Surinam (Dutch colony)
Colony of Surinam Kolonie Suriname | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1667–1954 | |||||||||
Anthem: "Wilhelmus" (Dutch) "'William" | |||||||||
Status | Colony of the Dutch Republic (1667–1795) Colony of the Batavian Republic (1795–1799, 1802–1804) Occupied territory of the United Kingdom (1799–1802, 1804–1815) Colony of the Netherlands (1815–1954) | ||||||||
Capital | Paramaribo | ||||||||
Common languages | Dutch (official) 11 other languages 8 native languages | ||||||||
Head of state | |||||||||
• 1667–1702 | Willem III (first) | ||||||||
• 1948–1954 | Juliana (last) | ||||||||
Governor General | |||||||||
• 1667 | Maurits de Rama (first) | ||||||||
• 1689–1696 | Johan van Scharphuizen | ||||||||
• 1949–1954 | Jan Klaasesz | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
26 February 1667 | |||||||||
31 July 1667 | |||||||||
• Proclamation of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands | 15 December 1954 | ||||||||
Currency | Dutch guilder, Spanish dollar | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Today part of | Suriname |
Surinam (Dutch: Suriname), also unofficially known as Dutch Guiana, was a Dutch plantation colony in the Guianas, bordered by the equally Dutch colony of Berbice to the west, and the French colony of Cayenne to the east. It later bordered British Guiana from 1831 to 1966.
History
The colonization of Suriname
Surinam was a Dutch colony from 26 February 1667, when Dutch forces captured Francis Willoughby's English colony during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, until 15 December 1954, when Surinam became a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The status quo of Dutch sovereignty over Surinam, and English sovereignty over New Netherland, which it had conquered in 1664, was kept in the Treaty of Breda of 31 July 1667, and again confirmed in the Treaty of Westminster of 1674.[1]
After the other Dutch colonies in the Guianas, i.e., Berbice, Essequibo, Demerara, and Pomeroon, were lost to the British in 1814, the remaining colony of Surinam was often referred to as Dutch Guiana, especially after 1831, when the British merged Berbice, Essequibo, and Demerara into British Guiana. As the term Dutch Guiana was used in the 17th and 18th centuries to refer to all Dutch colonies in the Guianas, this use of the term can be confusing (see below).
Dutch Guiana
Although the colony has always been officially known as Surinam or Suriname, in both Dutch
Slave labor in the colony
The economy of the Colony of Suriname depended upon people enslaved at its plantations. Slave labour was mostly supplied by the
Abolition of slavery
Slavery was eventually abolished on 1 July 1863, although
The natural resources of Suriname
In the 20th century, the natural resources of Surinam, which include
, were exploited.The gold rush that followed the discovery of gold on the banks of the Lawa River spurred the construction of the Lawa Railway in 1902, although construction was halted after gold production proved disappointing. In the 1930s, the grandmother of Hennah Draaibaar discovered more than 80 kilos of gold, which made her briefly the richest woman in Surinam; the Dutch took most of the gold to the Netherlands.[10]
In 1916, the
The 1930s were a difficult time for Suriname. The Great Depression created great unemployment. Surinamese guest workers in Curaçao and other islands of the Netherlands Antilles returned to Suriname because there was no more work, which exacerbated the problem. No more funds came in and more unemployed people were added. To provide work, roads were built to Domburg and Groningen, and the Meursweg was constructed. The Salvation Army set up a soup kitchen to relieve the worst of necessities. However, this was not enough, and there was a great deal of unrest among the population in 1931, leading to demonstrations and street riots with looting. Nationalist Anton de Kom then came to Suriname to set up a workers' organization there: he established a consultancy firm, but when he organized a demonstration against governor Johannes Kielstra, he was imprisoned. A rally to get him released led to Black Tuesday, in which 2 people were shot. De Kom was then put on a boat to the Netherlands. The Dutch Prime Minister Colijn stated in the Lower House in 1935:
- "Everything that has been tried in Suriname, it all simply failed. Things are not easy. And that is why I wanted someone to get up in the Netherlands who knew what could be done. I will do the possible."
However, the situation had improved somewhat on the eve of the Second World War.
Partly due to the importance of Surinamese aluminium for the allied war effort, United States troops were stationed in Surinam under an agreement with the
Administration
From 1683, the colony was governed by the Society of Suriname, a company composed of three equal shareholders, being the city of Amsterdam, the family Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, and the Dutch West India Company. Although the organization and administration was of the colony was limited to these three shareholders, all citizens of the Dutch Republic were free to trade with Suriname.[11] Also, the planters were consulted in a Council of Police, which was a unique feature among the colonies of Guiana.[12]
In November 1795, the Society was nationalized by the Batavian Republic. From then on until 1954, the Batavian Republic and its legal successors (the Kingdom of Holland and the Kingdom of the Netherlands) governed the territory as a national colony, barring a period of British occupation between 1799 and 1802, and between 1804 and 1816.
After the
In the wake of the 1922 Dutch constitutional revision, in which the term "colony" was replaced by "overseas territory", the 1865 government regulation was replaced by the
After the
Military
In 1868 the Dutch government created the Netherlands Armed Forces in Suriname (TRIS) which served as the Dutch colonial army in Suriname.[15] This meant that like the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) in the Dutch East Indies, TRIS fell under the responsibility of the Dutch Ministry of Colonies, instead of the Dutch Ministry of Defense. The size of the TRIS army was, however, small, compared to the KNIL army for the former colony of Indonesia, it consisted of two infantry and two artillery companies. In total 636 soldiers served in the TRIS army. These soldiers were tasked with patrolling and policing duties within the Dutch colony of Surinam.[16]
See also
References
- ^ Oostindie 2005, pp. 7–8.
- ^ See for example this royal decree Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine separating Suriname from Curaçao and Dependencies (1845).
- ^ In treaties between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the colony is consistently referred to as the Colony of Surinam, e.g. Convention between Great Britain and the Netherlands, relative to the Emigration of Labourers from India to the Dutch Colony of Surinam, the Accession of the Dutch colonies of Curaçao and Surinam to the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property.
- ^ This is, e.g., how Jan Jacob Hartsinck uses the term in his Beschryving van Guiana, of de wilde kust in Zuid-America (Hartsinck 1770, pp. 257).
- ISBN 978-1-57505-964-8.
- ISBN 9780140136180.
- ^ Buddingh' 1999, p. 57.
- ^ Bakker 1993, p. 76.
- ^ Bakker 1993, p. 105.
- ^ "Grandma and the great gold rush of Suriname". BBC. 2023. Archived from the original on 31 January 2023. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
- ^ Meiden, G.W. (2008) Betwist Bestuur. De eerste eeuw bestuurlijke ruzies in Suriname 1651-1753, p. 11.
- ^ Buddingh, H. (1995) Geschiedenis van Suriname, p. 26.
- ^ a b A.F. Paula (1989). "Koloniale Raad". Hoofdmomenten uit de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse Antillen. Archived from the original on 19 December 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
- ^ "Wat gebeurde er op 28 januari 1948?". Suriname.nu. 1989. Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
- ^ De historie van de TRIS: http://www.trisonline.nl/de-tris/de-historie-van-de-tris/ Archived 2017-07-02 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ibidem.
Further reading
- Bakker, Eveline (1993). Geschiedenis van Suriname: van stam tot staat. Zutphen: Walburg Pers. ISBN 9789060118375.
- Buddingh', Hans (1999). Geschiedenis van Suriname. Zutphen: Het Spectrum. ISBN 9789046811726.
- Hartsinck, Jan Jacob (1770), Beschryving van Guiana, of de wilde kust in Zuid-America, Amsterdam: Gerrit Tielenburg
- Oostindie, Gert (2005). Paradise overseas: the Dutch Caribbean: colonialism and its transatlantic legacies. Oxford: Macmillan Caribbean. ISBN 1405057130.
- Kappler, A.; Ietswaart, Michaël (2014). Zes jaren in Suriname: August Kappler, een Duitser in Suriname 1836-1842. Zutphen: Walburg Pers. ISBN 9789057303012.
- Nederlof, Marjo (2008). Eerlijckman - 1680-1713: in dienst van het Staatse leger en de West-Indische Compagnie. Curaçao: De Curaçaosche Courant. ISBN 9789990408201.
- Kompagnie, Jan H. (1996). Soldaten overzee: aanwijzingen voor het doen van onderzoek naar onderofficieren en minderen bij het Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger (KNIL) en bij het leger in West-Indië (1815-1949). Den Haag: Algemeen Rijksarchief. ISBN 9074920071.
Online
External links