god’, described the process whereby they got their <em>Winti</em>. When they were young, they were brought to a cemetery and placed on the grave of an ancestor. Water was poured over them and it was revealed what <em>Winti</em> they would have. They had to venerate him or her from that moment on. Some <em>Winti</em> preferred to choose their own<em> </em>medium<em> </em>and this way new divinities could present themselves to the slave population. This was the way the <em>Indji Winti</em> were incorporated into the pantheon. If a slave was able to persuade his peers to believe that he was possessed by a powerful, even though previously unknown, <em>Winti</em>, this could give him a lot of prestige. Such a scheme was not always successful: the claimant had to demonstrate the power of his <em>Winti</em> by miraculous deeds.<br /><br />Possession by spirits is a well-known African phenomenon. <a href="http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/bourguignon_erika.html">Erika Bourguignon</a> found in a sample of 144 sub-Saharan societies that <em>“82% exhibited institutionalized forms of dissociational states, 81% some type of possession belief, and 66% possession trance”</em>. Usually, possession is a normal, culturally determined phenomenon, but in some instances, it can show pathological traits. In slave colonies, the pathological component was perhaps larger than in ‘normal’ societies. Slaves were deprived of the possibility of achievement along normal channels and by possession they could at least gain some statue in the eyes of their peers, if not in the eyes of their masters. Women were especially prone to choose this venue, because their life offered them little opportunity to gain self-esteem through personal achievement and they had a lesser range of expression of various suppressed drives.<br /><br />The sensitivity for ritual possession is partly conditioned by genetic factors, but cultural and environmental factors are important as well, as is (deprivation of) food, the use of drugs and the attitude towards such phenomena. Stimulating for reaching a state of possession are certain drum rhythms (that influence brain waves) and stress situations -like hyperventilation (for example through overexertion while dancing) and malnourishment. It is clear that such situations were very common in the life of the slaves. In the ideal state, possession is total and the medium does not remember what has happened during trance, because, as <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=aNIUAAAAIAAJ&dq=Walker+%2B+possession&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=wLww2KgVU6&sig=fmdsTHYXyuiE03iwzrR8MTl8CiE&hl=nl&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPP11,M1">Sheila Walker</a> observed: <em>“To remember one’s behaviour would be tantamount to saying, given the context of the belief system, that the deities did not really have the power to possess their devotees, thus the gestures of the devotees would be mere drama, rather than religious ritual”</em>.<br /><br />In Surinam, some persons were clearly more prone to possession than others: some mediums were used by several <em>Winti</em>, who could present themselves in quick succession. The mediums were called <em>asi </em>(either derived from a Dahomean word meaning horse or from the English ass) and the <em>Winti </em>were described as riding their <em>asi</em>. A <em>Winti </em>that was connected with a group could manifest itself only in people that are closely related. Walker noted that <em>“each individual acts out his deity in his own idiosyncratic way, thus expressing his own personal desires, yet the deity does have a basic personality recognizable across the individual variations”</em>. In Surinam, the characteristic traits of the <em>Winti </em>were rather pronounced and often groups of Winti had the same basic personality.<br /><br />The religious rituals provided an important <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis">catharsis</a> for the slaves. In the words of Walker, they were “<em>ethno-dramas dealing with the realities of daily social life”</em>. In the traditional Dahomean cults, only one deity could be served by a devotee and this person was not allowed the expression of personal idiosyncrasies: <em>“The benefit to the devotee was mainly the opportunity to be appreciated by others in such an exalted position”</em>. The mediums in Surinam had much more leeway. The possession trance was not tied to official rituals reserved for specific cults: a person could get into trance at ordinary parties and sometimes even during his normal tasks. Bystanders sometimes hardly took notice of it.<br /><br /><em>Religious practices.<br /></em><br />To please the deities, each slave had to keep certain food taboos, called <em>treefs</em> (from the Hebrew word <em>tarefa</em> = forbidden food, in the Amsterdam Jewish dialect pronounced as <em>treife</em>). Stedman wrote about this habit: “<em>there is a direct prohibition in every family, handed down from father to son, against the eating of some one kind of animal food, which they call treff; this may be either fowl, fish or quadruped, but whatever it is, no negro will touch it”</em>. Lammens also mentioned the <em>treefs</em> <em>(“that is something forbidden”</em>) and claimed that the slaves refrained from eating such animals as the turtle, deer, pingo, etc., but also plants like the <em>bacove</em> (plantain) because of it.<br /><br />The slaves believed that the <em>Winti</em> could have their locus in an inanimate object (a stone or a pipe) or an animal (especially a snake), but they seemed to be particularly partial to inhabiting a <em>kankantri(e) </em>(cottonwood tree). Brother Westphal, when visiting a ‘well-known timber estate’, saw a crowd of slaves come out of the forest one Sunday morning around 9 o’ clock and he asked the director if they had been working. The latter answered “<em>that it was Sunday morning and that the Slave had no work, and that it was the habit of the Slave to hold his Religious Service on Sunday morning in the forest where an old Kankantrie-tree stood, around this tree the Slaves Danced and brought their Obia, or sacrificial service to their Pagan Gods, in the hope that their prayers will be answered”</em>.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268149856015616482" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 321px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigAcTb036BJgjouhekMAuK0ARPe-XHBKvmKiWvmJp_neWgzfSSndnQnsI8LtR2cqjZC3v26xq0oZc8ooLMh7mio2Hs2AaVX9KFtYFnAdZ_spFFF1zyv7U_s94a9ex2TP7zKOLn19VTy_Y/s400/kankantri.jpg" border="0" />The veneration of this tree was widespread and originated in Guinea. Beckwith wrote about the Jamaican slaves: <em>“The cult of the death is strongly imposed upon the worship of cottonwood, and the animistic idea of the tree spirit is less defined than that of a ghost of the dead harboring in its branches … Jamaican Negroes fear any cottonwood tree and will not cut it without a propriatory offering of rum.” </em>In Surinam, the slaves were even more reluctant to chop down a<em> kankantrie </em>if they believed it was inhabited by a <em>Winti</em>. Blom reported that the ‘kattentrie’ <em>“is venerated as a great GOD by all; at certain times they make offerings to it; they prepare a lot of foods then, which they place around the tree with much ceremony: if such a tree stands in the way, it takes a lot of work and trouble to get it felled; if it is still young, and not very large, one can still arrange it, but if it is old and large, then they don’t want to cut it; and to force their conscience would be no less dangerous, than it would be among <strong>Christians</strong>; meanwhile it is strange that, be there twenty <strong>Kattentrie</strong></em>-<em>trees on a plantation, they have no trouble rooting out the others.”</em> Stedman gave the impression that the slaves refused to damage any kankantrie. When he asked a Negro why they put offerings around a certain tree, the man explained: <em>“This proceeds ... massera, from the following cause: having no churches nor places built for public worship (as you have) on the Coast of Guinea, and this tree being the largest and most beautiful growing there, our people, assembling under its branches when they are going to be instructed, are defended by it from the heavy rains and the scorching sun. Under this tree our gadoman, or priest, delivers his lectures; and for this reason our common people have so much veneration for it, that they will not cut it down upon any account whatever”</em>.<br /><br />It was dangerous to force the slaves to go against their beliefs. Benoit recorded a case in which a planters was severely punished for his stubbornness in this regard: <em>“One day, a planter mocking this veneration of the negroes for their God and not fearing to offend their prejudices, resolved to have one of these trees, a venerable Nestor, who stood in the middle of one of his fields, cut down. He gave the order for this to his bastiaan; but this prudent negro tried to make his master see, that by cutting the tree, he could irritate the slaves, and ran the risk to compromise his life. The master persisted in his decision. He forced the bastiaan to obey the order that he had given him, and the tree was cut down. Eight to ten days afterwards, the master was seized by a trembling in all his members. He had himself brought to the city, where he lost the use of his limbs entirely. He continued to live for several more years in a completely paralyzed state, and returned to Europe, where he succumbed quickly. This was the effect of the revenge of the negroes.”<br /></em><br />Sometimes, a master could persuade his slaves to comply with his desire to remove (a part of) a <em>kankantrie</em>, but such a dangerous deed was surrounded by much ceremony. <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sid=7b83183c351841210346a3e70bc609d2;type=boolean;view=thumbfull;c=surinamica;;rgn1=surinamica_par;q1=990">Voorduin</a> described an occasion on <strong>Jagtlust</strong> where <em>“the whole slave force of the plantation was needed; - men, women and children brought the broken branch to the riverside; - each kept a hold on it, till the last moment, even only by a mere leaf”</em>.<br /><br />Many writers (particularly the pious Christians among them) were put on the wrong track by the fact that the slaves seemed to worship trees, stones and other objects, while in reality the rituals were meant to honor the <em>Winti</em> inhabiting them. The Moravian missionary Steinberg, for example, remarked that on the plantation <strong>Victoria</strong> ‘bushes’ were worshipped and on <strong>Worsteling Jacobs</strong> a large rock on the riverbed (or rather, the tree that clung to that rock by its roots). The slaves also ‘worshipped’ statues: Victoria housed an almost life-sized wooden idol called <em>Adangra</em> (the secretive or terrifying). On <strong>Frederickslust</strong>, the slaves had, according to Steinberg, two such ‘fetishes’, which they used to good effect: <em>“Was a new director or administrator expected, then one of the statues was hidden beside the landing place and the other under a bridge, where the new lord had to pass. The intention was that his heart would become soft and friendly”</em>. Sometimes small ‘temples’ would be built and rebuilt in certain holy places and several of these had a remarkably long history: a missionary in the Para region destroyed one that had stood for 150 years.<br /><br />Steinberg also noted that <em>“everywhere where the missionaries have laid their hands on 'idolatrous gear', the jars and ... glass bottles and plates, which are filled with water for the spirits, play the major role”</em>. Lammens recollected than on the plantation <strong>Berg en Dal</strong> the ‘altar’ was the trunk of a large tree, around which all kinds of bottles were arranged. A missionary recorded in 1850: <em>“On <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/waterland/index.nl.html">Waterland</a> I found a small earthen hill as place of sacrifice; four pots standing face down on top of it, and on each one an egg”</em>. A colleague of his noted: <em>“Besides the large stone, which the heathens of 'Worsteling Jacobs' worshipped as their god, one still sees bottles, jars and pots lying, in which they brought him food”</em>.<br /><br />The slaves had many superstitions. They considered the hooting of geese flying over them a bad omen. Killing a spider would cause glass to break. One was not allowed to ask the name of a plantation when passing it, or one would get ‘uneasy water’. To protect their belongings, they placed calabashes decorated with feathers and other trinkets, which they had received from a <em>lukuman</em>, outside their houses and in the fields. They were always afraid of offending a <em>Winti </em>or spirit unwittingly: <em>“The Negro has an unconquerable reluctance, to try something new or to venture, where he has never been; - he always imagines orges; - a Watramama, Jorkas (Ghosts) or any chimerical being that will harm him”</em>.<br /><br />For different reasons, many whites were not happy with the religions expressions of their slaves. The authorities tried to suppress the large-scale gatherings through the issuing of laws, but these went on just the same and often not very secretive either. Devout Christians hated all forms of heathenism, but during the later part of the slave era, the whites seem to have given up the fight against ‘pagan rituals’. Hostmann complained that ‘idolatry’ <em>“is openly practiced in the streets of Paramaribo in full daylight and under the eyes of the police”</em>. However, there were rituals the slaves themselves preferred to keep under cover. Penard related that when slaves wanted to hold a <em>wintidansi, </em>they often warned the director not to interfere by sticking a sharp knife (<em>lengi nefi</em>) into the door of the <em>bakra oso</em> (‘house of the whites’). During religious services the slaves sometimes vented their hostility towards their masters openly and according to Benoit <em>“the fear that one will feel the consequences of this hatred often entices rich planters to have refreshments carried to</em> [the kankantrie]<em>, and even often to profess respect towards the tree.”</em><br /><br />Junker claimed that only after <em>“the runaway slaves enjoyed a reasonable peace in the jungles of Surinam, thoughts regarding the religion could get full scope”</em>. The truth is that many ‘runaways’ (especially the ones that had fled from a plantation with the whole force and the ones that had been forcibly taken from their home) took along an already fairly integrated faith, although they could not always take along their favorite <em>Winti</em>. The religious beliefs of the Maroons departed somewhat from those of the plantation slaves as time passed by, but the two groups never lost touch and continued to influence each other. The slaves feared the greater magical powers of the Maroons and when given the chance (for example when living among them after having been kidnapped) they would eagerly learn all they could. If they managed to return to their plantation, they could impress their fellows with their newfound knowledge. When possible, slaves and ‘pacified Maroons’ gathered for a common<em> pley</em>. In 1772, for example, several hundred slaves and Bush Negroes were caught red-handed on the <em>Joden Savanne</em>. The Bush Negroes were sent away with only a warning, as were most of the slaves. The organizers were punished with lashes.<br /><br />A case brought before the Court of Police and Criminal Justice in 1798 revealed the variety of the magic Surinam blacks performed to further their ends. The ‘free Negress’ Elizabeth (Betje) was the housekeeper of Frans Saffin, who was blessed with a considerable fortune, but to his chagrin had no children. Their only child had died and Betje was desperate to conceive again. She asked Avans of Dr. Emanuels to perform a <em>Watramama</em> dance to help her become pregnant. She also enlisted the help of Datra of Governor De Frederici. He advised her to go to her brother and sister, prepare some food and pour water on the grave of her mother. Furthermore, she had to give a golden chain to her sister. He promised that she then would become pregnant the next year. When Frans Saffin fell ill, Betje asked Avans, who had been a <em>lukuman</em> in Africa, to give him some medicine. Avans refused, because if he did not administer anything to Frans, he could not be accused of any malfeasance if he died. He only gave Betje a powder to rub on his swollen legs. Datra agreed to perform his magic, but to no avail. Frans eventually died and Betje accused his brother Volkert of having poisoned him. She tried to seduce his slave Carel (a runaway she got to know because as a punishment he had been nailed in a block in the garden of Frans Saffin) to beget a child with her. Carel refused to have relations with her (the first time his excuse was that he could not have sex on his name day, at the next occasion he claimed that he suffered from a venereal disease). Betje also enlisted the help of Carel, Datra and Avans to kill Volkert Saffin. They all had their ways to bring this about. Avans did the <em>Watramama</em> dance again. He also buried a box with a dead black bird in the Oranjetuin and implored the ‘<em>Jurka’ </em>of Frans Saffin not to warn his brother. He took along a snail-shell, filled it with food and put it in Frans’ hammock. He received five guilders for his exertions. Datra buried a cloth with some small bells, coals and mud on a spot near Frans Saffin’s house that his brother had to pass, so he would step on it, fall ill and die. He also persuaded Carel to throw a basket with meat, beer, wine, a jug of genever, 2 <em>paantjes</em>, 10 <em>driestuiver</em> coins, 2 mirrors, 2 combs and 2 new razors in the Suriname River, near the flagpole of Fort Zeelandia, so Volkert would drown in the river. To pay for all this <em>wisi</em>, Betje collected money from Frans Saffin’s slaves. Despite their evil intentions, the Court could find no proof that the trio had actually harmed Volkert. Therefore, they were only condemned to a <em>Spaanse Bok</em> for <em>“Divination, Sortilege and Malfeasance”</em> and were later sold out of the colony. Betje seems to have escaped punishment.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268144706760133906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 399px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 232px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzDgO33Mn-3-ie8HbNXMJ5ei0WpdyX7jmNWxqMu8bZFyNzf9XFoUYaaz31Zx0nD7v4bgb3pX8gdLb2td7TjG2haPofhDuhlKxr2ajfKlckrS6nS2kaNsrYLBx35mVFTOt9MrhpgatAB0/s400/Winti.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>The inroads of Christianity.<br /></strong><br />As has already been noted, Surinam planters had not much desire to convert their slaves to the Christian faith. In this respect, they were no different from their Protestant counterparts elsewhere. Only some tiny, dissident and sometimes persecuted sects showed any interest in proselytizing the slave population. In the English territories, for example, the Anglican Church remained aloof, while the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodist">Methodists</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist">Baptists</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesleyan_Church">Wesleyans</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecostalism">Pentecostals</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers">Shakers</a>, etc. were busy spreading the faith. In Catholic areas, it was another matter. There the Church considered converting the slaves a holy duty and the planters complied, at least outwardly. The conversion was often only superficial: slaves were hastily baptized aboard the slave ships after hearing some sermons by priests who were probably largely ignorant of their language. Some authors believed that Catholicism was more conductive to the survival of the slave religions than Evangelical Protestantism, but that was not entirely true. The kind of syncretism that occurred was different: the Catholic view on sacred objects and popular devotion were so flexible that they could easily absorb foreign influences. The old African gods could hide under the names of Catholic saints. So with regard to form (the retention of Africanisms), the Catholic Church was a better match, but with regard to expression, some Protestant sects, especially those of the ‘shouting’ and ‘shaking’ kind, came closer. In Surinam, the gap between the Christian faith and the religion of the slaves was so wide that there was practically no interplay at all. This often led to a somewhat schizophrenic situation for the converted, but at the same time, it was favorable for the untainted survival of African beliefs.<br /><br />The official church in Surinam was the <strong>Dutch Reformed Church</strong>. Its ministers were paid out of public funds. The first one to arrive was Abramus van Westhuysen, who came in 1667 with Crijnssen. He was followed by Johannes Basseliers, who set foot in Surinam a year later and died after a stay of 16 years as a prosperous planter and a member of the Court of Police, both remarkable feats. Most clergymen did not last longer than five years in the cruel climate, so Surinam used up quite a few reverends and had to go without spiritual leaders for considerable periods of time. A stately church was built in Paramaribo and parts of the countryside were dotted by small chapels. The oldest was situated on the so-called <em>Hoek van Calis</em> in Commewijne and was split up in 1687 into two chapels: one on the plantation of Jan de Backer (<strong>Curcabo</strong>) and the other on the plantation of Cornelis Snelleman (<strong>Cannewapibo</strong>). The first survived until 1721, the latter was still in use in 1789. It was an important meeting point with a market behind it. The Cottica/Perica region also boasted two modest chapels. In the beginning of the 18th century, one stood near Bel Air, but did not survive long. The other (<em>Hulshof's </em>church) was in use until 1797. Not even the planters were much influenced by their existence, let alone the slaves.<br /><br />As the whites had little use for Christian chattels, they allowed only a few of their most favorite slaves to be formally accepted into the church. The offspring of a white man and a slave woman could be baptized in front of witnesses if the Christian father was present and the master of the mother had given permission. In many cases, these children were promised their freedom. The Dutch Reformed Church only occasionally accepted adult converts: in 1721 Isabella, a <em>“Negress on the Plantation of Mr. Wobma”</em>, was the first one allowed to partake in the Lord’s Supper. Governor Joan Raye was very fond of the government slave Koffie and permitted him to be baptized, take the name Jan van Breukelerwaard (Raye was Lord of Breukelerwaard) and go to Holland to thank the directors of the Society personally for the goodness he had experienced. The slaves of the Society were in a privileged position to become acquainted with the faith of their masters and when they converted, they were often awarded special privileges. For example, when Alberta Maria was baptized in 1759, her mulatto son Albertus was made a godchild of the directors of the Society. Governor Crommelin took it upon him to supervise his education in the Christian faith and urged his successors to do the same. Often, these slaves were freed, or permitted to buy their freedom. When choosing a name, they favored the surname Van Paramaribo.<br /><br />Christians were of course delighted when a slave owned by a Jew wanted to convert to the ‘true faith’ and were noticeably less reluctant to receive them in the Reformed Church. When the mulatto slave Keyzer went to Holland without the permission of his master Baena, he was welcomed with open arms there. He returned with the recommendation of two Amsterdam clergymen that he should be taught more about Christianity and be allowed to become a member of the Reformed Church -regardless of the objections of his master, who was, understandably, not amused. On the other hand, Jews were not barred from converting their bondsmen to the Jewish faith.<br /><br />The other Protestant denominations (Walloon Church, Lutherans, Labadists) were not very eager to do the work of the Lord either, as far as the slaves were concerned. Things changed when the <strong>Moravians Brothers </strong>arrived. In a letter dating from November 1740, Governor Van de Schepper warned the Society about the activities of the first missionaries. He wanted to forbid their gatherings, because the council of the Dutch Reformed Church had complained about their behavior and he himself believed that the people who frequented their services were ‘scum’: the women lived scandalously and the men were drunkards and smugglers. The Moravians (also called <strong>Hernhutters</strong> and in later times the <strong>Evangelische Broeder Gemeente</strong>) had friends in high places, though, and they were allowed to stay in the colony and evangelize among the Indians and Bush Negroes. They also tried to gain entry to the plantations by working there as a <em>blankofficier</em> or an artisan. They were so eager to get such a job that they were willing to work for their keep alone. The planters ridiculed them for that, saying that even the slaves received goods worth at least 100 guilders a year in addition to their keep. The life of the missionaries in Surinam was hard and most of them died in a short while. Therefore, the maximum age for female missionaries was set at 30 years, while for men 50 years was the limit.<br /><br />The Hernhutters decided in the beginning that it was better not to waste too much attention on the slaves.<em> “According to the then prevailing prejudices, no Owner would have allowed his Slave to hear any Christian teaching, or to receive baptism, since one was deluded by the opinion that a Christian could not be a Slave and a Slave could not be a Christian”</em>, revealed the <em>Surinaamse Almanak</em> in 1839. The pioneers were supported by their fellows from the profits of a bakery and a tailor shop. In 1738, a first mission center was built on the Wironje Creek and named <strong>Pilgerhut</strong>, but it took ten more years before the first convert, an Arawak woman, was baptized. In 1756, there were several hundred inhabitants (not all baptized). A year later, the undauntable missionaries founded a second mission post on the Saramacca, which was called <strong>Saron</strong>. The third establishment, <strong>Ephraim</strong>, on the Corantijn was inaugurated in 1759. It was left by the inhabitants in 1763 out of fear for insurgents from <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/Guyana-National-Service-Veterans-Pioneers/browse_thread/thread/5d28b0c8a4b0450b">Berbice</a>, who had already burned Pilgerhut to the ground.<br /><br />In 1765, the Hernhutters turned their attention to the Bush Negroes. Six years later, the first convert was baptized: Johannes Arabi, the <em>Granman</em> (chief) of the Saramaka. There were four successive mission posts in this area, located from 1765 to 1786 on the Senthea Creek, from 1768 to 1773 in Quama on the Sebona Creek, from 1773 to 1786 in Bambey on the Quaffoe Creek and from 1786 to 1813 in New Bambey on the Awara Creek. Although several hundreds of Bush Negroes claimed to have seen the light, many of them reverted to their old habits soon and the missionaries finally gave up in despair, only reviving their old zeal decades later.<br /><br />The missionaries were careful in their dealings with the slaves at first, but after they had gained the sympathy of Governor Jan Nepveu (and later of his successors Wichers and Friderici and the influential <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Wohlfahrt), they became bolder. In 1773, the number of slaves interested in hearing the gospel had already grown so much that they established a small church for the Negroes in their garden, which was enlarged several times to accommodate the crowds of listeners. Soon, the first slave, who happened to be in their service, was baptized. In 1776, they gained entrance on a plantation for the first time: <strong>Fairfield</strong>, owned by the Englishman Palmer. Less than ten years later, they decided to establish a mission post at the place where formerly Fort Sommelsdijck had been located, so they could visit the slaves of the nearby plantations regularly. It was sold a few years hence because most planters chased them off their grounds, a couple of former footholds had been lost and the costs had become prohibitive. Their Paramaribo flock kept growing, however, especially during the 1820’s. In 1827, the old church was torn down and replaced by a larger, official building.<br /><br />In 1828, several prominent inhabitants of the colony formed the <strong>Society for the Furtherance of the Religious Education among the Slaves and the rest of the Pagan Population in the Colony of Surinam </strong>and set out to raise money in Surinam and Holland, with the objective to enable the Hernhutters to buy 3 boats (plus the slaves to row them) for visiting the plantations. In their first campaign, they managed to scrape together 550 guilders in Surinam and 4000 guilders in Holland. From 1828 to 1853, the Hernhutters raised a total of 80.000 guilders in Holland and 20.000 guilders in Surinam for spreading the gospel among the black population. During this period, they were welcome on an increasing number of plantations and sometimes planters even sent their own boats to fetch them. In 1831, they founded a new post at the Government plantation <strong>Voorzorg</strong> on the Saramacca, but it was relinquished when the plantation was deserted shortly afterwards. In this period, they were also granted entrance on Fort Nieuw Amsterdam and the spiritual guidance of the so-called <em>Lands-slaven</em> was turned over to them.<br /><br />The missionaries realized that they could never really reach the slaves as long as the language barrier stood between them. So they not only preached in the vernacular, but they also translated texts into <em>Ningre</em>. In 1777, they debuted with a dictionary, followed by a catechism and a passion. Four years later, they were already using scores of psalms and liturgies in the slave language. In 1784, they finished the translation of the New Testament. The confessional <em>Idea Fidei Fratrum</em>, large sections of the Old Testament and a hymnbook with 300 songs were presented in 1800. The simple vocabulary of <em>Ningre</em> was not sufficiently developed to phrase complex abstract ideas, so the Hernhutters developed the formal Church Creole.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268145314690959186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 289px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8wWxgSp69UKW7mxyYaiQAbqpdV2syrpox5ClTKGewg9glODp26ukCbMLU0oYDT4EgIdT3ZaAwFAeONUkQIyDrlEiPtgqLG_wCRCXFnReZgP3t1SnurecAnCnybJI82gZhgD_ajd-kHjA/s400/Kersten1898.jpg" border="0" />Almost until the last decades of the slave era, the Hernhutters refrained from getting involved in any dispute concerning the treatment of the slaves. According to Brother <strong>Kersten</strong> (who established the -still florishing- warehouse of the same name) conversion and baptism was <em>“a matter of the heart that does not touch the external relationship between master and slave directly”</em>. They were afraid that the aversion against them would boil over when they unequivocally chose the side of the weak and that their work would obstructed even more. Therefore, they preached that the slaves should not only accept the Faith, but also their Fate. At the same time, however, they were shocked by the aberrations of some whites and tried to help the slaves as best as they could. They were especially repulsed by the ruthlessness of some men who proffered to be pious Christians.<br /><br />Brother Riemer, for example, noted in 1788: <em>“On may 2 was the funeral of the old Tobias. He had been baptized in 1784 and never missed the services. Three years ago his master died, then he was sold with his family at an auction. The Dutch Reformed Minister, who had taken his daughter as a wife, bought his wife and children at this auction: the old blind father-in-law he refused to buy. Then</em> [Tobias]<em> paid fl. 15,- himself and was now free, but a beggar. An old free negress took him in.”<br /></em><br />In reality, it seems that they were often shocked more by the spiritual than by the physical neglect of the Negroes, especially when their charges were prevented from coming to the services. The slave Kwamino, for example, <em>“had applied for baptism as a young man in Paramaribo in 1780 and had also received instruction.</em> <em>Then, however, he was moved to the plantation Rees en Crop and only after 50 years he came as a blind old man of 70 back to the city, where the baptismal instruction continued and ended with his baptism at the age of 74”</em>.<br /><br />The missionaries complained ceaselessly about the attitude of the plantation directors: <em>“According to their opinion the slaves must abide in blindness and continue to let themselves to be used by their superiors for the service of sin and injustice. At the least one is not permitted to put an example before their eyes, of how the Christian conduct must be. And they are überhaupt not permitted to share the honor of being called Christians with them”</em>. The directors would use any excuse to keep those ‘busybodies’ of their estate: <em>“Many maintain ..., that one cannot do anything with the negroes: they are too malicious; others give</em> [them]<em> freedom to be sure, to talk to the negroes,</em> [but]<em> burden these with labor so much, that no time or opportunity is left. Others again refer to their patrons, who have told them nothing about this.” </em>Brother Wietz noted in 1787 that some directors were unwilling to let their slaves go to the services because, as one of them explained, if a director sent a slave off the plantation without a good reason, or allowed him to go someplace and the one so privileged got an accident or ran away, he had to pay for the damage out of his own pocket.<br /><br />The Hernhutters were convinced that conversion to Christianity had such a good influence on the slaves that the masters were fools not to profit from it. One of the most important benefits was that the slaves renounced sorcery. As the <em>Diarium</em> of the Paramaribo branch reported: “A<em> negress, who had spent her whole life with nothing else than sorcery and delusion and who shortly before had been touched and awakened by the story of the great sinner, came and told that on the same evening, she had thrown all the things, she had needed for her devilish practices in the water; then she had sunk to her knees, and had prayed to our dear Savior, that he would have mercy upon her, great sinner”</em>. Even the bad influences of depraved whites could not persuade them to sin anymore, although it was noted that they were tempted mightily by the fact that <em>“many whites believe in magic just as much as the negroes and turn to this at every occasion and want to goad our negroes into performing it”</em>. The <em>Diarium</em> of Paramaribo relayed in 1784 that two black sisters, slaves of the same woman, had confessed that their mistress had ordered them to cure her two sick children by magic. They had refused resolutely and had said that only God could help the children. They were threatened with punishment, but they swore to each other that they would rather die than ever do such evil things again.<br /><br />Some whites tried to force slave women to perform another sinful act: prostitution. After conversion, they refused to participate in this despicable trade any longer and their newfound purity did not please their masters, who lost a source of easy profit. One baptismal candidate arrived at the congregation in tears and revealed that her master had given her the choice between working on a plantation and earning five and a half guilders a week by sinning, of which she was no longer capable. Many <em>“Kirchkindern”</em> were sent to a plantation for reasons like this and were never heard of again. Converted women also refused to become the mistress of a director, what before might have been a coveted position. One black sister was deeply dismayed when her callous owner gave her only daughter to his director as a concubine. Not all Hernhutters had scruples about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concubine">concubinage</a> though. One of them noted with satisfaction that the director of Fairfield had become much friendlier <em>“since he has a sister for a wife”.</em><br /><br />Christian slaves had to give up many pleasures. Dancing was, perhaps, the one they missed most. Their determination not to participate in dances any longer, even indirectly, amazed the whites. When Governor Bernard Texier gave a party on one occasion, he chose baptized slaves to serve at the table. The next Sunday he offered the slaves of the Society a meal and a dance and <em>“it caused a great surprise among the white people, that the young gay negroes and negresses, who were masters in dancing otherwise, are not even allowed to look anymore, since they have been baptized”</em>. Texier tried to seduce one of the women to dance by offering her presents, but she refused steadfastly.<br /><br />The converted slaves could not find much compensation in the church services, which were stark and simple. Bolingbroke witnessed an EBG-celebration in Paramaribo (where there were three services on Sunday, one on Thursday and one on Friday evening): <em>“I went one evening - the place was elegantly lighted up. There is an organ, and the rites began by music. Two lines of a hymn were read distinctly by the priest, which the whole congregation repeated immediately after in full chorus to a prepared tune; then two lines more; and so on till the poem was finished. Next followed lessons from the bible; another hymn; a prayer; a third hymn; and finally a sermon, which terminated in some devotional ejaculation, during which all the people kneeled. The audience, which was very numerous and very orderly, was dismissed by the organ’s sounding unaccompanied.”<br /></em><br />The Hernhutters also tried to suppress the promiscuous habits of the slaves. The baptized men had to give up all their auxiliary ‘wives’ and the women were obliged to be faithful and obedient to their ‘husbands’. This was a rather difficult task for most of them. Many succumbed to temptation and were then barred from the Holy Supper until they mended their wicked ways.<br /><br />The missionaries liked to believe that the prospect of having sober, monogamous and diligent slaves would bring the planters to a greater tolerance of their activities, but it lasted until far into the 19th century before they, with a little help of the Dutch authorities, started to appreciate this kind of sobriety. After 1830, several measures were taken to make conversion more appealing to blacks: <em>“heathens were not allowed to prosecute an independent craft or trade; heathens were not allowed to keep slaves themselves; slaves could only be manumitted or buy their own freedom if they joined a Christian or Jewish congregation; only Christian or Jewish slaves were entitled to a solemn funeral”</em>. The government also exerted herself to make sure that the slaves did not have to work on Sundays, so they would be able to attend a church gathering. Unfortunately, the bondsmen were quite willing to go to services during working hours, but not on their free day. Often, slaves had finish their tasks on the Sabbath despite the regulations forbidding it. Even on the plantation Fairfield, where the owner and director were sympathetic, the slaves sometimes could not attend the celebrations for two or three months in a row during busy periods, and the sick and old were never able to participate.<br /><br />In the years following 1835, the Hernhutters gained a foothold on many plantations: in Cottica (<strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/charlottenburg/index.nl.html">Charlottenburg</a></strong>), Coronie (<strong>Salem</strong>), Lower Commewijne (<strong>Rust en Werk</strong>, <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/beneden-commewijnerivier/leliendaal/index.nl.html">Leliendaal</a></strong>, <strong>Heerendijk</strong>), Nickerie (<strong>Waterloo</strong>), Upper Suriname (<strong>Berg en Dal</strong>), Para (<strong>Bersaba</strong>) and on the Warappa Creek (<strong>Anna’s Zorg</strong>). By the end of the slavery era, most of the bondsmen in Paramaribo as well as many on the plantations belonged to the EBG, though one missionary was still not satisfied and complained: <em>“on many plantations we never get to see the children and young people”</em>.<br /><br />In the end, many slaveholders would have agreed that it had been the good offices of the Hernhutters that had helped to keep the peace on the plantations after the emancipation proclamation had been delayed. The Governor recorded in January 1863 that a missionary on the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/hooikreek/hooyland/index.nl.html">Hooyland</a></strong> had informed the government that a slave of the plantation, after a religious service, asked him to transmit the gratitude they felt towards King Willem III for the emancipation law. The Governor sent a transcription to the Minister of the Colonies and added <em>“while I readily suppose that words of gratitude have been uttered by the aforementioned bastiaan, I would nevertheless not dare to assure that this address has been as graceful as has been suggested by the missionaries, in their always laudable zeal for the good cause; and neither that his fellow slaves in whose name he was supposed to speak, shared wholly the feelings expressed by him. Nor do I have such favorable expectations regarding the desire to labor among the freed, that, as it seems to me, is entertained by the missionaries. It is however certain, that these diligent men make no small contribution to the until now despite some exceptions good spirit </em>[that is] <em>prevalent among the slaves.”</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268145825574726626" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 275px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYsEEV_unCmR6mym6ghNrKAikC_-LPZwqdrBJD1tAct0WzYWC8cTfnlaH1BydpIY8eIHSHLo0KjLVzrMEp3i6_Q3Km9z2OO2Laip68VZoSEHNqr1V9bbJ5BjC-hJh-rGh6OBCSm5AK7Y/s400/Batavia.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Roman Catholics</strong>,<strong> </strong>who were put on the same footing with the Dutch Reformed in 1803, were no more welcome on the plantations than the Hernhutters. It took until 1816 before the Catholic Church received permission for the first time to work among the slaves of private plantations. Some planters were Catholic themselves, but even their Protestant colleagues did not mind much whether their slaves adhered to the EBG or to the Catholic Church. In 1822, the Catholics went to work among the slaves of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leper_colony">leprosarium</a> <strong>Batavia</strong> and in 1840, they were permitted to teach the government slaves. They made quite a few converts, especially in Paramaribo (in 1863 there were 12.000 baptized Catholics) and are still the second largest Christian denomination among the Creoles today. Just as the Dutch Reformed, the <strong>Lutherans</strong> never had much interest in proselytizing the black population. The <strong>Jews </strong>were another matter. In the 17th and 18th centuries, they usually raised their mulatto children in the Jewish faith and they maintained a close relationship with religious society of the Jewish coloreds. This attitude changed in later times: they became quite unconcerned about letting their colored offspring be converted by Hernhutters and be raised as Christians. Bastide believed that there were practicing <strong>Muslims</strong> among the Surinam slaves [but then, he also believed that (Johannes) Arabi was probably a Muslim by origin]. I have never found any proof of this, though it is not unthinkable that some Muslim slaves from Senegambia entered Surinam. They must have been such a small minority, however, that it will have been nearly impossible for them to remain true to their faith and they certainly never made any converts.<br /><br />The impact of Christianity went seldom more than skin-deep by the slaves. The demands made on them, especially by the EBG, were hard to comply with and many of them continuously vacillated between new and old beliefs. There has been no genuine syncretism of the Christian and Afro-Surinamese religions; they existed side by side without much reciprocal influence. Only ‘Jan Compaan’ was replaced by the Christian God and Jesus Christ was incorporated into the pantheon as a kind of arch-divinity. There were, of course, devout Christians who professed not to believe in <em>Winti</em> anymore and who refrained from openly worshipping them. However, they could not help that there was lingering doubt in the back of their minds. Therefore, they tried to avoid situations where a <em>Winti </em>could seize them. When they got ill, they were really put to the test, because they were not convinced that the medicines of the whites were always effective. The intolerance of the missionaries for any expression of the native religion made their dilemma worse, because no compromise was possible. Although modern Creoles are almost all nominal Christians, the worship of <em>Winti</em> goes on as before and the people have separated these irreconcilable creeds neatly in their minds.<br /><br />For the slaves of the Old South, the Christian faith in itself had revolutionary potential. In Surinam, this was not the case, but the words of Eugene Genovese rang true for the slaves there as well: <em>“Religion proved a two-edged sword for the enslaved. It enabled them to accommodate with some measure of cultural autonomy and personal dignity, and more rarely but ominously, it provided the war cry for the determined insurgents”</em>. </div>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-15852645272965721652008-10-22T00:25:00.062+02:002009-02-10T18:46:34.619+01:00Chapter 7: Community formation.<div align="justify"><strong><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265145294792208418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 262px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHKYXQTP3T9iUmqwWshXO2Up3tXiNNOzhCXXegUu0TAiEQTvOwnApl-uKydMekNPXLHtRacYY8rwLrAGr72gBAj7B78feF0moncNiwMwO3262KHznLXEH9divr2P4qZDammPLBstrusg/s400/slavenkamp.jpg" border="0" /></div></strong><strong><p align="justify"></strong></p><p align="justify"><br /><br /><strong>Entry on the plantation.</strong><br /><br />Thousands of black people from all over West Africa were forced to congregate on the plantations of Surinam and had to get along one way or the other. They were mostly young males, a group that poses a problem in every society: eager to prove their manhood, yet often deemed not ready to take on adult responsibilities. Many societies solve this problem by turning them into soldiers and directing their youthful aggression outward. It goes without saying that these are not the easiest people to subject. Furthermore, the new slaves had been driven to the limit of endurance by the horrendous Middle Passage and they did not have much to lose anymore. Some of them were already broken in spirit and wasted away slowly -probably grateful if some illness swept them to an untimely grave. Some were willing to face up to their new challenges. Perhaps they already had been slaves in Africa and were used to being shoved around and making the best of it. Many, however, could not accept the humiliation of thralldom and only waited for the first opportunity to avenge themselves, or to get away, at any cost. To integrate the never-ending stream of newcomers was a daunting task indeed for the nascent slave communities.<br /><br />Especially in the early days, plantations had to absorb large numbers of newcomers at a time. A colonist who started a new plantation usually had to make do with as many <em>zoutwaternegers (</em>saltwater Negroes) as he could buy at outrageous prices -unless he came from abroad with a full slave force. Preferably, he already owned some seasoned slaves, who were familiar with the work at hand, or he could purchase them. Otherwise, he had to whip a weakened and hostile crew into performing tasks that may have been familiar in principle, but were organized in a totally different way.<br /><br />It was the official policy to separate slaves from the same area as much as possible, but in practice the planters had little option but to ignore this rule. The shortage of bondsmen was so severe that the planters usually took every slave they could lay their hands on, regardless of provenance. Furthermore, when they contracted a certain number of slaves on one ship, they could be pretty sure that these came from the same region, since most WIC-ships made only one or two stops. So on many plantations ‘clans’ of slaves with the same tribal background were formed. For example, in one case no less than 31 Coromantee slaves ended up on the same estate, although the dangers of this kind of concentration were well known. When a new plantation was established, a struggle for status ensued among the slaves and those belonging to an ethnic majority had a much better chance of success, although it was not unthinkable that a small but fierce minority gained the upper hand. Governor Van der Veen remarked about the Coromantees that they <em>“oppress, yes sometimes poison, all the other nations of negroes, who come among them”</em>.<br /><br />The toll of death among <em>zoutwaternegers</em> was terribly high for the entire seasoning period. This was most apparent during the time the lowlands were cleared, when the slaves had to bear very trying conditions for years on end: yaws, bad drinking water, dampness, insect plagues, etc. An aspiring planter often had little desire and few possibilities to safeguard the health of his slaves carefully: the production of cash crops had to start as soon as possible regardless of the cost in human lives. Many of them were men of humble background, who grabbed the only chance to strike it rich they would get during their lifetime with both hands. They had no use for ‘sentimentality’. The heavy mortality that was the inevitable result of their drive wrought havoc in the developing slave communities.<br /><br />Nevertheless, those bunches of slaves thrown together by fate did become communities. All bondsmen were in the same boat and they had to row together, or they would go under. Most realized that their only chance of survival lay in cooperation. The <strong>shipmate</strong> ties forged on board of the slave ships were the first stirrings of community formation. The shared ordeal made them almost unbreakable. Even today, the Saramaka <em>Businengre</em> (Bush Negroes) have a term, <em>sippi</em>, that preserves <em>“the essential notion of fellow sufferers who have a special bond”</em>, Mintz and Price discovered. The shipmates regarded each other as brothers and sisters and as they formed other (sexual, blood) ties, the (fictive) kin network grew. As Hoetink remarked, such familial reference terms will <em>“generally emerge in small communities or groups, with little internal rank differentiation and with common goals and tasks and a common past”</em>. According to Mintz and Price, the first relationships among <em>zoutwaternegers</em> will have been largely dyadic, same-sex relationships, but I think they underestimate the importance of ethnic background and sexual attraction. I believe it is likely that the newcomers, searching for the familiar in an anomalous situation, will have been drawn primarily to other slaves with the same ethnic background (if only because they could more easily communicate with each other). So the ‘clans’ of shipmates will also have grown through the ‘adoption’ of the odd <strong>landsman </strong>(compatriot)<strong> </strong>of its members. This was stimulated by the custom of placing a <em>nieuwe neger </em>in the care of an experienced companion (<em>Tata</em>). Since one of the main tasks of the <em>Tata's</em> (or more rarely <em>Mama's</em>) was to teach the slave language (Negro English, later called <em>Sranan Tongo</em>) to the newcomers, it follows that most of them will have been placed with a <em>landsman</em> and will have forged their initial close ties with them.<br /><br />Blom described the seasoning procedure as follows: <em>“Sometimes they are distributed among the experienced negroes, to live with them in their houses, to be thereby able to learn the habits of the country and the way of life all the sooner; but this must be done with great caution; as the old negroes not rarely treat them in a barbaric way, and not only let them do the housekeeping, but also make them wait upon him hand and foot like a King, and then often give them barely half enough to eat, and are they the least unwilling they get blows; with the threat, that if they don’t do better they will be treated even harsher: the new negro ignorant of the habits of the land; not knowing to what end he is placed with this negro; unable to speak the language of the country, gets depressed, life becomes a burden to him, he begins to eat charcoal, earth and other unsuitable food, whereby he falls into a languishing disease and finally dies”</em>.<br /><br />An example of this kind of maltreatment can be found in the story of Kees of the plantation <strong>Victoria</strong>, who told the Court of Police in 1780 that he had enjoyed very little contact with whites since his arrival. He had been placed under the supervision of another slave, who had <em>“used him for everything”</em>. One Sunday he was cooking tayers for himself, when his <em>Tata</em> came and took it away to give to his children. When he was out chopping wood with the other slaves, they did not tell him when they went to have <em>brickvorst</em> and when he wanted to fry some plantains for himself later, they did not give him enough time for that and sent him back to work. He had to help with squaring trees, but as he was not used to this work, he did not do it well. As punishment, the other slaves hit him so hard that he became deaf on the left side. He ran away, but was caught by Saramaka Maroons and turned over to the authorities.<br /><br />Usually, <em>nieuwe negers</em> were left alone for two weeks to get settled, during which time they did not have to perform any labor. After that, they were put to light tasks around the house and at the end of another month, they were sent into the field. Three months later, they were just as accomplished as the other field slaves. Blom warned that <em>nieuwe negers</em> had to be treated with indulgence if one did not want to see them mired in melancholy. Especially important was an abundance of food <em>“because not only when there is a lack of provisions, but also when these seem only scanty, they become despondent, suffer languishing and lingering diseases, and die, one after the other; for this reason one must never bring new slaves to a plantation unexpectedly, but the plantation must be prepared in advance to receive them”</em>. When new slaves arrived on an estate, they were issued decent clothing: a shirt, a pair of trousers (a frock for the women), a coat and a hat and according to Bolingbroke <em>“it is really laughable to see the grotesque appearance they make when dressed up in their new clothes”</em>. It was often difficult to persuade them to keep these clothes on, they only appreciated the blankets.<br /><br />Surinam slaves were officially divided into <strong>plantation slaves</strong>, who were registered in the name of the plantation and <strong>private slaves</strong>, who were registered in the name of the owner. The plantation slaves could not be individually sold away from the estate. Only if a plantation was abandoned, the whole slave force could be transferred to another one, but even then permission of the authorities was (in later times) necessary. Exceptions were made for criminals and slaves whose life would be in danger if they stayed, but such cases were rare. Private slaves could be sold apart, except for mothers and their children, who could never be separated. This custom was not the fruit of a deliberate policy, but rather the result of two mutually enforcing regulations. Firstly, the authorities, in their efforts to curb the waste of land, decided to force the planters to bind at least ten slaves forever to any new land warranted to them, in order to make sure that the soil would be cultivated properly. Secondly, it had always been an unwritten law in the colony not to separate families, including the fathers -which was quite unusual in the non-Latin colonies of the Caribbean. Therefore, as certain slaves were tied to a plantation permanently and the owner could not dispose of their relatives apart from them, soon very few plantation slaves could be sold away at all. Furthermore, the slaves fiercely resisted the removal of any member of their community, even in the early days, when the habit of keeping plantation slaves together had not yet taken root.<br /><br />The first manifestations of this sentiment were visible in the 1730s. By that time, many plantations that could not settle their debts with the WIC or the Society had so overextended their credit that part of their property had to be sold. ‘Liquidating’ some slaves was, of course, the easiest way out, but this soon led to serious trouble. The Governor and political councillors warned against the <em>“manifold Executions”</em> that took place for reason of small debts <em>“as a result of which the Slaves of such persecuted persons were taken from their Plantations and sold, as a result of which not only the other Slaves became obstinate and ran into the forest (of which we to our regret have had experience) but also the estates were endangered and ruined”</em>. It came to the point that <em>“in the end the Slaves if they only got wind of the Exploiteur, started to run away into the forest together”</em>. To avoid troubles like these, the Court of Police decided in 1738 that <em>“from now on no Plantation that is under Execution may be sold off in parcels neither</em> [is it allowed]<em> to divide the slaves and sell them in lots”</em>. Not only the slaves avoided the <em>Exploiteur</em> like the plague, some of their masters did too. Izak de Meeza and David Cardozo, for example, were so heavily in debt that they did not dare to show their face in Paramaribo anymore and that they sent their slaves into the bush themselves when they spotted the hated functionary. In the same vein, Mrs. Raye, the widow of several governors, revealed to the directors of the Society that when the <em>Exploiteur</em> appeared, <em>“not only the Slaves but even the Masters flee into the forest”.</em><br /><br />These problems certainly helped the masters to see their slave force as an undividable entity. From the end of the 18th century on, a process of concentration took place and slave forces were thrown together whether they wanted or not. This often led to serious troubles. Sometimes the slaves ran away together and refused to come back unless they were allowed to go on living on their old plantation. Sometimes the fusion was followed by an epidemic of problems: fights, sabotage of the work and poisonings. An example: in January 1778, the director of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/killestein_nova/index.nl.html">Killesteyn Nova</a></strong> asked help to transfer the slaves of that estate to <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/fauquembergue/index.nl.html">Fauquembergue</a></strong> (of the same owner). The slaves opposed the move with all their might. Just two years earlier they had valiantly defended the plantation against an attack by Maroons, instead of joining them, and had 33 women stolen from them. They were especially dismayed since practically all of them had been born and bred on the plantation and, to add insult to injury, it had been runaways of Fauquembergue who had led the Maroons to Killesteyn Nova. Therefore, they insisted that they would never be able to live in harmony with the slaves there. Governor Nepveu realized that the transfer, although perfectly legal, would be <em>“very difficult to execute”</em> and after much deliberation the request was denied. It is clear that the slaves tolerated little interference with their community. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264433145011446098" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 298px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg44xd-13q1lpiKfngNDyXOTIqS-LJMvxCHkxZATt9a1CHUgaupapG2kmNhVehhll69j1j6qTBPIfd998t4PZqnuEvEmkQauK6tHkwoQVgq0VmIrY_r77SEHZSND093P5oIL6cSsvYdMN0/s400/bosnegermeisje2.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><p align="justify"><strong>Men and women.</strong><br /><br />The proportion of women on the average plantation was low: usually less than 40%. In the early period, the imbalance was even worse. This made female slaves in some ways more valuable than their male counterparts. Hartsinck was convinced that the masters had absolute power over the distribution of women, for he wrote that every slave was given a wife by his master<em>, “who can also dismiss them again, if they don’t agree, and marry</em> [them] <em>off to another”</em>. This was correct as far as the ‘saltwater women’ were concerned, who were always received with open arms by their prospective <em>Tata</em> husbands, but the Creole women had more freedom of choice. The masters gave women as wives to their most loyal and hardest working hands and because of their power over the allocation of such a scarce and valuable ‘good’, they could command more obedience.<br /><br />Sometimes masters let the slaves decide among themselves and then trouble could ensue, not in the least because influential male slaves sometimes treated women as if they were <strong>their</strong> slaves. When on the plantation <strong>Lust tot Rust</strong> (owned by ex-Governor Crommelin) a batch of new women arrived, Quakoe sought out a comely one and after<em> “marking her with his mark”,</em> he went to the director and asked him permission to take her for a wife. The director had no objections, but Martinus, who fancied the lady himself, did not concur. He forced a confrontation with Quakoe, who stuck him in the chest three times and threw him in a ditch, where he died. This rash deed cost Quakoe his head.<br /><br />Scores of slaves could find no partner and clamored for wives. Most owners were keenly aware of the advisability of giving in to their demands and tried to buy additional women. A planter named Lourens Boudens, for example, complained in 1701 that <em>“to add to his unhappiness his best and most loyal Slave being one of the best Sugar boilers of the whole Colony daily went away and to his neighbor’s negress only because he could not give a wife to him, that this caused much unrest on both plantations but that his neighbor however had had the goodness to offer him a negress”</em>.<br /><br />The Society of Surinam was in a much better position to procure female slaves than ordinary planters. For example, Governor Van der Veen could afford to buy three women from the incoming ship St. Jan <em>“as wives for negroes who serve well”</em>. The slave force of the Society was therefore probably the only group of slaves that had a reasonably balanced sex ratio in the early days. Still, the Governors continued to be pestered by their bachelor slaves. Governor Mauricius reported that <em>“the man Slaves on the ground here outside Paramaribo have insisted with me very much on wives, who are very necessary there not only for the work, but also to forestall, that the man Negroes for want of them search on other grounds, yes even run away entirely”</em>. The Society went through a great deal of trouble to keep families together. The director of the Society’s estate reported in 1704, for instance, that <em>“harcules and tresa with 2 children</em> [are] <em>not sold since the man is in the Jaas huys to be cured”</em>. They were to remain there as a burden to their owners for several years.<br /><br />Not much thought was given to the feelings of the women who were used as pawns by their owners. They were purchased to labor and satisfy the lusts of the males and for the rest had to keep quiet. I know of only one case in which the shoe seemed to have been on the other foot: missionary Quandt of the Moravian Brothers reported in 1777 that his household had bought a Negro because their slave girl was pursued by Indians and that was not proper. Whether the girl was pleased with this generosity, the story does not reveal. The cynicism of the manipulations of many masters makes it unlikely that they practiced the allocation of women only as a <em>“means of habituating</em> [the women]<em> to the local language and customs”</em>, as Willem Buschkens wants us to believe.<br /><br />Because of the scarcity of women and the quickly growing network of (quasi) family relationships, many slaves were not able to find a partner on their own estate and had to look elsewhere. Often, they found a ‘wife’ on a neighboring plantation. The planters did not like this, since they feared it would make them <em>“restless and thievish”,</em> but they usually accepted it as the lesser of two evils. If the woman lived nearby, the man could spend every night with her, but if she resided further away, he was only allowed to visit her during the weekends. In the 19th century, this kind of ‘visiting relationships’ became more and more the norm, because the proportion of plantation women a man could not ‘marry’ grew and the whites had less objections to nocturnal trysts as the danger of a massive slave uprising had subsided. Lans therefore claimed: <em>“I have known places where seldom a child was born, whose father belonged to the plantation”</em>.<br /><br />The relationships between men and women more often had the characteristics of a <em>Situationsehe</em> than of a <em>Neigungsehe. </em>Procreation (shunned by many slaves) was only a secondary factor. According to <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bastide">Roger Bastide</a> it is the rule in Afro-American cultures that <em>“a couple pair off when the man’s sexual, and the woman’s economic, interests happen to coincide”</em>. The economic interest of a slave woman in ‘marriage’ was often small: she had to earn her own living anyway and a man in the house only entailed more work. When the slaves had to grow their own food, the help of a man was handy, but the heavy work of clearing the grounds was often done by the males in unison and the rest of the work a woman could very well do on her own. Nevertheless, there was a sound economic reason to find a mate. Sidney Mintz noticed that in Jamaica there was “<em>no evidence that land was ever awarded to other than male slaves</em>”. I am not entirely sure about the customs in Surinam, but it seems likely that garden plots were only awarded to family groups and single men. So a woman either stayed dependant on her parental group, or was forced to 'wed'. When a master provided all the food the slaves consumed, he weakened the slave family, because the rations were dispensed on an individual basis. Women did need a ‘husband’ to protect them from the unwanted advances of other men, though.<br /><br />Where women had a free choice, it often became apparent that they were not at all eager to ‘marry’. This was no surprise for Hostmann, who wrote: <em>“with the slavery in prospect, that awaits them in this kind of marriage, it is no wonder that they prolong the time of freedom as long as they can”</em>. The men, on the contrary, saw many advantages in wedlock, not in the least because then <em>“they will be cared for and served by their House-wives, who prepare their food and drinks”</em>, as Herlein observed. Hartsinck maintained that the women treated their husbands with the greatest respect, served them their food first and only ate after <em>“the Man has finished and orders this”</em>. The fact that they were assured of finding sexual release on a regular basis was not unimportant for the men either. Whatever the wishes of the women, they were put under so much pressure, both by their masters and by the male slaves, that was nearly impossible for them to refrain from (unwanted) sexual intercourse.<br /><br />In spite of the shortage of women, some men managed to accumulate several wives. These were usually <em>bastiaans</em> or other senior slaves, who were rewarded by their master for faithful service this way, or who were sought out by the women themselves because of the privileges they could procure for them. At the very least, the men strove for 'serial polygamy': trading in one partner for another when they were tired of her. In this situation, the women were often promiscuous too, but when it was by their own choice, they tried to keep it a secret for the men involved. Often, slaves with more than one wife were not adverse of letting others enjoy their company too, in return for a small token of gratitude.<br /><br />Pimping in a less disguised form was also rife, especially among the Free Negroes. Some men did not mind supplying a woman for a white customer and some mothers did not hesitate to sell the charms of their offspring. Kuhn was incensed about this <em>“scandalous sale of their daughters to satyrs, a well-known custom among them”</em>. However, these mothers generally had the best interest of their (light-colored) daughters in mind and tried to give them a good start in a life that left them few choices. Lammens was therefore noticeably less shocked: <em>“the daughter remains under the authority and control of the mother, until marriageable age: - she will without the knowledge and approval of the mother, not easily dispose over her person … thus one is obliged to buy the first favor of the young virgin, for certain gifts or money, to which the mother must concur: - sometimes the favor costs no less than a thousand guilders, of which she gets the bed, sheets, clothes and finery: -this so having been agreed and given, the man gets the right to live with her: - this however does not forge a lasting relationship, and they are, afterwards, totally free from each other: - she thereafter enters into other relationships, without further consulting her mother, she is then regarded as her own master, as an adult”</em>.<br /><br />Some women had a respectable number of lovers. The slave woman Lucretia (owned by Mr. Bliek), for example, complained that her sister Catharina (who had been accused of theft) <em>"walks everywhere and also has men everywhere"</em>. Blom remarked that <em>“with some nations among the saltwater negroes there exists a superstition that when a woman is in labor, and she does not mention the name of the father of the child, she can have no happy delivery, and I have witnessed the case, that on such an occasion a negress named sixteen negroes and two whites”</em>.<br /><br />With such a scarcity of faithfulness, it is no wonder that there was a lot of sexual jealousy, although Governor Nepveu claimed that this was limited to situations in which the partners stayed together out of love, not out of habit. In the opinion of Fermin, jealousy could even lead to murder: <em>“their jealousy with regard to their wives is greater than that of the Italians; because as soon as they discover the least intimacy, be it with a Negro or Indian, they kill her by poison; but it is something special, that they think differently, if this happens with a white, over which they do not show the least sensibility, and even take pride in it”</em>. As far as the latter claim goes, one should remember that Fermin liked to exaggerate a bit. In the 19th century, the 'green monster' even became a pest: <em>“even adultery is now already very rare with the slave: as long as a temporary tie binds him to a spouse there is jealousy in the male”</em>, Van der Smissen observed.<br /><br />Fights over women were very common on the plantations and could have serious consequences. Kees of <strong>Frederickshoop</strong>, for example, was accused by the slaves of that plantation of having poisoned a slave girl named Madelon. He confessed to the Court of Police that he had courted her, but added that she had repulsed him because she considered herself too young for marriage. He had then taken two other wives. When the girl was old enough, she wanted him as her husband, but he told her that she had wasted her chance. She started a relationship with the <em>blankofficier</em>, that lasted three years. According to Kees, the <em>bastiaan</em> was jealous of him because he was such a marvelous mason, carpenter and cooper and would no doubt soon be elevated to the position of officer himself, in which case his rival would ‘loose his whip’. Therefore, the envious driver had used the sudden death of Madelon to blacken Kees in the eyes of his fellows. They had tied him up, but a small boy had burned off his ropes and he had managed to escape. Despite being hung from the rafters and whipped, he persisted in his innocence.<br /><br />The conflict between the <em>bastiaans</em> Hercules and Neptunes of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/libanon/index.nl.html">Libanon</a></strong> resulted in tragedy as well. One day Neptunes had risen early in the morning to get some wood and when he came back, he found his wife Brandina in the company of Hercules. He complained about this to the director, who gave Hercules a couple of blows with a stick and promised him a worse beating after he had conferred with his patron. Before he could make good on his threat, however, the director and the <em>blankofficier</em> were fired. Hercules was encouraged by this turn of fate to swear to Neptunes that he would get even, which he promptly did by denouncing him to the new director as the brain behind an imaginary conspiracy.<br /><br />Often, a woman had to bear the brunt of her man’s jealousy, whether it was justified or not. Politicq of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/vertrouwen/index.nl.html">‘t Vertrouwen</a></strong> stabbed his wife in the back and the abdomen and cut her throat because she <em>“had a man in another place”</em> and refused to take care of him anymore. Marquis of <strong>Monsort</strong> shot Elizabeth after spending the night with her (although he had a wife and three children). Out of remorse, he shot himself in the chest, but the bullet came out through the shoulder without doing much damage. He managed to escape in spite of his wounds, but hunger drove him back to the plantation, where he was caught. April of <strong>Mon Affaire</strong> shot Jacoba (Acouba) while she was working in a trench. He claimed that it had been an accident: he had put his riffle against a plantain trunk and it fell, went off and unfortunately the bullet hit Jacoba. Other slaves testified, however, that they had quarreled more than once and the victim stated before expiring from gangrene in the bowel that he had shot her because she had been his wife and had left him.<br /><br />Women might be overcome with jealousy too, but they rarely retaliated with aggression against the errant men. Mostly, they either fought with their rivals, or took it out on their children, as Constantia of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/clarenbeek_en_nimmerdorr/index.nl.html">Clarenbeek</a></strong> may have done. She was accused of having strangled her baby daughter Zenobia while feeding her, even though her mistress, who suspected that she neglected the child, had watched her like a hawk and had even proposed to give Zenobia to another woman to raise. The reason for this horrible deed was probably the faithlessness of the father, a <em>bastiaan</em>, who had taken a new wife. The slaves of Clarenbeek did not take this murder lightly: <em>“the whole force would have beaten her with sticks & cudgels, had I not prevented this”</em>, her mistress declared. They threatened to kill her and wanted her to be broken on the cross –as had been the punishment in a similar case. <em>Raad-Fiscaal </em>Texier, however, did not see enough evidence that she killed her baby on purpose and refrained from asking the death penalty. According to Lammens, most women did not mind competition as such: <em>“the only</em> [thing]<em>, that the woman would not tolerate is, that another slept in her bed, that is her sanctuary”</em>. In his eyes, men had at least one good reason to curb their promiscuity, because it <em>“is not a little expensive and often helps to ruin the man”</em>.<br /><br />For many males it was difficult to find a steady sexual partner. Little is known about the sexual outlets of slave men in such a situation. <a href="http://www.cnws.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3-c=126.htm">Robert Ross</a> described cases of homosexuality and bestiality among the slaves of South Africa, but I have never found any proof of this in Surinam. It is quite possible, however, that this kind of behavior was not recorded because the planters did not care one bit how their slaves got their sexual release (as long as they were not bothered by it), while their South African counterparts, being fanatical Calvinists, dragged them into court for every deviation from the missionary position. Ironically, whites in Surinam were mercilessly punished and even condemned to death for exactly the same ‘perversities’.<br /><br />In Surinam, like everywhere else in the Caribbean, the slaves were denied official wedlock. If they wanted to give their relationship the appearance of respectability, the prospective husband went to the mistress or master of his beloved to ask for permission and to promise that he would take good care of her. Then the partners took each other by the hand and the ‘marriage’ was considered a fact. There was no other ceremony, not even a mock one, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_broom">jumping the broom</a> (a treasured custom in the United States). If the man had a certain standing in the community, he gave a feast (<em>du</em>) to which all his relatives and friends were invited.<br /><br />Legal marriage never became possible for slaves, but during the 19th century the EBG instigated so-called <em>verbonden</em> (covenants), in which a man and a woman promised to be faithful to each other and to raise their children in the Christian faith. Although many (male) slaves valued such a formal declaration, they had some reservations about the monogamy part. From 1850 on, these covenants had a legal status: they did not count as real marriages, but the spouses could not be sold separately. The Roman Catholic Curch acknowledged church weddings. People who did not have this rite performed lived in sin and could not partake in the Eucharist. The children born from these unsanctified relationships were discriminated against: they had to be baptized behind the pulpit, or this could only be done on Thursdays.<br /><br />The masters usually did not bother to interfere in conjugal quarrels, unless they erupted into open strife. In the same vein, most slaves refrained from running to the master for help, unless life or limb was endangered by an irate spouse. There were exceptions, of course. When Isaac, the <em>bastiaan</em> of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/parakreek/vrede_parakreek/index.nl.html">De Vreede</a></strong>, beat up his wife Lourenza one day, she immediately sought refuge with director Lutz (who happened to cohabit with her daughter L’Esperance). When Isaac came to get her, a fight between him and his ‘son-in-law’ ensued. Isaac beat him to his knees, but in the end inevitably got the short end of the stick.<br /><br />Sometimes masters did punish an ‘adulterous’ slave. When Januari of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/parakreek/berlijn_para/index.nl.html">Berlijn</a></strong> was away to Paramaribo for a while, his wife Bellona sought comfort with Schipion. On his return, Januari was informed of this affair by Trobel. He gave Bellona several blows with a stick and she complained about this mistreatment to the director. She encountered little sympathy. He treated both Bellona and Schipion to a whipping and warned them that they had better stop their involvement. Love was stronger than fear of punishment, however: they decided to run away, were caught stealing a canoe from some Maroons and paid dearly for their indiscretions.<br /><br />The slaves preferred a partnership with someone of their own tribal background, but only members of the larger groups had a reasonable chance of finding an ethnically suitable partner. Women could afford to be more selective than men, and consequently ended up more often with a partner from their own tribe. Mixed marriages nevertheless contributed much to cultural integration. Most men longed for a younger wife, but the scarcity of women had its adavantages for the fairer sex: Lans claimed to have seen more older women with a young husband than the opposite.<br /><br />Color was an important factor as well. Women strove to ‘marry’ men lighter than themselves. It was, for example, regarded as extremely demeaning for a Mulatto woman to keep company with a Negro man. Lammens maintained that <em>“the colored women consider the colored men as an inferior Caste, which in the end, creates nothing but envy, and widens the gap”</em>. He added, <em>“the prejudice says that the woman gains esteem because of her man, and that by uniting herself with a man of lower status she loses esteem”</em>. These sentiments left the colored men in a bit of a fix, because they too wanted a lighter partner, but were forced to content themselves with someone of darker hue. White men were the greatest competitors of ambitious slave men. They had so much more to offer to a slave woman, that many could not resist the temptation; moreover, they could forcibly take any slave woman under their command. This was even true for the men on the lowest rungs of the colonial ladder, although these often had to make do with women who had been written off by their superiors. The tragedy for many upwardly mobile colored women was that they lost their attractiveness as they grew older, were abandoned by their former lovers and had to turn to lowly soldiers or colored men.<br /><br />Much ink has been wasted on the quality of the relationships between women and men during slavery. Countless authors (for the most part of the male persuasion) have spent many pages lamenting the emasculating effect the slave system was supposed to have on the male slaves. Stanley Elkins, for instance, wrote: <em>“the process whereby all the true attributes of manhood were systematically isolated and placed well beyond reach truly bears the marks of great subtlety”</em>. With ‘the true attributes of manhood’ he meant of course primarily the possibility to dominate women. Others castigated whites for depriving the slave men of easy and regular sexual release. <a href="http://afam.nts.jhu.edu/people/Knight/compbioknight.pdf">Franklin Knight</a>, for example, remarked sourly that in Cuba <em>“the white master class could not even provide sufficient women for the adequate sexual satisfaction of the males”</em> –as if that was their prime duty. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brion_Davis">David Brion Davis</a> has qualified as the champion of male chauvinism: he managed to get into print that the rape of slave women was an acknowledgement of their humanity. With all their worrying about the emasculation and the sexual deprivation of the slave men, they totally lost track of the sexual degradation of the slave women, except of course when white men were the culprits. That the slave women may have been exploited just as cynically by their fellow sufferers, did not enter their mind.<br /><br />Even writers who do not exhibit such blatant sexism sometimes reached strange conclusions. Eugene Genovese worked hard to destroy the image of the emasculated male and the domineering female, but since even he had trouble uplifting men without degrading women, he suggested that they wholeheartedly cooperated in the efforts to save the pride of the male slaves by stepping back voluntarily and leaving the men in charge. To bolster the male ego (notoriously fragile as we know) <em>“a remarkable number of women did everything possible to strengthen their men’s self-esteem and to defer to their leadership”</em>. He applauded the women for ‘standing by their men’, thereby yielding <em>“their own prerogatives”</em>. The masters had no reason to fear such touching examples of conjugal harmony, because <em>“a strong man who kept his wife and children in line contributed to social peace and good order”</em>. Apart from the fact that in order to be strong, a man had to rebel against social peace, which would not have pleased his master much despite his ability to keep his wife and children in line, it was not the women and children who had to be kept in line in the first place.<br /><br />It is true that promoting slave families was beneficial for the master, but not for this reason. Having a family tended to calm men down and make them less eager to risk their neck in a futile uprising. Even more important: it gave them an acceptable channel for venting their frustration. In the eyes of the masters, it was much better that a slave beat up his wife and children than that he picked a fight with another male slave, or even with a white man. As George Frederickson formulated it, slavery was <em>“an effective means of social control, partly because the satisfactions of kinship and quasi-kinship took the edge off black discontent and gave the owners a kind of leverage that could work against the growth of revolutionary attitudes and actions”</em>.<br /><br />As for Surinam, the abovementioned authors had no reason to worry. Here the women never became the domineering matrons that irritated them so much. All positions of power and prestige were reserved for men, as was the most valued work. This was reflected in the rewards women received for their exertions: less food, less privileges, less chances to get away from the plantation for a while. The main problem in Surinam was not the emasculation of the men, but the opression of the women.<br /><br />It is no wonder that there is still a strong undercurrent of hostility between men and women in Surinam today. Benjamin Pierce found that lower class Creole women view men as <em>“being morally weak, undependable, deceitful and intransigent, and as being aggressors who trick innocent females into engaging in sexual activity”</em>. Women have learned not to become dependant on one man, especially not on their current sexual partner. Although physical aggression by women is frowned upon, this does not apply to fights with their men, who themselves use their fists at the slightest provocation. <a href="http://pagesperso-orange.fr/redris/HTML/hurault_jean.html">Jean-Marcel Hurault </a>discovered that the <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boni_(guerrillaleider)">Boni</a> Bush Negroes consider women as a <em>“strange and almost hostile nation” </em>and as <em>“half-irresponsibles”</em>. It is not clear whether these opinions stem from slavery times, but it is certain that there were few fundamental changes since then: <em>“Whether we contemplate the family system of the Negroid population in the period of slavery, in the post-Emancipation period after 1863, or the contemporary, post-colonial society of Surinam, we cannot fail to be struck by the unchanging uniformity of the characteristics preserved by it in all these periods, and by the fact that only a small number of insignificant elements of this system have altered over the years”</em>, Willem Buschkens concluded. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264432691504300946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH82QA_mfXiBpaSpnpP0xA6Rf6frZP2vsLxwqBpJHSWbNgjwAxT3tLs2dL5FFYxpYpcWOjJFLzwSHx2MmomJaBNisQ1CGgNttSU-rCKG83QkICM1lO79M_JpJ41S1w1pBzRbkg7_keUS0/s400/familie.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><p align="justify"><strong>The slave family.<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Blassingame">John Blassingame</a> was right when he wrote that the slave family was an “<em>important survival mechanism” </em>for the slaves. The family provided the cozy nest in which the slaves could gain the strength necessary for facing the difficulties of the outside world. If one regards the obstacles amorous slaves had to surmount, it is a miracle that so many of them were able to forge a stable family life. The slave family flourished particularly in the American South. There a modest level of slave imports was combined with a comparatively healthy climate and (especially in the Upper South) planters eager to stimulate procreation. At the same time, they often separated men from their wives and mothers from their children. That the danger of separation did not destroy the commitment of the slaves to family ideals and even encouraged them to extend their closest relationships far beyond the nuclear family, has been described in detail by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Gutman">Herbert Gutman</a>. In Surinam, the climate may have been insalubrious, the balance between the sexes disturbed and the planters indifferent, but partners had a far better chance of staying together.<br /><br />As we have seen, a large part of the women, perhaps as much as half of them, had no children at all. For those who did produce offspring, pregnancy was often an ordeal. According to Benoit, the belly of a many a pregnant woman <em>“takes such an enormous largesse and volume, that you nearly expect her to put two or three infants into the world”</em>. Not rarely, the expectant mother had to continue working right up to the moment of delivery and her workload was not significantly lightened. In the 19th century, the government tried to remedy this and ordered that pregnant women should only have to execute half of their usual <em>merk</em> after the fifth month. By the end of the slave era, the burdens were lessened even more. Bartelink was surprised to find that the planters obeyed these government regulations to the letter. After delivery, the women did not have to work at all for about four months and during the next eight months, they only had to do half their usual <em>merk</em>. After a year, they resumed their full workload. Once the import of African slaves had been outlawed, the planters proved more willing to give medical attention to women in labor. Some sent their pregnant slaves to a special clinic in Paramaribo, or they ordered them to stay in their town residence, so they could keep an eye on them. Several days after delivering her baby, the mother presented it to her master (if it was a boy), or to her mistress if (it was a girl), who chose a name for the baby. The parents celebrated by preparing cakes and serving them to their friends.<br /><br />It was generally believed, also by the masters, that slave women made good mothers, just like their African counterparts. Therefore, observers were understandably shocked if it turned out that some of them seemed to resent their children. Several cases of mothers smothering their babies have come to light. There were probably many children who expired because of neglect or mistreatment without this arousing any suspicion. Lammens, for one, would not have been surprised by such maternal callousness, for he wrote: <em>“it is not rare that the mother does not want to nourish her Child, The owner is then practically obliged, in his own interest, to hire a wet-nurse”</em>. On the whole, however, mothers tried to take care of their children as best as they could. Many were outright indulgent, though at the same time they were convinced that sparing the rod spoiled the child.<br /><br />In later times, the masters were obliged to take an interest in the well-being of the children too. Many of them had the youngsters brought to the Big House every day to inspect if they were clean, well fed and healthy. They were, however, not interested enough to allow the mothers to nurture their children themselves. After a woman had resumed her work in the field, she would only see her offspring in the evenings and during the weekends. The rest of the time, they were cared for by an old slave woman called <em>crioromama</em>.<br /><br />Often, a relaxed atmosphere developed between the owners and the young slaves. Lammens noticed that “<em>it is not strange, to see one or more children of the slave women sleeping in the room, behind the chair of the mistress of the house, just before the evening falls, when one makes a visit, so uninhibited the slave children behave in the house of their master”</em>. In spite of the high mortality and the sometimes rough treatment, most children seemed to thrive: according to Governor Nepveu they were <em>“sleek and fat like eels”.</em> Although the rod was certainly not spared, ridicule was a more important mechanism for socialization. Lammens relayed that <em>“when a Boy or Girl is guilty of soiling his or her bed, then he or she is paraded around with a long tapering hive, called Koerekoere, on which long feathers are stuck, on the Head, - furthermore one hangs a number of live toads from the body of the Guilty, fastens a water pot on the back, and amidst the drumming on this, and the hooting of the children, he or she is led through several Streets”</em>.<br /><br />Even in the opinion of the planters, mother and child formed an inseparable unit. According to an unwritten rule, they could not be sold apart, at least not while they both were slaves. In January 1743, for example, Governor Mauricius noted in his journal, that the <em>raden</em> had complained to him about the habit of some slave traders to <em>“sell separately in an indecent way, the mothers or fathers from their children & the men from their wives, to thereby force someone who has bought one of those, to buy the others most expensively, in order not run the risk to lose the one</em> [he] <em>has already bought”</em>. He was aware that it <em>“has always been the custom in this Colony to sell families together”</em> and therefore he ordered that sellers at an auction had to reveal whether <em>“a man has wife or child”</em>. Should it turn out later he had, the sale was null and void.<br /><br />This changed after the economic crisis of the 1770’s. For planters in financial need humanity did not count for much anymore, so in 1782 a formal regulation had to be enacted to prevent them from separating mothers and children with impunity. There was an easy way out though: if a planter freed the mother (not much of a sacrifice when she was old and useless), he could sell her children without any problem. The authorities countered by making this an expensive indulgence: they decreed that owners who manumitted a slave had to deposit a caution (eventually rising to 500 guilders) to make sure that he or she would not become a burden on society. The Dutch government was vehemently opposed to splitting families and in the 19th century imposed even stricter rules. Mother and child could only be sold apart in special circumstances: for example, if one of them was to be freed within three years, or if the child was over 12 years old and the general interest demanded it. The only other acceptable reason was the fact that the child had committed a crime: so was Adam sold away from his mother Josina (with her permission), because he had been condemned for a felony repeatedly. Kappler could therefore conclude that <em>“single, especially young Negroes are seldom offered and then always expensively”</em>.<br /><br />In Roman law, children inherited the slave status from their father and this was also the rule in several American states (like Maryland) in the beginning of the colonial era. This law was soon abandoned for the following reasons: (1) it was difficult to determine who was the father of a child and whether he was a slave (not all blacks were slaves); (2) all the mulatto children of black women would automatically be free and one could hardly expect a master to raise a child that would bring him no profit; (3) the colored children of white women (rare though they might be) could conceivably be enslaved by inhabitants claiming to be their father’s owner. So it became the custom all over the Caribbean that children inherited the status of their mother (in accordance with the maxim: <em>partus frequitur ventrem</em>).<br /><br />The relation between father and child was tenuous. According to Lammens <em>“there is no regard for the fathers, the mothers only are regarded as heads of the family”</em>. This was a universal phenomenon in the Caribbean and in the eyes of Mintz <em>“in fact, consistent with the western view”</em>. It was, however, only true when ‘bastards’ were concerned –which slave children were by definition. The formal tie between a father and his legitimate children was crucial in western society, particularly during this era: they took his name, he had the final say with regard to their place of residence or their education and in case of a divorce the children stayed with their father.<br /><br />Sincea slave father was not obliged to support his children and had only limited authority over them, the relation between them (if it existed at all) was largely based on genuine affection, although ritual factors played a role as well. It was of vital importance that a child knew who his father was, because it inherited his <em>treefs</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo">taboos</a> that listed the foods they were not allowed to eat, the objects they were not allowed to touch, etc). If they did not comply with these <em>treefs</em>, they would fall ill. [Modern Creoles and Bush Negroes still believe that they are related to their mother (and her family) through the womb (<em>bere</em>), so they inherit her clan membership, and to their father through the blood (<em>brudu</em>), so they inherit his taboos.] Though many children did not live with their father, there is ample proof of close and intimate relations between them. It was a fortunate circumstance that neither of them could be sold away from their respective plantations, so they could stay in touch when the father chose a different partner -not a rare occurrence, although Governor Nepveu noted that slave couples were much less likely to separate when there were children. [In modern Creole society, the father often moves away after a separation and loses contact with his children.]<br /><br />The importance of the father-child (son) bond became apparent in cases of conflict, when they usually supported each other loyally. There were also other touching tokens of affection. When interrogated by the Court of Police, Avantuur of the plantation <strong>Cornelis’ Vriendschap</strong> declared that he had decided to run away because his master did not give him enough time to care for his child. The kidnapped woman Baba reported that one of the Maroons that grabbed her was a runaway <em>“who wanted to attack the Plantation of Castilho with force: and incited the others to do so: because he still has a child on that Plantation: and wanted to get it”</em>.<br /><br />In other cases, fugitive fathers stayed in the neighborhood of their former plantation, thereby seriously endangering themselves, and brought their children fish and venison. Slave men were often very distraught by the loss of their families. The process of concentration that took place during the 19th century caused much suffering. <em>“Separated from wife and children (who usually lived on a neighboring plantation) and from acquaintances and ‘heimat’, many of them are affected by a deep and almost incurable dejection, and generally not of few of these transplanted slaves die. Some try to forget their sorrow with strong liquor and the plantation owner sometimes offers a helping hand by distributing liquor. But mostly this comfort is scorned, and they sit crying in front of their cabins. But all the deeper becomes the rancor against the whites in their heart”</em>, stated a report about the situation on the plantation <strong>Anna’s Zorg</strong> in 1861.<br /><br />The African slaves were more likely to have nuclear families, with an auxiliary network of shipmate ‘uncles’ and ‘aunts’, while the Creole slaves often had larger extended families. The following process of family formation was typical. First a ‘saltwater’ woman and her partner, often the man who had introduced her to plantation life, lived alone. After children were born, they stayed with the mother, even if the father changed partners. The next partner(s) of the mother came to live with her, or just made regular visits. When the new lover belonged to another plantation, this was the only possibility, but even when he resided on the same estate, he did not always move in. When the children grew up, they often continued to live with their mother, even after the daughters started to reproduce. After the death of the matriarch, the siblings sometimes continued to live together until one of the daughters became a grandmother. In cases where men were found to be living with children, these were just as often the offspring of their sister(s) than their own. The family could be ‘extended’ with uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, etc. The span of the extended family varied. The average family in the Para region, for example, was significantly larger than the average family in the Commewijne region, where the nuclear unit of mother and children was the most common one. The reasons for this difference cannot be pinpointed exactly, but the greater freedom and affluence of the Para slaves no doubt contributed to it.<br /><br />The extended families were part of more comprehensive kin groups. Mintz and Price claimed that the Surinam plantations housed large descent-groups, bilaterally extended and with strong ritual ties to their locality, that consisted of all the descendents of one specific slave brought from Africa. These groups overlapped extensively, of course, and had (limited) ritual functions. They have retained their influence in the Para region to this day. Pierce encountered the same phenomenon among the modern Paramaribo Creoles: they all belong to an <em>“exogamous, kindred-type network, the members of which are tied to <a href="http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072500506/student_view0/glossary.html">ego</a> by reciprocal rights and obligations”</em>. In essence, such a group is a <em>“<a href="http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/descent/cognatic/">cognatic</a> descent group of four generations which consists of all the descendents of a great grand-parent”</em>. They have ritual significance because <em>“they are the groups within which the possessing spirits</em> [<a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winti">winti</a>] <em>and ancestral ghosts are inherited and worshipped”</em>.<br /><br />The family life of the slaves could be easily disrupted by the actions of the whites, but recent studies have shown that these disruptions might have been less widespread than was formerly assumed. The planters were too much aware of the advantages of a stable family life to interfere without good reason. Many planters forbade their directors to tamper with any ‘married’ woman and sometimes preferred that they engaged a free colored woman as a housekeeper. Higman pointed out that in Jamaica, where the whites were not at all reticent in their pursuit of slave women, it was extremely rare that a woman bore a black child first and colored children later (indicating that a callous white had destroyed her marriage to a fellow slave), but that the opposite was pretty common. After a white paramour had left her, a woman often had no choice but to settle with a slave partner. In Surinam, the same pattern prevailed, but the were exceptions: the mother of the albino Jan Wit (born in 1738) of the plantation <strong>Vossenburg</strong>, brought eight children into the world: (1) a mulatto; (2) a black; (3) a <em>“white negress”, </em>who had been sent to Paris as a curiosity; (4) a mulatto; (5) Jan Wit; (6,7,8) three blacks.<br /><br />It was in all probability also not true that most slave women bore children from several men. One does not have to go as far as Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, who in their controversial book <strong><a href="http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/weiss"><em>Time on the Cross</em></a></strong> attributed to American slaves an almost puritanical sexual ethic, but neither did they abandon themselves to loose morals. Gutman discovered that in the Old South many slave women engaged in pre-nuptial intercourse and had their first child out of wedlock, but would then settle down with one man. In Surinam, the situation will have been largely similar. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264432245820372258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 269px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HxlMmiVank51fi-TYANNWJBFnUbHPrVcQek3gHRxolOn6meQ6K7dU4-jzxpcHGs070euLpqiBh74kn5EciFOMwbWf_lEGuTpLCXBVzyfMNCpyKMqCTo13xBwrrW1PU_HSGb4n5b6FnE/s400/grote-broer.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><p align="justify"><strong>Internal and external conflicts.<br /></strong><br />During the latter part of the slavery era, many (if not most) slaves by necessity had to find a sexual partner outside their own plantation. This not only created relationships between the men and the women involved, but between many other bondsmen as well. A suitor did not only have to get along with the relatives of his prospective partner, but also with the other slaves, because if he got into trouble with them, further visits would be forbidden (if not by the planter, then by his adversaries). Apart from maintaining their sexual and familial ties, slaves also appreciated the distraction. Especially during the weekends, visitors came and went continuously and if the slaves of one plantation organized a dance (<em>pley</em>), it was practically impossible to keep the neighbors away. The masters hated the drunken brawls that sometimes followed, but were powerless to prevent them. The slaves did not mind rowing for a couple of hours to participate in a such dance, but the planters considered this too risky. They might run into a group of Maroons, be taken for runaways themselves, or decide not to come back. Consequently, most of the time they refused to give their bondsmen the written permit they needed (many sneaked away anyway). [Such a pass could read as follows: <em>“Let pass and repass this my vessel with four negroes going to Commewijne. ... This has to return</em> [in] <em>4 days.”</em> Signed Janva Abini (an <em>ostagier</em> = Bush Negro hostage living with the whites).]<br /><br />The slaves of the Jews had the great disadvantage that they had to work on Sundays: for the others Sunday was the ‘big time’. It <em>“not only gives them the possibility to rest from their labors but also to visit their friends and acquaintances on neighboring Plantations, which pleasure they by necessity cannot enjoy, when they have to celebrate Sunday on another day than the first day of the week”</em>, remarked the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> in 1784. Therefore, the slaves of Jewish planters in regions where Jews were scarce were obliged to <em>“isolate themselves on their Plantations”.</em> In the early period, the authorities tried to force the Jews to honor the Christian Sabbath as well as their own. This certainly pleased their slaves, but angered the bondsmen of the Christians so much that they <em>“would be drawn from their Master’s affairs, seeking relief, which innovation, without correction, will not work out well”,</em> as Governor Van Aerssen explained to his superiors. So it was soon abandoned.<br /><br />The planters were a bit ambivalent about the advisability of letting their slaves run around to visit each other. On the one hand, they could prevent it only with the greatest difficulty and it made the slaves more contented, possibly more productive and certainly less eager to run away. On the other hand, it could also lead to serious conflicts between the slaves of different plantations and this was the last thing directors wanted, because they were likely to get involved in sordid quarrels with their colleagues as a result.<br /><br />The plantation was no idyllic community, where all slaves lived in perfect harmony with each other and acted in unison to oppose their cruel master. As Kuhn remarked: <em>“The Negroes themselves, if they do not belong to one family, trust each other little or not at all”</em>. Hartsinck concurred: <em>“the Negroes, being a thievish people, distrust one another, and always close their Huts with a kind of Lock, which they nicely fashion from Wood”</em>. The slave community was split by all kinds of feuds, with sometimes fatal consequences. Who got involved depended on the nature of the conflict. If it was a purely personal quarrel between two individuals, only their closest relatives were recruted, but in more serious cases shipmates, compatriots and other friends were appealed to.<br /><br />Herlein’s opinion of the harmony among slaves was not very favorable: <em>“The Blacks are more malicious than good by nature, revengeful and stubborn, therefore they must often have blows before they relent, they are also very quarrelsome among each other, and the Wenches tussle sometimes too”</em>. He believed that the slaves were not much beset by jealousy, but most other authors disagreed. One of the main reasons for jealousy was the suspicion that the master favored other slaves. Blom warned strongly against a lack of evenhandedness: if one let a slave believe he had <em>“any favor with his master”</em>, this was bound to make him act haughtily towards other slaves and if he was punished for a failure later, he felt much wronged. Moreover, the ones so slighted might retaliate violently. Slaves earned privileges when they proved to be excellent workers, trustworthy drivers, or especially useful in other ways, in which case they might be rewarded with additional rations, nice clothes and sometimes even with a wife. By dispensing favors wisely, they could gain such influence over the other slaves that they could exploit them almost with impunity. Sometimes, the privileges were based on the ethnic background of the slaves, as happened with the Coromantees. At other times, special circumstances were taken into account. Herlein mentioned a Loango woman who was the daughter of an important chief. She was employed as a house servant in Surinam (rare for a Loango) and was treated <em>“more reasonable than other Slaves”</em>.<br /><br />A full-proof way of gaining favor with the master (and of earning the enmity of the other slaves) was acting as an informant. This was a risky business, however. In one case, a slave named Juny had spied on behalf of his master and had kept him informed about the <em>“konkelarijen”</em> in the slave quarters. He denounced Carl for having contacts with the Maroons and in revenge, Carl shot him in the back when he was standing guard.<br /><br />Material welfare counted heavily among the slaves and the ones who were most blessed in this regard had to endure the envy of their fellows. Out of fear that they would become the victims of witchcraft, many slaves chose to stay as inconspicuous as possible. [This attitude has lingered on in the Para region for a long time. After emancipation, no one dared to paint his house out of fear of being cursed. In the beginning of the 20th century, one man finally braved public opinion and painted his house. Only when nothing bad happened to him, others dared to follow suit.]<br /><br />Many disturbances on the plantations were caused by the consumption of alcohol. Drunken brawls were frequent occurrences during the weekends, which was one of the reasons many whites were not in favor of allowing their slaves to have a <em>pley </em>regularly. The following incident is more or less representative: Quakoe, the <em>bastiaan</em> of the plantation <strong>Ouderzorg en Vriendsbeleid </strong>was presented with a bottle of <em>dram</em> by the director, in gratitude of his exemplary service. He shared it with a man named Champagne and a woman. He became intoxicated and picked an argument with Champagne. The director interfered and sent him away to sleep it off. Champagne went home while Quakoe stayed behind cursing. Working himself up to a frenzy, he took his gun and went to lie in ambush, waiting for the whites (who had gone on a visit) to return. Getting impatient when did they not arrive, he wrecked the garden of a woman named Callista and shot through the fence into her house, fortunately hitting no one. Hendrik and Geluk managed to overpower him and brought him to the director, demanding that he would be put in irons. The director had him nailed in a <em><a href="http://www.histotheek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1111&Itemid=69">schandblok</a></em> and later brought him to the Court of Police. After a <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Spaanse_bok"><em>Spaanse Bok</em></a> (severe beating) he was sent back to the plantation.<br /><br />Conflict did not always end without bloodshed: Valentijn of the plantation <strong>De Zuynigheid</strong> went to a <em>pley</em>, given by the director for his slaves, one Saturday evening and was merry until dawn. Afterwards he retired to the cabin he shared with his brother Hendrik, with whom he professed to have had an amicable relation. Nevertheless, he came to his senses the next morning with a knife in his hand, which he had used to cut Hendrik’s throat. Valentijn denied that he had been drunk (in fact that he had ever been drunk) and claimed that ‘his head had turned’ and that he had not been aware of what he was doing. Something similar had occurred once before, when he had been rowing a <em>corjear</em>. He had jumped overboard and would have drowned if the fisherman of the plantation <strong>Mon Bijou </strong>had not pulled him out of the water. [After doing something strange or violent, slaves often claimed that ‘their head had turned’. It is not sure whether this was the result of the excessive consumption of liquor, or of possession, but it often happened after partying.]<br /><br />The differences in the ethnic backgrounds of the slaves led to conflicts as well. Some groups, like the Coromantees, clearly felt superior to the rest and other, like the Loangos, were not only despised by their fellow slaves, but by their masters as well -which made it a lot easier for their enemies to persecute them with impunity. Governor Van der Veen claimed that it was <em>“considered a pest, especially for a new plantation, to leave so many</em> [31] <em>new negroes from one ship together, considering the conspiracies that are plotted by</em> [slaves of] <em>one nation and especially when they come over with the same ship”</em>, but this could not always be avoided. The planters rightly feared that slaves from the same nation might cooperate in a conspiracy against their masters, but the chance that they would cooperate to oppress their fellow slaves was much larger. There was also a lot of friction between the African and the Creole slaves. The Creoles were favored by the masters because of the widely held conviction, already voiced in 1700, that <em>“Creole or native Negroes are</em> [a] <em>great certainty for the Plantations and for the Country”</em>. The Creoles were suspicious of Africans because of their supposedly greater magical powers, particularly their knowledge of ‘poisons’.<br /><br />On most Surinam plantations, there were mysterious deaths that could not be explained with the medical knowledge of the time. Often, the suspicion arose that the victims had been ‘poisoned’. Sometimes there was an epidemic of accusations on a plantation. This was the clearest sign that there was something seriously amiss with the relations among the slaves. In the eyes of the whites, unexplained deaths were most likely caused by real <strong>poison</strong>. The slaves believed this to be true in some cases, but more often they feared <strong>black magic</strong>. Since it was hard to convince their white superiors of this, they adopted their terminology when denouncing the suspects. Because some slaves had a thorough knowledge of the uses of herbs and could easily concoct deadly potions, genuine cases of poisoning no doubt did occur, but it is difficult to ascertain how frequent they were.<br /><br />In the early years, many whites seemed eager to believe slaves who denounced their fellows on their word. They had no scruples about torturing suspects to extract a confession, because they were convinced that it was impossible to compel a slave to confess to something he was innocent of. In addition, some slaves were certain that they had the magical power to harm others, so they freely confessed their misdeeds, imaginary as they might be. Francina of the plantation <strong>Mislukt Bedrog</strong>, for example, confessed to have poisoned several children, because her AZEE (witch-like spirit) had made her vengeful. She also employed an herb that she buried in a path regularly used by slaves. She believed that if a woman walked over it, her menstrual periods ceased (making her sterile). Francina claimed to have learned about the AZEE and the poison from Esperance of the plantation <strong>L’ Assistance</strong>, who came to her to suck blood, which they put in a calabash and drank together.<br /><br />Many whites were convinced that genuine cases of poisoning were a regular occurrence on plantations. Even well informed men like Governor Nepveu believed that slaves, once they had resorted to this kind of criminal behavior to avenge themselves for a real or perceived injustice, would continue even without good reason. Moreover, they might start to poison their fellow slaves to harm their masters –in order to make sure that he would not become wealthy enough to return to Europe, for example.<br /><br />The suspicion of poisoning grew when a slave died from a mysterious illness shortly after a quarrel with a fellow slave –and of course this could indeed have happened. Apollo and Quassi of the plantation <strong>Vossenburg</strong>, for example, were turned over to the Court of Police on suspicion of murder. During the interrogations the following events came to light. Apollo had quarreled with Alida, the driver of the Creole slaves, because she had hit his son Quakoe when he was slow putting cane into the press. Shortly afterwards, Ciska, the daughter of her sister Rebecca, died and a few days later her brother Willem became so ill that he was no longer able to sit up. Several days after that Louisa (Jaba), another daughter of Rebecca and the ‘wife’ of the director, told the latter that she had drunk some coffee that had been left on the verandah and had felt sick right away. She died eight days later. Shortly after her death, the mother of Rebecca informed the director that Quassi, a friend of Apollo, had come to her earlier and had offered to cure Louisa. When she refused, he had taken a crab in his hands, broke off the legs and said: <em>“look as I break off all the feet of this Crab so your Hon.’s whole Family will be broken off from you with the one who shields your Hon., and you alone will be left to your sorrow”</em>. Sometime later, a slave told the director that Apollo had tried to hang himself in his cabin, but the rope had broken (or had been cut loose by Quassi) and Apollo had disappeared. The daughters of Apollo revealed that Quassi had come to him and had warned him that he had been stupid and that he would surely be found out. He threw something on the floor of the cabin, saying that now Apollo would not be betrayed. This was corroberated by an old slave called Dia, who testified that Quassi had visited him and had asked: <em>“can you not make something so the coffin of the negress Louisa will not touch the house of Apollo, in order that he will not be betrayed”</em>. He wanted to see the <em>bastiaan</em> Jemmes incriminated instead. Dia insisted that he did not know such magic. Quassi retorted that he could make something himself, if he had some <em>dram</em>. Apparently, Apollo provided the <em>dram</em> and Dia witnessed how Quassi sprinkled some liquid in his cabin. Quassi was apprehended and put in irons. He acknowledged that Apollo and his wife Dorothea had put poison in the coffee of Louisa. [The habit of carrying the coffin around the village when someone has died from unknown causes, in order to determine who is to blame, is found among the Surinam <em>Businengre</em> up to this day.]<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264547772548105106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 267px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuLnTWc9sxdyzC_iJez6mQ630hPHFS0yhRXMs8eRsgYGxFzJ7cD3AMhR1lNjGLev7_5ClD8A0zaDlC6Cv28oWuVv5s43Wu1rCVbSgfuwB5m_WdDmHe3kHxfOlky193alxgcG3QbfW3tcg/s400/plantageleven.jpg" border="0" />In the 17th and early 18th century, slaves accused of poisoning were often sentenced on the slightest proof. For example: Bienvenue confessed, after a sound whipping by his master, that he had poisoned two slave women. He withdrew his confession in court, but was nevertheless, without further inquiry, condemned to be burned alive while being pinched with glowing tongs. Swart Jan, the <em>bastiaan</em> of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/jagtlust/index.nl.html">Jagtlust</a></strong>, and his wife were accused of being ‘poisoners’ by their fellows. His wife, a Coromantee, fled into the forest and hung herself. Swart Jan claimed that the other slaves hated him because of his strictness and that even the director would rather be rid of him, because he had stolen 400 guilders(!) from him and he had pressed him for restitution. The administrator of the plantation, Gerrit Versteeg, testified that he considered Swart Jan perfectly capable of committing the crimes he had been accused off. Swart Jan had come to him with the request to be permitted to take Cato for a wife. Versteeg had answered that <em>“he could have the Wench for A Wife if the wench allows it or will have You but not with force”</em>. Cato had refused him and the angry Swart Jan had threatened that she would never be cured of the<em> jaas</em> she was suffering from and that she would die from it. This was considered sufficient proof of his evil intentions and he was sentenced to be put on a cross, have his limbs broken and be left this way until he died (a way of execution called <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel">radbraken</a></em>).<br /><br />Later in the 18th century, the authorities were less gullible. Crucial in this respect was the attitude of <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Wichers, who was not ready to believe the ‘voluntary’ confessions of accused slaves without further investigation. In the case of the aforementioned Francina, for example, he believed that the children had died from natural causes and explained: <em>“the Prejudices, planted by ignorance and superstition, have conquered the minds of the Slaves too much, so they not only believe in </em>[witchcraft]<em> but consider it something evident … It would thus </em>[be] <em>very careless of us to keep such Slaves (themselves convinced that they have more Knowledge than they possibly can have) on the plantations any longer”.</em> In the 19th century, superstition lost even more terrain. Hostmann realized that the epidemic of mysterious deaths after the fusion of two slave forces was not caused by poisoning, as many people believed: <em>“The deaths, that have been witnessed at the joining of the populations of several plantations and that have usually been ascribed to poisoning, which in the meantime has been proved seldom or never, are rather based on mutual fear exclusively. People in this condition, imagine themselves constantly persecuted by others, to which they ascribe supernatural properties;</em> [they] <em>become indifferent to life, and try to shorten it.”</em><br /><br />Slaves were also no longer condemned on mere testimony in later times. <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Wichers introduced the custom of having a <em>chirurgijn</em> test suspected materials on chickens and dogs and in most cases, they turned out to be perfectly harmless. The slaves and many of the planters, however, had less faith in the blessings of science and rather trusted the opinion of the famous <em><a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bonuman">bonuman</a></em> <strong>Quassi</strong>. On request of the planters, he made the rounds of the plantations and like a kind of modern inquisitioner he ferreted out the culprits, employing a winning combination of western interrogation techniques (stringing up and whipping the stubborn) and African spiritualism (manipulating the superstitious). Hartsinck has described his preferred method in detail: <em>“If one brings him on a Plantation where poison is suspected, he does not go there unless he has spied it out in advance, while no Slave or Slave woman dares to hide anything from him, thus knowing who is suspected; if he then usually after much delay comes there, and has spent the night, he proceeds by letting all the Slaves, one by one, pass before him, while he whirls around a bunch of Bird feathers in a Glass; as every slave stands still before him, and is looked over by him; and if the Man who is the one comes, then it does not miss or such a person’s Heart Races visibly, and he confesses it too as soon as </em>[Quassi]<em> looking him in the eyes only speaks to him; but it also fails sometimes with stout Fellows who know the trick; then it is said, the one who knows the art does not shame his master.”<br /></em><br />Manuel of <strong>Nieuw Altona</strong> en Lafleur of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/pericakreek/poelwijk/index.nl.html">Poelwijk</a></strong> were delivered to the authorities with the message that they had confessed (after having been hung and whipped by their master) to the killing of several slaves. Manuel had even revealed that he had poisoned his own child. They were examined anew by <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Wichers, who concluded that they were innocent. Coton, the bastiaan of <strong>La Paix</strong>, who, after having been away on patrol, had been accused by slaves of his plantation of being a poisoner, was also interrogated, found blameless and <em>“granted his Freedom to go against the Runaways”.<br /></em><br />No doubt, the worst kind of abuse that could be committed by one slave against another was <strong>cannibalism</strong>. Accusations that this happened on plantations were rare indeed, but the slaves believed that the members of several tribes, particularly the Guango and the Demakoekoe, indulged in it whenever they got the chance. Obviously, they only got a real opportunity after running away. Hartsinck claimed that during the destruction of the houses and provision grounds of a group of Guango runaways in Berbice <em>“countless Bones, and several Pots with Negro flesh</em> [were] <em>found in the fire”.</em> Stedman, who was in an even better position to know, relayed a similar story: <em>“After the conquest of <a href="http://surinaams.caribiana.nl/onderwerpenuitsuriname/boekoe040910">Boucou</a>, pots full of human flesh, still standing in the fire, were found in the houses of the mutineers of this tribe”</em>.<br /><br />According to the following story from the <em>Surinaamse Courant</em>, even plantation slaves were sometimes guilty of this aberration: On Monday 15 May 1837, Semire of the plantation <strong>Nieuwstar </strong>lured a girl named Davina, about six years old, into her cabin, laid her on her knees and strangled her. She cut the body into pieces that she put in a basket next to her sleeping cot. The next morning she hid different parts of the carcass in two places under the floorboards and the head and some other parts in a deep hole under the floor. The two following evenings she fed pieces of the flesh, cooked with bananas, to her housemate Toetoeba. According to her own confession, they consumed a part of the loins, the heart, the liver and the lungs, without Toetoeba noticing anything out of order. Davina’s brother Prince (with whom she lived after the death of their mother) went out to look for her on the evening of her disappearance and asked Semire if she had seen her. She denied any knowledge of the girl’s whereabouts. The next day, the administrator of Nieuwstar sent out people to search the premises. Semire had to go to the hospital along with some other slaves to have their ulcers examined. As result of a misunderstanding, she was left behind after the other slaves had gone home and under the impression that she was to stay for several days, she asked Toetoeba to fetch her sleeping cushion. While looking for it, Toetoeba became aware of a smell of putrefaction the cabin and when she came back from her work in the mill that evening, she decided to try to find out where it came from. To her horror, she discovered a hand and other human parts under the floor. She realized at once that these were the remains of the vanished Davina and that Semire, a Demakoekoe, <em>“who more often are guilty of eating human flesh”</em>, had killed her. She warned the <em>bastiaan</em>, who informed the director. The latter called some slaves and they searched under the floor of Semire’s cabin, where they found two arms, two pieces of the ribs, two parts of the thighs and a part of the spine, all colored somewhat whitish, as if they held been held over a fire. During a second visitation, that was witnessed by the director of the neighboring plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/goede_vrede_ii/index.nl.html">De Goede Vrede</a></strong>, they found the other hand under a plantain tree near the cabin. They warned the administrator, who had Semire questioned. She feigned an inability to speak, but made a confession by way of sounds and gestures and showed them a hole in which she had hidden some intestines, a part of the buttocks and the head of the child. At the trial, she gave as the reason for her atrocious behavior the feelings of frustration and anger brought about by her sickly condition (she had been plagued by incurable ulcers for years) and the desire to satisfy her craving for <em>switi moffo</em>.<br /><br />Semire, who had been born in Africa and was about 30 years old, was condemned to be strapped to a stake and strangled with a rope. Her head was to be cut off and displayed as a warning. The article ended with the following statement: <em>“And, so the population of Paramaribo, with regret indeed has beheld yesterday morning the execution of a Sentence that has filled any decentminded</em> [citizen]<em> with sadness, as he can find no pleasure in the humiliating death of his fellow man; - but also on the other hand feels the privilege and appreciates that those to whom the sword of justice is entrusted, in their interest manage to keep it pure and undefiled”.</em><br /><br />Apart from the quarrels between slaves of the same plantation, there were frequent conflicts between slaves of neighboring plantations, which by their nature were much more dangerous. These were often the result of <em>pleys</em> in which slaves of different estates participated. The alcohol heated the minds and caused the slaves to remember old grudges. A contributing factor was the fact that irresponsible directors sometimes promised their slaves a reward if they caught provision thieves, even if they had to trespass on other people’s property to grab them. This made some greedy slaves overzealous, with occasionally tragic results.<br /><br />Maintenu and Harlequin of <strong>Edenburg</strong>, for instance, were sent on patrol by their master to catch a thief that had been sighted steeling corn. They arrived at <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/berkshoven/index.nl.html">Berkshoven</a></strong>, sneaked past the provision guard Fripon and stumbled upon Codjo, who was washing himself in a trench. Since they had heard from Brankie of Berkshoven (who had a wife at Edenburg), that Codjo had been locked in irons because he had been caught stealing before, but had managed to escape, they ordered him to stand still and when he refused to do so, Maintenu shot him. At his trial, the director of Edenburg declared that Maintenu was a virtuous and loyal slave and that he never had any reason to punish him, neither for sloppy work, nor for bad conduct. This could not save his life: Maintenu was beheaded for murder. [It should not be thought that he was excecuted for taking a life, he was executed for destroying valuable property.]<br /><br />The troubles between the slaves of <strong>Breda</strong> and <strong>Crommelins Gift</strong> ended in the death of three slaves. It all began when two slaves of Breda were caught stealing provisions from Crommelins Gift. They were beaten up badly by the slaves of this estate and later died in hospital. This made the slaves of Breda so furious that they threatened to kill anyone from Crommelins Gift who set one foot on their plantation. They made good on their word when the <em>voetebooy</em> Willem shot the <em>bastiaan </em>Bienvenue of Crommelins Gift, allegedly because the victim had tried to take away his gun and had set his dog on him. Willem did not confess to any misdeed in court (he claimed the gun had gone off by accident), not even after he had been hanged from the rafters and whipped, but director Hieronymie of Crommelins Gift was not convinced of his innocence and claimed that <em>“his master has had time enough to inform him before he sent him to the Fort” </em>(probably believing that he could not be sentenced without a confession –which was not the case).<br /><br />When whites got involved in disputes like this, they often escalated. A conflict between the slaves of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/zoelen/index.nl.html">Zoelen</a></strong> and <strong>A la Bonheur</strong> dragged on mainly because their masters stoked the fire. [Not rarely, it was in fact the other way around: planters who had a feud with their neighbors enlisted the aid of their slaves, to the detriment of the latter.] Also, if a white interfered in a fight between slaves, he might get hurt himself. When, in 1757, the slaves of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/beneden-commewijnerivier/alkmaar/index.nl.html">Alkmaar</a></strong> attacked those of <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/zorgvliet/index.nl.html">Zorgvliet</a></strong> (who were fewer in numbers), for example, director Phaff (who was alarmed by the noise) was severely mistreated and his brother might have lost his life if he had not been saved by an old woman. If this had been the case, the slaves would have had no choice but to run away into the forest to save their own hides and a genuine uprising might have been unavoidable.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264548418813733250" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 260px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoeVIti-6N1uGlppMqeiFf_UJa7rraVi3emPxegAsZVpcSkLiz86R-_Zgm3-3OSXgTkcMYfxDxWXvBBtmf55wdY-O0NPM7x7FV45t66ANhBG_die8E8ffMGMFVjsUdybHHNamiCR3zMoU/s400/Nijd-en-Spijt.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>Conclusion.</strong><br /><br />The plantation slaves strove to create a warm and close community out of people with many different kinds of ties: the bonds of blood and fictive kinship, shipmate ties, <em>landsman</em> ties, etc. To become a real community was a difficult task during the first part of the colonial era. The population of a plantation changed all the time because of the high mortality among the slaves and the fact that the planters could only buy replacements intermittently, so a slave force might first dwindle to a fraction of its former size and would then suddenly be reinforced by a large number of newcomers. Under such conditions, continuity was hard to attain, although the oldtimers taught them the ropes. Groups of slaves with different ethnic backgrounds might interact peacefully for a long time, but then start to oppose each other violently as a result of misunderstandings or private grudges. Since opponents were forced to continue to live and work together, this could lead to accusations of ‘poisoning’. Still, most slaves valued their community highly and would resist any attempt either to split it up or to fuse it with another one. </p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-40399670643218019732008-10-06T17:17:00.042+02:002009-02-10T01:52:51.359+01:00Chapter 6: The living conditions of the slaves.<div align="justify"><strong><br />Creature comforts.<br /></strong><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265238626855824434" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 342px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg641xCmjSs-5q2p5huhoNvsZwAsEdx9B9IO5jnno6JKglwQb9vfm9XuUyxI_ZFdDN1d69I4mBjb1iTo9-4y6myNJu6jwU7lF51LvkdyMU_HNYcA1yRt8RTxuJ-fv40CHv5bcI1Lm8BPw0/s400/Surinaamse-plantage-(Dirk-V.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Food.<br /></em><br />Slaves were not unwilling to work for their masters, but they wanted to be taken care of in return. For them a full belly was the most important comfort. If they were well fed, they did not mind other hardships so much, but stinginess with regard to food they found hard to forgive. Alas, Surinam slaves were often tried severely in this respect.<br /><br />Regular food shortages were among the main problems of the colony. Almost all the inhabitants suffered -even, at times, highly placed whites. Officers in the army could not always adequately feed themselves and their dependents from their wages. Their suburdinates were sometimes driven to begging plantains from slaves. Not surprisingly though, the slaves were always the ones suffering most.<br /><br />This problem worried the authorities constantly. Governor Van Scharphuys wrote in 1689: <em>“it is lamentable, that the land is so devoid of every kind of alimentation, that I fear many slaves will have to die of hunger or run away, as happens daily all too often”</em>. Even the slaves owned by the Society were not spared the pangs of hunger. The reason for the scarcity of food was obvious to him: <em>“most of the people are tempted to expand their sugar works as much as possible, and others who have not yet got one try to attain this, therefore they are so obsessed with planting cane, that barely as much provision is put into the ground, as they need to maintain their slaves and the least accident with rain or dryness, that follows this, sets them back so much that one suffers scarcity with the others, but </em>[I]<em> hope that in the future this will be remedied”.</em> Governor Van Aerssen held high hopes for the planting of rice, but nothing much came of it (although the Maroons gratefully adopted this new source of food).<br /><br />Not only the insufficient quantity of the food worried the governors, the quality left much to be desired as well. Governor Van der Veen marveled at the endurance of the slaves who “<em>must have a strong constitution when with such</em> [cassava]<em> bread a salted mackerel or a piece of salted meat of which the smell after it has been in this country for some months hits one at 50 passes a glass of brackish water the badness or crudity of which has to be improved with a glass of Kilthum </em>[they] <em>can reach even a moderate age”</em>. The slaves of the Society were somewhat better off than their fellows in lean times: they received food that was usually reserved for the soldiers, like grits or flour. These emergency measures did not always satisfy the bondsmen: <em>“the Slaves are not contented with provisions, that come from far, but they want to see them grow”</em>, Governor Van Aerssen observed.<br /><br />The authorities tried to battle the shortages by obliging the planters to cultivate one acre of provisions for every four slaves, but it was nearly impossible to enforce regulations like these. So even during the prosperous middle years of the 18th century, starvation among slaves was not uncommon when the harvest was bad or the trade routes were blocked. The Court of Police warned the slave owners in 1758, that they would be held responsible when their slaves were caught stealing food. In the 19th century, the authorities occupied themselves even more with regulating the alimentation of the slaves. The rule establishing a minimum acreage for provision grounds was reinstated and strictly controlled, while the food expert Mulder was asked to investigate the quality of the staple food of the slaves: the plantain. He reported that it was woefully lacking in minerals, vitamins and protein: a slave receiving the usual rations of plantains and <em><a href="http://www.surinamcooking.com/bakkeljauw/">bakkeljauw</a></em> got only 40% of the protein an ordinary soldier consumed.<br /><br />The situation was in all likelihood not as bad as he feared, because the slaves were only partly dependant on the food provided by their masters. During the English period, the slaves were obliged to support themselves wholly from their provision grounds. Every Saturday afternoon (or the whole Saturday every two weeks) was reserved for tending their plots. After the Zeelandian occupation, this remained the habit in the highlands. The soil there produced very tasty food, but in modest quantities and the cassava tuber, the staple food, remained small in size. Moreover, the sandy soil was exhausted quickly. Consequently, it was necessary to clear new provision grounds every year, which kept the whole slave force busy for about a month. The fields of the year before were turned over to individual slaves, who planted yams, sweet potatoes, nappies, peas, cassava and peanuts there. In the lowlands, the masters preferred to feed their slaves from a common stock (sometimes imported), although they were allowed to have tiny kitchen gardens where they grew peppers, peas, nappies, peanuts, etc. Since the masters favored tending their sugar cane above food production, the lowland slaves often got skimpy rations.<br /><br />In the early years, food may not have always been sufficient in quantity, but at least it was more varied than later on. For most of the slaves, cassava was the staple food, but it was supplemented by rice, corn and sweet potatoes. Some typical dishes were: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato">sweet potatoes</a> boiled in a closed pot and seasoned with a sauce made of orange juice and pepper and <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayer">tayer</a> in a soup with salted fish/meat, or roasted over hot coals with a seasoning of lemon, pimento and salt. One of the greatest delights of the slaves was <em>peperpot</em>. This was made by cooking the poisonous juices of the bitter cassava to the consistency of syrup in a pot and adding pieces of meat and fish to it. These could keep for months this way and only had to be heated for consumption.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265236463903651794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 114px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 162px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZptL2NoxHlyy9irgLyQmq88usBNAiAviryjK0GAdvSIc1EyAtwt-B6fOjH8blVZKhPK693ZM1G5Vt7ThHpmIPsIDIiXoaxrFxOkXb9VdbFC6Tn5nV92tUFvxUay3wfM40ik1Poyxizic/s400/banaan.jpg" border="0" />During the 18th century, the <a href="http://www.congocookbook.com/staple_dish_recipes/plantains.html">plantain</a> became the staple food in the lowlands. This was party due to the extension of coffee plantations, which employed the plant as <em>coffie mama</em>, to provide shade for the young coffee shoots. These estates often produced a surplus of plantains and sold them to neighbors. Even on the sugar plantations, the planters came to prefer this food, because it required little work and provided a lot of calories. The plantain soon became a necessity for the slaves. Its lack of taste was considered less important than its ability the give a nice full feeling in the stomach. The slaves were brought up to crave this feeling. The plantains were dried, sliced and pounded into flour, which was cooked like porridge for the sick and the children. This dish was called <em>gongotee</em>. As soon as possible, babies were accustomed to its taste. Even when they were still suckling, their mothers supplemented their diet with <em>gongotee</em>. A mother would take the baby between her knees, hold it tightly and with the palm of her hand spoon the porridge into the baby’s mouth until it was filled to the brim (this was called <em>kanten</em>). Lans remarked about this habit: <em>“the negro having been fed like this from childhood, does not feel satisfied, if his stomach is not filled properly; therefore the plantain has become a need for him and he, though not scorning other fare imagines not to have eaten, if this food is lacking”</em>. Therefore, it is not surprising that the slaves sometimes bartered their favorite meat for plantains. Teenstra observed that the Saramacca Bush Negroes eagerly traded their fowl for this <em>“slave food”.</em> For adult consumption, the plantain was usually roasted, boiled with some meat or fish, or beaten into a pulp (called <em><a href="http://surinaamsekeuken.web-log.nl/surinaamsekeuken/2004/05/tom_tom.html">tomtom</a></em>) and consumed in a <a href="http://surinaamsekeuken.web-log.nl/surinaamsekeuken/2004/05/pindasoep.html">peanut soup</a> called <em>blaf</em> or <em>brafoe</em> (from the English word broth) –still considered a treat by modern Creoles.<br /><br />Apart from the plantains, the slaves were given a variety of foodstuffs by their masters. Most coveted were salted meat (<em><a href="http://www.kookdiscussie.nl/t95-zoutvlees.html">zoutvlees</a></em>), bacon and fish -either (salted) mackerel or dried cod (<em>bakkeljauw</em>). According to modern standards, they were of abysmal quality and the authorities did not dare to give them to whites, but the slaves loved these foods. They called them <em>switi moffo</em> (literally sweet mouth) and would sometimes even barter fresh meat for these delicacies. The slaves were also supplied with tobacco, pipes, <em>dram</em>, molasses and salt. The meat and fish were usually imported from the United States and most of the other distributed wares did not originate in Surinam either, so they were not always available. Moreover, many owners tried to save money by limiting the distributions as much as possible. Some slaves received meat or fish only once or twice a year.<br /><br />Fortunately for the slaves, they were not totally dependent on their masters for their protein supply. They could easily satisfy their own needs if they made the effort. The slaves living near the coast found an abundance of crabs and shellfish, which they partly consumed themselves and partly sold for cash in Paramaribo. On the confluence of the Suriname and Commewijne rivers, an area called <em>Krabbebos</em> (crab wood) was located, a name that speaks for itself. Plantation slaves that lived further inland set traps and fished. Especially during the dry season, when the fish got stuck in quickly drying holes, the latter could be very rewarding. The slaves received fishing hooks from their masters, but they would have been even more succesful if they had taken the trouble to construct fish-traps, which few of them did. The habit of catching fish by poisoning the water (with <em>stinckhout</em>) had been quickly outlawed by the authorities. The slaves preserved the fish with extra salt they received from their masters, or they smoked them over <em>barbakots</em>. Nepveu advised the planters to give salt freely; otherwise, they would gorge themselves with the fresh fish and get sick. The slaves also placed snares to catch <em>konkonnies</em> (a kind of rabbit) and some trusted retainers were permitted to hunt larger animals with a rifle.<br /><br />The craving for meat among the slaves was so great that it made them devour creatures that were very unappetizing to whites. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian">Maria Sybilla Merian</a> claimed they were fond of <em>pipa's</em>, a kind of toad that carries its young on the back. Pistorius noticed their preference for spiders: <em>“The Negroes are very keen on those, and their mouth waters if they only see one from afar; but one has to keep them from this banquet, as much as one can”</em>. Fermin found that they considered the white larvae living in palm trunks a delicacy. These were stuck on a pin and roasted over a fire, or eaten raw. Both Hostmann and Teenstra were horrified by the unsavory habits of the slaves, like digging up the carcasses of large animals that had been rotting for days, or eagerly devouring putrefied cow skins, of which the hair was letting loose. Lammens wrote with disgust: <em>“the sauces or the liquid, remaining in the fish casks </em>[called herén watra]<em>, however spoiled, is an excellent delicacy for them, of which they are very fond.” </em>With regard to other foods, however, the slaves could be very particular, as Brother Borck, the baker of the Moravian missionaries noticed: <em>“nobody buys old bread here, not even the poorest Negro”</em>.<br /><br />Many slaves had a wealth of fruit trees around their houses, which provided much-needed vitamins and allowed them to make a healthy drink once in a while. Moreover, they were permitted to keep chickens and ducks. In the beginning of the 18th century, some slaves had pigs as well, but this was soon prohibited because these damaged the cane fields and the gardens. The owners did not take the loss of their pigs lightly. On <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/palmeniribo/index.nl.html">Palmeniribo</a></strong> severe trouble ensued when the director threatened to shoots the pigs of the slaves if they did not sell them forthwith. Nevertheless, many slaves managed to get their way regardless of rules like this. Bartelink observed that on the plantation of his employer many slaves held pigs in a cot beneath their cabin. <em>“And while the pigs of the director were let loose during the day and chased into the cot at night, they let theirs out in the evening and brought them in again in the early morning. So the director did not find out that they also kept pigs. Maybe he just pretended to know nothing because the directors, that were seeing blind and hearing deaf, played the best cards. They made product on their slippers.”</em><br /><br />Procuring drinking water was often a worse problem than supplying enough food. In the highlands, the water from rivers and creeks could be used without any bad effects, but in the lowlands, this water was brackish and could not be consumed. Plantations on sand ridges sometimes dug wells, but the water these provided was <em>“bad, stinking, and injurous to health”</em>. Furthermore, as Blom observed, the slaves from neighboring plantations would also come there to fetch water, with the result that the well would quickly fall dry <em>“so that the negroes on such plantations partly drink bad water, and partly suffer from thirst, both of which often cause malignant fevers and flux, and many a negro loses his life thereby”</em>. Nepveu surmised that the lower mortality in the highlands could be the result of the better water supply. Most lowland plantations had large water reservoirs that were filled during the rainy seasons, but they could not always contain sufficient water to tide the slaves over during the dry seasons.<br /><br />Often, the slaves tried to make their water more palatable by adding a generous dose of alcohol. Early in the 18th century, they made a crude drink called <em>garappa</em> by mixing froth skimmed from the second and third kettle in the sugar mill with water. Later, the planters started to distill the froth and the result was <em>dram</em> or <em>kilduyvel</em>. It became the habit to give the male slaves a glass of <em>dram</em> when they returned from the field, especially when they were soaked. The women usually received molasses only. Lans had the impression that many slaves bordered on alcoholism, especially in Paramaribo. <em>Dram</em> cost very little and although it was forbidden to sell it to slaves, they nevertheless seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. Some bondsmen bartered their clothes and sometimes even their rations for the fiery drink. At parties, many slaves became intoxicated. Fortunately, the choice was not always only between alcohol and water. The slaves prepared a tasty soft drink from black berries. Another favorite was a drink made of <em>coemoe</em>, a purplish fruit resembling blue grapes, which pounded and mixed with syrup or sugar made a strong, fat beverage with a delicate taste.<br /><br />If the food supply was particularly bad, the slaves could sometimes find nourishment in the bush. Foremost among the edible plants was the palm cabbage (<em>cabbes</em>). Fermin illuminated that if one removes the outer leaves <em>“one finds around the heart of the tree, a bunch of leaves folded like a closed fan, shutting upon each other, that are white, mellow and delicious, and almost have the taste of artichoke bottoms”. </em>The maurici palm was the favorite. The leaves could be eaten raw like a salad, or were boiled in salted water. European aficionados would serve them with a white sauce seasoned with nutmeg, or pickled. Nepveu claimed the slaves ate them like cassava bread: rasped and fried. Runaways often had to depend on this generous gift of nature for the first few months of their absence, before they were able to gather their first harvest. Sometimes, they could not find enough <em>cabbes</em> and were reduced to eating leaves.<br /><br />By largely providing their own food, the slaves partly labored for their own benefit, but the work that was demanded of them above this subsistence level brought them few rewards: the distributions of their masters were usually stingy and in this respect, they were exploited more than a little.<br /><br /><em>Quarters.</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265237958597923634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 286px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtylBdnj2P_aHcSbQgLW8WyzOtAHS1WUpPa8N0S_fjeFiCJ8qvXqolmKqk0KL3YKwpxbDn97oZl9sYuLmfE3XPP6fqxU_8tAj0pJ7P9BYonylsyGT331KDYMSSlwrItglF7I60PZaNPvU/s400/Slavenhuisje.jpg" border="0" />The plantation slaves were housed either in large barracks (divided into chambers, with a separate entrance for each family or residence group), or in small detached cabins. In the early period, the first set-up predominated and the barracks were often very crowded: ten persons to a room was not unusual. The barracks were situated behind the owner’s residence, often in the shape of a half moon. They were 20 to 40 feet long and each contained 6 to 8 different ‘cells’, often occupied by two or three families. During the 18th century, the population of the plantations slowly became more stable and living in family groups became more entrenched, so the planters were less reluctant to let the slaves built their own living quarters. Naturally, they preferred separate cabins. Most of these, very basic, units were constructed with the wood of the Areca catecha, called <em>pina</em> or <em>pallisade</em> in Surinam, and they were covered with straw (<em>tas</em>) or <em>pina</em> leaves. They were not very durable, so they had to be rebuilt every couple of years. As early as 1711, the authorities ordered that all thatched roofs had to be replaced by shingles because of their vulnerability in case of a fire. They threatened to tear down the huts if the planters did not comply with this regulation, but, predictably, were largely ignored. Nevertheless, an increasing number of planters came to prefer houses built of the much hardier <em>wane</em> or <em>copie</em> wood, with a roof made of shingles.<br /><br />The slave huts had a door, but no windows. Furniture was largely absent. The fireplace was in the middle and there was no chimney, so the smoke had to draft out of the door. They lay around the fire on two or three boards, lifted somewhat above the ground. Plaited mats of <em>tas</em> leaves, which they spread on top of them, served as mattresses. Pillows and cushions they had no knowledge of, or they used a block of wood as such. The mat was called <em>papaija</em>. Stedman claimed that some slaves used a hammock instead. However, few would have been able to afford such a luxury, because these had to be bought from Indians and cost about 25 guilders -a fortune for the average slave. Most bondsmen also owned a couple of iron and earthenware pots, calabashes and a chest to store their Sunday finery in. Some fortunate plantation slaves lived in remarkably comfortable circumstances. When Lammens visited the slaves of the celebrated plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/berg-en-dal/index.nl.html">Berg en Dal</a></strong>, he found that each family had a separate, sturdy wooden cabin, some with verandahs. They formed a small village at the foot of the Blue Mountain. In Paramaribo, some slaves could enjoy the luxury of a proper bed, curtains, tables, chairs and even paintings.<br /><br />The inhabitants of the slave cabins would in most cases consist of a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/667259">matrifocal family</a>, formed by a mother, her children (and possibly grandchildren) and the current partner of the mother (not necessarily the father of her children). After the death of the matriarch, a group of brothers and sisters, with the children of the latter, might continue to live together, or split up into different households. Often, single slaves had to share a cabin, voluntary or not. New recruits would be housed with an experienced older slave, who served as their mentor during the seasoning period. Only the most influential senior slaves (drivers, master artisans) sometimes had a living space entirely their own.<br /><br />The slave cabins were not always in a sensible location. Not rarely, they stood on marshy land, without the benefit of <em>neuten</em> (wooden poles) to keep them off the ground, so water could seep in during the rainy season and they might even occasionally be flooded. The resulting dampness was harmful for the slaves and it worsened the mosquito plague. For this reason, Kuhn advised to place them on higher, sandier grounds. In the lowlands this was not always possible, of course. Sensible owners forced their slaves to clean out their cabins regularly and the most progressive even made them paint the walls. Unfortunately for the slaves, these activities usually had to take place on their ‘free’ Sunday. On the whole, the slave huts were a dilapidated lot and although the occupants did not mind this kind of deprivation as much as the scarcity of food, it could be almost as hazardous to their well-being.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265236682644674770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0Y1_QM7lJ1JRjm3f5nAGjAvA8DjhQbhyphenhyphensK5jpfzj66z47NMzjZL2wKEdSdRVQCuGdzDxv6I1vib79LKAmjs1v6vvd5dGQo07_jOGF8iQzUal58MH7DdfB1dMrH_gfkVg4AQamOUh7f8/s400/interieur-slavenhut.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Clothing.<br /></em><br />It should not be supposed that the Surinam slaves did not mind wandering around in nothing but rags and tatters. They valued their appearance highly and were dressed sparingly, but decently most of the time. The clothing of the plantation slaves was rather simple. The men usually wore nothing but a piece of cloth of about 6 <em>el</em> (one <em>el</em> is ca. 70 cm) wrapped around their waist and slung between their legs to cover their private parts. The ends hung loose and were used to carry money and other valuables. A slave in rough linen pants with a matching jacket and a hat was at his Sunday best. The women wore a <em>paantje</em> (French: <em><a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagne">pagne</a></em>): a piece of gaily colored cloth of about 2,5 <em>el</em> long, that was wrapped twice around the waist. It was sometimes supplemented by another cloth around the breasts called <em>bobbelap</em>. Many women left their breasts bare, or they merely hoisted their <em>paantje</em> under their armpits. Some wore a loose-fitting jacket, open in front and cut low in the back, which slipped from their shoulders continuously and hindered their work. The children often went naked until puberty, not only because of the stinginess of their masters, but also because their parents preferred it, according to Governor Nepveu. They believed it would preserve their innocence longer (and of course it also saved a lot of washing).<br /><br />Von Sack remarked that for the Europeans who had just arrived in the colony, the nakedness of the Negroes was a strange sight, but they soon learned that the field hands preferred it this way. The less clothing the better, in this hot and humid climate. Lammens noted that <em>“the black skin of the negro hardly insults: -it seems as if the person had put on a very tight black garb”</em>. A less esthetically pleasing sight for him were the women who had borne several children: after much suckling their breasts were only <em>“a long wrinkled skin, drooping along the body”.</em><br /><br />The slaves could stand the heat much better than the cold. Van der Smissen observed that as soon as the air cooled in the evening and the Europeans started to breathe easier, one could see the Negroes, if they ventured outside at all, wrapping themselves in their duffle coats or squatting near a fire. While during the English period, the slaves had only been covered by <em>“their own black skin”</em> at night, they were later issued blankets, usually every three or four years. This was formally regulated by the Dutch government in 1854.<br /><br />Plantation slaves were generally not issued ready-made clothing, but received a couple of yards of different kinds of cloth: <em>Salempouris</em> (blue cotton from the East Indies), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osnaburg"><em>Osnaburg </em>linen</a>, <em>Vries bont</em>, or calico, plus scissors, needles and thread. They also received a hat, a duffle coat and sometimes a jacket, as well as a mirror and comb, etc. These wares were issued once a year and it was always a festive occasion. If the slaves did not get their distributions in time, or if they considered them insufficient, they became unruly. Governor Van de Schepper, for example, wrote in 1738 that the slaves of the Society had not yet received their usual New Year distribution of Osnabrugh linen, so they bothered him daily with their complaints.<br /><br />Brother Riemer noted in 1779 that “[the slaves] <em>are, even in their most beautiful suit, obliged to go barefoot”</em>. He was not mistaken: slaves were forbidden to wear shoes. This was a prime mark of distinction between the free and the bonded and no exceptions were permitted. Governor <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinier_Frederik_van_Raders">Van Raders</a> (1845-1852) was severely criticized in 1848, when he distributed shoes to some exemplary slaves of the government plantation Catharina Sophia. Putting on shoes was about the first thing a manumitted slave did –and so did the slaves who tried to pass as Free Negroes. The prohibition on footwear could endanger the health of the slaves, as we shall see.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265236990682232242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiEwlif6lzj8US0FzncKZbzLGeQQjnh3Czj8tpH8cmIw19uLzXmpxpnANVFiZX8NM3Cd5BnD6DZ_5jEWMNNCIukNUxzpTyWYDNlcN7TBmx3-PfwN_HEd6dfJoudPv2Aw8hS3_nLGOOqvM/s400/kleding.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Sickness and health.</em><br /><br />The slaves of Surinam generally did not live to ripe old age, although there were exceptions. Teenstra recorded that two women who died in Paramaribo in 1829 had reached the age of the very strong: Maria Bessie could boast 95 years and Hermina an astounding 105 years. He also mentioned the rumor that a Negro called Simon Willem Petrus had died at the blessed age of 135 years. Few bondsmen will have lasted even half that number of years.<br /><br />Mortality was exceptionally high in Surinam during the entire era of slavery. <strong>Contagious diseases</strong> were a prime cause. Not all categories of slaves suffered alike. Some were considered weaker than others. Kuhn hypothesized: <em>“The Negroes who are born here (the Creole Negroes) are, in general, less strong, less black in color; many have, because of distension of the bones of the feet, a bad gait. With a number of Negresses, the section of the pelvis is smaller than one observes with the originally African Negresses, and for this reason difficult deliveries of women in labor, also from other causes, are not rare here; on the whole, the Negroes of both sexes are very vulnerable to diseases.”<br /></em><br />This belief in the greater weakness of Creoles, Mulattoes especially, is found all over the Caribbean. There is little proof that this actually was the case, however. Often, the opposite was true. As we shall see in the next part, the mortality among Africans was considerably higher than among Creoles. However, Kuhn may have been right about the difficulties in childbirth, which were probably due to malnutrition during childhood.<br /><br />It is often difficult to determine the exact causes of death among the slaves. Few planters bothered to record them in detail: they could only distinguish a few broad categories. On the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/roosenbeeck/index.nl.html">Nieuw Rosenbeek</a></strong> in the years 1742 and 1743 only <em>de loop</em> (dysentery) and <em>jaas</em> (yaws) were specifically mentioned. Most planters could also diagnose smallpox and leprosy, but that was about the limit of their expertise. In the 19th century, medical knowledge had expanded so much that the causes of death listed on the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/vossenburg/index.nl.html">Vossenburg</a></strong> in the period 1822 to 1852 included: <a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-convulsions.htm">convulsions</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edema">dropsy</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaws">yaws</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis">consumption</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysentery">dysentery</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus">tetanus</a>, venereal diseases, fits, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pertussis">whooping cough</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurisy">pleurisy</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox">smallpox</a>, paralyzation, etc.<br /><br />Higman found that the slaveholders in Jamaica blamed ‘bad air’ for most cases of illness. The Surinam planters seemed to agree. They particularly feared the atmosphere of low-lying grounds that had just been brought into cultivation. The slaves themselves, according to Kuhn, <em>“consider illness</em> [to be] <em>the result of a filthy body and putrefaction of the</em> [bodily]<em> fluids”</em>. Consequently, they tried to purify themselves by <em>“vomiting, purging and sweating, salivating, quarantine and decoction”</em>. In reality, slaves will have ascribed most of their maladies to the anger of the gods or the envy of their fellows.<br /><br />Epidemic diseases often wrought havoc among the slaves and the free population alike. Smallpox was the most feared. Many of the slaves imported from Africa were inflicted with this scourge. Although suspected cases were put in quarantine, this was not always effective. Several large epidemics ravaged the colony. An epidemic that raged in 1763 and 1764 decimated the slave population. Another one claimed the lives of more than 3000 people in 1789. Many planters lost <em>“a great number of slaves ... as a result of which many have fallen into dire poverty … of which they suffer the sad consequences until this day”</em>, the <em>Surinaamse Almanak</em> reported in 1796. The worst epidemic recorded was the one of 1819, when reportedly more than 15.000 slaves died. This could have been avoided, because some years before the disaster hit, Dr. Walter Cadell and the physician Wöllfing had experimented with inoculation and only a few of the slaves they had treated succumbed during the epidemic. With the usefulness of inoculation convincingly proven, more owners were willing to let their slaves be vaccinated afterwards. Other contagious diseases did not reach epidemic proportions, but nevertheless caused the death of innumerable slaves over the years. The most dangerous were framboesia tropica <em>(jaas) </em>and dysentery (<em>bloedloop</em>).<br /><br />Lammens claimed that<em> jaas</em> sometimes killed nearly a third of the newly imported slaves within the first year. Bolingbroke described the symptoms as follows: <em>“It has much the appearance of the small pox from the manner of its coming out. The patient is covered with large ulcers in every part of his body, and, as it is very infectious, he keeps by himself. Its duration is uncertain, being sometimes from twelve to eighteen months, during which the eruption returns no less than three times”</em>. He added: <em>“There are black mothers who inoculate their children for this disorder; its violence is thereby lessened”</em>. A person could get this disease only once and was thereafter immune. Children suffered less than adults, but could die nevertheless. Some slaves never wholly recovered and continued to be plagued by severe pains in the joints (<em>jaasboken</em>). Others were left with swellings resembling corns on their feet (<em>krabbejaas</em>), which had to be cut out from time to time. So prevalent was this ailment, that the plantation ‘hospital’ was called<em> jaashuis</em>.<br /><br />Various forms of dysentery and violent diarrhea killed off many as well. The slaves called this affliction <em>stoeloe watra</em> and Kuhn identified eating spoiled meat or fish and drinking bad water as the main causes. A lack of hygiene in the handling of food was an important factor as well. Since the sanitary conditions on many plantations were appalling, its prevalence should not be surprising. Teenstra unfavorably compared the manner of milking in Surinam with that in Holland: <em>“here one sees not rarely a dirty Malenker cow guard (mostly Negroes with incurable ulcers or hideous diseases) milk the cows, after having spit in the hand first, into a filthy calabash, in which beforehand all kinds of food and drink have been and</em> [which]<em> is now used unwashed, to catch the fresh so healthy milk”</em>. When this was fed to the children, one could expect the worst.<br /><br /><em>Boasi</em> (leprosy) was also a feared disease. It was probably introduced in Surinam by slaves -Vrijman claimed by slaves from Calabar. The authorities did all they could to keep it from spreading. In 1728, Governor De Cheusses forbade infected slaves to show themselves in public and their masters were fined if they did not keep them inside. On the plantations, they were banished to isolated cabins. Nevertheless, the disease continued to make new victims. Therefore, it was decided in 1764 that all the newly imported slaves had to be examined by a commission consisting of the surgeon-major and a physician. If leprous slaves were discovered, they were brought to a quarantine camp and were later deported from the colony (whereto is a mystery) at the expense of the captain who had brought them. In 1790, Governor Wichers ordered all leprous slaves to be moved to the deserted plantation <strong>Voorzorg</strong> in Saramacca. There they wasted away with a minimum of care. Finally, in 1830, the government regulations banned all slaves suffering from leprosy or elephantiasis (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filariasis">filariasis</a>) to the establishment <strong><a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sid=db5239859b3a743f550eeda3bce2e5cb;type=boolean;view=thumbfull;c=surinamica;;rgn1=surinamica_key;q1=Lepra">Batavia</a></strong> on the Coppename River, far from the inhabited part of the colony. The owners of infected slaves were obliged to turn them over, on the penalty of a fine of 200 guilders. The white victims were not sent there, but had to stay at home. Not all these precautions had the desired effect and until recently, these diseases plagued many blacks and not a few whites in Surinam.<br /><br />Another vicious killer, though not contagious, was tetanus (<em>klem</em>). The children suffered most. Blom remarked on this subject: <em>“There are plantations where all the children die from this on the fifth or sixth day; on some all the boys die, and the girls never get this ailment; on others the girls die and the boys don’t get it … one has sometimes had reason to suspect that this ailment does not result from a natural cause, but one has never come further than suspicions.”</em> Higman came to a similar conclusion with regard to Jamaica, where tetanus <em>“should probably be classified as the major cause of death overall, accounting for perhaps 20% of total mortality”</em>. In some regions, it was the habit of midwives to cover the bellybutton of newborn babies with a poultice of earth, which often had fatal consequences. Though I have not found evidence of this custom in Surinam, dirt that accidentally infected the wound was probably a prime cause.<br /><br />In lesser numbers, the slaves also suffered from other discomforts. Stedman mentioned <em>lota </em>(<em>“a scurvious and white spot over the whole body”</em>), <em>crassy crassy</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scabies">scabies</a>) and tapeworm. Hartsinck pointed to Guinean worms, which nestled under the skin of the neck and the back of the arms and legs. The afflicted had to wait until the swellings burst and could then gently wind the worm around a wooden stick and carefully pull it out. If a piece broke off, dreadful ulcers were the result. Nepveu noted the dangers of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworm">ringworm</a>, which occurred in a wet and a dry form. The first kind was the most difficult to cure; sometimes gangrene set in and the unfortunate slave died miserably. Venereal diseases (<em>venusziekten</em>) were rampant in Surinam and probably often resulted in sterility. Diseases that were sometimes relatively harmless for whites dragged many slaves to an untimely grave: measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, etc.<br /><br />Many slaves limped because of <em>zeeren </em>(sores)<em> </em>on the soles of their feet, caused by sand fleas (<em>chica's</em>) that had to be removed very patiently. Often, the slaves did not bother and became total invalids in the end. The director of the government provision ground <strong>De Hoop</strong> tried to cure a young woman by putting her feet in boiling water: the fleas did indeed not survive this torture, but neither did the unfortunate patient. The director was summoned to Paramaribo and cut his throat in the boat that was bringing him there.<br /><br />Although the psychological insight of the masters left much to be desired, even they realized that sometimes the causes of death were not somatic. Not rarely depression led slaves to eat dirt, with an often fatal result. It is true that some bondsmen ate clay because they lacked minerals, but mostly it was a hardly disguised way of committing suicide. Despondent slaves stuffed themselves with earth, coals and other indigestible rubbish, they swelled up and after a while, they died. There was little that the planters could do to dissuade them -apart from preventing them to eat at all.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265297446350207458" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 301px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvl20uhYMCk1jrU3FYHZ0YFS1W_jdP4OHwC9HuqT3XjJ25xKn-sOHKFY-vNMkWawAaB6VGWN3FtbDq_QYiDqBIgsYyvv_tZrtLpX-QIX6y8SjY3jNk48qcCK-HDcBAmca7zOVfQCMs3AQ/s400/Slaventuig_jpg.jpg" border="0" />The ‘occupational hazards’ of the work of the slaves were enormous. The men were the main victims, because of the diversity of their occupations, especially in the manufacturing process and transportation. Kuhn (a physician) made a special study of the dangers inherent in the tasks of the field slaves. The heaviest work they had to perform was digging trenches (particularly when the soil was very dry). Hernia and other back problems could be the result. Turning the soil was done with a hoe and caused a <em>“strong droning in the chest”</em>, especially harmful for the women. Pounding coffee and ginning cotton produced clouds of dust, which could lead to damage of the lungs. Furthermore, cotton was ginned on a small machine that had to be propelled by foot: <em>“this labor makes the negro stiff”</em>. Carrying heavy loads on the back could cause <em>“a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolapse">prolapse</a> in the groin”</em>. Cutting grass and picking weeds was done in an uncomfortable position <em>“which in the long run also insults the breast and the arm”</em>. The sugar mill was a den of dangers. It was open to two or three sides, so the cool night air had free entry and the sweating slaves could catch pneumonia and other respiratory troubles. Some sugar boilers slipped and fell into the hot <em>likker</em>, getting burned horribly. Rowing was a very tiring work that the slaves often had to perform continuously for six or more hours. The only occupation conductive to both physical and mental health was lumbering: <em>“the Negroes of the timber grounds distinguish themselves … by stronger muscle power and a freer attitude from the rest of the Negro population”.</em><br /><br />Pregnancy was the greatest source of danger for the women, but (as Blom claimed) not because of the fact that on many plantations they were not spared hard work when expecting. He had observed that <em>“on several plantations there is an old habit, that as soon as a woman is pregnant, she does not have to go to work; and on other plantations</em> [there] <em>is a no less old habit, that they may stay in their houses a considerable time after delivery … but one has manifold experiences, that on the plantations where they have to work until the last day of their pregnancy, they suffer from fits or difficult deliveries the least; and that (extraordinary circumstances excepted) they can go back to work four weeks after their delivery”</em>. This is in tune with the myth of the easy childbirth, with which African women were supposedly blessed. With experts believing this, it is no wonder that many slave women had a difficult time. The plantation midwives, convinced of their superior knowledge, firmly resisted any interference and many women died from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerperal_fever">puerperal fever</a> due to their lack of hygiene. In the 19th century, the planters became more interested in the propagation of their slaves and sometimes they sent difficult cases to a special lying-in clinic in Paramaribo. Furthermore, the Government pressured them to give the women a considerable time off, both before and after delivery.<br /><br />Sometimes, newly imported slaves did not know what they could safely eat. The reason that few plantations cultivated bitter cassava was, according to Firmin, <em>“the risk they run, when they have bought slaves, who have recently come from Africa; because those, being very hungry, could as they lack knowledge of it eat it </em>[raw]<em>, and be poisoned by it, as has happened more than once”</em>.<br /><br />When a slave fell ill, it was not at all sure that he would receive the necessary care. Kuhn discovered to his dismay that <em>“one calculates, whether the slave, after the incurred expenses, will still be able, to work off the interests; whether he will be worth the costs for regaining his health. It has happened to me that when my advice regarding the sickly constitution of such persons was asked, and the result was the amputation of one of the limbs, or any other long-term treatment, they told me: ‘No, Sir! the costs will run too high; the Negro is not worth that much to me; or, what shall I do with the Negro, if he has only one leg or arm: then I can use him for nothing anymore.”</em><br /><br />Luckily, not all planters were that callous. The slaves of the Society got the best treatment, even if they had become practically ‘worthless’. In the beginning of the 18th century (when of the 69 adult slaves the Society owned 27 were classified as “<em>incapable”</em>), the Governor decided to abandon the money-loosing plantation owned by the Society and most of the slaves were transferred to other places. However, he was obliged to hold on to the estate, because it housed a slave called Coffy <em>“is unable</em> [to work]<em> and always afflicted with Bad Sores on the legs for which he already has been in the cure three times but</em> [he]<em> cannot be healed”</em>. His wives and children were allowed to stay with him.<br /><br />The care of sick slaves could be entrusted to plantation directors, <em>dresnegers</em>, <em>chirurgijns</em> (surgeons) living in the district, or <em>chirurgijns</em> based in Paramaribo. The directors were usually not well informed. Some used a simple medical handbook, but most adhered to the premise that sick slaves were either malingering, or so close to death that any treatment would be useless. The quality of the <em>chirurgijns</em> in Surinam was low. Kuhn complained that <em>“at any occasion of any importance </em>[they]<em> stand very embarrassed”</em>. In the 19th century, some <em>chirurgijns </em>obtained<em> </em>a contract with a plantation: for a stipulated fee (in 1827 one guilder per head a year) they treated the sick slaves and came to check on them once a week.<br /><br />Most slaves were solely dependant on the care and knowledge of the <em>dresneger</em>, however. These were chosen by the planters from young slaves who showed aptitude for the job, or (more often) from the invalids who were unsuitable for fieldwork. Occasionally, the former were apprenticed for 5 or 6 years to a <em>chirurgijn</em>, who taught them techniques like bleeding, purging, setting limbs and opening abscesses. There were also slaves who strove to gain a thorough knowledge of native medicine on their own initiative and who were taught by Africans and even Indians. One of the most famous was the indomitable <strong>Quassi</strong>, who held a magical sway over the minds of slaves and Indians alike and who gained an international reputation as herbalist and discoverer of <em>Quassi Bita</em> (<a href="http://www.rain-tree.com/amargo.htm">Quassia amara L.</a>), a medicine against malaria and stomach ailments.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273481924590273138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 310px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVuluevpU7YlLd6B2E7i6ETgDaKiFskVYdhr73isTHRM-Hzps1IzRvafyfw-Sth6K_VONCrfxAE_3fCDPzGrACpFl9VxuLzmRepta3LM3Dz5XAgBDtrZ1OYNye7fcSJKrsuSlUPQBAEQ/s400/kwassibita.jpg" border="0" />The slaves who fell into the hands of a <em>dresneger</em> were not always better off than those who suffered the neglect or the harsh methods of a <em>chirurgijn</em>: <em>“There is … no more loveless, merciless creature in the world than a negro to his equals, especially a dresneger”</em>, Kuhn judged. The native ‘doctors’ often demanded stiff fees from their patients: large amounts of money in addition to the gold and clothes supposedly needed for the cure. These specialists were often women of ‘advanced age’. Many of them had an excellent knowledge of the use of herbs and drew a white clientele as well: <em>“Many, seemingly not superstitious people, use them, under the pretext, that they have much experience with the use and application of external remedies for illnesses”, </em>Kuhn remarked disdainful. He had even less appreciation for the <em>“health priestesses, who consult the oracle and predict the credulous a good or unfortunate outcome”</em>. Sometimes, the <em>missi’s</em> took pity on their fellow slaves: <em>“it is not rare, that here or there a missi, according to rumor, has the wonderful gift to cure, with secret medicines, eye and other ailments; the payment for this is undetermined, they will accept some token of appreciation, but seldom money, it happens, as it were, out of boen hattie as it is called”</em>.<br /><br />Most plantations had a small ‘hospital’ on their premises. They were usually very dilapidated: in the opinion of Kuhn <em>“they rank beneath the chicken and the pigeon coop”</em>. They normally consisted of a gallery, a hall and two rooms, one of which was for quarantine (the <em>kwijlkamer</em>, literally ‘drooling room’). The sick slaves lay on cots that were outfitted with shackles to restrain the restless. Fires were lit on the floor, so the patients were troubled by smoke. There was no privy and the slaves were obliged to relieve themselves in potsherds and calabashes. The shutters were almost always closed (to prevent them from escaping this inferno probably), so the stench was unbearable.<br /><br />In the 19th century, Paramaribo boasted a hospital that specifically catered to slaves, but the expense prevented most planters from using it. During the first three months, they had to pay 75 cents a day for treatment and medicine and during the next four months 40 cents a day –after that the <em>chirurgijn</em> could only charge for food. Some surgeons were even more expensive, so the total costs could run very high: <em>chirurgijn</em> Hendrik Temmink charged plantation <strong>De Morgenster </strong>947 guilders for the treatment of the slave Maaslust (who had been in his care for 319 days). One third of the bill was remitted because he had died.<br /><br />The slaves had, not unreasonably, the most confidence in their own cures. They could see no harm in the use of any medicine that was applied externally, which was not always in the best interest of the patient, as Kuhn maintained: <em>“In case of a serious illness they often, without consulting a Doctor, go to work and the sufferer, especially if they have much interest in him, is not left alone for a minute; furthermore they hold it absolutely necessary that he consumes food, and the patient is moreover tortured with insipid porridges all the time. It is indeed a God-given miracle, if I may express myself this way, that the patient escapes the manifold applications safe and sound”</em>.<br /><br />Kuhn may have been skeptic about the treatment mentioned above, but he admired the ‘quarantine cure’ of the slaves. This included the ingestion of a drink concocted from <em>“medicinal woods, roots and sugary syrup”</em>. The sufferer had to take several ounces each morning and evening. Eating had to be limited to dry roasted plantains and once a week an emetic had to be endured. This cure took four to five weeks and the patients became very skinny. However, there were striking results with <em>“the most tenacious sores, rashes and leg pains”</em>. Open wounds were treated with salves, poultices and native fresh herbs and other ailments with rubdowns and cuts in the skin. These treatments could be hazardous: medicines containing mercury were employed so liberally, for example, that <em>“not rarely the mercurial illness has worse effects than the primitive disease”</em>. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fly">Spanish fly</a> also had a lot of adherents.<br /><br />Slaves used many herbal and ‘homeopathic’ medicines. To ease delivery for women, the rattles of a rattlesnake were pounded into a powder and given to them. Women fed their children the pulvered leaves of the Arabian cotton (<em>snipkatoen</em>) to drive out worms. The seed of the <em>zandkoker</em> tree made an effective purgative. The slaves born in Africa knew how to ‘inoculate’ themselves against snake poison with a magical cure they called <em>(sneki) cotti</em>. They took the fangs of a snake, dried them, pounded them to a powder and mixed that with the ashes of certain plants. This mixture was rubbed into a small cut (usually in the neck). Afterwards, the patients had to observe certain taboos. When picking out <em>chica’s</em>, the wounds were rubbed with tobacco juice as an antiseptic. Nepveu witnessed slaves gathering dew from tayer and plantain leaves to treat eyesores. Some slaves put loam in their hair: this formed a thick crust that suffocated any lice. Black ‘witchdoctors’ used all kinds of ingredients in their magical cures: kaolin (white clay), <em>dram</em>, feathers, eggs, aromatic leaves, etc.<br /><br />Benoit was impressed by the personal cleanliness of the slaves. According to him, they bathed at least once a day and washed their clothes nearly every day. Lammens had a different opinion: <em>“very often they have to be forced, like children, to wash themselves and keep clean:- they reek almost always of salted fish, their beloved food”. </em>Perhaps they had met different kinds of slaves.<br /><br />The conclusion is warranted that the health of the slaves left much to be desired. Many of them seemed to have suffered from one or the other of the following debilitating afflictions: venereal disease, bouts of dysentery, sores, menstrual troubles, hernia’s, etc. Only a minority could be classified as having a good condition (mostly house servants and slaves working on timber grounds). The food they received was often ample in bulk, but deficient in vitamins, proteins and minerals. The slaves could supplement their diet if they wished, but they often lacked the energy or the awareness to do so. Many slaves seem to have been so fond of the salted fish and meat their masters distributed, that they scorned healthier alternatives. They also preferred the starchy plantain to almost everything else. The level of medical knowledge in Surinam was so low during most of the slave era, that the planters, even if they were willing, could do little to alleviate the suffering of the sick. Whether the slaves were worse off than lower class whites is doubtful, however. Where mortality was concerned, there does not seem to have been much difference.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265237592410105906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 252px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMTC0_i7LOtlPNrlztVi-e00O-2GYNxGQmwWxpoNk1Va6ca05gFbAX2aM-nKg71kr6A0dl8-RM7xyno6TesS5edhorjLM02Xz58zlW2EV8Q_8rqbkmFqnKEd0p_JXThTcictCiBTCibgI/s400/Mon-Bijou.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>The demography of the Surinam slaves.<br /></strong><br />Though there can be no doubt that in Surinam there has been a considerable natural decrease of the slave population right up to emancipation, it is hard to find enough quantitative data to explain this phenomenon. Few planters took the trouble to record the demographic data of their plantation for posterity and even if they did, the documents have been long gone. So one has to rely on the scarce data that can be gleaned from the archives and compare these with the findings of researchers active in other parts of the Caribbean.<br /><br />This is not as far-fetched as it seems, because that the differences in the demographic ‘performances’ of the various slave populations were not as large as is often assumed. Jack Eblen has pointed to the fact that in many instances the researchers compared the wrong rates: ‘crude’ and ‘natural’ rates, when only ‘intrinsic’ rates are comparable. In his definition, “<em>crude rates are ones derived from raw population data, natural rates are those calculated for a closed population, and intrinsic rates are ones reflecting the characteristics of a closed population with a stable age structure”</em>. He came to the conclusion that the intrinsic rates for the black populations of the Caribbean were very similar: <em>“black populations in the Western Hemisphere during the late eighteenth century and in the nineteenth (prior to the end of slavery and during the period of abolition), whether free or slave, lived under very severe and very similar mortality conditions, and reproduced at about the same level of capacity. This generalization seems to be valid regardless of wide variations in the white mortality rates, in the lifestyles and the attitudes of whites, and in the environmental health risks of different slaveholding areas”.<br /></em><br />Philip Curtin proposed the theory that slave demography went through three stages everywhere in the Caribbean. The first stage was characterized by a steady and heavy import of fresh slaves from Africa, while frontier conditions prevailed. This led to a sex/age structure that was very different from that of a normal population and to a strong natural decrease. Once the colonies reached full productivity, the imports declined, the bizarre population pyramid slowly took on a more normal shape and the natural decrease diminished. After the end of the transatlantic slave trade, fertility rose, the sex/age structure came closer to the normal ‘tribal’ structure and in the end a surplus of births over deaths might even occur, although the slave population might continue to decline through manumission and flight.<br /><br />The length of the various stages in the process of adaptation varied from region to region, but in Surinam the situation was worse than everywhere else. The first phase appears to have lasted inordinately long. Until the last quarter of the 18th century, when the cultivated area and the production were no longer expanded continuously, ‘frontier’ characteristics prevailed in the colony. Consequently, the (slave) population could only grow through massive imports, resulting in an extremely skewed population pyramid. Because the natural limits of the cultivable soil had not been reached even then, this process could have continued well into the 19th century, if the stock exchange crisis had not halted it. The second stage started late in the 18th century. The slowing down of slave imports decreased mortality and balanced the sex ratio somewhat. It seems, however, that the development of the Surinam slave population got stuck in this stage: the typical characteristics of the third stage are barely discernable. As Richard Price concluded, <em>“the slave population of Surinam retained these ‘skewed’ and ‘aberrant’ characteristics much more strongly, and for a longer time, than almost any other colony in the Hemisphere”</em>. This phenomenon requires explanation.<br /><br />For many people, including Price, the explanation is quite simple: slave mortality was enormous because of the extreme cruelty of the Surinam planters. However, there is reasonable doubt about the direct influence of cruelty on death rates. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Engerman">Stanley Engerman</a>, for example, claimed that: <em>“the differences in demographic performance</em> [of slaves]<em> in different areas of the New World reflect differences in objective circumstances (climate and epidemiological factors) to a greater extent than they did variables which the planters might try to control.”<br /></em><br /><strong>Natural decrease</strong> of the slave population was not a function of mortality alone, it had two causes: positive (<strong>mortality increasing</strong>) and preventive (<strong>fertility depressing</strong>) factors, or in <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=AXQ5FCnHWnEC&dq=Higman+%2B+Jamaica&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=SnSyCXw0KK&sig=b5MBPCQTEe689GSeLdaii9BTeFU&hl=nl&ei=OsyQSdyPBImt-gacv-mdCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result">Barry Higman’s</a> words <em>“checks of misery”</em> and <em>“checks of vice”. </em>Humanists held the former primarily responsible, planters the latter. The slave population of Surinam showed a strong natural decrease most of the time, to the extend that Price is justified in stating that “<em>in terms of wastage of human life … Surinam appears to have the dubious distinction of standing near one extreme among the major plantation colonies of the New World”</em>, and there can be no doubt that <em>“mortality was fundamental”</em>, but the causes of this high mortality are not so closely tied to white cruelty as has been hypothesized.<br /><br />Engerman’s faith in the primacy of <strong>climatological</strong> and <strong>epidemiological factors</strong> is well-founded. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Long">Edward Long</a> discovered that in Jamaica the highest death rates occurred on plantations located in the <em>“marshy plains”.</em> In Jamaica, these may have been only a minority, in Surinam they were not. The Surinam climate was hotter as well and, apart from a small strip along the coast, no cooling winds brought relief. This also made the epidemiological aspect even more important than elsewhere. The fact that natural conditions in Surinam were extraordinarily unhealthy (and made the whites suffer just as much as the slaves), does not exonerate the Surinam planters from guilt, of course. As Engerman rightly remarked: <em>“to argue that planters in unhealthy climates took good care of their slaves and that there was no evidence of overt maltreatment is not to reduce the moral indictment of slaveowners –the basic point remains that in the absence of enslavement no doubt fewer workers would have been in these areas”</em>. It does, however, exonerate them from the charge that it was primarily their excessive cruelty that led to the exceptionally high mortality among the slaves of Surinam.<br /><br />During the 17th and the early 18th century, the Surinam planters expected a yearly ‘replacement rate’ of 10% of their slaves. [The same was true for 17th century Jamaica, as Craton discovered.] They had a lot of trouble to repace that many succumbed slaves and did not want their personnel problems come to light. As Governor Mauricius noted: <em>“The mortality of slaves is more considerable, than is known, because nearly all the planters need credit, and so do not proclaim their loss loudly”</em>. Newly bought slaves (usually referred to as <em>nieuwe neegers</em>) were the most vulnerable. Governor Nepveu calculated that his predecessor Crommelin had purchased 232 slaves for the Society during his reign, of which <em>“none or very few”</em> had survived. Most of them had done little or no work and had been left in their quarters behind the government building to recover from the transatlantic voyage, where they <em>“usually wasted away”</em>. Maltreatment and lack of nourishment were certainly no contributing factors here, because the slaves of the Society were positively pampered compared with privately owned bondsmen. While in Jamaica, as Edward Long has calculated, 10% of the ‘saltwater’ Negroes died during each year of the seasoning period (which usually lasted three years), in Surinam 30% died during the first year alone (mostly of yaws).<br /><br />By the end of the 18th century, the situation had improved only a little. Stedman assumed a natural decrease of 5% a year and he predicted the extinction of the slave population in 20 years, if imports were to cease. This, obviously, did not happen and despite the fact that slaves continued to be smuggled into the colony in appreciable numbers and that the slave population continued to decline, this proves that slave mortality dropped notably during the 19th century. Kuhn calculated in 1828 a decrease of 2,5 to 3% a year <em>“without additional unhappy accidents because of prevailing diseases”</em>. He remarked that in general, the causes of slave mortality had been sought in maltreatment and heavy work and although the latter factor did have influence, <em>“regarding abuses, one can, honoring the truth, assure, that these happen much less than one generally imagines”</em>. Later, the situation improved even more. Kappler calculated a decrease of 1,25% a year during the period 1828 to 1841 and 1% a year during the period 1841 to 1852.<br /><br />The high death rates among the slaves must be put in perspective. <strong>Class</strong> often turned out to be a more important factor than the color of the skin, with lower class whites dying at much the same rates as bondsmen. Michael Craton, for example, found that the death rates of Jamaican slaves were higher than those of the English whites in general, but lower than those in London and other large cities. <em>“This suggests some possible correlation at this time between population density and death rates. The importance of epidemics is shown, also, in that the high average death rates seem to result not from continuously high annual mortality, but rather from a large variation in annual death rates, with periodic pronounced peaks.”</em> Considering the high toll of some epidemics, this centrainly was the case in Surinam as well. Moreover, the slaves in the Caribbean were not much worse off than their West-African compatriots. Craton believed that the life expectancy of slaves in Jamaica, once they had survived the crucial first years, was <em>“very likely similar”</em> to that in Africa. Especially child mortality <em>“has tended to be particularly overstated in the past”</em>: in Jamaica, it was certainly not higher than in many English cities.<br /><br />The composition of the slave population in itself had much influence on mortality. The death rate of <strong>African-born</strong> slaves was considerably higher than the death rate of <strong>Creole</strong> slaves. This is understandable, because the Africans came into a totally different ‘disease environment’ and were exposed to European and Amerindian germs to which they had no immunity, while already weakened by the Middle Passage and depressed by the unfortunate change in their circumstances. As a result, they were an easy prey for all kinds of ailments. The toll of death was especially staggering during the seasoning period. Thereafter it became more like that of the Creoles –at least until they reached their middle thirties, when they gap widened again. Sex influences mortality as well. In general, the mortality patterns of <strong>men</strong> differ significantly from those of <strong>women</strong>. As Higman pointed out: <em>“male mortality is always greater than female in the first few years of life, maintained a rough equality to about 40 years, then increased more rapidly”</em>. In the case of slave mortality, provenance was more important than sex, however. That is to say: female Africans had a higher death rate than male Creoles -but this difference only became noticeable when they were over 35. The African-born men over 35 in particular <em>“suffered a heavy differential age-specific mortality”</em>.<br /><br />If we apply these insights to the situation in Surinam, the picture is rather grim. The frontier conditions lasted much longer than in other regions. During the first 100 years of colonization, the proportion of African-born slaves was over 90%. About a third of these slaves had left Africa within the last five years. Many of them still suffered from the hardships of the seasoning period. The proportion of women was low (40% at most, usually less). Overall, Surinam had an extraordinary large proportion of men to women, adults to children and Africans to Creoles, therefore a significantly larger percentage of ‘high-risk’ slaves. Even if the natural conditions had been no worse than elsewhere (which was not the case), the mortality among slaves would have been comperatively high. Importing more and more slaves from Africa was in many respects a self-defeating strategy. Not only did many of them die before they were of any use, it also drove up the overall mortality rate (because it kept the percentages of Africans and men high) and negatively influenced the mortality rate of the Creoles, because they brought African diseases Creoles were no longer immune to.<br /><br />Higman has discovered that in Jamaica the mortality among slaves became higher as the <strong>size of the plantations</strong> expanded (the average unit in later times housed 200 to 300 slaves -which seems to have been the optimum size of a plantation from the economic point of view). On such a large estate, <em>“the masters were able to maximize their control over the effective employment of their slaves and capital equipment. Such control may have meant a maximalization of the amount of labour exacted from the slaves, and hence a maximalization of the physical brutality inherent in the slave system”</em>. Engerman pointed out that the correlation between mortality and output per worker could be proof of the habit of ‘working slaves to death’, but also could be spurious, since there also existed a correlation between plantation size and output per worker (because of the economies of scale) and the larger the plantation, the more havoc could be wrought by infectuous diseases. In American historiography, there has been a lively debate whether slaves were worse off on large or small plantations. It seems that what the slaves gained in one respect (e.g. better food), they lost in another (e.g. more supervision), so overall it cannot be said that slaves were treated worse on large units. Nevertheless, it can be surmised that the relatively large size of Surinam plantations at the very least did not have a positive effect on the mortality rates.<br /><br />The abovementioned factors of climate, epidemiology, location of plantations, the predominance of ‘high-risk’ slaves and the large size of the average plantation were largely responsible for the relatively high mortality rate of the Surinam slaves. That does not mean that they were not often treated badly as well: they were forced to live in an unhealthy environment, inadequately fed and all too often physically abused.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265238875376696018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 258px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmwJIHofkIzcFU23DJI3dTjq1MXabIva09pp9t6zxvMHXj8aE_I4TwtmdQ0edQBdfIuCtUXnXD5W3uuWAbBkIDeWeXck8WU1MnAI6WqH3ALOce54P2CrGG9CYphCjBz6Yg5P_n9ey8TKo/s400/Gelderland.jpg" border="0" />High mortality partially explains the continuous natural decrease of the slave population, but low fertility was a crucial factor as well. The child-producing capacity of slave populations in the New World was impaired. Only in the United States, in Cuba during certain periods and in Curacao at the end of the slavery era, fertility could keep up with mortality and only in the United States the slave population not only reproduced itself, but actually grew. As <a href="http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/slavery/interpretations_of_slavery_in_U.S/fogel.htm">Fogel and Engerman</a> found, the difference between Jamaica and the Old South did not primarily lie in their respective mortality rates (36 and 30 deaths per 1000 slaves a year), but in their respective fertility rates (33 and 55 births per 1000 slaves a year).<br /><br />Fertility can theoretically be enlarged by a concious politic of the planters (<strong>slave breeding</strong>). Richard Sutch believed that the <em>“breeding mentality”</em> of the Southern planters could be credited (or blamed) for the impressive birth rates of American slaves. Some plantations in the Old South indeed seem to have acquired a large part of their income from selling ‘superfluous’ slaves, but to call them ‘stud farms’ is a bridge too far and they were a small minority anyway. It is not easy to force people to conceive when they do not want to, but planters could influence birth and survival rates by absolving pregnant and breastfeeding women from work and preventing mothers from mistreating or neglecting their children. The fact that most plantations in the Old South were rather small, the climate was comparatively healthy and the main product was cotton, not sugar, probably was more conductive to propagation, though.<br /><br />It has often been maintained (for example by Van Lier and Kuhn) that a <strong>high sex ratio</strong> (significantly more men than women in a community) depresses fertility. Higman rejected this view, which was, however, prevalent among the Jamaican masters too. Engerman found in the Old South that there was indeed a positive correlation between a normal sex ratio and fertility and that this was the case in regions where males predominated (mostly sugar estates); in regions where females predominated (mostly rice plantations) and in regions where the ratio was more or less equal (mostly cotton plantations). In all probability, it was the effect of a skewed sex ratio on marital stability that was at work here, for Craton and Roberts found a positive correlation between the number of children and marital stability. Surinam plantations generally had a surplus of males, while in the city females formed the majority. The imbalance in Paramaribo became worse after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, because many men were sold to the plantations. This had an adverse effect on family stability, but their is no evidence that it resulted in less children.<br /><br />The most dependable way of measuring fertility is the child/woman ratio. If one takes as a measure of fertility the number of births per 1000 slaves, a high sex ratio has an adverse effect on fertility, but if one takes the child/woman ratio, this does not necessarily have to be the case (in polyandrous tribal societies it certainly does not). If the child/woman ratio is low, this can mean three things: (a) an extraordinary percentage of women is childless (voluntary or not); (b) the number of children per fertile woman is less than is normal (for example because of the use of contraceptives), or (c) a combination of both.<br /><br />In Surinam, there was a combination of causes. Roughly half of the women do not seem to have had any children at all. Several factors contributed to this. <strong>Sterily</strong> as a result of venerial diseases or ailments of the reproductive organs was quite common. Not a few slave women practiced <strong>abortion</strong> by chewing substances like unripe pineapple, <em>zeven-bloemen</em>, or green pinecones, according to Stedman. <strong>Miscarriages</strong> resulting from overwork or malnutrition were rife. <strong>Malnourishment</strong> could also prevent conception, because the necessary fat reserves were lacking. [If these reserves sink below 22% of the body weight, conception is inhibited. Prolonged breastfeeding keeps these reserves low, so in badly nourished populations it can significantly depress birthrates.] Higman claimed that in Trinidad, where women suckled their infants for more than two years (despite the objections of their masters), this habit resulted in a significant <em>“spacing of births”.</em> Breastfeeding alone was not always effective as a ‘contraceptive’ in slave populations: alimentation may have been deficient in many respects, but usually it did not lack fat. In Surinam, children were also suckled several years, but in addition the women abstained from sexual intercourse during this period, according to Hartsinck.<br /><br />Many authors have been stricken by the fact that African-born slaves, who were so fond of children in their homeland, seemed to be so indifferent to them in the New World. There can be no doubt that many women did not want children (and sometimes even killed them), because they did not want them to grow up in slavery. This is accentuated by the fact that <em>“the normal relationship between social status and fertility was reversed”</em>, as Higman noted (in tribal societies the persons with the highest status have the most surviving children). Colored women seem to have been more willing to take on the <em>“risk of pregnancy”</em> than their black sisters, because they could hope for a better future for their children (who were almost always lighter than themselves).<br /><br />It is also quite possible that many women did want children, but did not want numerous children. It should not be forgotten that African societies are extremely ‘pro-natalistic’ and women are forced in not very subtle ways to bear as many children as they can. Children are necessary for the continuation of the lineage, for ritual purposes, as security for old age, as a source of prestige. If these pressures are not present, it is quite possible that women will be satisfied with two or three children. Most slave societies could be described as basically ‘anti-natalistic’. In Surinam, <em>“the planters do not even see gladly that the slave women bear children, who are of service</em> [only after many] <em>Years”</em>, Governor Mauricius observed. After the slave trade was abolished, their opinion changed of course. Believing that it was the promiscuity of the slaves that prevented births, the planters then even permitted Moravian missionaries to enter their premises, in the hope that hearing the gospel would make the slaves more faithful to their spouses and more prolific.<br /><br />That the attitude of both slaves and planters did play a significant role in lowering the birth rate is proved by the fact that after gaining their freedom former slave women turned out to be very prolific indeed, especially among the Maroons, whose survival depended on their ability to reproduce in sufficient numbers. Even among the slaves, there were remarkable exceptions: Stedman mentioned a woman named Lesperanza who gave birth to 9 children in three years: in the form of quadruplets, twins and triplets.<br /><br />Some authors mentioned factors that seem a bit far-fetched. Male slaves often had wives on other plantations and some had to row for many hours <em>“to taste conjugal happiness”.</em> In the eyes of Kuhn this could prevent a man from impregnating his wife, because <em>“not rarely they arrive late and tired, and have to leave again early in the morning, to be able to join the slaves going into the field at six o’ clock on their plantation”</em>. On Sundays, however, they must have had ample time to ‘get together’. Kuhn also blamed the whites for monopolizing the most beautiful women, whereby these were withdrawn from the propagation of their race, while at the same time the colony was saddled with additional <em>“weak and lazy layabouts”.</em><br /><br />Although most slave mothers in Surinam had only a few children, among the servants of the Society a brood of four or five was not unusual (again proof that these slaves fared exceptionally well). Van Stipriaan found that on the plantation <strong>Somerszorg </strong>the average family counted three children and he even called this number the <em>“target family”</em>, but his sample is very small and it is highly unlikely that slaves planned their family this meticulously.<br /><br />As a conclusion, one can say that the continuous decrease of the slave population in Surinam was the result of a combination of an unusually high mortality and an unusually low fertility. The attitude and behavior of masters and slaves certainly contributed to this outcome, but natural causes were at least equally important. </div>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-11731663760239901972008-10-02T00:11:00.036+02:002009-02-09T03:41:16.371+01:00Chapter 5: The toilers and the idlers.<strong><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Indispensable but unproductive hands.<br /><br /></div></strong><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264924544275557906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 284px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitbipgsYuCP0x3t_4Qrrh0_JC7ir_Ta-4rTxJLW9iIPvGlT2Eh7i46u7kdEjKmSKKKo6uTnfULX04pZxeTyaq-hW_lI7jLxVkrGm8uhfrpvbwM27f1AFAifChb0gVg0l1HJrQbsapYZ3E/s400/wasdag.jpg" border="0" /> <div align="justify">Keeping slaves was only profitable under specific circumstances. Most importantly, the productive resources, especially land, had to be ‘open’ to all. In such a situation no one was obliged by necessity to sell his labor to an employer. Under these conditions a colony with mostly small farms could develop, as was the case in the northern part of the United States. When large-scale agriculture was possible, plantations were much more rewarding, however. These needed a substantial force of unskilled workers, which could not be found among the white immigrants. The import of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant">indentured laborers</a> was no solution, because their contracts often expired by the time they had adapted to the climate and had finally become productive. What is more, afterwards they often set themselves up as competitors of their former employers. The use of slaves, when they could be imported fairly cheaply and in sufficient numbers, was the preferred option, since they could be kept 'indentured' for life.<br /><br />Slavery therefore inevitably occurred everywhere in the New World (as <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=QUV98bwrqscC&dq=Sheridan+%2B+slavery&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=JdBE5LmUFu&sig=qPJiJsO3dUU0qrxjIhkeKaSKBj0&hl=nl&ei=dFKPSbLgDcyp-gashKGuCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA1,M1">Richard Sheridan</a> remarked) <em>“(a) where it has been possible to maintain slaves very cheaply; (b) where there has been an opportunity for regular recruitment through a well-supplied market; (c) in agricultural production on a large scale of the plantation type, or in very simple industrial processes”</em>. The second point was also stressed by <a href="http://www.speedylook.com/Claude_Meillassoux.html">Claude Meillassoux</a>, who even believed that employing slaves is only sensible when the reproduction of these involunatry servants can be delegated to foreigners. In other words, there must be a steady supply of new (adult) slaves, because there is no such thing as breeding slaves.<br /><br />In Surinam, some of these conditions were initially met. It was a country with open resources, in the sense that all immigrants could have access to land in sufficient quantity for subsistence agriculture at the very least. Theoretically, slaves could be maintained cheaply by letting them grow most of their own food. In reality, however, the situation in the colony was far from ideal for a flourishing economy based on slavery. One of the major flaws of the Surinam slavery system was the neglect of food production to such a degree that a large part of the staple foods had to be imported from the United States. Since the trade routes were often blocked, this repeatedly caused severe food shortages, leading to much social unrest. The supply of slaves was erratic as well and they were comparatively expensive due to the unfavorable location of the colony outside the main trade routes. As a result, Surinam never had sufficient slaves to fully exploit the potential production capacity. Slaves were used for industrial enterprises only on a limited scale: with some benevolence one can classify the timber ‘plantation’ as such and furthermore the colony boasted a <em>Bergwerk</em> (mining company –a colossal failure) and the stone quarry <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/worsteling_jacobs/">Worsteling Jacobs</a></strong>.<br /><br />Another weakness of the Surinam slave system was the fact that a large part of the able-bodied slaves was withdrawn from productive work to idle away as house servants. Having a large retinue, even if totally unproductive, can serve a worthwhile purpose if it helps to impress the ‘poor whites’ so much that they will fight to preserve a system that is harmful to their own interests. According to Eugene Genovese, this was the case in the Old South. In Surinam, such a display of conspicuous consumption was useless.<br /><br />As Pieter Emmer claimed, the Dutch would undoubtably have been better off if they had stuck it out in New York and had left Surinam to the English. Unfortunately, Abraham Crijnssen and his men were not clairvoyant and after conquering the colony and having been allowed to keep it, they had little choice but to expand the system of plantation agriculture they encountered. This inevitably implied importing additional slaves.<br /><br />Much of the work that had to be done in Surinam could be done by whites and in the early years often was, but there was a firm belief among the colonists that no European could stand fieldwork in the tropical heat, so there was a reluctance to let even convicts toil in the fields. Indian slaves were apparently never used for cultivation either, but were only employed as house servants, fishermen and hunters. So it can be safely assumed that until emancipation all agricultural labor was performed by Negro slaves.<br /><br />Practically all the slaves outside Paramaribo (which amounted to at least 80% of the slave population) were involved directly or indirectly in plantation agriculture, but a mere minority was actually sent into the field. Kuhn calculated in a gloomy mood that only one third of the slaves could be regarded as <em>“truly capable of work”.</em> Most observers agreed that having a field force of about 40% of the total slave force was a favorable situation. Van der Smissen, for example, distinguished a ‘general force’, a ‘workforce’ (consisting of about 60% of the general force) and a ‘field force’ (consisting of about 40% of the general force). Pistorius divided the slaves of a hypothetical sugar plantation with 125 hands as follows: 58 field hands (48%), 26 drivers, artisans and house servants (20%) and an unproductive group consisting of children, invalids and old people (32%). Van den Bogaart and Emmer found in the actual case of the sugar plantation <strong>Catharina Sophia</strong> an unproductive group of 29%, a field force of 54% of the able-bodied men and 78% of the able-bodied women, while 25% of the men and 9% of the women were in the ‘elite’ category.<br /><br />The numbers mentioned by Van den Bogaart and Emmer indicate a remarkable contradiction. It has been maintained that the slaveholders preferred male slaves because they were stronger and more productive in the field, yet they were also believed to be more versatile and positions requiring leadership or skills were almost exclusively reserved for men. So an increasing proportion of the men was withdrawn from fieldwork, while women could escape the field only when they were elevated to the position of house servant. This allocation of tasks by sex under slavery was <em>“compatible with the predominant role of women in agricultural labor in the major African societies from which the slaves came”</em>, Higman remarked. Some ‘high-born’ men considered agricultural labor so demeaning that they rather died than stoop to it. John Stedman witnessed that sometimes their ‘inferiors’ were allowed to fill in for them, but at other times the planters were determined to show that for them African social distinctions and sensitivities had no meaning. If the unwilling persisted in their refusal, they might be killed as an example for others. It is reasonable to expect that the growing participation of women in fieldwork lowered productivity, but this was apparently not the case. Higman found that in Jamaica output actually increased during the years 1817 to 1834, when the proportion of female field hands rose sharply, and that technological innovation was not the cause.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264924234203738642" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 282px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigBYOYpDNIe6XOsgIgrfwKafZavB-sCX1qkS1LfjRx6p9dxMDXEOClK6S7OuzBuoEHOE4UCdWx3sEfX__tLCDLPZmPlC4L-vX_hSujZsWNa105bvBHTYTe3zLQGZXZJXo6bcC_IC8bo8/s400/melkverkoop.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">It has been claimed that one of the main advantages of slavery was the fact that a greater part of the population could be forced to perform productive work. Perhaps this is the case if one compares the work force on a slave plantation with the proportion of people going out to work in a modern (post)industrial society. Here, the work force consists mainly of adult men who support their wives and children and, by paying taxes, the aged, sick and handicapped as well. But this has no parallel in a traditional agricultural society, where women and older children are heavily involved in the production process and where the percentage of inactive people is a lot smaller.<br /><br />It cannot be maintained that in this sense the slave population was exploited to an exceptional degree. The women were perhaps granted less time to care for their families, but some tasks were taken over by others (for example the <em>crioromama</em> and the <em>dresneger</em>). As for the children, they were not obliged to help out more than they would have been in African societies. The planters usually took care to spare them real hardship until they were fully grown. Blom remarked on this subject: “[slaves]<em> are counted among the children, as long as they do not go into the field or perform their craft independently; for this they have to be about 18 or 20 years old; before that they are used for lighter work and as their powers increase the workload is augmented.”<br /></em><br />The main difference with a traditional agricultural society was the fact that the elders were not allowed to enjoy the remainder of their years in peaceful rest, cared for by their children, but that they had to serve in one capacity or another for as long as they had any strength left, as nurse, guardsman, gardener, etc. Furthermore, ailing slaves were sometimes forced to work anyway –a self-defeating kind of efficiency. There is no evidence that the division of labor shifted significantly after the first quarter of the 18th century and the allegation that the exploitation of the slaves increased during the 19th century, because a larger percentage of the slaves was sent into the field, is unsubstantiated.<br /><br />Employing bondsmen hampered technological innovation. The primary means of increasing productivity was increasing the workload of the individual slave. One of the main charges against the slavery system has always been the claim that slaves were systematically overworked. It has even been claimed that sometimes slaves were literally ‘worked to death’. In Surinam this was certainly not the case. Of course there is ample evidence that the burdens of Surinam slaves were often heavy. Blom, for example, complained that <em>“right now the negroes on many plantations have to work more than their strength allows in the long run”</em>. Surinam slaves were undoubtedly exploited in two senses: (a) with regard to the (monetary) compensations they received for their efforts and (b) with regard to the food, clothing and shelter they received to make these efforts possible. However, all (agricultural) laborers were exploited during this period and the question is whether slaves were exploited more than free people in similar jobs.<br /><br />It is difficult to evaluate the productivity of the slaves properly because one has to depend on the observations of prejudiced whites. These often did not have a proper yardstick for measuring their accomplishments, since many agricultural tasks were performed exclusively by slaves in Surinam and had no parallel in Europe. Bearing these limitations in mind, it is nevertheless remarkable that most authors, whether contemporary or modern, agreed that slaves may have worked long hours, but that their productivity was low and were convinced that white laborers would have been able to do the same job in considerably less time.<br /><br />Even Governor Mauricius, no fan of the colonial whites, wrote to the directors of the Society of Surinam that <em>“a white worker in Europe does more than four negroes”</em>. His successor Crommelin observed that one white carpenter could replace three Negroes. Lans considered the work of slaves much less tiring than that of a European day laborer. Van der Smissen believed that a Dutch agricultural worker could dig, in much less time, twice as many meters of ditch as the average slave. Hostmann concluded that a willing Negro could do the tasks demanded of him in less than half the time allotted for them, in which case he could use the rest of his time according to his own discretion. Finally, Kappler, who had employed slaves, free Negroes and men from Württemberg at his lumber project on the Marowijne, remarked that if one followed the official norms, the slaves only had to saw 60 feet of timber a day, while his white lumberjacks could saw, without undue exertion, 130 feet a day. Moreover, they could clear provision grounds as fast as the slaves, although the work was unfamiliar to them.<br /><br />One has to treat these observations with a measure of reservation, but they are corroborated by the conclusions of Michael Craton, who evaluated the performance of Jamaican slaves. He employed a more objective yardstick, but still found that the slaves only did about a quarter of the work commonly accomplished by modern agricultural laborers. He added that this <em>“was almost certainly due more to unwillingness to work than to physical incapability”</em>. Slaves got away with it because the planters did not expect much of them, as Genovese explained: <em>“Since blacks were inferior, they had to be enslaved and taught to work; but, being inferior, they could hardly be expected to work up to Anglo-Saxon expectations. Therefore, the racist argument in defense of slavery reinforced the slaveholders’ tendency to tolerate, with an infinite patience that amazed others, a level of performance that appalled northern and foreign visitors.“ </em><br /><br />So the conclusion that the slaves succesfully resisted being driven beyond their strength seems justified. The planters failed miserably in their endeavors to extract the maximum amount of work from their slaves most of the time. During the harvest season, however, the situation was radically different. Many plantations were short on hands then and the workers were driven mercilessly. This was aggravated by the fact that on sugar plantations with a water mill it was necessary to use every available moment during springtide, so the work went on night and day.<br /><br />The working hours of the slaves were limited partly by external factors. Generally, work could only be done during daylight, except when sufficient moonlight made night work feasible, which in Surinam was not very often the case. Work in a sugar mill or a coffee shed could of course continue by the light of torches or candles. Field slaves in Surinam usually labored from sunup to sundown, which was almost invariably a twelve hour period. They rose at about five o’clock, went into the field at six and paused for breakfast for half an hour at nine. During the hottest time of the day, they enjoyed a ‘siesta’ of 1½ to 2 hours. They returned from the field at about six in the evening. Consequently, their working day ordinarily lasted 10 hours at most. After the backbreaking fieldwork, they were occupied for an hour or more with cooking meals, washing clothes, working on their plots, etc. Surinam estates lacked the communal meals served at some American plantations, which saved the slaves much time and effort, but also undermined family life. Little time for relaxation was left for that reason.<br /><br />As faithful Calvinists, most planters were bound to observe the Sunday rest and this obligation extended to their slaves. The first orders to observe the Sabbath dated from 1669. They mostly referred to the consumption of alcohol on this day, but a placard issued in 1674 expressly forbade <em>“any labor</em> [or]<em> trade”</em>. In 1721, the planters were specifically interdicted for the first time <em>“to have any work done by themselves or their slaves, be it in the field, in the mill or elsewhere”</em>. Later, some exceptions were made: on sugar plantations the planters could boil <em>likker</em> (cane juice) until nine o’ clock in the morning, while on coffee grounds it was permitted to let the slaves dry and sort coffee until seven o’ clock in the morning. At first, the slaves of the Jews were expected to observe the Christian Sabbath as well, but as they already had to refrain from work on Saturdays, their excess of leisure time incensed the slaves of the Christians, so this rule was relaxed soon.<br /><br />Despite these regulations and the protests of pious men, many planters put the fattening of their purse before the saving of their soul and forced their bondsmen to toil on Sundays anyway. The slaves that had not completed their weekly assignments by Saturday evening were obliged to finish them the next day and sometimes slaves were directed to clean their houses or tend their gardens in the morning. Not many planters dared to tamper with their free afternoon, but exceptions were made during harvest time. Ideally, the slaves were compensated with some free weekdays later.<br /><br />So in theory, the planters had unlimited rights over the labor of their slaves, but they realized that little was gained by driving them to exhaustion and earning their unmitigated enmity. For economic reasons alone, they knew they were well advised to give their slaves a little leeway.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The work ethic of the slaves.</strong><br /><br />The attitude of the slaves with regard to the work demanded of them was determined in large part by their opinion about the system that had swallowed them. The slaves compared Surinam slavery with the kind of slavery they were familiar with at home. In Africa, slavery primarily meant domestic servitude. A slave might be forcibly torn away from his home and his family, be humiliated and mistreated, but he was not alienated from his owner as profoundly as in the New World. He was usually adopted into the entourage of his master. Sometimes, he was even allowed to wed a member of the latter’s family and in that case, his descendents were born free. Africans knew that everyone could be degraded to slavery and therefore a slave was not considered an inherently inferior or depraved person. Many slaves were ransomed, but even when freedom was beyond their grasp, their situation improved with time: old retainers were often treated with indulgence. Slaves were obliged to labor for their masters, but the work was familiar to them –although male slaves were sometimes forced to perform tasks that were the preserve of women- and the pace was relaxed. The position of female slaves in practice often hardly differed from that of free women. A negative aspect of the situation of African slaves was the fact that they were ‘kinless’ in a society where kinship roles played a pivotal role. The greatest threat they faced was the possibility that they might be sacrificed to appease a god, or at the funeral of an important king or chief.<br /><br />The economic exploitation of slaves under these circumstances was limited and cannot be compared to the kind of subjection found in societies with ‘industrial slavery’. Nevertheless, as Lichtveld and Voorhoeve concluded: <em>“The slaves themselves … accepted slavery. They knew this form of economic exploitation of the labor force from their homeland. So they acknowledged the right of the master”</em>. Notwithstanding this acceptance, work often takes on a special meaning in circumstances like these. Goffman has observed that in a ‘<a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-totalinstitution.html">total institution</a>’: <em>“Whatever the incentive given for work … this incentive will not have the structural significance it has on the outside. There will have to be different motives for work and different attitudes towards it”</em>.<br /><br />In this era the prime motive for work for a free laborer was pure economic necessity. He had to gain the daily bread for himself and his dependants, or he would perish. For a slave, this was only partially true. A slave was a valuable asset for his master, so he usually received food and shelter whether he worked or not –at least for a certain period. A slave owner would protect his investment as long as he expected a profit in the end. Only when the slave steadfastly refused to work and thereby demoralized the rest (in other words, when he literally became more trouble then he was worth) and the master could not profitably sell him on, he might be tempted to sacrifice him as an example to the others. A superannuated slave did not represent a potential profit anymore, so some planters decided to turn them loose and let them fend for themselves. The authorities were vehemently against this practice, since these slaves often became a burden on public funds and their relatives and friends were likely to take offense and confront such a calculating planter.<br /><br />The slaves were inspired by the example given by their masters -and that was not very inspiring. John Gabriel Stedman has vividly described a typical day in the life of a typical Surinam planter. Our man rose at six o’clock in the morning and went to the verandah where his coffee and pipe awaited him. He was served by at least a dozen of the most beautiful slaves. After the morning snack, the overseer arrived to report on the progression of the work, the number of slaves who had disappeared, fallen ill, died, or recovered, who had been sold or born. The slaves who had not performed their work to satisfaction, who had feigned illness, or had been drunk were presented. They were tied to the posts of the verandah and soundly whipped. Then the <em>dresneger</em> came to report and was sent off with a curse, because he had allowed some slaves to fall ill. Next the <em>crioromama</em> arrived with the children, who had been freshly bathed in the river. They greeted their lord by clapping in their hands. The owner sent them away for a breakfast of plantains or rice. After all this exertion, the master departed on a little promenade, dressed in a morning frock of the finest linen. He strolled around the house on his ease, or went to inspect the fields on horseback. About eight o’ clock, he returned. When he planned to go on a visit, he changed clothes, otherwise he retained his morning frock. In the former case he replaced his trousers with a sturdier pair and a Negro boy put his shoes on. Others combed his hair and shaved him, while a fourth chased off the mosquitoes. He was escorted to his <em>tentboot</em> by a boy with a parasol. The boat had already been stocked with wines, tobacco and fruits by the overseer. If the planter decided to stay at home, he sat down to breakfast at ten o’ clock and consumed a profusion of delicacies: ham, smoked tongue, fowl or boiled pigeons, plantains, sweet cassava, bread, butter, cheese, etc, which he washed down with beer, Madeira or Moselle wine, or champagne. The overseer was allowed to keep him company. Afterwards, the planter relaxed with a book, played billiards or chess, till he retired for a siesta in his hammock, where two Negroes fanned him constantly. At three o’ clock, he awakened, washed and perfumed himself and positioned himself at the table again for the noon meal, which featured the finest dishes the country could supply. The meal ended with coffee and several glasses of liquor. At six o’ clock, the overseer came to report again and the whippings start anew. The planter gave his orders for the next morning and spent a delightful evening drinking punch or sangriss, playing cards and smoking. Between ten and eleven, he was undressed by his valet and retired to his hammock with his concubine. No wonder that, with these epitomes of diligence as an example, the slaves refused to exert themselves unduly.<br /><br />Since a slave was worth money not only because of what he made, but also because of what he was, some slaves managed to excuse themselves from performing their tasks competently or even at all without serious repercussions. Many a slaveholder had to endure sloppy work and malingering to an extend that any employer of free men would have found unacceptable. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the slaves acknowledged that their master had the right to expect a fair amount of work from them. All the more as it will not have escaped them that he could not provide them with their coveted distributions if he did not have a cash crop to sell. However, the opinions of masters and slaves differed fundamentally on the question of what constituted a ‘fair amount’ of work.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264928116476662066" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 242px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW9Olzl9HG3RR9DJFBgvUBNaZRSk6uKl7AUZQ-Wor_DB-ZIYFxxuXsJoINKOFtrtQh5iLjwrc0EoMYBwBZiqSTVvDoXh9Bs4GHT66WkihK_UK9cIcgot8gFyhTUESwcqgWGputM0DQ88k/s400/straatvegers.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Many white observers have described the Surinam slaves as lazy and inept. Lammens, for example, who (for a member of the master class) made a reasonably objective witness, lamented: <em>“the negro is slow and lazy … the slaves always have to be prodded and stimulated: -it is an eternal and daily work to point out to them what they have to do and how they have to do it: -their general disposition is to be as incompetent as possible and to have no time: - never a negro shall try, if he can perform a task, that he does not do daily: -he begins with stating in advance that he does not know how to do it, or is unable to do it: -the slave is busy for an hour with something, that can be done by a European servant, in a quarter of an hour: - he shall never carry two objects at the same time, but rather walk three times than one: - charge him with a certain job, and fail to check it every day: certainly you will find everything neglected.</em>” Slaves scorned dilligence and not only among themselves: Herlein claimed that <em>“it seems that the Slaves do not even respect industrious Christians”.</em><br /><br />A few authors, however, were well aware of the fact that the slaves did not mind working hard at tasks they enjoyed. Hostmann concluded that rowing, tiring though it might be, pleased the slaves enormously: <em>“the steady change of places and objects counterbalances the greatest exertion, and with amazement one sees, how Negroes can keep this up for days”.</em> Woodcutting, fishing and hunting were popular jobs as well and Hostmann therefore concluded that <em>“distaste of all those activities, that demand a steady, regular and ceaseless labor, prevails among the Negroes beyond all understanding”</em>. Such repetitive, monotonous tasks were, of course, found most frequently in agricultural labor and in Africa were delegated as much as possible to the people with the lowest status: the young, the women and the slaves.<br /><br />Some authors blamed the climate for the slaves’ reluctance to work and pointed out that the whites were affected even worse. Teenstra observed that<em> “Surinam is because of a blessed climate and a fertile soil so rich in noble varieties of plants and fruits, that nature offers of its own accord, without any human help, to the indolent inhabitants, that this mildness stimulates the lazy carelessness greatly and paralyses all diligence and industry”.<br /></em><br />Kuhn acknowledged that the lack of enthusiasm for new inventions among slaves was usually well-founded: <em>“It is generally professed, that the Negroes cannot be persuaded, to use new tools: it is true, the negro rather sticks to the old; but this is induced primarily by mistrust, and by the supposition, that the goal is not, to contribute to his ease, but to oblige him to perform more work”</em>. Blom partly concurred, but he also doubted the good sense of some slaves: “[They]<em> are much attached to their habits, and it is difficult to habituate them to others, even then when these would contribute to lighten their labor; they are used to carry everything on their head, this has spurred more than one Planter to try to introduce the wheel-barrow on the plantation; as long as a white was present they did not dare to refrain from using it, but he was barely out of sight, or they put the full wheel-barrow on their head, and did their work this way”.</em> This conservatism fed by mistrust certainly complicated the work of the slaves. Von Sack observed with amazement how they would poke holes for the cotton seeds with their fingers, instead of using a digging stick (a common enough item in Africa), so they got back pain from stooping all the time.<br /><br />The consequent sabotage of innovations by the slaves was the main reason that the tools used in the colony remained rather primitive. To mention but one case: the hoe was never replaced by the plough. Mrs. Boxel, owner of the <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/boxel/index.nl.html">plantation</a> by the same name, sent a plow to the colony as early as 1735, but the reception was cool. Even in the 19th century, the plow remained conspicuously absent and Von Sack bemoaned this archaic situation, because the flat fields were so eminently suited to the use of a plow. Surinam was of course handicapped by a lack of draught animals, as Van der Smissen pointed out, but he too identified the opposition of the slaves as the prime obstacle for technological advancement.<br /><br />Some planters used physical force freely in their attempts to prod the slaves to do more work. It was not an effective way to stimulate productivity, however. Firstly, this would have necessitated a large number of supervisors and these were not available in the colony. Secondly, they had to be totally ruthless, for it is only possible to get a maximum amount of work from slaves by force if one transforms the plantation into a kind of concentration camp. [For this reason, blacks could not adequately fill these positions. Despite the fact that some of them did not hesitate to apply the whip liberally to the backs of their fellow slaves, they were too dependent on them socially to face the risk of total alienation.] Thirdly, too great a show of force demoralized the slaves and fueled their desire for revenge. At the very least, it prompted them to try their luck in the forest. A more subtle system of punishments and rewards was needed to ensure more than the absolute minimum of work.<br /><br />Officially, the slaves had few, if any, rights. Only in the 19th century, the Dutch government produced formal regulations with regard to food, clothing, workload and punishment. But, as in any totalitarian system, soon unwritten rules were established that defined certain minimal rights. The masters liked to pretend that these were privileges that had to be earned by faithful toil, but the slaves knew better and took offense when their established rights were trampled on. To stimulate diligence, the masters awarded genuine privileges that went beyond the limits set by the unwritten rules and that were sometimes branded as illegal by the authorities. They hardly ever tried to influence productivity directly by giving bounties, overtime pay, letting slaves compete for prizes, promising promotion or even eventual freedom (as some planters in the Old South did). Instead, they granted their slaves the opportunity to gain money by the sale of surplus products, did not object to frequent visits to other plantations, allowed them to have dance parties much more often than the law permitted, let them hunt with rifles and turned a blind eye to infractions of the plantation rules –in short, gave them some ‘elbow room’. A humorous example of ‘turning a blind eye’ was given by Bartelink. When Mr. Kilian, director of the plantation <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/potribo/">Potribo</a></strong>, noticed that the work was not going very well, he suggested to his <em>blankofficier </em>(Bartelink himself) to come along on a visit to the neighboring estate <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/boven-commewijnerivier/concordia/index.nl.html">Concordia</a></strong>, explaining <em>“Do you know what is wrong with them? They want to steal, and I will give them the opportunity to steal; therefore we go away together. If they have had their way, they will work twice as diligently.”<br /></em><br />The most elaborate form of this ‘privilege system’ could be found on the timber grounds. There the possibilities for effective supervision were limited, because the slaves often had to work far from the homestead and stayed in the forest for most of the week, without the slightest interference from their superiors. If dissatisfied, they could escape with the greatest ease, so they were taxed lightly. In addition, they were also granted much time to work their own plots and they were allowed to market the surplus and spent the money the way they saw fit. The outer boards of every tree they felled were theirs as well. Sometimes, they were even awarded the exclusive rights to certain kinds of wood (for example <em>letterhout</em>) and if the masters needed this wood, they had to buy it from their own slaves.<br /><br />Withdrawal of privileges (for example limiting social intercourse) was considered a severe punishment by the slaves. Therefore, it was often a much more effective way of keeping them in check than the use of the whip. In their turn, the slaves were keenly aware of the fact that refusing or sabotaging work was the best strategy to hurt the master. Hence, they often threatened to run off if they did not get what they wanted and a little demonstration of their ability to bring the plantation business to a grinding halt was often enough to make a planter capitulate.<br /><br />So it can be concluded that the level of productivity of the slaves reflected a compromise between the demands of the masters and the obstruction of the slaves and since the resilience and the abilities of the parties varied from place to place, the results also did.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Regulation of the work.<br /></strong><br />Despite their reputation for anarchism in agricultural matters, the Surinam planters usually ran a tight ship. The French traveler Malouet was struck by the <em>“uniformity in order and method in the distribution and the execution of the tasks”</em>. In Surinam the <strong>task system</strong> was prevalent, because as a result of the lack of supervising personnel the slaves had to work on their own most of the time, guided only by the Negro <em>bastiaan</em> (driver).<br /><br />The <strong>gang system</strong>, as it was in use in the Old South and Jamaica, was not suitable. It could lead to a better performance, but required constant attention. In such a system there were usually three gangs: a ‘first gang’, consisting of the prime field hands, who performed most of the heavy labor; a ‘second gang’, consisting of elderly and sickly slaves, plus the recently delivered women, who did the less strenuous jobs); and a third (or ‘grass’) gang, consisting of children. The members of these gangs were considered to be more or less equal in ability, so they were often positioned in (sometimes competing) rows and the strongest hands were put in front to dictate the pace. The others had to keep up as best as they could and were whipped if they fell behind.<br /><br />In Surinam, all the slaves in the field force were given assignments to perform within a given period of time (day or week). Such an assignment was called a <em>merk</em>. These could be allotted to individuals or groups (usually consisting of 5 or 6 slaves). The size of these assigments had been determined by trial and error and consequently varied from plantation to plantation. In theory little difference was made between the capabilities of the strongest slaves and those of their weaker fellows, but when giving out tasks the planter had to take into account that his workforce did not solely consist of prime hands. If they did not get enough time to finish their tasks, the weaker slaves would be chronically behind schedule and this would lead to frustration and disturbances. So the planters were inclined to take the performance of the average slave as a guideline. This meant that the strongest hands could finish their assignments with the greatest ease and had ample time to tend their provision grounds, while the weakest slaves had to struggle constantly to finish their jobs in time and often had to work their plots on Sundays.<br /><br />This gives perspective to the remark of an ‘anonymous colonist’, who had observed that diligent slaves could be off around two o’ clock in the afternoon, but that many of their fellows were two <em>merken</em> behind by the end of the week and consequently had little chance of any free time. Van der Smissen took the fact that the slaves came back from the fields singing and jesting in the evening as evidence for his contention that their workload was not particularly heavy. Since a slave had to be near death to stop singing, this proves little, but in all probability slaves without handicaps were not overtaxed on most plantations.<br /><br />There were of course masters who were never satisfied and who abused the task system until the hands ran away in desperation. Stedman mentioned a slave called Marquis, who had worked especially hard to finish his <em>merk</em> early so he could tend his provision plot, only to have his master conclude that this <em>merk</em> had obviously been too modest (so he was ordered to dig 600 feet instead of the 500 feet originally demanded of him). Once a tradition had been established on a plantation, however, it was hard to augment the workload, as many a novice director found out. Any attempt to increase the <em>merken</em> met with fierce opposition of the slaves and more often than not, they were forced to back down.<br /><br />In the 19th century, the Dutch government tried to regulate the size of the daily assignments formally. This was a difficult, if not impossible, job since the number of feet a slave could dig, or the amount of coffee he could pick depended very much on the circumstances. Moreover, the authorities operated on the (wrong) premise that most slaves were greatly overworked, so they tended to be excessively lenient. The <em>merken</em> they came up with were unacceptably small for most planters and since the means to enforce the regulations were lacking, they ignored them with impunity.<br /><br />It has often been claimed that slavery tended to blur the division of labor between the sexes and as proof for this thesis the proponents pointed to the fact that men and women worked side by side in the fields and that women sometimes took on the heaviest jobs. There was of course a profound difference with the habits of farmers in Europe, but these practices reflected rather faithfully African horticultural traditions. A certain division of labor existed, even in the field. Both sexes hoed and weeded, but some tasks were almost exclusively male: such as digging trenches, felling large trees and cutting cane. Few tasks were exclusively female though; most of the jobs women were involved in were also done by (older) men and children.<br /><br />Outside the field, the task system was not much in use, although a tradesman like a cooper might be ordered to deliver a certain number of barrels a week. When processing the crop, continuous work was demanded of the slaves, but it was hardly feasible to insist on a particular amount of sugar cured or berries bagged. What work had to be done was usually decided ad hoc by the supervisor. More often than in the field the slaves worked under the direction of a white, who made sure that they did not stay idle for a moment. The house slaves merely had to be at the back and call of their master, which could mean that they were sometimes busy day and night, but at other times could take it easy.<br /><br />There was little specialization among the unskilled slaves. Most slaves would perform all kinds of menial jobs in the field, the mill, or the coffee shed, although some were referred to specifically as <em>delver</em> (digger). Of all the field hands, they were apprised the highest. If a male slave showed any promise, he was often promoted out of the field soon. Most female slaves had no such luck.<br /><br />One group of bondsmen was relieved from fieldwork out of principle: the coloreds. It is not entirely clear why this exception was made. Coloreds were often considered to be less sturdy than full blacks, but lack of strength did not absolve blacks from toil in the field. It is more likely that the work was considered too demeaning for the descendant of a white, or that the masters used this privilege as a means of obtaining the loyalty of the colored group. It was an irrevocable privilege: I have found no instances of colored slaves being sent into the field as a punishment, while this often happened to privileged blacks. Because African-born slaves predominated on most plantations until the end of the 18th century and whites were discouraged from ‘interfering’ with slave women, the coloreds formed a tiny group on the majority of the plantations. Most of them ended up in Paramaribo.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Fieldwork.</strong><br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264925475140355346" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvVlNS-8fvMULMMxsLyOJjdy2n5lgLdAEOxW_T_KpltBZUpblgQB_ecpJ5IkeH4Tw820GOAD28xtj2HUd_nmWOU_T5Ss3JL4T3EcJaooqu94mZreOp3xWfSFvb_XuUY_mXitThEBUqeo/s400/rietkappen.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><em>Sugar plantations.</em><br /><br />The slaves of Surinam were not very fortunate considering the work they were stuck with. A varying, but always considerable, percentage of them was employed on sugar plantations, where, as was generally acknowledged, the labor was most strenuous. Furthermore, the establishment of such a plantation was generally difficult and hazardous to the health of the slaves, due to the fact that they were often located on swampy grounds and to the necessity of harnessing the surplus of water.<br /><br />The initial layout was the same for all plantations. First a suitable tract of land was selected. At the end of July or the beginning of August, the start of the long dry season, the trees were felled. To clear 20 acres of land occupied 20 slaves for three weeks. The wood was left to dry for a couple of weeks and then burned. On clay soils care was taken that the peat did not burn as well. If there was little peat, the wood was left to rot. On meager sandy soils the ashes were valuable fertilizers, so there the wood was burned methodically. The large pieces that remained were carried from the fields and the stumps were dug out. In Nickerie and Coronie the stumps were left in the field and coffee and plantains were grown between them. After the fields had been cleared, some makeshift huts were built for the slaves of <em>pallisade</em> wood covered with <em>pina</em> leaves. They could last about four years.<br /><br />At the same time, the impoldering started. First, the site of the <em>dam</em> (surrounding dike) was chosen carefully. The peat was removed and thrown on the fields. If any was left, the <em>dam</em> would start leaking eventually. Then the slaves dug the <em>loostrens</em> (drain off trench). The clay was thrown on the <em>dam</em> and trampled firmly. The <em>dam</em> was usually 10 feet high and 10 feet wide, the <em>loostrens</em> 15 feet wide. Next, the land was divided into beds. They were separated by narrow trenches. The dimensions of the beds varied somewhat according to the crop, but an acre (1 <em>ketting</em> wide and 10<em> ketting</em> long) was usually divided into three beds. In the middle of each bed a small canal called <em>trekker </em>was cut, which was connected to the <em>loostrens</em>. It was about twice as wide and deep as the trenches. The next step was the construction of a stone sluice or<em> koker</em> (smaller wooden sluice) on both sides of the cleared fields. They were incorporated in the dike and regulated the water level.<br /><br />In the Lowlands, where water-driven mills were standard, additional waterworks were necessary. The system of canals that powered the mill was independent of the drainage system. The mill was situated at the end of the <em>molentrens</em> (mill trench), which extended as deep as the cultivated fields and received water from the<em> inneemsluis</em> (intake sluice). Other trenches <em>(vaartrensen</em>) were constructed on both sides of the <em>molentrens</em> at distances of 10 <em>ketting</em> apart. In front, the <em>voortrens</em> extended over the whole breath of the cultivated fields. These trenches served two purposes: to store water at high tide for powering the mill and to transport the cane. When water started rising during high tide, the <em>inneemsluis</em> was opened and the water was allowed to pour in as long as possible. Then the gates were closed and when the river had fallen about a meter beneath the level in the trenches, they were opened again. The water was directed through a brick gutter (<em>kom</em>) and propelled a wheel, which in turn powered the mill.<br /><br />It was practically impossible to perform the sophisticated construction jobs with a crew of ‘saltwater Negroes’, so it was vital that there were some older and more experienced slaves among the workforce. The whole system demanded a considerable amount of maintenance work. According to Blom, all trenches had to be cleaned every six weeks. On the other hand, if the sluices and the mill were built sturdily and cared for properly, the system could function flawlessly for ages.<br /><br />In most cases, the land was too rich (<em>gulzig</em>) to be suitable for cash crops right away. Sugar cane, for example, shot up sky-high on new fields. The stalks then contained little sugar and heavy rains brought them down and made them rot. Consequently, new lands served as provision grounds for the slaves during the first couple of years. In the short rainy season, the fields were prepared for planting, a job requiring thirty slaves for every 20 acres. The first crops usually consisted of <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayer">tayer</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantain">plantains</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize">corn</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava">cassava</a>. Care had to be taken with the latter, because it exhausted the soil quickly. After two to six years, the remnants were removed and the cultivation of the cash crop could start.<br /><br />For the planting of cane, the soil was turned over with the hoe (or if there were few roots with the spade), the old ditches were filled, the beds were divided anew and new ditches were dug. Next, a rope was stretched over the breath of four or five beds and the strongest slaves dug trenches of six feet deep and nearly a foot wide. They were made at a distance of four to five feet from each other. The removed soil was spread over the beds. When the plantation was located on sandy soil or former <em>kapoewerie</em> land, they sometimes were narrower. The weaker slaves planted the cane. Either the tops (<em>ratoons</em>) or pieces of the stalks could be used, although the tops were preferred. In every trench three rows of cane were deposited, in such a way that the tops nearly touched. They were covered with a thin layer of soil and after about five days the sprouts started to show. Usually, a row of corn was planted after every two rows of cane. Three to four weeks later, the slaves started to weed and they put additional earth on top of the young plants. This procedure had to be repeated twice, after which the trench was fully filled. When the cane was about six months old, the lower leaves shriveled and were torn off (<em>riettrassen</em>). This work had to be done carefully: if the slaves tore off too many leaves, the stalks would wither, but if they left on too many, the sugar content of the cane decreased. This work was combined with renewed weeding and repeated every four weeks until the cane was 11 months old. Then it was left alone until the harvest.<br /><br />On the high sandy grounds the cane was ripe in 15 months, in the lowlands it took three months longer. When the director decided that the moment for the harvest had come, the strongest slaves cut off the stalks close to the ground. They chopped off the leaves and the tops and threw the stalks behind them. The other slaves gathered and bound them and carried the bundles to <em>keenponts</em> (small flat-bottomed boats), or ox-carts (on some of the highland plantations). The leaves were left to dry for a couple of days and then burned. Some earth was thrown on the <em>stoelen </em>(stumps) and the plants that had died were replaced (<em>supplyen</em>). In the lowlands, the trenches were cleaned (<em>modderen</em>) after every two harvests (<em>malingen</em>)<em>. </em><br /><br />When a field yielded less then 1,5 hogsheads of sugar an acre, the cane was removed, the soil was turned over and the entire process started again. This could be repeated several times, depending on the quality of the soil, but eventually the land was exhausted and then it was allowed to regenerate as <em>kapoewerie</em>.<br /><br />After cutting the cane was transported to the sugar mill. Most mills consisted of a boiling shed (<em>kookhuis</em>) and a separate distillery shed (<em>dramhuis</em> or <em>stijlhuis</em>). At some distance the <em>trashuis </em>(shed for keeping the pressed stalks, which were used as fuel) was located, always to the east of the other buildings on accord of the prevailing winds. One side of the <em>kookhuis</em> was usually open. On the other side the fireplace (<em>vuurplaats</em>) was located. The fire was fed with cane straw (<em>tras</em>) or wood. The slaves who worked here often did so as a punishment and were chained to the wall. The motion of the water-driven wheel was transmitted to three presses (<em>rolders</em>) standing vertically. The one in the middle (the ‘king’) propelled the others. In a <em>beestewerk</em>, the king was put in motion by animals pulling beams attached to it. Most water-driven mills had a double set of kettles (8), while the animal-driven mills had one set (4 or 5). These were cemented onto a brick wall, with a chimney passing under them. The fire was located under the last and smallest kettle (the <em>test</em>), where as a result the temperature was highest. The kettles were made from red copper.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264925109446869506" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 270px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhhU-kfsHrtosVKPzTGMKmlz13O6DJ3XPSUFezbwMCOzSjAUzS90DYkOPIin2GF-NLCu1baCCAiq3CYZ5O-teV-7_li1uqZzP0991ylRCsTM6q1vzFApObm8VFbvWrYsCIsY-3ZkTiINE/s400/Suikerverwerking_jpg.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">An average sugar mill employed about 26 people (more if there was a double set of kettles): 8 children, who carried the cane to the mill; 2 <em>rietstekers</em>, who pushed the cane between the first two <em>rolders</em>; 2 <em>trasdraayers</em>, who pushed the cane back between the second and third <em>rolder</em>; 1 <em>baksielaadster</em>, who gathered the pressed stalks; 2 <em>onderhalers</em>, who collected the juice; 1 <em>voorhaler</em>, usually a <em>malinker</em> (sickly slave), who cleaned the sieve; 4 <em>trasdragers</em>, who carried off the finished cane; 3 <em>suikerkokers</em> (4 or 5 when there was a double set of kettles), who supervised the boiling process; 1 (2) <em>vuurstokers, </em>who stoked the fires; 2 (4) <em>trasdragers</em>, who supplied the dried cane straw for the fire(s).<br /><br />Before processing the cane, the <em>rolders</em>, gutters and everything else the cane juice (called <em>likker</em> or <em>lecker </em>by the whites and <em>lika </em>by the slaves) came into contact with had to be cleaned thoroughly, because the slightest contamination would spoil it. The cane was first passed through the first and second <em>rolder</em> and then passed back again through the second and third <em>rolder</em>. The pressed cane was put in a <em>baksie </em>(basket) by a woman and carried to the <em>trasloods</em>. The <em>likker</em> flowed through a wooden trough to a large wooden cask (<em>sisser</em>). At the end of the trough a copper sieve had been installed to catch the dirt, which had to be cleaned continuously. In the <em>sisser </em>some quicklime was added to aid purification. The <em>likker</em> was poured through a copper sieve into the first kettle (<em>inneemketel</em>). When it was heated, a dirty froth appeared on top, a process that was expedited by adding more quicklime. It was strained off with a copper skimmer. The froth was diverted to the <em>stijlhuis</em> by a separate through. When the <em>likker</em> had been heated sufficiently, it was transferred to the second kettle, where more forth was produced. In the third kettle the frothing should stop. Between the first and third kettle the <em>likker</em> lost 4/5 of its weight.<br /><br />The most competent sugar boiler was stationed near the <em>test</em>. He had to decide whether the <em>likker</em> had boiled long enough. This was a pivotal decision, because when the <em>likker</em> was cooked too long, it became too dark and could get a bitter taste and if it was not cooked long enough, it yielded too little sugar and too much molasses upon cooling. The smaller the <em>test</em>, the better the quality of the sugar. A regular <em>test</em> delivered about 300 pounds of sugar in one go.<br /><br />When the <em>likker </em>had been boiled to the consistency of syrup, it was spooned into wooden casks (<em>koelders</em>) and left to cool while being stirred from time to time. When the mass was ‘hand warm’, it was transferred to barrels with holes in the bottom. These were put on top of a <em>barbecot</em> (wooden grating), so the molasses could drip out (<em>laxeeren</em>). It was gathered in a molasses cask underground. This process took about six weeks. The resulting sugar was rather crude and called <em>muscovado</em> sugar. A part was refined further to white sugar for interior use. The <em>muscovado</em> sugar was shipped to Europe after control by the <em>keurmeesters</em>. This control had been made obligatory after some planters had cheated during the curing process in the early period, for example by adding train- or lamp-oil, which spoiled the taste of the sugar.<br /><br />The froth was used in the <em>stijlhuis</em> to distill <em>dram</em> (high octane rum). It was possible to use molasses, but this was rarely done in Surinam. The froth was gathered in a kettle, transferred to a large cask, covered and left to ferment for a couple of days. As a result, the dirt rose to the top and could be skimmed off. The remaining juice was poured into the distillation kettle and heated. The vapor was led through a tube, which passed through a stone cistern filled with cold water. The first liquor produced was called <em>voorloop</em>, then the <em>dram</em> condensed and the process finished with faints called <em>loowijn</em>. When the latter was distilled again, the result was an even fierier drink called <em>kilduyvel </em>(kilthum). With every hogshead of sugar cured came four jugs of dram and four jugs of molasses.<br /><br />To be put to work on a sugar plantation was regarded by the slaves as the worst possible deal. Much of the pressure they suffered was the result of economic necessity. Sugar plantations could gain much by the economics of scale: it was easier to produce 700 hogsheads of sugar with 300 slaves than 200 hogsheads with 100 slaves, Teenstra maintained. Most Surinam sugar esates were undermanned and this was most keenly felt during the harvest season. Once the cane was ripe, no delay was possible. It had to be cut immediately, or the juice would spoil. After the cane had been cut, it had to be processed speedily, although Teenstra claimed it could keep for about six days in favorable weather. If it was left too long, the juice would turn sour. Consequently, it was not feasible to spread the workload evenly over the year. The harvest period lasted from four to six months and during this period a water-mill could only function once (seldom twice) a month for about nine days on end. Two times a day cane was pressed for 4 to 5 hours. Depending on the number of slaves on a plantation two or three <em>spellen</em> (teams) were formed, which had to work through the night in turn. Therefore, slaves had to stomach three to nine nightshifts a month. On some archaic estates nightshifts might be demanded of them on two out of every three nights.<br /><br />In Blom's opinion, a field slave on a sugar plantation could cultivate 4,5 acre in cane and provisions at most, though on many plantations they had to tend more. In the 19th century, 5 acres was considered the minimum. This augmentation of the workload was mitigated somewhat by reducing maintenance work, but it is certain that with regard to the workload the slaves of the 19th century were no better off than their predecessors, in spite of the improvements in technology.<br /><br />In his description of a ‘typical’ sugar estate, Blom included a sketch of the personnel needed. For a plantation of 1600 acres with a water-driven mill, producing 500 hogsheads of sugar a year, this amounted to a slave force consisting of: 100 field hands, 4 drivers, 3 provision guards, 8 carpenters, 2 masons, 6 coopers, 2 nurses, 1 fisherman and hunter, 1 cow guard, 2 gardeners, and 5 house maids. An additional 4 slaves would be ‘commanded’ by the authorities, 32 were unable to work due to illness or old age and there were 62 children. Hence a total of 232 slaves. [In reality, a plantation of this size was hardly likely to have such a large slave force.] A smaller plantation with a <em>beestewerk</em>, producing 250 hogsheads of sugar needed in his opinion: 50 field hands, 2 drivers, 2 provision guards, 4 carpenters, 1 mason, 3 coopers, 1 nurse, 1 fisherman and hunter, 2 cow guards, 2 grass cutters, 2 gardeners, 5 house maids. Furthermore, 2 slaves were ‘commanded’, 14 were too old or ill to be of any use and 28 were too young. As a rule, the smaller the plantation, the smaller the proportion of slaves engaged in fieldwork, because for some tasks outside the field (particularly housework) a certain minimum number of participants were deemed necessary. Consequently, the other slaves were taxed heavier.<br /><br />Apart from the threats to the health of the slaves posed by nightshifts, the life on sugar plantations had other dangers as well. Cutting cane was backbreaking work and tired slaves sometimes mistook their own leg for a stalk. The sharp edges of the cane cut into their hands and feet. The work in the mill was even more risky. When pressing cane, a slave could easily get caught by the <em>rolders</em>. Therefore, the slaves laboring in the mill were forbidden to wear torn clothing and they often bared their torso to avoid being grabbed by the <em>rolders</em> and pulled between them. Sometimes they were obliged to smoke a pipe all the time to help them stay awake. Nevertheless, many a slave, because of carelessness or exhaustion, had <em>“his bones crushed creakingly”</em>. In some cases the whole body, except the skull, was dragged through, but in most instances the damage was restricted to hands and arms by a drastic measure: usually an axe waited within reach to chop off the trapped limb immediately. In later times, many mills were outfitted with an emergency door. If one of the workers was grabbed, the door was lowered at once, cutting off the water supply to the mill and causing the wheels to stop abruptly. The pressure of the water made them turn the other way, so the limb was released. During boiling, accidents were plentiful as well. Many slaves suffered severe burns and sometimes an unfortunate <em>suikerkoker</em> slipped, fell into the hot <em>likker</em> and died miserably.<br /><br />Other hazards were far from accidental. Stedman claimed that slaves who tasted the <em>likker</em> too often were sometimes punished by having their tongues cut out. I venture to say that he exaggerated a bit. Although the planters did try to keep the slaves from imbibing excessively liberal doses of <em>likker</em> or <em>dram</em>, they would almost always limit their corrective measures to a sound whipping. Moreover, the slaves were allowed to chew on pieces of the <em>“strengthening cane”</em> as often as they pleased.<br /><br /><em>Coffee plantations.<br /></em><br />On coffee grounds, the soil was initially prepared in nearly the same way as has been described before. Except in cases where the soil was meager, provisions were grown for a couple of years. After they were removed, the earth was turned over, the beds were laid out and new trenches were dug. The size of the beds was similar to those on sugar plantations. In each bed three to four rows of young coffee shoots were planted. Plantains were put between them to provide shade and if the soil was especially fertile, corn could be added to the mix. After four to five years, the trees were sufficiently grown and the plantains were torn out.<br /><br />When the young plants were a month old, the slaves went in to weed for the first time. This task had to be repeated every six weeks. The weeds were uprooted with a hoe and left in the field to rot. At the same time, dead wood and vines (<em>vogelkaka</em>) were removed. When the trees were mature, weeding was only necessary every three months. In the rainy seasons the dead trees were replaced and every three to four years the trenches were deepened.<br /><br />Coffee was generally picked in April/May and October/November, but these periods could vary considerably. In years of abundance, a campaign might take 10 to 12 weeks. When the trees were heavy with berries, one picker could harvest the equivalent of 15 to 20 pounds of clean coffee a day. For each pound of clean coffee he had to pick six pounds of berries. Usually a <em>merk</em> consisted of a certain amount of coffee, measured in baskets, which had to be picked each day. During bad years, the number of baskets demanded was too large and even if the slaves strained themselves to the utmost, they could gather no more than the equivalent of four to six pounds of clean coffee a day. The berries had to be carried home on the head, sometimes necessitating an hour’s walk with a load of nearly 100 pounds.<br /><br />The harvested berries were taken to the coffee shed, which was surrounded by a floor of grey tiles (<em>drogery</em>). First, the red hull had to be broken by a <em>breekmolen</em>. When this machine was not available, the slaves cracked the hulls between their hands or pounded them with stones. Next, the beans were rubbed with water through a sieve (<em>menarie</em>), till they fell through the holes. They were still covered with slime that had to be removed first. To this end, they were put in a basin with water, where they stayed the night over. The next morning more water was added and the mixture was stirred. Sometimes this procedure had to be repeated several times before the slime was gone. The beans were then brought to the <em>drogery</em> and spread on the floor. There they were dried by sun and wind while being turned over regularly with a broom (<em>sibi</em>). When they were dry, they were carried to the attic for curing. They were stirred every morning and evening to avoid fermentation. Before further processing, they were deposited in the<em> drogery</em> for another three days, till they were hard as stones.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264924716191813602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBpadjykfKcEJScLTdkyQ0XbV-8ZlZ2fW32VH5AuC61shFUvEMU-LGJM9ZMcC3Cotq2TjWoI6nlcHyJhdJNbafSfNqjioqqt7OEo-q_LLDzs6bp6vEbeEFqmbwgJuiJusod0wlrx5YjTo/s400/koffieloods.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Next, the dried beans were pounded in the <em>coffy mat</em> (either a single mortar made from a large stone, or the trunk of a tree in which 10 to 20 holes had been drilled). This work was done in the evening, after the slaves had returned from the fields. Because they were locked in to keep them from stealing, it often became intolerably hot and dusty in the shed. Every mortar was worked by two slaves, who pounded in turn. A girl took out the beans when they were ready and another refilled the mortar. The finished beans were brought to a <em>waaymolen</em> (a funnel with a fan beneath). They fell through the funnel, while the fan blew the hulls away. Then they were either winnowed or sieved. Finally, they were spread out on large grates and sickly slaves, or women who had just given birth, sorted out the broken beans (<em>pieken</em>). A slave could sort about 100 pounds of coffee a day. Finally, the beans, now displaying a bright blue color, were packed in bales and ready for shipping.<br /><br />The work on coffee plantations was considerably less arduous than the toil on sugar estates. The changes of falling victim to an accident were also less pronounced. For this reason, it was easier for the planters to hire additional labor during the harvest period, because the owners were less afraid to risk their valuable slaves. Since the coffee estates suffered more from the recession than the other plantations, the scarcity of personnel was aggravated during the 19th century. The solution for this problem was sought in the neglect of the coffee trees, so the slaves were hardly ever driven beyond endurance.<br /><br />Blom has also provided a sketch of several ‘typical’ coffee grounds. The most elaborate estate he could imagine had 1000 acres and produced 195,000 pounds of coffee a year. It needed 108 field hands, who each tended 4 acres, 3 drivers, 3 provision guards, 5 carpenters, 3 coopers, 2 masons, 2 nurses, 2 gardeners, 1 fishermen and hunter, and 5 house servants, while 5 slaves were commanded, 36 were old or infirm and there were 77 children. Few real coffee grounds will have reached such impressive proportions. The average estate was probably closer to the second example provided by Blom (a plantation producing 95,000 pounds of coffee with 124 slaves).<br /><br /><em>Cotton plantations.<br /></em><br />Cotton was an undemanding crop. After provisions had been grown on fresh soils for a couple of years, the first planting of cotton shoots was done in the rainy season, preferably by the end of December or the beginning of January. Three to four rows of cotton were planted in each bed. Weeding had to be done every five to six weeks and the scrubs had to be pruned every rainy season, but otherwise they needed little pampering. A cotton scrub could last for 25 to 30 years. Then it had to be cut, because otherwise the soil was damaged too much. Every four to five years the trenches were deepened and the silt was spread on the beds. One field slave could tend five to six acres of cotton without undue effort.<br /><br />The first picking commenced in September and could last till December. The second harvest, not as abundant as the first, took place in March and April. The harvest was frequently spoiled by excessive rain, caterpillars, weeds and ants. Once the bolts had opened, the cotton had to be picked soon, or the fibers would rot. The slaves had to go over the same field numerous times because the bolts opened at different moments. Each scrub yielded 0,5 to 1 pound of clean cotton a year (1 pound of clean cotton equaled 3 pounds of fibers) and a diligent slave could pick the equivalent of about 20 pounds of clean cotton a day. Sometimes, a <em>merk</em> of this magnitude proved to be too much and the planter had to contend himself with no more than 15 pounds, according to Teenstra. It seems some progress was made in this respect during the latter part of the 18th century, because Governor Nepveu considered 4 pounds the limit, even half of that when the bolts had not opened sufficiently. The slaves gathered the cotton in large bags that hung around their necks and it was later transferred to baskets.<br /><br />The picked cotton was brought to a shed, where it was dried. Next, the seeds had to be removed. This was initially done by hand, which was a tedious job indeed. A slave could sort no more than 12 pounds a day this way. At the end of the 18th century, the cotton gin was introduced and with the help of this ingenious apparatus a slave could treble his production. Operating this machine was usually done by men. The women threw the ginned cotton on top of a sieve and beat out the remaining seeds. Sometimes, children were ordered to pick out discolored cotton. Before mechanical presses came into use, the cotton was stuffed into sacks hanging from the beams of the shed by a slave jumping up and down on it.<br /><br />Blom has also given a description of the slave force of a ‘typical’ cotton plantation with 246 hands. They were divided as follows: 106 field workers, 3 drivers, 5 carpenters, 1 mason, 2 nurses, 2 gardeners, 1 cow guard, 1 fisherman and hunter, and 5 house servants; while 5 slaves were ‘commanded’, 38 too old or ill to work and there were 74 children. Although the slaves, on the whole, preferred to work on cotton plantations and seemed to thrive there, the forced concentration on very large units, which became the habit in later times, may have offset some of the positive effects of crop and climate.<br /><br /><em>Cocoa plantations.</em><br /><br />Cocoa was by far the easiest product to cultivate. It was the bad fortune of the Surinam slaves that the revenue lagged behind that of the other cash crops so much that cocoa production remained a peripheral pursuit as long as slavery lasted. If that had not been the case, the history of Surinam slavery might have taken a very different turn.<br /><br />Young cocoa plants are very vulnerable, so it was difficult to keep them alive. Often, they had to be grown in baskets for the first two months. After these initial tribulations, however, they needed little care. Parasitic plants had to be removed every couple of months and the trenches had to be raked clean of dead leaves, that was all. This level of maintenance left the slaves with a lot of spare time. Only the harvest period demanded greater efforts.<br /><br />The cocoa trees bore fruit twice a year. The pods were picked or knocked of the trees in March and April and once again in July. They were raked into heaps and left in the fields for a couple of days. Then they were carried to the shed, cut open and the seeds were taken out. In the beginning of the 18th century, fermentation does not seem to have been in use, but later the still pulpy seeds were thrown together, sprinkled with water, covered with banana leaves or cloth and left to ferment for a couple of days. This way the slime could be removed easily and the beans got their characteristic violet color. After drying they were packed in bales (140 pounds) or crates (300 pounds) and were ready for shipping.<br /><br />Unfortunately for the slaves, plantations with a monoculture of cocoa were always rare and by the time Blom gave his description of an ‘ideal’ cocoa plantation, they were no longer in existence. Since one slave could tend 200 cocoa trees with ease, each slave had six acres in his care in Blom’s example. Such a plantation with 1000 acres, producing 360,000 pounds of cocoa should have: 90 field hands, 3 drivers, 3 provision guards, 3 carpenters, 1 mason, 3 coopers, 2 nurses, 2 cow guards, 1 fisherman and hunter, 2 gardeners, 5 house maids, 4 slaves ‘on commando’, 30 seniors and invalids and 60 children.<br /><br /><em>Timber grounds.<br /></em><br />Timber grounds were without any doubt the most popular of the Surinam plantations as far as the slaves were concerned. Once ‘spoiled’ by the liberties inherent in logging, slaves were useless for other occupations, because they would resist such degradation with all their might. The nature of the work itself was the prime reason for their fierce attachment, because it combined several features that defined an enjoyable task for the slaves. Firstly, they worked practically without supervision. The timber concessions were often located deep into the forest, so the slaves went there on Monday morning and returned as soon as they had finished their <em>merk</em>. They took along sufficient food and spent the night in makeshift huts. Often, they were ready by Thursday afternoon and could go home to relax or tend their gardens. Secondly, the work itself was heavy, but it was done in the shade instead of in the blazing sun and the assignments were extremely reasonable.<br /><br />There was a considerable variation, but an ordinary <em>merk</em> for sawing was 18 boards of about 30 feet (or a total of 500 feet) a week per two slaves. Before the slaves could begin to saw, the trees had to be felled, the branches had to be removed and the trunks had to be squared (<em>vierkanten</em>). The usual <em>merk</em> for the latter job was 25 to 30 feet a day per slave. The outer boards of a tree were called <em>flabbe</em> and were reserved for the slaves. For this reason, they did not get any distributions from the master, except of clothes.<br /><br />Logging was strictly men’s work. The women had to carry the finished boards on their head to the master’s house, or to the river bank if the concession was too deep in the forest. They usually made two trips a day. Children under 20 years of age were not sent into the forest and presumably spent most of the day in idleness. Apart from the fact that the slaves had at least one day a week to work in their provision grounds, they were also given one free month a year to clear new grounds. The work seemed to agree with them, for the slaves on timber grounds were generally healthy looking, well muscled and bore and raised many children.<br /><br /><em>Government plantations.<br /></em><br />Ironically, the most profitable products entailed the most tedious, tiring and unhealthy work. Since Surinam slaveholders rarely made rational business calculations, whereby they took the depreciation of the value of their slave force and their land into consideration, they practically always opted for a quick gain and chose the product that yielded the most profit in the least time. Only if they had little capital to invest and were unable to borrow it, or if they had exhausted their land beyond redemption, they switched to less profitable crops.<br /><br />Only one group of slaves did not suffer from the dictatorship of the desire for speedy profit: the slaves owned by the Society of Surinam. From the beginning the Society exploited plantations of its own, but making a profit was only a secondary motive. In the early period of its rule, the main objective was to grow food for the slaves awaiting sale and for the slaves of the Society themselves. This was necessary because the private plantations could not even feed their own slaves, let alone provide a surplus. Later, the provision grounds of the Society were abandoned, except for some fields that were used for agricultural experiments. Some slaves of the Society labored in the stone quarry <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/worsteling_jacobs/index.nl.html"><strong>Worsteling Jacobs</strong></a>, which was not a very rewarding business. Consequently, the slaves were kept busy, but did not exactly overexert themselves. The Society and its employees also displayed a much more paternalistic ethos than most of the private entrepreneurs.<br /><br />The Dutch government found itself the reluctant owner of several plantations during the 19th century. These were mostly sugar and coffee estates and were supposed to be run as a normal enterprise, preferably yielding a profit. In reality, their opportunities far surpassed those of the private plantations. They were granted money for costly innovations that greatly lightened the burdens of the slaves. Moreover, the government regulations regarding the workload and the distributions were strictly enforced. The inevitable losses were covered by government subsidies. For the slaves, being put to work on these estates meant the first prize in the plantation lottery. They were much envied by their less fortunate colleagues, for whom there was little chance of substantially improving their lot as long as shortsighted capitalism reigned.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264931469489155762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 269px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-CykU8-xRKO_Xw93deKY8nHOJyhT2UTxLoB8LrobKPW9Xp1lkBje28uhIjQe2dW33hrSbj8ujms1o2hfZWIZ0vfProJweEzP8GWHcKUuqxr6P786gQwFaBKTCwC1gxRIWGzBpx8tk4Fc/s400/pont.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><br /><strong>Alternative work.</strong><br /><br />The majority of the plantation slaves were actual or potential field hands. However, a considerable minority managed to escape the fields temporarily or permanently. The percentage could fluctuate considerably, because the number of slaves actually working in these jobs was not determined by economic reasons alone.<br /><br />Take for example the house servants. Blom invariably reserved five slaves for this job, whether the plantation was large or small. He may have been partly correct, for the division of labor necessitated a minimum number of servants (a cook, a washerwoman, a valet, etc.), but a more important determinant was the number of whites present and the demands they made. When the owner and his family were residing on the plantation, the number of servants exploded. Some directors had a large ‘harem’ and rewarded their concubines with cushy jobs in the Big House. Remarkably, owners and administrators hardly ever interfered, even when a director took slaves from the field merely for his own pleasure.<br /><br />The number of non-field slaves also depended on the number of bondsmen with mixed blood on a plantation. They could not be sent into the field, so other tasks had to be found, or if necessary created, for them. Few slaves lighter than mulattoes remained on the plantations, they were nearly always dispatched to Paramaribo, perhaps because the less sophisticated crafts were deemed beneath their station and no jobs carrying sufficient prestige were available.<br /><br />The most prestigious position, driver (<em>bastiaan </em>or <em>basja</em>), could never be theirs. <em>Bastiaans</em> were nearly always full-blooded Negroes and often Africans, who were believed to be better able to handle recalcitrant subordinates. With the exception of the smallest ones, plantations usually had two or three drivers. On coffee grounds there was usually a field driver and a <em>loodsbastiaan</em>, who often doubled as <em>dresneger</em> (nurse). The slaves chosen for this job were often in their early thirties, had a reputation as a good, dependable worker and were able to dominate the other slaves without having to rely on the support of a white. This implied that they were physically strong and had no scruples about using violence. In return for their loyalty, the <em>bastiaans</em> did not have to perform manual labor and they were granted coveted privileges. They received larger rations and a greater share of the other distributions; they were permitted to have a separate cabin when others were not; they were allowed to marry more than one woman, etc. However, they were not able to keep themselves aloof from the other slaves the way the (mulatto) house servants and artisans often were. They lived among the field slaves, they intermarried with them and they had to face their anger if they abused their privileges.<br /><br />The <em>bastiaans</em> were in the best position to enrich themselves. They sometimes forced their underlings to work for them and pocketed the proceeds. Meanwhile, they prodded the other slaves harder to finish the abandoned tasks. This was a regular habit with some of the drivers working on Fort Nieuw Amsterdam. Many slaves resented this kind of exploitation and they did all they could to rid themselves of their tormentor. Others, however, seemed to have accepted this abuse as their due -like the tribute they would pay a chief. Bartelink, for example, observed on his plantation that some of the slaves were not where they were supposed to be. He wanted to make an end to this ‘loafing’ immediately, but an old slave woman stopped him before he could make a fool of himself: <em>“’If you do this you, will be irretrievably lost’, she told me; ‘the two men have gone to fish for the head bastiaan or to work on his provision ground. You will have him as well as the people against you. If you wait you will see, that the others will finish the two merken of the absentees in their free time”</em>. And indeed, it happened exactly as she had predicted.<br /><br />Eugene Genovese has devoted many pages to the ambiguous situation of the driver in the Old South. He emphatically disagreed with the writers that portrayed drivers as Uncle Toms -men who betrayed their people for material gains and whose cruelty against their fellow slaves was just as despicable as that of the white overseers. He pointed out that drivers were often intermediates between masters and slaves and bore the brunt of the dissatisfaction of both parties. Genovese was convinced that most drivers not only tried to help their people as best as they could, but that they would not hesitate to lead them into rebellion if the lines were crossed too often.<br /><br />In Surinam the situation was no different. Up to a point, the slaves had to swallow the abuse of a harsh driver, because he was backed by the authority of the master, but they had a powerful weapon at their disposition. Most plantations were plagued by scores of mysterious deaths, which greatly worried the directors as they were held responsible. Many a hated driver found himself denounced as a ‘poisoner’ by vengeful fellow slaves, who often built up such a convincing case that even the most skeptic director started to have doubts. In the 17th and early 18th centuries especially, the Court of Police took these accusations seriously and often convicted an accused on the shallowest evidence. The driver who escaped such a court case with his head still on his shoulders could consider himself lucky and no doubt returned to the plantation a chastised man. In other cases, unpopular drivers were attacked and severely beaten, or even killed by their irate victims.<br /><br />In many cases it turned out that <em>bastiaans</em> had close contacts with Maroons, or planned and led rebellions. They were eminently suited for such a role. Not only was their freedom of movement greater, but they were also in a position to command the participation of the other slaves, even if these were not very eager to risk their necks. For this reason, Maroons who wanted to enlist plantation slaves in their army often sought out the drivers first. That some <em>bastiaans</em> were eager to comply had a simple reason. The primary motive for rebellion was the loss of privileges and the <em>bastiaans</em> were among the few slaves who had really something to lose.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264935481598507954" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 287px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5OmtK4nQFjoXfZBIhujR3Bc_CGA73kK6rkSk1kXafs8xgM4Bm4gu4b1K3srCKWmdOFU3laopXLWs2Nd_jqAXDiYBkhrE-83h9KZPegYjGku-7ZpxkTnt3crCQ52qs5xms36nGG1Yz6R4/s400/schoenmaker.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The position of the artisans was often even more ambiguous. Many of them were of mixed descent. On some plantations there were black artisans only, but even they had usually not been dragged from the field, but had been selected as youths and had spent most of their life in the close proximity of whites. In the beginning of the slavery era, they were apprenticed to a white tradesman and often continued to work under his supervision. Later in the 18th century, white artisans became increasingly rare on plantations and the slaves worked largely on their own. To the surprise of their superiors, they frequently did exceptionally well. Salomon Sanders, a director of the <em>Bergwerk</em>, reported after buying 18 slaves: <em>“I have put Three of Those Slaves to Carpentry, And They have done the Whole Work again, Without having A White Carpenter Present, Also</em> [I put]<em> One with the Smith the Same Way, And One with the Mason, Who Shall also Be Capable in a short time, So They can Do their Work Alone, Without having A Boss Present”</em>.<br /><br />It is difficult to give any indication of the number of craftsmen on the average estate. A sugar plantation clearly needed more than other kinds of plantations of similar size (a fact overlooked by Blom), but an estimate of 10% of the field force would not be far off the mark. A run-of-the-mill plantation needed at least two carpenters, a mason, some coopers, a nurse, etc.<br /><br />The planters had more trouble with outlining the <em>merken</em> for tradesmen than for field hands. Most plantations dispensed with them entirely and the directors just gave ad-hoc orders every day. On some plantations, however, attempts at establishing proper assignments were made. There, carpenters had to repair a boat within a specified time, or coopers had to finish a certain number of barrels each week.<br /><br />The artisans were granted more lavish distributions than the field hands, but received less than the <em>bastiaans</em>. This should not be taken as a sign that the <em>bastiaans</em> were valued more: on most occasions, skilled craftsmen were appraised much higher than drivers. The reason for this is obvious: they could bring in extra cash, while the usefulness of the drivers was limited to their own plantation. The best artisans fetched the highest prices of all Surinam slaves. These were not surpassed by the ‘fancy prices’ paid for attractive girls who were reserved as concubines by their masters, or sent out to work as prostitutes, as was the case in the United States. In 1837, for example, someone offered 10.000 guilders for the master carpenter Lakey, but his owner would not part with him. Prices were dependent on the earning potential of the slave in question, so plantation artisans, who could not be hired out easily, were usually less valuable than their city colleagues.<br /><br />It is likely that many plantations had more artisans than they had use for. This was partly because they had little choice but to train colored youngsters for these jobs and partly because the master often gave in when a young slave showed aptitude for this kind of work and consented to have him apprenticed, even if he did not need an additional tradesman. The productivity of artisans was often rather low, possibly even lower than that of the field hands, if the reports are to be believed. No less an expert than Governor Mauricius claimed that one Dutch blacksmith could do the work of twelve slaves. He may have been exaggerating a bit, especially when black tradesmen were concerned, because they could be sent back to the field if they fell from grace by too much slacking.<br /><br />Driver and artisan were both ‘elite’ positions reserved for males. While in other colonies there might be female drivers directing the children’s gang, in Surinam a female driver was a rare phenomenon indeed. Women could only escape fieldwork by becoming a nurse or a <em>crioromama</em> (and for that they had to be very old), or by being elevated to the position of house servant. These jobs were designated by Michael Craton as ‘lower elite’, but this gives too good an impression. They were of course less strenuous than fieldwork and rewarded better (so they were much coveted), but, except for the housekeeper, they carried little prestige and afforded no special influence in the slave quarters.<br /><br />Few plantations with only a director present boasted many house servants. The number mentioned by Blom (5) gives a good indication. Most of these positions were reserved for women, but at least one, the <em>voetebooi </em>(valet), was a male preserve. Mulatto (or even lighter colored) women were the first choice, but these were absent on many plantations. Then housework was performed by black women, in which case it was not automatically a permanent (and certainly not a heriditary) position: the girls chosen were usually the favorites of the director and if they no longer pleased him, they were sent packing. The work around the house (except cooking) was not so specialized that deliberate training was indispensable. The uncertainty of the elevated status was reflected in the prices: while a <em>bastiaan</em> or a tradesman was worth considerably more than a <em>delver</em>, an ordinary house servant was not rated more valuable than a similar woman working in the field.<br /><br />There were also non-field jobs that did not carry any ‘elite’ connotations, for example the jobs reserved for superannuated field hands, like gardener or guardsman. The latter was a trying position, because both ‘foreign’ slaves and the slaves of the plantation themselves tried their utmost to steal what they could. Since the guards were no match for them physically, could not keep vigilant all the time, and were punished when they let the culprits get away, they had to resort to drastic measures. They were issued guns and they never hesitated to use them. Many a robber was killed or wounded when he failed to stand still at the first command.<br /><br />The most ingenious guards also invented nasty traps, as August Kappler observed: <em>“Many of these guards use a trick whereby their lust to steal agrees very badly with the thieves. He cuts from hard wood pins 3-4 inches long, that being very sharp are driven into a plank, so the points protrude about three inches. On one plank there are sometimes twenty of such pins. These planks now are hidden everywhere in the grass or along the ditches, where the thieves pass or have to jump in. In the latter case the pins gore the foot, break off and cause, when help is not given soon, gangrene most of the time.” </em><br /><br />Being a <em>roeineger</em> (rower) was usually not a specialized job. The strongest males alternated. Sometimes, even women were chosen: Adriaan Lammens once made a trip with several canoes <em>“each manned by ten or twelve rowers, mostly negresses, and two negroes who steered”.</em> Only when slaves were unsuitable for fieldwork, but still strong enough for considerable exertion (e.g. slaves whose Achilles tendon had been cut as punishment for running away), they were employed solely in this capacity. Notwithstanding the fact that the slaves cherished the chance to see something of the colony, the task was no sinecure. The boats had to make use of favorable currents, so the slaves usually had to row for an entire ‘tide’ (6 to 7 hours) without any rest. This was done twice a day and often several days on end. Nevertheless, the slaves vied with each other for the privilege, especially when Paramaribo lay at the end of the journey. The only specialized boatmen were slaves employed by the <em>pontevoerders</em>, professionals who transported goods and passengers to and from the plantations. Their enjoyment of a trip did not match that of the ‘amateurs’.<br /><br />On the Surinam sugar estates some slaves had jobs that demanded experience in the mill, which in other colonies were often reserved for whites. A good sugar boiler was worth his weight in gold, but was not set apart in quite the same way as the artisans. During the slack times, he had to work in the field just like the others. Since the work in the mill took place in uncomfortable circumstances, this job was not very popular, despite the fact that it often entailed considerable privileges.<br /><br />Most of the able-bodied male slaves could expect to be sent ‘on commando’ once in a while, generally for a couple of months at a time. This meant that these slaves were drafted by the government to help with the construction of fortifications, or to accompany bush patrols in the capacity of <em>draagneger</em> (carrier), or <em>schutterneger</em> (marksman). The planters resented this duty wholeheartedly and tried to sabotage the implementation as much as they could. In 1672, the Governor was obliged to threaten them with a stiff fine if they abducted their slaves from the fortifications at night.<br /><br />The planters did not only lament the fact that they were robbed of some of their most productive workers: while on duty the slaves might fall ill, run away, or even die. They also feared that the slaves they got back were changed for the worse by their experiences. The contact with slaves from other owners might have given them a whole new perspective on their circumstances. They might have been mistreated so much by their commander that they returned vengeful and morose. In case of an accident the planter was compensated, but not when he got back an intractable slave. Moreover, the planters were convinced that their slaves were often not used for the work they had been commanded for, but for the benefit of employees of the Society. So the attempts to sabotage this scheme were legion, for example by sending nothing but <em>malinkers</em> without tools or food -with members of the courts often giving a bad example. The reluctance of the planters to part with their slaves was increased by the fact that they often had to wait a long time for the money due to them. The plantation <strong>Maria Petronella</strong>, for example, was paid in 1812 for work performed in 1803!<br /><br />The objections of the slaves against this form of service were not nearly as great. For them it meant, at the very least, a temporary release from the boredom of plantation life. Moreover, the slaves learned things that could be useful, especially on patrol –for example Maroon hide-outs. They might also get information about the use of ‘poisons’ and other ways to strengthen their position at home. On the other hand, they ran the risk of being abused by strangers and were forced to hazard their lives for the sake of maintaining white supremacy. The remarkable truth is that very few slaves tried to escape while on patrol, even though the circumstances seemed ideal.<br /><br />The planters tried to extract a hefty fee for the services of their slaves. At first, the rate was twelve pounds of sugar a day. This was later changed to twelve <em>stuivers</em>, of which the owners received half in cash: the remainder was held back to settle their debts with the Society. In 1745, the Court of Police and Criminal Justice raised the fee to 24 <em>stuivers</em> a day, in spite of the bitter protests of Governor Mauricius, who lamented: <em>”Isn’t it an unfair ursury … that one can hire out a Slave, that one can buy for 250 guilders or less, for 24st a day, and thus within a year win back the whole purchase-price”</em>. He was nevertheless obliged to pay this rate <em>“because we ... need them absolutely and I absolutely can get them no other way”</em>. A year later, however, he ordained that the price of a hired slave was not to rise above 84 guilders a year, especially in the case of a carpenter or shingle cutter. Hiring such a slave, even at an exorbitant rate, could be a profitable venture. In 1742, a carpenter cost 27 <em>stuivers</em> a day (an ordinary field hand 15 <em>stuivers</em>). If one put hired carpenters to sawing, they could deliver 40 feet of wood a day, with one foot of <em>wane </em>costing<em> </em>6 <em>stuivers</em> and one foot of <em>copie</em> 4 <em>stuivers</em>. Six slaves could cut 500 shingles a day, which could be sold for 18 guilders.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264927321023074274" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 282px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhZtwDn6zNoXMe6OHMJ_hihyCH5k0ejkDe536TmPFbIHer7qeIYWJoZohmnm2aIoThYlQB33ZpFApF48Na4nXR_S_wYJAN9HpclMNO37HdcX36PwVb22UJapBd5hVsVimSjlGQ2ueA18/s400/verkoopsters.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong><br />City jobs.<br /><br /></strong>Most of the city slaves were house servants or artisans, but their sitaution differed fundamentally from that of their counterparts on the plantations. Women slaves predominated in Paramaribo. Many of the men would have been more useful elsewhere, but they were allowed to stay on for the sake of their partners. If there was no work for them in a household as coachman, gardener, or footman, they were either trained in a craft, or sent out to earn their keep as day-laborers.<br /><br />The life of a house servant in the city could hardly be compared with that on the plantation. Having many servants was an important status symbol and so was their appearance. Since they had to reflect the affluence of their masters, they were decked out in the finest clothing. Governor Nepveu recorded with horror that many a city mansion employed 30 to 50 servants. Even when the white family was quite large, these could not be kept usefully occupied for even a fraction of the time. Consequently, they had a lot of leisure. A large part of the house servants was of mixed descent. They were highly conscious of their exalted position and defended the status of the household fiercely. They kept aloof from the slaves of poorer masters.<br /><br />House servants had to wait on their masters hand and foot, but they were not exactly overtaxed. The work that could not be avoided, they often did slovenly. Many whites heartily complained about this nuisance. Governor Mauricius, for instance, noted that apart from the Society slaves, whose sole task it was to see to his comfort <em>“I have in addition nearly twenty Slaves, large and small in my house, who belong to me and my family: and with all of those I am served worse, than someone, who has in Hamburg a single Valet and two Maids: because Your High Mightinesses should be informed once and for all, that one is better served by one servant in the Fatherland, than by twelve slaves here”</em>. One of his successors, Governor Texier (1779-1783), did not feel pampered either. No less than 24 Society slaves crowded his palace, but more than half of them were old, invalid, ailing, or inept and he had to replace them with his own slaves. House servants were believed to be totally spoiled: <em>“for what an Amsterdam housemaid regards as freedom, all the Negresses in Surinam would move to the forest at once”</em>, Hostmann joked with only the slightest exaggeration. Inferior service was a common phenomenon in slave colonies. English writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Martineau">Harriet Martineau</a>, for example, admired the infinite patience of the Southern slaveholders and although she detested violence, she was convinced that the wily ways of Negro servants would have driven her over the brink in no time.<br /><br />Although there was a consensus about the laziness of house slaves, the opinions about their intellectual capacity varied. Lammens, for one, believed one should never underestimate them: <em>“However inert and lazy, in the performance of the labor demanded of them, - however indifferent, they may seem on the outside, little or nothing escapes their attention: – and someone who wants to know if the household fares well or badly,</em> [should] <em>ask the Slaves: - they know everything, that goes on, judge that shrewdly, and in this respect, far outshine the European servants.”</em><br /><br />Many Surinam slaveholders did not readily resort to whipping their servants, but if they were drunk, frustrated, or mentally deranged, these were the most convenient butts of their aggression. This was a serious drawback of the otherwise privileged position. Without doubt house servants made up a more than representative part of the abused and tortured slaves.<br /><br />The women who were superfluous in the household had few alternatives. Some were fairly successful as seamstresses, the only craft permitted them. For many women only menial jobs, like washerwoman, were available. Women were hired out much less frequently than men, but sometimes they were placed as ‘housekeeper’ with a less affluent white. Most of them, however, were obliged to seek work themselves and bring home a stipulated sum each week. This phenomenon was called <em>wroko na passi</em>. They often went out as <em>woiwoimans</em>, selling fruits, candy, or lemonade on the designated markets, or they were dispatched by their mistresses to peddle milk or vegetables door to door. If they did not manage to sell all the commodities entrusted to them, or to bring home enough cash, they were punished severely. This prompted some of these women to prostitute themselves to make up the deficit.<br /><br />Of the male slaves a much smaller percentage worked around the house. Most of them were obliged to bring in cash. To this end, they were usually hired out, for a stipulated period (generally a year), or they could hire out themselves and pay their masters from their earnings. If they did not possess a special skill, it was often difficult to scrape together enough money. Journeymen could not find work every day and often payment was withheld because they had no recourse to the law. Many a slave who failed to get the demanded money ran away or resorted to theft to avoid punishment.<br /><br />Louis, Musingo, Premeiro and Jantje, for example, broke into the house of Nathan Samson and stole a box containing silver and other valuables. They had been desperate because they were unable not earn enough. Louis had bring home 18 shilling a day and had borrowed money to make up the deficit. Premeiro had to deliver 18 shillings as well, while Musingo got off with 12. They had made valiant efforts to obtain the money by making boxes and benches, but failed to sell enough of them. This was not considered a mitigating circumstance and the unfortunate would-be-thieves were condemned to be hanged.<br /><br />Because of troubles like these, the government tried to suppress this habit. In the 18th century, this was done mostly by attempting to regulate the hiring practices properly, for instance by obliging owners to supply a list of hired-out slaves, which also detailed the kind of work they were most suited for. In the 19th century, the practice was explicitly outlawed. The government papers of 1824 included the following statement: <em>“it is forbidden to everyone to send out a slave he owns to look for work, and let him raise money by the week or the month”</em>. This law threatened the miscreants with stiff fines: 100 guilders for the first offense, 400 guilders for the second and 600 guilders plus the loss of the slave if an owner was caught for the third time. Ironically, the slaves exploited this way were punished themselves as well. Profiet, for instance, who had to earn 10 shillings a day, was sentenced to 36 whiplashes.<br /><br />It turned out to be impossible to root out this practice, because the profits were too alluring. In the 19th century, a slave bought for 800 to 1000 guilders could bring in 250 to 300 guilders a year. So he earned his purchase price back little more than three years and after that the income he provided was pure profit. In the case of a highly skilled craftsman, the owner often had no other option than to hire him out by the day or week. He had no permanent use for his services and it was virtually impossible to hire him out for an extended period, because most jobs only took a few days. Although the law made no exception for such slaves, they were probably treated with much more leniency, because their earning power made it relatively easy for them to meet their obligations so they were less tempted to steal.<br /><br />Whole families, especially widows and orphans, lived off the earnings of their hired-out slaves. The Moravian missionary Riemer concluded that a family that owned four or five could slaves (worth about 1200 guilders each) and hired them out by the week could live <em>“comfortably and decently”. </em>Even for people who needed specialized services only incidentally, it was often more economical to buy a trained slave than to hire one. Brother Kersten, for instance, reported that in 1779 the Moravian missionaries had bought 10 slaves for 6000 guilders. They had to pay 360 guilders interest a year, but if they hired 5 slaves, it would cost them nearly three times as much. Furthermore, <em>“hired craftsmen do nothing, then what they are hired for, one’s own slaves, on the contrary, must perform all work”</em>.<br /><br />Some slave artisans were highly successful. They worked strictly on their own and ran a prosperous business. As long as they brought a weekly sum to their masters, they were not bothered. Some of them were affluent enough to be able to buy their own freedom, but declined the honor because then they would be helpless when a client refused to pay. Others did not manage to save enough because they spent their money too lavishly. <a href="http://communities.zeelandnet.nl/data/suriname/index.php?page=13&showpage=73065">Pierre Benoit</a> met a wigmaker who <em>“instead of profiting from the surplus of the salary he had to bring his master, prefers to hire a little slave whom he obliges to follow him, and who carries his combs, the powder box and the curling iron”</em>. His talents were in much demand and the lure of liberty obviously not very powerful. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264926369944914162" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 256px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6RSZ7Ed2f2tOrY0SPAPJOCSo5G7YuCoxtv8hZ8JDaR54CDrfz1BQEFHr57OVOBp_RmPCMjK8cI2ddUnp6wtuxgsw3ZuBb3wPTbpG51KwFt3iaVpf3n04ZtzmSG29LDjDz1vVl7BXpBc/s400/kapper.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The slave craftsmen in Paramaribo were often much better trained and much more versatile than their plantation counterparts, who were mostly taught only to make crude repairs by a fellow slave. In Paramaribo, the aspiring tradesman was apprenticed to a master for a couple of years. Formal contracts were drawn up. One such a contract reads as follows: <em>“We the Undersigned Mr J.H.J. Krieger R. Deemshoff and P. Evers Millwrights and Master Carpenters have agreed in the Following Manner That the First-Mentioned Acknowledges to have given in Apprenticeship to learn Carpentry, Likewise the Two Mentioned Acknowledge to have Accepted for the Time of Four Consecutive Years A Negro Boy Named Fortuyn Under the Condition That the First-Mentioned Owner Shall not be Allowed to Call Him</em> [back] <em>or Keep him Within The Time mentioned And if He misses more than fourteen Days in A Year Said Negro Boy Shall have to Serve Longer</em> [it was also stipulated]<em> That if Said Negro Boy may be overcome by Any Illness or other inconveniences so He</em> [will need] <em>a Surgeon That This will be at the expense of The Owner”</em>. Fortuyn never developed the desired skills: 18 months later Boss Evers informed his master that <em>“to my Great Sorrow</em> [I] <em>have to report You with This</em> [letter]<em> That Your Negro Fortuyn After I have employed all possible means has died Within the time of 5 days of A Bloody Flux and I wish That God may Bless him Doubly again on the other Side”</em>. Some of these bosses built up a flourishing business with this kind of cheap labor: a man called Koning had 14 carpenters <em>“under Contract and in Hire”</em>.<br /><br />Because of the greater variety in the work, the greater chance to learn specialized skills and the greater chance to earn a surplus of money, the slaves clung to the meanest jobs if these meant they could stay in the city. It was a tragedy for them if they were sent to one of their owner’s estates permanently and even if they were hired out to a plantation for merely a couple of months. The first measure was often only used when a painful punishment was necessary, because few plantations were keen on employing slaves spoiled by city life.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Conclusion.<br /></strong><br />Because of all the complaints by whites about the laziness of their underlings, it is easy to forget that almost all the work that was done in Surinam was done by slaves. Not only the whites, but also the free Negroes limited their exertions to the lowest possible level. Crates of sugar, bales of coffee and cocoa, sacks of cotton materialized, ships were loaded and unloaded, canals were dug, houses were built and even runaways were caught thanks to the efforts of the slaves. That they did not work as hard or produced as much as was theoretically possible, is not the result of inherent laziness, but of a system that denied them all but the slightest part of the fruits of their labors.</p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-77123158035998631162008-07-17T14:35:00.029+02:002009-02-12T18:30:49.578+01:00Chapter 4: The plantations and their products.<strong><div align="justify"><br />The layout of the plantations.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265306414660856866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 322px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQK1AiYVnZZM7VY__GwK4zBBEW8lV5o6cY5zqYhAv4nuDK5TYrO0084XdQ7e1DRspxytKs3DND8gwASORZvqMwhMqExXcEEm_eokTna9iW_wR-l68x5pI99b-KAcDzK1zAv3jT7ZuUPvA/s400/kaart-plantages2.jpg" border="0" /></strong> <div align="justify">The Surinam agricultural system was shaped and dominated by the plantation and, since agriculture was the mainstay of the colony, so were the economical and social structures. One cannot maintain that Surinam was eminently suitable for plantation agriculture, but that was the <strong>only</strong> profitable activity it was suitable for.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Wolf">Eric Wolf</a> and <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/Mintz.htm">Sidney Mintz</a> have sketched the general conditions necessary for plantations to flourish:<br />(1) a <strong>technology adequate for the creation of a surplus</strong>, that is to say, the possibility to profit from the economies of scale;<br />(2) a certain measure of <strong>class stratification</strong>, to keep the underprivileged from gaining access to production factors and to help diverting the surpluses solely to members of the elite;<br />(3) the possibility of <strong>production for an outside market</strong>: since the plantation was specialized in the production of a single commodity, it could not depend on the internal market of the colony, but had to produce firstly for the motherland and secondly for the international market;<br />(4) the ability to accumulate <strong>sufficient capital </strong>for the large investments plantation agriculture usually entailed;<br />(5) a <strong>political-legal system that supports the operations of plantations</strong>, which had three functions (a) to permit the planters to procure the land and workers they needed; (b) to establish a political and legal setting stimulating for the growth of the plantations; (c) to provide the means for transferring the surpluses.<br /><br />In Surinam, most of these preconditions were adequately met initially. Because the Dutch had been instrumental in dispersing sugar technology all over the Caribbean, the Surinam plantations certainly met the prevailing standards. Since the colony was conquered territory and opted for slavery, the class stratification was introduced automatically. Holland provided an lucrative market for the products of the plantations and was even able to absorb much more than Surinam could produce (the colony never supplied more than 1/3 of the sugar and 1/2 of the coffee needed). The Dutch merchants were willing to invest the profits of their commercial ventures in colonial enterprises and furthermore, Surinam managed to draw wealthy immigrants who could finance the establishment of plantations with their own means. As property of the Society of Surinam, the whole political-legal system of the colony was geared to plantation agriculture. However, even though the conditions were ideal from this point of view, the expansion of the plantations was handicapped by a chronic lack of workers and a limited amount of fertile grounds (which often needed extensive water works, leading to high production costs). In the late 18th and 19th centuries, moreover, the conditions deteriorated considerably. Surinam lagged behind in technological innovation; capital investments were diverted to other colonies; the Dutch government showed little interest in facilitating plantation agriculture and the scarcity of workers became even more acute. No wonder that Surinam could no longer be a serious competitor in the world market and not even in the Dutch market.<br /><br />In 1651, the English pioneers started from scratch. Nevertheless, the number of plantations grew fast (to 175) during the few years their hegemony lasted. It dropped dramatically (to 107) after the Zeelanders had taken over, but during the government of Cornelis van Aerssen, the plantations recouped their former territory and until the end of the 18th century, they steadily increased in number, although a good part of the old terrains had already been abandoned. The 19th century saw a process of decline and concentration.<br /><br />The English did not experiment with small-scale subsistence farms, as they had done in Barbados, but started with laying out full-size plantations at once, although the less affluent pioneers limited themselves to provision grounds and tobacco farms. The Zeelanders inherited a plantation system almost bankrupted by the departure of most of the English planters and slaves and in their desperation to fill this void, they resorted to near anarchy in the distribution of grounds for cultivation. Once the Society of Surinam had taken over the rudder, however, the laying out of the plantations happened systematically and orderly.<br /><br />Contrary to the situation in other mainland colonies, the way the plantations could expand in Surinam was severely limited by the peculiarities of the landscape. The plantations were depended upon the rivers to provide water power and transportation facilities and the land had to be divided under strict control to make sure everyone would get a fair share of the land along the riverbanks. In this sense, the view of Surinam as a ‘frontier society’ is not entirely accurate. Later arrivals could not get all the land they wanted and existing plantations were unable to expand freely. Nevertheless, a situation of 'open resources' had prevailed during the crucial period of initial colonization, when the economical and social foundations of the colony had been laid.<br /><br />Plantations seeking additional terrains had to expand their operations further inland and so developed a rectangular shape. Aspiring planters were allowed to stake their claim wherever they found suitable soil. When they went looking for a desirable location, they preferred to go in <em>“the most heavy Rainy Season when one has to wade through the forest with water coming up to the Waist Yes to the Neck because only then one can See which lands Stay above water</em> [and]<em> which Drown”</em>.<br /><br />The English were forced to limit their plantations to the higher sandy grounds along the upper part of the Suriname and Para rivers, because they did not know how to drain the swampy lowlands. The Dutch, on the contrary, encountered a familiar landscape there, that could be conquered with the proven technique of <em>inpoldering</em>, a craft they had thoroughly mastered in their homeland. This way, the Lower Suriname and Lower Commewijne divisions were added to the plantation area in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the middle of the 18th century, the Cottica and Orelane regions were incorporated, followed in later years by the districts of Matapicca and Warappa, between the Commewijne and the coast. Some planters in the highlands shifted the focus of their operations to the lowlands, but nevertheless retained their former estates, even though they were not productive anymore. These show up on the maps as well, so the number of functioning plantations may ocassionally have been overstated in archival sources.<br /><br />On the initiative of Governor <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurriaan_Fran%C3%A7ois_de_Frederici">Friderici</a> (1790-1802), the first grounds along the Saramacca River were given out in the 1790’s, beginning with his own plantations <strong>La Prevoyance</strong> and <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/saramaccarivier/catharina_sophia/index.nl.html"><strong>Catharina Sophia</strong></a>. However, this part of the colony never boasted the flourishing settlements he had hoped for: barely fifty years later, most of the plantations had been deserted and the projected town of Columbia had never materialized. The first plantations in the Nickerie district were established in 1797. Coronie (then called Upper Nickerie) followed in 1808. Many Scottish and Irish planters settled there and, after the abolition of slavery in the English colonies, planters form Barbados and other islands as well, giving these districts an atmosphere totally different from that of the old plantation area. Quintus Bosz found that a large part of the concessions given out between 1799 and 1802 had already been deserted by 1809, partly because the owners could not get sufficient slaves as a result of the English occupation.<br /><br />In the early period, there was no lack of fertile land, but even then some regulations were necessary to ensure a fair distribution. The Zeelandian authorities were the most generous of patrons. They gave out <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/635996/warrant#ref=ref201597">warrants</a> for full ownership without any conditions or charges. The concessionaries did not even have to pay recognition dues or <em>akkergeld</em>.<br /><br />The Society of Surinam, and more in particular Governor Van Aerssen, wanted to retain more influence over the use of the land. He added all kinds of limiting conditions to the warrants: the payment of an <em>akkergeld</em> of 5 cents an acre per year; an interdiction to sell the land without the permission of the Governor during a period of twelve years and a sales tax of 10% if permission was granted (lowered to 5% after the designated term); the obligation to put the land under cultivation within a year and twelve weeks with at least 10 slaves working it; and the obligation to have the land registered officially by a surveyor within three months. The planters were also required to build a good wooden or brick house at least fifty feet long and twenty feet wide with squared posts and rafters of <em>bolletrie </em>or other good and durable wood. In order to stop the wasting of land, it was forbidden to clear new fields before the older ones were under cultivation. When grounds were deserted by their owners (following an Indian attack for example), the planters had to declare within three months (or eighteen months when they lived abroad) whether they planned to reclaim them. If not, the land reverted to the Society. Van Aerssen reserved the right to confiscate the land if the planters abused any of these conditions. He considered the <em>akkergeld</em> to be a rent, not a tax. The inhabitants did not share this view and they appealed to the Society successfully: Governor Van Scharphuys was forced to return the money contributed between 1683 and 1694.<br /><br />Van Scharphuys proved to be a true friend of the planters. He abolished most of the conditions inaugurated by Van Aerssen. He introduced the term <strong>allodial ownership</strong>, to denote unconditional ownership. Obviously, he did not consider the land to be a hereditary tenure for which the planters owed rent. The only condition he imposed was the duty not to harm the interests of the Indians. In the early 18th century, most of the conditions eliminated by Van Scharphuys were re-established in the warrants. The right to confiscate the land was introduced again, the planters were obliged to register their grounds and have a map drawn and if there was no legal heir, the land reverted to the Society. New conditions were added in the middle of the century. In 1747, for instance, a planter named Knöffel was forced to leave a tract of land along the river uncultivated in case the Society wanted to construct a road there. Furthermore, he had to attach at least 10 slaves permanently to the property. The latter condition was to have far-reaching consequences. In 1755, the <em>akkergeld</em> resurfaced for newly distributed terrains. For the rest of the slavery era, these conditions remained in the warrants. The most important addition to the new model of 1821 was the fact that expropriation of land for the common good became possible.<br /><br />Some early placards forbade surveyors to measure out more than 1000 acres on one warrant. This became the acreage of the average plantation (usually in the proportion of 500 acres of cultivable land and 500 acres of ‘backlands’). Dishonest planters managed to obtain several times this amount by registering land in the name of a relative, sometimes fetched from Holland for precisely this purpose. The intermediate sections of land often turned out much smaller. Officially, the surveyors had to measure out 10 <em>ketting</em> (= 20 m) of inland grounds for every <em>ketting</em> along the riverbank. Furthermore, all plantations had to stay on one side of the river. Given the choice, planters would take up enough space along the river to accommodate several houses and sugar mills. A large number of ‘typical’ plantations in the Lower Commewijne division had a surface of about 1000 acres, with a <em>facie</em> (part along the river) of 30 <em>ketting</em> and a depth of about 330 <em>ketting</em>. On the Upper Suriname and Upper Commewijne, however, the <em>facie</em> was usually much larger: 60 to 70 <em>ketting</em>. The plantations could not extend too far inland, because then the drainage system would fail. This system of ditches and pumps could handle a maximum depth of 7 to 8 kilometers. Even when this maximum was not reached, the backlands often remained soggy and would be used only after all other grounds were exhausted.<br /><br />Only a small part of each plantation was actually cultivated. Kappler mentioned a portion of 10% of the surface, but this was only the case on some of the largest sugar estates. Generally, about a quarter of the land of a sugar plantation was planted with cane. For the coffee plantations, which tended to be smaller since they often took up the pieces left over by the sugar estates, the part of the land cultivated more or less permanently was larger: often nearly half their surface. The remainder of a concession was stripped of wood (for the sugar mills) and held in reserve. Exhausted land was abandoned and reverted to <em>kapoewerie</em> (secondary forest).<br /><br />During the English period, special parcels had been set aside for cattle and provisions, with a maximum size of less than 100 acres. The Dutch adopted this initiative by earmarking fields near Paramaribo for the growing of provisions. These parcels were much smaller: up to 10 acres. The <em>Gemeene Weide</em> (common grazing area), where the citizens could herd their cattle and horses, was also situated near the capital. When the population density grew, problems arose from the fact that these animals sometimes damaged the crops of neighboring provision grounds. In the first half of the 18th century, there were modest ‘cattle ranches’ on the savannas in the Upper Commewijne division, but they were gradually abandoned because of Maroon attacks and no substitutes were established.<br /><br />Some locations were clearly more popular than others. Most planters wanted to be as close to Paramaribo as possible. Not only because the transportation of products was easier then, but also because the estates on the fringe of the plantation area were constantly subjected to enemy attacks. After the initial expansion up the Suriname and Commewijne rivers, the plantations were concentrated more and more in the coastal region during the 18th century. The popularity of this part of the colony was reflected in the profits the terrains yielded upon sale. Governor Nepveu noted that in the 1770’s, the lands along the Orelane, Matapicca, Warappa and Tapoerica creeks were most sought after, finding eager buyers at a price of 100 guilders or more an acre.<br /><br />The fertility of the grounds could vary considerably, even in restricted areas. The most valuable soil was blue or grey clay covered with a generous layer of peat. Soils consisting solely of sand (the ridges) were infertile, but when they were mixed with clay and topped by peat, they were among the best. Their greatest drawback was the fact that they were quickly exhausted. Even the soggiest lands were often intersected by sand ridges, a waste as far as cultivation was concerned, but ideal for the location of plantation buildings. Unfortunately, they were not exploited to their fullest advantage.<br /><br />In Surinam, the various kinds of soil were usually named after the kind of vegetation they supported. The fertile clay soils were often covered with large trees and called <em>pina</em> or <em>pallisade</em> lands. The <em>biribiri </em>lands along the coast were named after the reed that dominated the vegetation. They consisted of soft clay crowned by a thick layer of peat and when properly drained, they were extremely fertile. The <em>mangroe</em> lands, low-lying and salty clay soils covered with <em>mangro(v)e</em> or <em>parwa</em> trees, were also suitable for plantations when the excess water could be dealt with. The so-called <em>parwa</em> lands were not soils covered with <em>parwa</em> trees, but very meagre, infertile soils, useless for plantations. Best suited for agriculture were the clay soils along the coast and the riverbanks. Sandy <em>pina</em> lands could also be used, but they did not last as long. In the highlands, the layer of peat was thin and the soil dried out quickly.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263690477801607794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 284px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5795E20lfmUaGEInFyxVIuW6PUQ7EldFFhoV5cJyZkpezREYTK-4ETMPOl-YaZauOkKaHkXrNBwPfFkBHEquYovvN_gGl3PB-kM7SfYpEIzdjWA9bAev1Rof8qZMCiibXiWDchFMvMKc/s400/plantage-aan-rivier.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><p align="justify"><strong>Plantation products.</strong><br /><br />Although they concentrated on sugar, the English pioneers did not hesitate to experiment with other products. They cultivated tobacco, indigo, cotton and provisions and they collected speckle wood (for dyes) and gums in the forest. These products could provide no real competition for sugar, so when the Dutch took over, they embraced sugar production wholeheartedly. They showed little interest in the other pursuits, however, neglecting even the growing of sufficient provisions. At the end of the 17th century, Surinam was essentially a monoculture of sugar. Some planters, either unable to invest in a sugar mill or out of curiosity, tried other crops on a small scale. In 1710, Governor De Goyer could report: <em>“The Cultivation of Indigo, Cotton and Cocoa starts to come in Vogue with some or the other, who if they find their Profit in it, will undoubtedly be followed by many others, to which I shall encourage the Interested as much as possible”</em>. Not only the authorities favored diversification. A number of inhabitants wanted to introduce an even greater range of crops and remarked: <em>“The Coffee and Olive seeds brought into the colony a short wile ago, are growing well, but</em> [we] <em>have not had the time, to judge, what the fruit shall be.</em> [Regarding] <em>the Saffron, Flax and Hemp,</em> [it] <em>is apparent that there would be a profit, likewise with the Silk, while the Mulberry-tree will grow well here”</em>.<br /><br />These attempts at diversification were little successful at first: “<em>with regard to the growing of the Cocoa, Vanilla, Cotton, Roucou, Indigo & the like</em> [it] <em>seems that not much work is made of it here, under pretext that the Planter finds better profit with the cultivation of the Sugar cane”</em>, was the complaint in the beginning of the 18th century. This, however, turned out to be too pessimistic a view. Many Surinam planters, especially those lacking the means to invest in a water-powered sugar mill, were quite willing to try other crops if the prospects were sufficiently alluring. Cocoa, roucou (orange dye), indigo (blue dye) and spices never became more than sidelines, but cotton gained terrain during the 18th century, particularly after the coastal grounds were cleared. It became a major crop, although it could never hold a candle to the other alternative, which for a while was even a threat to the hegemony of King Sugar: coffee.<br /><br /><em>Sugar.<br /></em><br />Despite this competition, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarcane">sugarcane</a> remained the principal crop, if not in acreage then surely in revenue. In many ways, sugarcane was an easy plant to cultivate. It thrived on most soils (the only kind it could definitely not stand was the salty clay of the coastal region). It grew well on both the better sandy soils and the <em>mangroe</em> and <em>biribiri</em> lands, so sugar estates could be found all over the plantation area. The greatest concentration, however, was in the Suriname, Upper Commewijne and Saramacca divisions.<br /><br />A tiny sugar plantation was an impossibility. Because of the nature of the crop, the sugar estates were forced to extend over a certain minimum surface, depending on the kind of equipment used in the mill. To make the heavy investments viable, a minimum level of production was necessary, which implied that a corresponding number of slaves had to work the property. The various sugar colonies differed profoundly with regard to the average yield of sugar per acre and the number of slaves deemed necessary to work each acre, but as a rule the more sophisticated the machinery, the larger and more populous a plantation had to be. Some English observers considered the maximum size of a sugar plantation to be 600 acres in cane, which were cultivated by 600 slaves. The average yield was then about one ton of sugar per acre. The optimum size was only half of this: 300 to 350 acres, cultivated by as many slaves. So on the British islands one slave was needed for every acre under cultivation. In Surinam, Blom considered 500 acres to be the absolute minimum for a plantation in general, while a sugar plantation could hardly survive with less than 1000 acres, of which at least 200 were planted with cane. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263690997309426786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 289px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIk6z0NYEF4sKJSJdQwHy9XNevhlksnEpJonjw3C3AuovlbxLut5vBBC8Oib-GL5bD_BuXKzw9gCnmFbrHdr5UdpMLimTlefBJcCcUPZc7qvB9vYDcNk4kJqs328zVlAK62RD_itp1f-k/s400/suikermolen.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">A sugar mill in Surinam could be propelled by animals, water, or steam. The kind of machinery selected was partly determined by the amount of capital a planter could muster, partly by the location of the plantation. In the highlands, the differences between the highest and lowest tides were not large enough to permit the use of a water mill, so the planters had little choice but to retain the animal-driven mills of the pioneers. In the lowlands, these also dominated sugar production at first, but they were replaced by water mills at the earliest opportunity. Often prematurely, for Blom believed that a plantation producing less than 300 tons of sugar a year had better stick to a <em>beestewerk</em>. Most plantations had only one kind of mill, but some planters did not want to put all their eggs in one basket and combined the two, as can be inferred from the observations of sailor Jan Reeps during a visit to the colony at the end of the 17th century. He found such a set-up on the plantation of the late reverend <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/carolina/">Basseliers</a>.<br /><br />Both the animal-driven and the water-driven mills had certain advantages. The former was cheaper to construct and could show a profit even with a modest level of production. Moreover, it was always ready for use. Ironically, the operating expenses were often prohibitive, due to the appalling mortality among the draught animals, which were moreover hard to replace. Sometimes oxen were used, but these were slow, expensive and could not stand the climate very well. Mules were also expensive and hard to come by, but they were stronger and did not succumb as easily to harsh treatment. Horses were cheaper but weaker and they often died in such numbers that some plantations used up several teams a year. According to Governor Nepveu, it was not unusual for an estate to lose 50 to 60 horses within a year. Water mills had a larger production capacity and when they were constructed sturdily, they lasted almost indefinitely, but there were clear drawbacks as well. They necessitated a substantial investment and the planters were often tempted to build much more elaborate mills than they needed. The greatest problem was that they could only be used around spring tide and then had to mill the whole night through to make proper use of the high water level. This often had grievous consequences for the wellbeing of the slaves.<br /><br />The relative technological sophistication of Surinam in the 18th century was largely the result of the employment of water mills. Most of their competitors were not able to upgrade their animal-driven equipment until the introduction of steam power. In Surinam, machinery powered by steam, especially the <a href="http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/vacuum+pan">vacuum pan</a>, was introduced later than elsewhere and it remained a rare phenomenon, since the necessary investments were beyond the means of most planters. The capacity of steam engines was enormous. Furthermore, they could be worked during the daytime only and still be profitable enough, which was a great improvement for the slaves. However, they needed maintenance by experts –who were not available in Surinam. Consequently, if they broke down, they usually stayed down. This was one of the reasons its costly Derosne and Cail vacuum pan nearly bankrupted the (by then) government plantation Catharina Sophia in the 19th century.<br /><br />A lot of money was involved in the establishment of a sugar plantation. In 1718, Herlein estimated the costs at 23,000 guilders: 12,500 guilders for 50 slaves at 250 guilders a head, 1600 guilders for four horses and four oxen, 6000 guilders for the construction of a house, a mill and sheds and 3000 guilders for tools and boats. He calculated that a planter could recoup his investment in 18 to 20 months, which undoubtedly was overly optimistic. Half a century later, Governor Nepveu foresaw a less rosy future for aspiring planters. To start a plantation at least 80,000 to 100,000 guilders were needed. That kind of money could buy an estate with a slave force of 180 to 200 slaves and a production of 400 to 450 hogsheads of sugar a year. Even in the most favorable circumstances, it would take the planter nearly ten years to win back his investment. The projections for a highland plantation were even less promising: the first few years a planter could barely recover his expenses and only after five years he could look forward to a small profit, which was easily wiped out by an unexpected mortality among the slaves or draught animals. In the 1780’s, Blom found that for a large sugar plantation with a water mill, a surface of 1626 acres, a ‘general slave force’ of 232 slaves (including the children and elderly) and a production of 500 hogsheads of sugar a year an investment of 201,150 guilders was needed. A smaller plantation, producing 300 hogsheads of sugar a year with 140 slaves would cost 155,000 guilders. [The same kind of plantation with a <em>beestewerk</em> was cheaper: 117,220 guilders.] For an estate with a water-powered mill a surface of about 1000 acres was the minimum. Plantations with animal-driven mills could be smaller, but then they would provide a marginal existence at most.<br /><br />Until the middle of the 18th century, most newbie planters were able to finance the establishment of a plantation from their own resources, although they did not shy away from running up debts within the colony. After 1750, they started to depend on outside loans, which greatly augmented the number of seedy adventurers in the business. In the 19th century, their inability to pay their debts would result in a serious fragmentation of ownership rights, although Surinam plantations never became genuine corporate ventures during the slave era.<br /><br />Sugar estates had to balance the needs of their workers against other considerations. As Michael Craton observed: <em>“It was regarded as socially as well as economically unwise to allow the exigencies of the five month fury of the sugar crop lead to the building up of a slave population larger than could be kept from dangerous, and unprofitable, idleness in the intercrop period”</em>. Slaves were often dangerously overworked by their masters during the harvest season. In Surinam, this problem was aggravated by the fact that many plantations did not even have sufficient hands to perform the work in slacker times and were unable to hire additional help during the most hectic periods.<br /><br />Blom claimed that one field hand could tend four acres of cane and provisions, which means that two acres were cultivated for every slave in the ‘general force’. This is almost twice as much as in Jamaica, where the rule of thumb dictated one cultivated acre for every slave. I am not sure whether this difference was due to the fact that in Jamaica most sugar mills were powered by wind or animals, while in Surinam tide-mills predominated, or that it signifies that Surinam slaves were exploited more.<br /><br />The average number of slaves on sugar plantations steadily increased during the slavery period. This was partly the result of the transition from animal-driven to water-driven equipment. Also, after 1750 the ample credits permitted the planters to expand their holdings considerably. Since they were often unable to obtain additional land, they chose to cultivate the land they had more intensively. Finally, in the 19th century a process of concentration took place whereby slaves from other kinds of plantations were transferred to sugar estates. According to Van der Linde, the largest planter (Samuel Cohen Nassy) owned only 80 slaves in 1682. No less than 68 ‘planters’ had fewer than 10 slaves. Jan Reeps, who visited the colony in 1692, claimed that a ‘good’ plantation needed at least 100 slaves, but <em>“there are some with 30 to 40 bondsmen”</em>. During the second half of the 18th century, most sugar estates counted between 100 and 200 slaves. In the 19th century, plantations with a force of 200 to 250 slaves became the norm. About 10% of the estates had a larger number and a few even counted more than 500 slaves (e.g. the government plantation Catharina Sophia). The average ‘integrated unit’ (sugar, cattle and provisions) in Jamaica owned about 240 slaves. These were among the largest estates in the Caribbean, so the average 18th and 19th century Surinam sugar plantation can be classified as fairly large.<br /><br />The amount of sugar produced per acre was largely determined by the location of the plantation and the age of the cane. However, all kinds of accidental circumstances (especially the weather) also played a part, so the harvest of a plantation could show considerable variation even without calamities, as is proved by the following production figures (derived from the production statistics in the <em>Letters and Papers from Surinam</em>) of <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/groot-jalousie/index.nl.html"><strong>La Jalousie</strong></a>, owned by Gerrit Pater and the largest sugar producer during this period: 1730: 435 hogsheads; 1731: 624 hogsheads; 1732: 610 hogsheads; 1733: 673 hogsheads; 1734: 403 hogsheads; 1735: 568 hogsheads; 1736: 888 hogsheads; 1738: 622 hogsheads; 1739: 570 hogsheads; 1740: 780 hogsheads; 1741: 1013 hogsheads. [A Surinam hogshead equalled 800 pounds.]<br /><br />Overall, plantations in the highlands produced considerably less sugar than their counterparts in the lowlands. According to Governor Nepveu, one could expect only two good harvests from the former. The first crop would net between 5 and 8 hogsheads per acre, the second crop barely 2 and after that, the results deteriorated quickly. For that reason, a prudent planter cleared new grounds every year and abandoned old cane fields after four crops at most. This ensured a more regular supply, but was feasible for large plantations only. The smaller estates were forced to use the same piece of land for a much longer period and when it was finally left, it was often totally exhausted and could not be cultivated again for at least 30 years. Lowland soils could produce sugar satisfactorily for a period varying from 8 to 15 years, the most fertile even longer. The first crop would yield 2 to 3 hogsheads of sugar, the second the same or more. The revenue would drop only gradually. Blom advised to turn over the soil and to replant when the land started to yield less than 1,5 hogsheads of sugar an acre. When the soil had been allowed to recuperate as <em>kapoewerie </em>for about 15 years, it could be used again for a period of 6 to 8 years. Most planters, however, continued to cultivate the same fields for a much longer term, until steeply diminishing returns forced them to leave these grounds at last.<br /><br />The yearly sugar production of Surinam grew steadily, until in 1830 its zenith was reached. The gains in the 17th and 18th centuries were mostly the result of, or at least in tune with, the growing number of sugar estates and the increasing number of slaves per unit. The developments in the 19th century were primarily the result of concentration on sugar production, the introduction of new varieties of cane and technological innovation. After 1830, the average size of sugar estates continued to increase, but the number of plantations diminished so much that overall production fell.<br /><br />Whether or not Surinam sugar plantations were a worthwhile venture in a business sense, is a question not easily answered. During the 18th century, many of them eluded an aura of prosperity and some of them indeed represented considerable wealth. <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/meerzorg/index.nl.html"><strong>Meerzorg</strong></a>, the largest plantation at that moment (owned by Political Councillor Paul Amsincq), was appraised at 79,800 guilders in 1715. In a period when the assessment of a plantation still reflected its true value, this was indeed an impressive fortune. Later in the 18th century, the valuations became more and more divorced from reality. They were inflated until they no longer had any relation to production capacity and merely mirrored the tragic consequences of rampant speculation in land and galloping slave prices.<br /><br />Production costs in Surinam were always relatively high, compared to most of the islands. The soils were exhausted more quickly, substantial investments were necessary for the drainage system, the mortality among slaves and draught animals was much higher (not in the least due to the unfavorable climate), etc. These were of course debilitating handicaps when competing in an open market.<br /><br />For their income, Surinam planters were wholly dependent on the prices their products fetched in the world market, for their sugar enjoyed no special protection in the Dutch market. Scarcity kept prices reasonably high until the middle of the 18th century, but from then on there was a steady downward trend because of increasing competition. During the Napoleonic Wars, production halted, but this did not drive up the prices, so Surinam was not able to profit from the hostilities (as it had done during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Austrian_Succession">War of the Austrian Succession</a> in the 1740’s). From 1818 to 1833, sugar production plummeted all over the Caribbean (except in Surinam), but the price level did not recover.<br /><br />In the beginning of the 18th century, Surinam was one of the main sugar producers, but it could reach this exalted position only because it was one of the first sugar colonies coming into full production in a time when sugar was still a scarce commodity. However, Surinam was never the leading producer in the West Indies, as some observers maintained. Barbados held that position around 1680, Jamaica took over around 1750 and passed the torch to Saint-Domingue around 1780. After 1830, Cuba became the main supplier. Surinam soon lost its initial prominence: by the middle of the 18th century, it was merely number four on the list of sugar producers, lagging behind the English and French islands and Brazil, while the Spanish territories were closing the gap fast. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263691387640799522" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 263px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXjtrxQUACq01z4BPgKlE-4tvvurWwlH90t93wnc0CQ38xQxiC1vq4KHSroObg5Pkbm6n8Icput6K2CEaKqR6c_iaxM2vELhO1spqQVSLqjvfJ2hobWHnShyl-T4dlQ96I_I0AZ70Ujw/s400/stokerij.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">In the 19th century, Surinam could no longer compete. The colony had been too slow in adopting technological innovations (some of which, like the steam engine and the railroad system, revolutionized sugar production) and the costs had risen to fatal heights. The colony fought a losing battle against upstarts like Cuba. Surinam plantations even failed to adopt more easily applicable innovations that could have increased their production substantially. As Craton observed, in Jamaica the production of rum <em>“turned marginal operations into profitmakers and prosperous plantations into gold mines”</em>. The only liquor Surinam plantations managed to deliver was a crude (but potent) rum called <em>dram</em>, barely fit for human consumption.<br /><br />On the Dutch market, Surinam sugar could not hold its own either. It suffered fierce competition from the sugar produced on the French islands, where the production costs were significantly lower. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Dutch government had clearly written off Surinam as an agricultural supplier. The Society of Surinam had always been reticent about imposing high taxes on the export of plantation products (to its own detriment), but the Dutch government, guided by other mercantile and industrial interests, had no such scruples. The traditional export tax of 2,5% was augmented to 3% in 1822, another 2% was added in 1826 and finally, in 1846, the rate was increased to 7,5% for sugar sold abroad and even to 10% when it was transported in a foreign ship.<br /><br />In the 19th century, the Dutch were clearly looking elsewhere for their sugar supply. In the East Indies, the <em>cultuurstelsel</em> was inaugurated, obliging natives to plant certain cash crops. Sugar was among them and soon East-Indian sugar took over a steadily increasing part of the Dutch market. Beet sugar, introduced during the French occupation, made inroads as well, although it only became a serious rival after emancipation.<br /><br />The consequences of this combination of negative developments were tragic for the plantation owners, but fortunate for the slaves. Emancipation turned out to be the deathblow for most of the sugar estates left. In the beginning of the 20th century, only five had survived (<strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/rust_en_werk/index.nl.html">Rust en Werk</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/commewijnerivier/marienburg/index.nl.html">Marienburg</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/matapicakreek/aliiance/index.nl.html">Alliance</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/nickerierivier/waterloo/index.nl.html">Waterloo</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/nickerierivier/hazard/index.nl.html">Hazard</a></strong>).<br /><br /><em>Coffee.</em><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee">Coffee</a> was the second important crop of Surinam plantations. At the end of the 17th century, it had been brought to Java from the Arabian town Mocha. From there, it had been introduced in Surinam, probably by way of the botanical garden of Amsterdam. In the 1720’s, it spread further to Martinique, Guadeloupe and Jamaica.<br /><br />According to most sources, coffee made its entry in Surinam when the German silversmith Hansbach found some still vital beans in a batch of coffee in 1714. He let them sprout in baskets. He profited little from these efforts himself, but others did. In 1717, Governor Mahony could report that the coffee trees started to grow well. The tax collector Van Sandik had two trees, which by then were nearly four years old and bore their first fruits. Mahony asked the directors for an <em>“ample memorandum”</em> on the cultivation of coffee. In reply, they sent him the journal of a trip to Mocha and some directives for the establishment of coffee plantations. A year later, Van Sandik sent the first batch of coffee beans to Amsterdam and the taste of the coffee brewed from them was considered very pleasant. The first genuine coffee planter was Van Sandik’s brother-in-law <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/surinamerivier/la_rencontre/">Stephanus Laurentius Neale</a>, who constructed the plantation <strong>Nieuw Levant</strong> in Cottica. In 1723, eight planters (including Commander De Raineval) were shipping coffee to the motherland and a year later that number was doubled. The first <em>waaggeld</em> was also paid then, indicating that coffee had become an established crop.<br /><br />In the early period, coffee was only planted in the vicinity of Paramaribo and experiments were conducted with all kinds of soils. Governor Temmink concluded that almost all soils were suitable for the planting of coffee, as long as they were not too low or too wet, because then the water could not be properly drained off.<em> </em>Fields where cane would no longer grow and even sandy soils could be used, if they were fertilized with cane straw. However, it soon became apparent that in meagre soil the trees bore fruit earlier, but less abundant and that they had to be fertilized each year. The plantation of the Society struggled for a while to get coffee production going, but the soil was not suitable for it and in 1736, Governor Raye was permitted to switch to cocoa. Coffee obviously thrived best on fat soils and these were not found in the environment of Paramaribo.<br /><br />The best lands for coffee were the blue clay soils (<em>mangroe</em> or <em>pina</em> land) and <em>biribiri</em> land. These were mainly available in the lowlands, especially the coastal strip. The first expansion of coffee plantations took place in the Lower Commewijne division, where they soon surpassed the sugar estates in number. Initially, coffee was mainly grown as a secondary crop on sugar estates. The plantations specializing in coffee took up the land the former had left over, so they were rather small. But it did not take long for the average ‘coffee ground’ to rival the average sugar estate in the number of acres under cultivation and especially in the number of slaves employed. The planters did not hesitate to resort to dirty tricks in order to get this far. Along the Orelane (<em>Hoer Helena</em>) Creek, for example, the land originally was reserved for provision grounds for the slaves and officially the planters could only get 100 acres there, but they let their relatives and clients apply for land as well. Consequently, this became a region with large coffee plantations. After 1750, the land along the Matapicca, Warappa and Tapoerica creeks was cleared for coffee plantations, financed by credit from Holland. In the beginning of the 19th century, a few new coffee grounds were established along the Saramacca and Nickerie rivers, but by then most of the older ones were already in decline. The coffee plantations in the Matapicca region mostly switched to cotton after 1820, while many of those in Lower Suriname, Commewijne and Cottica either adopted sugar, or were abandoned.<br /><br />From the beginning, the hopes for the new crop was high and therefore it was protected fiercely. A placard issued in 1719 strictly forbade the inhabitants to take any coffee plants or untreated coffee beans outside the colony. Stealing coffee plants was severely punished: a white colonist who was caught at it could expect a fine of 300 guilders and if he was unable to pay, he would be whipped and branded; a Negro would be put to death. The planters were ordered not to permit their slaves to plant any coffee of their own, out of fear that this would encourage them to steal from the stocks of their masters. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263692440358105938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 315px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3bxlVcPlRNvcAOlT8hZiowcrPpuAR6JCcnV5OoP4nGVPXXkVx0CjX-KxfcAu_pmj9o5XacoNtzqtm7GuyUYiJZtw5c8EDkzHfEU04pflniPPYtl7Q1_U4uaFA_JTwzQ14mSvVke0qcQ/s400/dragen-koffiezakken.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The cultivation of coffee had several advantages over sugar. (1) It could be planted on small plots. In fact, there was hardly a minimum size for a coffee ground. (2) It did not demand heavy investments, as sugar did, so coffee production was feasible for men with only a few slaves and a tiny tract of land. (3) The growing of provisions could tide aspiring planters over during the four years the trees needed to mature. Coffee plantations, especially in the early stages, had an abundance of plantains, because these were used as shade trees for the growing coffee sprouts. (4) Because of this (and because the work was much lighter), the slaves enjoyed better health and were less tempted to run away. On the other hand, coffee was less lucrative than sugar and it took longer for the plantations to show a profit.<br /><br />The average coffee plantation may have been somewhat smaller in size than the corresponding sugar estate, but usually employed nearly as many slaves. In that way, the Surinam coffee grounds differed from their Caribbean counterparts, which were almost invariably smaller than the sugar estates. On the islands, they were mostly limited to the higher grounds, while in Surinam they were concentrated in the lowlands. In the 19th century, the coffee plantations tended to diminish in size and their yield declined dramatically.<br /><br />Although the coffee production reached its zenith in the 1790’s, the deterioration of the coffee grounds had set in much earlier. In fact, it had started barely 30 years after the first plantations had been established. The main reasons for this debacle were the exhaustion of the soil and the ageing of the coffee trees. Most of the coffee grounds were set up between 1740 and 1760 and by 1790, the bulk of the trees were more than thirty years old. A coffee tree in its prime can produce about one pound of clean coffee a year, while ageing trees do not even yield half this amount. The owners neglected to replace the old and even the dead trees with new ones. Moreover, they used the same tracts of land for such a long time that not even an extended resting period could restore them. When they were finally forced off their original fields, they were obliged to use the soggy backlands, where the coffee trees pined, instead. Another mistake was the fact that shade trees (<em>coffie mama’s</em>) were only used during the first four to five years. When the young coffee trees started to bloom, the plantains were removed. The lack of shade was very harmful for the soil. Real shade trees came in vogue only by the middle of the 19th century.<br /><br />Consequently, practical all coffee plantations started to dwindle into oblivion after only a few decades. Production sunk and profits melted away. For that reason, the planters were no longer able to keep up the strength of their slave force and the trees were not cared for properly, resulting in an ever-punier harvest. From the end of the 18th century on, the number of coffee plantations decreased steadily. They were either deserted, or switched to another crop. The few that survived could barely afford the most necessary expenses.<br /><br />A development that certainly did not help was the downward trend in the coffee prices. In the 1720’s, coffee sometimes brought in 5 to 6 guilders a pound, because it was such a scarce commodity. From the 1730’s on, production levels rose steeply and the prices inevitably dropped. The incomes of the planters followed suit. In the early period, some managed to make a fortune: <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/cotticarivier/mocha/">Stephanus Laurentius Neale</a> (later Count Neale) enjoyed an income of 40,000 guilders a year from his plantations in the 1740’s. None of the planters entering the business later could ever match this. Blom calculated that even large plantations, producing about 200,000 pounds of coffee a year, started to loose money when the price on the Amsterdam market fell below 4 5/16 <em>stuivers</em> a pound. Smaller plantations did not survive at this price level. Since even this minimum was not reached during the largest part of the 19th century, Surinam coffee plantations were doomed.<br /><br /><em>Cotton.</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298699351866887602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 120px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 170px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhakq4F25U14-IJKFz_RR3Q_TuE3fouv8MbHyNpxEPQImahnzjQ7_5IHvwRTNndjOrC5Ri469T7NZfHATyPbT1hIAft2T4nuQ5DHAUp6AOp6TnQ0oFmPF_1-YbX1AGlAlnA8bwMwlSjlb0/s400/katoen.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton">Cotton</a> was introduced by the English and some Dutch planters experimented with it on a modest scale during the early years, but production did not become important until the grounds along the Matapicca, Warappa and Tapoerica were cleared in the middle of the 18th century. These were ideal for cotton, because this plant prefers fat blue clay with a thick layer of peat (<em>biribiri</em> lands) and thrives in a salty soil and atmosphere. Too much shadow is fatal and the wind must be able to blow freely.<br /><br />Two kinds of cotton were grown: the ordinary (black seed) cotton and the Sea Island (green seed) variety. The latter yielded more and had a longer and finer fibre, but was more difficult to gin and only cultivated on some plantations along the Warappa Creek. In the 18th century, cotton was often grown as a secondary crop on coffee plantations, but during the 19th century, the number of plantations with a monoculture of cotton multiplied. They were often former coffee grounds.<br /><br />Surinam cotton plantations were very large compared with those prevalent in the United States. Since the economies of scale make little difference when growing cotton (except where supervision is concerned), the planters of the Old South tended to split up their holdings into several independent units when their slave force threatened to become too large for comfort. In Surinam, exactly the opposite happened: a process of concentration of slaves on fewer units (partly because of the scarcity of <em>blankofficieren</em>) resulted in some exceptionally large cotton plantations. <strong>Zeezicht</strong>, for example, counted more than 400 hands. The greatest number of cotton plantations (90) existed around 1820. In 1850, there were only 31 left and in 1862 no more than 15.<br /><br />Cotton profits peaked around 1800. In later years, the competition of American cotton became oppressive. Since prices showed a downward tendency, the slaves could be put to work on sugar plantations to much more advantage. For the slaves this was an unfortunate development, because the cotton grounds were the healthiest plantations in the colony and they very much preferred to work there.<br /><br /><em>Cocoa.<br /></p></em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263693108086776706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 117px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 166px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnuizvAElF25-IpFN0Z1pvue0wt_9iP6n9CmQh-K9DzP-mGR5C5tfabbcf91YlRAxhCbcP8QDCSHqhXP79gbOKQB6450QyNspIESX3gnd6skwRaocmA9MPgK1MRTPHpd83hm4XHfLmm5Q/s400/cacaoA.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">During slavery, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa">cocoa</a> was mostly grown as an auxiliary crop on coffee grounds. Only after emancipation, when it was adopted by black smallholders, it became more than a marginal product. According to popular lore, cocoa was introduced by François de Chatillon, who brought it along from an expedition to the Orinoco in 1686. It is, however, much more likely that some trees were smuggled out of Trinidad, where by this time cocoa production was already flourishing. A few beans were planted in the garden of Governor Van Scharphuys and they quickly multiplied. He distributed the offshoots among interested inhabitants. Two types of cocoa were cultivated in the colony: the yellow Criollo and the red Caracas, the latter since the middle of the 18th century.<br /><br />The cocoa tree needs fertile, fat soil (for example <em>pina</em> land), while <em>mangroe</em> and <em>biribiri </em>lands were not suitable. The fields have to be well drained. The trees have to be protected more from the wind than from the sun. According to Teenstra, old, deserted coffee grounds, which had been left to regenerate for at least 12 to 15 years, were the best, but Blom preferred virgin soil. Cocoa initially grew well on the meagre, sandy soils of Upper Suriname, but these were soon exhausted. In the beginning of the 18th century, the first plantations growing cocoa were situated there. Later, they spread to Lower Commewijne and Cottica. One of the largest plantations with cocoa was <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/geschiedenis/plantages/beneden-commewijnerivier/alkmaar/index.nl.html"><strong>Alkmaar</strong></a>, producing 80,000 pounds of beans a year around 1775.<br /><br />In 1702, the first sacks of cocoa beans were sent to Holland and until 1745, the production increased each year. In 1734, Governor De Cheusses enthusiastically reported a substantial growth in the cultivation of cocoa, but barely 20 years later Governor (ad interim) Van der Meer (1754-1756) found that only a handful of planters still stuck with it. When the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years"><strong>Seven Years' War</strong></a> (1756-1763) drove up prices in the world market, Surinam planters put their faith in cocoa again, but this was the last revival until emancipation.<br /><br />The development of the price curve kept cocoa production from becoming big business during the slavery era. Most of the cocoa plantations switched to coffee during the second half of the 18th century, as a result of the adverse evolution of the prices. In 1740, one pound of coffee sold for 3 <em>stuivers</em>, a pound of cocoa for 10. In 1748, the price of coffee had risen to 13 <em>stuivers </em>a pound, while cocoa dropped to 7 <em>stuivers</em>. The price of cocoa rose again in the 1760’s to 10 <em>stuivers</em> or more per pound, but from then on it kept falling: to 5 <em>stuivers</em> in the 1780’s, 3,5 <em>stuivers</em> at the end of the century, 10 cents in 1829 and an average price of 12 cents a pound for the next 30 years. No wonder that many planters lost heart and merely held on to a few trees for their personal use. Alkmaar, for instance, first turned to a mixed crop of coffee and cocoa and then to sugar.<br /><br />Even in Holland, Surinam cocoa never became very popular. The quality left much to be desired. According to Teenstra, the taste was <em>“a little strong and bitter”</em>, although the fat content was satisfactory. For the slaves, cocoa was an ideal crop. The young shoots required tender care, but the mature trees needed very little maintenance, so most of the exertions on a cocoa plantation were concentrated in the harvest periods (twice a year), which lasted only a couple of weeks.<br /><br /><em>Timber.<br /></em><br />Surinam inhabitants often spoke of timber ‘plantations’, but this is of course not correct: timber was not planted, merely felled, squared and sawed. These activities might have formed the foundations of a modest industrial enterprise, if the planters concerned had shown more ingenuity and had invested more money, but the ones that ended up in such backwaters were the ones most devoid of initiative.<br /><br />Sugar planters always needed heaps of firewood for their mills. Consequently, they quickly depleted their original concessions and applied for more land with the sole intention of stripping it of wood. The authorities tried to remedy this misuse of fertile land by giving out warrants for the less promising parcels expressly for this purpose. These were tied to a sugar estate and did not yield high quality timber for construction or export. When, towards the middle of the 18th century, the sugar plantations of the Upper Suriname and Para divisions had completely exhausted their lands and had to turn to other sources of income, the owners discovered logging. The authorities, wanting to force them into the steady production of good, durable timber, levied a double <em>akkergeld</em> of four <em>stuivers</em> an acre, to make sure that the land was used to the best advantage of the colony. Many of these ‘timber magnates’ were Jews, whose sugar estates had been the first to go under. Timber grounds like these were only established along the Suriname and Para rivers. The fields in Upper Commewijne, where the same development could have occurred, were simply deserted because they were too far from the capital and transportation costs were prohibitive.<br /><br />The products of the timber grounds included: <em>bolletrie</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balat%C3%A1">Manilkara bidentata</a>), <em>bruinhart </em>(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vouacapoua_americana">Vouacapoua Americana</a>), <em>ceder</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedrela">Cedrela odorata</a>), <em>groenhart</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabebuia_serratifolia">Tabebuia serratifolia</a>), <em>kopi</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goupia_glabra">Goupia glabra</a>), <em>letterhout</em> (<a href="http://www.tropilab.com/snakewood.html">Piratinera guianensis</a>), <em>locus</em> (<a href="http://www.tropilab.com/jatoba.html">Hymenaea courbaril</a>), <em>purperhart</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purpleheart">Peltogyne</a>) and <em>wane</em> (<a href="http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/Chudnoff/TropAmerican/html_files/ocotea2new.html">Ocotea rubra</a>). The valuable trees grew far and wide, so it did not take long before the concessions were depleted. Since the planters neglected to plant young trees to replace them, they had to expand their operations continuously. The concessions moved southwards up the Suriname and westwards towards the Saramacca rivers, until they nearly encroached upon the territory of the pacified Saramacca Maroons. These ‘Bush Negroes’ became their fiercest competitors. Needing money for their purchases in the capital, they got increasingly involved in logging and managed to deliver timber much more cheaply than the plantations. The latter were handicapped by the fact that they had to pay taxes and their production costs were much higher. Most timber grounds became marginal operations, which yielded barely enough to pay for the salary of the director, let alone furnish the owner with a nice profit. Since they were largely self-sufficient, however, they could stretch their existence almost indefinitely, even if this meant that the slaves went around practically naked and had to grow all of their food.<br /><br />The timber grounds were about the only plantations in Surinam that did not suffer from a lack of labor. There was no harvest season, so no balancing act between the labor needs during the hectic periods and during the slack times was necessary. The owners had little hope of ever gaining a fortune with these possessions, so the workers were not exactly driven to the limit of their powers. There were no sawing mills in the colony, so all work was done by hand and little was won by large-scale ventures. On the whole, the timber grounds were characterized by a relaxed and, in the case of some directors, even decadent atmosphere.<br /><br /><em>Other products.</em><br /><br />All plantations had to set aside part of their lands to grow <strong>provisions</strong> (mainly plantains). Most of the specialized provision ‘plantations’ were located in the vicinity of Paramaribo and supplied the cityfolks with staple foods and vegetables. They could barely satisfy the needs of the capital and when the plantations, the sugar estates especially, lacked provisions for one reason or another, these grounds could offer little relief. Mostly, they employed less than 20 slaves and were managed by the owner. After the Tempati area had been abandoned in 1759 (as result of a slave revolt), Surinam no longer had a modest parallel to the Jamaican ‘cattle pens’. Only a couple of planters near Paramaribo owned a few heads of cattle, primarily for the milk. Fresh meat was rarely available and very expensive. This was remedied when the <em>Boeroes</em> settled near the capital in the 1840’s.<br /><br />Except for the small, but indispensable provision grounds, the other plantation products were sidelines. <strong>Indigo</strong> was cultivated in modest quantities in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Processing the harvest was a very unhealthy task for the slaves and the revenues did not merit the risk, so production was discontinued soon. In the 19th century, the crop was revived through the efforts of some adventurous planters. One of them was the physician and author Hostmann, who owned a small plantation (<strong>De Twee Kinderen</strong>) near Paramaribo.<br /><br />The production of <strong>tobacco</strong> met the same fate. It was introduced by the English and for a while the crop seemed to have done reasonably well. Some Dutchmen tried their hand at it in the 1670’s, but it never regained its former prominence and was driven from the market by the much better Virginia tobacco. An experiment with the cultivation of tobacco in the 1830’s failed because of excessive rain and was not repeated. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263690169670576258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 316px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgedMdASJ-r-VF8yrXM2AtAD1mVxWJipB_d3V1z7F0LCKuKEQ22EioVuc9BMmUp7PEuplOGu5xgy3vsxeOk6lt7dVnJFlnYGV_i5g0K9Aknohyphenhyphen3ydLmIy3UpU5G95lE-UczBNnIOZQttTE/s400/plantage-Waterland.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><br /><strong>The curse of easy money.<br /></strong><br />Around the middle of the 18th century, the prospects of Surinam agriculture were definitely rosy. The number of plantations and the levels of production grew continuously, the prices of the most important products were favorable and there was every reason to believe that this would be the beginning of a golden age. During the same period, the Dutch had lost their dominance at sea and their mercantile empire crumbled. In the past, they had earned fortunes with shrewd trade and the rich merchants were looking for profitable investments. The industrial revolution was still nearly a century away in Holland, so it is not surprising that plantation agriculture caught their interest.<br /><br />In 1751, the Amsterdam regent and former burgomaster Gideon Deutz decided to start a so-called <em>negotiatiefonds</em> in order to raise money for investment in Surinam. People could buy shares of 1000 guilders and were promised a substantial return on their money: 6% (nearly twice the usual rate of interest in the United Provinces). Many people jumped at this opportunity and Deutz was able to provide loans totaling more than a million guilders. On paper, he did not take much risk. The planters could not lend more than 5/8 of the appraised value of their holdings. That value was to be determined by way of a <em>prisatie</em> (assessment) under the auspices of the Court of Police. In addition to the interest, the planters had to give their products to Deutz, who sold them in commission, charging a fee of 2,5%. Moreover, they were obliged to procure all their necessities through him. The repayment was to start after ten years in installments of 10%. In 1763, the first repayments had to come in, but after two years nothing had materialized yet. Most debtors did not even pay interest on their loans, so Deutz could not compensate his investors. Van der Voort believes that he made up the deficient out of his own pocket, but he could not keep this up very long and went bankrupt. Other funds did not fare any better.<br /><br />The reasons for these failures were threefold. (1) <strong>Fraudulous assessments abounded</strong>. The <em>priseurs</em> were perfectly willing to assess a plantation much too high in return for a small token of appreciation. When the inventory of <strong>Petit Versailles</strong> was made in 1770, for instance, the <em>priseurs</em> Geselschap and Biertempel recorded 80 acres, planted with 42,477 coffee trees and 6547 cocoa trees, while in reality there were only 33,5 acres with 13,513 coffee trees. The loans, therefore, often greatly exceeded the actual value of the collateral. (2) <strong>The plantations increased in value through inflation</strong>, so many planters had them assessed anew periodically and took out additional loans. (3) <strong>There was </strong><strong>no control on how the money was spent</strong>. For the most part, the planters did not use their windfall to improve their holdings, apart from buying all the slaves they wanted at ridiculous prices. Many owners indulged in a spree of conspicuous consumption and thereby gave Surinam its aura of wealth.<br /><br />The prudent reaction of the creditors would have been to withhold further loans, but most of them did not. They poured even more money into the colony, in the hope that this would enable the planters to finally meet their obligations. After the bankruptcy of Deutz, his <em>negotiatiefonds</em> was taken over by Jan and Theodoor van Marselis, who imposed stricter terms and chose the hard line in dealing with planters who defaulted on their loans. They were dismayed to find that planters freed their slaves just to spite their creditors and consequently did not hesitate to put the plantations that seemed bad risks under sequestration and if necessary had them sold at court auctions. The failure of Deutz’ <em>negotiatiefonds </em>should have been a warning to other investors, but they were deceived by reports of promising developments, such as the peace treaties concluded with the most dangerous groups of Maroons and the high level of the coffee prices on the world market.<br /><br />In the period between 1766 to 1775 alone, Surinam plantations swallowed up no less than 30 million guilders. Pieter Emmer estimated that of the total investment of more than <strong>60 million guilders</strong> only about a quarter was eventually paid back, often after a considerable delay. Most planters were not unduly worried about their inability to meet their obligations. The almost inexhaustible patience of the creditors was stretched to the limit and in the end, they had no option but to call in the loans. Consequently, in the late 1770’s and 1780’s many plantations passed into the hands of Dutch merchants. Since the investors were ignorant about plantation agriculture, they often permitted the former owners to stay on as director.<br /><br />The Amsterdam stock exchange crisis of 1773 only temporarily halted the flow of capital to Surinam. New loans were extended on a much more modest scale and with sounder security, but the results were no better. Ever more money was dispensed in the hope of restoring the economic potential of promising estates, but adverse circumstances obstructed the way to recovery. An illuminating example is provided by the case of the plantation <strong>Vrouwenvlijt</strong>, which in time accumulated a debt of 106,000 guilders, while netting only 15,000 guilders when it was sold in 1848. The loss of interest in this case was probably even larger than the loss of capital.<br /><br />Most of the money invested in Surinam under these schemes was unproductive capital in the hands of mercantile moguls. They could afford to gamble away some of their ill-gotten gains in a risky venture. A lot worse was the fact that hundreds of small savers had put all their money in shares of a <em>negotiatiefonds</em> and were hurt badly by the debacle. The real loser, however, was Dutch society as a whole, because if all that money had been invested in industrial enterprises instead, it would not have had to suffer from economic stagnation during such a large part of the 19th century. For that reason, Pieter Emmer was harsh in his conclusion: <em>“Surinam was for the Netherlands a superfluous and expensive piece of prestige property; we would have done better if we had left the territory to the English in 1674 and the slaves in Africa”</em>.<br /><br />Surinam was (and is) a country with an economy based on tropical agriculture and extraction, both ventures which, in circumstances like these, are inevitably speculative in character and invite a hit-and-run tactic. Alex van Stipriaan has therefore qualified the Surinam mode of production as <em>roofbouw</em> (exhaustive cultivation). The planters of Surinam used up soil, slaves and capital without the slightest interest in conservation. Exhaustive cultivation of the soil might be considered unavoidable since suitable grounds were scarce and the planters lacked the knowledge and the means to regenerate their lands by fertilization. With regard to capital investment they also had some excuse for the high expectations of plantation agriculture in the 1750’s and 1760’s were not wholly unfounded and ‘gambling’ was an ordinary way of doing business.<br /><br />With regard to the slaves, however, the behavior of the planters was in many ways totally irrational. The neglect of the reproductive capacity of the slaves when the supply was irregular and the prices were continually rising proved to be a gross error of judgment, to say the least, for it led to a constant scarcity of labor. Insufficient nourishment impaired the productivity of the slaves and cruel treatment drove thousands of the best workers into the forest. These factors helped to seal the doom of Surinam plantation agriculture in an early stage. Moreover, they signify that economic considerations may have influenced the way the slaves were treated, but other factors (basic psychological factors like fear of the black majority) were equally important.</p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-81905504057552737572008-05-02T18:32:00.081+02:002009-02-14T02:13:52.237+01:00Chapter 3: The slave trade to Surinam.<strong><div align="justify"><br />The Dutch part in the slave trade.<br /></div></strong><div align="justify"><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261626136162588562" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 318px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYeVSiZFS5Zt0a7HG6BYS0A3qhKW_9B2FMyFV1UtqYt4EmZInrbXz3YNtCM9Pt1D2jp7HJrZQEMgCA0wNmHnI9ASNgGZEyDZPXarsnl71Co83q3QPKyxbykszDkzXT0n8X8WrW0IbpmfA/s400/map_slave_trade.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">After painstaking research, <a href="http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/aprjun98/may0498/04curtin.html">Philip Curtin</a> has concluded that a total of 9,566,000 slaves were transported to the New World during the transatlantic phase of the slave trade. This number suggests a level of accuracy not wholly warranted, but <em>“it is extremely unlikely that the ultimate total will turn out to be less than 8,000,000 or more than 10,500,000”</em>. These estimates are much less extreme than the earlier ones, which varied between 3,5 and 25 million. From 1630 to 1795, Dutch slavers carried 477,782 of those slaves, according to Johannes Postma (<strong><em><a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=dzI8C0Vka7IC&dq=%22Johannes+Postma%22+%2B+slave+trade&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=cFa-qgZaKh&sig=AFIf7O2I5i5labX5EmGXAuVBgqg&hl=nl&ei=PFuMSeb_NIOf-gaLsdmqCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result">The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade</a></em></strong>). This represents barely 5% of the total. Despite this apparently modest part, the Dutch practically monopolized the trade for a while during the 17th century. Before this could come about, several hurdles, both moral and material, had to be taken.<br /><br />Contrary to the Mediterranean area, the northwestern part of Europe had no continuing tradition of slavery, although the experience with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom">serfdom</a>, especially <em>villeinage</em>, had not been entirely forgotten. The Protestant nations hesitated to jump at the opportunities slave trading and slavery afforded and were somewhat reluctant to let this dubious institution make inroads on their own territory. In time, Liverpool developed into a bustling slave trading station (slaves were openly sold at auctions there) and Antwerp too seemed to make a cautious stride in this direction, but these cities could never hold a candle to the flourishing slave markets that developed in Lisbon and Seville in the 16th and 17th centuries. As long as the northern countries lacked plantation colonies of their own, they were barely involved in the slave trade. In the United Provinces, public sentiment was definitely against it. When in 1596 some brigands brought hundred slaves from Guinea to the Zeelandian capital Middelburg, this initiative created an uproar and the ruling magistrate did not waver to restore them to their ‘natural liberty’. This was a pivotal decision, for it spared the northern Netherlands the creation of an internal slave market. Dutch privateers occasionally captured a load of slaves by accident and often they did not know how to dispose of the tainted cargo. At times, they set them free at sea, which for the Negroes, ignorant of navigation, meant an almost certain death. If they took a fancy to the ship, they put them ashore somewhere and leave them to their fate.<br /><br />It is not surprising that such a sentiment cannot survive for very long when serious money is at stake. As early as 1605, some Dutch traders concluded a contract for the delivery of 500 slaves to the Spanish planters of Trinidad, but there is no proof that they fulfilled it. In 1619, a Dutch ‘man o’ warre’ sold the first slaves in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia">Jamestown</a>, Virginia. These had probably been captured at sea accidentally, but the fact that there existed a willing market for them was not lost on the Dutch merchants. From selling an occasional prize to the conscious pursuit of slave trading was thereafter only a small step. Once the WIC got involved, the Dutch were committed to replace the Portuguese as the most successful slave carriers. In 1626, the Zeelandian Chamber of the WIC decided to outfit a slaver itself, for the supply of workers to its colonies on the Amazon and the Wild Coast. The moral objections to the trade disappeared almost overnight once to economic interests of the Dutch colonies became the first priority.<br /><br />The main stimulus for the growth of the Dutch slave trade was provided by the conquest of Pernambuco in 1636. Governor Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen informed the WIC forthwith that he needed at least 15,000 slaves to revive the former prosperity of the colony. The directors were eager to oblige. Between 1637 and 1645, they shipped no less than 23,163 slaves to Brazil, representing a total value of 6,714,423 guilders. Some of the needed slaves were ‘found’ aboard enemy ships, but a more regular supply was essential and that was only available at the source.<br /><br />Therefore, the Dutch needed trading posts on the coast of West Africa, which was the undisputed hunting ground of the Portuguese in the beginning of the 17th century. The first expeditions were aimed more at harassing the enemy than at securing a source of slaves. The WIC made its first incursions on the <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dcompgeb&lang=nl&id=29">Gold Coast</a> at the end of the 16th century and in 1611 or 1612 established a fort (Nassau) in Mori (<a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/amh/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=535">Moree</a>). It was built to guard the trade in gold, elephant tusks and camlet, not slaves. After this feat, the Dutch went after their Portuguese rivals in earnest and they managed to uproot them everywhere -often aided by the local population who preferred their wares to those of the competition. The Dutch conquerors concentrated most of their efforts on the Gold Coast. In 1637, they captured a vital Portuguese stronghold, São Jorge Da Mina (<a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=524">Elmina</a>), where they built a mighty castle (Fort Coenraadsburg). The Portuguese were driven from the Gold Coast entirely when <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=527">Axim</a> fell into Dutch hands in 1642. The capture of <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=631">Coromantin</a> by Admiral De Ruyter in 1663 crowned their efforts and made the WIC the master of the Gold Coast trade. Only the English managed to hold on to their Cape Coast castle and offered some competition. Elmina became the Dutch headquarters for the whole of Guinea and remained in their possession until it was sold to the English in 1872. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261963135726925266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 236px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCQ_Kf31LQzyQRq3jvuIzsIVopSvZzUobb0sWSpcIj827HPzfr6pW6lmmK4IDK6c1HTvPd8zf64DjH6YYPjvgDFAXAaEA6n5lVVNLjHNlz8ioj9iXlw4BJkvDAwwaZVhkeQF37_8U_Yk/s400/Elmina.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The Dutch were just as active, though somewhat less victorious, in other areas. They rented the isle of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C3%A9e">Goree</a>, near Senegal, from a local ruler in 1617 and constructed a fort there, as well as on the mainland opposite the island. In 1634, the son of Abraham van Peere, Lord Protector of Berbice, conquered <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=829&q=Arguin">Arguin</a> and became the first governor. These possessions were soon lost, however. In Angola, the Dutch were no more fortunate. During a large-scale offensive in 1641, Captain ‘Peg-Leg’ Jol managed to secure <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=841&q=Sao%20Paulo%20de%20Loanda">São Paulo de Luanda</a>, the largest slave depot in these parts. The Portuguese reclaimed it seven years later. The same happened with <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=en&id=839&q=Benguela">Benguela</a> and <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&id=833&lang=en">São Thomé</a>. On the Slave Coast, the WIC never established a stronghold and neither did the other European powers. The native rulers did not permit them to build forts, only a series of temporary lodges. The WIC had ‘factories’ for a while at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouidah">Ouidah</a> (1670-1724), Jacquin (1726-1734) and <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/AMH/detail.aspx?page=dpost&lang=nl&id=818">Popo</a> (1738-1740; 1744; 1752-1760). The English were the most serious rivals, but other contenders, like the French, the Danes, the Swedes and the Brandenburgers, demanded a share in the spoils of the slave trade as well. Following the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Breda_(1667)">Treaty of Breda</a></strong> (1667), the Dutch had to give up many of their claims. Except for those on the Gold Coast, they lost most of their West-African possessions.<br /><br />Like the United Provinces (with the WIC), the other countries were represented by private trading companies (the Scandinavian ones were set up and financed by disgruntled expatriate Dutchmen). In England it went by the name of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England, later the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_African_Company">Royal Africa Company</a></strong>, which, as the name suggested, stood under the protection of the King. The companies had to keep up and man the forts, which was a serious drain on their resources. They fiercely competed with each other, which drove up the prices of the slaves, and interlopers often stole away with the best merchandise. Consequently, most of them went bankrupt soon, or had to be heavily subsidized by their respective governments.<br /><br />The Dutch strengthened their position by striving for amicable relations with the local peoples. They offered protection and, although in general they were loath to incite animosities (because these hampered trade), they sometimes even participated in the wars of their allies against hostile neighbors. They usually managed to gain favor with the winning side, but their failure on the Slave Coast was partly due to the fact that they twice betted on the wrong horse.<br /><br />After the loss of Pernambuco, the Dutch slave trade floundered for a while, mostly due to the lack of a suitable trading center in the Caribbean. Soon, however, the traffic picked up again, since the Dutch had stumbled upon a golden opportunity when they conquered the island of <strong><a href="http://www.caribseek.com/Curacao/curacao-history-the-slave-trade.shtml">Curacao</a></strong>. Its rise as a burgeoning slave market started modestly in 1636, when Captain Jol was instructed to bring the slaves captured on foreign ships there. Dutch traders easily secured eager customers for the growing number of slaves delivered to the island, because in 1640 Portugal had broken away from Spain and was barred from bringing any slaves to the Spanish possessions in the New World. Since Spain did not take part in the slave trade herself, Spanish planters had to find other suppliers. As a result, Spain was forced to award the <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiento">Asiento</a></em>, the coveted monopoly for the delivery of slaves, to outsiders.<br /><br />In 1662, the Genoese merchants Grillo and Lomelio managed to secure it (by bribing the right officials). They had no plans to fetch the necessary slaves from Africa themselves and bought them from the Dutch and the English, to the detriment of the Spanish planters, who had to purchase them at inflated prices. When to <em>Asiento</em> was renewed in 1668, Grillo and Lomelio entered into a contract with the WIC for the delivery of 2000 slaves a year on Curacao. The later <em>Asientista</em> Antonio Garcia was only a figurehead for the Amsterdam bankers B. and J. Coymans, who took over the <em>Asiento</em> officially in 1684. Following protests by Spaniards who did not want their precious slaves spoiled by contacts with heretics, the Spanish king revoked the contract in 1687. Thereafter, the WIC gradually gave way to the English, until the <em>Asiento</em> was turned over to them entirely, in accordance with the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Utrecht">Treaty of Utrecht</a>, </strong>in 1713. The loss of the <em>Asiento</em> sealed the doom of Curacao as a crucial link in the slave trade, although the Dutch kept supplying the Spanish colonies, as well as some of the French territories, illegally. From the beginning of the 18th century on, the dwindling stream of slaves handled by Dutch traders was mainly directed towards Surinam.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The manner of trade.<br /></strong><br />At first, the traffic in slaves was only a byproduct of the more important trade in commodities – in particular gold, ivory and pepper. Occasionally, some slaves were offered alongside these wares and were accepted mostly out of curiosity. Other times, adventurers would ‘hunt’ some innocent passers-by, just for ‘sport’. It soon became apparent that there was a market for them, if only as pets for the rich. Therefore, the search for slaves became a serious business. Ships would anchor somewhere along the African coast; the men would row ashore; they would grab a few natives and make off. This did not promote good will and in retaliation, the Africans would launch a furious attack as soon as they saw sails, often targeting sailors totally unaware of the breech in relations. This method did not deliver many slaves either. The traders came to realize that they needed the help of the local population. Therefore, all but the most stupid soon abandoned the hit-and-run tactic. Peaceable trade was much easier and yielded much more profit. The Portuguese first bartered horses against slaves (fourteen men for a horse), but this made little sense in the jungle areas where most slaves were to be had. Fortunately for the traders, the locals yearned for all kinds of European goods and would stop at nothing (including selling their own relatives) to obtain them. This way a large-scale, well-organized industry developed.<br /><br />As Curtin has pointed out, ‘Africa’ appears to have supplied slaves solely in response to demand, but the individual coastal regions provided slaves in quantities dictated by their specific circumstances, such as the political organization, level of anarchy and involvement in civil or external warfare. In the 16th century, for instance, the Wolof of Senegal were torn by internal strife and many of them ended up in the slave barracoons, while in later years they were only found among the offered slaves sporadically. In the following centuries, the Yoruba civil wars and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula">Fulani</a> <em>jihads</em> produced large numbers of Yoruba and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_people">Hausa</a> slaves. The white buyers were largely dependent on these developments, although they sometimes tried to set up neighbor against neighbor. Because of changing circumstances, the locus of the slave trade shifted continuously.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264574617246568018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQv9vRmKXMEvzvbnzt3FWVTgEmuHxOVerUbKb0midKkr-XBFiK5gtfdOIdmqEND9AlWYM_4cbfj1opFbX8AW9-6w-zQ8MsYcn1b9XMKeHGzFN_UtIpH-SWnx4osCuwZXRrTUBahCCbq6I/s400/afrikaanse-handelaren.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The first African states to engage in slave trading in a professional way were the savanna states of the northwest: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire">Mali</a> (14th/15th centuries), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhai_Empire">Songhai</a> (16th century) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornu_Empire">Bornu</a> (17th century). Their traffic was oriented towards the Mediterranean. The demand in the Caribbean diverted the stream of slaves and these states gradually lost their prominence to the emerging coastal empires of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Benin">Benin</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyo_Empire">Oyo</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey">Dahomey</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Ashanti">Ashanti</a>, which prospered during the late 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Along the coast, the center of the trade moved in southeastern direction: Senegambia lost its position to the Gold Coast and later Benin and Angola became the main suppliers. The evolution of the Dutch trade followed a somewhat different pattern, however.<br /><br />All African societies were familiar with the phenomenon of slavery and many of them harbored a fair number of slaves themselves. Some of those chattels were ‘family slaves’ and would not be sold, except in cases of emergency. In many tribes, however, there existed a lively internal slave traffic and some bondsmen were sold countless times during their lifespan. This way, they might eventually end up in the hands of white buyers. Most of the unfortunates sold in the early stages of the transatlantic slave trade belonged to this category. Soon, there were not enough slaves to satisfy demand and the native sellers sought other sources. Traditionally, free people could be degraded to bondage for a number of reasons: for example as a <strong>penalty for serious crimes </strong>(like witchcraft); as result of <strong>being taken</strong> <strong>prisoner</strong> in a war; or because of the <strong>failure to pay one’s debts</strong>.<br /><br />These sources of new slaves were exploited to the utmost. The English factor Francis Moore observed: <em>“Since this Slave-Trade has been us’d all Punishments are chang’d into Slavery”</em>. Unscrupulous rulers tricked their subjects into committing crimes for which they could be punished with bondage. They would, for example, marry all the young girls in a certain village, leave them to their fate and enslave both the girls and their lovers if these abandoned brides became involved with other men, since adultery with the wife of a king was a capital crime. Political rivals were disposed off in the same manner, along with their whole family. Prisoners of war were sold without compunction. In some instances, this may even have been a blessing in disguise, because, as Latham remarked about the evolution of slavery in Old Calabar, <em>“t was a simple development from eating prisoners of war to selling them”</em>. The difference between wars and raiding expeditions blurred, because <em>bona fide</em> war did not yield enough captives. When there were no genuine foes available, some rulers did not scruple to raid their own villages, not even bothering to seek a pretext. Although it happened less frequently than Europeans believed, some people even stooped so low as to sell their closest relatives. The Moravian Brother Riemer encountered a young slave in Surinam, who, along with his brother, had been disposed of by his father in return for a case of pipes, simply because of mutual dislike. This kind of betrayal was extremely grieving, so it is no surprise that his brother had died at sea, consumed by hatred. People in debt who had surrendered themselves or members of their family as pawns, found to their horror that they were sold off before they had the chance to repay the loan. Consequently, most of the unfortunate Africans that filled the holds of the slave ships had been born free.<br /><br />In some parts of Africa, legends about the slavery era are still being told, although most people prefer to forget the part that their forbearers themselves played in this tragedy. During a trip in Dahomey, Melville Herskovits met a driver named Felix, who recounted the following family lore: <em>“People we call Aguda </em>[Portuguese]<em>, they buy plenty. If they buy they put for ship. That time no steamer. If man go out, man who be strong catch him and go sell. My grandfather he saw Aguda buy we people in Popo, than take go ‘way to place they now calls Freetown. Aguda make village there, then make we people born children. When children born, Aguda take away go sell.”</em> [This proves that legends are not always trustworthy, because slave traders were not interested in young children: they did not want to wait more than a decade for them to mature sufficiently to be salable.]<br /><br />Very soon, the majority of the slaves sold in the Caribbean had been procured through African intermediaries. <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcowleyM.htm">Malcolm Cowley</a> estimated the number of free Africans kidnapped by whites as only one or two of every hundred slaves. It has been suggested that the slaves were dragged to the West-African ports from all over the continent and there indeed seem to have been bondsmen from Mozambique who were sold at the mouth of the Congo River, but cases like this only formed a tiny minority. Slaves seldom originated from more than 200 miles inland. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261625734182039378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 314px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3Rbi-yYGI3hIBZyDfY0j7XhqFpkpBZekq3o61Ox7cCMiqRw2oek6B2G9-ZJtBYqbXtAf-fkTZ62IDBgMHfngOWr-rlEkz0o5eC8LxEc-k-KQ0b971qy27MphL52vrJiTY-NRHFhhBlk/s400/slavenkaravaan.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The number of Africans who have fallen victim to the slave trade remains obscure. We have a rough idea of how many of them reached the New World alive and how many died during the transatlantic voyage. However, nobody knows how many people were killed during raids, succumbed during the arduous trek to the coast, perished in the slave barracoons, or committed suicide rather than be shipped off. Stanley Elkins guessed that two thirds of the captives died <em>en route</em>, but this seems overly pessimistic. One in two is probably a more realistic estimate, which brings the number of victims of the slave trade to about 20 million. Strangely enough, there is no sign that any coastal tribe has been exterminated by the slave raids. Curtin has called attention to the fact that the traffic in human beings had many unforeseen consequences, not all of them bad for the continent. African diseases that migrated to other parts of the world seem to have wrought considerably more havoc than the diseases that ‘invaded’ Africa, and the import of foodstuffs like manioc and corn enabled an unprecedented growth of the African population. He concluded that the ‘net demographic effect’ may well have been positive rather than negative.<br /><br />The Dutch way of slave trading differed little from that of the other countries, except that it was better organized. The WIC had a monopoly on this traffic until 1730 [along the Gold Coast to 1734], but even after that ended, the company retained much influence since it staffed and operated the <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorij">factorijen</a> (trading posts). The Director-General of the WIC on the Gold Coast resided in Elmina. He was assisted by a council, consisting of the military commander, the fiscal and the most important <em>factoors</em>. The other <em>factoors</em> had to obey their decisions, but as communication was difficult, they were often left to their own devises. During the era of the WIC-monopoly, the slave trade was administered centrally. The directors awarded <em>tourbeurten</em> (annual assignments) to the participating chambers. From 1663 to 1674, there was a special fund for the equipment of slave ships. Thereafter, the chambers had to supply the money themselves. They never lacked participants.<br /><br />The way the traffic in slaves was conducted depended on the region. On the <a href="http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/goldcoast.htm">Gold Coast</a>, the WIC had leased land from the local rulers and constructed forts at strategic places. These also functioned as trading posts. The ships could anchor there and fill their holds with a cargo of slaves (called <em>armasoen</em>), assembled by the <em>factoor</em> and the company brokers. Initially, the trade in gold was more profitable. Most slavers stopped only briefly in Elmina and, unable to procure enough slaves, sailed on to the Slave Coast. During the 18th century, the Gold Coast was able to supply an increasing number of slaves. The most important centers were Elmina and Coromantin. In the <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegambia_(17e_eeuw)">Senegambian</a> area, the trade was structured the same way, but few Dutch slavers called there in the beginning.<br /><br />On the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Coast">Slave Coast</a>, the local rulers kept the trade firmly in their own hands. At first, they only tolerated ships that anchored there more or less permanently (these ships were called <em>leggers</em> by the Dutch), later the Europeans were allowed to built warehouses on the beach, which developed into trading lodges. They barred the whites from procuring slaves on their own, or even through the offices of the African middlemen in the service of the companies. They either employed their own brokers, or traded directly with the various European nations, inciting strife to get them to open their purses wider. The different city-states (like Ardra and Ouidah) competed fiercely against each other as well and the Europeans could profit from this in turn. During the 18th century, the mighty kingdom of Dahomey came to overshadow all others and grew into an efficient slaving machine.<br /><br />On the <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=E0zEEy08VxQC&dq=Windward+Coast+%2B+slave+trade&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=dCgVsW9vih&sig=yAxL80e-lLb3eTyKWrdDvcQ8naQ&hl=nl&ei=rG2MSeKGJImS-gaOgYWFCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA4,M1">Windward Coast</a>, the current was too strong and the shore too rocky to permit the establishment of harbors, so the ships were obliged resort to ‘smoke’ or (as the Dutch called it) <em>lorredraayer </em>(interloper) trade. The ships would anchor at a respectable distance and give (smoke) signals. The natives –if they had not been shied off- would then climb into their canoes and bring their wares. It took a long time to assemble a large enough an <em>armasoen </em>this way, so the skippers often sent out their own sloops to look for slaves upriver. In Angola, the Dutch were obliged to trade the same way, because they had been unable to retain their lodges.<br /><br />The African middlemen, often called <em>caboceer</em> (from the Portuguese word <em>caboceiro</em>), could grow enormously rich and influential. Some of them, like Jon Conny and Pieter Pasop, became petty kings themselves. However, being so close with unscrupulous European merchants could be a risky business. The English slave trader John Atkins observed that <em>“it is not unfrequent for him who sells you slaves to-day, to be a few days hence sold himself at some Neighbouring Town”.</em> The private traders, eager for a quick profit and less concerned with maintaining good relations with the suppliers than the company representatives, resorted to <em>panyaring</em> (kidnapping) at a much greater rate. Many a ship sailed off with either the intermediaries themselves, or the pawns they had left as a security for trade goods on board. There were sometimes ‘princes’ among them.<br /><br />The directors of the WIC were seriously worried about these transgressions, because they threatened their cherished reputation. Although there was little chance of finding the victims of kidnapping after they had been transported across the ocean, they tried their utmost to rescue them. The Court of Police in Surinam, for example, was ordered by the WIC and the States General in 1749 to search for seven Negroes who had been kidnapped by skipper Christiaan Hagerop of the <strong>Afrikaan </strong>and had been offered at a public auction. Six of them came from Elmina, whose native population was never sold as slaves, and one originated from the <em>“Fantijn Country”.</em> In the interest of the slave trade, they had to be returned to their country forthwith, or the authorities were at least to be informed of their deaths. Planters who held on to them were threatened with a charge of “<em>menschendieverij” </em>(man stealing). The authorities managed to retrieve at least two of the victims. Equally serious was the plight of an African who had worked as a company broker in Elmina and claimed to have been betrayed by Director-General Jan Pranger, who had sold him as a slave. The reason was that Pranger owed him 20 <em>marks</em> of gold, had cheated him out of 400 slaves and an additional 100 <em>marks</em> of gold and did not want to pay his debts. The WIC-commissioners in Surinam were charged with the task of tracking him down. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264577030478748818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 265px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLfuhOqtSMujJmhbqDw-CfsRXpIkPWMU5P0QQ8CP1sy9gaJ83bUW77klt303euEnbrDB_sX7ArXqmrtgiwkRqANkruTaM08bZZZ2PHwIORkRl2Ooqf3aexAdmjOw0ol-KHCni_rUwANQw/s400/aankomst-in-Europa.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Trade was conducted in the form of barter. Most of the time, various kinds of goods were given for each slave, but the standard of calculation was the unity of the product most popular in each region. It could be a ‘bar’ (of iron), a ‘stick’ (of salt), an ‘ounce’ (of gold), a ‘string’ (of cowrie shells), or a ‘piece’ (of cloth). Some wares were popular everywhere: for example, guns, gunpowder, liquor and textiles. Other goods were much more in demand in one region than in the others. Iron and copper bars were especially prized on the Windward Coast and in Calabar, while in Angola textiles were favored. A wide variety of other wares was also bartered. The Dutch ship <strong>Geertruyd</strong>, for instance, carried kettles, brandy, crystal, knives, bells and mirrors to Calabar. All kinds of trinkets, like beads, rings, ruffled shirts, plumed hats, etc. found their way to African customers as well. Most of them, however, were shrewd enough to prefer hardware to finery. Van Dantzig has estimated that the <em>cargasoenen</em> (cargoes) of the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie, the largest of the Dutch private traders, consisted half of textiles and half of guns, gunpowder and liquor, with some trinkets thrown in.<br /><br />Towards the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch often managed to get the better of the English by stationing spies along the coast who reported what kinds of goods they carried, whereupon they lowered their prices for these wares. In later times, the Dutch partly lost their prominent position because they became careless about the quality of their merchandise. The African traders, being no fools, then went to the competition. Of the liquors, for example, Dutch genever (Blankenheym) used to be the most popular, but it was replaced by brandy and rum. The prices of slaves along the coast fluctuated a lot, in response to changing circumstances, but they nevertheless rose steadily. During the 18th century, they more than quadrupled.<br /><br />The slaves from the interior were sometimes sold from one tribe to the other over a period of months or even years, until in the end they found themselves in the barracoons of the whites. More often, however, they were taken to the coast straight away and forced to march the whole route, tied together in coffles that frequently stretched for miles. They were fettered with wooden yokes or leather tongues and driven on mercilessly, sometimes over a distance of more than 50 km a day. Many died along the road, or became too weak to continue and were left as a meal for the vultures. When, after an arduous trek, they finally reached the coast, they were exhausted and emaciated. Then they had to wait for buyers in the lodges and the forts. According to Johannes Postma, during the era of the WIC-monopoly 3 to 5% of the slaves died there, during the era of the free trade considerably less.<br /><br />The trading lodges were simple wooden cabins. They stood under the protection of the local rulers, so there was no need for intricate defences, but it was of course necessary to make sure that no slave could get out. Therefore, they were surrounded by a stockade of sharply pointed stakes and sometimes by a moat filled with thorns. At times, some old canons were stationed at the four corners. The <em>factoor</em> usually lived alone, but was protected by a small army of black mercenaries, who proudly displayed their rusty muskets. The heart of the lodge was formed by the slave barracoon. It resembled a corral for cattle. In the center was a long wooden shed that protected the slaves from the sun and rain. Down the middle of the shed ran a long chain to which the men were fastened at intervals. The women and children were allowed to roam freely. At one corner of the ‘corral’, an armed guard stood watch over the slaves.<br /><br />The slaves in the forts were generally worse off. These were often immense constructions, built to withstand any attack and they made sturdy prisons from which no escape was possible. In Elmina castle, the slaves were let into the yard during the day, but at night were secured in the <em>slavengat</em> (slave dungeon), a dark hole with room for 300 slaves, but usually many more occupants. The air often became unbearably foul. For lack of room, some of the human merchandise had to stay outside permanently. The healthy slaves were obliged to work during the day. The women, for example, had to prepare food for their fellow captives. The slaves were usually well fed to give them strength for the arduous sea voyage.<br /><br />Some slaves were chosen to supervise the others. The Gold Coast slaves despised those originating from the Slave Coast and therefore were particularly eager to take on this job. They were issued a ‘cat o’ nine tails’ as a badge of their office, which they employed with gusto. With the English, this was only a temporary honor and the ones so distinguished were shipped off just like the others, but the Dutch employed ‘castle slaves’ (sometimes also freemen) for this job. They were called <em>bomba(as) </em>and ordinarily not sold overseas, except as punishment for a crime.<br /><br />When the ships arrived, the slaves were driven into the yard and carefully examined by the <em>chirurgijns</em> (surgeons). They were divided into slaves that were ‘deliverable’ and <em>macrons</em>: those who were too sick, old, or handicapped to be acceptable. The WIC transported the latter to Nieuw Amsterdam, or tried to sell the best as contraband to Spanish planters and the more decrepit to the English and French. The requirements for ‘deliverable’ slaves were modeled after the regulations of the <em>Asiento</em>. Slaves were not counted as heads, but as <em>piezas de India</em>. A <em>pieza</em> (piece) was a healthy man between 15 and 36 years old, with a stature of at least ‘7 <em>cuertas’</em> (1.60 m). Acceptable slaves were <em>“those who are not Blind, Lame, nor Broken, and also those, who have no contagious diseases”</em>. Greying hair, baldness, missing teeth and the loss of any limb, even a finger joint, condemned a captive to the <em>macron</em> class. Younger slaves were counted as parts of <em>piezas</em>: <em>“from </em><em>Fourteen to Eight Years </em>[these were called <em>mulecones</em>]<em>, three for two; and from Seven to Two Years, three for one; shall those, who are under the two Years, be counted as Infants, and follow the mother”</em>.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264574926573993362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 233px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_WPNcz3WBGKHqAYzmx8mqf-5pXmqC-O05-ZC6q8u5uZRfqXylbIUCoWegG1Nfldrg1OMh7je2N7X7_O1fTsIyzVoeGO17kqihXCA79GtxExHzC8E49s2BohxKH06ozX3ONVKB7bAELA/s400/brandmerken.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Those who met with approval were branded to make sure the captains would not replace them with less desirable specimens before bringing them on board. The WIC branded slaves on the chest, the private traders on the arm. Care was taken that they were not burned too harshly, especially the women, but the branding was still an inferno of smoke, cries and stench. The whole procedure was a terrible shock for the poor creatures, who believed that their end was near. They were convinced that they were sold to the whites to be eaten. Only the sophisticated Gold Coast Negroes<em> </em>knew better.<br /><br />The chosen slaves were loaded into canoes and rowed to the waiting ships, where they were issued a simple piece of cloth to cover their nakedness. As long as the coast was visible, they entertained hopes of escape, and rebellion often occurred in this phase of the journey. The slaves who did manage to get away generally did not get far. They were usually caught on the beach and either brought back to the ship, or sold to another trader. Once the vessel reached the open sea, all hope of deliverance was lost, although many slaves continued to look for a way out –if only by death. Before the ship sailed away, the crew discharged the canons, loaded with scarp-iron, to scare the slaves. Later, they secretly reloaded them with peas, to avoid damaging their wares too much if they were forced to shoot at them.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The Middle Passage.</strong><br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264575704831302306" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 279px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWym7B6ZM7FMLyJG2UNtLavSq0Gj3whP4-PRUJGJ2KtMVt9X2XtM11rlD5ypLlJRjKm31LqcAl4KkCXzwPkHDoV6Di8e3m8xFFUvqNIP5YnbH_3nmdfJpz6WN-LsV1EjBeFO3_Hkh6x8A/s400/tight-packers.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p align="justify"><em>Conditions on board.</em><br /><br />Daniel Mannix distinguished two categories of slave traders: the <strong>loose packers</strong> and the <strong>tight packers</strong>. Although few slavers really stacked their holds to the brim, some carried considerably more slaves in the same space than others. The Dutch were clearly on the ‘loose’ side. Careful merchants as they were, they preferred higher profits on fewer slaves. They often employed <a href="http://www.vocsite.nl/schepen/scheepstypen.html">fast ships</a> that were specifically adapted to the slave trade, such as the <em>pinas </em>and the <em>flute</em>. Most of these ships could carry 240 to 300 tons and had room for 300 to 400 slaves. The <em>armasoenen</em> tended to get smaller during the 18th century. The private traders more often used ordinary vessels, which were refitted for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage">Middle Passage</a> on the African coast. These ships were manned by unusually large crews to ensure mastery over the slaves. The vessels involved in the slave trade mostly originated from Vlissingen and Middelburg in the Province of Zeeland. In later times, Rotterdam sent out large numbers of slavers as well, while Amsterdam supplied relatively few.<br /><br />Even on the ‘loose packing’ Dutch ships, the slaves had little space to spare in the hold. They lay on the bare boards, which often scraped their flesh to the bone in rough weather. They had no room to sit and often had to lie side by side like spoons in a box. Sometimes, they could hardly turn around. Men and women were separated. The men were chained to each other, the women and children could move around freely. In each compartment stood several jars, where the slaves had to relieve themselves. Since it was difficult to climb over the bodies of others in order to reach them, many slaves did not bother and discharged their waste where they lay. When the weather was bad, the slaves often had to stay in the hold for days on end with the hatches closed and the atmosphere becoming more and more unbreathable. After such a spell, many slaves were carried from the hold dead.<br /><br />When the circumstances were favorable, the slaves were allowed to stay on deck during the day, with the men chained to the bulwarks. At about nine o’clock, they ate breakfast. For the Windward slaves this consisted of boiled rice, millet, or cornmeal with tiny bits of salted meat. The slaves from Calabar preferred stewed yams and the slaves from Angola and Congo received manioc and plantains. When nothing else was available, the slaves were served horse peas, which most of them detested. To ward off melancholy and to keep their muscles from slackening too much, the captives were forced to dance to the music of drums and kettles, sometimes until their ankles bled from the chafing of the leg-irons. At the end of the 18th century, this exercise was considered so vital that those unwilling to participate were whipped. Around four o’clock in the afternoon, the slaves were fed dinner, which consisted of the same food as breakfast. Once the origins of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy">scurvy</a> had been discovered, they were regularly issued lemon juice. Otherwise, they had to drink water, often in reduced quantity because towards the end of the journey the stocks of food and water usually were nearly depleted. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264574259211420866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 252px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJ8AkJLw1BUjtNzBwNoADExPZgIg3omtjRa0Ugtkd08AVhgdP4wkx2VtgZRAKBHkbqBKE2tb-R2Hbo2Z-V5lZxOAPp2MYlweAcbI7PhfMgy6eZwwv70tXHuXZOTUc58oumrhDH6hcmOc/s400/slavenschip-2.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">During the time the slaves spent on deck, the crews cleaned the quarters. On some ships, this happened every day, but on others it was limited to once a week and a few skippers left the slaves to wallow in their own filth for the entire journey. In all these matters, the Dutch compared favorably with the other nationalities. They permitted their slaves more space and, in the opinion of the English slaver John Barbot, their ships were exceptionally clean. Not a single case has been recorded in which Dutchmen threw slaves overboard (either because they suffered from contagious diseases, or because food and water were scarce), while the English and other competitors frequently resorted to this practice. This humanity was largely the result of pressure from the WIC, which, as Cornelis Goslinga observed, <em>“once involved in the slave trade … meticulously insisted upon good treatment for the Negroes.” </em>The crews were strictly forbidden to meddle with the women, for example, and the ‘<em>Instructions for the Skippers in the Service of the West India Company sailing in the Slave Trade’ </em>described their duties in detail<em>.<br /></em><br />Because of the relatively good treatment, the average death toll on board Dutch slavers was fairly low: 16 to 17% in the 17th century and 12 to 13% in the 18th century, according to Van Dantzig. It could be almost negligible: the <strong>Adrichem</strong>, carrying more than 600 slaves, lost only 8 during the entire journey in 1710. Mortality was primarily the result of epidemics and difficulties with preserving food and water, rarely of overcrowding. Dysentery was the prime cause of death, through contamination of food and water. It usually occurred in waves. Truly astronomical death rates were caused by the most infectious diseases, such as smallpox and measles. The origins of the slaves could be influential too: when they were already weakened by failing harvests in their own country, they had less resistance. According to Klein, the experience and humanity of the skippers in the end had little bearing on mortality. Also, the death rates of transported slaves must be put in perspective: in the early period of the trade (until the middle of the 18th century), they were barely higher than those found among other reluctant seafarers, like convicts, emigrants, or soldiers. This also suggests that overcrowding was not the main cause of death (because white passengers were given at least twice as much space). However, their mortality decreased much steeper than the death toll among the slaves, which leads to the conclusion that they profited more from the expansion of medical knowledge.<br /><br />Surprisingly, the mortality among the crews of the slave ships remained at a higher level than that of the slaves: Curtin believed that the slave trade claimed the life of “<em>one sailor out of five”. </em>The sailors weren't valuable merchandise and sometimes they had to give up their rations in favor of the slaves. They were mercilessly punished for any breach of the rules and even more susceptible to disease than the slaves were. The greater vulnerability of the sailors is illustrated by the fate of the <strong>Stat en Lande</strong>. In July 1732, this ship arrived from Jacquin with 131 slaves and 5 crew members. It had departed with 300 blacks and 37 whites. Among the dead were the mates and the surgeons. In March 1743, the <strong>Lammerenburg</strong> had only 8 crew members left when it reached the mouth of the Suriname River, with the exception of the mate and two boys all incapacitated. The captain and the rest of the crew had died from scurvy.<br /><br />Mortality in general depended largely on the length of the journey. Curtin calculated that it was 10% higher on a voyage that lasted longer than 50 days than on a voyage that took less time. In this respect, the Dutch slave traders were handicapped, because their trade routes were among the longest. The ships from Guinea, for instance, sailed north first and took in provisions at São Thomé or another island. Then they journeyed westward for about 1000 miles and continued in northwestern direction to the Cape Verdian islands. This part often took a long time, because they had to pass the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doldrums">doldrums</a>. Near the Cape Verdian islands, they picked up the trade winds and from then on, they could travel very fast. The ships from Angola often made better time, even though they had to cover more miles. If the journey lasted much longer than foreseen, the food supplies ran out and the slaves nearly starved. Lack of fresh water affected them even worse. Kuhn mentioned a voyage during which 79 out of 220 slaves died within a few days, because in their anguish they had resorted to drinking seawater. The slave ships sometimes arrived in a really sorry condition, as did Captain Jonker with the <strong>Watervliet</strong>. He had departed with 600 slaves <em>“of which he had lost the greatest part because of a long and sad journey”</em>, reported the papers of the Government Secretariat in 1747.<br /><br />The slaves did not all accept their fate without a fight, though many of them were in such a shock that they did not know how to react. Many were determined not to reach the dreaded destination alive. Some jumped overboard as soon as they had the chance. Others cut their throats, or hanged themselves. Most of the time, they were watched too closely to be able to resort to such desperate measures, though. The sailors were convinced that some slaves succeeded in killing themselves by holding in their breath until they expired, but this is physiologically impossible. They could, however, swallow their tongue and suffocate themselves this way. Countless slaves steadfastly refused to eat. To force them, glowing coals were pressed to their lips, but some held their mouth firmly shut even then. For such emergencies, the slave traders took along a <em><a href="http://ebaker92.googlepages.com/speculumoris">speculum oris</a></em>, an instrument designed to wrench open their jaws, so food could be poured in through a funnel. Often, slaves simply put their head between their knees and ‘mourned’ themselves to death. The crew members stood by helplessly, but they got revenge by destroying the hope of these slaves to return to their homeland after death: <em>“in order to obviate this idea,</em> [some captains] <em>thought of an expedient viz. to cut off the heads of those who died intimating to them that if determined to go, they must return without heads”.</em> It did not help much. Rebellions aboard slave ships were legion, though few were successful. Most of them were suppressed brutally by the crew (sometimes with the aid of other ships), but even when the slaves managed to overpower the sailors, they usually perished at sea.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264938796096949074" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 266px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFynhi-by_YYHr6h3INJXaDdN4HrWCdtqYwZPF-a-0ZrIxz-GQx4isLlCczAmgaF29UTuRbVia32n-U1Ow_hOA53_ttD2MNJUsAaJjR6GyzpBWCEQfDTGMZYJlnFQikqLczd8dBC52M4/s400/boeien.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>The voyage of the Coninck Salomon.<br /></em><br />The description of the journey of the <strong>Coninck Salomon</strong> in 1686 gives a good impression of the situation on a WIC-vessel during the Middle Passage. It arrived in Surinam with 454 slaves that were in a horrible condition and was singled out by Governor Van Aerssen as a convincing example of the way the Surinam people were conned by Dutch traders: <em>“we are shorn with the buying of goods, with the import of slaves and with the return of sugar”</em>. Because of this complaint, the journal of the WIC-commissioner <strong>Jan Wils</strong> has survived in the archives of the Society of Surinam.<br /><br />When the slaves were loaded in Elmina, Wils recorded that they were already <em>“as bad as I have ever seen”.</em> No less than a quarter were <em>macrons, </em><em>“who are so grey and sick that they are not deliverable”. </em>Moreover, when they departed, more than 19 slaves were <em>“already half and nearly dead”</em>. So, the Coninck Salomon sailed forth with an <em>armasoen</em> of old, sick and miserable slaves and the crew had to treat them with the utmost care to keep them alive.<br /><br />Their health was checked continuously. When they showed signs of weakness, they were immediately unchained and they received double rations and palm oil. The skinniest slaves got bread. They were also regularly treated to a <em>soopje</em> (alcohol ration) to cheer them up. Hygienic rules were rigidly adhered to. All slaves had to give up their <em>paantjes</em> (loincloths) to ensure that they would get no lice. The <em>bombas </em>incurred heavy penalties if they failed <em>“to take good care that when the Negroes washed themselves no unwashed passed without washing themselves”</em>. The holds were regularly scrubbed, smoked out and sprinkled with vinegar. After anchoring at Cape ‘de Loop’, the slaves were treated to an orange and three buffaloes were slaughtered for their consumption. At the next stop, on the isle of Anneboo, the captain bought ample provisions: 4000 oranges, 5000 lemons, 40 coconuts, 40 chickens, 2 billy goats and 2 pigs. Women as well as men were also issued pipes and four leaves of tobacco each.<br /><br />All these precautions could not stop contagious diseases from breaking out. When it was discovered that one slave had contracted the Spanish pox, he was quarantined at the back of the ship, because two women who suffered from smallpox already took up the front space. This did not prevent the contamination of others. The slaves infected by pox and scabies received doses of gunpowder and an extra <em>soopje </em>of genever as medicine. This was the limit of the medical knowledge of the crew.<br /><br />The only serious difficulty arose when <em>bomba</em> Swaen told the slaves that <em>“the whites were going to sell them all at Cape de Loop, to be slaughtered there like cows and sheep, and that the Negroes of Cape de Loop were going to eat them then”</em>. Swaen had been a company servant for four years and knew the habits of the whites, so he ought not to have been amazed when his ears were cut off as punishment for steering up trouble. In revenge, he incited the slaves to attack the sailors, but they were surprised when they were trying to break from their shackles and the revolt was put down without much difficulty. Swaen was hung after a summary trial, but the other conspirators were left alone.<br /><br />This journey lasted two months. The remarkable fact is that in spite of the weak condition the slaves had to begin with, the occurrence of pox and other highly infectious diseases on board and the suppression of a revolt, only 54 of the 508 slaves died at sea and one in Surinam before the auction -a testimony to the skill of some Dutch slave traders.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264786526859876866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 261px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTTQEprYz0fi74h4xSMWJyNFt4wWDqH5RtiTSv-PdCOCR-6wvWfK_cqpLUPEcgpuaN-wxmQPGrtRoJ79BcRCeO9EqajNKFJPZb6-YoUaSKQxG51CriXessHyI2cohIIp7MvVhmGRWvSfI/s400/in-ruim.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong><br />The favored and the despised.</strong><br /><br />The preferences of the slave traders and buyers differed according to region and time. The area from which the slaves were recruited stretched from Senegambia in the north to Angola in the south, but they were not exploited in proportions equal to their capacity. In the beginning, the northern regions attracted the majority of traders, but the core of the slave traffic slowly moved south because of the mounting prices of Senegambian slaves. In the early period, the traders and planters undoubtedly bought whatever they could lay their hands on and the traders never really cared, but the planters soon developed a special regard for one nation or the other. These preferences were undoubtedly related to practical considerations (many planters happened to favor the slaves from the regions dominated by their own compatriots), but the kind of work the slaves had to perform and their temperament were important factors as well.<br /><br />Some kinds of slaves earned a lot of praise. The Senegambians (<strong><a href="http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/bamana.html">Bamana</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolof_people">Wolof</a></strong>), for example, were very popular with the French. The English liked them as well, although they considered them less suitable for agricultural labor. John Barbot, the 17th century trader, described them as <em>“genteel and courteous … but lewd and lazy to excess … For this reason they are not reckoned so proper for working in the American plantations as are those of the Gold Coast of Ardra and Angola, but the cleanliest and fittest for house servant being very handy and intelligent”</em>. The Brazilians imported many Senegambians as well, until they discovered that these were the instigators of the most awe-inspiring rebellions. Many of these slaves were Muslims and some were literate in Arabic. Bondsmen from the Slave Coast were also well thought of since both the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_people">Yoruba</a></strong> and the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewe_people">Dahomeans</a></strong> were disciplined, industrious tribes used to cultivating the soil. The French had a special preference for slaves from Dahomey, while the Spaniards favored the <em>Lucumi</em>, as they called the Yoruba.<br /><br />The French had ambivalent feelings with regard to Gold Coast slaves: on the one hand, they admired them; on the other hand, they feared their rebellious nature. The English, although well aware of their fierce temperament, sometimes became almost lyrical about their qualities. They were cooperative and worked hard, as long as they were treated justly. William Snelgrave observed: <em>“I know that many of the Coromantine Negroes despise punishment and even death itself, it having often happened that on their being any ways hardly dealth with twenty or more hang'd themselves at a time”</em>. This was not a sign of cowardice, on the contrary. Many authors lauded the 'Coromantees' (slaves from Coromantin, mostly <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti">Ashanti</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/tribes/fanti.php">Fanti</a></strong>) for their courage and pride. Christopher Codrington, Governor of the Leeward Islands, judged them as follows: <em>“They are not only the best and most faithful of our slaves but really all born heroes. There is a difference between them and all other Negroes beyond what ‘tis possible for your Lordships to conceive. There never was a raskal or coward of that nation.”</em> When a Coromantee was insulted or humiliated, he might kill himself out of revenge, but it was more likely that he rebelled. Coromantees were the leaders of most of the slave revolts in Jamaica. The Gold Coast slaves seemed oblivious to pain and withstood the cruelest tortures without uttering a sound. Michael Craton summed up the verdict of the English planters as follows: <em>“Coromantine slaves were thought to be hardy and resourceful, excellent workers once tamed, but tenacious of their culture and prone to rebellion.”<br /></em><br />The slaves from the other regions had fewer fans. <strong>Congolese</strong> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Angola"><strong>Angolan</strong></a> slaves were imported in large quantities everywhere, but were popular nowhere. The English in particular had little sympathy for them: <em>“an Angolan Negro is a Proverb for worthlessness”</em>, was the opinion of John Atkins. Since they were cheap and in ample supply, however, they were gradually appreciated more. According to Cornelis Goslinga, they were considered more tractable and more easily domesticated than others and were even thought by some to be <em>“the best and strongest of them all”.</em> Positively despised were the slaves from Calabar. They were mostly <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_people">Ibo</a></strong> (New Calabar) or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efik"><strong>Efik</strong> </a>and <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibibio_people">Ibibio</a> </strong>(Old Calabar). Some observers considered them gentle and tractable, but in the eyes of others they were stubborn and malicious, they died in scores from ‘melancholy’ and they were reputed to take their own life (by eating dirt) at the slightest provocation. A WIC-pamphlet contained the following warning: <em>“at Rio Calvary the Negroes are cross and stubborn and prone to suicide, and none of the potential buyers in the Caribbean are very eager to buy this particular group of slaves”</em>. Slaves from Benin, Gabon and Cameroon were not in much demand either. Since the <em>Asientistas</em> refused to take such slaves, the WIC carried few of them.<br /><br />Surinam planters shared a preference for Gold Coast slaves with their English counterparts. In 1729, for example, Governor De Cheusses reported that ‘Delmina’ slaves were of <em>“a very good nation”</em> and that they <em>“are much wanted and will always fetch a good price in my opinion”</em>. Governor Van Aerssen rather had one Elmina slave, even if <em>“old and bad” </em>than six from Calabar. The authorities were well aware of the risks though: the Court of Police warned in 1689 against having too many Coromantees (a <em>“very Brusque, and rebellious as well as malicious people”</em>), on one plantation; that would only lead to <em>“much mishap and revolt”</em>. Goslinga claimed that in the 17th century the planters decided that Elmina slaves were not strong enough for fieldwork and employed most of them for domestic services. If so, they changed their opinion soon. It is true that the Surinam planters considered them less suitable for ordinary fieldwork, but they preferred them for supervisory positions and as craftsmen. Few of them ever waited on tables in Surinam.<br /><br />Bondsmen from the Slave Coast were imported in large numbers and well liked, although they had fewer ardent fans than the Gold Coast slaves. Their neighbours from the Bight of Benin were resented though. Governor Van Aerssen was adamant on this subject. He called the ‘Callibary’ slaves a <em>“Pestilence in the Colony”</em>: when they could not hurt others, they would hurt themselves. In 1684, he begged the Society: <em>“in the name and on behalf of the whole colony</em> [I]<em> request very seriously to please resolve that no Callibary slaves may be brought here anymore”</em>. Commissioner Marcus Broen reported in 1685 that one planter tried to give away his Calabarian slaves for free, but nobody had wanted to take them. Slaves from Gabon and Cameroon were hardly ever imported, so they incited less repugnance.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264583196475251298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 214px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 338px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5T6crZFcSo6aqpw_57JG5vB-vD6a6ZTFGN7Z_3gnCce_2w9vsU1YARn2hjuDPdSMFzWYtO97TF3tAVnuPIU5CuuqZa1nudtLgkBa1-IZjsu9ckMHMw_y8sw1PXKvUajXo2fM01o2iPU8/s400/Queen-Nzinga.jpg" border="0" />The Congolese and Angolan slaves were a different matter. The Dutch referred to the whole area indiscriminately as Angola, but they got most of their slaves from the northern part: Loango. In the middle of the 17th century, they occupied São Paulo de Luanda for a while and they enjoyed an excellent relationship with the famous queen <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba"><strong>Nzinga</strong></a>, so they had access to a steady stream of slaves from these parts. In later times too, the Dutch could get all the Loango slaves they wanted through contraband trade, or legally by way of their lodges, but Surinam planters (with the exception of the Jews) seem to have grown weary of them quickly.<br /><br />Governor Van der Veen advised the Society in 1698 to bring more Loango children instead of adults. The trade would benefit, since <em>“this Kind of adult Slaves is hated here (because they always run into the forest) as much as the young Kind is wanted”</em>. Other sources pointed to the fact that the women were well regarded, but the men were not. Governor Coutier reported to the Society in 1720 (after loosing six newly bought Loango slaves, who had absconded into the forest although they did not have the slightest reason to complain), that careful research had led him to the conclusion that this was a common occurrence all over the colony: more than two thirds of the recently imported Loango males had run away. Governor De Cheusses implored the WIC in 1730 to send no more Loangos, because <em>“in these threatening times</em> [they are]<em> Very dangerous, and always inclined to run away”</em>. The Loango slaves were believed to be rather stupid, but this was not exactly a handicap in a field slave.<br /><br />The fact remains that slaves from Angola continued to form a large part of the slave imports in Surinam, so one might conclude that Surinam planters did not always get the chance to practice what they preached. They tried though: many contracts made with private traders explicitly forbade the procurement of slaves from Angola. When entering the colony, the skipper and his mate sometimes had to declare under oath that they had no Loangos on board. Surinam planters obviously only took Angolan slaves when they could get nothing else. This is proved beyond doubt by the developments after the economic crisis of 1773. The planters suddenly lost their easy access to credit and could no longer afford to buy all the slaves they could get their hands on. The slave trade did not adapt to the changing circumstances right away. Consequently, the number of ships arriving in 1774 and 1775 did not decrease much. During this period, the Angolan trade was hit hard. Thirteen ships loaded with Loango slaves arrived in the colony and nine of them were obliged to leave without selling a single slave. Another could only dispose of 20 of the 320 bondsmen at a reasonable price. Just one of the eleven ships from Guinea that docked in Paramaribo during these years met with the same fate, although they were not always able to sell their whole <em>armasoen</em>.<br /><br />In general, the Dutch operated in accordance with the maxim <em>“the more to the East and the South the worse the Negroes turn out”</em>. One can therefore regard Angola as a kind of supplementary depot for the Dutch slave trade. Most slavers would first search along the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast and only when not enough captives were available, they would continue to Angola. Likewise, the Surinam planters only bought Angolan slaves when no other could be had: so the higher the demand, the more Angolans would be sold.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The three phases of the Surinam slave trade.<br /></strong><br /><em>The WIC monopoly (1667-1730).</em><br /><br />When Abraham Crijnssen occupied in Surinam in 1667, there were several thousand slaves in the colony. This number fell drastically when the vengeful Henry Willoughby managed to persuade most English planters to leave for Jamaica. The Zeelandian authorities reluctantly permitted their departure, but ordered that <em>“they shall Leave behinde them, Such negros and Slaves, as theij púrchased, of the inhabitants of the Said Colonij sincer the Súrrende thereof”. </em>They urgently wanted to help the planters get the needed hands.<em> </em>In theory, they accepted the monopoly of the WIC, but in practice they let in any trader who wanted to sell slaves. Crijnssen himself made a deal with the English captain Robert Bartlett, on behalf of three English and two Jewish planters, to deliver <em>“six and ninety negroes, young as well as old men, women and children, the infants inclusive, for the price of three thousand five hundred pieces of good deliverable Bally wood tree for every negro”</em>.<br /><br />Governor and councilors were even bold enough to disregard the WIC. Concluding in 1669 that <em>“because of inducement and persuasion by contracts made with them</em> [the skippers] <em>sometimes come to leave from here”,</em> they decided to declare these contracts null and void if the captains wanted to sell their slaves in the colony. To make matters worse, some inhabitants sold the passing traders <em>ignames</em> and other foodstuffs, which enabled them to continue their journey. Some merchants, who owned no plantations themselves, took advantage of the scarcity by buying up slaves and reselling them to the planters at an enormous profit. These practices were outlawed.<br /><br />Only with the chartering of the Society of Surinam, the monopoly of the WIC was fully established. No other party, not even the Society itself, was permitted to transport a single slave to the colony, on the penalty of incurring a fine of fifty ‘pieces of eight’ (= 2,50 guilders). The WIC stationed commissioners in Surinam, who organized of the sale of the slaves and who collaborated closely with government employees, and the company paid the Society a 'recognition' fee of 15 guilders per slave.<br /><br />The imported bondsmen were zealously guarded. The Governor and the Court of Police decided in 1686 that <em>“those who move their slaves from this Colony without the consent of the Lord Governor will forfeit the slave or slaves and furthermore be fined a hundred pieces of eight for each slave”</em>. A colonist who immigrated with his slaves was forbidden to sell any of them within a year. Informers were awarded a commission of 15 ‘pieces of eight’ for any illegally transferred slave they denounced.<br /><br />The WIC was obliged to fetch as many slaves as were needed, but was never able to fulfill this task -nor willing to do so, it seems. Supplying slaves to the Spaniards under the <em>Asiento</em> was much more profitable and Surinam planters were often lax in paying their debts. From the beginning of the rule of the Society, the planters bitterly complained about the scarcity of slaves and the abominable quality of the few that were delivered. They longed for the return of the Zeelandian system of ‘anarchy galore’.<br /><br />The letters of Governor Van Aerssen identified the labor shortage as the most pressing problem of the budding colony. He noted in 1684: <em>“The lack of slaves here is so great, that this year more than a million pounds of Sugar that cannot be milled is or shall be burned”</em>. He believed that the <em>“continuous supply of slaves” </em>was <em>“the only way to make this colony great in a very short time”</em>. He ceaselessly tried to persuade the Society to open the slave trade to Surinam to everyone. The Court of Police complained that during the government of Van Aerssen more slaves had died in the colony than had been brought in and continued: <em>“with regard to the import and open market of Curaçao we can say that</em> [it is]<em> Easier to bring</em> [the slaves]<em> here from the coast of africa than from said Curaçao. </em>[We] <em>dare not take a chance with the macaron Slaves that are brought here, and the planters are just as willing to buy good Slaves as the Spaniards to whom the peces d’ Indes were offered”.</em> The colonists even went so far as to lament to the States-General that the WIC was trying to <em>“put us the foot in the Neck here, and this way keep us forever as their Workslaves which is no encouragement, for others to come here”. </em><br /><br />The consequences of the lack of slaves were indeed disastrous, as many observers stated. Governor Van Scharphuys revealed in 1694 that some of the sugar estates that formerly boasted more than 100 slaves only had about a dozen left. He was convinced that the colony could produce twice the amount of sugar, if it would only get sufficient slaves and that <em>“the inhabitants are much weakened by the lack and mortality of the slaves”</em>. Governor Van der Veen, his successor, witnessed no improvement: <em>“as the Hon. Lords Directors who now have the hands full of work to bring enough slaves in Cartagena and thereby find much more profit too, according to their Hon. opinion, than by the Equipment </em>[of ships]<em> for Surinam</em> [I propose] <em>to leave the import of Slaves here to everyone wholly free or free under some recognition during the time that their Contract with the Spaniard will run and I am sure that in such case the Court will concur and guarantee that after 4 to 5 years all the old debts to the Hon. Comp. will be paid off.”</em> The planters of Surinam found themselves in a vicious circle: because of the lack of slaves and the high mortality among them their plantations deteriorated, as a result they could not pay their debts to the WIC, which took this as an excuse to bring in even fewer slaves.<br /><br />The slaves that survived the transatlantic voyage often arrived in such a deplorable condition that in one case Governor Van Aerssen complained that it would have been better if the long –awaited vessel <strong>‘t Huys te Loirheym</strong> had sunk into the waves, instead of completing the trip with <em>“three hundred and three miserable Slaves who barely have the power, to carry their own bodies, let alone work”.</em> To alleviate the situation, the WIC experimented with hired ships, but Van Aerssen concluded that these were unsuitable for the transport of slaves, their provisions were for the most part inferior and their crews were ‘godless’.<br /><br />The Surinam authorities agreed that the import of at least 2000 slaves a year was necessary to satisfy demand in the colony. Requests to this end were voiced repeatedly in the beginning of the 18th century. Such a volume of imports would have meant the entry of at least four slave ships a year and this hardly ever happened. In 1689, the Court of Police bitterly noted that since 1686 only three ships had arrived and they had carried the <em>“dregs of the Spanish”.</em> Four meager years later, only five additional loads of slaves had entered the harbor, barely sufficient to replace the ones that had perished. In 1704, the <em>burgerofficieren </em>recorded that in 15 years only 24 ships had supplied Surinam, which had carried an average of 300 <em>piezas</em> and an undetermined number of <em>macrons</em>. This meant that only about 480 hands a year were added to the Surinam work force <em>“except the Macrons and Dregs who as soon as they are sold, mostly have died and only have burdened the inhabitants”</em>.<br /><br />Often, planters had to wait for years before the next slave ship arrived, especially when times were dangerous, such as during the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession">War of the Spanish Succession</a></strong> (1701-1714). The ships had to sail in convoy during this period and the WIC had little desire to risk their vessels and cargo for the meager profit to be made in Surinam. So, it is no surprise that in 1712 not a single slave ship had reached the colony in more than 22 months. Even when peace prevailed for a short time, the flow of slaves left much to be desired for Surinam planters. This was all the more upsetting since they repeatedly learned that WIC ships loaded slaves that were reserved for other buyers. The skipper of the <strong>Leusden</strong> (on his way to Berbice), for example, informed Governor Temming (1722-1727) that three more slavers had been waiting on the African coast, but they were bound for St. Eustatius. The slaves they carried went straight to the Spanish colonies. Even worse, Brazilian ships were allowed to acquire <em>armasoenen</em> in Elmina, so not enough slaves remained to supply the WIC-vessels. These transgressions greatly angered the colonists.<br /><br />When the ships arrived, they often carried sick slaves, so strict precautions had to be taken. A placard published in 1669 warned: <em>“To prevent all infections the skippers of negro ships will have to bury their dead negroes on land, or at least when throwing them into the river, attach so much weight to the body that they sink, on penalty of forfeiting for every negro who will be found floating in the river a fine of five hundred pounds of sugar”. </em>The healthy slaves were marched to temporary barracks. Stedman witnessed such a parade and was shocked by their appearance: they resembled skeletons covered with brown leather. The slaves were washed and given new clothes. They were well fed to regain the weight they had lost during the voyage and they were exercised to get their strength back.<br /><br />In Jamaica, the sale of slaves often ended in an undignified scramble. They were sold ‘by the candle’ (the last bid before the candle went out was valid), or ‘by the run’ (the slaves were put in a dark shed and buyers carrying ropes and handkerchiefs grabbed what they could). In Surinam, the sale was more organized, but for the slaves a humiliating experience just the same. The Charter stipulated that all slaves ought to be sold at public auctions, to give poor planters an equal chance to buy slaves as their more affluent neighbors, but selling by the candle was not unheard off. According to Herlein, the proper procedure went as follows: the slaves were “<em>sold publicly in couples, usually Male and Female sex auctioned off together, as they are also, like a Creature, mustered first, and trot to and fro in front of you, spreading the arms apart, moving the legs also in every way, and finally opening the mouth</em> [to reveal]<em> if there is something amiss with them”.<br /><br /></em>Since the WIC-skippers were obliged to bring an <em>armasoen </em>consisting for about two thirds of men and one third of women, there were twice as many men as women sold. It was the habit to sell pairs (called <em>loten</em>) existing of a man and a woman first and then the rest of the men in twosomes or threesomes (although occasionally pairs of women were sold as well, usually to planters who had a severe shortage of females). To equalize the chances of planters to get their hands on a desired<em> lot</em>, the price might be announced in advance and the planters who wished to make a bid could depose their pledges in a box, from which one was chosen at random. Most of the time, however, the merchandise went to the highest bidder.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264576072796865618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 285px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQajcSh8y0QEUQPFHeh2wWIVqBUZbULxe-2x0xAL1dJpMS-q6-3fJt9l3iPsP3rlyRO8JoB3iWjcU6tB2DVaXQe681iYXE9MgjJw8Qu-noSLtX40Z245xN9Z9YNKBVrBi8knj2JaYbvmc/s400/slavenverkoop-Parbo.jpg" border="0" />Until the beginning of the 18th century, most of the slaves were paid for in sugar (valued at 5 cents a pound). During the government of Cornelis van Aerssen, one quarter of the purchase price had to be paid on the spot (or within eight weeks), one quarter within four months and the remainder within fourteen months. In case of default, a fine of 25% was added when the debt was settled within three months and a fine of 30% when it took longer. Soon the system was changed to the one prescribed in the Charter: the purchase price was divided into three installments to be paid every six months and no down payment was required. Debts incurred for the purchase of slaves were treated as preferential.<br /><br />The WIC-commissioners soon discovered it was next to impossible to collect the outstanding debts, even when the terms were favorable. As long as these did not preclude them from buying more slaves, the planters were not bothered by their debts at all. Employees of the Society were obliged to help the WIC-commissioners get their due. Since all sugar had to be checked by the <em>keurmeesters </em>before shipping, they were told to seize (part of) a planter’s produce if there were debts outstanding. Luckily for the planters, these functionaries could be bribed easily. Colonists were forbidden to sell any slave that had not been paid for in full without the permission of the Governor, on penalty of forfeiting the slave -who reverted to the WIC. The buyer had to pay the price anyway, while not being able to reclaim the slave. These measures were all to no avail. Even prominent employees of the Society failed to settle their debts: in 1713, for example, the WIC was forced to put an embargo on the salary of Commander De Raineval. Governor Van der Veen concluded that <em>“from the year 1684 until now not much more than half of the pledged price of the sold slaves has been received from which it is easy to deduce that the remainder will come in much slower because it is outstanding for the largest part among</em> [the] <em>unfortunate and powerless and that among the Planters on the Commewijne River few debts are outstanding”</em>.<br /><br />The colonists were of course of the opinion that their failure to pay what they owed should not be held against them: <em>“these are personal debts, a man is not responsible for another man, and many people are not all people, and therefore it is against all fairness, that one has tried by obstructing, or impeding the necessary supply of slaves, by conditions, of which the result has shown that they are not executable, to force the defaulting to payment”.</em> They proposed to sell the slaves for cash or letters of exchange. A similar proposal had been made by the planters during the government of Cornelis van Aerssen, but had been refused by the WIC then.<br /><br />After 1710, however, the problems with the collection of the sugar owed by its debtors had become so acute that the WIC was willing to consider change. Ever more planters drew <em>wissels</em> on their Amsterdam correspondents, who rather loaned them the money than wait for shipments of sugar indefinitely. This did not prove to be a solution for the troubles of the WIC either. The planters were slow in settling their debts with their partners as well and often did not send enough sugar to cover them, so the annoyed correspondents started to refuse to cosign the <em>wissels</em> and sent them back under protest.<br /><br />To minimize risks, the WIC-commissioners employed an innovative strategy. In 1688, the first planters were allowed to enter into a contract for the delivery of a stipulated number of slaves through their associates in Holland. These slaves had either to be paid for in advance, or their payment had to be guaranteed to the satisfaction of the WIC. The initial price was 160 guilders per<em> pieza de India</em>. This was soon raised to 180 guilders and more. At first, only a limited number of planters used this opportunity, because it was only feasible for the most prosperous, but it soon became clear that this was the only way to insure the delivery of the required number of slaves. For the unfortunate planters who were unable to find anyone to vouch for them, the practice of contracting left only the worst <em>macrons</em>. These were sold on the auction block at prices that were even more scandalous than those of the contracted slaves. They fetched 550 guilders a <em>lot</em> in 1703.<br /><br />At the end of the 17th century, the <em>raden</em> proposed the WIC a contract for the supply of 20,000 slaves at an agreed price of 210 guilders per <em>pieza. </em>They<em> </em>were rebuffed, because the growing demand for slaves made it possible for the company to impose blatantly unfavorable conditions on the planters. In 1703, for instance, when the price of a contracted <em>pieza</em> had already risen to 250 guilders, the WIC nevertheless refused to equip a ship for the voyage to Africa unless at least 200 slaves were contracted in advance. This number was later increased to 300 slaves. In 1714, an uproar ensued when to WIC threatened to send the <strong>Emmenes</strong>, on which 400 <em>piezas</em> had been contracted, to Curacao, if another hundred slaves were not paid for in advance. Despite the habit of contracting, it remained a regular occurrence that ships bound for Surinam were diverted to one of the other Dutch colonies (Berbice, Curacao, St. Eustatius). The inhabitants became so desperate that they dispatched a special envoy, Harman van Hagen, to Holland, with instructions to persuade the WIC to settle for a steady price of 250 guilders a <em>pieza</em>.<br /><br />Some private citizens managed to profit from the system as well: Samuel Nassy contracted 500 slaves on the <strong>Brigdamme</strong> and sold them to other planters. Governor Van Scharphuys flatly denounced this <em>“double sort of double monopoly”</em>.<br /><br />Occasionally, the WIC deemed it profitable to comply with the wishes of the colonists, if extra profit was involved. It magnanimously offered, for instance, to supply them wholly with slaves from Fida and Ardra, if they were willing to pay a bonus of 20 guilders per <em>pieza</em> on top of the agreed price (as seems to have been the habit in Curacao). The Governor and councilors rejected this ‘generous’ proposal and preferred to stick with the old arrangement of two thirds Dahomean and one third Loango slaves in each <em>armasoen</em>.<br /><br />It riled the planters that government employees had the first choice of the imported slaves, whether they bought them for the Society or for their own use. They were rightly suspicious: of the 367 slaves the <strong>Keurvorst van Brandenburg </strong>delivered, for example, (it had started with 509 slaves, of which 137 had died at sea and 11 in the harbor) 328 were purchased by the Society and only 39 were left for the planters. Governor Van der Veen, attacked on this point, fervently denied that he chose the best slaves for himself. On the contrary, he claimed to have taken a woman <em>“who has been cut loose three times in a fortnight because she had hung herself each time”.<br /></em><br />Even the Governor could not get hold of good slaves if the commissioners did not cooperate. Van der Veen reported that he had wanted to buy two boys from the <strong>Gideon</strong> and had sent the director of his sister’s plantation to fetch them. When the man came on board, he saw nothing but <em>malinker</em> (sickly) boys with swollen bellies and ulcers. An old slave of the Society, who served as an interpreter, asked the boys if there were no other slaves present and they answered that these had been hidden in <em>“kettles and cupboards”. </em><br /><br />Though offered the first choice, the governors did not always display much wisdom in the selection of slaves. Van der Veen was enlightened by an old planter, who told him: <em>“that he believed that the choice of Negroes was for a large part the cause that their Hon. High Might. had lost So many Negroes on their Plantation for reason that they had been deceived by the Most Beautiful and Strongest Bodies, but if I wanted to follow the Advice of an old planter I had to look out for Such Pieces who had been Slaves in their Country and who could swim that their work here would not seem heavier than in their own country that they would not be distressed by it, and would probably stay alive; That one was in a country here in which for doing the least errand with a neighbor, one was obliged to Send a canoe with two slaves onto the River which as a result of the heavy rains and strong winds capsizes easily whereby one loses one's slaves if they cannot swim; That if one prefers the Most Beautiful and Well-made bodies it oftentimes happens that having been Squires in their Country, </em>[they]<em> hate the work, become distressed by it and oftentimes die, or kill Themselves”.</em><br /><br />Van der Veen decided to heed his advice and informed the commissioner that he would send two slaves (a ‘Coromantee’ and a ‘Papa’) to help select the twelve slaves that he needed, to question them about the work they had performed back home and to ascertain that they could swim. Furthermore, they had to check if the new slaves were all Coromantees and Papas as had been claimed, for there were rumors that the captain tried to sneak in some of the hated ‘Calibaries’ as well.<br /><br />The organization of the trade left the door wide open for corruption of all kinds. The reason for this was perfectly clear to Governor Van der Veen: <em>“it is easy to foresee for me that there will come few commissionaires who will not be tempted, especially as long as they continue to understand that they are allowed to dispose of the Slaves who are left over from the contracts the way they see fit, because then they will certainly follow the Example of the former commissionaires, that is to say that they will keep the best Slaves behind and under pretext that these have been sold at a public auction manage to pass them on to Themselves, to their Friends, and to those who succeed in buying their Friendship”</em>. Often there were not enough <em>piezas</em> to go around. Many planters who had contracted slaves and had paid for them beforehand were asked to take only part of the slaves they had ordered (with the Governor giving the good example). Some did not get any <em>pieza </em>at all and had the choice between accepting <em>macrons </em>and waiting for the next ship to arrive (which could take months, if not years).<br /><br />Adrian de Lier, for example, had contracted 15 <em>piezas</em> and received none at all, while several <em>loten</em> had gone to an unknown buyer and no less than 31 slaves to Simon van den Broek (the pseudonym of a former director of the WIC, who was a notorious troublemaker). Pierre Prunier received a slave who suffered from dysentery and returned him. He was promised a replacement from the next ship. When it arrived, he could only choose one of the outcasts. The one he selected had dysentery as well and died soon, but the commissioners refused to give him another one. Because of cases like this, the planters demanded the right to return sick slaves within a period of six weeks.<br /><br />Francois Greenwaut had ordered twelve slaves on the <strong>Winthond </strong>in 1702, but was allotted only three. Since there were several slaves left who could not pass for <em>piezas</em>, he proposed that he would take three of them for every two <em>piezas</em> still due to him. Commissioner Van Sandick refused this because he could sell these cripples for the same price as healthy slaves and promised him three slaves from the next ship, if he kept quiet (which he obviously did not). He was not the only one who was short-changed on this occasion and there followed quite an uproar when the slaves of the <strong>Beurs van Amsterdam</strong> were sold a couple of months later. The planters whose contracts for slaves from the Winthond had not been fulfilled, demanded substitutes from this ship, what their colleagues who had contracted these slaves opposed. Governor Van der Veen decided to confiscate all the slaves commissioner Houtcoper had reserved for himself and his wife and half of the ones contracted by his business partner Cuylenburgh in order to give them satisfaction.<br /><br />The commissioners even made colonists beg sometimes for the privilege of buying ailing slaves at exorbitant prices. A planter named Boudens had pleaded in vain with them to let him buy just one <em>lot</em>. After the auction, when it became clear <em>“that there were still some sick negroes left whom nobody wanted to buy anymore they asked </em><em>said Boudens if he wanted to select a lot from them who thanked them with tears in his eyes”</em>. At the same time, men who did not even own a plantation had received 10 to 40 slaves from this ship. In such circumstances, it is understandable that the colonists became furious when an eagerly awaited vessel arrived with only 160 slaves, instead of the 450 that had been contracted, and 70 of them were sold at a public auction.<br /><br />The commissioners soon discovered that they could force the planters to pay handsome <em>regaalen </em>(bribes) for their intercession. Albert van Heijst was promised he could buy two pairs of slaves for 1300 guilders, if he paid four hogsheads of sugar (worth about 160 guilders) to the commissioner. Gerrit van Egten (who had contracted no slaves on the <strong>Beurs van Amsterdam</strong>) was offered two <em>loten </em>from this ship if he paid a fee of 300 guilders. Elias Chayne managed to get three male slaves for a bribe of ‘only’ two hogsheads of sugar. Several planters refused to be blackmailed this way. The commissioners did not hesitate to cheat the Society as well. Governor Temming discovered that they had entered several fictional buyers into their books to cover up their <em>“base trade”.</em> Commissioner Houtcoper was eventually fired for corruption.<br /><br />Often, the slaves were not as healthy in body and mind as the standards for a <em>pieza</em> prescribed, but the planters had little possibility for redress. Sold slaves were rarely taken back, not when they soon succumbed to a contagious disease like dysentery, not when they proved <em>“mad and incompetent”</em>. These irregularities threatened to give the WIC a bad reputation, which it did not mind as long as it enjoyed a monopoly. The company only started to take the complaints seriously after 1730. The Amsterdam Chamber chastised the commissioners Lever and Hoevenaar for selling three epileptic slaves, taking them back after complaints and then selling them again. They were warned to make sure that <em>“upon sale all the infirmities of the slaves are revealed to the buyers with all accuracy,</em> [and]<em> if they are sold with some infirmities, not to take them back”.</em> The directors of the WIC forbade any special consideration for certain buyers (for example, letting them examine slaves that were sold at public auctions in advance).<br /><br />It is not surprising that in circumstances like these the inhabitants were tempted to buy from interlopers. Postma found, however, that these smugglers (called <em>enterlopers</em> or <em>lorredraayers </em>in Surinam) scorned dealing in slaves and preferred gold and ivory. Moreover, it was rather difficult to enter the inhabited part of Surinam undetected: the ship had to pass by way of the Mot Creek, where a military post was situated. Governor Van der Veen was convinced that the planters were not very keen on buying slaves from interlopers and would never consider it if the WIC would only mend its ways: <em>“firstly because they are always Loango slaves; a nation that is not successful at all nor is wanted here, that apart from the hazard of being cheated one has to take them of the ship at unseasonable times, and try to get them to the plantations over untracked roads, if there are cripples among them, one has to keep them and remain silent, since they ordinarily have been paid for on delivery; what is spared</em> [by paying]<em> such a lorrendraayere instead of the Comp. can at most be thirty or thirty-six guilders; and for that money they will not take the chance if only enough slaves were supplied by the Comp”.<br /></em><br />The Governor and the Court of Police were obliged to punish interlopers, but the <em>raden</em> were often unwilling to be very strict. In the case of the slave smuggler <strong>Saint Joseph</strong>, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> demanded the death penalty for the whole crew (35 sailors) and wanted the cargo confiscated on his own behalf, but the Court refused to comply and merely confiscated the ship. Sometimes foreign vessels were damaged near the coast of Surinam and asked permission to enter the harbor for repairs and the purchase of provisions. In those cases, the Court willingly allowed them to sell some slaves to cover the charges.<br /><br />Although the WIC gave up its monopoly in 1730, it immediately made a deal with the Society for the delivery of 2500 slaves a year to Surinam. Of course, the company proved unable to honor the contract, although during the period august 1731 to august 1738 it was ‘only’ 4438 <em>piezas</em> short. In 1736, the Society was informed that the losses the WIC incurred in the slave trade increased steadily and that it could not continue this way. The WIC proposed to reduce the agreed number of slaves to 1250 a year and to oblige the planters to pay the regular price in Holland in sugar or <em>wissels</em>. The Society thereupon decided to install her own commissioner for the slave trade. Although the Surinam authorities tried to force the WIC to keep its end of the bargain, the part of the company in the slave imports to Surinam dwindled to almost nil. It took the WIC quite a while to settle her affairs in the colony. The commissioners tried hard to collect payment of outstanding debts, but although the Society ordered the Governor to help, they failed miserably. All in all, the WIC profited little from the high slave prices: it did not succeed in collecting more than half the money owed by the planters. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264786010102795938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 313px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRmBKw32Bca4GZvo385cOPJl9_tcaUtYfwb2ltEGrhNKnWHkH13ygRCexAJ96qFgiuBvZDarc5mKAe99XQKZNWcArFIr1wxy_cUeJxBeWH62KGqvQo7boo44bpNQwFqEu-BvujsL14MfU/s400/liverpool_slaver.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><em>The Dutch private trade (1730-1782).</em><br /><br />When it became clear that the WIC would never be able to supply a sufficient number of slaves, the Society decided to place advertisements for private traders, even though it considered this primarily the responsibility of the planters. Soon it issued one permit after the other, especially to captains from Zeeland. The partners often drew up intricate contracts. An example is the contract made with skipper Dirk Winnia of the <strong>Watervliet</strong> in 1741, which stated unequivocally that he was not allowed to bring Loango slaves: three officers had to declare this under oath upon arrival. Furthermore, he was to buy 400 to 500 slaves, one third of them women, and two thirds at most should be contracted in advance. To stimulate the trade, it was decided that the auction master was only to receive 2,5 % of the proceeds, of which 1 % was turned over to the <em>Cassa van Modique Lasten</em>. The sellers were absolved from taxes.<br /><br />As a result, the trade bustled as never before: from 1738 to 1745, 63 slave ships entered the colony and in 1646-47 15 more. On the Gold Coast, where the WIC retained its power, the company carried on a profitable business, for it received a recognition of twenty guilders for every slave, in addition to 60 guilders per <em>last </em>(reduced to 42,50 guilders in 1760) from the skippers, one third of which had to be paid upon departure from Holland.<br /><br />For the private traders, however, it was often tempting to bypass Surinam: the colony was located outside the main trade routes and the slaves could often fetch a greater return elsewhere. Consequently, the Surinam planters had to match the offers of the competition, or the skippers simply left, as did Cornelis Baene, though the slaves sold at a <em>“reasonable price”.</em> The planters often got stuck with sickly slaves left over from a trip along the more prosperous colonies. Still, the private traders were instrumental in creating the two peaks in Surinam slave imports: from 1742 to 1744 (when sugar and coffee prices were relatively high) and from 1763 tot 1773 (when credit was easy and plentiful). During both these periods, the imports reached a level of more than 8000 slaves a year. Nearly all the planters paid for their slaves with <em>wissels</em> by this time.<br /><br />The private traders were officially obliged to offer their slaves at a public auction, but they were more inclined to sell them ‘out of hand’. Governor Nepveu lamented in 1770 that practically no slaves appeared at auctions anymore. Even the worst specimens, <em>“outcasts and very bad Angolans”, </em>were sold directly. Only the slaves the traders could not get rid off were still offered at auctions. The Court of Police voiced few objections, probably because the members were preferred customers. The inflation of slave prices was gigantic: <em>“now with the largest credit the good </em>[slaves]<em> are rather bought too expensive than the bad for a low Price, </em>Nepveu commented. It is not surprising that the traders preferred selling this way, because the office of the <em>Venduemeester</em> often kept the proceeds for months before turning them over to the skipper or his associate. One captain tried to sue the office for his money in 1767, but to no avail.<br /><br />When the traders did stoop to selling their slaves at an auction, they sometimes tried to drive up the prices by bidding themselves. If they did not find buyers willing to pay a king's ransom right away, they repeated their performance at the next auction. The planters, led to believe others valued these slaves that high, often paid too much for them. Alternatively, the sellers employed stooges to make fake bids. The Society outlawed this practice: representatives were only allowed on the premises if they could present a ‘billet of authorization’ from a prospective buyer.<br /><br />Private traders were even less particular in selecting their merchandise than the WIC-captains, so the measures to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases into the colony had to be sharpened. The surgeon of the Society examined all imported slaves and the afflicted (or suspected) cases were quarantined at the Braamspunt, where hundreds of them wasted away miserably.<br /><br />Some of the private traders operated on their own, often with the aid of small investors, but most were sent by large companies. In Rotterdam, the <strong>Hudig Company</strong> was prominent and the most active outfit in Middelburg was the <strong>Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie</strong>, which kept its captains on a very short leash. The briefest voyage made by a ship of this company was 11 months (by the classical triangular route) and the longest three years and two months. From 1755 to 1807, the MCC equipped 92 ships for the slave trade; only half of them were destined for Surinam and Berbice.<br /><br />The private companies were no more fortunate in collecting their money than the WIC had been. <em>Wissels</em> were so often ‘protested’ that after the economic crisis of 1773 many traders refused this medium and demanded payment in products again. Nevertheless, ships were often forced to sail back to Holland with only ballast, because they could not get a return cargo. The MCC’s representatives were still trying to extract payment in 1818, 15 years after the last delivery to Surinam.<br /><br />The war between England and the Netherlands put a stop to the Dutch slave trade in 1780 and after 1782, it resumed at a level much lower than before. Therefore, the colonial authorities put increased pressure on the Society to allow foreign traders access to the Surinam market. Finally the Society relented: the French schooner <strong>Gabriel</strong> became the first foreign vessel with official permission to land slaves in the colony. This inaugurated a new phase in the history of Surinam slave imports.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264941306060152034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 346px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJQVjNHerzjdxCC62n2qysWT7Bp6mhROi3KkeMb9_7wyk5PaClmZodzE67BXy88w7LRqXHs_8WaBkzaRC1y7ttQFcw4fcqQtCZmuWCztRC2_dzOQTTWB47JwJb-TgZ2YlkTJt8WdWeQTY/s400/slave-shipx.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Foreign and illegal trade (1782 to ????).</em><br /><br />The opening of the colony to foreign traders did not mean that no Dutch vessels entered Surinam after that: until 1795 an occasional ship from Elmina still called. However, this could certainly not satisfy demand. Neither could the sprinkling of slaves brought in by the rare foreign vessels with official permission. Therefore, the Surinam planters (if their finances permitted it) illegally purchased slaves from English and American interlopers. After the English occupation of the colony in 1799, they no longer had to sneak in. Since these nationalities were the most active slave traders of the period, Surinam was well provided for. This luxury did not last long: in 1806, the English government decided that its colonies could import no more slaves than 3% of the number already present per year and in 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807">abolished</a> once and for all. Fortunately for the planters, the treaty (accepted by the Netherlands in 1814) did not apply to the traffic within the West-Indian territory and there the Surinam planters found a new supply.<br /><br />Although Stedman claimed that American ships brought in mulattoes (half white) and quarteroons (three quarters white) from the Leeward Islands in the 1770’s (who were not meant to work in the fields and fetched a suspiciously high price), the West-Indian islands formed a minor source of supply during this period. This changed in the 19th century. The French islands in particular sent a steady stream of slaves to Surinam. The English judges of the Mixed Court maintained that during the first six months of their stay (1819-1820) 2800 ‘French’ slaves had been imported, most of whom seemed to have come directly from Africa. They were probably right, because the French authorities did not hesitate to supply these so-called <em>zoutwaternegers</em> (saltwater Negroes) with false papers, establishing them as longtime residents of their colonies. The Lammens Papers recorded the origins of these ships, including Martinique, Guadeloupe and Cayenne. Further deliveries came from the English possessions St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Vincent, Barbados and Trinidad and even from Brazil and Argentine. The imports from the French colonies were stopped in April 1821. Those from the English territories, however, increased during the 1820s. When slavery was abolished in the English colonies in 1833, many planters, especially from Barbados, settled in Surinam with their slaves. As late as 1843, the English judge Shenley found 200 slaves from Barbados on a plantation.<br /><br />The Surinam government aided the import of slaves from the West Indies by a subsidy of 25 guilders for every able-bodied hand. This was considered necessary because the traders would otherwise offer these slaves to the more prosperous planters of Cuba and Brazil. At the same time, the export of slaves was hampered, not only by a sales tax of 100 guilders per hand, but also by a caution of 1000 guilders to insure that the slave was indeed brought to the designated territory.<br /><br />The legal trade was not sufficient to meet the needs of Surinam and some smuggling was going on as well. How much is uncertain. Wolbers, for example, estimated a number of 1000 a year for the whole period until emancipation. Emmer, on the contrary, claims that after the inauguration of slave registration in 1826, smuggling virtually came to an end, which in his eyes proved that plantation agriculture had become unprofitable in Surinam. In all probability, quite a few slaves were smuggled into the colony, even after 1826. Most of the Maroons caught in later times, even the young ones, were born Africans. A number of 1000 a year seems exaggerated, though.<br /><br />A handicap in the efforts to stop smuggling was the lack of cooperation from Surinam authorities, especially those with plantation interests. One of the tasks of the Mixed Court, established in Paramaribo in 1819, was to pass judgment on those caught smuggling slaves. The English judges were all ardent abolitionists, the Dutch merely able jurists, who often did not care one way or the other. The English members soon concluded that they had no real power to carry out their task: once the slaves had been disposed of, they were unable to proof that a suspected ship had carried them. The Surinam authorities did everything possible to keep them from tracking down the unfortunate slaves. The situation was remedied somewhat when in 1822 an ‘equipment clause’ was added to the treaty: crews could now be convicted if they had shackles on board, or carried too much food for their own consumption.<br /><br />Nevertheless, very few interlopers were ever convicted in Surinam. In 1825, for example, 250 African slaves were found aboard the French vessel <strong>A La Bonne Heure</strong>. The owners were brought to Paramaribo for trial, but managed to escape –with the aid of the Surinam authorities, the English judges suspected. When a ship and its cargo were confiscated for a change, the Surinam government was loath to award the slaves their freedom. They could hardly be expected to ship them back to Africa and it was difficult to set them free in the colony. Therefore, they kept them under strict surveillance. The 54 liberated slaves of the <strong>La Nueve of Snauw</strong>, for example, were treated as slaves of the government in the perception of the English judges and only after vehement protests and after 19 years had gone by, they were permitted to leave the colony. Most of them settled in Demerara. This vessel and the <strong>La Légère</strong>, caught in 1834 with 363 slaves on board, were about the only slavers ever confiscated.<br /><br />The experience of working in Surinam turned out an extremely frustrating one for the English judges of the Mixed Court. They met open hostility everywhere. Not only from the public, but also from the authorities who were supposed to support them. Their physical safety could not be guaranteed: they were vilified in the streets, pelted with stones and in one case, their horses were poisoned. In 1845, no new judges were appointed, although the ones leaving did not consider the work finished. This signaled the end of the largely unsuccessful endeavors of the Mixed Court.<br /><br /><em>The internal slave trade.</em><br /><br />On one level Surinam contrasted favorably with most other plantation colonies: it had virtually no internal slave trade, nor a regular export of slaves. The Surinam slaves were divided into two categories: the <strong>private slaves</strong>, registered under the name of their owner, and the <strong>plantation slaves</strong>, registered under the name of their plantation. The former could be traded within the boundaries of the colony, but even then there were many limitations. Mothers and children, for example, could not be sold separately, even when the children were adults. There were ways to circumvent this regulation, as we shall later see, but overall there were few such transactions and these mostly concerned particularly recalcitrant slaves, who often changed owner repeatedly. The plantation slaves could never be sold individually, only as a group when their estate was abandoned or joined with another. The lack of slaves in the colony was so great that severe limitations were also placed on the sale abroad. Most of the time only criminals who for some reason had not been put to death were disposed of this way.<br /><br />Some unscrupulous persons took a chance at selling stolen slaves, but this was a hazardous venture in Surinam. The perpetrators were easily caught and the profit was certainly not worth the risk. George Metzger, for instance, was fined 1000 guilders for buying a slave from two sailors, very likely deserters. The thieves, who claimed to have found the slave, were whipped and banished. They had received 250 guilders for him. <em>Boscriolen</em> (children of former slaves who had been born in the forest) could be sold for the profit of their capturers.<br /><br />The traffic in Indian slaves was always very limited in Surinam, although they were present on some plantations until the end of the 18th century. Most of them had been captured in the territory between the Corantijn and the Orinoco. Hunting or bartering for Indian slaves was not stimulated. They had only limited use and the traders might easily disturb the good relations with the free Indian tribes. The Court of Police deliberated each case at length. When Pieter de Laat wanted to sell some Indians from Essequibo in 1744, for instance, permission was granted only reluctantly.<br /><br />Once they had arrived at their destination, Surinam slaves could be reasonably sure that they would stay there for the rest of their life.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The numbers game.</strong><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265140386070603202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 288px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xxiKFerYszDD3AxZalLSxo028OCi8ZmzhZkutJbDUXeUNzLawh43DmR5GG5Mfz578FrFWX8r3r4_2V1_Rgknl19KwM9u_WJYnTqWapH8ZPQY6tSeNuNUeGU6ldS0EU9opuii3D3OxCQ/s400/Negroland.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><em>The origins of Surinam slaves.<br /></em><br />The exact provenance of the slaves imported into Surinam is hard to determine. The main reason is the fact that planters were not very interested in fine distinctions and only applied rough labels. Furthermore, the search is hampered by the sometimes loose naming practices. Most of the time, tribal names were considered irrelevant and the slaves were named after their <strong>language group</strong> (Akan), the <strong>nation </strong><strong>that sold them</strong> (Dahomeans), or the <strong>port they were shipped from</strong> (Minas). Sometimes, a proper tribal name was garbled so much by ignorant clerks that it is difficult to reconstruct. In the Dutch colonies it was the habit to name imported slaves after the city where they had been purchased: Coromantees (<em>Cormantijnen</em>) after the WIC-stronghold Coromantin, Minas after Elmina, Papas after Popo, Ardras after Ardra (Allada), Fidas after Fida (Ouidah), Abos after the Dahomean capital Abomey, Calabaries after (Old) Calabar, Loangos after Loango (Angola), etc. Consequently, these are the names found in the archival sources, who only rarely registered tribal names (they did distinguish the “Demakoekoe”, but these were cannibals, so they attracted special attention).<br /><br />Various writers have given lists of ‘tribes’ who contributed to the Surinam slave force. It is not always clear where they got their information. Hartsinck presented an exhaustive one, but Van Lier claims it is worthless because he literally copied it from the work of Père Labat. Whatever the origin, the list does record most groups present in Surinam, although slaves belonging to the same tribe were sometimes recorded under different names.<br /><br />Hartsinck’s list:<br />(1) Ardra slaves (or Dongos), shipped form Ardra and Juda (Fida);<br />(2) Nago slaves (= Yoruba);<br />(3) Mallais slaves (brought in by people from Mali and shipped through Fida, Ardra and Jacquin);<br />(4) Aqueras slaves (unknown);<br />(5) Tchou slaves (unknown);<br />(6) Foin slaves (Fon from the Slave Coast);<br />(7) Guiamba slaves (probably Chamba from the Gold Coast);<br />(8) Fida and Jacquin slaves;<br />(9) Delmina slaves (Ashanti, Fanti, Wassa, Akim);<br />(10) Annamaboe slaves (Fanti);<br />(11) slaves from Accra;<br />(12) Abo and Papa slaves;<br />(13) Coromantee slaves;<br />(14) Ayois slaves (unknown);<br />(15) slaves from Goree;<br />(16) slaves from Sierra Leone;<br />(17) slaves from Cabo Monte;<br />(18) slaves from Cape La Hou (on the Gold Coast, he added that most of the slaves imported into Surinam came from there at the time);<br />Practically all the groups he mentioned dwelt on the Gold Coast or the Slave Coast and most can easily be identified. The only remarkable thing is that he does not mention slaves from Angola.<br /><br />Hostmann, writing almost a century later, understandably came with a somewhat different list:<br />(1) Coromantee slaves;<br />(2) Sokko and Mandingo slaves (from Senegambia);<br />(3) Abo slaves;<br />(4) Foela or Foeloeppoe slaves (Fula from Senegambia);<br />(5) Mende slaves (from Senegambia);<br />(6) Tjamba slaves (Chamba from the Gold Coast);<br />(7) Loango and Congo slaves;<br />(8) Ibo or Hiboe slaves.<br />This reflects the shift in the slave trade after it had become illegal: Senegambia and the Congo Basin became more popular.<br /><br />Van Lier has tried to identify some of the more obscure tribes, but made a few serious errors in the process: he placed the Abo in Cameroon, for example, although Dutch traders hardly ever called there, in fact positively despised these slaves. Both lists point to the same conclusion: most slaves came from the Gold and the Slave Coasts, in varying proportions. The slaves from <strong>Angola</strong> made an important contribution and during the 18th century, the Windward Coast gained ground as a major supplier. The 19th century saw an increased import of slaves from areas previously neglected by Dutch traders: especially Senegambia. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264583712954089426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 233px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP5VEmUFhFMMqULQ9eo-0EcfvOdImzM1sl47hpasu58hYvw4TtNzwrKZoT0HbG5KaRMKxV56IlNQEaXC6ZRDXwiZcLi-bEWcRu4ES5k3Dl4mDjHRZYW6HKc8l_gM9HLOGXUij_Z29wuA0/s400/Stedman-Loangos.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The most accurate picture of the distribution of these groups of slaves is not delivered by Surinam sources, but by the researches of Johannes Postma on the Dutch export from Africa. He summed up his conclusions in the following table:<br />1675-1700: L/A 34%; SC 64%; GC 2%; IC 0%; WC 0%<br />1701-1735: L/A 31%; SC 32%; GC 23%; IC 9%; WC 4%<br />1736-1795: L/A 24%; SC 1%; GC 26%; IC 35%; WC 14%<br />L/A = Loango/Angola; SC = Slave Coast; GC = Gold Coast; IC = Ivory Coast; WC = Windward Coast).<br />As can be seen, slaves from the Slave Coast were most sought after in the beginning. In the 18th century, the trade shifted more to the northwest, first to the Gold Coast, later to the Ivory and Windward Coast. The slaves from those regions were for a large part closely related to those of the Gold Coast. Cape La Hou was the most important trade center there (50% of the Dutch traffic). The procured slaves were mostly Beule (Akan speaking refugees from Senate), who warred with their neighbors the Senufo and Guro.<br /><br />The question is whether the slaves Surinam received formed a faithful representation of the general trade. As has been remarked, the Surinam planters were not exactly the safest risk in the Caribbean and their competitors were more willing to offer ready money for the slaves they coveted. Moreover, despite their fierce objections the Surinam planters were continuously saddled with slaves they detested. This leads to the conclusion that they probably had to content themselves with a greater portion of the less desirable bondsmen. This is corroborated by my own research, which shows that the Angolan part of the imports came close to 40% between 1740 and 1780. Although the data are not complete, this warrants the conclusion that the Surinam planters took more than an equal share of those slaves. On the other hand, they probably suffered stiff competition from the English where Coromantee slaves were concerned. With these reservations in mind, the table of Postma can be taken as an indication for the provenance of slaves imported into Surinam.<br /><br />Van Lier claimed that most of the Surinam slaves belonged to matrilineal tribes. He is surely mistaken here: the Gold Coast slaves were indeed matrilineal, but the Dahomeans, the Senegambians and the Angolans were not. Together, these slaves formed the majority of imports all through the slave era.<br /><br /><em>The number of slaves imported.<br /></em><br />Similar problems arise when one tries to ascertain the number of slaves imported into Surinam. In this case, the lament of Curtin that “<em>historians have copied over and over again the flimsy results of unsubstantial guesswork”</em> is particularly valid. Ironically, Curtin himself resorted to some pretty unsubstantial guesswork himself when dealing with Surinam. Leaving aside the unrealistically high estimates of Noel Deerr (who believed that a total of 900.000 slaves had been brought to Surinam and the Dutch Antilles), the authors addressing this problem are more or less on the same page. I will focus on the estimates of Van Lier (1949), Curtin (1969) and Price (1976).<br /><br /><strong>Rudolph van Lier </strong>has not wasted much ingenuity on this enigma. As a basis for his calculations, he took the number of slaves mentioned in the contract concluded with the WIC in 1730: 2500 a year. Although he acknowledged that the imports fluctuated considerably, he also believed that the fluctuations canceled each other. By simple multiplication, he reached a total of 315,000 slaves for the period 1682 to 1808. After 1826, the illegal imports were largely curbed, but he believed that during the interim at least 1000 slaves a year were smuggled in. This estimate was based on a note of Teenstra, who distilled this valuable piece of information from the casual remark of an <em>“inhabitant of the colony”</em>. All in all, Van Lier arrived at a projected import of about <strong>350.000</strong> slaves.<br /><br /><strong>Philip Curtin</strong>, in his excellent study <em><strong><a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=2Lw_UwfZlPAC&dq=Curtin+%2B+The+Atlantic+slave+trade&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=iZEHpC4c2U&sig=jR00xkm3iZkOAJIFtdYDpDimxzE&hl=nl&ei=JM2MSfbQOo-Y-gaPrYmSCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPR5,M1">The Atlantic Slave Trade</a></strong></em>, depended entirely on written sources, which with regard to the situation in Surinam were not exactly plentiful and varied in their unsubstantial guesswork from 100.000 to 350.000 slaves. Inevitably, he based his estimates largely on the calculations of Van Lier, although he believed these were on the low side, considering the long period of the trade and the slave population at the end of the 18th century. He therefore produced an estimate of 500.000 imported slaves for the whole of Dutch America, which he later refined to <strong>399.000</strong> for Surinam: 345.000 before 1808 and 54.000 thereafter. He conceded, however, that the present state of research does not permit very accurate calculations.<br /><br /><strong>Richard Price</strong> also leaned heavily on the work of Van Lier. He presented the following estimates: 1668-1670: <strong>1,600</strong>; 1671-1750: <strong>146,000</strong>; 1751-1800: <strong>100,000 </strong>to <strong>125,000</strong>; 1801-1813: <strong>30,000</strong>; 1814-1823: <strong>25,000</strong>. This adds up to a total between <strong>300,000</strong> and <strong>325,000</strong>. His calculations are based on a supposed annual decrease of 4 to 5% and the fact that around 1735 the slave population had reached a level of 50,000 <em>“the size it was to maintain, with little variation, until the end of the slave trade in the early nineteenth century”.</em><br /><br />Certainly, the ‘wet finger work’ of both Van Lier and Curtin must be regarded with the greatest caution. Price, at least, has attempted serious calculations, although in my opinion they rest on the wrong premises. The most vital error is the fact that the slave population of Surinam did <strong>not</strong> reach the 50,000 mark around 1735 (Price voiced some doubts about this as well). In reality, the slave population grew much slower than he claimed: the 25,000 mark was only reached in 1747 and the zenith probably not before the end of the 1760’s. This means that for about thirty years the slave population needed fewer replacements than Price calculated. Consequently, the import levels during the first half of the 18th century must have been considerably lower than he believed. The 30,000 slaves supposedly imported between 1801 and 1813 are equally unlikely. The English, having outlawed the transatlantic slave trade at a huge expense to themselves, would not have tolerated so much smuggling under their very noses, nor did the much more prosperous Caribbean islands send their superfluous slaves to poor cousin Surinam in such numbers. Moreover, the Napoleonic Wars slowed down all trade during this period. For the years between 1814 and 1823, he probably took the result of a top year and extrapolated this to cover the whole period. Since most of his estimates are (far) too high and none are too low, it can be hypothesized (even without further research) that the real number of slaves imported into Surinam will not be over 300,000 and that the estimates of Van Lier and Curtin are considerably beyond the mark.<br /><br />There are three possible methods for obtaining an accurate picture of the number of slaves brought into Surinam: (a) to calculate the exact volume from archival sources; (b) to take the Dutch exports from Africa as a guideline, calculate the portion that went to Surinam and make provisions for the contributions of foreign traders and interlopers; (c) to calculate the imports from the population growth and mortality. Unfortunately, none of these methods is error free. To glean the imports from the archival sources would be an undertaking of several years in itself and worse, the data would never be complete. The Governor’s Journal seems to have faithfully listed all the ships that arrived and departed, including their cargoes, but many volumes have been lost, or cannot be scrutinized due to fragility. Furthermore, one cannot be sure that certain arrivals were not overlooked. A second problem is the comprehensiveness of the data. There is a definite tendency towards a greater level of superficiality as time goes by. In later years, the numbers of slaves brought in were often recorded in hundreds, or even not at all. Moreover, it is not certain that all imported slaves were actually sold in the colony. Many skippers left with part of their<em> armasoen</em> when the prices were not right. Especially after the crisis of 1773, this became a regular habit. No indication of the contribution of the interlopers can be inferred from these sources. However, I agree with Postma that they played only a minor part in the trade.<br /><br />With regard to the African exports, the situation is more or less the same. Often, the destination of the ships was not indicated and even when this was the case, it is not certain that they actually went there. In many instances, they obviously did not. Postma has calculated that the total number of slaves carried by Dutch vessels between 1675 and 1795 was 407,000. Before 1713, many of these slaves (totaling at least 60,000) went to the Spaniards and the English by way of Curacao. Later, a larger percentage ended up in Surinam. Of a sample of 174 WIC-voyages, 96 were destined for Surinam and Guyana (55%). A sample of 125 runs of free traders indicated that 97 (80%) were destined for these parts. Moreover, it is undetermined how many of the ships destined for the South-American mainland went to Surinam and how many to Berbice, Essequibo and Demerara. It was not unusual that slave ships anchored in the Suriname River, only to proceed speedily to another colony, much to the chagrin of the inhabitants.<br /><br />The population statistics of Surinam are far from complete. For the late 17th and first half of the 18th century adequate statistics are present in the archives of the Society of Surinam. These probably underestimate the slave population somewhat, since they were designed to determine the amount of poll tax a planter owed and new colonists did not have to pay such a tax (but these probably owned few slaves). On the other hand, it is impossible to separate the red from the black slaves, so the latter are overrepresented if one uses these statistics to measure the growth of the black population. All in all, the numbers of slaves indicated by these statistics will not be too far of the mark and it is extremely unlikely that an error of 100% (as is implied by the estimates of Price) will occur. Other demographic data are lacking, so the rate of natural decrease can only be guessed.<br /><br />None of these perspectives offers a definite solution, but if they are combined, they can give insights that are more solidly founded in fact than the estimates of the authors mentioned above. My own calculations, made with the limitations outlined above in mind, lead to the following numbers: 1667-1684: <strong>5,000</strong>; 1684-1730: <strong>60,000</strong>; 1730-1750: <strong>45,000</strong>; 1750-1760: <strong>30,000</strong>; 1760-1780: <strong>60,000</strong>; 1780-1800: <strong>25,000</strong>; 1800-1863: <strong>40,000</strong>; TOTAL: <strong>265,000</strong>. This estimate is not only considerably lower than those of my esteemed predecessors, but I even believe it is on the high side. The following considerations are pertinent here.<br /><br />In the earliest period, the Surinam planters had to start building their slave forces almost from scratch, since the English took along most of their slaves when they departed. In 1684, there were about 3000 slaves, the majority imported by Dutchmen. For this period, considering the effects of the unrest and the Indian War, I have hypothesized a ‘replacement rate’ of 10%. The estimated number of 5000 imports is made up of 3000 ‘replacements’ and 2000 ‘additions’.<br /><br />In the beginning of the 18th century, most of the Lower Commewijne and Cottica divisions were cleared, but the real surge in production only took place in the 1750’s and 1760’s. The incessant complaints of the planters indicated a scarcity of slaves both in the absolute sense (the planters often could not even replace the slaves they lost) and in the relative sense (Surinam could not develop according to its potential because of this). The estimated imports are certainly sufficient to explain the expansion of the territory dedicated to plantations, but the sharp inflation of the slave prices (which was only remotely connected with the development of the purchase prices in Africa) points to the conclusion that the imports did not match the demand in Surinam.<br /><br />The WIC would never have been able to drive up the prices so shamelessly, if the interlopers had formed a genuine alternative source of supply. It is undeniable that some <em>lorredraayers</em> have indeed ventured into Surinam waters, but I believe these were incidental occurrences. In the first place, slave trading was much riskier and no more profitable than smuggling gold or spices. In the days of monopolistic trading, it was not easy to procure bondsmen outside the regular channels and it took a lot of time and effort. Moreover, the <em>lorredraayers</em> had to sell their slaves for cash, which few Surinam planters had at hand in sufficient quantity. If even the WIC, which was able to charge substantially higher prices for its slaves, considered it more profitable to smuggle slaves into the Spanish territories than to sell them under monopolistic conditions in Surinam, then it seems likely that those <em>lorredraayers</em> who did resort to dealing in slaves would prefer the same option. Finally, even if the interlopers had contributed just as many slaves as the WIC (which is extremely unlikely), then this would not change my conclusions, since only half my projected imports are covered by certified WIC-trade.<br /><br />For the years 1684 to 1730, the (incomplete) archival sources indicate an import of at least 32,000 slaves. The slave population grew from 3000 to 18,000 slaves. During the whole period complaints about the scarcity of slaves abounded. They came from so many different persons (including all the governors) and were so persistent, that they must have represented more than the usual lamentations of greedy entrepreneurs. Added to this was the fact that the slave population actually declined during a couple of years. For this period, I have again surmised a replacement rate of 10%, based on the estimates of the planters themselves. This means that on average 1000 slaves a year had to be brought in just to keep up the numbers. To make a population growth of 15,000 possible, that many extra had to be imported. This adds up to about 60,000 slaves.<br /><br />During the period 1730 to 1750, the slave population grew with roughly 10,000 persons. At first, the rise was rather steeply, corresponding with a couple of active WIC-years when the target of 2500 slaves was almost met. Then there was a temporary relapse during the period the WIC dropped out and the free traders moved in. Once they were conveniently established, the free traders were instrumental in creating the first real <em>hausse</em> in slave imports in Surinam. These decades also witnessed the largest expansion of the cultivated area and the prices of the various products were high. Slaves were needed urgently, after 1740 they were increasingly available and the planters could afford to buy them. Considering the fact that about 15,000 slaves were brought in between 1731 and 1738, an estimate of 45,000 imports for the whole period seems reasonable.<br /><br />The three decades from 1750 to 1780 may be classified as the top years of Surinam plantation agriculture. The slave population grew fast, production expanded and more than 30 million guilders in Dutch investments were poured into the colony. I have divided this period into two stages primarily because of the soundness of my own data: while for the decade 1750 to 1760 they are irregular, they are reasonably complete for the remaining decades. During these years, the slave population more than doubled to 55,000 – 60,000 persons. Up to 1773, the Surinam planters, thanks to the generous credit facilities and a regular supply, could buy all the slaves they wanted, even at highly inflated prices. After that year, the planters had to pass up many opportunities to buy slaves: although there were still plenty of ships plying their wares, some of them had to depart with most of their <em>armasoen</em> unsold. Meanwhile, the coming of age of the plantation system also ameliorated the situation of the slaves, so (following Stedman) I use a replacement rate of 5% per year. For the period 1750 to 1760 my estimate is pure conjecture, but with this replacement rate and a population growth of about 15,000 an estimate of 30,000 imports is warranted. For the next two decades, my own data add up to 58,500 slaves. I certainly missed some ships, but on the other hand, not all the slaves who were brought into the colony were sold, so 60,000 may not be too bad a guess.<br /><br />From 1780 to 1784, the <strong>Fourth Anglo-Dutch War</strong> eliminated most of the Dutch slave trade and it never recovered from this blow. Alternative sources of supply were found in the intra-Caribbean trade and the contributions of foreign slavers. During this period, the slave population remained stable at most and at the end of the 18th century even started to decline gradually. My own data indicate that roughly 13,000 slaves were imported between 1785 and 1800. This number is probably too low, considering the replacements that were needed, but it is highly unlikely that more than the 25,000 indicated here were shipped into the colony.<br /><br />The following observations can be made about the evolution of the slave population during the 19th century: (1) the number of slaves continued to drop steadily; (2) the rate of natural decrease diminished, while natural increase was larger than ever; (3) during the last decades of the slavery era, the decline cannot be explained by natural decrease: many slaves must have disappeared through manumission and marronage. During a few periods, there was a lively slave traffic. In the first eight years of the century, 8000 slaves were imported. From 1818 to 1821, an estimated number of 10,000 superfluous slaves from the (French) Caribbean islands flooded the colony. In the 1830s, after slavery had been abolished in the English territories, many English planters settled in Surinam with their slaves. According to Teenstra, about 13.000 slaves were brought to Surinam during this period.<br /><br />The development of the slave population does not lent credence to the suggestion that there was a continuous absorption of large numbers of smuggled slaves during the 19th century, especially after 1830. The fact that African-born persons were found among the Maroons even in the later stages of the slavery era proves that some smuggling must have taken place. However, <em>zoutwaternegers</em> were always more prone to run away and in these circumstances (they entered plantations with a tightly knit Creole community hostile to outsiders) their motivation for flight was even greater than among their 18th century counterparts, so this was not representative of the situation on the plantations.<br /><br />Apart from this, Surinam was hardly an interesting market for slave smugglers. Contraband slaves were expensive because of the enormous risks the brigands had to take: confiscation of ship and cargo, heavy fines and even the occasional death penalty. Moreover, prices had skyrocketed on the African coast as well. Surinam was a declining colony, where most of the plantations could hardly make ends meet, while on the other hand Cuba experienced a sugar boom and provided a much more lucrative market. Few slave ships have actually been caught near Surinam. Partly because of the laxity of the authorities to be sure, but those few ships attracted so much attention that it very unlikely that many other slavers will have been able to come and go without leaving a trace. An estimate of 10.000 contraband slaves seems high enough, which brings the total for the 19th century to about 40.000 hands.<br /><br />The total of 265,000 imported slaves, which is calculated here, is considerably less than the lowest estimates of the authors mentioned before. Moreover, it is quite possible that more refined methods will push the numbers back even more.<br /><br />Whatever the outcome of further research, it does not exonerate the Dutch for their part in the infamous slave trade. Perhaps the fact that they had a relatively good reputation among slavers and the fact that genuine excesses have been rare blunted the conscience of the Dutch population with regard to this unsavory phenomenon. As <a href="http://scholieren.nrc.nl/vakken/artikelen/0117_Slavernij.shtml">Pieter Emmer</a> stated: <em>“the Dutch slave trade succumbed only because of economic circumstances; the moral objections about the traffic in human beings has had no practical results in our country as it had in England and France with regard to the creation of associations for the abolishment of the slave trade”</em>. Perhaps the restraint of the Dutch slave traders has even retarded the abolition of slavery in the Dutch colonies. In England, the viciousness of the traffic in human beings not only fueled public resentment against it, but also provided the stimulus for the crusades of repentant former traders, who formed the vanguard of the abolition movement. As the campaign against slavery was the logical outgrowth of the battle for the abolition of the slave trade, the abolitionist movement never gained much momentum in the Netherlands and economic opportunism prevailed over morality.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264784790583402418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 296px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL59YTX-dddVMAW3b5GRaQlJz3rhisrIXbEpn46Mk72X1EnhtKBUkyQCmJDC6HmSvP259StQicq-EUB86PcuD_l2PaLcNOYXSSbpegjwUoTXvNwe1tqPY9_pqJdQlEogajfHbuOjaGMsU/s400/Turner's-Slave-ship.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center"><em><a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Turner">Turner's</a> slave ship</em></p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-23851461120004281512008-04-02T18:52:00.109+02:002009-02-11T01:38:23.821+01:00Chapter 2: White society.<div align="justify"><strong><br />The search for immigrants.<br /><br /></strong><em>Skewed statistics.</em><br /><br />This chapter focuses on the white masters, most of the others on the subservient blacks. It is necessary to understand the former, in order to understand the latter. The white overlords in slave societies were able to lay down the rules much more strictly than any other elite in history. The slaves might oppose the rules, but they were seldom able to change them fundamentally.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261976300664955682" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 263px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheI0dgo_LTAZ7KZw-va-T7yXZlvqHG1N-BiDFLUh1VYszmaKNQ-WGQpIO5w2-umgfgvkriDb349kQC4PIM4_sNYa1ToEaRCH_lIJV97H_hkf9b1OVx9q0BALlmZUFXN_ss9n5NYdYHjoU/s400/op-pad.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">From the beginning, Surinam has displayed the characteristics of a plantation colony. One of the main distinguishing traits of such a society was the skewed ratio of black and white, man and woman, slave and free. A severe shortage of white settlers, especially women, was inevitable in these conditions and the authorities were acutely aware of this. In an exploitation colony, there usually was no genuine niche for white yeoman farmers and there were only limited opportunities for artisans and traders, in fact, for all workers not directly involved in plantation agriculture. For impoverished people, living in difficult circumstances but not starving, such a colony provided few prospects. Furthermore, the people in the Low Countries had a negative image of the tropical world in general: they saw it as a white man’s graveyard infested with dangerous subhuman beings. A person had to be extremely desperate, or extremely eager to make a fortune to venture there. Consequently, the push factors for emigration were not very strong in the Netherlands. As Charles Boxer has noted: <em>“although the wages were usually very low and working hours very long, unemployment in the Northern Netherlands was never sufficiently severe to induce industrial and agricultural workers to emigrate on an adequate scale to the overseas possessions of the Dutch East and West India Companies.”</em> However, small as the white minority in Surinam may have been (and it was always too small in the eyes of the men in power), its superior position, although sometimes a bit shaky, was never seriously threatened during the slavery era.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the collection of statistics in colonial Surinam was very erratic. For most of the earlier years, the number of whites must be projected and finer distinctions cannot be made. For the years 1700 to 1745, however, we have the annual count of <em>Whites and Red and Black Slaves</em>, contained in the archives of the Society of Surinam. The soldiers were omitted from these counts, although they made up nearly half of the white population for most of this period. During the rest of the 18th century, the number of whites remained fairly stationary, although a large part of the plantation owners left. The statistics of the 19th century provide even more problems, because the population was often merely divided into slaves and free people and most of the figures pertained to Paramaribo only. In 1811, the English held the first census in Surinam history, which delivered a much more accurate picture. As a result, the population curve can only be drawn with the greatest hesitation. The most important conclusion nevertheless remains the same: the number of whites in the colony was always so low that they were painfully aware of the vulnerability of their position -and acted accordingly.<br /><br />The only period during which it was not difficult to attract sufficient settlers to Surinam were the years of the Willoughby-colonization. In Barbados, where sugar production expanded quickly at the time, many white farmers were pushed from their small holdings by more powerful neighbours and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant">indentured servants</a> found no place to settle after the expiration of their contracts. These people were keen to join such a venture. Since they were experienced colonists and had already survived the first dangerous years in a tropical climate, they prospered. In 1665, Surinam counted 4000 inhabitants, of whom 1500 were capable of bearing arms (meaning they were free white men). A terrible epidemic cut their number in half and the departure of most of the English colonists after the Zeelandian occupation left Surinam practically depleted of white settlers. Therefore, the authorities spared no measure to lure new hopefuls.<br /><br />They were, of course, primarily interested in men with enough capital to start a plantation. Governor Van Aerssen hoped that people from Curacao would consent to settle in Surinam, but the lack of slaves ‘diverted’ them. Dutchmen were preferred, but the Society of Surinam could not afford to be choosy. Almost everyone was acceptable, even citizens from countries that Holland might have to do battle with in the near future. Would-be planters were regarded more favorable when they already owned slaves, or had a contract with the WIC to procure them. Then they could be sure to receive a choice piece of land.<br /><br />The Society had promised new settlers an exemption from taxes for the period of ten years, but this tended to attract fortune hunters and, according to Van Aerssen, this policy harmed the budding colony severely: <em>Your Noble High Mightinesses have been deceived nastily by consenting to such favorable immunities and privileges for such a long period, having the design of the mighty planters only been, to withhold</em> [taxes] <em>here for another ten years, to exhaust their plantations, and then to go wandering everyone to his fatherland, without having contributed anything: their motives of persuasion having been the Indian war by which</em> [they]<em> have been ruined, this also being the reason that many of them have used not to pay their debts and</em> [they]<em> have sent their sugar on their own account to the Fatherland, with the intention that if it goes badly with the colony to leave their creditors with a fair bankruptcy.<br /></em><br />Notwithstanding the shortage of planters, the most dubious characters were rebuffed. Governor De Goyer (1710-1715) mentioned in a dispatch to the Society that he had refused land concessions to certain persons, because they aimed <em>“to strip the requested land of wood, and thereupon leave it, after they had been made useless for plantations”.</em> He also sent packing “<em>Such who notoriously have no Slave force, and in all probability could not get such a force in a long time, given their Credit and their Lifestyle”</em>. Surinam was much better off with another kind of planters: the religious fugitives, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot">Huguenots</a> and Jews, who not only brought sufficient capital, but also planned to stay.<br /><br /><em>The need for plantation supervisors.<br /></em><br />Respectable planters were not the only whites hard to come by in Surinam: the lower echelons of society were just as difficult to fill. Soldiers, tradesmen and plantation officers, in particular, were desperately needed. In part to simply counterbalance the growing number of slaves, in part to control them directly. Governor <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulus_van_der_Veen">Van der Veen</a> (1696-1707) warned that a contagious disease that had swept the Americas had killed off so many whites that <em>“there are several Plantations, where no white is left, and</em> [that]<em> are only governed by Negroes”</em>. He tried to augment the number of whites by ordering the planters to employ one overseer for every ten slaves, fining them 1000 pounds of sugar when they failed to comply. The master and his sons over the age of 15 were included in this number. The Court of Police protested eloquently against this unrealistic law: where would the planters get the necessary personnel from? Even if they managed to entice some men away from Holland now, there was no guarantee that they would be able to find replacements in the future. The councilors claimed that in reality there was one <em>blankofficier</em> for every 20 to 25 slaves and they considered this satisfactory.<br /><br />The authorities soon realized that they could not enforce this ordinance, so in the beginning of the 18th century, they relented somewhat and prescribed only one overseer for every twenty slaves, adding generously that <em>“it shall be free for everyone to sent for these whites at their own expense”</em> –a privilege for which the planters were truly grateful of course. During the first half of the 18th century, the government continuously demanded obeisance, but to no avail. An advisory committee concluded in 1757 that two whites per 100 slaves, three whites per 200 slaves and four whites per 300 slaves were ample, because too many <em>blankofficieren</em> on one plantation would lead to arguments and unrest among the slaves. After a massive rebellion in Berbice (1773), the States-General was sufficiently alarmed to demand the reinstatement of the old rule, threatening planters who ignored it with a fine of 500 guilders. When the Society agreed to a ratio of one supervisor per 40 slaves in 1772, Governor Nepveu protested vehemently: he considered this wholly inadequate, especially in the upper divisions.<br /><br />In the 19th century, the abolition of the slave trade, the growing dependence on the protection of the Dutch military and the reduction of internal hostilities made the government relax the rules considerably. In 1817, it was ordered that a plantation had to employ at least one white or free colored supervisor if it counted less than 200 slaves and provide one additional officer for every 100 slaves more. Despite the fear of the ‘mass of slaves’, the government never considered curbing the imports. During the slavery era, there were seldom more than two or three whites on a plantation, even on the largest ones, which could count up to 500 slaves.<br /><br />In later times, these whites occupied themselves almost exclusively with supervising the fields and the factory, but in the 17th and early 18th centuries, all sorts of white servants resided on the plantations: bookkeepers, carpenters, coopers, surgeons, etc. Only the sugar boilers, in other colonies often white specialists, were exclusively black in Surinam. The craftsmen, even the ‘doctors’, were replaced by trained slaves soon, while bookkeeping was included in the duties of the directors. Although, especially in the 19th century, free coloreds were considered suitable as plantation servants even by the authorities, relatively few of them ever rose to this exalted position. Obviously, they were mistrusted by most planters and only the barest necessity opened the gate for them.<br /><br />White artisans were in much demand during the early period, not only to work on the plantations, but also to serve the growing population of Paramaribo. Governor Van Aerssen, for example, asked for carpenters, master millwrights, potters and brick makers. He was willing to pay them up to 700 guilders a year plus provisions. The colonists learned to do without them in the 18th century.<br /><br /><em>Dubious immigrants.</em><br /><br />There were few volunteers for any of these positions, so ‘gentle’ persuasion was applied on the unwilling. Surinam did not have an official system for procuring indentured labor, yet employers would accept without compunction people recruited forcibly by so-called <em>zielverkoopers </em>(‘spirits’, literally ‘soulsellers’): unsavory characters who plied unsuspecting candidates with liquor to obtain their signature on a contract that bound them to a plantation or to the Society, blackmailed them into signing, or even shanghaied them. So many bewildered wretches found themselves aboard a ship on its way to the West Indies before they realised what was happening to them. These reluctant immigrants were welcomed eagerly at first, but soon most of them proved to be unmitigated nuisances.<br /><br />Governor Van Aarssen had several unpleasant experiences with them and reported: <em>“Surely I must say again that all the Soulsellers’ hands are expensive, useless and godless hands, with regard to their purchase as well as their services:</em> [I] <em>declare</em> [I] <em>rather want to deal with galley and rasp-house crooks, than with such </em>[men]<em>, because the burden rests on my shoulders, and I remain embarrassed with it and the work overtakes me more and more”</em>. The people dragged to the colony for service to the Society were of little use at first, because <em>“they stand Heavily in debt to the Soulsellers, and I to degage them, exert myself as much as possible, and what they get as salary from time to time, all goes through the gullet, above this we enjoy little Service, except for the first Two & Three months from them, their ill health, and sore Legs because of the change of Air here,</em> [is]<em> such that getting their passports after the expiration of the three years, stripped of money, and supplied with health, They are better able to give Service and lacking passage money, are obliged to stay”</em>. Therefore, he objected to the proposal to promise them return passage in order to lure more.<br /><br />Even these dubious methods did not yield a sufficient quantity of candidates and their quality was so abysmal that Van Aerssen came to believe he would be better off with real criminals. He asked the Society to send <em>“a dozen of those crooks who are sitting in the rasp-house …</em> [I]<em> do not doubt that</em> [I] <em>have a solution for them”</em>. He was indulged right away. In 1684, the States of Holland resolved not to lock up minor offenders anymore, but to give them a chance to redeem themselves. The unlucky ones were shipped to Surinam. The experiment was not a success. Instead of being properly grateful for this generous rehabilitation scheme, the rascals broke their chains, stole a couple of canoes and headed for the Orinoco. Most of them were dragged back by François de Chattilon. Other contingents did not meet the meagre expectations either.<br /><br />Therefore, it is not surprising that Van Aerssen’s successor, Jan van Scharphuys(en), pleaded to be spared further shipments: <em>“To my regret prisoners are still sent with nearly every ship; we cannot understand Your Noble Lords’ concept of this, as it is nothing but a plague for the Colony, and of great damage to the Society; for if they are craftsmen, the other honest</em> [men] <em>will not work with them, but with regret; and so they obstruct the work more, than they are of avail; are they no craftsmen, they can do naught but slavish labor, and for that they are not worth their clothes nor food, and always</em> [there] <em>ought to be one after them, or else they will not work, and</em> [they]<em> spoil with this the slaves too, and who knows what evil in the evening or in the morning they will come to do, or run away to the Indians and incite them against us, and other rascalities, of which one does not lightly think; so that from sending these rogues no hail or benefit is to be expected.”<br /><br /></em>Dutch orphanages soon became another source of unenthusiastic immigrants. In 1685, the Court of Police begged the Society to transport 20 to 25 orphaned boys and an equal numbers of girls to the colony. Apprentice craftsmen and clerks were sorely needed, while the girls should be versed in sewing, spinning and performing household chores. They were to earn 25 guilders a year (plus food and lodging), from which amount a total of 30 guilders for their passage would be deducted. It is understandable that the trustees of the orphanages at first considered this a marvellous opportunity for their charges, who had a dim future in the Netherlands. They knew little of the drawbacks of colonial life and they had little empathy with the anguish of those children, as they were herded onto leaky ships to face an uncertain future.<br /><br />Some of the youngsters seem to have done rather well, considering the circumstances. Governor Van Scharphuys noted: <em>“The orphans, boys as well as daughters are all delivered to good Masters, and of the girls a good part is already married, or about to marry; we wished however, that more of the most decent of the house had been sent to us at first, since we hear many complaints about their rashness and unruliness; of the girls we have been obliged to send one back on this occasion, since she thrives very ugly, wetting herself every night, destroying everything, and by her trade with the Negroes and others giving a general scandal.”</em> He nevertheless asked for 10 to 12 more to be sent with every ship.<br /><br />Within a decade, hundreds of orphans had been fetched from Middelburg and Amsterdam, but the reports that got back to the trustees alarmed them sufficiently to discontinue this practice until <em>“less dangerous times”</em>. The whereabouts of most of these children remains a mystery. The majority of them probably died shortly after their arrival in the colony. Some, like Clement Andriessen, obtained the sought-after fortune: he married a prosperous widow and became a planter on the Surnau creek. Most girls, if they survived, found a husband easily. A few children returned to the Netherlands. [The destiny of the orphans referred to by Van Scharphuys has been recorded. They arrived in the colony on the Princess Royal in 1691. In the beginning of the 18th century, most had disappeared from view. Of the 27 boys, 18 had died in Surinam and six had returned to Holland. Only two were still residing in the colony and the fate of one was unknown. Of the 20 girls, 11 had died, one was sent back to Amsterdam and one managed to leave of her own accord. The remaining seven had married inhabitants.]<br /><br />The results of all these experiments were so discouraging that the inhabitants of Surinam soon concluded that they could do without European craftsmen and that they could survive a shortage of plantation supervisors. They trained blacks for most of these jobs. One category of hirelings was alas indispensable, whatever their flaws: white soldiers. These mercenaries were recruited from the scum of Dutch, German and Scandinavian society. Even condemned men were not frowned upon. Consequently, it was practically impossible to get the desired service from them: they were used to the whip and the stockades and most of them had little to lose. Even the slaves looked down on them. Governor Van Aerssen warned the Society that these<em> “are not soldiers whom we would dare to trust in an emergency, of which</em> [I]<em> daily have experience”.</em> We have already seen that he was not unduly pessimistic.<br /><br />These drunken loafers nevertheless had their uses, so it was made difficult from them to leave the colony. They were kept in debt as much as possible and they were forced to match wits with a very stubborn bureaucracy in order to assemble the papers they needed for leaving. Before a former soldier could depart, he was obliged to obtain five permits from the secretary and have them read in four churches in Paramaribo, Zandpunt, Commewijne and Perica, as well as in the Jewish synagogue. After six weeks of waiting, he had to get a note from each of the clergymen stating that his departure had been announced and that no objections had been voiced (by creditors). He then had to deliver these to the Governor, whereupon he was finally issued a passport. Many gave up in despair long before that and settled on a plantation instead.<br /><br />Later in the 18th century, the attempts to attract settlers were aimed primarily at farmers. They were badly needed to grow provisions, to offset the numerical majority of the blacks and to form a buffer against the Maroons. In 1747, the Society decided to invite some farmers from the Paltz to move to Surinam. They were supplied with cattle and tools and the plan was to settle them along the <em>Oranjepad</em>, a road constructed through the forest in an attempt to hold back <em>wegloopers</em>. They proved unwilling to exert themselves much and the experiment faltered. Some years later, Baron von Spörcke tried again with several Swiss families, with similar results. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263703996101141842" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 314px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtUF_fkxZMD2XS8bnAXUs33khYYwPQfDQ8-BGB0niE7iPzraycqIbeMel_ZykfyJ9gPaDgqz0dR1TNPVTipEC9qI7wOGzSe3iue9k55S1edU0UiMqDKFzy2ZYF5uVLczzgv8Bzvf9CzX8/s400/Boeroes.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">It took almost a century before the interest in this kind of colonization flared up again. The rate of unemployment in the Netherlands had become disquieting by then and overpopulation was considered a major cause. Reverend A. van den Brandhof and his colleagues Copijn and Betting were convinced that landless laborers had a promising future as independent farmers in Surinam. They won the support of the Secretary of the Colonies for their scheme. The deserted military post Groningen on the Saramacca River was chosen as an ideal place to start and the government of Surinam promised slaves for clearing the forest, digging trenches and building houses. When the preparations threatened to become too expensive, the abandoned government plantation Voorzorg was selected as an alternative. The first group of 50 families and 40 bachelors arrived in 1845.<br /><br />A painful disappointment awaited them: the huts were barely habitable, the land was not cleared and furniture and tools were absent. Copijn noted: <em>“When the anchor had fallen gruesome scenes took place on board of the ship. Women and children wailed and cried; the men, at the sight of their destination, strode desperately and angrily across the deck. Most people refused to get off the ship; some of them who still possessed money, offered this to the captain for the return passage.”</em> They were not mistaken in their apprehension: soon contagious diseases broke out, which killed off half the unfortunate colonists. It was decided to return to Groningen and many people, especially the widowed, departed for Holland at the first opportunity.<br /><br />The would-be farmers received ample help from the authorities. The support was, perhaps, too generous, because few of the immigrants sincerely tried to become self-supporting. Food from the colonial warehouses was doled out constantly and they were paid daily wages for constructing their own houses. The most diligent farmers tried to grow vegetables, but even when the harvest was good, the products wilted before they reached Paramaribo. Experiments with cochineal also failed. A yellow fever epidemic delivered the <em>coup the grace</em> in 1851. Two years later the settlement was abandoned entirely. Some of the colonists followed another pioneer, by the name of Westphal, to his project on the plantation Rama in Upper Suriname, some returned to the motherland and the rest settled <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/4/f4/img4240.nl.html">near Paramaribo</a>. They contented themselves with tending small plots and supplied the inhabitants with milk and vegetables. Their descendants, the <em><a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/koloniaal_suriname/dbase_boeroes/introductie.htm">Boeroes</a></em>, still live there.<br /><br />Dutch abolitionists continued to have high hopes for white colonization, but the government had enough of sponsoring such ventures. Ambitious private enterprises, like August Kappler’s on the Marowijne, lasted only a few years.<br /><br /><br /><strong>A house divided.<br /><br /></strong><em>Calvinists and other Christians.<br /></em><br />In most Caribbean societies, there was one dominant group of whites, who were either subjects of the colonizing power, or their descendants (white Creoles). There was often a lot of hostility between the metropolitan and colonial whites, who referred to each other in unflattering terms as ‘power-hungry intruders’ or ‘vicious slave-beaters’. In Surinam, Protestant Dutch nationals and their progeny did not form a clear majority. Quite the opposite in fact, numerically they were overshadowed by groups with a different national origin and/or religion.<br /><br />Notwithstanding their minority position, the Dutch made their mark on Surinam society by virtue of their control of the government and official institutions: the placards were based on Dutch law, the official religion was <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Reformed">Dutch Reformed</a></strong> and the official language was Dutch. It would not have been surprising if the French tongue had been chosen for this purpose, because there were many immigrants from France, the Dutch upper class spoke French perfectly and the (mostly Sephardic) Jews had fewer problems with this language than with Dutch. The Society of Surinam, however, decided in 1688 that documents in foreign languages would not be accepted in the colony. Until the middle of the 18th century, the Dutch Reformed Church was the only one officially permitted, apart from the related Walloon church. The construction of the church buildings and the services of the ministers were paid from public funds. The <em>Conventus Deputatorum</em>, consisting of the ministers and two members of the Court of Police, kept in touch with the <em>Classis</em> of Amsterdam. It successfully barred the recognition of other religions until the middle of the 18th century.<br /><br />Many of the immigrants were of kindred North-European stock and embraced the Protestant faith. After the departure of most of the <strong>English</strong> in the 1670s, few were left in Surinam and in the 18th century, few felt the urge to settle there, as they had plenty of colonies of their own. This changed after the English occupation of the neighboring Zeelandian colonies of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbice">Berbice</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demerara">Demerara</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essequibo_%28colony%29">Essequibo</a> (which together were to form the colony of British Guiana) and the overtaking of Surinam in 1799. As a result of this, many of the planters who settled in the western part of Surinam were of English and Scottish extraction. Nickerie and Coronie soon displayed a distinct British imprint. The influence was discernable in architecture, language and lifestyle.<br /><br />Subjects of other related nations usually melted into the dominant culture without leaving many traces. There is no German influence comparable with that of the English, although <strong>Germans</strong> were of vital importance for the development of the colony. Marten Teenstra even maintained that they were greatly favored over other nationalities, especially on the plantations. Many soldiers were of German stock as well. Rudolf van Lier concluded that in some circles there existed a certain measure of animosity towards the Germans, who were often portrayed as the cruelest of slave masters, but this certainly did not hamper their prosperity. The position of Scandinavians was comparable.<br /><br />Together, these nationalities, which formed the bulk of Surinam whites, were a more or less homogenous body, which shared the same basic ideas about slavery. The remaining groups of foreigners departed somewhat from this pattern. The <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugenot">Huguenots</a></strong> shared the same faith, but as a minority despised in their homeland they had burned their ships behind them. The <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Labadie">Labadists</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrnhuter_Br%C3%BCdergemeine">Hernhutters</a></strong> were protestant too, but their philosophy differed profoundly from the other Protestants. They had all been persecuted in one way or the other and in Surinam, they found a heaven of religious tolerance (or rather indifference) quite unusual for this time and place.<br /><br />Since the revocation of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes">Edict of Nantes</a> in 1685, the Huguenots did not feel safe in the French territories anymore, on the mainland nor abroad. Many of them escaped to the Northern Netherlands. Governor Van Aerssen had friendly relations with many prominent Huguenot families in France (his mother and wife descended from them) and he offered these persecuted Protestants safety in Surinam. The first group accompanied him to the colony in 1683, while in 1686 a large contingent departed from Amsterdam on a vessel called Prophet Samuel. Among them were rich men desiring to set up plantations and trained craftsmen. Other Huguenots emigrated from the French Antilles. At the end of the 17th century, there were about 20 French plantation owners. Van Lier believed that the Huguenots (along with the Jews) were the most important white group in Surinam at the end of the 17th century. According to Van der Linde, their language, traditions and fashions even became dominant during the 18th century. Many of their descendants rose to influential positions in the government (they supplied six governors -De Cheusses (2x), Coutier, Crommelin, Nepveu and Texier- as well as a commander -De Raineval) and in the courts (in 1735, for example, the Court of Civil Justice counted three 'French' members -Dupeyroux, De Lisle and Juran- and the Court of Criminal Justice one -Labadie). The Huguenots had their own church in Paramaribo and their ministers were treated on a par with the Dutch Reformed clergy. In 1783, the two churches were amalgamated.<br /><br />The Labadists, for the most part also of French extraction, were a smaller and more tragic sect. It had been started by Jean de Labadie and after his death it was continued by Pierre Yvon. Three unmarried sisters of Governor Van Aerssen (Anna, Maria and Lucia) belonged to this sect, which settled on the <a href="http://www.stinseninfriesland.nl/ThetingaState.htm">Thetinga State</a> in Wiewerd (Province of Friesland). Some scouts went to Surinam with Van Aerssen in 1683, but they came back with disappointing tidings. Nevertheless, Yvon sent a group to Surinam a year later. Van Aerssen advised them to buy an estate near Paramaribo and offered them the use of the newly imported slaves until these were sold, but they wanted to stay clear of the ‘wicked people’ and selected a spot near the isolated Marshall’s creek, where they established a plantation called La Providence.<br /><br />Since they did not know the first thing about agriculture, nor about the management of slaves, their eventual failure was predictable. It seems that they treated their slaves with uncommon gentleness at first, but they soon became convinced that that <em>“one cannot rule this beastly kind of people other than by beastly leashes”</em>. In their solitary state, they were a prime target for Indian attacks, their crops failed and many members suffered from swamp fever. Understandably, serious discord soon arose. A second group, dispatched by Yvon to bring tools and provisions, was overtaken by pirates and completely robbed out. In 1719, the plantation was sold. By then, most of the survivors had already left the colony for greener pastures. In the eyes of the other inhabitants, they were nothing but <em>“suspicious tramps”</em> anyway.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264560652912588002" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 291px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQfh-s7BU_J7gcc2kk9NljWCmcZ-egV9VhZOUKVYWof1foAhMfeh6neZWrhbeeOZTHiivYKN2Y8K9cHefV02_KhlSYGz51-xPCfnqeeG7YKcHsauN0JVPc9NdoNQjHA21rEl6ebSB6k3g/s400/EBG.jpg" border="0" />The reputation of another group whose behavior was determined by faith, the Moravian Brothers (Hernhutters), was just as negative. In Surinam, this congregation was called the <strong>Evangelische Broedergemeente</strong> (<a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelische_Broedergemeente">EBG</a>). In 1734, their leader Spangenberg started negotiations with the Society about moving to the colony. The directors regarded the proposal favorably, but did not want to permit their settlement without consultation with the Dutch Reformed Council in Surinam and the <em>Classis</em> in Amsterdam. These organizations were not overly enthusiastic about their coming, but did not oppose it in earnest either. Therefore, in 1735, the first missionaries arrived to reconnoiter the territory. They were especially desirous to explore the possibilities for the propagation of their faith. They found the white inhabitants of the colony not particularly susceptible to their ideas, but few real barriers were put in their way. The main difficulty was the reluctance of the Brothers to accept the obligation to bear arms and to swear an oath of loyalty to the government.<br /><br />The inhabitants of Surinam did welcome the services the Brothers offered (shoemaking, baking, tailoring and other crafts), but the Dutch Reformed Council objected to their religious services in Paramaribo, because they drew such a large crowd. Consequently, the Brothers bought a deserted plantation near Paramaribo, from where they conducted their missionary work. This started to bear fruit from 1754 on, after several able organizers had arrived. As long as they limited their activities to spreading the gospel among the Indians and Bush Negroes, the whites did not care, but they were barred from the plantations until far into the 19th century. At the end of the 18th century, Brother C. Kersten and some colleagues started a trading company called Kersten & Co., which unto this day is one of the most successful indigenous companies of Surinam.<br /><br />The abovementioned groups, plus the <strong>Lutherans</strong> (who got their own church in 1742) were opposed mainly by the Dutch Reformed clergy, but the rejection of <strong>Roman Catholics</strong> was more widespread. The Zeelandian conquerors were ardent Calvinists, so when Surinam was turned over to the WIC, they insisted on a provision in the Charter barring practicing Catholics from official positions and forbidding their religious services. They were also stripped of the privileges that had already been granted to them. The tolerant Governor Van Aerssen let in three Franciscan priests and one lay preacher in 1683 and Zeeland furiously demanded their expulsion. They all died within a few years, so in 1686, Van Aerssen ordered their corpses dug up and their bones sent to Zeeland, accompanied by a sarcastic note. This ended the Catholic mission in Surinam for almost a century, though an increasing number of Catholics (mostly from the Southern Netherlands and Germany) entered the colony -and public service as well. Only in 1785, a priest was finally permitted to conduct services openly and the building of a Catholic school was even partly financed by donations from members of other churches. In 1803, Catholics were granted the same rights as those adhering to other faiths. The remarkable thing is that most of the Catholics deemed so alien by Dutch Protestants had a very similar background, but the traditional suspicion of ‘Papists’ was strong enough to overcome the otherwise prevalent religious indifference for a long time.<br /><br /><em>The Jewish Nation.<br /></em><br />The <strong>Jews</strong> were considered even more alien. Not only was their religion distrusted and despised, their cultural background differed fundamentally from that of the rest of the white inhabitants. In fact, their ‘otherness’ prevented integration. Partly out of choice, partly because they were isolated by the Christian whites, the Jews remained an entirely separate group, and became a nation within a nation.<br /><br />We have already seen that the first Jews arrived with the Willoughby-expedition and were of English extraction. Many were lured away after 1670. A second group rifted to Surinam in 1664 after a long history of migration. Their forbearers had settled in Brazil after having been expulsed from Spain and Portugal by the Inquisition. Many of them were <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano">Marranos</a></em>, Jews converted to Christianity whose sincerity of faith was no longer believed in. They welcomed the Dutch conquerors of Pernambuco, who offered them real religious freedom. When Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen was forced to leave the colony in 1644, a large group of Jews accompanied him and decided to settle in Amsterdam, which already had a flourishing Jewish community. Many of them did not feel at home there and wanted to put their agricultural expertise to good use. In 1659, David Cohen Nassy received a patent of the WIC, permitting him to establish a ‘patronship’ in Cayenne (which had been conquered by the Dutch two years earlier). The next year, a group of 152 Jews from Livorno joined the party. When the French took over again in 1664, the Jewish settlers moved to Surinam, where they were cordially received by the English authorities. The government granted them the same rights as the English nationals enjoyed and even some special privileges, such as freedom from public duties (except military service), a separate Council for Small Affairs and their own <em>jurators</em>. They were eligible for all official positions.<br /><br />When the Zeelanders conquered Surinam, they promised to respect these privileges. The Jews would be treated <em>“as if they were born Dutchmen”.</em> They received 10 acres of land near Thorarica, where they built a small synagogue in 1672 -the first one in the Western Hemisphere. In 1682, the government donated a tract of land to Samuel Cohen Nassy (about whom Governor Van Aerssen wrote: “[I] <em>declare to have found no abler, more sensible and more reasonable man in the colony, Jewishness apart”</em>). He ceded it to the Jewish community and in 1691 added 25 acres of his own. The terrain was expanded again by a grant of 100 acres from Governor Van Scharphuys and became known as the <strong>Joden Savanne</strong> (Jew Savanna). This way, residential segregation was attained: most Jews of Iberian extraction (the so-called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardi_Jews">Sephardic</a> Jews) lived on the <em>Joden Savanne</em>, while the Christians preferred residence in Paramaribo. During the first half of the 18th century, the most prosperous epoch for the Jewish Nation, 50 to 60 families, with 4 to 5 slaves each, lived on the <em>Joden Savanne</em>. Those not engaged in plantation agriculture gained their livelihood as craftsmen.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264557154824589634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 262px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBOQTi6MpZTalFPBuV7Rvw-qsdq6FjjzvtFNovH3zbnLPUlHZ0IYy8JAxGC1wOZUFypDFryI6qkozvHYbjg2AHsLXuvf-Cljd6IUW7PZ036exn7sHUi6GXiQ_NEcu2LFT7Hktibq4OUD4/s400/Jodensavanne-+-pad.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="justify">At the end of the 17th century, the first East-European (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews">Ashkenazi</a>) Jews entered the colony. Around 1690, they made up about one third of the Jewish population. They settled in Paramaribo and never became involved in cultivation. Contrary to the Iberian Jews, they were mostly of lower class origin and worked as artisans or petty traders. They did not intermarry with their Sephardic cousins, although they shared a synagogue at first. After much discord, the two congregations separated in 1734. The Eastern Jews did not profit from the privileges awarded to their Iberian counterparts.<br /><br />The Sephardic Jews were governed by a council, the <em>Mahamed</em>, consisting of four regents (<em>parnassijns</em>). They had their own juridical code, the <em>Ascamoth</em>, and according to David Cohen Nassy <em>“all that did not collide with the laws of the land, nor was explicitly excluded in the privileges, was handled by the regents, without appeal”.</em> The Jews had no official rabbi, so marriage ceremonies were conducted by them as well. Wills were drawn up by the Jewish <em>jurators</em>. In 1704, the States-General resolved that all marriages had to be concluded in accord with the regulations made by the States of Holland and West Friesland in 1580. This was a nuisance for the Jews, because these regulations forbade marriage to certain relatives (for example first cousins), who were perfectly acceptable as partners under Jewish law. In case such a marriage was planned, the Jews had to apply for permission from the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>, who would usually grant it –after payment of a hefty fee. <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Karseboom, however, decided that they had to obtain permission from the States-General, which entailed heavy costs.<br /><br />For the most part, the Jews located their plantations on the sandy soils of the Upper Suriname district. A few could be be found along the Para River. It was hard for them to get land in the more fertile regions (Commewijne and Cottica), although a few persistent candidates succeeded. The high grounds were quickly exhausted, since they were never fertilized. Consequently, Governor Coutier (1718-1721) could report as early as 1720 that: <em>“The Jewish nation in general, in this land, impoverishes and deteriorates considerably, being among them a very limited number who still own some good and debtless plantations, and the others</em> [are] <em>only underlings, who as a result of their impotence are in no state to buy any slaves, on the conditions under which these are sold these days, but who are by the most prosperous among them barely kept afloat”. </em>Several decades later, Governor Mauricius remarked that the Christians in Upper Suriname did better than the Jews, because they could revert to the only kind of animal husbandry that could add to their profit (the breeding of pigs), while the Jews could not.<br /><br />In the opinion of Governor Crommelin, they found an easy solution for their problems by switching from sugar production to timber <em>“as the Jews usually do to get cash in hand and to </em><em>leave their correspondents in the dump”</em>. Governor Nepveu did not consider the erosion of their lands the main problem. Even in the lower and more fertile parts of the colony, the Jews did not do well, “<em>on the contrary they have been set back by their Profusion of Feasts there too, which moreover spoil the slaves”</em>. He may have had a point, for Samuel Cohen Nassy had already tried to limit the number of festive days in the 1680’s -without success. The Jewish apologist David Cohen Nassy considered these factors of minor importance. He pointed out that Jews were often too attached to the <em>Joden Savanne</em> to be willing to leave, even if they had the chance to better their lot. Furthermore, it was very difficult for Jewish owners to hold on to their debt-ridden plantations: they could not get credit as easily as their Christian colleagues could and when their estates were taken over by creditors, they often did not receive more than a quarter or a third of the money they owed. In addition, they were less likely to be allowed to stay on as directors.<br /><br />As the fortunes of the Jews dwindled, so did the population of the <em>Joden Savanne. </em>Around 1790, there were only 22 families left, who could barely make ends meet by trading with the soldiers along the <em>Cordon Pad</em>. Nassy complained bitterly about the fact that in the 1780’s the Jews were even barred from the modest public offices they had been allowed to occupy before (surveyor, sworn clerk) and were replaced by coloreds. In 1832, a large fire, probably kindled intentionally, destroyed the dismal remains of the village. The famous synagogue was last used in 1885 and thereafter allowed to fall into <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/a/9c/img3992.nl.html">ruin</a>.<br /><br />Although Nassy blamed the Christians for most of the additions to the colored class, there were coloreds with Jewish fathers as well, of course. Overall, the Jews had closer relations with their accidental progeny than the other whites. In the 18th century, they would often raise them in their own faith and they sponsored an organization of Jewish coloreds financially. Moreover, if any colored plantation overseers were found in this period, they were usually employed on the plantations of Jewish owners. The Jews were also more likely to free their colored children. The fact that these often lived close by stimulated generosity. Christian fathers frequently moved on and did not have to witness the sufferings of their slave children. During the 19th century, the relations between Jews and coloreds seem to have lost much of their former warmth, perhaps as a result of the competition mentioned by Nassy. The habit of raising children in the Jewish faith was abandoned: the Jews came to prefer that they adopted the Moravian or Dutch Reformed religion.<br /><br />Despite the religious indifference of most Surinam inhabitants, the Jews were always the victims of some form of discrimination, official or otherwise. Governor Van Aerssen was an ardent Calvinist and forbade them to work on Sundays. In addition, he refused to acknowledge wedding ceremonies conducted according to the Jewish rites. He was overruled on these points by the Society in 1685. A decade later, however, his successor Van Scharphuys reinstated the prohibition to work on Sundays and denied the elders of the Jewish Nation the right to the title of regent. Again, the Governor was upbraided by the directors of the Society. In 1718, the Jews were forbidden by law to open their shops on Sundays, a habit that signified, according to the Court of Police, <em>“disdain for our religion and vilification of our placards”.</em> They were also barred from operating <em>vettewarier</em> (grocer) shops. So impoverished Jews tried to survive by buying merchandise at auctions and selling it on the streets, but the number of itinerant traders was too large and they suffered stiff competition from the slaves sent out by wealthy women. There were plans to establish a separate Jewish quarter in Paramaribo, but nothing came of it. In 1767, however, a law was passed denying the slaves of Jews the right to stay overnight in Paramaribo, <em>“with the pretext that they have their Savanna where they ought to make their home”</em>, Nassy noted. Again, the directors of the Society intervened. After the economic crisis of 1773, a law was promulgated which refused poor Jews admittance to the colony.<br /><br />Although the Jews were eligible for public office, they were rarely chosen and only for the less important functions. Many Christians kept vigil that their privileges would not put them on an equal footing with the North-Europeans. In 1736, the members of the Court of Police requested that the Jews would be excluded from possible nomination forever. In 1753, some inhabitants even wanted them barred from the secretariat.<br /><br />The Jews honored their debt to the Society. Governor Nepveu pointed out that that they <em>“bred bad feelings” </em>by their habit of always siding with the Governor in disputes between the government and the colonists. Governor Mauricius, who profited from their loyalty in his battle with the <em>Cabale</em>, reported: <em>“That the Jewish Deputies, or so-called Regents, come the evening before</em> [the election of new members of the Court of Police]<em> to pay compliment to the Governor in order to ask him, whom the Governor recommends, is a habit, as old as the Colony”.</em> Therefore the regents of the Jewish Nation were extremely shocked when the Jewish <em>burgercapitein</em> Isaac Carilho supported the <em>Cabale</em>: <em>“They opine, that Carilho being a Jew, ought not to have interfered in deals against the Lord Governor, as representing the Sovereign, of whom the Jewish Nation in this land has received her Privileges, under the explicit condition of being his <strong>loyal Vassals</strong>”.</em><br /><br />By the end of the 18th century, the houses of Jews were no longer frequented by Christians and the use of derogatory epitaphs (like <em>smous</em>) increased. Nassy believed that it was their economic decline that fueled the resentment against the Jews. Van Lier, on the contrary, saw political strife as the main cause. Not only the whites felt freer to express their animosity towards Jews, Wolbers claimed that <em>“even the slaves treat them, after the example of the Christian masters with disdain”.</em><br /><br />During the 19th century, when the Jews featured heavily among the few native whites remaining in the colony, they started to climb the ladder of bureaucratic success largely unopposed. Many ended up in high positions and they dominated (along with the coloreds) the colonial administration -except for the top jobs, which were reserved for continental Dutchmen.<br /><br />With their money and knowledge, the Jews made a vital contribution to the economical development of the colony and a clear (and more lasting) imprint on the evolution of Creole culture.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The ways of the masters.<br /><br /></strong><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263703571753449954" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 238px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-Gp5mwWz5y2YngWb3rKZY7PIYd4UryT4rLykk8oYLaqFIFvWb3KHACf8kxPm7TXE8f9tucfqMDCkHHyQ3HqkfA4bd6pasf9DNgvOBG3Ax2CcU_bJLsYrfyws0eE4Ifzike1rAxJUp0s/s400/planter.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>Negative opinions.<br /></em><br />The whites of Surinam have often been portrayed in extremely unfavorable terms, not only by foreign observers, but also by Dutch writers and their own compatriots. It cannot be denied that the license whites enjoyed in this unruly frontier society often brought out the worst in them. Governor Van Aerssen, for example, bitterly complained about the sort of planters he encountered on his arrival: <em>“</em>[I] <em>have already found pretty much Confusion and bewilderment</em> [the planters] <em>pretending to do everything still the old way, lying, cheating, and paying no one wanting to ship off the sugar for their Own Profit, and listening to neither Commanders, Magistrates or Justices, nor asking</em> [I]<em> daresay, that they would acquit them most honorably of a Sentence or Execution, and they convey such an insolent, improper, Canaillous, infamous, and Seditious propositions, the planters as well as the skippers, to which I have reacted by doing right, to exercise Justice, reconcile parties Punish dissoluteness and Constrain the unwilling to payment, all these things have inspired</em> [a] <em>timidness and fear in them that they are not accustomed to, playing proud Companions with the Judges, the One being no better than the other, all covered and coated by the same Dust, the one who was the most dissolute, Libertine, and Haughty, was the one considered best”.<br /></em><br />A brief overview further yields the following judgments from their contemporaries. Governor Nepveu remarked that the native whites <em>“who from the cradle have been used to absolute mastery and being fêted, are most inclined to haughtiness and pomp”</em>. John Gabriel Stedman’s judgment was just as harsh: <em>“he is a miniature King, as contemptible, obstinate and despotic as anyone can be”</em>. He considered these planters a plague for the colony: they spent money like water and <em>“pay nobody, under pretence of bad crops, mortality amongst the slaves, & etc. but like an upstart rascal massacres the negroes by double labour, ruins and pillages the estate of all its productions, which he clandestinely sells for ready money, makes a purse, and runs away”</em>. Adriaan Lammens described their greatest weaknesses: <em>“greed, avarice, lust of power, lust of ostentation and pleasure, improvidence, indifference and laziness”</em>. Marten Teenstra was hardly less deprecating: <em>“Most of the natives, especially the white Creoles, are lazy and indolent in character; for the arts and sciences they have absolutely no inclination. To be allowed to rest with a full belly is their greatest delight.”</em> Julien Wolbers, finally, pictured them as follows: <em>“rough, badly educated, driven by passionate inclinations, repeatedly surrendering themselves to quarrels, games and immorality, while cruelty, conceit and stupid pride are amply found among the population, yes form their major flaws”</em>.<br /><br />Rudolf van Lier found the same unattractive traits. He also concluded that Surinam was a ‘typically male’ society. Native white males were drilled almost from birth to prove their mastery over the blacks constantly and to be able to defend themselves at all times. As early as 1677, for instance, it was ordained that every white man had to possess a good rifle <em>“to stand up against the enemy in case of necessity”</em>. The conviction that they had a monopoly on the use of violence was instilled diligently. Since they lived in an unmistakable minority position where mere numbers were concerned, the whites were keenly aware of their vulnerability and they displayed clear evidence of what Michael Craton has called a ‘<strong>siege mentality’</strong>. They felt inordinately threatened by any display of spirit, pride, confidence or ‘lack of respect’ by their slaves and were quick to crush it in its vestiges.<br /><br />The Surinam planters have been designated as the cruelest of all Caribbean slave masters in a wide variety of sources. This judgment was largely based on the plethora of <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sid=d0860f2f09696a968139e55bef3bbe02;q1=Slavernij;rgn1=surinamica_key;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbfull;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-16;viewid=SURI01_NOK95156P111PL.SID;start=21;resnum=36">horrendous scenes</a> featured in the work of John Gabriel Stedman, a Scottish officer serving in the army of Colonel Fourgeoud during the Boni War. He was not exactly objective, to say the least. The fact that he was in love with a mulatto girl he could neither free nor marry colored his perspective.<br /><br />Many foreign observers were eager to contrast the slavery systems of their own colony favorably with those of their competitors, so they mainly mentioned the excesses. But Surinam planters undeniably treated their chattels with much severity and this was a shock to all newcomers. As Van Lier noted: <em>“Young men of some refinement, who came from the Netherlands, had much trouble adapting to the ruling system. But the environment affected them, the career beckoned, and the personality split, which was necessary to preserve oneself in these surroundings, manifested itself in them as well.”</em> A later chapter will be devoted to slave treatment and it suffices here to say that the Surinam slavery system can certainly be classified with the harshest systems in the West Indies, but this was less the result of the (psychological) peculiarities of the owners than of the adverse circumstances.<br /><br />There was a lot of disagreement as to which groups in Surinam made the worst masters. When this subject came up, anti-Semitism reared its ugly head sometimes. Stedman concluded that Dutch nationals could not be held responsible for the dismal reputation of the Surinam planters and that <em>“mostly other people, especially the Jews, are to be blamed for this general and infernal barbarism”.</em> The German traveler Baron Von Stack concurred: <em>“People reproach the Jews in this country that they punish their slaves very cruelly; also the Negroes are much afraid that for their bad behavior they will be sold to a Jew”</em>. According to Wolbers <em>“the antipathy of the oppressed negro against the Israelite master was always greater than against the Christian planter. Between them a mutual grudge prevailed, which continues and whose hidden origin escapes us.” </em>Van Hoëvell found additional scapegoats: <em>“The slaves generally regard it as one of the worst disasters, they can suffer, when they become the property of an Israelite … because they and the free coloreds are the cruelest masters”</em>. Other writers (for example Bosch) branded the Germans as greatest fiends. Despite this blaming, the conclusion is warranted that empathy with their human property was rare among Surinam planters in general. Masters abusing and even tormenting their slaves could be found in all strata of society without a significant concentration in specific ethnic groups or nationalities, although inexperienced slave owners and directors, plus people whose fortunes were threatened often made the most uncompromising taskmasters.<br /><br />One factor contributing greatly to the general insensitivity was the heavy drinking of many whites (a large number of them bordered on alcoholism), partly out of boredom, partly because it was considered manly. Beer and wine were the usual drinks at dinner. Water was scorned, not in the least because it often tasted foul. The hundreds of bottles that still can be fished from the rivers, near the former jetties of the plantations, silently bear witness to this extraordinary fondness of liquor. Often, men became totally different personalities when intoxicated. Bosch wrote of a certain director: <em>“indeed, the change in the man, in his sober condition, was so profound, that one hardly recognized him”.</em> Many slaves had to live under the control of incorrigible drunkards, who had been appointed as directors in spite of their condition. Not out of preference, but because they were the only ones available. Even the director of the government planation was, in the opinion of Governor Mauricius, <em>"an incompetent drunken fellow"</em>. Countless crimes were perpetrated in an intoxicated state.<br /><br />Some authors have sought the source of these unfavorable characteristics in the lowly origins of the early colonizers. Panday, for example, stated that <em>“it goes without saying that</em> [they] <em>came from the lowest rung of European society”</em>. He was not entirely wrong, of course. The criminals, orphans, soldiers and sailors that poured into the colony, willingly or not, did not originate from the upper classes. Many others, however, especially among the Jews and Huguenots, were perfectly decent and often wealthy people. Surinam was not a colony where ‘upstarts’ or ‘parvenus’ were sharply demarcated from the gentlefolk. The planters, whatever their roots, did not diverge much in behavior or lifestyle. Few fundamental adaptations were demanded of men with a modest background. On the contrary, it was the more ‘civilized’ that often became a little rougher around the edges.<br /><br />Some experts, most notably Rudolf van Lier, have surmised that the circumstances in the colony created perverted personalities. He held that <em>“the institution of slavery led to the unbridling of the passion for power and sex and thereby created a personality with psychopathic characteristics. Often unstable, irascible, touchy personalities with maniacal tendencies developed”</em>. He believes that the slave owners acquired a sense of superiority combined with a deep fear of the ‘mass of slaves’. They unconsciously considered their fear a demeaning emotion and this made them irritable and quick to retaliate against real and imagined slights. Insecurity could even lead to sadism. The slaves, in response, developed masochistic traits. He illustrated this theory with the example set by Salomon Duplessis, the archenemy of Governor Mauricius, who after a political defeat made an interesting display of himself. According to Mauricius:<em> “Mr. du Plessis has angered himself so much, about this reverse result of all his agitation, that he has given the Spectacle to the whole Fort </em>[Paramaribo]<em>, staggering like the wanton sailor with a hundred horrible curses, and NB biting furiously on a bullet. Thus he has presented himself in the afternoon at an auction, and in the evening in the Inn, with a hundred silly declamations until late at night.”<br /></em><br />This theory is not very convincing in my opinion, as has been concluded before by Harry Hoetink. Firstly, Du Plessis is not exactly representative for the bulk of Surinam whites, although Mauricius’ enemies were quite willing to let him do their dirty work. Secondly, many of these characteristics were also displayed by men who had few contacts with slaves and who consequently never got the ‘habit of command’. Thirdly, it is very risky to employ terms as ‘sadistic’ or ‘psychopathic’ in the evaluation of whole groups instead of individual persons. Few Surinam planters were sadistic in the clinical sense: they did not derive sexual satisfaction from inflicting pain. Similarly, few slaves were truly masochistic. To be sure, depraved persons can be found anywhere and Surinam society certainly put few barriers in their way.<br /><br />Most of the atrocities described in such gory detail by Stedman and others were not the aberrations of sadistic louts, but either punishments of an exemplary nature, often inflicted very coolly, or the result of drunken excesses. Because of the ruling principle of ‘domestic jurisdiction’, Surinam masters were at liberty to punish their slaves for any transgression they committed. They were not at liberty to inflict serious harm, but the courts and the public were loath to meddle in other people’s private affairs. Furthermore, it was not always clear where insensitivity ended and sadism started. The majority of Surinam planters had little regard for the law and were unwilling to tolerate any interference from the authorities, especially concerning the treatment of their slaves. True sadists were a tiny minority, but they often could wallow in their perversities undisturbed for a long time before public opinion interfered.<br /><br />Authors like Williams, Hoetink, Mintz, Genovese and Knight have argued persuasively that the treatment of slaves was dependent on the phase of development of the colony concerned. Slaves were exploited most cynically when a territory had just been drawn into the orbit of world capitalism and the plantation system was expanding quickly. The personal characteristics and ethnic origins of the planters made little difference in this regard.<br /><br /><em>Wasteful habits.</em> </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261964562384011266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 392px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSDVf3WJGPUql31yXh_7IxdAD7Auee_Mjw_mufhvtLqqdOLtYlylutt5upzHW1vOuS9fHjz6w_lyLDZrzu4rxL3FsuGt_U_FX-njl65JXGbXwk0mL6R1FAnU-1UYoGAqvN7Mz_vFI_VU/s400/familie-met-bedienden.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Surinam was a place where men of modest means could strike it rich. At least, that was what the migrants that poured into the colony were led to believe. Some of them succeeded in realizing their dreams, but for many others fate had something quite different in store. It is often thought that during the 17th and 18th centuries few ambitious starters failed, although at a later date they might have been tempted to overextend their affairs. However, many of them found themselves in the same position as the widow of the former Political Councilor Adriaan Bloos, who lamented that <em>“twenty Years we have already been here, and</em> [we]<em> never had anything but a hired place, since as a result of the uncommonly</em> [heavy]<em> rains for several years now, it being new Land everything drowns, desertion of Slaves, fire, etc. have set us back not a little and</em> [I]<em> am now totally desperate”</em>.<br /><br />If an ambitious planter did manage to scrape together a modest fortune, the proverbial Dutch sobriety evaporated. Many whites seem to have run into debt out of principle and eager lenders were only too willing to oblige. <em>“Almost everything is given on credit; but if one wants to collect payment one has untold trouble. The shipmasters complain about this a lot and usually have to leave their claims to others when they leave”</em>, the Moravian Brother Liebish noted in 1791. Of course, the (would-be) planters mostly gathered debts to buy slaves and estates and they did this on a grand scale: <em>“everyone tries to be a planter, especially since the large credits have come so much in vogue, so a man who has won 5 or 6 thousand guilders, has his eye on buying nothing less than a plantation of 50 to 100 thousands guilders, although only one of every hundred who attempts it succeeds: this is a large defect in the colony”</em>, Governor Nepveu observed. An enormous inflation plagued the colony during the second half of the 18th century. The prices of slaves and plantations rose far above their intrinsic value. The planters did not seem to care in the least, as Nepveu noticed: <em>“daily the prices augment, and they run after it with an incomprehensible rashness”</em>. Van der Voort observed that when planters managed to obtain credit facilities, they often did not attempt to improve their estates, but instead wasted the money on <em>“beautification of houses and interiors, buying materials and alimentation too expensively and on costly slaves, many of whom do not partake in the production process”.</em><br /><br />Thus, many formerly frugal Dutchmen became reckless consumers in Surinam. Henry Bolingbroke mused: <em>“The Dutch planters are clear and strict accountants, very regular in all their mercantile transactions. They deserve credit for their industry and perseverance, and according to the old adage, they are slow but sure. They would be better planters than the English, were they to make an equal point of encreasing </em><em>progressively their cultivation; but they cling to the maxims of their native land; they aspire only to a competency not to a fortune; and they waste labor, under an idea of having their estates look like gardens. The English makes more of his property; but the Dutchman leaves it a better inheritance.”<br /></em><br />Many planters liked to display their real or imaginary wealth as stylishly as they could. They enjoyed the most sumptuous comforts a colonial society could supply. Apart from their spacious town residences, the plantation owners often had luxurious houses built on each of their estates, which they used a few weeks a year at most. Some traveled in gold-studded tent-boats worth more than 1500 guilders. They ordered precious furniture, books and wine from Holland, although they were hardly the types that could appreciate them, since in the judgment of Wolbers, they lacked a <em>“delicate and noble taste”.</em> Their clothing, simple in the old days, increased in splendor all the time. They were draped in silk and velvet, covered with gold and silver. They surrounded themselves with slaves who had little else to do than to wait on them hand and foot. Philip Fermin observed that <em>“one sees neither man nor woman in the street without a slave, who carries a parasol over his head”.</em> When a rich slaveholder went to church with his family, they were usually attended by half a dozen slaves, each carrying a small item.<br /><br />This kind of display seems incongruent with realizing their fondest dream: to save a fortune that would enable them to return to the Low Countries and to live comfortably of the interest. Governor Mauricius was very annoyed by the <em>animus revertendi</em> of these whites, who had <em>“no attachment to a land which they consider to be a land of alienation and passage”</em>. The result was a high incidence of absenteeism, even though a large part of the returnees fell short of their goal and went home bankrupt.<br /><br /><em>Empty-headed women.</em><br /><br />The position of women in a society like Surinam was a difficult one. The circumstances were completely unsuitable for a proper family life. Single men predominated and married couples formed a sad minority, except among the Jews. Affairs with black and colored women were common, although it seems the men were less likely to continue them after marriage than colonists in Latin territories. Women could never be certain that their husbands remained faithful and not a few were consumed by jealousy. Often, they vented their frustration on their helpless slaves. Since these excesses received more attention and created more indignation among the public than the sadistic outbursts of men, some authors got the impression that women were much more inclined to this kind of violence and they painted the horrors in full color (e.g. the castigation of Suzanna Duplessis by Stedman). There is, however, no reason to believe that women made up a larger part of the slave torturers than their numbers warranted.<br /><br />Stedman observed: <em>“The extravagances, these faithless husbands indulge in with their mistresses, carry them to their grave soon, and their wives are freed thus, to give their hand to another, which happens very often”</em>. Some women survived three or more husbands and the widowed often remarried within a couple of months. Since progeny was scarce in the colony and women inherited equally with men, these ladies often ended up as (part-)owners of a plantation and sometimes even as the sole heir to a considerable fortune. With their affluence they could gain a certain measure of influence. One of the most formidable and notorious of the Surinam matrons was Charlotte Elizabeth van Lith. She wed three governors in a row (Temming, De Cheusses and <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Raye_van_Breukelerwaard">Raye</a>) and she finished her marital career with two French ministers (Audra and Duvoisin). She became one of the fiercest opponents of Governor Mauricius, who noted sarcastically that she obviously had some trouble remembering that she no longer ruled the ruler. She was an exceptional case, however. Nassy found that most white women were <em>“scared and confused”</em> in the company of strangers. Pious men, on the other hand, dismissed them as empty-headed and frivolous.<br /><br />Most heiresses never actively partook in the direction of their holdings (with the notable exception of Mrs. Boxel). Since even the poorest families had slaves to perform the household chores, women usually had little else to do than visit each other and gossip. Even the humblest widows seldom had to gain their own livelihood: either they had some slaves that they sent out to work, or they were supported by the government or church. They may not have been put on a pedestal like the women of the Old South, but they were spared the hard facts of life anyway.<br /><br /><em>Body and mind.</em><br /><br />The erratic temper of the Surinam whites may have been partly caused by the climate, to which many of them did not take very well. Especially during the first years of their stay, it took a heavy toll. For example, in 1715 the Court of Police reported the following observations about their white servants to the Society: “<em>The occasion has shown to us repeatedly, that those who are sent to us from Europe, before being familiar with the Climate, are of little or no use to the garrison, and especially not to Your Noble Lords’ Slaves who suffer from many ailments and</em> [were] <em>neglected by the deceased</em> [overseers]<em>, and before this can happen they are often torn away by death, or are persons wholly surrendered to liquor.”</em><br /><br />If they survived the first trying years, their prospects for continued health were better and some men lived to a ripe old age without ever being plagued by serious illness. Most inhabitants, however, suffered from periodic bouts of fever and other ailments. Many whites could not stand the sun and the heath and rarely went out between 10 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. Some writers considered the climate the greatest killer, but Hostman discarded this view: he believed that the damages wrought by excessive drinking, overeating, venereal diseases and too little rest proved fatal much more often.<br /><br />The lack of hygiene may have been a contributing factor: the Dutch in particular did not adapt to the climate very well when personal grooming was concerned. In the eyes of their compatriots, sanitation was adequate. Lammens, far example, wrote complacently that <em>“one seldom sees people who do not bathe from time to time”</em>. The Englishman Bolingbroke was not so easily impressed. In his view, the Dutch scorned cleanliness: <em>“I scarcely ever saw a hand basin in any of their houses, even when there were white females. This is a strange inconsistency when compared to the interior of their houses, in which they are nicer than about their persons.”<br /></em><br />Like colonists everywhere, Surinam whites had little interest in cultural pursuits. Moreover, they lacked a proper regard for laws or religion and a true sense of community. <em>”Exertion and serious study are an abomination for most Creoles”</em>, Van Hoëvell judged. Most of them were members of a church in name, but hardly ever visited the services. Genuinely devout men were extremely rare and likely to become very frustrated in these circumstances.<br /><br />The white inhabitants were nevertheless not quite as moronic as some biographers would like us to believe. Most authors praised their hospitality and generosity towards strangers. When touring the colony, it was a waste to bring supplies or arrange lodgings: the weary traveler was welcomed like a king at every plantation. Furthermore, it seems that in the 19th century the white Creoles were changing in their favor: Van Lennep Coster noted in 1842 that a great transformation had taken place in the course of just a few years: <em>“In general one lived more composed, and in company paid more heed to the so-called etiquette than in earlier times. It had become fashionable, when visiting or attending social gatherings of the most prominent people, only to congregate around eight o’ clock in the evening, on which occasions more care was given to grooming, and during the intercourse very much ceremony was observed. The intercourse between the whites and the prominent people of color I found more customary, and nowadays one meets women of color in the company of European ladies, something which in earlier years rarely happened. Likewise mixed marriages were more common and they did not create as much ashtonishment as before.”</em> It seems the rough edges had been filed off a bit, no doubt as a result of the presence of a larger percentage of fresh continentals.<br /><br />The Society had decided in an early stage that at least three schoolmasters were necessary for educating the white children of Surinam. Few candidates were willing to move to the colony and those who let themselves be persuaded either died soon, or were practically illiterate themselves. So in fact, schools mostly existed in the form of private ventures. The majority of Surinam Creoles had little or no schooling and the knowledge of the privileged few was, according to Wolbers, limited to the essentials of <em>“writing, arithmetic and the mechanical recitation of the Catechism”</em>. The habit of sending youngsters to Europe for further education only took root in the 19th century and most of the boys profiting from this never came back. Exceptions were the colored descendants of rich whites, for whom life in Holland held little promise. Some even returned with an academic title, like attorney-at-law H.F. Focke.<br /><br />Surinam standards of excellence were not very high. There was no vocational training. Boys who wanted be become craftsmen were apprenticed to a master for several years and learned the trade by practicing it. Agriculture was never taught formally. The skills of a planter had to be learned by trial and error. A few planters were interested in innovation. They experimented with new crops, introduced better varieties of cane and cotton and attempted to manure exhausted fields. They were also willing to try new machinery, but lack of funds often prevented them. Some progressive planters united in the agricultural society <strong>De Eensgezindheid</strong>, which published a book about Surinam agriculture in 1804. Such planters formed only a tiny minority.<br /><br />The religious instruction of Surinam whites was hardly any better, partly because of their general indifference to religious matters, partly because of the abysmal quality of the clergymen sent to the colony. Most were unable to cope with the harsh circumstances they encountered. One such unfortunate was the reverend Wilhelmus de Bruyn, ‘Ecclefs in Pirica’, who wrote plaintively to the Society when asking for his demission: “<em>Since it has pleased the LORD to take away by death my beloved Wife on august 30 1708, after we had been in this colony for 10 months, and 10 days, and my Sister, in august 1710 by marriage, and I cannot get a second Wife to give me the necessary help: speaking no Negro-English</em> [I]<em> cannot do right by my slaves, and have no faculty to make them serve me, as they cannot be governed but with severity, which is wholly against my temperament: Furthermore there is here for a minister no land at all to make it possible to saw or plant something for the kitchen, neither are there foodstuffs for sale, and I am therefore in a very lonely, embarrassed and desperate state.”<br /><br /></em>Many ministers had a doubtful moral standing themselves. The Reverend Hendricus Bolinus, for example, was fired for <em>“evil Comportment and</em> [an]<em> unchristian life”</em> in 1695. His colleague Hoevenaar, who worked in the colony in the 1740’s, was quickly insulted, threatened people with gun and sword and became totally insane in a very short period. Even the more pious ministers, who sincerely tried to fulfill their duties, became frustrated easily, as their efforts were not appreciated at all. When planters felt that a clergyman was trying to interfere in their affairs, they immediately complained to the <em>Classis</em> in Amsterdam. There was one consolation: the ministers were among the best-paid public servants. They pocketed a salary of 1200 guilders a year.<br /><br />The cultural life in the colony was stifled by economic preoccupations. Only at the end of the 18th century, there were modest endeavors to change this. In 1795, some inhabitants established a theatre, where plays were performed by amateurs. Jews were denied entrance, so they built one themselves. Christians were permitted to attend the performances too, and the authorities were even issued free tickets, but the trustees of the other theatre were barred. These institutions did not survive long, but they were replaced modestly: by a military theatre, a second theatre housed in a building that was soon transformed into a Catholic church and a third one in a dilapidated hovel described by Teenstra as <em>“a real sweat hole”. </em><br /><br />The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry">Freemasons</a> played an important role in the cultural life of the colony. The lodge <strong>Concordia</strong> was the oldest and most influential one: many prominent inhabitants were members. The Jews had their own lodge called <strong>De Standvastigheid</strong>, which was inaugurated in 1786. The third lodge, <strong>Union</strong>, was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1828.<br /><br />A <strong>Collegium Medicum</strong> was established in 1782 and consisted of president (a member of the Court of Police), 2 doctors, a pharmacist and a surgeon, all nominated by the Court of Police. They had to screen all persons who wanted to practice medicine in the colony. In 1785, the Jews inaugurated a literature club called <strong>Docendo Docemur</strong>, under the patronage of Governor Wichers (1784-1790). A society for the study of natural sciences was also established in this period. A couple of aspiring poets founded another club for ‘Friends of Literature’, which published several volumes of Surinam poetry. Few of these initiatives survived until the 19th century. In later times, charity came more in vogue. A <strong>Maatschappij tot Nut van het Algemeen</strong> (Society for the Common Good), established in 1794, was discontinued in 1800 and revitalized in 1816. It was supplemented by a <strong>Maatschappij van Weldadigheid</strong> (Society for Charity) founded in 1827. Few inhabitants were involved in activities of this kind and most limited their recreational pursuits to visiting taverns.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264813679225596722" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 258px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQmiVPdYDWEYZvP2ZruBfSQ0fnVNKMFbAKgWDaSQXTyC6HDzucT97YRFczeGp_qtJdbdr7MxSTqDMIQDAzqobcq1A25sH9jrXkgB0c-MYad3vELc7QNexXRf5Ass3DJEsqiIlQIfQLhJ8/s400/biljarten.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>Social strata.<br /></strong><br />As a frontier society, Surinam permitted a greater measure of social mobility than Holland. Yet at the same time, the blurring of social distinctions was discouraged. A man might rise from plantation officer to plantation owner, but he would treat his inferiors with the same haughty disdain as born aristocrats did.<br /><br />The top of the social hierarchy was formed by the highest civil servants: employees of the Society of Surinam in the 17th and 18th centuries, employees of the Dutch government in the 19th century. Many of them originated directly from the Netherlands. A rung lower on the ladder stood the planters. Until the economic crisis of 1773, they were mostly plantation owners, who were replaced in later times by powerful administrators. These men filled the Courts of Criminal and Civil Justice and the other councils. The plantation directors were several steps removed from these exalted positions, but they had the possibility to climb. This chance was much smaller for the lower class whites: plantation officers, small traders and artisans. A few of them were successful and ended as a wealthy planter, but most remained at their lowly stations all their lives. At the bottom of the ladder, the soldiers and sailors congregated -with the exception of the officers, of course.<br /><br /><em>Plantation personnel.</em><br /><br />The first administrators entered the plantation scene long before the crisis. They took over the job of supervising the directors and attending to contacts with the Netherlands from owners who were lazy, or too busy with politics, who had returned to the motherland, or who, as women, were not believed to be capable of handling their own affairs. Some plantations had several owners, in which case appointing an administrator might solve tensions. After the crisis, the administrators became a real force in the colony. Many owners departed when their debt-ridden plantations reverted to their creditors, mostly investment companies called <em>negociaties</em>. The new owners were very unlikely ever to visit their estates and knew nothing about plantation agriculture, so the administrators got a free hand –which they often used to their own advantage. Their duties included the purchase of supplies for the plantations (so they practically monopolized the import trade), the sale of plantation products, the financial administration and the supervision of directors and other plantation officers.<br /><br />Like resident owners, they visited the plantations only once or twice a year, sometimes with a large retinue of friends. According to Teenstra, it was not unusual that <em>“administrators came to inspect the plantations, who like grand-masters abandoned themselves to exaggerated sensuality, as a result of which partiality through injustice was born”</em>. Also like resident owners, they entertained lavishly during their stay. They never interfered directly in the running of the estates and Bartelink maintained: <em>“Tales of inferiors –overseers or workers- were not listened to. If they came to the city, they could present themselves, and that was it.”</em> Administrators demanded that their superiority was acknowledged at all times. Bolingbroke was struck by the humble posture of plantation officers in the presence of their patrons. When approaching the administrator, they had to remove their hats and hold these under their arms and when they addressed him they had to reply <em>“yes, honorable Sir”</em> at every command. An even greater humility was expected of the slaves: <em>“The negroes belonging to Dutch estates, copy the overseers’ humble politeness, and are considerably more respectful to whites than those belonging to English plantations.”<br /></em><br />The income of administrators could reach impressive proportions. They pocketed 10% of the revenues of the estates in their care. Many administrators had more than one plantation to supervise. In fact, some of them, who usually combined their forces in offices, had thirty or more. In 1847, for example, there were 145 administrators who governed 285 ‘large’ (= more than 10 slaves) plantations. Of those, 17 had more than five plantations in their care, which together housed more than half of all the slaves. Because of this concentration of income, some administrators came to belong to the select group truly rich inhabitants, acquiring plantations of their own and winning positions in the councils. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1845 all six members of the Colonial Council were administrators.<br /><br />The directors were of vital importance for the Surinam plantation system. For various reasons most plantation owners preferred not to reside on their estates permanently, so they left them in the care of replacements. As early as 1709, of the 26 plantations in the Commewijne division only nine were directed by their owners. Surinam directors had a bad reputation. The American traveler Apthorpe wrote in 1790: <em>“I consider </em>[the slaves]<em> as the most unfortunate of all human beings, not so much on account of any ill treatment from their masters (whose interest it is to treat them well, humanity being a word unknown in Surinam), but from the cruelty of barbarous managers, who being for the greatest part old soldiers and others of low extraction, are people, who to a great ignorance add a total carelessness with respect to the property of their employers, and as long as they can make annually their stated quantity of produce, care not by what means.”<br /></em><br />The plantation owners were often not very pleased with the men they had to elevate to the position of director, but they had little choice. When they fired a director, they were obliged most of the time to replace him with someone just as bad. The shortage of whites was such that often none but demobilized soldiers were available. Rarely someone from the upper classes could be tempted to take the position, mostly ambitious young men who wanted to learn the tricks of the trade. Only after 1830, the directors were no longer primarily recruited from the ranks of former soldiers and sailors, but from men of good families who hoped to lay the foundation of a colonial fortune this way. First, they had to put in 3 to 4 years as a <em>blankofficier</em> before they could become a director themselves, usually on a small plantation. They then could work their way up to the direction of larger plantations and eventually become an administrator.<br /><br />The directors had a free hand in the day-to-day running of the estates, often to the detriment of the slaves, since they were more concerned with production gains than with capital loss (in the form of dead slaves). The owners and administrators visited the plantations twice a year at most, so mismanagement could go on undetected for a considerable period. As long as the production levels were satisfactory and the signs of slave mistreatment not too obvious (especially if not more than an acceptable percentage of slaves ran away or died), they preferred to turn a blind eye.<br /><br />Either directors were paid a steady salary, or they received a basic remuneration with in addition a part of the revenue of the plantation. The latter system was largely abandoned in later times, because it stimulated the merciless exploitation of the slave force. In the 18th century, salaries usually lay between 600 and 1000 guilders a year (plus food, lodgings and servants). In the 19th century, the remuneration could reach 3000 guilders a year. Knowledge of agriculture was no prerequisite for the job. It was more important that a supervisor could keep order among the slaves. Most directors dreamt of owning a plantation themselves one day, but since they tended to squander their money, very few ever attained this goal.<br /><br />Directors were not allowed to marry. According to the Moravian missionary Quand, the reason for this prohibition was the fact that owners feared that their wives would be too demanding. Others believed that the unmarried state was prescribed because this way the director could keep track of the goings-on in the slave quarters through their black concubines. The plantation ordinance of 1725 forbade directors to have <em>“carnal conversation”</em> with Negro and Indian women, but this prohibition was, predictably, completely disregarded. A few planters threatened their directors with immediate dismissal if they meddled with the women, but most of them did not care as long as their substitutes did not stir up trouble among the slaves. Consequently, most directors had a black or colored concubine, or even several. Some were free, but most were slave women from the plantation. The former were called <em>missi</em> (mistress), the latter <em>sissi</em> (sister). Not all of them entered into the arrangement out of their own free will. Sometimes these relationships were brutally exploitative, but in many genuine affection was not entirely absent.<br /><br />The <em>blankofficieren</em> were considerably worse off. They were paid only one third of what the directors received and their living quarters were inferior. If they were lucky, they were allowed to dine with the director, otherwise they only got simple fare. They were kept at arms-length by their superiors, who conveniently forgot their own modest origins. Their job included supervision of the slaves in the fields and the sugar-mill. So while the director rested comfortably on the porch, they were scorched by the sun, drenched by showers and tormented by mosquitoes. Their only hope was to become a director as soon as possible. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261983827048104450" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 260px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_5rmzLHhPrbw9-I0yW4lnXeYfrp2IS3lBy6Rgy0eNHIS9JpFzHZs4Nf-B8kV_UFN0K9pTSlWf8OvBHDdDcH1Qdz0l8rHvaSfv1eGy-KKELJKMzudRQ4S21WND0QFO6-xUCke2j20XlM/s400/vettewarier.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p align="justify"><em>Lower class whites.</em><br /><br />The fortunes of the artisans, shopkeepers, boatmen, etc. were in part dependent on their own diligence and abilities, but Surinam was not a colony where they could really prosper. They felt the competition of the slaves and freedmen keenly. After the crisis of 1773, their ranks were swelled with former plantation owners, who had gone bankrupt. Only those engaged in international trade and the innkeepers usually did well.<br /><br />On the same level stood the lower civil servants: clerks, servants of justice and the like. These jobs were also a heaven for the dispossessed sons of planter families. Unfortunately, they required at least a minimum of schooling, which most of them lacked. Therefore, many of the men occupying these positions were recent immigrants, often from France and Germany. Later preference was given to men who had already adapted to colonial life. They seldom earned more than 200 to 400 guilders a year during the 18th century.<br /><br />The soldiers were regarded as the lowest of the lower whites, not only by the other colonists, but by the slaves as well. Stedman classified them as <em>“something like the dregs of all peoples”. </em>This was no wonder, because the salary they received only attracted the truly desperate. In the 18th century, they were paid a meager 7.50 guilders a month. This did not put them on a par with other wage earners, but the difference was not too glaring. In the 19th century, however, their pay had only risen to 10 guilders a month, from which so many costs were deducted that, according to Kappler, practically nothing remained. In addition, the soldiers were issued rations that were hardly better than those of the slaves. In the 17th century, they received four pounds of salted meat or three pounds of bacon a week, with three pounds of biscuits or two loaves of bread, one <em>kan</em> (= liter) of grits, one <em>kan</em> of peas and some oil and vinegar. Later these rations were improved somewhat, but the irregular supply of the colony made them vulnerable. Stedman witnessed soldiers begging bananas from the slaves at certain occasions. The slaves, feeling sorry for them, even gave in to their pleas. Their dress was equally minimal. In 1691, for instance, Governor Van Scharphuys was obliged to request clothing urgently for the soldiers <em>“who now mostly walk around naked”.</em><br /><br />It is understandable that for this pitiful reward the soldiers were unwilling to strain themselves much. To stimulate their exertions the government decided in 1749 to award all privates who went on a jungle patrol with a <em>handgeld </em>(bounty) of 20 guilders. This represented three months salary, but still was a pittance compared with the bounty of the officers: a captain received 240 guilders and the other officers 80 guilders. They could make up for this by capturing a Maroon or delivering his head to the authorities, for that brought an additional reward of 100 guilders.<br /><br />The soldiers were fortunate that liquor was cheap in the colony, because when they were not on patrol or standing guard they had little to do. Therefore, many soldiers felt bored and these became the most faithful visitors of the various<em> smokkelkroegen</em> (cheap taverns). <em>“This is the reason that soldiers are regarded unfavorably by all inhabitants, and, notwithstanding his whiteness, is even despised by the negroes”</em>, Van Hoëvell concluded. The soldiers also consorted with the lowliest harlots, so venereal diseases were a plague. For all these reasons, the mortality among soldiers was appalling. Of the nearly 2000 troops Colonel Fourgeoud brought to the colony, a pitiful few hundred ever saw their homeland again. Only a minority had been killed by the Maroons.<br /><br />After the expiration of their contracts, most soldiers had saved no money at all and could not afford the voyage home. They had two options: they could enlist again or become a plantation servant. Many chose the latter. A few of them got lucky and eventually came to own a plantation themselves, sometimes through marriage to a wealthy widow (like the Swede Dahlberg).<br /><br />The officers stood in a much better light than the <em>gemeenen</em> (privates). They often descended from noble families, or at least from the wealthy bourgeoisie. Consequently, they were wined and dined by affluent whites, they were received in the highest circles and they often won the hand of a plantation heiress. They were also much better rewarded than the lower ranks: in the 18th century, the Commander earned 1200 guilders a year, a captain 800, a lieutenant 400, and an ensign 315.<br /><br />This seems reasonable enough, but the prices were so high in Surinam that the officers, who were expected to uphold their status, often could barely make ends meet, especially when they had a family. An ensign named Daendels complained in a letter to the Society that he had to feed his wife and five children from his rations, which were finished during the first days of the week <em>“so that the rest of the days</em> [I]<em> must hear my children Cry from Hunger and Thirst with a very woeful Crying and Lamentation, without being able to give them and myself any food let alone Cover”</em>. Governor Van de Schepper (1737-1742) feared that he would abandon his wife and children if he was not granted his demission, so he would be able to get a more rewarding job. When the lower officers managed to obtain a plantation, they usually left the service. The higher officers, the Commander in particular, generally stayed on: their position yielded them more than financial rewards alone.<br /><br />Whatever their station, the whites had an easy time in Surinam compared with the colored population, although Van Hoëvell exaggerated a little when he wrote: <em>“In earlier times especially the respect someone enjoyed largely depended on the color of the skin. If you had the fortune to be white, honor and riches could not escape you, even though otherwise the qualities of your soul were not the most excellent.”</em> This situation was not to last, anyway. As Hoetink declared: <em>“in Surinam, the native group of West-European descent fell as a result of economic factors back in numbers strongly since the end of the eighteenth century and</em> [has]<em> therefore lost more political power and social dominance than in any other Caribbean society of the same or larger size than Surinam, except Haiti”.<br /><br /></em><br /><strong>Life in the capital.<br /></p></strong><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264552023462267858" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 272px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNEmBlroe-CA5SorDEAi38Os33EvbCSikvB9iFNxnkKQqkPJLq3XgA5HrXF3RXIJEKbHgjXB1bArBTH_Qx15lVovcJ03wjK7M_k2prrhYGYyG4Z-C8ZHwhhIo-Hx-82TYurdrTXkvzko/s400/Parbo.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The lifestyle of the whites was in large part determined by the fact that the majority escaped the country as fast as they could to settle in the capital, <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?lang=nl;sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Benoit;rgn1=surinamica_all;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-161;viewid=SURI01_952C25PL07.SID;start=1;resnum=8"><strong>Paramaribo</strong></a>. [The etymology of this name is not clear. Hartsinck believed that it derived from the Indian name Parimombo or Paramorbo (= Place of Flowers). Nassy mentioned three options: it derived (a) from Parham, (b) from little Para (= Sommelsdijck creek), or (c) from the Indian words Panari (= friends) and bo (= place). This <a href="http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/nl/items/SURI01:195/&p=12&i=8&st=Paramaribo&sc=%28%27Paramaribo%27%20%2A%29/&wst=Paramaribo">map</a>, of which I own a copy, shows Surinam and Paramaribo around 1750. ]<br /><br />The pioneering Englishmen had established their capital in <strong>Thorarica</strong>, a place about 50 km from the coast on the Suriname River. They constructed their main defense post on the spot where formerly a French fort stood, however, and soon the more important offices were moved to this safer place. When the Zeelanders took over, they established their headquarters there and baptized the village Nieuw Middelburg (after their own capital). It was soon changed to Surinaamburg and later to Paramaribo, a name that stuck. The situation of Paramaribo was favorable: near a bend in the Suriname River, so the flowing water kept the passage deep enough for large vessels to anchor. Furthermore, the sand ridges reached up to the riverbank and provided excellent drainage.<br /><br />The easy accessibility promoted economic growth. The products of the plantations were traded by way of Paramaribo, which obliged the planters to visit the town regularly. The political and social institutions were also established there, so people decided to build their houses close by. This way Paramaribo became the center of economic, political and social activity. Both whites and coloreds were attracted strongly by its lure. No secondary centers of any importance developed. Thorarica was abandoned soon and even the <em>Joden Savanne</em> could not compete for long.<br /><br />The oldest streets of Paramaribo (Gravenstraat, Heerenstraat, Keizerstraat) follow the direction of the ridges, which in this area run from the northeast and the southwest. The old part of the town displays a checkerboard pattern with (in this stage still rather narrow) streets connecting at right angles. The streets added later follow the bend in the river and make an angle of about 35 degrees with the roads in the most ancient part. The first major <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/1/8c/img928.nl.html">expansion</a>, in the years 1730 to 1750, was in northeastern direction (up to the Steenbakkersgracht). The parcels were much larger and the streets broader. In 1772, a further expansion took place, this time up to the Drambrandersgracht. Combé, north of Fort Zeelandia, was the first ‘suburb’. It was parceled out at the end of the 18th century, but at first was only used for making gardens. In the 19th century, the town grew further inland. Parcels for houses were given in ‘allodial ownership’, obliging the owner to build a good, sturdy house and fence and drain the lot properly within a year and six weeks.<br /><br />When Governor Van Aerssen set foot in the colony, he found a mere 27 or 28 buildings in Paramaribo, mostly taverns. According to Herlein, in the beginning of the 18th century it had grown to a town of about 500 houses, but this seems overly optimistic. Probably, this number was only reached by the middle of the century. In the early 1800’s, Paramaribo counted about 1200 houses.<br /><br />Excess water was drained off through five creeks and canals: the Sommelsdijck creek, the Fiotte and the Picorna canals (that joined at the Knuffelsgracht), the Steenbakkersgracht and the Drambrandersgracht. Some parts of the town were blessed with ingenious brick sewers. The streets were unpaved until far into the 19th century. They consisted of yellowish sand mixed with broken shells, which became somewhat soft during the rainy season, but not muddy. On the other hand, when the sun shone, they became intolerably hot and blinded the pedestrians. Most streets were bordered by beautiful orange, tamarind and mahogany trees, which provided shade and gave off a pleasant scent. Van Hoëvell claimed that <em>“the</em> [orange] <em>trees often have a poor and withered look, because, as a result of the habit of the creoles to chew on orange sticks </em>[to clean their teeth]<em>, they are constantly robbed of their leaves and branches”</em>.<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264553163360583426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 257px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9sHd0RBe5HTWuKtbQgm-JFfo3LYIdQmhJiqyWKv34UNS2C8_RZtVIaivD1sEk0wNaLeMMzvysLLcpZzeeZqQZf_CI7Qpy9BNdMO7_TyTa3uaG7mMFt9AB8XwZFH30JbBL_pnwQ0R7UN8/s400/paradeplaats.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Paramaribo boasted two large squares, which formed the focus of communal life: the <strong>Gouvernementsplein</strong> (also called Paradeplein) and the <strong>Kerkplein</strong> (also called Oranjetuyn). The first one was located next to Fort Zeelandia. One side bordered the Suriname River (the beginning of the <strong>Waterkant</strong>, a busy boulevard along the river) and on the opposite side stood the <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?lang=nl;sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Benoit;rgn1=surinamica_all;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-639;viewid=SURI01_952C25PL09.SID;start=1;resnum=10">palace</a> of the Governor. The Oranjetuyn was the real center of the town. The Dutch Reformed church and the premises of the Court of Police and Criminal Justice were located here. Formerly, there used to be a graveyard, later only memorial headstones were left. On these <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/8/f3/img2666.nl.html">headstones</a>, slaves (sent out to earn money by trade) established a vegetable and fruit <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?lang=nl;sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Benoit;rgn1=surinamica_all;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-645;viewid=SURI01_952C25PL13.SID;start=1;resnum=14">market</a>. Another market was located on the Heiligenweg near the Waterkant and there were two smaller markets on the Jodenbreestraat and in Spanbroek. Another market was foreseen in Combé, but it was located too far from the center and attracted few customers. Economic life centered on the Waterkant and its extension, the Saramaccastraat. The large warehouses and offices were located along the Waterkant, while the Saramaccastraat was almost entirely made up of coffee shops, pubs and <em>vettewarier</em> shops. These shops sold<em> “salted meat, small pieces of bacon, salted and dried fish, tobacco, pipes, knives and beads, Indian mirrors, so-called canimeisjes, paentjes</em> [cloth]”<em>.</em><br /><br />The burial grounds were situated at the edges of the town and had to be moved repeatedly as the building sites expanded. The different religious groups had separate graveyards: the most prestigious ones were reserved for Dutch Reformed whites. Slaves and free Negroes had separate burial grounds. These were often named for the first person buried there, for instance: <em>Lina’s Rust</em>. Jews were buried on the <em><a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/c/95/img2767.nl.html">Joden Savanne</a></em>.<br /><br />In the 19th century, the town was kept clean by government slaves equipped with brooms and small carts. Before that, this job was left to the <em>stinkvogels</em> (vultures). In some places, all efforts were in vain: the smell along the Waterkant was often unbearable as a result of the putrefaction of the dried silt and washed-up carcasses. Nevertheless, most of Paramaribo had a clean and pleasant appearance. In the eyes of Teenstra it looked like a Dutch village ”<em>where the cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats graze in the squares, on the corners of the streets and in the open yards”</em>.<br /><br />This appearance was enhanced by the design of the buildings. Most of the houses were made of wood, partly out of preference, partly because of the shortage of bricks. Qualified masons were rare in the colony and moreover, it lacked the means of making mortar. There were enough (ship’s) carpenters, however, and Surinam had an ample supply of timber, if someone was willing to go out and fell it. Gradually, the colony developed its own style of architecture, although the sparse brick buildings copied <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/c/97/img408.nl.html">Dutch traditions</a> and these were partly incorporated into the wooden structures.<br /><br />The <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/4/a0/img2775.nl.html">houses</a> were all variations on one basic design: they were rectangular, symmetrical and covered with a steep roof. The construction plan was simple because of the sturdy materials, which necessitated few carrying beams. The foundations were made of brick, reached up to 50 cm above street level and were painted red. On these rested beams of <em>wane </em>or another durable wood, while the floors were made of softer wood (often American pitch pine). The walls were fashioned of planks that partly covered each other. They were painted grey-white. The doors and shutters were colored a contrasting dark green. The paintwork was often rather shabby. In the early period, the roofs were covered with <em>tas</em> (straw) or <em>pina</em> leaves, but these were soon replaced by wooden shingles and later by <em>tichels</em> (earthenware tiles). Towards the end of the slavery era, slate tiles came in vogue. The houses had large yards, where a separate (brick) kitchen and a well were located. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264552585012149490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 283px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVSdn2Vjna9WZ7ezkUaFohWMUpZy1mpSAm54VWDK_uHshduKmaDaB-kOlUJPkPyWp0yK0oPV_jgcW6dt-k2P347rQLmvdDDs1vcg12CQnKcyALNHhBOYgi5-UxFHHCWkvszKmtgEx3ZEo/s400/Heerenstraat.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The earliest houses were simple, one story constructions. At the end of the 18th century, two story houses had become the norm. The first balconies appeared around 1750, but it would take until the 19th century before they became an integral part of the architecture. Few houses had glazed windows, mostly only on the top floor. In general, the windows were covered with green gauze, blinds, or shutters. Most dwellings were rather bare: no tapestries, rugs, or wallpaper. The floors consisted of simple planks, which were frequently scrubbed with orange juice. The furnishings were more exuberant. Many wealthy owners ordered precious furniture from Holland, because the Surinam artisans were slow and expensive. They also proudly displayed books, silverware, crystal, etc. This luxury was usually limited to the ground floor; the other rooms displayed only the most basic necessities. Although many people owned proper beds, hammocks were in use everywhere and much more comfortable in the hot and humid climate.<br /><br />Many of the official buildings were made of wood as well: for example, the ‘town hall’ on the Kerkplein (where the Political Court resided on the ground floor, while the Dutch Reformed church held its services on the second floor), the two Jewish synagogues, the Lodge Concordia, the theatres, etc. The Governor’s palace was at first partly constructed of wood, but replaced by a structure entirely made of brick later. The most important civil brick building was that of the <a href="http://nationaalarchief.sr/beeldbank/detail/d/a1/img97.nl.html">Court of Civil Justice</a>, opposite (the equally 'bricky') <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Forten;rgn1=surinamica_key;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-994;viewid=SURI01_960D22PL02.SID;start=1;resnum=10">Fort Zeelandia</a> on the Gouvernementsplein, which also served as a meeting place for other commissions (for example the <em>Collegium Medicum</em>).<br /><br />This building material made Paramaribo extremely vulnerable to fire, although strangely the town escaped serious damage during the 17th and 18th centuries, when it was most inflammable. During the 19th century, the inhabitants were less lucky. In 1821, a large fire ravaged the city. According tot Teenstra, it had been caused by the baking of oil cakes. No less than 400 houses and 800 warehouses and sheds, as well as the building of the Court of Police were destroyed. The total damages amounted to 16 million guilders. Another disaster struck in 1832. This time, however, the fire had been laid on purpose by slaves who wanted to exploit the resulting confusion to steal all they could. Part of the Waterkant, plus the Heiligenweg and surrounding areas were lost.<br /><br />An increasing part of the free population opted for living in the capital. The whites, in the end, almost all resided there. The slaves would have liked to stay there too, but this was opposed by their owners. Many of them were sent to the plantations in the beginning of the 19th century. Nevertheless, at all times most of the inhabitants of Paramaribo were slaves.<br /><br />There was some residential segregation among the free inhabitants. The white Christians were concentrated in the most expensive part of the capital: the old center and the Waterkant. The coloreds predominated in the sector between the center and the Drambrandersgracht, although many of the less prosperous whites lived there as well. The Jews were concentrated on the relatively cheap Knuffelsgracht and around the synagogues.<br /><br />The owners of the stately houses had little work to do. The plantation proprietors just relaxed while the money poured in and even the administrators only spent a few hours a day in their offices. The same was the case with the higher officials. Philip Fermin has described a typical day in the life of an upper class white: He rose about six o’clock and consumed a hearty breakfast, consisting of coffee and tea, ham, smoked or salted meat, young pigeons, butter, cheese, cassava and beer or Madeira wine. Around nine o’clock, he went to the <em>Beurs</em> (literally: stock exchange), the business center, which was located in a tavern. There, he chatted with his friends and drank some punch, beer, or lemonade. Sometimes he played a game of billiard or chess. About one o’clock, he returned home, enjoyed a light lunch and retired for a siesta, which lasted until four o’clock. Then he drank some tea and went for a walk, or he visited the <em>Beurs</em> again. The evenings were generally not spent in public places. One visited friends or attended dinner parties, which usually commenced around six o’clock and lasted until midnight. Most of the time, however, the weary gentleman went to bed before ten o’clock.<br /><br />The life of modest shopkeepers, tradesmen and clerks was totally different. They started at the crack of dawn and, apart from a siesta at noon, worked until darkness fell. They congregated in the more shady pubs, where they consumed most of their pay. The pleasures of the rich were beyond their grasp.<br /><br />There was no residential segregation between slaves and masters. The houses of the masters formed an almost closed front along the streets. They were only separated by corridors about a meter wide, closed by a so-called negro-gate. Passing the corridor, one arrived in the yard, where the slave cabins were located. They were crudely constructed of inferior timber and never saw paint. Cabins with more than one story were rare. These cramped quarters sheltered several families. Most of the slaves worked in the household of their owners. Wealthy families often had more than 30 house servants about the place. They could seldom be kept usefully occupied all the time. [Even if they were employed for bizarre services, such as replacing horses, sometimes, as Lammens observed: <em>“when the streets are very wet some women avail themselves of a kind of hand cart, that they let be drawn and pushed by several slaves, which looks special in the eyes of someone not habituated to this”.</em>]<br /><br />Slave women without household jobs were forced to hawk wares on the streets: fish, shellfish, vegetables, milk, lemonade and sweets. They were called <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?lang=nl;sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Benoit;rgn1=surinamica_all;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-650;viewid=SURI01_952C25PL18.SID;start=1;resnum=19"><em>woiwoi</em> women</a>. They had to bring home the proceeds. If they failed to sell enough merchandise, punishment awaited them, so they were often obliged to prostitute themselves to make up the deficit. Their clients were mostly soldiers and sailors. The male partners of these women either gardened, or worked as stevedores, artisans, or day laborers. Since there were only limited opportunities for them in Paramaribo, they were often sent back to the plantations. As a result, the sex ratio was clearly in favor of the women. Slaves dominated the street life of Paramaribo: not only the ones that lived with their masters, but also the plantation slaves dispatched to the capital for recovery, the transport of goods, or trade. They liked to parade along the Waterkant dressed in their <a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?lang=nl;sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Benoit;rgn1=surinamica_all;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-641;viewid=SURI01_952C25PL10.SID;start=1;resnum=11">finest clothes</a>.<br /><br />All slaves loved ‘city life’ and the plantation slaves eagerly awaited a chance to taste it. They rejoiced even when the occasion itself was unpleasant. When they were dispatched to receive punishment from experts in Fort Zeelandia, for example. The sights of Paramaribo made up for the pains of the lash. Surinam Negro-English (<em>Sranan</em>) has retained the following proverb: <em>“tangi fo spansi boko mi si binfoto”</em>. Literally: thanks to the <em>Spaanse Bok</em> (a horrible manner of punishment) I have seen the inner fort (Paramaribo). This means something like: ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. When blacks had the choice, they preferred a miserable existence in Paramaribo to relative comfort elsewhere. Most of the freedmen that were not blessed with rich fathers to take care of them, squatted in ramshackle cabins on the edge of the town and barely survived by subsistence agriculture and odd jobs. Nevertheless, they could not be dragged away by a herd of horses. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264553784472844930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 260px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgygLSIo4fgkFey3E0fV1SEW2OCQfcs6G0RlTWhzVFwa1QBC6esLazobzqbxXNhstvtm6F7Du4F0Mo_tEX59VzKLL0IpYG3KxPWJuu0PPXgbu0JYYDbQCPXO8O6xoUqDJ4V78EddNApOW8/s400/Waterkant-Parbo.jpg" border="0" />SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-45071611987185705922008-03-12T00:12:00.068+01:002009-02-06T03:09:02.403+01:00Chapter 1: On the edge of the wilderness.<div align="left"><br /><strong>The conquest of the colony.<br /><br /></div></strong><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262716461619364210" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 316px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLU_JWhd4bSnNJUDQvOR_QF2Z69m0c-I03qXJHKDOBaVcAFweX09hb3FO-pY6bVn2KuMZJDo90lyJyNwM4S_3NCRb_zeC-3UIwP3DgjTSAF6H7vZRCHLaXssN9lkez3W_6c4yagol1fYA/s400/zeeslag.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong><p align="justify"></strong><em>Early explorers.</em><br /><br />The early explorers called it the <strong>Wild Coast</strong>, a seemingly unsuitable name for that nearly impenetrable stretch of forlorn land between the Orinoco and the Amazon basin. The images conveyed by such an epitaph probably include a vision of thundering waves hurling themselves against bleak rock formations, but nothing is less accurate. If anything, the Wild Coast must have presented a rather peaceful appearance to the first explorers. These adventurers were Spaniards, driven by their desire to gain treasures and spread the gospel. The English and Dutch lagged behind almost a century.<br /><br />The first sailors to glimpse the territory were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Ojeda">Alonzo de Ojeda</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_la_Cosa">Juan de la Cosa</a> in 1499, a year later followed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Y%C3%A1%C3%B1ez_Pinz%C3%B3n">Vicente Yáňez Pinzón</a> (the former captain of Columbus’ vessel the Niňa). They saw few prospects for profit at the time. Not until 1593 did Domingo de Vera officially claim the land for King Phillip II. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh">Sir Walter Raleigh</a> scouted the coast in 1595, lured, as many others before and after him, by the chimera of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado">El Dorado</a>, the Golden One, master of a land where the streets were paved with gold. In the hinterland of what was later to be called Surinam, they suspected a mythical saltwater lake, <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=CLNJkVbYMP8C&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=Parima+%2B+lake&source=bl&ots=i9ctmvI1C5&sig=Q-1SjgSMwzzNaWFO0Ep0DXXTMDw&hl=nl&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA28,M1">Parima</a>, surrounded by endless treasures.<br /><br />The Spanish interest in this forbidding part of the <em>Tierra Firme</em> soon dwindled to negligence and consequently the region was mainly disputed by adventurers from France, England and the Low Countries. Notwithstanding the lingering hope that there might indeed be golden cities hidden in the jungle, they were mostly lured by the prospect of a profitable trade with the Indians, by bartering for tobacco, dyes, gums and precious wood.<br /><br />If there was anything inherently ‘wild’ about this land, it was the character of its aboriginal population. The two most powerful tribes, the Caribs –who gave their name to the abominable man-eaters- and the Arawaks, fought each other tooth and nail. A tiny group of traders, who by shrewd diplomacy had established friendly relations with one band, might easily be wiped out by another.<br /><br />The Dutch were relatively late in venturing into these parts, due to backwardness in state formation. By the end of the 16th century, the Low Countries were little more than a bunch of tiny, ceaselessly quarreling provinces, glued together against their will by tyrannical Spanish rule. It took the newly protestant northern half an arduous <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years">Eighty Years’ War</a></strong> (1568-1648) to shake off the Spanish yoke. This meant a long and hard battle for a people few in numbers and poor in natural resources, yet these times would later be known as the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age">Golden Age</a></strong>. During this period, Holland, Amsterdam in particular, became the commercial and financial center of the Europe-centered world economy. This process was greatly enhanced by the fact that a religious tolerance quite exceptional for this age had lured numerous well-to-do Portuguese Jews, Huguenots and Flemish Calvinists to the north. After 1590, the Dutch ships set out to conquer the world.<br /><br /><em>The West-Indian Company.<br /></em><br />The strides in western direction were dictated by the desire to strike the hereditary enemy Spain at the heart of her colonial empire. Thus, it was no coincidence that the <strong><a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/West-Indische_Compagnie">West-Indische Compagnie</a></strong>, which enjoyed a monopoly on all enterprises in the New World, was established in 1621, two months after the end of the <strong>Twelve Years’ Truce</strong>. Although patterned after the illustrious <strong><a href="http://www.voc-kenniscentrum.nl/">Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie</a></strong>, its aims in the beginning were profoundly different. Not trade but piracy ruled.<br /><br />At first, the WIC reaped spectacular profits. The most painful blow for the Spaniards was the loss of the famous Silver Fleet to Piet Heyn in 1628. However, it soon became apparent that the irregular spoils of brigandage were not sufficient to sustain such a large organization permanently. The WIC was obliged to change its policy. Initially, the company had considered the Caribbean islands only as strategic bases from which to harass the Spanish foe, but later the awareness dawned that they could have profitable uses. The WIC conquered and lost a score of West-Indian islands, in the end only retaining three of the Lower Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) and the small Windward islands of St. Maarten (shared with the French), St. Eustatius and Saba. Meanwhile, the WIC also cast a greedy eye at the mainland territories.<br /><br />Since Portugal had been swallowed up by Spain at the end of the 16th century, the WIC considered itself justified in choosing Portuguese possessions on the West-African coast and in the New World as prime targets –even though this policy yielded the greatest benefit after Portugal had regained its independence. The most inspiring victory was the conquest of <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pernambuco">Pernambuco</a></strong> in 1632. The Catholic plantation owners refused to acknowledge Dutch supremacy and withdrew after sabotaging their <em>engenhos</em> (sugar mills). The Jewish planters, on the other hand, were reassured that they would be able to enjoy a religious freedom unparalleled in the Western Hemisphere and they became the backbone of the new colony. Under the able direction of the new governor, <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Maurits_van_Nassau-Siegen">Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen</a>, the colony prospered for a decade, but after his forced departure the defenses crumbled through lack of support and in 1654, Pernambuco fell. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262717327878889074" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 311px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheMTRxIv2uqUYRvQ2aVNL1NsA3gZlcFYk460bRoCjTI_51GAA_hTgjctRKFcaBmLpzg7enKP6JZg2iZ3ZP3r8FJ-969Ejk3kCzy20GIwGCmOpSVfPUMSbafQd55z6Evx7nL-N0JC6AAIk/s400/Johan-Maurits-van-Nassau-Si.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The WIC managed to chase the Portuguese from some of their West-African strongholds, most notably Goree, Cabo Verde, Sao Paulo de Luanda and Sao Thomé. The greatest feat was the conquest of São Jorge da Mina (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmina_Castle"><strong>Elmina</strong></a>) in 1637, which remained the Dutch capital on the Gold Coast until 1872. The possession of these Portuguese territories gave the Dutch their first taste of plantation agriculture and slave trading. The fall of Pernambuco proved to be of major importance for the development of plantations in the Caribbean. Many of the Jewish planters decided to leave and they settled, among other places, on the French islands Martinique and Guadeloupe and introduced sugar technology there. The Dutch, after losing their main source of profit, more than ever promoted sugar production in other parts of the West Indies, particularly Barbados. They offered transport, expertise, credit facilities, slaves and hardware. As a result of their efforts, Barbados, which had been the epitome of a tropical farm colony until then, began to change irrevocably into a full-fledged plantation society, in the process ousting out the small yeoman farmers.<br /><br /><em>The Province of Zeeland.</em><br /><br />While preoccupied with their Brazilian possessions, the WIC all but lost interest in the Wild Coast, where, moreover, their monopolistic claims were disputed most. Even before the WIC era, private entrepreneurs, often from <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland">Zeeland</a></strong>, had tried to establish footholds there, on the Wiapoco River and in Cayenne (1615) as well as on the Essequibo River (1616). Titles were granted in the form of <em>patroonschappen</em>, under the tutelage of the States of Zeeland and ultimately the States-General. The Zeelanders could never stomach the WIC monopoly and they continued on the same footing, although they might defer to WIC control occasionally. In 1632, the Zeelandian Chamber of the WIC claimed the Wild Coast as its sole responsibility and thereafter Zeeland considered the territory as a private domain and tried to maintain a monopoly on trade and navigation. When the Van Peere group settled on the Berbice River in 1627, it was inevitable that they would cast an eye on the neighboring part of the Guyana’s very soon.<br /><br />The first settlement in Surinam, however, was not a Zeelandian enterprise. It was a small trading post near the Indian village ‘Purmabo’, established in 1613. There was a tiny settlement on the Corantijn River in the same period, but the Spaniards destroyed it soon afterward. The Hollanders set up their first trading post on the Suriname River in 1633 and according to Cornelis Goslinga, there may have been a few Dutch sugar plantations on the Marowijne and Commewijne rivers, but I doubt that. Not a trace of them remained.<br /><br />The Dutch claims on this area were not undisputed, other nations tried to incorporate it in their holdings at well. Illness and Indians decimated an enterprising group of Frenchmen, who, in 1640, had built the first fort on the Suriname River. The English captain Marshall and his following of 60 men established a small settlement along the upper part of the Suriname River in 1630, which was eventually abandoned, although the expedition of David Pieterszoon de Vries found them in good spirits four years later. Marshall returned in 1643 with a larger force -according to some accounts 300 families- and settled in the Saramacca and Corantijn regions. They made a good start with tobacco farming, but were driven away by hostile Indians in 1645, probably weakened by internal disputes. In 1644, there also were some Jewish families found along the Suriname River.<br /><br />The early settlements were mainly trading posts and therefore situated far up the rivers, where their clients dwelt. The English and the Jews, however, pioneered in agriculture -unfortunately meeting failure most of the time. Therefore, when the English started to colonize Surinam in earnest, the only survivor they encountered was a (Dutch) Jew named Jacob Enoch with his family.<br /><br />Governor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Willoughby,_5th_Baron_Willoughby_of_Parham">Francis Willoughby</a>, Baron of Parham, had sent these Englishmen from Barbados at his own expense (£ 20,000). After a first, largely abortive, experiment by 100 pioneers in 1650, the next year a well-equipped group of 50 men arrived to reinforce the colony. They built a fort, named Willoughby, on the spot where the French had left theirs in ruins. This time they chose the right approach, for the settlement prospered. Willoughby, who left the government of his property to replacements, was a banished royalist, so the Cromwell regime refused him title to the land and only when Charles II ascended to the throne he managed, in 1662, to secure his rights. But it took prolonged negotiations, the pledge of a tribute of 2000 pounds of tobacco a year and the promise to share the revenues of the colony equally with Lawrence Hide, whose only merit was the fact that he was the second son of the influential chancellor, the Earl of Clarendon. This title would provide little security. In 1657, the Zeelandian cities of Middelburg, Vlissingen and Veere decided to launch large colonizing expeditions to the Wild Coast, which they rechristened <em>Nova Zeelandia</em>. The flourishing colony of Surinam attracted the most envy.<br /><br />Its population had speedily grown to about 4000 souls (slaves included), of whom 1500 were ‘capable of bearing arms’. Then tragedy struck. In 1666, Governor <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Byam">William Byam</a> was ordered to attack the French in Cayenne and, as the distraught Byam noted: <em>“At the return of our forces, which was in August following, we were visited with such a contagious pestilence that in a short time we lost a great part of the chiefest men of the land”.</em> In February the next year, a powerful Zeelandian fleet under the command of <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Crijnssen">Abraham Crijnssen</a> attacked the shaken colony <em>“which found us in a most weak condition, near half our men dead, and half that were living, miserably weak, ill armed and our fort not half built, but one bastion perfected”</em>. After a short struggle with few casualties, the English surrendered.<br /><br />The victors proved generous: the English inhabitants who chose to stay were promised protection of their possessions and liberty of conscience. They were not obliged to swear an oath of loyalty to their new lords, but merely had to vow that in the case of an English counterattack, they would <em>“keep themselves quiet”</em> and refrain from aiding their compatriots. They were granted the same rights as the Dutch colonists and they were free to leave the colony whenever they desired. These privileges were also extended to the Jews; both the Jews of English provenance who had arrived with Willoughby and the Jews who had migrated to Surinam in 1664, after their settlement in Cayenne had fallen into the hands of the French. Crijnssen soon left with a booty of 100,000 pounds of sugar, after installing a garrison of 120 men in the fort (which he rechristened Zeelandia) and appointing Maurits de Rame, one of his captains, as provisional governor. They did not have to wait long for a counterattack of the English.<br /><br />The Treaty of Breda, which ended the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Dutch_War">Second Anglo-Dutch </a></strong><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Dutch_War">War</a> </strong>(1665-1667), obliged the warring parties to cease hostilities, while permitting them to keep the territories they had in their power at the time. For the Dutch, this meant the loss of New Amsterdam, a colony whose potential they did not fully realise. They could consolidate their hold on Surinam and considered this a good trade. Meanwhile, however, a fleet commanded by John Herman had been dispatched from England, and, being unaware of the treaty, had reconquered Surinam in October 1667. The garrison was shipped to Barbados. Governor William Willoughby (brother of the deceased Francis) directed his son Henry to Surinam to persuade the English inhabitants to pack up and leave. Even after being ordered to return immediately, the irate Henry Willoughby spent several hectic weeks wrecking and stealing sugar mills, burning cane fields and dragging off livestock and slaves <em>“so that the Dutch shall have little reason to glory of their purchase”</em>. Following Dutch protests, King Charles II ordered Willoughby to send back 168 slaves, 126 animals, 8 sugar mills and 21,000 pounds of sugar, on penance of incurring his ‘high indignation’. Predictably, few of the stolen items ever materialized in Surinam again.<br /><br />During his stay, Willoughby, by fair means or foul, prevailed upon many Englishmen to change their domicile. In excess of 1200 persons departed. Most of them went to Jamaica, some wound up in Barbados or Antigua. In the end, only 39 English planters remained. The emigrants had to pay their debts first and were not allowed to take along any slave they had purchased from the Dutch. This drain on the work force threatened the very survival of the colony. The authorities so desperately needed settlers, that Governor Versterre refused a group of 10 Jewish planters and their 322 slaves permission to leave the colony on the ‘frivolous pretext’ that they were not English. They had to appeal to the English monarch for release.<br /><br />When the Dutch took over Surinam, they gained a territory on the way of becoming a profitable plantation colony. Willoughby had never intended to found a settlement for white farmers, as Barbados was. Black slaves had been sent along with the first group of pioneers and soon many more followed. By 1666, Surinam counted about 175 ‘plantations’, 40 to 50 of which were sugar estates. The rest were tobacco or provision grounds. From the beginning, the Dutch had high hopes for their prize. They considered the colony eminently suitable for plantation agriculture and they believed that it only lacked hands and capital to transform it into a veritable Garden of Eden. They soon found out that they had greatly underestimated the grit of the land and its native population.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The land and its people.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263688480982224978" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 271px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHL5PiWLxTyTWH4ytu87wKLmUsYq-Ank-Pt30_ILkrB0xrCn-jjDzTAGyIC-rs-YHaGgfYvO6PwlksBZ08n7X0zDTLmj3i1YPhOUGRZiCVYfFswLKxkeoOvwB5OpMHWj_dpuEJRTfA_Kk/s400/sula.jpg" border="0" /><br /></strong><em>Natural conditions.</em><br /><br />The charter of 1662 fixed the Corantijn and the Marowijne as the borders of ‘Willoughby Land’. Other documents, however, designated the Sinamarie River as the easternmost limit. Although the Dutch allowed the French to advance to the Marowijne, they continued to consider the region in between as belonging to Surinam.<br /><br />Since the border rivers flow in a virtually straight line from the south to the north, the shape of Surinam approximates a square as closely as any territory with natural limits can. The country is situated between 54º and 58º northern latitude and 2º and 6º western longitude. The rivers shape the landscape. The major ones are, from the east to the west, the Marowijne (Maroni), the Cottica, the Commewijne, the Suriname with its tributary the Para, the Saramacca, the Coppename, the Nickerie and the Corantijn. They flow more or less parallel to each other, although the smaller rivers (Commewijne, Saramacca and Nickerie) are diverted from their course in western direction by sand ridges and seek an outlet in the estuary of a larger neighbor.<br /><br />In colonial times, the inhabitants only managed to make a small dent into the forest cover and they limited their clearings to the areas adjacent to rivers and creeks. The Suriname was the main artery. The earliest plantations were all situated on the high sandy grounds along the upper part of this river and its largest branch, the Para. The second river to draw settlers to its banks was the Commewijne, initially along the lower reaches. Soon the cultivated area was expanded to the Upper Commewijne, Cottica and Perica. Later, the canals of Matapica and Warappa were dug, running from the Lower Commewijne to the sea and opening up the fertile coastal lands. The Suriname/Para and Commewijne/Cottica regions remained the core of the colony for 130 years. Only at the end of the 18th century, the Saramacca district was drawn into the plantation orbit and it took until the 19th century before the advantages of the Nickerie district were appreciated.<br /><br />The rivers and creeks constituted the main channels of communication. There were no roads, except in the environment of the capital Paramaribo, so all transport was done by boat: a <em>tentboot</em> for passengers and a <em>pont</em> or <em>lastdraager</em> for goods. At the end of their course, the rivers were very broad and deep enough to allow the largest vessels to sail up at least 25 km. Unfortunately, they were blocked by rapids (<em>sulas</em>) about 70 km upstream. These formed an effective barrier against further expansion of the plantation range, since whites were unable to traverse them unaided.<br /><br />There are three types of soil in Surinam: (1) the Precambrian basement; (2) the old coastal plain; and (3) the young coastal plain. The latter two have been formed by alluvial sedimentation and take up a zone of about 30 km wide near the Marowijne and 150 km wide near the Corantijn. These were the soils that permitted plantation agriculture.<br /><br />The most striking feature of the young coastal plain is the sequence of sandy ridges (<em>ritsen</em>), alternated by swamps (<em>zwampen</em>). These ridges are elongated embankments, parallel to the coast. In the west, they are separated from each other, but in the east, they are often attached. Consequently, these ridges normally occur in bundles spreading westward. The breath varies from barely ten meters to several kilometers. In the eastern part of Surinam, they consist almost exclusively of sand; near Paramaribo, the sand is mixed with shells; while in the west, shells and shell fragments predominate. The ridges are covered with forests, contrary to the swamps, which sport aquatic vegetation. On the older coastal plain, ridges also occur, but less frequent and only along the northern edge. Here, they appear as savannas, while the adjacent areas are wooded. As in many other tropical countries, the soil conditions are not very favorable for agriculture, particularly on the higher terrains.<br /><br />Surinam has a typical tropical climate with much precipitation, a fair amount of sunshine and moderately high temperatures. The monthly average varies between 25ºC and 29ºC. The temperature seldom drops below 23ºC or rises above 31ºC. The yearly rainfall hovers between 1500 mm along the coast and 3000 mm in the higher areas in the interior. The inhabited part of the colony, small as it may be, still boasts three different climatic zones. Just along the coast, there is a 5 to 10 km wide strip with a ‘savanna’ climate, meaning that in some months the evaporation exceeds the precipitation so much that it cannot be compensated by the abundance of rain during the rest of the year. However, the vegetation does not conform to this situation, since the grounds are so low that swamps are the rule. Adjacent to this is a nearly 10 km wide zone with a ‘monsoon’ climate: some months score less than 10 mm of rain, but this is counterbalanced by ample showers during the rest of the year. Swamp vegetation dominates here as well. The largest part of cultivated Surinam, a zone 70 to 120 km wide, is characterized by a genuine ‘tropical’ climate, wet in all seasons. This permits the growth of a dense jungle vegetation.<br /><br />The seasons are almost solely determined by the pattern of precipitation. They can be divided into: (a) a short wet season, from the beginning of December until the beginning of February; (b) a short dry season, from the beginning of February until the end of April; (c) a long wet season, from the end of April until the middle of August; and finally (d) a long dry season, from the middle of August until the beginning of December. These periods cannot be sharply demarcated, particularly in the coastal area. Here the circulation of the sea winds is a disturbing factor. The starting point of each period can fluctuate by more than a month.<br /><br />The designations of the seasons notwithstanding, they are all wet. Rain usually falls in the form of short but intense showers. Even during the so-called dry periods, more than 100 mm of rain may fall in less than two days. The overall precipitation peaks during the wet seasons, of course. The average humidity is high, rising from about 80% during the day to no less than 95% at night. Because of this, there is ample formation of dew and this can make the nights seem ‘cold’ to some people.<br /><br />The number of daylight hours is more or less fixed. In Paramaribo, for example, the sun sets between 17.51 and 18.30 and the difference between the longest and the shortest day is barely 40 minutes. Mornings are often sunny, with clouds gathering only in the late afternoon.<br /><br />The vegetation is the product of the interplay between soil conditions and climate. A dense coat of rain forest covers most of Surinam. This type of forest displays an enormous variation in plants: there are more than 1000 species of trees alone. The forests can be grouped into three types, depending on soil conditions and drainage: (1) the <em>hygrophytic</em> (dry) types, e.g. flood (<em>parwa</em>) forest, mangrove forest and swamp (<em>dras</em>) forest, which can be found at the seaside and between the ridges on the young coastal plain; (2) the <em>xerophytic</em> (dry) types, mainly savanna forest growing on sandy soil and rocky plateaus; and (3) the <em>mesophytic</em> forests, on well-drained but sufficiently moist soils, that take up most of the wooded area.<br /><br />The influence of men on vegetation is easily observable in Surinam. There are vast stretches of secondary forest (<em>kapoewerie</em>), which consist of a nearly impenetrable mass of light-seeking species. It takes the primary forest a long time to reclaim its former territory. Burning makes an even larger imprint on the environment. In places where drainage is too efficient, the forest dries out during the dry seasons and becomes vulnerable to the ravages of fire. Repeated burning causes the degeneration of forest into brush. This phenomenon is usually limited to the ridges because the <em>mesophytic</em> forest is much less sensitive. Strangely, the swamps often suffer most. During an extremely dry spell, the peat that has accumulated dries out and when it catches fire, the flames are difficult to extinguish and the trees lose their grip and fall over.<br /><br />Intentional burning has been one of the primary causes of the formation of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savanna">savannas</a> in Surinam, although soil conditions contributed as well. Cohen and Van Eijk distinguished 10 different kinds of savannas, located in 8 different landscapes. In the plantation area, savannas were present in the Upper Suriname and Para region and along the Commewijne. The former were situated on both dry and wet white sands and the result of leaching of the soil. The poor soils only permitted a vegetation of savanna forest, which after repeated burning was replaced by thick brushwood (on the dry sands) or sparse savanna vegetation (on the wet sands -for example Zanderij, nowadays the location of the national airport). The transition has been gradual most of the time, except where fires kindled by men have eaten into the surrounding <em>wallaba</em> forest. The brown sands of Commewijne do not suffer from leaching so much, but become saturated with water during the rainy seasons. Here too, the original vegetation was destroyed by burning and replaced by dense scrubs and savanna forest. On the whole, the savannas were barely suitable for plantations.<br /><br />The climatic conditions and the extensive swamps turned Surinam into a veritable paradise for vermin of all kinds. Strains imported from overseas throve just as well as the native species. Many of them were extremely dangerous to the health of the inhabitants and contributed a lot to the high mortality rate. Fortunately, there were also more useful representatives of the animal kingdom present. Surinam was poor in large game, especially in the more populated part, but during the plantation era the tapir and pingo often provided a treasured addition to the diet, as did the smaller <em>konkonni</em> (Surinam ‘rabbit’). The rivers teemed with fish and on the seaside, abundant shellfish and crabs could be found. The colony was not exactly infested with predatory animals, but the <em>tigri</em> (jaguar) was considered enough of a threat to merit special placards.<br /><br />Overall, the natural conditions made Surinam into a country that proved to be inhospitable to white settlers. Whoever ventured here, risked his life. If he was not felled by the ruthless climate or disease, a colonist might easily fall victim to the men who considered this stretch of land as their property and who were determined to show the intruders that they could only stay with their permission.<br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262721493996148178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 236px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VK__B1tvOsw8fxafGR8FIDzPLO3jhsGBto0k4ExmIVjPshkjc6U1BXja-m_d-earRY1rKDO1lCkgXrcodBBsUZ-dY53IP2-K8eT4K8vG104SH6z-EmjwOoNTJ84-8soAM6QiC_zx5qw/s400/arowakse.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p align="justify"><em>The Indian Population.</em><br /><br />The Indians of Surinam, called <em>Bokken</em> by the whites, mostly belonged to three tribes: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carib">Caribs</a>, living along the Marowijne, Coppename and Corantijn; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arawak">Arawaks</a>, living along the Upper Suriname, Commewijne and Saramacca, and the Waraus, living along the Upper Nickerie and Maratakka. J. J. Hartsinck further mentioned the Secoties (<em>Schotjes</em>). The Acouri, who lived far into the interior, slipped from view during the 19th century. Their numbers are difficult to ascertain, but it is highly unlikely that there were more than a few thousand Indians present at the moment the whites set foot in their territory.<br /><br />The Indians lived in sedentary villages of varying size along the rivers and creeks, but were frequently on the move. The whites, on encountering these ‘Noble Wilds’, were intrigued by the fact that most them went around entirely naked, or sported only a diminutive apron. Their existence was based on hunting large game (aided by dogs that they trained with great care), fishing and swidden cultivation with cassava as the staple crop. Governor Van Aerssen held them in great esteem: “<em>many of them have more natural wisdom, than our drunken lazy, and vain whites”</em>. They struck Hartsinck as gay but extremely indolent people (at least the men), but he was impressed by their sense of justice and cleanliness (with the exception of the Waraus, whom he considered extremely dirty). Their fondness of hard liquor was well known and used by the whites to their own advantage. The Indians quarreled fiercely among themselves and white observers were appalled by their cruelty towards captives. This made the traders feel very moral when they persuaded their allies to sell the unfortunates to them as slaves. All kinds of strange stories about these heathens circulated in Europe and lurid pictures portraying them in an orgy of cannibalism were in much demand. These images disturbed the communication between red and white people.<br /><br />On the whole, the Indians received the strange visitors friendly, not infrequently saving their life, or nursing them back to health. The relationship between Indians and whites was not blatantly exploitative at first, since the Guyana’s were not the target of adventurers seeking a quick profit in mining, nor were they initially designated as plantation colonies. The early contacts were limited to barter. The trading goods of the whites consisted of axes, shovels, cutlasses, knives, mirrors, white and blue osnabrug linen and beads. Although the traders sometimes brought back treasures, more often the profits were meager. A WIC rapport written in 1633 stated: <em>“These nations are so barbarous and have so few needs, because they don’t dress nor work for their daily bread, that all trade that is possible there can be handled by two or three ships annually”.</em><br /><br />Once the first plantations had been established, the whites were even more interested in trade, because it could supply them with slaves. The Caribs, in particular, were eager to oblige. They bought slaves from other tribes, or set out to catch a few themselves. The value of a slave amounted to <em>“two choppers, two axes, some beads, or other trifles”.</em> Many of the traders were villains who cheated or enslaved Indians and this created a climate of discontent. In colonial Surinam, traffic with the Indians became the prerogative of the governor, who charged <em>bokkenruylders</em> (also called <em>zwervers</em>) with the actual work.<br /><br />Indian slaves were useless for the strenuous work in the fields, so they were employed as fishermen and hunters on the plantations (or as house servants in the case of women). Some free Indians settled on the plantations with their wives and children as well. They hunted for their patrons and received <em>kilthum</em> (crude rum) or trinkets in return, while keeping part of the catch for their own consumption. Although their numbers deteriorated steadily, Indians were present on some plantations until the end of the 18th century.<br /><br />The pioneers were acutely aware of the need to maintain good relations with the most powerful tribes and they courted their favor shamelessly. Since the English had cemented an alliance with the Caribs, the Dutch turned to their archenemies, the Arawaks, who as a result finally got a chance to revenge themselves for past indignities. This greatly antagonized the Caribs and when their anger finally erupted, it nearly heralded the end of the colony. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262722334273751266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg3qp_j64PD4sRJcdYqVw4pWtrq-bo3zY54pChCTwB5GG8xzcXU1uXJPizj-X3R-dB1Z44WWBFFAcymhsTg5ilcsL9PEOq-mzNQNcbnTY7pZuO2eCeDkqHIJ-Px1CZrHax6dG6U2PBF98/s400/Carib_indian_family.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><p align="justify"><strong>The administrative structure.<br /><br /></strong><em>The Charter.<br /></em><br />Zeeland saw the Wild Coast as her rightful domain. The fleet that had conquered Surinam had solely consisted of Zeelandian ships, although they had been equipped partly at the expense of the States-General. The other provinces, Holland in particular, did not acknowledge Zeeland’s sovereignty, since the patent of the WIC gave the organization dominion over <strong>all</strong> the Dutch West-Indian possessions. To appease them, the States of Zeeland ceded ultimate control to the States-General, with the provision that it would not be transferred to the WIC. The States of Zeeland were allowed de facto patronage.<br /><br />Zeeland tried hard to attract new settlers to the sparsely populated colony and promised to all inhabitants immunity from taxes for a period of two years and to all newcomers “<em>of whichever nation or condition they may be, who want to move to the Said Province of Surinam to live there with their Slaves, Animals and other necessities for cultivation, not only free access, but having arrived there to supply them with good quarters & environments for the cultivation of sugar & the other fruits of the land, with general immunity & exemption from all taxes for the period of five years”.<br /><br /></em>Zeeland was more interested in mercantile than in agricultural pursuits and the expenses of administration were prohibitive. Therefore, the States of Zeeland sold their ‘rights’ in Surinam to the WIC in 1682, for the price of 260,000 guilders. The transfer was arranged in an <em>octrooy</em> (charter) that included the following provisions:<br />(A) the inhabitants would be exempted from taxes (except from several modest ones included in the Charter) for a period of ten years and the same immunity would be granted to new settlers;<br />(B) no taxes would be imposed other than the ones stipulated in the Charter;<br />(C) the WIC would have a monopoly on the slave trade and was obliged to deliver as many slaves as were needed;<br />(D) Dutch citizens were free to trade with the colony on the condition that they paid certain ‘recognition dues’ to the WIC, while ships from other countries were barred from entering the colony;<br />(E) anyone was at liberty to settle in the colony with their slaves and goods and to leave again unencumbered;<br />(F) the WIC was responsible for the defense of the colony.<br />These provisions laid the foundations for the government of the colony until the end of the 18th century.<br /><br /><em>The Society of Surinam and its heirs.<br /></em><br />The WIC soon concluded that the burdens of administration and defense were too heavy to shoulder alone and it offered a third part of the stock to the City of Amsterdam and to the noble family of Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck. They resolved to form the <strong>Geoctroyeerde Societeit van Suriname</strong> (Chartered Society of Surinam), which adopted the articles of the WIC-charter and governed the colony from 1683 until its demise in 1795 -shortly after the WIC, crippled by debts, had been dismantled. In 1770, Van Aerssen’s third was purchased by the City of Amsterdam for 700,000 guilders -a bad investment as it turned out. The Society could run the colony more or less as it pleased, but the States-General retained ultimate sovereignty and felt justified to intervene when disputes threatened to get out of hand.<br /><br />The creation of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavian_Republic">Batavian Republic</a> changed this situation profoundly. Surinam came under the direct rule of the Dutch government in the guise of the <strong>Committé tot de Zaken van Coloniën en Bezittingen op de Kust van Guinea en in America</strong>. The colony found itself under English ‘protection’ in 1799, but governor Friderici, a firm 'Orangist', was allowed to stay in power. The English departed after the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amiens">Peace of Amiens</a> in 1802. Not for long: two years later, when the war between France and England flared up again, the English reconquered Surinam and this time they decided to keep hold of the reigns tightly themselves. Surinam became an English crown colony under an English governor.<br /><br />In 1814, a new treaty was concluded between England and the Netherlands. Surinam was ceded to King Willem I as a crown colony. To obtain this concession, the Dutch had been obliged to ratify the treaty that ended the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/">transatlantic slave trade</a>, decreed under English pressure in 1807. They had also agreed to the installation of a so-called <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984077">Mixed Court</a> in Paramaribo, which faced the unenviable task of putting the lid on illegal slave imports and punishing offenders. Willem I was much interested in West-Indian affairs, but as a constitutional monarch could not be involved directly, therefore the supervision of Surinam rested with the <strong>Departement van Coloniale Zaken</strong>.<br /><br />The modified structure eroded the last traces of Surinam self-reliance. The new governors were appointed, rather arbitrarily in the opinion of the inhabitants, by the Dutch government. From 1828 tot 1845 Surinam was even joined together with the Dutch Antilles under the direction of one governor, assisted by a <strong>High Council for the West-Indian Possessions</strong>, a very unsatisfactory situation. Public opinion forced the Second Chamber of the States-General to take more interest in Surinam affairs –to the point of formulating laws regarding the situation of the (black) inhabitants.<br /><br />Surinam, like most colonies, was characterized by a fundamental opposition between the inhabitants and the metropolitan powers. The precise causes of these clashes shall be elaborated later, but they can all be traced back to the uncommon generosity of the Charter, which allowed the citizens such a measure of freedom and permitted them to dodge taxes to such an extend, that the situation would have been unworkable even if the Society had honored all the privileges. The influence of the planters could reach such impressive proportions due to the fact that (1) the Society lacked the means to keep intransigent planter representatives in check; (2) the white population (reluctantly) paid for most of their own defenses and consequently did not depend on the Society to provide protection; (3) Surinam did not yield a high enough profit to create an influential ‘West-Indian interest’ in the Netherlands, which would have demanded a say in the affairs of the colony. The States-General were contented to let the sleeping dogs lie most of the time. The ability of the motherland to steer decision-making was hampered by the fact that the lines of communication were long: it took at least 15 weeks before the answer to a letter was received.<br /><br />Sandew Hira has designated the administrative structure of Surinam as a <em>“segmented state”.</em> This evaluation was based on the belief that the domestic jurisdiction enjoyed by the planters gave them such a margin of independence, that their influence on the government remained decisive. I do not agree with this conclusion as far as the 19th century situation is concerned. The planters were robbed of most of their clout in public affairs after the demise of the Society of Surinam, a trend that was acerbated by the fact that the colony became increasingly impotent to pay for its own administration.<br /><br /><em>Civil servants.</em><br /><br />The Charter entrusted administration to a <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_gouverneurs_van_Suriname">governor</a>, who was its primary representative in the colony and who was appointed by the Society with the approval of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States-General_of_the_Netherlands">States-General</a> and the <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtholder">Stadhouder</a></em>. Although endowed with discretionary powers in some respects, the <em>Gouverneur</em> was dependent on the consent of the representatives of the planters in most affairs, especially taxation. He was both civil and military commander. No law could be enforced without his permission and he alone had the power to grant a pardon. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261629042679949586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 352px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic-kBeodvEAwfJRw6xWtZvVCL-N1qvxn57FyJto7A1GskWsjVvkSobOhNq6Au0nwm-twT3L5Fv6yj14r2LqyNsv5itI-MscBtYHjrzZHnTndnD7TkUj2HJ63yROjwbp6y7rmvNEdnch2w/s400/Aerssen_van_Sommelsdijck.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The first governor during the reign of the Society was part-owner <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_van_Aerssen_van_Sommelsdijck"><strong>Cornelis van Aerssen, Lord of Sommelsdijck</strong></a> (1683-1688). The agreements between the three partners laid down in the <em>Octrooy</em> included the provision that his descendents would have precedence if they were qualified. His son declined the honor, but in the early 18th century, several governors [Johan de Mahony (1716-1717), Carel (1728-1734) en Jacobus (1734-1735) de Cheusses] were related to the Van Aerssen family. Most of the early governors were professional soldiers with no colonial experience and did not last long in the merciless climate. With the appointment of the experienced diplomat <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?hl=nl&id=DvYPAAAAYAAJ&dq=Jan+Jacob+Mauricius&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=69bsN9xS8j&sig=V6BKUyVddrYSrOxG8arfIpgFyuo&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA5,M1"><strong>Joan Jacob Mauricius</strong></a> (1742-1751) this policy changed: he was deemed ideal to tame the ‘wild west’. He aroused so much indignation among the inhabitants, however, that the States-General felt obliged to intervene. From his forced departure up to the English occupation, preference was given to men who had risen from the ranks and who had a long period of colonial service behind them. After 1816, a new breed of governors was introduced, most of them strangers to Surinam and career diplomats or high officers.<br /><br />The <em>Commandant</em> (commander) ranked just behind the governor in the hierarchy. He was the head of the army and responsible for the fortifications. He had the rank of colonel and sat as <em>Eerste Raad</em> (First Councilor) in the political council. He served as governor <em>ad interim </em>when the rightful occupant of the position was absent or indisposed. The position was often a stepping-stone towards a governorship. The mixing of military and civil tasks was abolished in 1783, and thereafter the <em>Commandant</em> was merely a colonel with few civil responsibilities.<br /><br />The highest civil servant, only slightly inferior to the Commander, was the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em>, who in later times would surpass him in power. The <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> was the successor of the marshal of the English period and functioned as the chief magistrate. He decided in large part how planters were allowed to treat their slaves. In most instances, he was a ‘local man’ (instead of an outside appointee), who wrote extensively in the official documents and thus reflected, more than any other public servant, the attitudes of the colonial populace. The <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> was the prime juridical advisor of both the <em>Gouverneur</em> and the courts. He had to uphold the laws of the motherland, the ‘general articles’ of the WIC and the regulations of the Society, as well as the placards and ordinances of the Surinam authorities. He acted as prosecutor in all major criminal and civil cases and was expected to bring lawbreakers to trial speedily, <em>“without tormenting or pursuing someone out of hatred or private enmity or ignoring someone’s offenses and crimes out of friendship”. </em>In addition, it was his duty to forestall the illegal import of slaves. He was aided in his tasks by the <em>Schout</em> (bailiff), two deputies and six ‘servants of justice’<em>,</em> who together formed the police force. In 1754, a second <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> was added, who doubled as a judge advocate in the Military Court.<br /><br />The <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> could wield substantial influence. There was <em>“a discretionary power confided to him, whence there is no other appeal than to the court of justice, the expenses of which are so enormous as to induce the appellants to forego this method of redress in favor of making a composition with the fiscal, who is generally inclined to receive one-third in ready money, rather than to throw it into the court, where the seeds of litigation are so completely sown, as to make it dubious, when the whole would be recovered”</em>, Henry Bolingbroke observed.<br /><br />In the early days, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal </em>was usually chosen from the members of the Court of Police, and thus a planter himself, with little (if any) juridical expertise. Around 1730, this anachronistic situation started to change. The rewards of the job had reached such lavish proportions, that it became a desirable position for members of prominent Dutch families, who wanted to lay the foundations for a colonial fortune. The first breath of fresh air was the arrival of Willem van Meel, a brother of the Society’s secretary. He found to his dismay that his envious inferiors banded together to undermine his position. His successor Jacob van Halewijn, Lord of Werven, was also a rosy-cheeked immigrant and no more diplomatic. The appointment of these continentals probably reflected a deliberate change in policy by the directors of the Society. They had been profoundly shocked by the horror stories of slave mistreatment that had reached their ears and they realized that a <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> chosen from the ranks of the planters was unlikely to root out these excesses.<br /><br />The new appointees, inexperienced and greedy, proved no better choice. They were opposed by the courts at every turn, ignorant of colonial sensitivities and no more humane towards the slaves than their predecessors had been. Therefore, the Society changed its policy again and made juridical training more or less a prerequisite for the job. The first of this new breed was attorney-at-law Jan Gerhard Wichers, who proved to be remarkably fair when prosecuting blacks.<br /><br />During the latter part of the reign of the Society, the civil and military hierarchies were sometimes mingled: a soldier could be appointed <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> before rising<em> </em>to the position of <em>Commandant</em>. Also, a civilian <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> could be promoted over the<em> Commandant</em> to a governorship. Contrary to the <em>Commandant</em>, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> survived the transition to direct metropolitan rule, losing much of his former power in the bargain, however.<br /><br />Initially, the function of <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> was a bit of an anomaly. Though appointed by, or at least with the consent of, the directors of the Society, he was not paid from public funds. Instead, he enjoyed the proceeds of the position of <em>Exploiteur</em>. It was the duty of the <em>Exploiteur</em> to survey debt-ridden plantations and to put them under sequestration if necessary. He had two or three poorly paid substitutes to actually perform the work and he pocketed the revenues. These spoils made for an enviable income: proceeds of more than 20,000 guilders a year were common. Compared to this, the <em>Gouverneur</em> (6000 guilders a year) and the <em>Commandant</em> (1200 guilders) were paupers. Moreover, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> could lay claim to part of the fines demanded from miscreants. Therefore, it is not surprising that this was a much-coveted position.<br /><br />When, in the 1730s, many plantations failed and the income of the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> consequently rose to staggering heights, it became clear that this arrangement upset the balance of power. The <em>Gouverneur</em> and the courts decided that the functions of <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> and <em>Exploiteur </em>had to be separated. The <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> was to receive a salary of 5000 guilders a year, in addition to his share of the fines (which still made him the best-paid official). The <em>Exploiteur</em> was awarded a salary of 1000 guilders a year. Because of the spirited opposition of the then-occupant of the position, the influential Willem van Meel, this scheme was not adopted until 1745.<br /><br />Although the prosecution of suspects was put in the hands of professionals eventually, most of the accused had no professionals to defend them in court. Very few solicitors (<em>praktizijns</em>) practiced in the colony and most defendants could not afford their services anyway. The secretaries of the two courts functioned as <em>jurators </em>(notaries), as did some of the <em>gezworen klerken</em> (sworn clerks) of the government secretariat.<br /><br />The administrative apparatus was not exactly ‘heavy’, but the servants of the Society made up a prominent part of the whites employed outside agriculture. Of vital importance were the various <em>ontvangers</em> (tax collectors) and the <em>Controleur-Generaal</em> (a function created in 1777 to bring some order in the chaotic finances of the colony). The secretary of the <em>Gouverneur</em> was the pillar of the administration. He was aided by several <em>gezworen klerken</em>. The police force in later times included a <em>Provoost</em>, charged with the apprehension of runaway slaves and other erring blacks. The <em>Venduemeester</em> supervised the public auctions, the <em>Havenmeester</em> made sure North-American ships did not smuggle any slaves into the colony and two public announcers kept the inhabitants informed of the promulgation of new laws. Four <em>keurmeesters</em> made the rounds of the plantations to inspect the quality of the sugar. Two surveyors measured out the surfaces of the plantations for inclusion in the warrants. When Surinam planters jumped at the possibility of negotiating easy credit in the Netherlands, the office of <em>Priseur van Effecten</em> was created (1778), to assess the value of the plantations that were given as collateral. From 1761 on, the government kept in touch with the <em>Bosnegers </em>(pacified Maroons) through a <em>posthouder</em>, who lived in their midst.<br /><br />Few civil servants could be encountered outside Paramaribo and a large measure of self-reliance prevailed there. The colony was divided into <strong>divisions</strong>, which were joined together or split up as they grew or diminished in importance. In the middle of the 18th century the following divisions were in operation: (1) Thorarica; (2) Upper Suriname; (3) Upper Commewijne; (4) Para, Corrupine and ‘subordinated creeks’; (5) Cottica and Perica; (6) Lower Cottica; (7) Lower Commewijne; (8) Matapicca and ‘subordinated creeks’; and (9) the ‘Jewish Division’. In the 19th century, the separate Jewish division had disappeared, while the division of Saramacca and the districts of Upper and Lower Nickerie had been added.<br /><br />At the head of each division stood a <em>burgercapitein</em>, chosen from the planters and aided by two lieutenants and an ensign. A <em>burgercapitein</em> was the head of a company of the <em>Burgerwacht</em> (militia) and he also had administrative tasks. It was his duty, for example, to ascertain the number of whites and slaves for the purpose of taxation, to check if there were enough provision grounds, to keep the roads (if any) in good repair, to clean overgrown waterways, etc. At the end of the 18th century, when the military contribution of the <em>Burgerwacht</em> was less essential, a <em>heemraad</em> (dike-reeve) replaced him.<br /><br /><em>Courts and commissions.<br /></em><br />The corps of <em>burgerofficieren</em> provided one way the planters could participate in the administration of the colony, but more important were the representative councils (which doubled as juridical courts). They were relics from the English period. Lord Willoughby had planned to govern Surinam as a feudal patron, but he had been obliged to grant his subjects considerable influence through their councils. When the Dutch took over in 1667, they adopted many of the offices their predecessors had created. Thus, in 1669 a ‘Political Council’ (<strong>Raad van Politie</strong>) and a ‘Juridical Council’ (<strong>Raad van Justitie</strong>) were established, patterned after the English agencies. They were combined in 1680, but the Charter of the Society reestablished them as separate entities in 1682. The Political Council was renamed <strong>Hof van Politie en Criminele Justitie</strong> (Court of Police and Criminal Justice) and started work in 1684. The <strong>Hof van Civiele Justitie</strong> (Court of Civil Justice) did not commence its activities until 1689. The members of both courts were called <em>raden</em>. The designation <strong>Raad</strong> (Council) is in fact more accurate than <strong>Hof</strong> (Court), especially in the case of the Political Council, because deliberating criminal and civil cases was only part of the duties of the <em>raden</em>: more important were their functions of ‘parliament’, lawmakers and advisors to the Governor. The Political Council far surpassed the Civil Council in importance and its members were treated with much more respect. Therefore, many a civil councilor actively lobbied for a seat in the more powerful assembly.<br /><br />For each vacant position in the Court of Police and Criminal Justice, the white inhabitants chose two candidates by plurality of votes, of which the Governor selected one. The nominees had to belong to the <em>“most prominent, wisest and most moderate of the colonists”. </em>They were obliged to serve for life and received no monetary compensation. This court, nicknamed the <strong>Red Court</strong> for the color of their robes, consisted of the Governor, the Commander in his capacity of <em>Eerste Raad</em>, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> (as prosecutor and advisor), a secretary and nine members. It convened four times a year: in February, May, August and December.<br /><br />The Court of Civil Justice (<strong>Black Court</strong>) consisted of the Governor, the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> (again in a largely advisory capacity), a secretary and six members. The latter were chosen by the Governor from candidates nominated by the Political Council. Every two years, the six members abdicated and three of them were immediately reelected. The other three places were filled by newcomers. The Civil Council solely handled pecuniary matters. Cases involving more than 600 guilders could be referred to the directors of the Society.<br /><br />Overall, positions in the courts were coveted, but some of the men so honored did not seem very eager to assume their duties. In the beginning of the 18th century, the councilors were usually chosen from the ranks of the owners of the largest plantations, so they had little pecuniary interest in the job. Furthermore, they were busy expanding their empires and not smitten by the prospect of neglecting their own affairs for the sake of the common good. When the Governor died, he ideally was replaced by a council consisting of the Commander (as Governor <em>ad interim</em>), the <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> and two members of the Court of Police. It was often difficult to find two <em>raden</em> available for duty, because most of them lived far from the capital, so it was agreed that they would take turns for the period of a month. Later in the 18th century, the planters were increasingly able to leave the running of their estates to their directors and they spent more time in Paramaribo, free to indulge in a game of politics.<br /><br />Towards the middle of the century, a new type of <em>raden</em> emerged: men with smaller fortunes, who hoped to improve their situation by gaining a seat in one of the courts. <em>Raad-Fiscaal</em> Willem van Meel, though a fortune hunter himself, was not far from the mark when he grumbled: <em>“The largest part of the Court consists of Soldiers of fortune and of lowly birth having attained their purses and plantations by Administrations for others And</em> [they]<em> do not only solicit</em> [this appointment] <em>but Some would be willing to give something to own this plume Ergo </em><em>a large difference between a man of decent birth who leaves his fatherland to push his fortune and such a Justice Some also covet that Office</em> [because they] <em>have many debts And people spare them somewhat And also to get credit like a few of them do here".<br /></em><br />Since the interests of the Society and the inhabitants clashed in so many areas, the Court of Police was often the arena for spirited political disputes. Many times, the members of this court petitioned in the Netherlands for the dismissal of a governor who refused to do their bidding, sometimes with favorable result. For example, Governor Van Scharphuys (1689-1696), the successor of Cornelis van Aerssen, was so maligned in complains, particularly by the Jewish community, that he was recalled. The most notorious case was the feud between Governor Mauricius and a number of prominent members of the Court of Police (with their coterie), whom he called the <em>Cabale</em>. Although Mauricius was highly esteemed in the Netherlands and the Surinam planters were considered barbarian troublemakers, his position nevertheless became untenable and he was forced to leave the colony. (He spent the rest of his life accounting for his deeds.) To reestablish order, the States-General sent a contingent of soldiers commanded by Baron von Spörcke, who took over the reigns.<br /><br />The courts were the instruments by which the planters could steer the government of the colony. They retained this power more or less intact until the end of the English occupation in 1816. When Surinam came under the umbrella of the Netherlands, there was no longer room for agencies mingling state affairs with the administration of justice. The internal government structure had to be brought in line with the Dutch system. The Court of Police was allowed to continue her juridical duties until 1828 and even retained some say in domestic affairs, but the new administrative structure established in the Government Papers of 1828 clearly underlined the principle of a division of power. A new <strong>Hof van Civile en Criminele Justitie </strong>was created that no longer interfered in political affairs. It consisted of a president and at least four members who were trained lawyers. The two remaining justices were chosen from the inhabitants and were not obliged to have juridical expertise. After 1845, however, citizens without these qualifications were no longer eligible.<br /><br />The <strong>Hoge Raad van de Nederlandse West-Indische Bezittingen</strong>, established in 1828, was a select group of officials (the Attorney-General, the Comptroller-General, the Commissioner for the Inland Population and the Commissioner for the Domains, plus the Government Secretary) and in no way represented the population. The inhabitants protested their disfranchisement and not in vain: in 1832 they got a new ‘parliament’ in the form of a <strong>Coloniale Raad</strong>, consisting of the Attorney-General, Comptroller-General and six representatives of the people, whose influence, however, was limited to advising the Governor. It was abolished in 1862, a year before Surinam slaves were finally set free.<br /><br />Increasingly, the administration of Surinam became the terrain of a bureaucratic apparatus, which recruited its members partly from the inhabitants (Jews and coloreds in particular), but was dominated by ‘continentals’. Consequently, the civil servants were less intimately related to the planter class. Not without reason, the inhabitants of Surinam came to believe that their interests were subordinated to those of the motherland as never before.<br /><br />During the era of the Society, several smaller councils were established in order to deal with less weighty matters. They were also manned by members of the planter class and included the following agencies. (a) The <strong>College van Commissarissen voor Kleine Zaken</strong> (Commission for Small Affairs), established by Governor Van Scharphuys and consisting of a vice-president (a former member of the Court of Civil Justice), a secretary and nine members. They deliberated cases involving less than 250 guilders and they supervised the upkeep of public buildings and canals. (b) The <strong>College van Opzichters der Gemeene Weide</strong> (Commission for the Common Meadow), likewise an invention of Van Scharphuys, was responsible for the supervision of the common grazing land near Paramaribo. (c) The <strong>Wees- en Onbeheerde Boedelkamer</strong> (Commission for Orphans and Ownerless Estates), inaugurated by Governor Van Aerssen, was formed by several trustees (called <em>weesmeesters</em>), a secretary, a bookkeeper, a treasurer and a sworn clerk and administered the properties of minors and the estates of citizens who had died without an heir. Many of these positions provided ample opportunity for personal enrichment.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Bones of contention.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264809706213428466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 265px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha6WrxCa7nXmbz_nhFz8YSZPNHPNRr-8uWoes92_bw_b7ntE8TInXUG2q3HT7cW2msS19OfmQZHFyiLCvn5XqrHhSifIbht1ovbVtLODlKkOe-60d82PP1N6AXOl5X2JGCbbh8ioDrwII/s400/governeurspaleis.jpg" border="0" /><br /></strong><em>Taxation.<br /></em><br />The Society of Surinam considered the colony primarily a fief, which was expected to yield a substantial profit, as well as bear the costs of its own administration and defense. To pay for all of this, the Society levied duties on the inhabitants, the sort and severity of which had been fixed by the <em>Octrooy</em>. In their desire to lure new settlers, the overlords had been a bit too congenial, however. It soon became apparent that these taxes were not sufficient to cover the expenses, let alone furnish the shareholders of the Society with a handsome dividend.<br /><br />Each duty had its own <em>komptoor</em> (office) and its own <em>ontvanger</em> (collector). The most important tax was the <em>hoofdgeld</em> (poll tax). Each colonist had to pay 50 pounds of sugar (or fl. 2.50) a year for every adult in his household and every slave over the age of twelve, plus half that amount for every child between the ages of three and twelve. The mounting costs of defense necessitated an additional poll tax in 1756. This manner of taxation remained in operation until 1850, when it was abolished for the free population.<br /><br />Custom duties brought in a pretty penny as well. Incoming Dutch ships had to pay a <em>lastgeld </em>(recognition due) of fl. 3 per <em>last</em> (=two tons), foreign ships double that amount. Furthermore, a tax on exported goods (<em>waaggeld</em>) of 2.5% (in later years 5%) was levied. The customs on imports depended on the nature of the merchandise and the country it originated from. Both kinds of taxes had been stipulated in the <em>Octrooy </em>and accrued to the Society by right of <a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=TRcNmYsHjQwC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=Domaine+Utile&source=bl&ots=ssm_QXahse&sig=qsa9aUsL6Z1fmq2MJ2aqrTFbK1A&hl=nl&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result"><em>Domaine</em> <em>Utile</em></a>. Since the revenues were disappointing, the Court of Police consented to a tax on public auctions. A buyer had to contribute 5% of the value of the purchase (except in the case of slaves, when it was only 2, 5%), while the seller was relieved of 3% of his turnover.<br /><br />Apart from these, taxes were exacted for specific purposes. The <strong>Cassa van Modique Lasten</strong> collected the duties on alcoholic beverages and the involuntary contributions of taverns and inns (250 to 500 guilders a year). The revenues were set aside for the payment of ministers, the <em>Schout</em>, his deputies and other public servants and for aid to the poor and widowed. The <strong>Cassa</strong> <strong>der Gemeene Weide</strong> was filled by the duties on houses, carriages, horses, etc. and paid for the upkeep of the roads and the harbor and for the beautification of the city. In 1750, a ‘runaway’ tax was conceived, collected by the <strong>Cassa tegen de Wegloopers</strong> and filled by an impost of fl. 1 on every slave and a tax on capital assets and plantation products. The bottom of this chest was visible most of the time.<br /><br />One kind of tax was a source of constant friction between the citizens and the Society: the <em>akkergeld</em> (land-tax). The Zeelandian patrons had demanded a contribution of one pound of sugar per <em>akker</em> (acre) each year from their ‘tenants’, but this tax had not been included in the <em>Octrooy</em>. It was therefore deemed illegal by the inhabitants and when Governor Van Aerssen tried to impose it anyway, they sent vehement protests to the States-General and where put in the right. All contributions paid between 1683 and 1694 had to be restituted. In 1713, the Society tried to reinstate the <em>akkergeld</em>, but was overruled by the States-General again. Only in 1755, the Society was allowed to legislate that ‘old’ planters and planters who already owned 500 acres or more would not receive new grants of land unless they consented to pay an <em>akkergeld</em> of two <em>stuivers </em>(nickels) a year for each acre. Newcomers were still awarded 500 acres free of charge. In 1774, a tax of four nickels per acre a year was levied on all new timber concessions. This time the States-General supported these measures and the planters had to bow to the authority of the Society.<br /><br />During the 18th century, expenditures increasingly exceeded receipts, primarily because of the mounting costs of defending the colony against marauding Maroons. Consequently, when the English took over in 1804, the finances were in complete disarray. Governor Bonham (1811-1816) discovered a deficit of no less than 500,000 guilders. Better collecting methods had remedied this by 1812. After 1816, the Dutch government did not expect to make a profit from the possession of Surinam, but did strive for a healthy financial balance. The taxation system was streamlined and all taxes were collected in one <em>rijkskas</em>. The revenues nevertheless never reached sufficient levels. Towards the end of the slavery era, the Dutch government had grown accustomed to the fact that Surinam would remain a drain on her resources. Yearly, more than 200,000 guilders -out of the East-Indian profits- were pumped into the treasury of the colony, a pattern of subsidizing that would continue in one form or another up to this day.<br /><br />Apart from a few copper coins (marked with a parrot) that were illegally minted during the patronage of Zeeland, for most of the early period, Dutch money was the only legal tender. The planters were allowed to pay their debts in sugar, valued a five cents a pound, but this practice was soon largely abandoned in favor of using <em>wissels</em> (letters of exchange), drawn on correspondents in Amsterdam. The lack of a circulating medium became so pressing that under the administration of Governor <a href="http://www.crommelin.org/history/Biographies/1712Wigbold/WigboldCrommelin.htm">Wigbold Crommelin</a> (1757-1769) paper money (the so-called <em>kaartengeld</em>) was issued in large quantities. It was fashioned from playing cards, valued at 10, 5, 2.50, 1 or 0.50 guilders. Because of rampant inflation, this ‘money’ steadily dropped in value, until in the beginning of the 19th century 310 Surinam guilders equaled only 100 Dutch guilders.<br /><br /><em>Defense.<br /></em><br />Separated from the homeland by thousands of miles of unruly waters, surrounded more by enemies than by allies, the citizens of Surinam were justified in feeling insecure. The inherent vulnerability of this colony, gained by conquest and nearly lost the same way within a few months, became painfully apparent whenever hostilities broke out in the Caribbean (which in the 17th and 18th centuries was one of the main theatres of war). The inhabitants of Surinam had to be constantly on the alert to ward off invaders. Each time the Netherlands were locked in battle with Spain, France, or England, Surinam was threatened. Directly, as hostile vessels came to seek either new colonies or the spoils of extortion, or indirectly when the sea routes were blocked. During the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Anglo-Dutch_War">Fourth Anglo-Dutch War</a></strong> (1780-1784), for example, English brigands intercepted so many ships that the colony was practically cut off from the rest of the world. The prices of necessities rose exorbitantly and the slaves and lower classes suffered from famine.<br /><br />In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the French proved the worst enemy. From their outpost in Cayenne, they could observe only too well the shoddiness of the defenses and the riches of the plantations. In 1689, a French fleet commanded by Admiral Jean-Baptiste Ducasse sneaked up the Suriname River, but was repulsed heroically -a feat in which Francois de Chattilon, the son of Governor Van Aarssen, took a leading part. In 1712, another French fleet, under the command of the celebrated <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cassard">Jacques Cassard</a>, a brave sailor led astray by his <em>lettre de marque</em>, was chased off at first, but returned, considerably reinforced, several months later. Threatening to burn down Paramaribo and the surrounding plantations, he blackmailed the colony into parting with a whole year’s revenue, calculated at 750,000 guilders. It was paid partly in the form of sugar, partly in the form of 750 slaves, coins, gold, silver and other valuables. The loss was a severe blow for the colony: the tribute represented nearly 10% of the total assets and the inhabitants were taxed accordingly.<br /><br />The fortifications were strengthened after this debacle, but nevertheless the Count of Kersaint and his fleet could occupy Surinam with only slight resistance in 1782, though fortunately for the planters, the French were not interested in keeping their prize. The English could overrun (and later abandon) Surinam at will in 1799 and 1804.<br /><br />For most of the plantation era, the internal foes proved a much greater menace than the external ones, however. The <strong>Indian War</strong> shook the budding colony in its foundations. The Caribs, the allies of the English, had felt increasingly persecuted by the Dutch and their best friends, the Arawaks, but there were other reasons for the outburst as well. Governor Van Aerssen observed that one courted disaster if one <em>“portrays as Heroic and Valiant actions the robbing of women or children from the Indians, as well as taking away their canoes and Slaves, throwing at them the Merchandise one wants to get rid of, and having them serve like Slaves as hunters and fishermen, Without Payment”</em>. In 1674, the Caribs under the direction of chief Kaaikoeni attacked some of their tormentors. However, the revolt only gained momentum towards 1680, when they devastated a large number of isolated plantations in the Upper Suriname and Para region, with the aid of runaway slaves led by Ganimet. For a while, they terrorized the entire western part of Surinam. The shaken whites flocked to Paramaribo and, feeling no safer there, appealed for outside help. At the time, there were only 50 soldiers present, who were of course unable to subdue the irate Indians. In response, Zeeland sent 150 soldiers, who were called back before the hostilities ended (in 1682).<br /><br />Since the Arawaks refused to join the rebellion –though they did not actively support their Dutch allies either- the tide slowly turned. After destroying five of their villages, Governor Van Aerssen managed to win the trust and respect of the Caribs and in 1684 he concluded a peace treaty with the principal chiefs, consenting to ‘wed’ an Indian ‘princess’ in the bargain. The treaty recognized the Caribs, Arawaks and Waraus as free Indians, who could not be enslaved, except as a punishment for crimes. The Indians belonging to other tribes were not protected this way. During the same period, Van Aerssen reconciled the whites with a group of runaway slaves in the Coppename region (under the command of Jermes), who would later intermarry with the Kalopina Indians and be known as the <em>Karboegers of the Coppename</em>. [The label <em>karboeger </em>was normally reserved for the offspring of a black and a mulatto, so it follows that the colonists considerd Indians equal to mulattoes, namely half black.]<br /><br />Not only the deprived coloreds formed a threat to the master class, the whites on the bottom rung of the social ladder could not be relied on either. The soldiers of the Society consisted for a considerable part of convicts and paupers ‘shanghaied’ by unscrupulous crimps. Governor Van Aerssen, a just but stern and bad-tempered man and an unbendingly devout Christian, was determined to put a stop to their loafing, drinking and womanizing (the result of boredom in his opinion) by shortening their rations and obliging them to carry stones and dig trenches. When a group of discontented soldiers confronted him with their grievances, he drew his sword and was immediately riddled with bullets. Commander Laurens Verboom was severely wounded. The rebels captured Fort Zeelandia with the aid of the rest of the garrison, but found that they had maneuvered themselves into an untenable position. They were overtaken by the militia and soldiers from the outposts who had remained loyal, reluctantly supported by the crews of the merchant ships moored in the harbor. The murderers of Van Aerssen were executed and the other rebels were taken to Holland in small groups and released there. The suppression of the mutiny was thorough and never again the soldiers united in protest, although their circumstances hardly improved during the 18th century.<br /><br />The first groups of runaway slaves (called <em>wegloopers</em> or <em>schuylders</em> by the whites) were formed during the Willoughby era, but only around 1720, they were sufficiently strong to constitute a real menace. Until the end of the 18th century, the whites had to wage a ceaseless war against them, which brought Surinam society to the brink of collapse several times. Saddened and wiser, the whites were obliged to swallow their pride and grant their despised inferiors serious concessions. This, however, permitted them to adopt a divide-and-conquer strategy, which effectively isolated their most dangerous foes. They concluded peace treaties with the most important groups of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_(people)">Maroons</a> in 1760, 1762 and 1767 and this helped them to preserve the viability of plantation agriculture for decades to come.<br /><br />From all of this can be inferred that the whites of Surinam were beset by dangers at all sides. Therefore, it is no wonder that they kept clamoring for a stronger defense and more soldiers. For the most part this was in vain and only in the 19th century, Surinam attained the desired stability. The <em>Octrooy</em> had laid the responsibility for the defense of the colony at the door of the Society. It did not take the directors very long to foresee how this would overtax their means. They did not hesitate to shift the main burden on the shoulders of the inhabitants, both with regard to bearing the costs as to actual performance.<br /><br />For the largest part of the 17th and 18th centuries, the <em>Burgerwacht</em> was the mainstay of the defense system. The Society did little more than stationing a small garrison in Paramaribo and a couple of other fortifications. These strongholds were mainly constructed to ward off foreign invaders. The inhabitants had to bear the brunt of the <em>bostochten</em> (jungle patrols) against runaway slaves. The <em>Burgerwacht</em> consisted of 10 companies: 3 were stationed in Paramaribo, 6 in the various divisions and there was a separate Jewish company. In 1770, a company entirely consisting of free Negroes and Mulattoes was added. The higher officers were chosen from the ranks of the plantation owners and the most important directors, the rank and file was made up of the less prominent directors and the <em>blankofficieren</em>. In Paramaribo, small traders and artisans were included as well. Every white citizen was free to muster a patrol on his own initiative and expense, but was only recompensed with the reward money for catching runaways or destroying a Maroon village.<br /><br />Many of the plantation employees were not very eager to risk their lives for the protection of their patron’s property. Governor Van Aerssen complained in 1687 (when a rebellion of red and black slaves in Berbice had obliged him to dispatch Commander Verboom and his soldiers to aid the beleaguered whites): <em>“when planters, or Directors say, that they have been appointed as Directors to continue the Cultivation of the plantations but in no way to act as Soldiers, and hazard their person and life for protection, and Defense of another person’s goods, I should put them outside the fort, with orders not to get nearer than a Musket Shot, or I would make</em> [the soldiers] <em>shoot at them as at the Enemy, and bring them to their duty this way, because now they are a Burden to Your Noble Lords in the fort, doing nothing but eating, and snuffing Tobacco, and walking up and down the fort in their Slippers, and creating discontent by their talk and example”. </em>The behavior of most of the plantation officers, who were cowering in the bushes during the attack of Cassard, proved him right. Their bravery evaporated to an even greater degree later in the 18th century, when they had to venture deep into the jungle in pursuit of the elusive Maroons. The richer planters often ducked the bullet bij hiring replacements.<br /><br />The attack of Cassard spurred the placid colonists and the Society into action. They tried to heap the blame on each other. The <em>burgerscapiteins</em> sent a long list of complaints to the States-General, which appointed emissaries from Holland and West Friesland to sort out the mess and advise them. The Society countered the accusations by pointing to the unwillingness of the inhabitants to pay their taxes: <em>“so we now had to miss for thirty years, such considerable funds from which otherwise the security of the colony could have been augmented”.</em> In 1713, the emissaries decided in favor of the Society and the inhabitants were ordered to submit to its authority and to pay their taxes loyally. They were denied their request for repayment of the damages they suffered at the hands of the French.<br /><br />Apart from a small company of artillery, the garrison of the Society consisted in the beginning of the 18th century of three companies of 75 men. From 1726 on, the Governor also functioned as colonel of his own regiment. After the Cassard debacle, the military forces were expanded steadily until the middle of the century, when the Society officially commanded a ‘standing’ army of 1200 men (two battalions with six companies of 100 men each). Furthermore, the City of Amsterdam pledged to supply another company of 300 men. This impressive army existed only on paper, due to the heavy mortality rate of the soldiers, the high expense and the difficulty of signing up mercenaries for duty in these unhealthy parts. At first, the Society and the citizens split the bill evenly, but in 1750, the agreement was revised and the latter had to cough up three quarters of the funds needed.<br /><br />Several times, the shaky defenses had to be shored up with State soldiers. When the <em>Octrooy</em> was drawn up, the provinces of the Low Countries (with the exception of Friesland) each promised to pay for one soldier in every company. In 1747, when there were only 300 troops fit for duty left, the States-General generously sent 400 more, but the inhabitants had to foot three quarters of the bill. They were called back in 1754. During the height of the Maroon guerrilla (Boni War) in the 1770’s, the States-General came to the aid of the planters again with an army of nearly 2000 men, under the command of colonel Fourgeoud. It was supposed to save the colony from ruin, but its upkeep nearly bankrupted it instead.<br /><br />From the 1730’s on, the soldiers of the Society and the State had played an increasingly important part in the <em>bostochten</em> against the Maroons, but they did not manage to strike a decisive blow. Consequently, during the Boni War, the insight dawned that white warriors were not only expensive, but also practically useless in jungle fights. Therefore, the representatives of the planters reluctantly agreed to enlist the help of blacks. In 1772, against a lot of opposition, the <em><a href="http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?lang=nl;sid=f8e23f6c2b6550756a63a540b3809f57;q1=Stedman;rgn1=surinamica_all;size=20;c=surinamica;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=surinamica;entryid=x-37;viewid=SURI01_NOK95155P099PL.SID;start=1;resnum=5">Corps Zwarte Jagers</a></em> (Black Chasseurs, also called the Free Corps or <em>Redi Moesoe</em> –Red Caps) was formed. It was made up of 300 of the strongest and most loyal slaves, whose freedom was bought by the government. They proved singularly successful in engagements with the Maroons.<br /><br />After the demise of the Society, the defense of the colony became the responsibility of the Dutch government. The expenses it incurred for this reason contributed a lot to the permanent deficit of the Surinam administration during the 19th century. This in spite of the fact that the possession of the colony had been secure after 1816 and that the Maroons had been largely pacified.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264809029320838274" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 322px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKuXw40WCC7E9qs1eXmR5hgNO0MzAEKx6Yjf53dHyiGclBpyJIxmQY1IxtzedHfvqZFkl_rq91E1RerwaARU41qFeM_fxDjI57CeqjSUpK5fNkRsPNMc_nNdyWsiMLt_jLjh8-Sqi12YM/s400/Zeelandiaa.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Fort Zeelandia</strong>, taken over from the English intact, remained the pillar of the Surinam defense system during the whole of the slavery era. It was built to shield Paramaribo from outside attack, but left the most prosperous plantations unprotected. Therefore, Governor Van Aerssen took measures for their defense right away. In 1685, he started with the construction of a small fort on the confluence of the Commewijne and the Cottica, after his tragic end renamed <strong>Fort Sommelsdijck</strong>. It was designed to guard the ‘back’ of the plantation area against sneaky attacks from the Indians and Maroons, but the cultivated land soon extended far beyond it. Van Aerssen also constructed a small stronghold at the mouth of the Para: <strong>Fort Para</strong>, a rather presumptuous name for a mere fortified cabin, at first manned by a bunch of criminals shipped to the colony in 1684. Its main function was to guard Paramaribo. Having outlived its usefulness, it was abandoned in 1740. The early defense ring was closed by a battery of artillery stationed near the Motkreek on the coast. The military post here was called the <strong>Brandwacht</strong>. The inhabitants had to contribute to the building of the fortifications by supplying materials and slaves for the heavy construction work. The planters, especially the ones who lived nearby and were bothered most, considered this an unmitigated nuisance.<br /><br />In the end, even the most stubborn planters realized that the Society could not finance the upgrading of the defense system on its own. After a lot of squabbling, a compromise was reached in 1733: the fortifications would be brought up-to-date in seven years, with the Society investing 20,000 guilders a year and the inhabitants trice that amount. The money was to be paid into a special chest. The directors sent an engineer with the fitting name Draak (= Dragon) to devise a <em>plan de campagne</em>. The next year the construction of an impressive new fort was begun. It was called <strong>Nieuw Amsterdam</strong> and situated on a mud bank (<em>Tijgershol</em>) near the confluence of the Suriname and Commewijne rivers. Its canons commanded the river ways and saved the citizens of Paramaribo from more surprises. On the opposite bank, a redoubt named <strong>Purmerend</strong> was added in 1748 and a second one, <strong>Leiden</strong>, was built between 1754 and 1758. In 1748, the Society and the Court of Police decided to share the costs of the upkeep of these fortifications equally. The most severe drain on resources in later years was the construction of the <strong>Cordon Pad</strong>, built during the height of the Boni War (1774-17778) and a brainchild of Governor Nepveu. It walled off the cultivated part of the colony from the area invested with Maroons.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262729493610461186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 371px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro1cKhtWnwE6keTJzpmKIwvGNSDLons_x_8RSSensMm5OhvXc-kLfaj5RGhyoDi1ODoAp_lc5YK4zYFG0TOgv7ddtPVuY05T_soRhkCskU3uM6dYRzKs2yXc0MkeiBWe9xvDEvTEbYmk/s400/Fort-Nieuw-Amsterdam.jpg" border="0" />During the 19th century, the fortifications lost much of their former importance, since the defense against external foes was mainly secured by the Dutch navy. Fort Zeelandia and Fort Nieuw Amsterdam, which doubled as prisons during the slavery era (being among the few brick buildings in the colony), ended up exclusively as detention centers.<br /><br /><em>Trade.</em><br /><br />Trade was another subject of dissent between the homeland and the colony. In general, the Dutch were firm believers in the principle of free trade and only occasionally displayed mercantilist leanings. However, where their East- and West-Indian possessions were concerned, they chose a protectionist line. The <em>Octrooy </em>reserved the trade with Surinam for citizens of the United Provinces. This soon proved untenable, as severe food shortages ensued, which created dangerous discontent. Therefore, in 1704, the Society relented and permitted ‘small foreign trade’ by ships from <em>Nieuw Engeland</em>, <em>Nieuw Nederland</em> and the surrounding islands (in practice mostly from <em>Rood Yland</em> and Boston). The traders were severely curtailed with regard to the goods they could carry: only <em>“Horses and Beasts, on account of which much space is used for food and Water, and further Bakkeljauw, that is bad salted or dried Fish, bad Maryland Tobacco for the Slaves, Flour & C”</em> were acceptable as incoming cargo. It was not permitted to foreign ships to take along sugar, exports were limited to <em>“molasses, Surinam brandy, sawed wood such as beams, planks and trunks, and further all other goods and merchandise brought from the United Netherlands to Surinam”.</em> It was strictly forbidden to ship out <em>“Slaves, Beasts and mills”</em> without permission from the Governor. All foreign ships were obliged to deliver at least one horse, since there was a crippling shortage of draught animals for the sugar mills. This rule was an unwelcome burden for the skippers, who frequently took along only a head and claimed that the horse had died at sea. The value of the imports far surpassed that of the return cargoes, so the balance of trade with the USA was persistently negative. The only other foreign ships that docked in Surinam legally originated from the British Caribbean (Barbados, Jamaica, Granada and Antigua).<br /><br />During the entire slavery era, Surinam was totally dependent on food from overseas. August Kappler observed: <em>”The import of the most diverse victuals is so important, that, if this stopped for only three months, the inhabitants of the most fruitful land in the world might famish.”</em> In many instances, Surinam people preferred buying foreign goods to producing them in the colony, even if perfectly feasible. For example: there used to be brick works in the Para region, but during the second half of the 18th century, they were all abandoned, because heaps of bricks were brought from Holland (often in the form of ballast for ships). In addition, despite the fact that Surinam was covered with forests, lower grades of timber still had to be imported from the USA, because the producers could not keep up with the demand. This was not an unsolvable problem, but Surinam planters preferred to focus all their energies on the production of coffee and sugar.<br /><br />The balance of trade and payment with the motherland was firmly positive during the 18th century, when exports exceeded imports consistently by more than 30%. All the sugar and coffee the colony produced had to be shipped by Dutch vessels and sold on the Dutch market. This did not handicap the planters much, because their entire production could easily be absorbed by the homeland. In fact, sugar production could satisfy only one third of the demand and coffee half. This meant that Surinam planters could always sell their products quickly, but since they were not protected on the Dutch market, after 1750 prices were kept low by competition from the French territories (particularly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Domingue">Saint-Domingue</a>). Considering the high production costs, it is doubtful whether Surinam products could ever have competed in foreign markets. Nevertheless, Surinam planters favored free trade.<br /><br />They had good reason for this, for the strict regulation of the slave trade under the WIC-monopoly proved disastrous for the young colony. The supply was irregular, the quality of the slaves was dubious and the quantity was wholly insufficient. In 1730, Dutch private traders were finally allowed to participate in the traffic, after the Governor, <em>burgerofficieren</em> and citizens had bombarded the Society, the WIC and the States-General with requests for more than 40 years. Foreign slave traders were belatedly permitted entry at the end of the 18th century, when the stream of slaves dragged to the colony had dried up to a trickle.<br /><br />Because of all these troubles, the inhabitants of Surinam felt themselves hemmed in by the monetary interests of the motherland on all sides. Even after the Dutch authorities had given up all hope of ever making a profit from Surinam, this sense of deprivation did not disappear. In the 19th century, the Dutch government and investors directed their capital towards the East-Indian possessions and Surinam became an economical backwater with a fastly dwindling number of plantations and nothing to replace them.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262724582737915730" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 234px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhku7F2VastBtwgtpOXRrI6xLLlLRRnh3xXL5iXHT5E68RrJEmRHyP9yb_jXOJFSXiSoaeBRNkitgr8nzLGh4GIT2KZO37gg_VpyHaBBxzx8A4lKT8TP1oboFBA1PMDSLiCyAiVk6XbpSY/s400/Amsterdam-+-WIC.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong><br />A profitable colony?<br /></strong><br />Rudolf van Lier has chosen the label ‘frontier society’ as the most appropriate for describing Surinam. Colonial Surinam was a society situated on the edge of the territory under European influence, as well as on the edge of the most impressive jungle area of the world. It is important to keep this image in mind, for this curious situation had far-reaching consequences, psychological as well as economical. Van Lier’s other characterizations are complementary to this basic image. He classifies the Surinam of the 17th and early 18th centuries as a <em>volksplanting</em> (farming colony), because a reasonable number of white families had chosen the colony as a permanent domicile. During the 18th century, however, Surinam transformed into a <em>“classical example of a plantation colony”</em>. In my opinion, the mere presence of a number of white families (which in Surinam has always been very modest compared to the proportion of white families in proper farm colonies and compared to the number of single white men in the colony itself) is not a decisive factor. Surinam has never been a real <em>volksplanting,</em> certainly not in the sense that Barbados, Puerto Rico and Cuba were.<br /><br />The colony was doomed from the beginning to waste people, land and capital in a quest for easy riches. The first ship that sailed up the Suriname River with slaves on board sealed its fate. There probably was no other option in the eyes of the colonists: <em>“Given the lack of an alternative labor supply, it is difficult to see how European nations could have settled America and exploited its resources without the aid of African slaves”</em>, David Brion Davis mused. Surinam was typically a land with open resources about which H.J. Nieboer remarked: <em>“As long as there is an abundance of land not yet appropriated and therefore at the disposal of whoever may choose to cultivate it, nobody applies to an other for employment and the only labourers a man can produce are forced labourers.” </em>Whatever the underlying causes, the colony of Surinam was firmly put on the road to a plantation economy shortly after its discovery, resulting in untold misery, not only for countless blacks, victimized by a slavery system reputed to be one of the harshest in the world, but for most of the rest of the population as well. Those who struck it rich were rare.<br /><br />To succeed, a plantation colony must have access to an unlimited supply of cheap labor and fertile land, as well as to sufficient capital. Surinam lacked the former two and squandered the latter. Therefore, the colony was much less of an economic success than many authors claim. <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/prices.htm">Richard Price</a>, for example, relying heavily on the overly optimistic Jewish planter David Cohen Nassy, regards Surinam as an <em>“enormously profitable colony”.</em> This may have been true during the few decades (1720-1750) that plantation agriculture spread like wildfire, but during most of the colonial period the apparent luxury was financed by outside sources. Contrary to popular believe, Surinam contributed little to the prosperity of the Netherlands.<br /><br />The citizens of Surinam had the annoying habit of hardly ever paying their creditors in full. The first victims of this national sport were the Society and the WIC. The tax collectors had to harass the population constantly to get their due. The suppliers of goods and slaves were even worse off. In the beginning, the planters were allowed to settle their debts with deliveries of sugar, but this meant that the creditors had to wait for the harvest to be finished. The skippers could not afford to hang around in Paramaribo for months, so the letters of exchange came in vogue. By 1720, most of the planters bought on credit this way. Since they often spent more than was advisable, it did not take long before the first <em>wissels</em> started to come back ‘protested’ (meaning that their correspondents in Amsterdam refused to honor them) and during the 1730’s, the first plantations went bankrupt. Only a few suppliers were able to recoup their losses. The main creditor was the WIC: it was estimated that about half the money due to the organization was never paid. Later in the 18th century, Dutch investors carelessly sunk more than 40 million guilders into the colony. Plantations and slaves were grossly overvalued. In 1773, the bubble burst and many lost all but the shirt on their back. With that kind of money floating around, it is not difficult to sustain an aura of prosperity.<br /><br />Lately, it has become fashionable to blame the failure of the Surinam plantations during the 19th century on the reluctance of the metropolitan capitalists to invest in the colony and to technological backwardness. Although these factors have certainly contributed, I doubt whether a different approach would have led to a different outcome. Even the government plantations, backed by an almost unlimited supply of capital and willing to innovate, could not be saved. This does not mean that Surinam planters considered themselves doomed and were eager to rid themselves of the taint of slavery. The only thing that kept the decrepit plantations going was cheap labor. Free workers had no advantages under Surinam conditions. It was outside influence, namely the willingness of the Dutch government to spend 9 million guilders to buy the freedom of the 30,000 <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/vrij-in-suriname/">remaining slaves</a>, which in 1863 finally ended bondage. </p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586824375465383550.post-41478304626069116492008-03-07T15:06:00.053+01:002009-02-07T01:28:05.615+01:00Introduction: An anthropologist adrift in the archives.<div align="justify"><em><br />The research for this study was conducted between 1979 and 1983. An unfortunate change in circumstances forced me to abandon this project halfway through the second draft and the thesis was never published. Since the manuscript contains information and insights that are still valuable, I decided to put the result of my efforts on the internet, in the guise of a web log. However, I publish the study in a far from finished state: I haven't set foot in a university for almost 25 years, no additional research was undertaken and the existing text was merely edited. Since I do not want other researchers to 'borrow' the fruits of my exertions, I have left out the references. The rest of this chapter is an adaption of the original introduction.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264850592189821730" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 297px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02iwePgCXJDlpIHvi5AeDtNIEcLRWOV3atjh1nNJtzKh8vmBrXb0JUwxHv_XtQq-GtZnVZfnLTnSGiIefrqLxQoOe-l4FFy6LKdA7GHSzKzJe4bRT0oGeglFtmNanXY0I9j85vwCu-8I/s400/kaart-Blaeuw2.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /></em><strong>The study.<br /></strong><br />Choosing a subject for research is seldom done with only rational considerations in mind. On the contrary, more often than not the final decision is determined by coincidences. As for me, I never planned to devote myself to historical anthropology and least of all to archival research, but when the opportunity presented itself and there were no other attractive alternatives on the horizon, I jumped at the chance. I grant that such a study cannot be considered ‘proper’ anthropology and it certainly does not constitute a genuine ‘rite of passage’, as does fieldwork.<br /><br />This study was part of a project called <strong>Development of Afro-American culture in the Guyana’s</strong>. The initial subject of my research (<strong>slave culture in Surinam</strong>) was chosen out of interest and because it fitted in with the other studies in the project, not with the practical matter of data collection in mind. My supervisor wanted me to concentrate on slave religion, but that subject did not attract me at all. He believed, rather naively as I later discovered, that the archives teemed with information about the Surinam slave population and about slave culture in particular. Experience in the archives has taught me in the meantime that this is not the best way to choose a subject for historiography.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Archival sources.<br /></strong><br />When I first set foot in the archives, they were unchartered territory and no guides were available to put me on the right track. I had several kilometers of archival material to peruse and no clue where to start. For an anthropologist who has been trained to select a subject and, after proper preparation, pursue it systematically (unless beset by calamities), this was a rather bewildering situation. It was simply not possible to study a subject as elusive as slave culture systematically. At most, I could find scattered references to the slave population in a wide variety of sources. If I wanted to get a complete picture, I had to go through all these volumes.<br /><br />This turned out to be an impossible task. I once heard a historian remark that one should spend at least three whole years in the archives before attempting to write up the material. In the case of the Surinam sources, even ten years would not have been enough to merely leaf through all the pages, let alone read all the potentially interesting parts and make notes. The data I needed could be contained in all kinds of papers. These were usually not indexed and the only guides available were the references in the work of Rudolf van Lier and the citations assembled by the students of Sylvia de Groot in the course of a STICUSA-project. It took me several months before I could see a pattern in the mass of potential data. Some kinds of manuscripts were clearly more likely to yield information on slaves (by then I had already given up looking for data on slave culture alone) than others. Nevertheless, I spent most days hastily perusing notes in the sidelines (which were fortunately present sometimes) hoping to find references to slavery there –which were scant. Ultimately, I did gather many data on slaves, although not often the kind I wanted.<br /><br />The quality of the data I could find was determined by the quality of the records kept by the clerks that filled the offices of the government agencies. Their interest in the slave population was one-sided at best. Few of them bothered to refer to the ‘personal life’ of the slaves. The only things that caught their attention were the occasional departures from the ideal of the perfect slave: insufficient work, resistance to authority, or too great a preoccupation with their own pleasures.<br /><br />Most of the archives pertaining to Surinam rest in the <strong>General State Archives</strong> in The Hague. They were the product of official institutions. Few personal documents have survived, neither has the bulk of the plantation records. The archives that proved pivotal to my research were:<br />(1) the <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/webviews/page.webview?eadid=NL-HaNA_1.05.10.01">archives</a> of the <strong>Court of Police and Criminal Justice</strong>;<br />(2) the <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/webviews/page.webview?eadid=NL-HaNA_1.05.10.01">archives</a> of the <strong>Government Secretariat</strong>;<br />(3) the <a href="http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/toegangen/pdf/NL-HaNA_1.05.03.ead.pdf">archives</a> of the <strong>Society of Surinam</strong>.<br /><br />Of these archives, only the records of the Society of Surinam were assembled in the Netherlands. The other archives were put together in Surinam and only sent to the fatherland in the beginning of the 19th century, after the Dutch government had been alerted by the fact that the English had carted away everything that caught their fancy before they returned the colony to the Dutch in 1816. This difference was vitally important. Thanks to the moderate climate and superior care, the archives of the Society of Surinam have withstood the onslaughts of time much better than the other archives. Even the earliest volumes (dating from 1683) can be consulted. The other archives had suffered profoundly from the hot and humid climate, insects and neglect. Many volumes have been lost, or are in such a fragile condition that they have been marked with a red dot (which means that greedy researchers are not allowed to touch them). Consequently, most of the material dating from the 17th and 18th centuries is out of bound. Only manuscripts produced after 1770 have mostly escaped the feared red sign of decay.<br /><br />These handicaps determined in large part the way the archival research was carried out. For the period before 1750, I was almost wholly dependent on the materials contained in the archives of the Society of Surinam. I concentrated my efforts on the <strong>Letters and Papers from Surinam</strong>, records sent to the directors of the Society in order to keep them informed. In these volumes, all kinds of data can be found. Very valuable were the population statistics, in the form of the yearly <strong>List of Whites and Red and Black Slaves</strong>. Furthermore, they included the letters from the Governor and other functionaries, lists of ships and their cargoes, and all kinds of incidental information that could turn out to be very interesting (for example, the complete journal of a slave voyage undertaken in 1686). For the period 1750 to 1820, I depended mostly on the archives of the Government Secretariat and the Court of Police and Criminal Justice. The former contained the <strong>Governor’s Journal</strong> and the <strong>Letters of the Governor to the directors of the Society</strong> (also present in the archives of the Society), which not only allowed me to trace major events (these records have been used extensively by Rudolf van Lier), but sometimes also included personal observations by knowledgeable insiders and kept faithful track of incoming slave ships.<br /><br />The archives of the Court of Police were the most valuable resource. I was only able to consult a small part, so I restricted myself to the records that showed the most promise: the <strong>Criminal Procedures</strong>. They described the trials of the offenders appearing before the Court. Understandably, many times slaves were involved. In the most serious cases, the interrogations of the accused were written up in detail, but even in more routine matters, the defense of the suspect was reported. This was the only way to get information, however distorted, out of the mouths of the slaves themselves. The <strong>Minutes</strong> of the Court I consulted only occasionally.<br /><br />The nature of the sources and the data they yielded forced me to revise my research program considerably more than once. At first, I planned to concentrate on the earliest period (1683 to 1750), during which the colony was governed by the Society of Surinam. However, most of the records from this period were out of bound and those available could not give a comprehensive picture of the slave population. Therefore, I decided to shift the focus of my research to the second half of the 18th century (1750 to 1795). The records of this period were complete and it was an interesting era in the history of the colony. The economic crisis of 1773 constituted a breaking point and abruptly transformed Surinam from a hopeful and prosperous colony to a dispirited and declining one. The situation of the slaves also changed profoundly. The decision to include the beginning of the 19th century as well was only made after a trip to Surinam, where I had searched in vain for the remaining 18th century sources, but found some 19th century materials that I could not afford to pass by. Since I had not planned a systematic study of the 19th century archives and I did not have sufficient time, I only glanced at the sections of the government and court archives that have remained in Surinam (the first covering the years 1846 to 1863 and the latter the years 1828 to 1845).<br /><br />Thus, most of the material included in this study dates from the second half of the 18th century, though I try to paint a picture of the whole slavery era. The lack of data pertaining to the earliest period cannot be remedied. My relative neglect of the 19th century is primarily caused by lack of time, but it has to be noted that from 1820 on few changes in the position of the slaves occurred, until they were emancipated in 1863.<br /><br />The subject of my research had to be revised as well. It soon turned out that the data on slave culture were too erratic and the gaps were too large to permit me to finish a study solely about this phenomenon. I could have chosen another specialized subject: the treatment of slaves by the juridical system. The archives of the Court of Police yielded ample data, at least for the second half of the 18th century. However, I preferred to broaden my scope rather than to narrow it. There were two important reasons for this choice. One is purely opportunistic: I had assembled a treasure trove of information about the various aspects of slave life, which had taken a substantial amount of time and sweat, and I considered it a waste not to use it. I did not want to save this material for a later publication, because I anticipated returning to a more traditional brand of anthropology later on and I certainly did not want to spend the rest of my professional life researching slavery. There also was a more scientific reason: no ‘holistic monograph’ about slavery in Surinam had appeared yet, or was likely to appear in the near future, and I believed such a monograph would be worthwhile, if only to give a further stimulus to the comparative study of slavery systems. Therefore, I decided to produce a <strong>general description of Surinam slavery</strong>, with emphasis on three closely related aspects: <strong>the treatment of slaves</strong>, <strong>slave culture</strong> and <strong>slave resistance</strong>.<br /><br />Unlike most historians, I was not alerted to the pitfalls of archival research when I started and I only became aware of them as my research progressed. Since the Surinam archives are the product of government agencies, they are very limited in scope. Not only were they filled with the scribblings of white officials, but these functionaries were mostly of upper class background as well. They certainly did not make their notes with a future scientific investigation in mind. A researcher has to make do with what they considered worthwhile and hope that at least they were accurate in the way they recorded it. Unfortunately, the quality of the archival materials detoriated as time progressed. Statistics, for example, were collected with much greater care in the first half of the 18th century than later on. The lists of inhabitants contained in the archives of the Society of Surinam were abolished in 1736 –much to my chagrin. In other instances, the earlier data seem more trustworthy because they were recorded in meticulous detail. The lists of slave imports present a good example. All ships were entered into the Governor’s Journal when they arrived and sometimes periodical overviews were included in the letters sent to the Society. In the earlier records, the provenance of the ships was noted, as well as the duration of the voyage and the exact numbers of slaves that had died at sea or had been brought into the colony. In later years, changes in the manner of trade made it impossible to list the specific harbor the slaves had been shipped from and indications like “the coast of Guinea” or even “the coast of Africa” are not particularly helpful. In most instances, the duration of the Middle Passage and the number of slaves that had succumbed at sea were no longer listed. Even worse, the number of slaves imported was often only recorded in hundreds.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261973673637841490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 160px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 224px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxA6YPC7hOmx9sD2ziNE4sR28n13oQGz7uuNu1hTaCz3tFOI1cdc938G_7gjAHCi48-cHYEVETRkYjyMiP4gUgaWJIUSeNibdrUek6TergzH9Pv-XXYU8jW1wBVgAnpL6YFvh_uIOlopk/s400/J.J.-Mauricius.jpg" border="0" />The Governor’s Journals did not get any livelier either. The quality of the content was, of course, primarily dependent on the person who made the entries and so could vary considerably even in earlier times, but at least it was the habit that the governors filled the pages themselves. The most knowledgeable of them included many candid observations on everything that caught their attention (including sometimes –but not nearly often enough- the slave population). This changed after 1780. The secretary took over the journal and at best kept us informed about the comings and goings of His Excellency, the arrival and departure of ships and the sessions of the various courts. The most valuable information can be found in the journals of two of the ablest and longest serving governors: <strong>Joan Jacob Mauricius</strong> (1742-1751) and <strong>Jan Nepveu</strong> (1768-1779). They were both excellent observers and gifted writers. While <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Jacob_Mauricius">Mauricius</a> remained an outsider (a very critical and therefore hated outsider at that), <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Nepveu">Nepveu</a> was a product of the colonial system. The fact that he was never truly brainwashed by the system and retained enough detachment to comment cynically on any development he did not like, is proof of his stature. None of this candidness can be found in later journals.<br /><br />It is evident that the greatest caution is necessary when using court records, especially those dealing with the slaves, a feared and despised group that had to be kept at bay at all costs. Since these are the only records that can give us an impression of the feelings of the slaves, they cannot be ignored. There are several important drawbacks in the data they delivered. First of all, the slaves who appeared before the Court of Police were not a representative sample of the slave population as a whole and not even of the slaves who broke the rules –most runaways, for example, were never caught. Secondly, the statements of the slaves were rarely recorded verbatim. Only in cases where they were accused of insulting or threatening whites phrasing was important. Most of the time, a mere résumé of their examination was entered into the records. Answers to specific questions were noted in detail solely during the trials of the most serious offenders. These questions were always phrased in advance and often invited a simple yes or no answer. Sometimes, the space for the answer was left blank when it had been decided not to pose the question.<br /><br />On the other hand, not all slaves who appeared in court were offenders who had to lie for their life. Many slaves were called up simply as witnesses (against other slaves, because they could not testify against whites). They often unwittingly gave away much information on the life in the slave quarters, which may not have interested their interrogators much, but which is certainly appreciated by the researcher. Furthermore, the members of the Court may sometimes have misunderstood the statements of the slaves, but they had little reason to tamper with them. They preferred to elicit a confession and they did not hesitate to resort to torture to loosen tongues, but a confession was not an absolute necessity for a condemnation. Moreover, the whole process of repeated interrogations, recourse to torture, confrontation with witnesses, etc, was incorporated in the records with an almost naïve honesty (the Court officials did not have an inkling they would be judged by history so harshly). In complicated cases, the judges showed an amazing persistence to uncover the truth, not only because that permitted them to rid the colony of unwanted elements, but also because they were curious themselves. The masters were not particularly intent on proving the inherent depravity of the slaves, or on giving credence to unflattering myths in order to reaffirm their superiority. Little difference was made in the way major offenders (be they black or white) were treated (although whites were less easily subjected to torture).<br /><br />One of the main reasons I am inclined to trust the archival data, especially when they are factual, is my conviction that the whites of Surinam felt no need at all to defend their ‘peculiar institution’. Even in the 19th century, they were not in the least worried by the weak stirrings of abolitionism in Holland. They were convinced that they would only be forced to give up slavery because of economic failure and they concentrated on proving that plantation agriculture in Surinam could be saved with the right measures. The practical Dutchmen were late in discovering anything repugnant about the slave system as such, although most of them agreed that one ought to treat one’s slaves decently. In Holland, the rejection of slavery on ethical grounds only gained momentum after 1840 and in the colony, there were few moral objections ever. Most whites were certain that they had a divine right to rule over blacks and that the slaves were much better off in Surinam than they would ever be in Africa. They believed that slaves had to be forced to work, because they were so lazy by nature that they would starve otherwise. The slaveholders did not have any doubts about the rightfulness of appropriating the fruits of the slaves’ labor, because they provided the means of production and the organization necessary for a large-scale agricultural venture. The archives mirror this complacency. They betray no recriminations, no defenses, no nagging doubts and certainly no feelings of guilt. They just recorded they way things were –and ought to be- in the eyes of the masters.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Printed sources (some of which are available on the internet nowadays).<br /></strong><br />The printed sources should be approached with more caution. If an author decided to offer a manuscript on slavery to a publisher, he usually had an ulterior motive. Few men wrote for the love of science or for the sake of diversion alone. Published authors were more likely to defend the slavery system openly than the men who filled the pages of the archival volumes. However, they clearly felt less threatened by the writings of abolitionists than their counterparts in the USA, who became increasingly fanatical and only stopped short of declaring slavery a proper status for poor whites as well. These authors were besieged at all sides by very persistent, very ardent and very intelligent abolitionists and, worse still, a large part of the country had no economical interest in slavery whatsoever. Surinam did not have such internal divisions and only towards the end of the slavery era, some Dutch abolitionists attacked thralldom with equal eloquence and occasionally with equal sentimentality (W.R. van Hoëvell could bear a candle to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe">Harriet Beecher Stowe</a>). Consequently, the Dutch literature on slavery is somewhat less tainted by prejudices than American literature of the same period (although some authors made no bones about their low opinion of coloreds or about their scorn for barbarian colonists).<br /><br />The major writers on Surinam were in part inhabitants or long-time residents and in part people who had merely visited the colony, or had never even been there. Most of the published accounts of Surinam life are not particularly accurate and have been used extensively before. Despite this fact, I am obliged to lean on them rather heavily for two reasons. Firstly, they provide the only systematic overview of certain aspects of the life of the slaves, especially their private preoccupations. Secondly, these authors often had access to archival material that is no longer available. The fact that most of them had an ax to grind cannot be ignored, however. I shall point out some of these axes in the next paragraphs.<br /><br />The first important work dealing specifically with colonial Surinam is <strong>J.D. Herlein’s</strong> <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/herl001besc01_01/"><em><strong>Beschryvinge van de Volk-Plantinge Zuriname</strong></em></a> (1718). He resided in the colony for several years. According to his own statement, he arrived in 1707 and he may still have been there in 1715. His work is all the more important because so few of the records of this period have survived, but he cannot be trusted out of hand. For example, he did not hesitate to plagiarize large sections of other people’s writings, particularly the French author Rochefort, only changing references to Caribbean islands into references to Surinam. Moreover, there were two printings of the book in one year and they differ in numerous places. The picture he sketches of the colony is a grim one: rough frontier conditions, an unprecedented cruelty towards the slaves and a naked thirst for economic gains. When in the 1760’s the question of republishing the book presented itself, Governor Nepveu embarked on the task of commenting on Herlein’s statements. This venture resulted in a substantial manuscript, the <em><strong>Annotatiën</strong></em>. A neat version of this manuscript is present in the archives of the Society of Surinam and may have been meant for publication. Although Nepveu left few of Herlein’s paragraphs intact, this in itself is no indictment of the book, because in 50 years many things can change, even in colonial Surinam.<br /><br /><strong>Thomas Pistorius</strong> was a long-time inhabitant of the colony and served in the Court of Police for a considerable period. He was the leader of several expeditions against the Maroons. At the end of his life, he decided to publish an account of his experiences, but the frailty of his memory often led him astray. Nepveu claimed that he had realized his mistakes and that he had tried in vain to stop the publication of his book <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/pist002kort01_01/"><em><strong>Korte en Zakelijke Beschryvinge van de Colonie van Zuriname</strong></em></a> (1763). Despite these reservations, the book still contains valuable information and should not be brushed aside in advance.<br /><br />Nepveu was also involved with the third classic that must pass scrutiny: <strong>Jan Jacob Hartsinck’s</strong> <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/hart038besc01_01/"><em><strong>Beschryving van Guiana, of de wilde kust in Zuid-Amerika</strong></em></a> (1770). Hartsinck was intimately connected with the Society of Surinam: his father had been a director and he served as its secretary for a long time. He never visited the colony, but had vital information at hand, in the form of official charters and documents and the reports received from the colony. He also had the first draft of Nepveu’s <em>Annotatiën</em> at his disposal, which he used with great gusto. Many phrases he copied literally. Amazingly, Nepveu, not in the least shocked by the plagiarism, found little fault with the book. If anything, Hartsinck was too thorough. He wasted much space with verbatim copies of all kinds of treaties, records and appeals. Subjects he was not as familiar with –among them, not surprisingly, slavery- received considerably less attention. Still, his work is indispensable for a valid description of 18th century Surinam.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261961800212206018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 283px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3b1MJN5v8MyXBjHrwtXSyI85w7SIyo9ky52kREEoLXj4Agh6cAwWUOfy_yG3SuhKg0IrJz47LMKHzWaLoGSPxuBtutjAjt3YV2b9s0TF7QUH306w5Mx0qXRRjuleCLb3yDQjJna2VFVM/s400/Stedman.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gabriel_Stedman">John Gabriel Stedman</a></strong>, a captain in the Scottish Brigade that was part of the State troops fighting in Surinam during the Boni War, is one of the most famous and the most frequently cited of the authors who published books on Surinam. The main reason is that he wrote in English, so English-speaking writers on slavery (the majority) are more apt to refer to him than to anyone else. He stayed in the colony from 1773 to 1778, but his book <em><a href="http://books.google.nl/books?id=V5MBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=John++Gabriel+Stedman&lr=#PPR2,M1"><strong>Narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam</strong></a></em> [Dutch translation: <em><a href="http://nl.wikisource.org/wiki/Reize_naar_Surinamen_en_Guiana"><strong>Reize naar Surinamen en Guiana</strong></a></em>] did not appear before 1792. According to Rudolf van Lier, comparison of his diary and the Narrative proves the authenticity of this tale about his experiences in Surinam. It is undeniable that it was primarily this book that gave Surinam slavery its unenviable reputation. Stedman was a kind and humane man with serious doubts about the rightfulness of slavery. He greatly admired his adversaries (the Maroons) and he had little sympathy for most of the Surinam whites. They were greedy, callous and stupid in his eyes. He fell deeply in love with a beautiful mulatto girl named Joanna, whom he was unable to free. She bore him a son, Johnny, who eventually followed his father to Europe (Johnny enlisted in the English navy and died at sea). Stedman was obliged to leave Joanna behind, in the care of a friendly mistress. She soon died under mysterious circumstances (probably poisoned by a jealous rival). This tragedy no doubt embittered him.<br /><br />It is obvious that Stedman faithfully recorded what he saw, or rather what he thought that he saw. Adriaan Lammens has pointed out that he sometimes misinterpreted the events he witnessed. He provided, for example, a heart-breaking description of a Negro chained to a furnace, giving the impression that the poor man was being roasted alive, while in fact he was chained to a wall near the fireplace and forced to fuel a sugar mill. An uncomfortable position, no doubt, but a common enough punishment for offenders and no diabolical manner of execution. For Stedman, a genuine knight in shining armor, it was pure torture to have to stand by helplessly while defenseless slaves were abused before his very eyes. He could never understand the crude logic inherent in the steadfast refusal to let anyone interfere in the exercise of ‘domestic jurisdiction’ and he did not realize that his pleadings only increased the misery of the slaves. Even thought he participated in the war against the Maroons, he did not share the fear of the white population for the ‘mass of slaves’, which prompted them to crush any resistance with such ferocity. He only saw the most despotic willfulness. In short, he was prejudiced. Nevertheless, the description he provided may have been one-sided, but it certainly was a side that existed and that may indeed have dominated during the scary years of the Boni War.<br /><br />The physician <strong>Philip Fermin</strong> was one of the many travelers who visited the colony and could not resist the urge to jot down their impressions. His book <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/ferm001nieu01_01/"><em><strong>Nieuwe algemeene beschryving van de colonie van Suriname</strong></em></a> (1770), became quite an icon -of misrepresentation, that is. Few books have been criticized by contemporaries so fiercely. Blom and Lammens, for example, considered the work practically worthless. Fermin copied large parts of the writings of the French author Labat with only slight alterations and seemed to have misunderstood virtually everything he had witnessed himself. Consequently, his statements can only be trusted when they are corroborated by other sources. Unfortunately, not all the present writers on Surinam slavery are sufficiently careful: Richard Price, for example, has used Fermin’s work extensively for his overview of Surinam history.<br /><br />Another favorite of Price is <strong>David (Ishak de) Cohen Nassy</strong>, the main author of the <em><strong>Essay Historique</strong></em> (1788) [Dutch translation: <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/nass008gesc01_01/"><em><strong>Geschiedenis der kolonie van Suriname</strong></em></a>], the history of Surinam as perceived by ‘A Company Of Learned Jewish Men’. The ulterior motive for writing this book is obvious: it is an apology for the Jewish Nation, whose position in the colony was seriously undermined during this period. It was composed as an answer to the query of a ‘Prussian Gentleman’, who wished to be informed about the situation of the Jews in a colony reputed to be remarkably tolerant where religion was concerned. The authors emphasized the former prosperity of Surinam and the contributions of the Jewish Nation. In this respect, the book certainly cannot be taken at face value. On the other hand, Nassy and his fellow authors had access to manuscripts kept in the archives of the Jewish Nation, which either have been lost, or are difficult to translate. Therefore, the book is certainly useful.<br /><br /><strong>Anthony Blom</strong> arrived in the colony around 1766 and spent more than 30 years there. He eventually rose to the position of Comptroller General, but for most of these years, he worked on plantations as <em>blankofficier</em>, director and administrator. He had a keen interest in the technical aspects of plantation agriculture and published his findings in a study that became a standard in the field: <em><strong>Verhandeling over de landbouw in de colonie Suriname</strong></em>. The book is not only full of good advice on the establishment of a plantation and the care of crops, but also contains apt observations on the relationship between masters and slaves. There is one problem, however: the first edition of the book, dating from 1786, was edited and supplemented by Floris Visscher Heshuysen. It is hard to distinguish Heshuysen’s additions from the original text. Blom was clearly not pleased with his editing and published another version himself in 1787. It was considerably smaller and in his later work, Blom only referred to this edition. Unfortunately, the publication of 1786 was the only one available to me.<br /><br />Attorney-at-Law <strong>Adriaan Francois Lammens</strong> also spent a considerable time in the colony, in several elevated positions. He was a Patriot and he served as burgomaster of Axel and Vlissingen during the Napoleonic occupation of The Netherlands. He arrived in Surinam in 1816 and became a member (and later the president) of the Court of Civil Justice. In 1819, he was appointed as a judge with the Paramaribo branch of the Mixed Court (which strove to end the slave trade in the Caribbean). In 1832, he became president of the Military Court. Lammens was an honorable and hard-working civil servant. He kept aloof from the vain pleasures of Surinam high society and displayed a genuine interest in the slave population. After the death of his second wife, he married a woman of color (a sister of the Creole painter <a href="http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/aanwinsten2008/diorama?lang=nl">Gerrit Schouten</a>). During his stay, he filled 18 large notebooks with observations. He obviously planned to have some of them published, especially part 13. Nothing came of it, because the publisher demanded that he would leave out certain critical passages he considered essential. In 1852, he pondered publication again, but by this time, his work was deemed out of date. These injustices were finally remedied in 1982, when Professor De Bruijne of the Free University of Amsterdam published excerpts from book 13 (<em><strong>Bijdragen tot de kennis van de kolonie Suriname</strong></em>). This volume is undoubtedly the most interesting of his notebooks (though the others contain valuable information as well). It provides a ‘geographical description’ of Paramaribo and devotes many pages to the habits of the colored population. The second part records several trips in the interior of the colony. The original notebooks are preserved in the library of the Surinam Museum in Paramaribo, while photocopies can be consulted in the General State Archives.<br /><br />One of the most frequently cited travelers is <strong><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_von_Sack">Baron Albert von Sack</a></strong>, a German aristocrat who visited the colony briefly in 1807. The shortness of his sojourn did not impede him to devote two volumes to his adventures in the colony. The Dutch translation, <em><strong>Reize naar Suriname, verblijf aldaar en terugtogt over Noord-Amerika naar Europa</strong></em>, was published in 1821. Von Sack undeniably had less phantasy than Fermin, but it seems he was not always able to understand what was going on. His work should be handled with care as well.<br /><br />After 1820, an avalanche of books on Surinam was published. Many of them bore the mark of slaveholder or abolitionist propaganda. Only a few were interesting: mostly the ones that did not strive to herald the benefits or evil of slavery.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.dodenakkers.nl/beroemd/teenstra.html">Marten Douwes Teenstra</a></strong>, a farmer’s son from Groningen, was an indisputable ‘abolitionist’. He had worked for several years as an agricultural expert on Java before coming to Surinam. He detested slavery, but little of this revulsion can be found in his best-known book: <strong><em>De landbouw in de kolonie Suriname</em></strong> (1835). In his later study <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/teen002nege01_01/"><em><strong>De negerslaven in de kolonie Suriname</strong></em></a> (1842), however, he compared their position unfavourably with that of the slaves of Curaçao.<br /><br />The most famous among the ‘abolitionists’ was <strong><a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolter_Robert_baron_van_Ho%C3%ABvell">W.R. van Hoëvell</a></strong>, author of <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/hoev004slav01_01/"><em><strong>Slaven en vrijen onder de Nederlandse wet</strong></em></a> (1854). He was a typical product of the Christian ‘Reveille’ and living proof of the fact that Dutch abolitionists were mostly driven by ethical considerations. His work was often sentimental to a fault. He devoted, for example, an entire chapter to the heart-rending story of the beautiful mulatto girl Lucie, who is ceaselessly abused by a jealous mistress, while her free mother, who had been forbidden to buy her from her tormentor, was forced to stand by helplessly and finally saw the girl disappear into the living hell of a sugar plantation. Van Hoëvell is likely to have exaggerated more than a little: he never set foot in the colony.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Wolbers">Julien Wolbers</a></strong> was not sentimental at all. On the contrary, he had a cool scientific mind. He was the author of several major books, among others <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/wolb002slav01_01/"><em><strong>De slavernij in Suriname</strong></em></a> (1853) and <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/wolb002gesc01_01/"><em><strong>Geschiedenis van Suriname</strong></em></a> (1861). Although he made extensive use of the work of earlier writers like Hartsinck (whom he often copies verbatim) and Teenstra, he also spent a considerable time in the archives, not only the General State Archives in The Hague, but also in the Public Record Office in London. Many of the sources he consulted are now out of reach for researchers and this makes his work all the more indispensable. Wolbers was a great admirer of the German School of historiography and his studies reflect their preoccupation with political history.<br /><br />The defenders of the colonial system were primarily interested in ‘saving’ plantation agriculture and they considered slavery a vital ingredient. Foremost among them were <strong>J. van der Smissen</strong> and <strong>F.W. Hostmann</strong>. Both were full of prejudices against the slaves, who in their view would be lost without the guidance of white masters. Van der Smissen tried to prove [in his book <em><strong>Beschouwing over de kolonie Suriname</strong></em> (1849)] that many free laborers in Surinam were worse off than the slaves. Hostmann, a physician by trade, had turned to planting and was the owner of the ill-fated indigo plantation De Twee Kinderen. His experiments with tobacco were not very successful either. In his book <em><strong>Over de beschaving van negers in Amerika door kolonisatie met Europeanen</strong></em> (1850) the reader can find some of the harshest condemnations of Surinam blacks ever to be put into writing.<br /><br />A few of the 19th century authors are not so easy to place. <strong>F.A. Kuhn</strong> was a physician with considerable experience in the colony. He did not reject slavery, but in his book <em><strong>Beschouwing van den toestand der Surinaamse plantagieslaven</strong></em> (1828) he castigated the slave owners for their ignorance and avarice, which caused many slaves to die from medical neglect. <strong>A. Kappler</strong>, author of <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/kapp006zesj01_01/"><em><strong>Zes jaren in Suriname</strong></em></a> (1854), tried his hand at (plantation) agriculture and failed miserably. He therefore had a good insight in the trials and tribulations of the planters.<br /><br />All the printed sources from the 18th and 19th century must be handled with care, but for a proper description of the Surinam slavery system they cannot be missed. It is often difficult to decide when they can be trusted and when not. The fact that they often provide the same information does not help, because many authors used the writings of their predecessors without compunction and so may well have heaped error upon error. However, some of them seem well-informed (Hartsinck, Blom, Teenstra, Wolbers) and will not lead the reader astray too far.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Modern research on Surinam slavery.<br /></strong><br />After a neglect of almost a century, the Surinam slave system again attained ample attention from Dutch historians. <strong><a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudie_van_Lier">Rudolf van Lier</a></strong> laid the groundwork in his impressive study <em><strong>Samenleving in een grensgebied</strong></em> (1949). He did such a thorough job that newcomers in the field still find his traces everywhere. Van Lier covered the entire social history of Surinam, from the first colonial enterprises during the 17th century up to the aftermath of the Second World War, so he was only able to sketch the broad outlines of the social and economical developments during this period. Moreover, he mostly used secondary resources and undertook only limited archival research. Consequently, many details still have to be filled in. For example, he allotted only one chapter to the slaves of Surinam, although he mentioned them occasionally in other chapters. It is a tribute to the skills of Van Lier that most of his conclusions concerning the slave population still stand, but many developments during the colonial period merit more attention than he was able to give them.<br /><br />The end of Dutch colonial rule in Surinam (1975) instigated a renewed interest in the history of the country and the slavery period in particular. Several revealing studies appeared during the next decade. They all focused on one particular aspect of the slavery system. <strong>Van der Voort</strong>, a forerunner of this new generation, researched the West Indian plantation loans. <strong>Lamur </strong>contributed an interesting article on the demography of the government plantation Catharina Sophia and <strong>Van den Bogaard</strong> and <strong>Emmer</strong> explored other aspects of the organization of this estate. <strong>Siwpersad</strong> studied the problems surrounding abolition. <strong>Hira</strong> contributed a Marxist analysis of resistance in Surinam. Various dissertations were started during this period: on Surinam Maroons, the economic viability of Surinam plantations, the census of 1811.<br /><br />Despite all this activity, a full-length monograph on Surinam slaves was not forthcoming. Much information was available, but often in places and in a form that put it beyond the reach of the interested historian, especially if he came from abroad. Many authors, who nevertheless managed to draw some far-reaching (and dubious) conclusions from the wholly inadequate material, bemoaned this ‘white spot’ on the map. In a time when the comparative study of slavery was becoming increasingly fashionable, a more detailed knowledge of Surinam slavery was certainly useful. It was this need that I aimed to address.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The main characteristics of Surinam slavery.</strong><br /><br />There are two commonly held notions about the slavery system of Surinam. Firstly, as <strong>Melville </strong>and <strong>Frances <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/melville-j-herskovits">Herskovits</a></strong> have argued (in <a href="http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/hers005suri01_01/"><strong><em>Suriname folk-lore</em></strong></a>), the blacks of Surinam (the Bush Negroes in particular, but the Creoles as well) were the Afro-Americans most successful in preserving their culture: it has retained the largest number of ‘Africanisms’. In this respect, they even surpass the Haitians. Secondly, Surinam slavery has the unenviable reputation of being one of the cruelest (if not the most cruel) slavery systems in the Western Hemisphere. [Some writers believed that the ‘unprecedented suffering’ of the slaves was entirely due to the ‘pathological disposition’ of the planters.]<br /><br />It shall be clear that either notion can be correct, but that it is hardly possible for both of them to be accurate at the same time, at least where the Creoles were concerned. When a slave society is ruled by the most blatant terror, there is no room for the development of the kind of culture we now know existed in the slave communities. Of course, there were sadists and men inexperienced in the art of lording it over others among Surinam planters, but on the whole, they were no more evil than other slaveholders living under similar conditions. The circumstances in Surinam, however, differed in crucial ways from those that characterized the United States or the Caribbean Islands.<br /><br />The culture of the Surinam slaves was a new configuration of elements derived from three continents. It was the product of a gigantic collective effort, but this effort would have been in vain if the slaves had not been able to profit from the conscious neglect of their masters. Slave communities were small, often isolated and they suffered from a continuous change in personnel. Despite these handicaps, the slaves succeeded in creating a viable social organization and a flourishing cultural life. A comprehensive ‘black culture’ and a variety of ‘plantation cultures’ with certain distinctive traits (especially in the sphere of expression) existed side by side. The most pivotal (‘boundary defining’) aspects of this black culture were <strong>language</strong> and <strong>religion</strong>.<br /><br />In the latter part of the twentieth century, it became fashionable to accuse the slaves who chose to stay on the plantations of cowardice and to applaud the Bush Negroes as the true heroes. Whether slaves decided to stay or to run, however, was not determined by bravery, but often merely by circumstance. Neither decision was inherently nobler than the other. As a rule, the slaves felt a strong tie with their plantations and often opted to hang on as long as the situation was remotely bearable. Many Maroons would never have taken to the forest if some unfortunate incident had not spurred them into drastic action. Escape was easy in Surinam, but in neither situation the people concerned were spared risk and pain. Whatever choice a slave or group of slaves made, it was a deliberate one. They did not passively submit to stronger forces. The Maroons waged an endless battle for their liberty, while the plantation slaves faced a continuous struggle to wrangle concessions from their overlords.<br /><br />The ultimate purpose of slaves everywhere was survival: not only individually, but also collectively and not only in the physical, but also in the spiritual sense. The ‘defense mechanisms’ of <strong>culture</strong> and <strong>resistance</strong> helped the slaves to keep sane and to keep together, but they pulled in different directions and may have partly obliterated each other. While developing a separate cultural tradition is always a collective effort, resistance can be purely individualistic and even blatantly anti-social. Certain forms of collective resistance, like mass revolt, were a threat to the slave communities, which had been built up with so much effort. These communities, corresponding with ‘plantation villages’, gave the slaves a sense of belonging and they were loath to expose them to the danger of annihilation frivolously. However, if oppression became too harsh, the slaves had no choice but to rebel and move their communities into the jungle. The Surinam slave system may have been unique in its cruelty, but it was also unique in the possibilities for both cultural autonomy and effective resistance. Describing this ‘other side of the medal’ was one of the main objectives of this study.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Some issues in Afro-American historiography.<br /></strong><br />In my opinion, there is no genuine difference between the approach of the historical anthropologist and the social historian where the study of slavery is concerned. However, I have remained true to some cherished anthropological principles: (1) my study basically delivers a <strong>holistic monograph</strong> in the best anthropological tradition and (2) I employ a <strong>comparative approach </strong>(albeit a limited one), mostly to give some perspective to my observations on Surinam slaves, but also to permit me to fill in some gaps in the data (especially with regard to demography).<br /><br />I restrict the comparison mainly to two territories: <strong>Jamaica</strong> and the <strong>United States</strong>. This choice was dictated by pragmatic reasons, for I read no Spanish or Portuguese and these are the English colonies I am most familiar with. This approach has the added attraction of eliminating a possible snag: the influence of ideological factors on the way the slaves were treated. <strong><a href="http://www.routledge-ny.com/ref/harlem/tannenbaum.html">Frank Tannenbaum</a></strong> has argued that the Dutch, the English and the Danes had the harshest slave systems due to the fact that: (a) as protestants, they were not particularly interested in saving the souls of black ‘heathens’; (b) the laws of their countries were not adapted to slaveholding and (c) their sensibilities were offended by too much intimacy with their darker ‘inferiors’. There has been a lot of opposition of ‘materialists’ against this theory, which, for the most part, I support. Nevertheless, ideological factors did influence the treatment of slaves in certain ways. The background of the Dutch and English was sufficiently similar to ascribe to them the same basic attitudes where slavery was concerned. This way, ideological factors are eliminated from the equation and the variances found in all probability reflect disparate material conditions.<br /><br />The subjects of culture and resistance have been very much in vogue in Afro-American research lately. This mirrors a changing focus in historical research in general: from political history and the elites to social history and the underdogs. The relationships between these ‘defense mechanisms’ are intimate but complicated. The boundaries are often blurred: <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Elkins">Stanley Elkins</a></strong>, for example, complained that in most of the historiography of the 1970’s and 80’s, culture has been perceived as merely another form of resistance. There may be some value in this point of view. After all, clinging to one’s despised culture is a way to symbolically ‘spit in the eye’ of the master, since the master preferred the slaves to adopt his culture -at least the parts of it that would make them more tractable and more diligent workers. On balance, however, I consider this perspective a bit too simplistic. Culture and resistance served the same purpose, but in different ways.<br /><br />Stanley Elkins has castigated contemporary writers for the tendency to underplay the harshness of slavery systems in favor of stressing the resilience of the slaves. Researchers are confronted with two possibilities that seem to be mutually exclusive: either slave resistance was successful and slaves managed to create their own culture, but then oppression cannot have been that bad; or the slaves were mercilessly terrorized, but then resistance was futile and their cultural accomplishments have been greatly overrated. Elkins clearly supported the latter option: he found many similarities between the <strong>slave plantation</strong> and the <strong>concentration camp</strong>.<br /><br />Elkins defended this dubious analogy in his famous study <em><strong><a href="http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/329/1/201">Slavery: A Problem in American Intellectual and Institutional Life</a></strong></em> (1959). On the basis of descriptions of human behavior in concentration camps, he concluded that all people could be turned into totally dependent, childlike and passive Sambo’s by sufficient cruelty. I will be the last to deny the inhumanity of the slavery system, but its objective was not the annihilation of a hated minority and in this respect, the slave plantation certainly differs greatly from the concentration camp. [I have addressed this question in greater detail in my article: <a href="http://pidere.blogspot.com/2006/11/verhandeling-2-was-de-slavenplantage.html"><strong><em>Was de slavenplantage een totale institutie?</em></strong></a>] The slave plantation did not automatically produce Sambo's, in fact it more often did exactly the opposite: it proved that people can display hidden strengths even in the most adverse circumstances. The trial of being part of an unjust system brought out the best and the worst in the slaves. Generally, they stood their ground admirably, but this should not blind us to some of the less lofty aspects of their behavior.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262752336966988386" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 137px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAO9Itga2psA4n3eEjmNfU2f56eNXVjnGs_pnstR6uzTxJ8lNHXSiyh1mccbnolR3KoZnCWeAvNWiOrX172CZyAqlTv1Q1PFqQAdKsX8WLAJtab_LhUyfnP5zefOSvno2A0cyMvEkzkBc/s400/genovese.jpg" border="0" />In the 1960’s and 70’s, the growing influence of the Black Power Movement not only fueled the interest in resistance, but also determined the way historians approached the subject. Some writers seemed to have suffered from a fatal case of ‘white guilt’. They bent over backwards to please the sternest (potential) critics. Their obsession with resistance grew until they saw heroism in everything the slaves did, including infanticide. This unfortunate tendency can be traced in the work of one of the greatest historiographers of slavery, <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_D._Genovese">Eugene D. Genovese</a></strong>. From his balanced views on the use of violence evident in his earlier work, to his support of the most hateful aspects of it –like terrorizing one’s own people to force them to join the ‘revolution’- in <em><strong>From Rebellion to Revolution</strong></em>, he certainly came a long way.<br /><br />The line between right and wrong is not drawn so unequivocally in this study as it is in the work of some other writers. My picture of Surinam is not sketched in ‘black and white’, but has various shades of grey in between. Many studies only feature heroes and villains, the heroes being the slaves and well-meaning abolitionists (often of the more fanatical kind) and the villains being the slaveholders and their ‘mercenaries’. I regard the use of a 'double yardstick', whereby the use of violence is regarded as admirable in the case of the slaves and despicable in the case of the masters, as unfair. In my opinion, such a simplistic view rarely leads to good historiography.<br /><br />The nature of the slavery system inevitably implicated a ‘conflict model’. It welded together two antagonistic groups for the purpose of enriching one of them. Consequently, the relationship between master and slave was shaped by a continuous struggle, but for the sake of survival, conflict often had to give way to compromise. For many authors any compromise signified a defeat for the slaves -a very shortsighted view. So I will not only tell of resistance, but also of accommodation. However, one should never mistake the lack of overt struggle for harmony. No <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind">Gone with the Wind</a> </em>plantations were present in Surinam.<br /><br />The phenomenon of slavery must be studied against the background of the <em>Zeitgeist</em>. Such an observation seems self-evident and has been made before (for example by <strong><a href="http://keur.knaw.nl/20752/1/20752.pdf">Harry Hoetink</a></strong>), but this principle is ignored by many of those presently writing about the subject. It is absurd to ‘judge’ historical personages by the ethical standards of today (which themselves might be considered objectionable in a couple of decades). Yet, many recent studies teem with value judgments: the slaves are berated for the fact that they passively ‘took the whip’; the Maroons for failing to cast their lot with their ‘oppressed brothers’; the abolitionists for not favoring the expulsion of all whites from the colonies and the payment of <em>Wiedergutmachung</em> to the ex-slaves; the less ethically challenged among the colonial whites for the fact that they did not reject the domestic jurisdiction of the slaveholders, etc. The only persons who can find grace in the eyes of the authors are genuine heroes and saints. Few people in the 17th and 18th centuries considered slavery morally wrong, not even the slaves. This does not mean that they were inherently depraved and heaping scorn on them serves no purpose but the (Marxist) political goals of those scholars.<br /><br />It goes without saying that I do not share those political views, even though I do consider myself a ‘materialist’ of sorts [there are considerably less people who give up their livelihood (let alone life) for their convictions than there are people who give up their convictions for their livelihood (life)] -with a tendency towards <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntarism_(metaphysics)">voluntarism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism">empiricism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductivism">inductivism</a>, <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diachronism">diachronism</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism">individualism</a>. I do not believe in inherited guilt or collective guilt and none of my forbearers has had anything to do with Surinam anyway. Therefore, I hope to bring to this study of slavery in Surinam a measure of objectivity too rarely found in other studies on this delicate subject.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Post Scriptum: terminology.</strong><br /><br />It has always amazed me that nowadays words like ‘negro’ or ‘colored’ are considered pejorative when used to refer to Afro-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans, while the word ‘black’ is not. In my opinion, the Dutch words <em>blanke</em> (light-skinned person) and <em>neger</em> (dark-skinned person) are much more polite than their modern counterparts <em>witte</em> (white) and <em>zwarte</em> (black).<br /><br />In Surinam, the word <em>slaaf </em>(slave) was most of the time only used when referring to the slave population in general, or to a group of slaves at most. An individual slave was nearly always referred to as <em>de neger</em> Quassi (the slave Quassi). For all intents and purposes, the designation <em>neger</em> was synonymous with slave, even to the point that people would refer to a mulatto slave as a <em>“mulatte man neger”</em>. A freedman consequently was a <em>vrijneger</em>. Since I strife more for historical correctness than for political correctness, I have largely copied this terminology.<br /><br />The literal translation of <em>wegloper</em> is runaway, but in Surinam this designation was primarily used for Maroons. Runaways staying close to the plantations and congregating in groups of a dozen slaves at most were called <em>schuylders</em>.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264850161295230114" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 278px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhISJJctPNXSQNOQhp8XHwStiosB31FoVPD4uxJKrayxQuxkMIx33aGajU_6NTAPX9Pt8zLvqVZ6oLnn6kM6V8PaCeTscpFHQaCvE79olEC4Qe5B1imroJ1lyqR4Iv5UumJIhFABrMp3lY/s400/kaart-Wilde-Kust-3.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>Appendix.</strong><br /><br />Book review of: <strong>Sandew Hira</strong>, <em>Van Priary tot en met De Kom. De geschiedenis van het verzet in Suriname, 1630-1940.</em> (Originally published in the <a href="http://www.kitlv.nl/">KITLV</a> Journal, 1982)<br /><br />Sandew Hira is a young, zealous and very prolific writer. An economist by origin, he has widened his horizons far beyond the traditional boundaries of his trade. <em>Van Priary tot en met De Kom</em> is his first major work and faithfully reflects the precedence that political activity takes over scholarship in his mind. The book sets out to present a history of the resistance of the ‘oppressed masses’ against capitalist exploitation in Surinam over a period spanning more than three centuries. The drama begins in 1630 with the first extended colonial enterprise in Surinam, the settlement of Captain Marshall and sixty Englishmen in the interior, and ends on the eve of the Second World War, which announced the definitive demise of plantation society. Resistance is an intriguing subject, which has enjoyed ample attention in Caribbean historiography over the past decades, but Hira is not bothered by comparative inclinations. Only by the bare fact that he employs a Marxist frame of analysis he ties in with recent tenors in this field.<br /><br />The main concerns of the book are political. Hira states that there exists a profound need for a history and analysis of the unending struggle against repression and exploitation in Surinam, which need his work aims to meet. Secondly, he strives to pass on the lessons of the past to today's young ‘revolutionaries’. And lastly, he hopes to stimulate the development of a Marxist tradition in Surinam and the formation of a new vanguard for revolutionary action. Hira claims that on the historian rests <em>"the ungrateful task to construct the network of cause and consequence in the drift of events in such a way as to fit in necessarily every deed, every success or every failure, and every mistake with the logic of the historical process which he is analyzing"</em> (p. VIII). <em>Van Priary tot en met De Kom</em> presents in addition a critique of the ‘bourgeois’ interpretation of the history of Surinam, especially of the kind elaborated by the so-called pluralists, exemplified by R. A. J. van Lier. In Hira's opinion, the theory of pluralism cannot explain the crucial developments in Surinam history. It fails most conspicuously when trying to illuminate the heroic fight of the masses against capitalism. Hira is convinced that his brand of revolutionary Marxism can supply a more consistent and revealing analysis of this struggle. He therefore applies these insights with unflagging partisanship to the whole range of insurgent actions in Surinam.<br /><br />The book opens with a critical evaluation of the famous study by R. A. J. van Lier, <em>Samenleving in een grensgebied</em> (1949). Although Hira considers this work still valuable after 33 years (a bright lantern in an obscure labyrinth), he has little regard for its theoretical foundations. In his view, they consist of a <em>“hotchpotch of contradictory concepts”</em>, the most sophisticated of which represents little more than an ‘idealistic’ misconception: the perception of Surinam as a pluralistic society, a state based on the consolidation of ethnic differences. He believes that the theory of pluralism links sociocultural developments with shifts in the motivations and aspirations of the respective races. He concludes that this theory (a) does not adequately explain social differentiation, and (b) lacks internal consistency. He is particularly critical of the -admittedly unfortunate- fondness of Van Lier for bestowing facile psychological labels upon historical personages. Van Lier, Hira claims, can interpret the resistance of the masses only as sudden outbreaks of hostility by groups of people collectively exceeding their ‘frustration threshold’. Why then, he asks, do the masses revolt regularly? Obviously, the history of resistance in Surinam was in dire need of revision.<br /><br />The bulk of the book is taken up by detailed descriptions of the great battles against the ‘monster of capitalism’: the Indian war, the (convict) soldiers' mutiny, the guerrilla of the Maroons (especially the Boni War), slave revolts, the 'Koeli' strikes, the Killinger conspiracy and the struggle for union rights. The chapters on these subjects are preceded by a theoretical analysis of the development of Surinam colonial society in relation to the world economy. Hira distinguishes three principal phases in the evolution of production relations (and, parallel to these, three phases in the development of the centralized state): (1) the foundation of the colony (the period up to 1688); (2) the rise and fall of slavery (1688-1863); and (3) the disintegration of the plantation society (1863-1940). The first period was shaped by the contacts between trade capitalism and the pre-capitalistic, classless Indian communities. The second period saw incorporation of the colony into the world economy through the production of commodities for the international market, while the profits from this were accumulated in the mother country. The agrarian labor was performed by black slaves, which defined the nature of the class struggle in this era. No form of organization of the workers could be tolerated, since this implied a threat to the proprietary rights of the masters and an undermining of the essence of the slavery system. The racist ideology functioned as a justification for exploitation and at the same time, by imbuing the masses with an awareness of their inferiority, discouraged resistance. Surinam, in this period, constituted a ‘segmented state’, characterized by a weak and often impotent central government and a politically vocal planter class. During the third period, differentiation of production relations followed, as slavery gave way to contract and wage labor, independent peasant farming and prospecting. Only after the extirpation of slavery, it was possible for a genuine centralized state to develop. As ethnic and class boundaries coincided, the class struggle was shaped by the clashes between the various ethnic groups. However, the expression of class conflicts along racial lines can be seen as a ‘necessary part’ of the general struggle, and Hira fervently hopes that the masses of Surinam will eventually come to see the light and unite against the common foe.<br /><br />Each stage in the historical process was accompanied by certain forms of resistance by the oppressed. The ruling elite was endangered by the revolts of the Indians and soldiers in the first period, by the passive and active opposition of the slaves and the guerrilla warfare of the Maroons in the second, and by the fight for labor rights and the Killinger plot to overthrow white supremacy in the period after emancipation. Hira staunchly proclaims the revolutionary fervor of the masses, which he portrays as ever ready for action when the circumstances permit. The prospects for revolution are determined by various factors, among them the severity of exploitation, internal divisions in the master class, and the existence of an economic basis for a sustained struggle. These factors explain why certain groups in Surinam society rose in rebellion at certain times. Hira does not apply these rational considerations when referring to people who chose not to enlist for the holy war, however; they are dismissed as ‘scabs and traitors’, or at the very least as despicable cowards.<br /><br />In many respects, the book adds to the existing knowledge of the history of Surinam. The descriptive chapters in particular brim with interesting information, much of it hitherto undisclosed. However, there are several serious flaws, which greatly detract from its value. To begin with, Hira repeatedly barks up the wrong tree in his criticism of the work of Van Lier. He errs in assuming that for Van Lier the theory of pluralism ‘explains’ the historical development of Surinam society. Van Lier does not employ a consistent theoretical framework, but neither does he use a hotchpotch of contradictory concepts. He views Surinam from different angles: the country can be regarded not only as a <strong>plural society</strong>, but also as a <strong>colonial society</strong> and as a <strong>frontier society</strong>. These perspectives are little more than ‘devices for heightening perception’. While in his analysis of contemporary society Van Lier leans heavily on the concept of pluralism, in his interpretation of the development of the slavery system he uses the notion of a frontier society, with all its implications for the mentality of Surinam’s inhabitants, to much greater advantage. Van Lier's analysis of slave resistance is largely couched in psychological terms, but he incorporates references to economic, geographic and demographic factors. Consequently, his historiography is less blatantly ‘mentalistic’ than Hira would have us believe. In fact, it often displays more dialectical subtlety than Hira's ‘mechanistic’ way of reasoning.<br /><br />Hira has not conducted a thorough investigation in the archives: he depends largely on a number of well-known books and some easily available documents. He therefore overlooks primary sources that are vital for his theory. He based his description of the soldiers' mutiny on the work of Pistorius (1763), for example, instead of using the eyewitness-accounts contained in the archives of the Society of Surinam. His interpretation of the data displays a tendency towards inconsistency, since he strives to show the inevitable logic inherent in the historical process. His argumentation is further colored by a rigidly orthodox Marxist view. Hira's basic framework of economic phases has dictated the scheme of the book and the way the material is analyzed. His expositions on the roots of the revolutionary struggle have a somewhat archaic flavor: they remind one more of C. R. L. James than of Eugene Genovese. The book would have benefited if Hira had taken better notice of the more sophisticated studies on this subject which have appeared recently, such as Aya (1979), Genovese (1979), and Skocpol (1976). Hira is most convincing when he restricts himself to analyzing the economic developments proper; the precise relations between these developments and the ways resistance is expressed never become clear.<br /><br />The book gives the distinct impression of being unpolished: a ‘second draft’ published with undue haste. This has resulted in (often superfluous) repetition and weak composition. There are several annoying mistakes, which make one suspect that Hira is more intent on proving his point than on gaining an insight into the history of Surinam. His haste shows in the misspelling of names, the lack of uniformity in the spelling and the frequent use of inane metaphors (the book features a touching scène in which the ‘struggle bug’ mates with the ‘resistance virus’, with momentous results). The cover, depicting in garish colors a hideous capitalist (complete with monocle) gnawing at Surinam, does justice to the often Caucasophobic content, but will undoubtedly scare away many potential readers. Furthermore, the book falls apart at the slightest provocation.<br /><br />In the final analysis, <em>Van Priary tot en met De Kom</em> amounts to little more than a catalogue of heroes, skillfully excavated from among the debris of history. However, Hira does deliver what he promised in the introduction and this, perhaps, should be the ultimate yardstick by which to judge an author whose preoccupations one does not share. So budding revolutionaries looking for inspiration are well advised to hurry to the bookshop, but serious scholars interested in the history of Surinam had better turn elsewhere.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299113711391540050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 375px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRSD8jqelt2Qxd96K0ymp_gk5b2i9eOkIwPxQLKwRrXi0MKpCw6OSLZxtziujezC1_KEf4FbJjH16fGM9RBw-aKK5TC81apXZ257vmLLQBQ1T5HptLJiYJB_CwRBfcDAZFxnp2r43mukI/s400/De-Kom.jpg" border="0" /></p>SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589337005220510294noreply@blogger.com