Afro-Surinamese

Afro-Surinamese are the inhabitants of Suriname of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. They are descended from enslaved Africans brought to work on sugar plantations. Many of them escaped the plantations and formed independent settlements together, becoming known as Maroons and Bushinengue. They maintained vestiges of African culture and language. They are split into two ethnic subgroups ( Creoles and Maroons).

Origins

Most of the enslaved people imported to Suriname came from West Central Africa (circa 61,500 slaves, 27% of the total number), Gold Coast (Ghana) (circa 46,000, 21% of the total), Windward Coast (circa 45,000, 20%), and Bight of Benin (more than 32,000, 14% of the total). Thousands of enslaved people also arrived from Bight of Biafra (circa 11,000, 5.0% of the total) and Sierra Leone (circa 3,600, 1.6% of the total). The total number of enslaved people was estimated at 220,000.

The Akan people, Akans from the central Ghana were, officially, the predominant ethnic group of slaves in Suriname. However, in practice, enslaved people from Loango, purchased in Cabinda, Angola, were the largest group of slaves in Suriname since 1670; they surpassed the number on the Gold Coast in almost all periods. Enslaved people including the Ewe (who live in southern Ghana, Togo and Benin), Igbo (from Nigeria), Yoruba (from Benin) and Kongo (who live in the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola), all left their cultural footprints in Suriname.

History

The Dutch were involved in the slave trade during the early colonial years. They sought office space for their plantations. The space they received was when the British in the Treaty of Breda (1667) gave land on the northern coast of South America, ceded to them in exchange for New York. Suriname became a slave colony. Slaves were rapidly shipped from Africa to Suriname to work on coffee, cocoa, and sugar plantations for the Dutch and other Europeans.

Afro-Surinamese scholar Gloria Wekker argues, for example, that working-class Afro-Surinamese women retained pre-colonial African cultural understandings of gender, sexuality, and spirituality. She, and other theorists, argue that African cultural retentions are found most often in Afro-diasporic communities that either had irregular contact with dominant groups of the host community or that shielded their cultural retentions from their colonizers. As Wekker observes, Surinamese slaves socialized, communicated, and communed with little white cultural, social, or linguistic interference.

Maroons

Escaped enslaved people in Suriname and French Guiana, known as Maroons or Bushinengues, fled to the interior and joined with indigenous peoples to create several independent tribes, among them the Saramaka, the Paramaka, the Ndyuka (Aukan), the Kwinti, the Aluku (Boni), the Matawai, and the Brooskampers. By 1740, the maroons had formed clans and felt strong enough to challenge the Dutch colonists, forcing them to sign peace treaties. Because of their long isolation in interior rainforests, they maintained more African culture than did ethnic Africans in the cities.

From 1972 to 1978, two American professors, S. Allen Counter and David L. Evans, made seven voyages upriver into the maroon areas. Both African Americans, they wanted to contact these communities and learn about the peoples, to see what African cultures they followed.Vincent Harding, "A remarkable search for roots;" ''I Sought My Brother: An Afro-American Reunion,'' by S. Allen Counter and David L. Evans
''Christian Science Monitor'', 12 March 1982, accessed 2 October 2013

By the 1980s, the maroons in Suriname had begun to fight for their land rights to protect territory which they had long occupied.''Case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname,'' Judgment of November 28, 2007
Inter-American Court of Human Rights (La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos), accessed 21 May 2009 They won an important case in 2007 at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ruled they had rights to their traditional lands.

Notable Afro-Surinamese people

* Andwélé Slory
*Belfon Aboikoni, Maroon leader
* Alice Amafo, politician
* Boni, freedom fighter
* Remy Bonjasky, kickboxer
* Darl Douglas
*Dési Bouterse, politician
* Diego Biseswar
* Dwight Tiendalli
*Edson Braafheid, football player
* Ian Maatsen
* Jayden Oosterwolde
*Ronnie Brunswijk, politician and rebel leader
* Humphrey Campbell, singer
* Redlight Boogie, singer
* Romeo Castelen, football player
* Romano Denneboom
* Nelli Cooman, athlete
*Edgar Davids, football player
* Wanze Eduards, Maroon leader
*Kurt Elshot, football player
* Ruud Gullit, football player
*Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, football player
* Ernesto Hoost, kickboxer
* Hugo Jabini, politician
* Ruth Jacott, singer
*Patrick Kluivert, football player
*Anton de Kom, resistance fighter and author
* Melvin Manhoef, mixed martial artist and kickboxer
*Gazon Matodya, Maroon leader
*Jan Ernst Matzeliger, inventor
*Ché Nunnely, football player
* Sophie Redmond, physician and activist
* Michael Reiziger, football player
*Frank Rijkaard, football player
*Jairzinho Rozenstruik, mixed martial artist and kickboxer
* Elisabeth Samson, 18th-century coffee plantation owner
*Clarence Seedorf, football player
*Regilio Tuur, boxer
* Ryan Donk
*Virgil van Dijk, football player
*Bono Velanti, Maroon leader
*Ronald Venetiaan, politician
* Gleofilo Vlijter, football player
*Letitia Vriesde, athlete
*Jules Wijdenbosch, politician
*Georginio Wijnaldum, football player
* Crysencio Summerville
* Don Ceder
* Javairô Dilrosun
* Mitchell te Vrede
* Ricardo Moniz
* Alvaro Verwey
* Florian Jozefzoon
* Galgyto Talea
* Kevin Wattamaleo
*Gilbert Yvel, mixed martial artist and kickboxer
* Jamilhio Rigters
* Jahri Valentijn

References

Bibliography

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{{Portal bar, Africa, Suriname

Surinamese
Ethnic groups in Suriname