page_title: History of Suriname
section_title: Slavery and emancipation
hierarchical_section_title: History of Suriname / European colonization / Slavery and emancipation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Einbaumkanus in einem Dorf der Maroons am Surinamfluss. English: Dugouts (canoes) at the Suriname River.
context_page_description: The early history of Suriname dates from 3000 BCE when Native Americans first inhabited the area. The Dutch acquired Suriname from the English, and European settlement in any numbers dates from the seventeenth century, when it was a plantation colony utilizing slavery for sugar cultivation. With abolition in the late nineteenth century, planters sought labor from China, Madeira, India, and Indonesia, which was also colonized by the Dutch. Although Dutch is Suriname's official language, with such a diverse population, it developed a Creole language, Sranan.
context_section_description: In South America, slavery was the norm.  The native people proved to be in limited supply and consequently the Atlantic slave trade supplied the workforce for the plantations.  The plantations were producing sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton which were exported for the Amsterdam market. In 1713 for instance most of the work on the 200 plantations was done by 13,000 African slaves. Their treatment was horrific, and slaves periodically escaped to the jungle from the start. These Maroons (also known as "Djukas" or "Bakabusi Nengre") attacked the plantations in order to acquire goods that were in short supply and to free enslaved women. Notable leaders of the Surinam Maroons were Alabi, Boni, Joli-coeur and Broos (Captain Broos). In the 18th century, three of the Maroon people signed a peace treaty, similar to the peace treaty ending the First Maroon War in Jamaica, whereby they were recognised as free people and received a yearly tribute that provided them with the goods they used to "liberate" from the plantations.  A contemporary description of the war between the Maroons and the plantation owners in Suriname can be found in Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam by John Gabriel Stedman.
  Suriname was occupied by the British in 1799, after the Netherlands were incorporated by France, and was returned to the Dutch in 1816, after the defeat of Napoleon. The Dutch abolished slavery only in 1863, although the British had already abolished it during their short rule. The freed slaves were, however, still required to continue their plantation work on a contract basis and were not released until 1873; up to that date they conducted obligatory but paid work at the plantations. In the meantime, many more workers had been imported from the Dutch East Indies, mostly Chinese inhabitants of that colony, creating a Chinese Surinamese population.  From 1873 to 1916, many laborers were imported from India, creating the Indo-Surinamese. After 1916, many laborers were again imported from the Dutch East Indies, especially Java, creating the Javanese Surinamese.
caption: Maroon village, Suriname River, 1955
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