Istwa Nou

Suriname was the principal settlement in the Dutch Guianas and the centre of a rapid expansion of sugar cultivation, which meant a rapid expansion in the demand for enslaved labour. Until the 1780s Dutch vessels held something close to a monopoly on landing captives there, so the colony's supply was controlled from Amsterdam and Middelburg rather than bid for on an open market. West Central Africa and the Gold Coast were the leading sources, although some of the people recorded as leaving the Gold Coast had probably been embarked further west along the Windward Coast, which is a useful caution about how precisely these origins can be read. Close to three hundred thousand people arrived in the Dutch Guianas across the period. Mortality on the Suriname estates was high enough that the labour force had to be replaced continuously, and that is the same arithmetic that governed Saint-Domingue. A colony which works people to death has to keep buying.