Dutch Guiana
The first European settlement in this region was settlers from Barbados, brought by Lord Willoughby (1650). In 1651 the British occupied Suriname and in 1667 the Dutch took over the colony. In exchange for New Holland in North America, the Dutch obtained this colony at the Peace of Breda (1667), a transfer confirmed by the Treaty of Westminster (1674).
The new colony, Dutch Guiana, did not thrive. Historians cite several reasons for this, including Holland's preoccupation with its more extensive (and profitable) East Indian territories, violent conflict between whites and native tribes, and frequent uprisings by the imported slave population, which was often treated with extraordinary cruelty. Barely, if at all, assimilated into plantation society, many of the slaves fled to the interior, where they maintained a West African culture and established the six major “Bush Negro” (or Maroon) tribes in existence today: the Djuka, Saramaccaner, Matuwari, Paramaccaner, Quinti, and Aluku.
About 100 plantations were in production. During the 18th century the Dutch established some 500 plantations with slave labor on the fertile clays in the coastal area. The main products were sugar, coffee, cacao and cotton. The emergence of the plantation economy in the coastal area based on slave labor ended up partitioning the country into two zones with different characteristics. The indigenous population migrated to the margins of the plantation zone or further south to make room for the new social and economic order of the European settlers.
For the Europeans the southern part of the country, what today is referred to as the interior, remained an unexplored wilderness where the indigenous people could freely settle and subsist, as they had done on the coastal area prior to 1651. The Europeans developed the coastal area on the basis of western cultural, social, economic and political traditions and in this process the colonial trade economy of Suriname emerged.
African rebel slaves who escaped from the plantations used ties of kinship as the basic ordering principles to develop their social, economic and political institutions. After the onset of the 18th century the interior of Suriname was inhabited by both indigenous and Maroon societies. The fertile alluvial clays of the coastal area were necessary and sufficient to sustain the agriculture sector of the colonial trade economy. There was more than enough space in the hinterland to accommodate both the indigenous and Maroon populations, as long as they did not attack or interfere with production on the coastal plantations.
Peak production in the plantation economy was reached around 1770, but after the economic problems and the stock market crises of 1773 in the Netherlands investment in agricultural undertaking in the colonies lagged behind earlier years and production began to decline. After the abolition of slavery in 1863 the decline of the plantation economy accelerated. Attempts to reverse this decline by importing indentured laborers did not have the intended effect. After completing the required labor contracts on the plantation most indentured laborers also left the estates and established small farms in the coastal area.
The population of Surinam was primarily divided into free and unfree (slaves). The free included people of all races. Besides the Dutch, there were English, French and German migrants who had come to the colony to work and were attracted by the climate of religious tolerance. At the top of the social ladder stood the senior officials, merchants and planters. The slave-masters on the plantations formed a European middle class, while the soldiers were the least regarded of all Europeans. Those of mixed descent, with some European ancestry, felt a cut above the Africans. They gradually formed into a middle class. Among the unfree, those of mixed race were given the best jobs, such as domestic chores. Yet Africans made up by far the majority of the population: in 1791, 53,000 Africans were enslaved in Surinam. By contrast, there were around 5,000 Europeans living in the colony.
Slavery was abolished (1863) and the colony was inhabited by Hindus and Indonesians. Plantations steadily declined in importance as labor costs rose. Rice, bananas, and citrus fruits replaced the traditional crops of sugar, coffee, and cocoa. Exports of gold rose beginning in 1900. The Dutch Government gave little financial support to the colony. Suriname's economy was transformed in the years following the Great War, when an American firm (ALCOA) began exploiting bauxite deposits in East Suriname. Bauxite processing and then alumina production began in 1916. During World War II, more than 75% of U.S. bauxite imports came from Suriname.
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