The Ambiguity of Freedom: Kinship and Motivations for Manumission in Eighteenth-Century Suriname

Abstract

ABSTRACT The quantitative studies of manumission have revealed shifts in patterns of manumission and changes in the types of kinship that were connected to the manumission process. In these studies, the actual people and their motivations remain hidden from view. In this article, kinship ties in the manumission process in eighteenth-century Suriname are researched through a single case study: the manumissions by the prominent Surinamese slaveholders Nicolaas van Enkhuijsen and his wife Sara Lemmers. This article argues that kinship ties were just as important for many enslaved people as freedom itself. The Van Enkhuijsen case shows that for women, in particular, maintaining kinship ties was crucial for their life after slavery.