Suriname lies on the northeast coast of South America, with Guyana
to the west, French Guiana to the east, and Brazil to the south. It
is about one-tenth larger than Michigan. The principal rivers are the
Corantijn on the Guyana border, the Marowijne in the east, and the
Suriname, on which the capital city of Paramaribo is situated.
Suriname's earliest inhabitants were the Surinen Indians, after whom
the country is named. By the 16th century they had been supplanted by
other South American Indians. Spain explored Suriname in 1593, but by
1602 the Dutch began to settle the land, followed by the English. The
English transferred sovereignty to the Dutch in 1667 (the Treaty of Breda)
in exchange for New Amsterdam (New York). Colonization was confined to
a narrow coastal strip, and until the abolition of slavery in 1863, African
slaves furnished the labor for the coffee and sugarcane plantations.
Escaped African slaves fled into the interior, reconstituted their western
African culture, and came to be called “Bush Negroes” by
the Dutch. After 1870, East Indian laborers were imported from British
India and Javanese from the Dutch East Indies. |
