Frontier Society: A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam

448 Pages·1971·14.154 MB·English

by  R. A. J. van Lier (auth.)

FRONTIER SOCIETY
KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT
VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE
TRANSLATION SERIES 14
R. A. J. V AN LIER
FRONTIER SOCIETY
A SOCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORY OF SURINAM
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B. V
This book is published under a grant
from the Netherlands Ministry of Education and Sciences.
The original title was:
SAMENLEVING IN EEN GRENSGEBIED
Een sociaal-historische studie van de maatschappij in Suriname
(First ed. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1949;
Second ed. Van Loghum Slaterus, Deventer, 1971)
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1971
The English translation, which is based on the second edition,
was made by Miss M. J. L. van Yperen.
ISBN 978-94-015-0156-9 ISBN 978-94-015-0647-2 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-0 15-0647-2
J.S.B.N. 90.247.5138.1
PREFACE
The Dutch version of Frontier Society (Samenleving in een Grens
gebied) first appeared in 1949. A second Dutch edition of this work has
been published in 1971, in the text of which a number of minor improve
ments have been made and a few passages added here and there, though
on the whole the work has remained unchanged. The English translation
presented here is of the Dutch text for the second impression.
It is more than twenty years since the book was first published. There
have been no publications since which have induced me to introduce
major corrections or additions to the original work, and although further
research in the Public Record Office in The Hague has brought more
material to light, this did not give cause for altering the picture presented
or the examples given either. This is due in the first place to the
character of the work, being an attempt at presenting a structural and
historical analysis of the development of an exploitation colony based
on slavery into the type of society found in many parts of the world
outside Europe in the period preceding decolonization. But it is probably
also a consequence of the paucity of historical publications about a
country on which there is such a wealth of material available.
Since the publication of the book, in which I chose the concept of
"plural society" as point of departure for the kind of analysis I was
trying to make, a great deal of literature on that subject has appeared.
But I did not see fit to go into this any further in the introduction,
where I have discussed this concept, in retrospect in the light of
later scientific developments. This seemed to me unnecessary especially
because the present work is not an attempt at demonstrating the
significance of the plural model for the overall analysis of a particular
kind of society; its aim is simply to outline the historical development
VI
of this type of society in order to provide a basis for modern sociological
research in Surinam. This kind of research has meanwhile fortunately
got under way.
For those among my readers who are interested in the fate of Surinam
after 1940 I have added a review of the development of the country
in the last few decades in the form of a postscript. I did not try to give
an in-depth analysis of the recent social history; in some places I did
not refrain from expressing opinions, however. A selected bibliography
of literature published after the year 1948 has also been added.
R. A. J. VAN LIER.
CONTENTS
page
Preface V
Introduction. 1
1. The "Plantation of Surinam" 19
II. The White Masters. . . . 38
III. The Settlement as a Slave Colony. 52
IV. The Jewish Community . . . . 85
V. The Free Mulattoes and Negroes and the
Position of the Manumitted . 96
VI. The Slaves. . . . . . . 117
VII. Emancipation and the Period of State
Supervision. . . 179
VIII. Government Policy. . . 190
IX. The Economic and Social Changes after
Emancipation. . . . . 217
X. State Organization and Political Tensions 298
Postscript. . 379
Table I-IV 422
Bibliography. 426
Bibliography of Selected Literature . 433
Index. 439
INTRODUCTION
My aim in writing the present book was to give a brief account of
the development of the society of Surinam which might serve as an
introduction to the analysis of the present-day social relations in that
country.
In 1947 I spent seven months in Surinam, the objective of my journey
being to collect material for a study of its society. When on my return
to Holland I began to work out my material I felt the lack of a deeper
insight into the previous history of the present-day society to be a distinct
disadvantage. It proved to be impossible to give a satisfactory inter
pretation of contemporary social phenomena without an understanding
of the colonial past, as this still exercises a strong influence on the
present. It was therefore essential to precede my examination of the
society of today with a more profound study of the past. This method
offered the best opportunity of gaining an unbiased view of the con
temporary situation. On examination of the society of Surinam one is
struck by the degree to which ideas engendered by past situations still
exercise a direct influence on the judgment of present events. The only
way of achieving the necessary detachment for an interpretation of the
facts which aims at objectivity is to study the origin of the opinions
guiding the members of a society in their social. behaviour.
In the study of the social past of Surinam I have made use of existing
studies in this field as well as of printed documents. When, as far as
I could judge, these threw insufficient light on the phenomena which
were the object of my investigation, I consulted the material present in
the section on Surinam of the Public Record Office in The Hague, and
was thus able to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. This part of
my research I restricted entirely to the limited objective I had in view,
namely to give a summary of the development of the society of Surinam.
I shall not attempt to give below an orderly chronological account of
the social history of Surinam, as this would be a task requiring years of
intensive work at the stage of development which the study of the history
of Surinam has reached to date. Although a large number of records
2 INTRODUCTION
have been preserved, as far as the social history is concerned not sufficient
use has been made of them. Preliminary studies of any importance in
this field are few in number, a few fragments in Wolbers' well known
work on the history of Surinam which contain valuable data concerning
its social development, and some short articles in the Encyclopaedie van
N ederlandsch W est-I ndiii and in De W est-I ndische Gids being the only
sources to which I had access.
In this book I shall record the social relations which were important
in determining life in the Colony. These relations came about as a result
of the joint striving of a group of people to attain certain objectives,
and of their views testifying, in doing so, to a mentality which was
connected with certain given situations. Ambitions" mentality and views
are transmitted by one generation to the next. But they undergo certain
changes in the process, which occur as a result both of changes in the
concrete situation and of relatively autonomous changes in the world
of conceptions. Wherever determinable changes took place in the devel
opment of the society of Surinam I have pointed these out by means
of historical examples.
In the final part, in which the period from 1863 to the second World
War is discussed, relatively more attention has been given to the "Creole
group" than to the Hindustani and Javanese groups,* because the in
fluence exercised on the fate of the country by the Creole group was
predominant. The great social shifts resulting from the social and
* "Creole" is a French word and is a derivation from the Portuguese word crioulo
(criar = to bring up) meaning born or brought up at home as opposed to
bought. (Cf. W. Meyer-Lubke, Etymologisches Wiirterbuch, 1935, n. 2305:
creaTe). Originally only Europeans born in South America and the West Indies
were called creoles, but gradually the name came to be applied to negroes who
were born there as well; the name was even used with reference to the progeny
of imported animals. Thus creole became a name for persons born in South
America and the West Indies whose ancestors came from overseas.
In Brazil too negroes born in that country were called creoles. (Cf. Gilberto
Freyre, p. 66.) This usage seems to have been quite common in Surinam as
early as 1770. (Cf. Hartsinck II, p. 899 and Blom, p. 415.) Until well into
the 20th century the name creole was applied to every person born there; the
the adjective was also used with reference to cattle.
As a result of the immigration of a large number of Asians the word assumed
a new meaning in Surinam, however, being now used mainly with reference
to the group consisting of coloured people and negroes, so that it was possible
to distinguish these from the descendants of immigrants. A child of European
parentage born in Surinam may also belong to this group if he or she considers
himself a member of it and is accepted as such by the other creoles.
INTRODUCTION 3
political actIvItIes of the Hindustani group after World War II lend
themselves for discussion as the subject of a later study.
Here and there I have stepped outside the bounds of the period to
which the present book has been confined, and sometimes facts pertaining
to present-day developments have been disclosed in order to make for
a better understanding of the situation.
Sociologists have always shown a great predilection for distinguishing
between different types of community. Well-known German sociologists
such as Tonnies, Vierkandt and Max Weber have based their theories
on the distinction between "community" and "society". We see an
analogous distinction between groups with "mechanical" and "organic"
solidarity in the writings of the French sociologist E. Durkheim. These
concepts have a history of their own, which reflects primarily the
reactions of sociologists to the social situation of their time.1 In an
introductory survey of the society of Surinam one cannot help
yielding to the temptation of applying the criteria of "community" and
"society" to the social group under discussion. But these two terms are
wielded only too often by persons guided on the one hand by the ideal
of the purer, more genuine way of life of some groups as opposed to the
pattern furnished by modern society, which leaves their deeper social
desires unsatisfied, terming the group in which the former is found
"community" and the latter "society". Nonetheless, these concepts have
some value for sociologists as well, as they distinguish between different
types of social grouping which are determined by the degree of unity
within the group and the equality between its members; they also enable
us to establish to what extent the different activities within the group
are integrated. If, like Freyer, we apply these concepts without attaching
value judgments to them, on the basis of the method of sociology as the
science of social reality, we can determine a few of the main character
istics of the society of Surinam.
Freyer considers the fact that a society is composed of heterogenous
elements which are held together by means of power its most important
characteristic. In a community there are no power relations, whilst the
culture as a whole is the spiritual property of every individual member.
1 H. Freyer, Soziologie als W,irklichkeitswissenschaft, Leipzig, 1930, p. 238;
HandwoTteTbuch deT Soziologie, Stuttgart, 1931: articles on Gemeinschaft
and Gesellschaft by Th. Geiger, p. 173 and p. 201; R. MacIver, Society.
A Textbook of Sociology, London, 1937, pp. 4 and 8.