Stedman's Surinam: Life in an Eighteeth-Century Slave Society by John Gabriel Stedman

Author:John Gabriel Stedman [Stedman, John Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2013-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15th

Description of the Aborigines or Indians of Guiana

At last farewell to the Hope, of which I am convinced the reader is by this time as tired as I.

Thus rowing down, on the night of January 19th, I slept at the estate Arendsrust, and next day I dined at the beautiful plantation Catwyk, where I had nearly ended all my travels, for Mr. Goetzee, the owner, having lent me one of his horses to ride round the estate, the animal and I both at once disappeared, not like the Roman soldier who leaped with his horse into an opening or cleft in the earth to save his country, but a wooden bridge over which we passed being rotten, the part under us gave way and we dropped through it into the canal. I, however, with much difficulty got ashore, and having run to call some Negroes, the horse, who stuck in the mud, was extricated barely alive and no more.

Being now arrived in town at my friend De Lamarre’s house, I felt extremely happy, and more so seeing my little boy and his mother both well, whom I acquainted with my second request being dispatched to the new proprietor, Mr. Lude, at Amsterdam, for their manumission; and the next day visited the Governor, Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Lolkens, Mrs. Demelly, &c., who all congratulated me on my acquaintance with Mr. De Graav, and highly honored me, and approved of what I had done for so deserving a young woman and her infant.

On January 25th, a great number of Indians, or natives, being arrived at Paramaribo, and having now the time, I shall with pleasure describe this people, who are the real aborigines of this country. These generations (who are, in my opinion, the happiest creatures under the sun) are divided into many castes or tribes such as these: the Caribbees, Arrowouks, Accawaus, Tawiras, Worrows, and Piannacotaws, besides which there are a great many others whose manners are unknown to us. All these Indians are, in general, of a copper color, while the Negroes of Africa, that live under the same degree of latitude, are perfectly black. And which, however inconceivable at first, is easily accounted for when one considers that the first, viz., the American Indians in Guiana, are constantly refreshed by the cooling sea breeze or easterly wind that blows between the tropics, and that those who dwell in Terra Firma, and Peru, on the west coast, enjoy that same easterly breeze, still kept cool by the great chains of inland mountains over which it passes, and which have their summits perpetually covered over with snow. While the second, viz., the inhabitants of Africa, who live south of the River Senegal, get the same east wind rather heated than cooled, by the prodigious quantity of inland burning savannas, and sandy deserts, over which it passes.

These are the most plausible causes why the Americans are a copper color or red, and the inhabitants of Africa (called Negroes) are black, viz., the

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