Suriname

“ There is no reason, or, to put it better, no hindrance, either of climate or soil, to prevent the mainland Dutch settlement of the West from rivalling or excelling in this respect the once Dutch island of the East. Nor is much labour, nor much expense, beyond the first outlay of planting, required. Yet even for these, men and capital are alike wanting. Well, everything has its day; and Surinam, when her time comes, may be the garden of Guiana ”

“ How much more glorious would it be for those who have it in their power not only to save the colony of Surinam, but many other valuable West India settlements, by the help of a WELL-PLANNED INSTITUTION OF GENERAL AND IMPARTIAL JUSTICE, and the laudable example of humanity and benevolence! ”

“ Sumatra, were it under a European power, and peopled as well as Java is, would soon rival that island. Its soil is, for the most part, equally fertile, and yields coffee, pepper, nutmegs, &c. Only a small portion of the territory is subject to the Dutch: the remainder is inhabited by various tribes, who speak different languages, and mix but little together. They are mostly an indolent people, and require driving by their chiefs to make them work for a day or two now and then. ”

“ Their parlour floors are always scoured with sour oranges cut through the middle, which gives the house an agreeable fragrance: the Negro girls taking one half in each hand, keep singing aloud while they rub the boards. Such is the town, and such are the inhabitants of Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam; and the character will apply to the natives of all the Dutch settlements in the West Indies. But to return to my narrative. Being once more reconciled to shoes, I visited Colonel Westerloo on board a West-India ship, bound for Holland. ”

“ The East Indian will certainly be the man of the future in Guiana if the immigration system is continued. Already he is ahead in British Guiana, and forms more than a third of the population of Surinam, if we include the Javanese. Though not so strong as the negro, he is more reliable, and without him there would be no Demerara or Surinam sugar. He enjoys better health in the Tropics [68] than other races, as is easily seen by the census returns of India and the death-rates on the plantations. ”

“ The river Surinam, just before Fort Zealandia, being above a mile in breadth, the Meduse and several flat-bottomed vessels with French troops, being favoured by a very dark night, found means to sail up beyond Paramaribo without being observed by the Dutch, with an intention to plunder the sugar and coffee plantations [51] that are situated above that town: but on the 15th, the besieged prepared two large flat-bottomed barges filled with combustible matters, such as old junk, tar-barrels, &c. ”

“ What a picture of Dutch colonial life comes to us in that short walk! The overreaching eaves all but touch. Old lanterns swing across the narrow way, wrought-iron sign-posts reach long arms out over our heads, the shop doors are wide open, and the keepers of the shops could readily shake hands across the way.
I wonder if there is any excuse at all for the fact that my preconceived ideas about Curaçao were wholly founded upon a very indistinct memory of a certain liquid of that name, said to be distilled upon this island from the wild sour orange? ”

“ The territory hitherto known as German South West Africa covers an area of nearly 323,000 square miles, and has a coastline of 930 miles from the mouth of the Orange River, which separates it from the Cape Colony in the south, to the mouth of the Cunene River, which divides the territory from Portuguese Angola in the north. The southern boundary runs along the Orange River into the interior for some 300 miles.
The German population is stated to be about 15,000, and the natives are estimated at 200,000 ”

“ But nothing displays the luxury of the inhabitants of Surinam, more than the number of slaves by whom they are attended, often twenty or thirty in one family. White servants are seldom to be met with in this colony. ”

“ The principal rivers that belong to this settlement are the river Surinam, from which the colony takes its name, the Corantine, the Copename, the Seramica, and the Marawina. Of those rivers the first only is navigable, the rest, not excepting the Marawina, being, though very long and broad, so shallow, and so extremely crouded with rocks and small islands, that they are of little consequence to Europeans, nor are their banks inhabited except by some of the Indians or natives of the country. ”

“ In Surinam there are, upon an average, about 75,000 negro slaves, as I have stated; from which if we subtract children, and superannuated men and women, there will not be found above 50,000 really fit for labour. There are from six to twelve Guinea ships, that import from 250 to 300 slaves each from Africa annually: we may therefore compute the yearly importation at an average of 2,500, necessary to supply and keep complete the above 50,000 ”

“ The Sudan, though geographically in Central Africa, belongs to the Mediterranean civilisation. The great empires of the Niger, Melle and Songhai, the Fulani Empire of Sokoto, the Emirates of Kano and Katsina, and the Empire of Bornu, were all products of contact with the north. Commercially and culturally, the Sudan faced north with its back against an impenetrable belt of tropical forest inhabited by savage negro tribes, through whose dripping and steaming jungles there was little or no access to the sea. ”

“ We may sum up these remarks by taking a brief survey of the present position of the Archipelago. The Dutch are masters [Pg 264] of a large tract of New Guinea at one extreme, and, at the other, have possessed themselves of the coast of Borneo, extending from the western boundary of Borneo proper to the southern limit of Matan. A glance at the chart will show that they have stations of more or less importance connecting these points, and that Java, and their settlement on Sumatra, give them exclusive command of the Straits of Sunda. ”

“ The Spanish, Portugueze, and Dutch, are the only nations which possess settlements in this part of Terra Firma, excepting the small colony of Cayenne, belonging to the French, which is situated between the river Marawina and Cape Orange. The dominions in Guiana, subject to Spain, are situated on the banks of the Oronoque, and those of Portugal extend along the shores of the river Amazon. The Dutch settlements, which spread along the coasts of the Atlantic ocean, and reach from Cape Nassau to the river Marawina, are Essequibo, Demerary, Berbice, and Surinam2 ”

“ South Africa next engages our attention. Passing by its natural scenery, soil, productions, climate, its cities, towns and villages, manners and customs of its many native tribes, and the character of its colonists, we will confine ourselves strictly to what has been done for the moral and religious welfare of the inhabitants. ”

“ New York was given back to England, and Holland received Surinam, or, as it was then, Surreyham.
Down in South America, on its north front, we find a country which we English-speaking people call Dutch Guiana, but which the Netherlanders have corrupted into “Surinam.” Through this region Sir Walter Raleigh vainly strove to penetrate, to find the famed El Dorado, or country of the Gilded Man. Yet all the European colonies in South America, English, Dutch, and French, were at first failures. Dutch Guiana had been settled by the English, and British Guiana by the Dutch. ”

“ There the ship is left by the native pilot.
This harbour of Curaçao is no exception. We enter by a narrow, deep way protected by rocky barriers, directly into a little inner bay, encircled by the quaint town. The houses gliding by, within easy hailing distance of our decks, are preëminently Dutch, of brilliant, striking colouring, noticeably yellow, and mathematically exact as to rows and heights and proportions—most un-West-Indian. The town is certainly just recovering from a fresh coat of kalsomine. It is bright as a top and clean as a whistle. ”

“ II. Dutch Guiana, or Surinam, has an area of about 57,900 sq. m. British Guiana bounds it on the west and French on the east (the long unsettled question of the French boundary is dealt with in section III., French Guiana) . The various peoples inhabiting Surinam are Dutch Guiana. distributed according to the soil and the products. The Indians (Caribs, Arawaks, Warrous) live on the savannahs, or on the upper Nickerie, Coppename and Maroni, far from the plantations, cultivating their fields of manioc or cassava, and for the rest living by fishing and hunting. ”

“ To hug the land, and go blundering about what you so aptly call this pestilent archipelago, is for us to court disaster, as you can perhaps conceive. And so it comes to this: We desire to make for the Dutch settlement of Curaçao as straightly as possible. ”

“ All this vast region, said by the few explorers who have visited it to be in no respect inferior for its fertility and the variety of its products to the best lands of Surinam, has been made over, partly by express treaty, partly by custom, to the maroons, commonly known as the bush-negroes, the first who in 1761 obtained a formal recognition of freedom and independence from their European masters. Of the entire district they are now almost the sole occupants, undisturbed even by dark-skinned competitors ”

“ The Republic of Liberia extends along the western coast of Africa for a space of five hundred miles, beginning at the British colony of Sierra Leone, with an average breadth of fifty miles, between latitude 4° 20 ́ and 7° 20 ́ north, embracing an area of thirty thousand square miles, being almost precisely the area of Hayti,—so that these two regions, one an island and the other a strip of African sea-coast, are of equal geographical extent. ”

“ The three Guianas, British, French, and Dutch, represent one of the least attractive parts of South America in almost every way.
British Guiana has 300,000 inhabitants of whom one-third are Negroes, another third Orientals, mostly Hindu, and the remainder is largely made up of crosses between these two elements, of a few thousand native Indians, and of a handful of Whites.
Dutch Guiana has a population well under a hundred thousand, largely Orientals imported to furnish coolie labor and including Hindus, Javanese, and Chinese. There are many Negroes and a couple of thousand Whites. ”

“ In announcing to the colonists of His Majesty’s Province of South Australia, the establishment of the Government, I hereby call upon them to conduct themselves on all occasions with order and quietness, duly to respect the laws, and by a course of industry and sobriety, by the practice of sound morality and a strict observance of the Ordinances of Religion, to prove themselves worthy to be the Founders of a great free colony. ”

“ Going now to take my leave of Surinam, after all the horrors and cruelties with which I must have hurt both the eye and the heart of the feeling reader, I will close the scene with an emblematical picture of Europe supported by Africa and America, accompanied by an ardent wish that in the friendly manner as they are represented, [395] they may henceforth and to all eternity be the props of each other. I might have included Asia, but this I omitted, as having no connection with the present narrative: we only differ in colour, but are certainly all created by the same Hand. ”

“ South Africa is a continent by itself and is divided into many States of which the Colonies of Natal and the Cape of Good Hope, Zululand, a Crown Colony, the South African Republic of the Transvaal, Orange Free State and the Chartered Territories, are inhabited, more or less, by the Indians together with the Europeans and the natives of those countries. The Portuguese territories, viz., Delagoa Bay, Beira and Mozambique, have a large Indian population, but there the Indians have no grievances, apart from the general population. ”

“ Uncle Charlie laughed. “No wonder you’re puzzled. They’re speaking a language made up of more different languages than any other in the world. It’s called Papiamento. The jargon is a combination of Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, African, and Indian words. Carib Indians. A few French words thrown in, too.”
“Just like Curaçao itself.”
“That’s right, Biff. This island is filled with many races although the Dutch are predominant.”
Uncle Charlie looked at his watch, then glanced up at the sun. “Aren’t you getting hungry? ”

“ The northern part of Borneo is a British possession, and the eastern half of New Guinea is divided between England and Germany, while half of the island of Timor is Portuguese; the rest of the archipelago forms the possession known as Netherlands India, or the Dutch East Indies. The most important and the most densely populated of these islands are Java and Sumatra ”

“ The island of Java is a little kingdom in itself, and the boers, with the aid of the natives, whom they seem to govern with great success are fast bringing its fertile lands into cultivation. Batavia, Sourabia, and other towns are rising rapidly into importance. The Dutch are overrunning the fine island of Sumatra, too. They have established military stations over the greater part of it, and are gradually bringing the native chiefs under subjection. They occupy the spice islands, and are extending their dominion thence to the northward. ”