Suriname Maroons Research Articles

Maroon, Fiiman, Busikondeesama: A Play on Identity in Three Speech Acts

This essay features discussions with and among Suriname Maroons engaged in cultural work about the names they choose in self-reference. Maroon is just one choice of many; others include Fiiman (free person) and Busikondeesama (hinterland person). Each name differently configures their relationships to various people, places, and ideas across time and space. These reflections question and challenge what communicative work Maroon does in figuring and prioritizing specific components of a broader cultural and historical nexus. The authors deliberately center contemporary Suriname Maroons—not only as cultural stewards but also as individuals actively involved in theorizing Maroon legacies and futures.

Rainforest villages, eighteenth-century history

Based on long term ethnographic work with the Saamaka, and with the benefit of hindsight, this paper unpacks the specific ways in which the descendants of these Suriname Maroons have constructed and transmitted the historical knowledge of their 18th-century ancestors, who escaped slave plantations and confronted the colonial powers from their new settlements in the depth of the forest. In the process, they created an original memory of these historical events— First-Time or Fesiten knowledge—and managed to keep it alive. The article explores the specific ontology, frames and idioms of this historical knowledge, as well as its ideological role, the (dis)connections to hegemonic colonial memory devices, its evolution in time, the ways of transmission, and the memory specialists that have kept and circulated it.

Maroons in Guyane

Abstract This note presents new demographic data on the number and location of “Suriname Maroons” in Guyane (French Guiana), as well as elsewhere in the world. After brief discussion of the methodological challenges of estimating the size of “ethnic” populations in a country whose census prohibits such counts, it shows that about 38 percent of Maroons now live in Guyane and that they form one-third of the total population. It ends by suggesting some implications of this demographic explosion.

Tracing ancestor rice of Suriname Maroons back to its African origin

African rice (Oryza glaberrima) and African cultivation practices are said to have influenced emerging colonial plantation economies in the Americas1,2. However, the level of impact of African rice practices is difficult to establish because of limited written or botanical records2,3. Recent findings of O. glaberrima in rice fields of Suriname Maroons bear evidence of the high level of knowledge about rice among African slaves and their descendants, who consecrate it in ancestor rituals4,5. Here we establish the strong similarity, and hence likely origin, of the first extant New World landrace of O. glaberrima to landraces from the Upper Guinean forests in West Africa. We collected African rice from a Maroon market in Paramaribo, Suriname, propagated it, sequenced its genome6 and compared it with genomes of 109 accessions representing O. glaberrima diversity across West Africa. By analysing 1,649,769 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in clustering analyses, the Suriname sample appears sister to an Ivory Coast landrace, and shows no evidence of introgression from Asian rice. Whereas the Dutch took most slaves from Ghana, Benin and Central Africa7, the diaries of slave ship captains record the purchase of food for provisions when sailing along the West African Coast8, offering one possible explanation for the patterns of genetic similarity. This study demonstrates the utility of genomics in understanding the largely unwritten histories of crop cultures of diaspora communities.

The ‘Botanical Gardens of the Dispossessed’ revisited: richness and significance of Old World crops grown by Suriname Maroons

Old World crops entered the Americas as provision on slave ships and were planted by enslaved Africans in their home gardens, known as the ‘Botanical Gardens of the Dispossessed’. Escaped slaves who settled in Maroon communities in Suriname’s forested interior practiced shifting cultivation for centuries with seeds they brought from their home gardens. After the abolishment of slavery, Creoles largely abandoned agriculture and farming became the activity of Asian wage laborers. Maroon agriculture has never been studied in detail. The recent discovery of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) in a Maroon garden initiated this ethnobotanical study on Old World crops grown by Maroons, and their motivations for maintaining this agrodiversity. In 2013, we collected crop cultivars and landraces and interviewed 16 Aucan and Saramaccan Maroon farmers. The greatest richness was encountered in bananas, taro, okra and rice. Most crops were used for food, but sesame, melegueta pepper and African rice largely lost their food function and served mainly for rituals. Farmers exchanged seeds and tubers with family members and other ethnicities in both urban and forest communities. Spending time in the capital during childbirth or illness resulted in the loss of typical Maroon crops (e.g., Bambara groundnut), as seeds lost viability during the farmer’s absence. Motivation to grow specific crops and cultivars varied from tradition, food preference, seasonal spreading, rituals and traditional medicine. Documentation of specific landrace properties, storage of seeds in germplasm centers and in situ conservation are urgently needed to safeguard these previously undocumented Maroon landraces.

Judges, Masters, Diviners: Slaves’ Experience of Criminal Justice in Colonial Suriname

“Two negroes hanged,” John Gabriel Stedman wrote in his Suriname journal for March 9, 1776, and then two days later, among his purchases of “soap, wine, tobacco, [and] rum” and his dinners with an elderly widow, he records, “A negro's foot cut off.” Stedman expanded on these events in the laterNarrativeof his years as a Dutch–Scottish soldier fighting against the Suriname Maroons:And now, this being the period of the [court] sessions, another Negro's leg was cut off for sculking from a task to which he was unable, while two more were condemned to be hang'd for running away altogether. The heroic behavior of one of these men deserves particularly to be quotted, he beg'd only to be heard for a few moments, which, being granted, he proceeded thus––“I was born in Africa, where defending my prince during an engagement, I was made a captive, and sold for a slave by my own countrimen. One of your countrimen, who is now to be my judge, became then my purchaser, in whose service I was treated so cruelly by his overseer that I deserted and joined the rebels in the woods . . .”To which his former master, who as he observed was now one of his judges, made the following laconick reply, “Rascal, that is not what we want to know. But the torture this moment shall make you confess crimes as black as yourself, as well as those of your hateful accomplices.” To which the Negroe, who now swel'd in every vain with rage [replied, holding up his hands], “Massera, the verry tigers have trembled for these hands . . . and dare you think to threaten me with your wretched instrument? No, I despise the greatest tortures you can now invent, as much as I do the pitiful wrech who is going to inflict them.” Saying which, he threw himself down on the rack, where amidst the most excruciating tortures he remained with a smile and without they were able to make him utter a syllable. Nor did he ever speak again till he ended his unhappy days at the gallows.

Maroon Archaeology Is Public Archaeology

Researchers of the contemporary past have sought to be instrumental in public dialogue about how artifacts speak to heritage matters relevant to living communities and decision-making polities (Emberling and Hanson, Catastophe!: the looting and destruction of Iraq’s past, 2008; Gibbon, Who owns the past?: cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, 2005; Mullins, Places in mind: public archaeology as applied anthropology, 2004; Renfrew, Loot, legitimacy and ownership: the ethical crisis in archaeology, 2000; Skeates, Debating the archaeological heritage, 2000). This approach has made archaeology a public endeavor that serves the needs of inquisitive researchers, as well as those groups of individuals whose lives may be directly affected by the excavation, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological remains. This paper will broadly assess how the archaeology of Maroons—tribal communities of runaway slave descendants—has affected the application of scholarly research in the former Dutch territory of Suriname, SA. The shift in relevance is due to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights 2007 judgment that allows Suriname Maroons to assert decision-making authority on matters of land management and development in ancestral and contemporary habitat. Vital to this endeavor is, Maroon involvement in archaeological research and more importantly, an overhaul in Surinamese antiquity laws.

Archaeological Investigation of Suriname Maroon Ancestral Communities

The following report outlines archaeological findings from two eighteenth-century Maroon ancestral settlements in Suriname, South America. Maroons are descendants of escaped slaves and their social development presents a unique perspective of African-Diaspora material culture. The initial objective of the archaeological research was to identify, survey and excavate ancestral settlements for artifacts depicting kin-group divisions and clustering and material culture resources. In August and September of 1997, members of the Maroon Heritage Research Project (MHRP) identified the Saramaka site, Kumako and Matawai site, Tuido located in the Suriname and Saramaka River basins, respectively (Figure 1). The location and general historical overview of each ancestral settlement was determined from the available body of literature on Suriname Maroons, more specifically, the Saramaka (Bos, 1998; Fermin, 1781; Goslinga, 1971, 1979, 1985; Green, 1974; Hoogbergen, 1990; Jackson, 1965; Khudabux, 1999; Klooster, 1997; Price, 1975, 1983a, 1983b, 1990, 1996; Price and Price, 1980, 1988, 1991, 1992, 2003; Stedman, 1796). The project progressed to collecting ethnohistorical accounts on the place names, and building liaisons with various Maroon governing bodies (notably, the then Saramaka paramount chief and the current Matawai paramount chief). All these avenues of inquiry generated questions about the settlements for village elders and key individuals in the Maroon social structure, who would later become integral to the overall success of the project. The field excursions were successful in that they led to the identification of both these settlements (see Figure 1). The discussion that follows describes the objectives designed for each archaeological site and subsequent excavation season. Saramaka Site, Kumako During the 1997 survey season, members of the MHRP crew were escorted to Kumako by a village elder who are the individuals most knowledgeable about the history of the site. The initial travel route and destination were pre-plotted and tracked with a hand-held GPS device and then mapped. Upon arrival at the general coordinates (4° 24' 50.0394 N latitude and 55° 27' 43.6206 W longitude), a rock structure was identified that still remains as a marker for the northernmost boundary of the site. The site sits at a mean elevation of 293 metres above sea level.1 Areas with surface artifact scatters were identified and recorded with a hand-held GPS device. Artifacts included a musket ball cache and fragments of ceramic pottery. The discovery of these items further substantiated the location of the site, but no excavation took place at this time. Excavation of the Kumako settlement began during the 2000 fall field season. Multiple goals were considered at this time. The first objective was to create a path through the forest to connect the Suriname River Valley with the Saramaka River Valley, passing either north or south of the Ebba Top Ridge. This path would allow for easier interior forest travel and ultimately foster simultaneous excavation at multiple sites. In addition, it would aid in the understanding of how early Saramakaans and Matawais may have used these same methods for strategic travel and communication between the major rivers. Although MHRP members were unable to create the forest path, some helpful and important information was gathered. First, it gave us a sense of the terrain, flora, fauna, and conditions of the interior forest. This area is no longer inhabited by humans due to its distance from major waterways. Secondly, some of the crew who made it to the Ebba Top peak were able to take GPS readings along the way. These GPS points allowed us to get a clearer idea of where Ebba Top was situated with regard to Kumako. Thirdly, along the way, both crews came across other potential sites - flat areas near water that appeared to have been cleared earlier in the history of the area. Moreover, we realized that clearing a path connecting the two river valleys was too impractical and labour intensive given the time frame with mainly student volunteers, forcing us to focus on excavation at one river valley per field season (personal communication from Becker, 2000). …

Revenants That Cannot Be Shaken: Collective Fantasies in a Maroon Society

AbstractsAll societies possess and cherish group fantasies, programs of travels through imaginary space. Although such culturally shaped flights of the imagination influence collective behavior, they are neither an acknowledged part of public discourse nor coterminous with “implicit” or “covert” culture. Two strikingly different fantasies of Suriname's Maroons reveal the main dimensions of collective fantasies.

Subsistence on the plantation periphery: Crops, cooking, and labour among eighteenth‐century Suriname maroons

(1991). Subsistence on the plantation periphery: Crops, cooking, and labour among eighteenth‐century Suriname maroons. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 12, The Slaves' Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas, pp. 107-127.

Oral History of Suriname Maroons

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Sexism and the construction of reality: an Afro‐American example

The literature on the art of the Suriname Maroons depicts men as active artists producing decorative woodcarvings as gifts of love for their women, who are passive connoisseurs. This paper explores the ways by which Maroon women use their own arts to affirm their social relationships and to reflect on them. It also traces misconceptions about Maroon women and their arts to notions of gender that are held by ethnographers and by the Maroons themselves. [Afro‐America, gender, art, song, women].