One hundred and fifty years ago, slavery was abolished in both the Dutch colonies and the United States. This was not without fear:what would be the social and economic consequences? The Netherlands was particularly concerned about a labor shortage on the Surinamese plantations. America saw the specter of wandering, uprooted ex-slaves and racial unrest. Combined, these fears led to a remarkable Dutch-American plan that has long been forgotten.
On July 1, 1863, approximately 33,000 slaves in Suriname and approximately 12,000 slaves in the Netherlands Antilles were given their freedom. Slavery had already been abolished on Sint Maarten in 1848, when this also happened on the French half of the island. Contrary to what historians have long believed, it was not decided to abolish because the slavery system was already yielding less. The abolition movement and the silent resistance of the slaves themselves made it untenable.
The Emancipation Act awarded the former owners compensation of 300 guilders per freed slave, and obliged all ex-slaves to continue to work for a boss of their choice for a low wage for another ten years. According to the explanatory notes to the law, this period of State Supervision should be used to educate the former slaves in church and schools into decent citizens who would take their place in society as diligent employees and good family fathers and mothers.
In 1873 the State Supervision was over and the former slaves were really free. Then they left the plantations at high speed. In 1873 there were 15,000 working people, ten years later only 4000. July 1st is a national holiday in Suriname and the Antilles; in the Netherlands the abolition is commemorated in the Amsterdam Oosterpark with the Keti Koti (Broken chains) festival.
1863 promised to be an ominous year for plantation owners and other whites in both Suriname and the United States. The slaves would get their freedom. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed emancipation in September 1862, in the midst of the American Civil War. On January 1, 1863, the Confederates were to release their slaves. In Suriname, the governor announced in October that the slaves would be free the following summer, on July 1, 1863.
For racist and business reasons, many whites feared emancipation and the multiracial society that would follow. Colonization seemed like a solution. This meant that the freed slaves were offered a multi-year labor contract. After the contract expired, they were offered a piece of land of their own. So they remained more or less tied to agricultural areas and productive for export.
In Suriname, after the abolition of slavery on 1 July 1863, this took shape during the ten-year period of State Supervision. In the United States, the plans for colonization went in a different direction. Here, the future of having to coexist between black and white was experienced as particularly problematic. In June 1862, Lincoln suggested that black colonization in the Caribbean was a response to the anticipated racial problems of postwar America. They would then be persuaded to agree with light coercion from the government.
According to Lincoln, it should in principle be voluntary, but historians speak of a 'gentle push in the back'. The blacks, without income themselves, were promised money and land; as long as slavery still existed, they weren't sure whether they might have to pay for a refusal by force. Congress backed this plan by setting aside $600,000 for it.
Immediately the European colonial powers tried to take advantage of this and get this potential stream of immigrants to their areas. The Dutch also made a serious attempt to get American 'Freedmen'. A new international research project has recently uncovered the relevant correspondence from these diplomatic negotiations (see box below).
Lincoln has voted in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation for the employment of freed Negro slaves abroad. Most historians have interpreted this as a political tactic, namely to placate opponents of emancipation. Lincoln has indeed kept quiet about the matter after the Emancipation, but a new large-scale transatlantic research project shows that he has not changed his mind, but has continued to support this controversial cause behind the scenes. The background was his fear that the ex-slaves would be exploited in their old environment.
In the book Colonization After Emancipation:Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement (University of Missouri Press, 2011) Phillip Magness and Sebastian Page show that after September 1862, Lincoln's administration promoted and partly organized colonization projects for freed slaves in five Central American countries:Belize, Haiti, Guyana, Panama and Suriname. In the context of this project, a six-volume source edition is also planned at Chatto Publishers (London), titled_ Colonization, Emigration, Emancipation and the American Civil War,_ with relevant archival documents per country.
Newspaper clipping
In July 1862, still in the early stages of the abolition of slavery in Suriname, Dutch representatives presented a plan to the Lincoln government to bring American 'freedmen' to Suriname on a five-year contract. Afterwards, in this plan, these people were given a plot of agricultural land and they became Surinamese citizens.
Lincoln ordered that this offer be discussed, but the negotiations in The Hague between his envoy to the Netherlands, James Pike, and the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, P.Th. van der Maesen de Sombreff, were long. Probably not to Van der Maesen's satisfaction, because he felt the hot breath of the Surinamese planters on the neck. Maybe Pike has stretched things a bit. He was actually against foreign colonization and thought it better if the freed slaves remained in areas specially selected for them on American soil. Anyway, it was only after a year and a half, in December 1863, that Pike and Van der Maesen signed a treaty in The Hague, which gave the US supervision of the transport to Suriname. The treaty then went to the US Senate for ratification.
Hoping that this would be settled soon, the Colonial Secretary wanted to inquire about the mentality of the freed slaves and the current situation in the United States and appoint yard agents. For this he enlisted the cooperation of the Dutch envoy in Washington, Th.M. Rust of Limburg. However, he was not so positive about the project. The diplomats in The Hague had failed to consult him during the negotiations and did not inform him immediately after the conclusion of the treaty. To his dismay, Van Limburg only learned about the treaty through a newspaper clipping that someone gave him. He felt insulted by this.
Not only was it an insult not to include the man who would play a key role in the practical implementation on the ground earlier in the plan, it was also unwise. If Van der Maesen had properly consulted Van Limburg in Washington beforehand, he would have noticed that he personally had little interest in the emigration plans because he had understood from his diplomatic network that such a thing was impracticable. All in all, not a good basis for a project that saw the envoy as an important pillar.
Stinginess
Van Limburg had a group of subordinate diplomats at his disposal for such matters, a dozen unpaid consuls stationed in major American ports. Baltimore, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia seemed to him to be possible ports of embarkation for 'Freedmen' en route to Suriname. But when Van Limburg inquired with the respective consuls about their possible involvement in the practical guidance, he discovered that most would rather resign than get involved in 'negro emigration'.
It was too much work and also too messy and dirty for these men, mostly businessmen who had been asked for the consul job because of their contacts. Usually they were of Dutch descent, but two consuls turned out not to be able to read Dutch:the consequence, complained Van Limburg, of the acrimony of his government, which did not want to pay decently for good assistants. Printed instructions from The Hague about how to act with regard to the 'Freedmen' therefore made no sense.
Van Limburg's sour relationship with The Hague and his tentative opposition to the project should of course not be too noticeable. He managed to find a way to keep the Dutch government and the Surinamese planter class happy. He stalled by proposing to wait for better conditions (the Civil War in the United States was still ongoing). He made suggestions that he knew were too expensive for the Dutch treasury, such as an honorarium for his consuls or hiring special site agents from the Netherlands or from Suriname itself for a fee.
But whatever Van Limburg did to discourage the colonization project, his superiors in The Hague continued to believe in it. The Dutch government saw in every change on the American scene (the formal end of the Civil War in the spring of 1865, the black refugees who wanted to stay with the American army and were placed in camps, etc.) Limburg again with the plan.
This was partly because it was precisely in these years that ministers came and went in The Hague. Four men were in charge of the Foreign Office between 1862 and 1865, three of the Colonies, and none of them had the time or opportunity to examine the plans. They saw no reason to break with the policy of their predecessors and continued to press for colonization of 'Freedmen' in Suriname.
Voluntary
A major setback for the project, however, was that the US Senate did not get around to ratification or dared the controversial debate. It became clear to the Dutch government and the Surinamese planters in 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that officially abolished slavery was passed in America that it was better to change course and look for an alternative recruitment method for black workers. .
The US government would no longer venture into a project that could look like slavery to the casual outsider. The Netherlands was therefore forced to abandon the planned large-scale colonization of a few thousand men under the auspices of the government, which would exert light pressure on the 'Freedmen', and focused on promoting voluntary emigration:after all, the blacks were now free citizens with the right to emigrate yourself.
The Netherlands contracted a businessman in Boston to recruit 'Freedmen' for Suriname from all over the United States. During the year 1866 he had agents working for this. They hoped to interest several hundred blacks. For example, the trick was that the boat trip to Suriname was paid for.
It is not yet clear whether the agents were successful or not. Despite intensive archival research, no hard data has emerged to show that ex-slaves from the United States have actually emigrated to Suriname. In any case, there have not been many, at least not enough to meet the need for workers. It was not for nothing that the Surinamese planters recruited Hindu immigrants. The first arrived in 1866. They had served their contract in British West Indies colonies and then signed in Suriname. In 1872 the Netherlands concluded a treaty with England whereby contract workers came directly from Asia.
The final blow, however, was probably given to the slimmed-down project by the 'Freedmen' themselves. The research into colonization projects in Panama, Haiti and Liberia shows that there was little enthusiasm to participate. The failure of a colonization of 500 'Freedmen' in Haiti in 1862 was especially detrimental. Few 'Freedmen' were willing to emigrate to Panama or Liberia, even though they were under pressure.
There is no reason to assume that this would be different for Suriname. Although the future in their own country looked dire, they had no guarantee that it would be any brighter in Suriname. Nothing the recruitment agents said about the Dutch colony could dissuade them from that belief.
Read more about slavery on Kennislink
Read more in the file Abolition of slavery of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.