Rebel Destiny Among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana (Classic Reprint)

Treface THE pages that follow describe scenes in the lives of a Negro people living in isolation in the interior of Dutch Guiana, South A merica. These Negroes are the descendants of runaway slaves imported from A frica, who took refuge in the dense Guiana bush and established African villages along the rivers whose rapids are their fortifications. The end of the seventeenth century already found these Negroes in constantly growing numbers up the Suriname River, and before the middle of the next century they were sufficiently organized to make repeated raids on the plantations for guns and gunpowder, for machetes and women. Several campaigns were conducted against them, but eventually final treaties were concluded with the Dutch owners of the colony, which guaranteed them their freedom. Today when a Bush Negro drinks with a white man his toast is Free! Three tribal groups go to make up this Bush Negro population. The Saramacca tribe, of whom we write, is found in the heart of the colony along the upper reaches of the Suriname River (called by the Bush Negroes the Saramacca, and hence so named in this book), and farther south along the Gran Rio and the Pikien Rio. This tribe has had the least contact with outside influences, and it is the Saramacca language which differs most from that spoken by the Negroes of the coastal region. The second is the A wka tribe, found mainly along the Marowyne (M aroni) River, which forms the boundary between French and Dutch Guiana; there are in addition several A wka villages on the lowerS
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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