A Harvard Physician’s Reports on an 1857 Visit to the Saamaka

Abstract

Abstract In 1857, Harvard professor and anatomist Jeffries Wyman traveled to Suriname to collect specimens for his museum at Harvard (later the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, founded in 1866 and curated by Wyman). Though his main interest concerned amphibians, he had a secondary interest in ethnology and, apparently, a desire to demonstrate current theories of racial “degeneration” among the African-descended population, particularly the “Bush Negroes.” This research note presents a letter he wrote his sister from Suriname, excerpts from his field diary, and sketches he made while visiting the Saamaka and Saa Kiiki Ndyuka. Wyman’s brief account of his visit suggests that Saamakas’ attitudes toward outside visitors (whether scientists, missionaries, or government officials) remained remarkable stable, from the time of the 1762 peace treaty until the Suriname civil war of the 1980s.