The Cost of Sugar

by Cynthia McLeod

  There were yet again plans to send even more manpower to Suriname to reinforce the fifteen hundred who were already there. Increasingly large sums were demanded of the planters; increasingly large were the taxes that had to be paid into the escapees’ fund. And even so, the thousand-or-so soldiers with all their weapons could not bring the Maroons to their knees. There were always reports of military posts and plantations being raided, buildings being set on fire and weapons and other equipment being seized.

  Colonel Fourgeoud now had another tactic. He wanted to starve the bush-negroes out. If the bush were methodically burnt and all agricultural plots destroyed, then that riffraff would have to surrender.

  The cordon path on which they were hard at work would serve to reach the bush-negroes wherever they might be. Every few kilometres there was a post with defences and every five kilometres there was a watch-tower where a horse was kept in order to be able to get a message through quickly if need be. And despite all this, the Alukus were not being defeated.

  No, things were not going well in the colony. Elza gave a sigh. She had nothing to complain about. Rutger was now administrator for no less than eight plantations. Four of these were plantations where the planters had been unable to pay their debts. These were now the bank’s property, but Rutger had appointed the planters themselves as manager/overseers. On some plantations things were going along all right, on others not, for the manager still imagined himself to be the owner.

  Elza heard footsteps on the stairs and Jonathan, who was playing on the rear veranda with Afanaisa, shouted, “Mama, here is an aunt.”

  Mia van Henegouwen came in. She was now Mrs Willemsen. Elza was pleased to see her. They were very good friends and had been right from the time that Elza and Sarith were attending the French School.

  Mia said, “I thought you would already be lying in bed with a daughter next to you.”

  Elza laughed, “I wish that were the case, but it won’t be long now and, yes, I am hoping for a daughter, with so many boys in the family. Esther has five of them, I myself two, my brother David three, Rebecca has two and Sarith one.”

  In this way the talk turned to Sarith. Did Elza know what was being said about Sarith? She had recently had various guests at Klein Paradijs, including Lieutenant Andersma and three friends, and even there under her husband’s nose Sarith had managed to go with the lieutenant. Elza knew about it. Everyone was talking about it. She and Maisa had just been discussing it at length.

  “Could you not talk to her, Elza?” asked Mia.

  “Me, why me?” asked Elza, surprised.

  “Oh, you were always such good friends and I always used to think that you had a good influence on her. You know, that time with Charles?”

  Yes, Elza knew about that time with Charles. How Sarith was meeting him in secret, when everyone thought that the three girls were together, and how often she had asked Sarith not to do this. But that was all very long ago now.

  “Oh no, not me,” said Elza. “Oh, we were indeed very good friends in the past, but now everyone has her own life to lead. In fact I have very little contact with Sarith. She has her own circle of friends, you see.”

  Yes, Mia understood that. “Can it be that her husband really knows nothing about it?” she asked again.

  Elza did not know. Everyone was indeed talking about it, but as these things always go, the husband is the last person to hear. And this was also the case here. All Suriname knew that Sarith was having an affair with Lieutenant Andersma. Everyone knew about it, except Julius.

  171 Surdati Bakra.

  172 “Efu yu prefuru fu taki wan sani, mi e seni yu fu wan pansboko en mi e seri yu go na pranasi Suynigheid.”

  173 “Nono Misi, mi no e taki noti.”

  174 “San yu taki depe?”

  175 “Noti, mi no taki noti.”

  176 “Efu yu taki wan sani, me e koti yu tongo en mi e seri yu.”

  177 Declaration of freedom.

  CHAPTER XI

  FEBRUARY 1775: JAN

  Eleven cannon shots resounded from Fort Zeelandia to greet the ship, and the ship responded likewise. Jan stood among the many soldiers on the ship and looked towards the white town that was coming closer and closer. So this was Paramaribo. It all looked so spick and span, but he would still have been pleased had it looked grey and filthy. Being confined in the small ship for sixty-one days amidst all these ruffians had been no picnic. They had left Amsterdam around the middle of December. They had first had their fill of rough weather. Waves as tall as houses had crashed continually over the ship. It had been cold and stuffy, because all the hatches had been battened down and heating was non-existent. Later the weather had become warmer and one could at least get some fresh air. The food had been terrible. No fresh meat, only salted peas. According to the captain, this was particularly good for the men, as they could get used to what they would be getting in the bush. But worst of all were the fights between the soldiers and the sailors. Time and time again this happened, and the punishments became increasingly severe.

  One of the soldiers who had used a knife during a fight with a sailor was pinned to the main-mast with the knife. He had to remain there until he had freed himself. Both of them were then keelhauled and lost six months’ pay. Two sailors caught having sex with each other were simply thrown overboard. Jan had stayed as much as possible out of the way of all these rough men and he was thanking God that he had survived all the diseases such as scurvy and diarrhoea and would soon be on dry land again.

  He had had such expectations for his journey to Suriname. Not in the first place to fight – he was really no soldier – but because of the gold he was planning to find here. And while Jan looked at the steadily approaching, friendly, white little town, he thought back yet again to all the things he had heard about this marvellous country, and what had led him to decide to become a soldier, to fight the bush-negroes.

  In Holland he had been living with his parents in a small farming community near Amsterdam. Father was a farm labourer. They were poor, for Pa wasn’t a permanent farmhand, but was taken on only when there was a lot to do: in the summer, for instance, for the haymaking and at harvest-time. In the winter he was often unemployed and then carved spoons and bowls out of willow. Sometimes his mother did have work in the winter, helping the farmer’s wife with weaving or at the slaughter, working a whole day with nothing more than a pan of cooked peas or a side of bacon as payment.

  It was by pure chance that Jan, then a lad of fourteen, had got a job as assistant to the stableman of a rich Amsterdam gentleman. One warm summer afternoon the gentleman had been driving through the village when one of the horses became lame through picking up a stone in a hoof. Jan, who had been sitting at the side of the ditch, had helped the coachman and had carefully worked the stone loose while talking comfortingly to the horse, which was at first very much on edge. As a reward he could come to work for the rich gentleman. It had been good work. There was always plenty to eat and he had a warm spot to sleep in the stable loft. The rich gentleman owned plantations in a land far away to the west, and the old stableman Joris had told Jan during the long winter evenings what a country that was: very warm, fantastic plantations, a land where all the whites were rich, simply because of being white. All the work was done by negro slaves: stupid, ignorant creatures who had been transported over from Africa and sold to the plantation owners. Those people were then set to work in the same way as horses or mules.

  Joris knew all about this because he had been a seaman. As a sailor he had journeyed to those western parts. He had experienced everything, including pirates and privateers, and had lost an eye and three fingers. The finest tale, however, was about the gold, which was lying around in the huge forests there just for the taking. Of course, Joris had not found it. He was never there long enough to go and look for it himself. But it was there – he was sure of that.

  Jan had listened open-mouthed to all these stories, and Joris had also said that in recent years soldiers we
re going to that country. Some of those negroes had fled to the bush because they no longer wanted to work on the plantations, and soldiers were being hired in from Amsterdam to catch them and bring them back to the plantations. Joris had said that he would certainly have gone had he been young enough. Jan, now eighteen, did want to go there. He could become a soldier, catching the negroes in the forests. Above all, he knew about the gold, so he could go looking for it. That would surely not be all that difficult. Yes, Jan knew for sure he would return to Holland as a rich man.

  When he had made the two-hour trek to his village on his monthly Sunday off to tell his parents that he was going to Suriname as a soldier, they were at first most surprised. Was Jan leaving? Why on earth? He would never get such a good job again. And where was he going? Where was that strange land he was talking about? In the west? Was that perhaps somewhere near the east? Were there Chinamen there with those slant eyes? No, Jan answered patiently, no Chinese, but he would have to catch negroes, those black folks.

  “Negroes?” his mother had cried, “Oh, Jan, but those people eat whites. Aren’t they those wild people who cook whites in big pots and eat them, and stick bones through their noses as decoration?”

  “No, mother, these are escaped slaves,” Jan had explained, but Ma and Pa still thought that it was dangerous anyway, whether it was slant-eyes or negroes. All those types were really scary. And how was Jan planning to catch them? Jan had explained that it was child’s play. Those folk had nothing and the soldiers had everything – guns, cannon, horses and so forth. But most important was the gold he would find there. He would be returning as a rich man. He would buy marvellous things for everyone, build a big house, keep his own horses and cows.

  His little sisters had listened with eyes aglow and ears pricked up. Would Jan buy something nice for them, too, really nice? Indulgently Jan had promised: of course, they only had to say the word. Antje wanted shoes, real shoes with shiny buckles, and Miebetje wanted a dress, a new one from the shop. And mother? Well, for mother a warm skirt and a shawl; for father a new hat and a jacket. And for grandma? Grandma, who had been sitting mumbling in a corner of the room, hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about, but the sisters had called out, “Grandma, you’re getting a foot stove from Jan, a warm one for your feet, and a shawl.”

  Grandma mouthed toothlessly, “Where is it?”

  The sisters had had a good laugh and shouted into grandma’s deaf ears, “When he comes back from Suurvename and is rich.”

  So he had arrived in Suriname, and couldn’t wait to get ashore. It was indeed hot – very hot!

  A few weeks later Jan was on his first expedition. How different was the reality! It was truly terrible here in the jungle. Oppressive, dark, even in the middle of the day. They had been in the bush for twenty-seven days now. Progress was very slow. Every bit of path had first to be hacked clear. Negro porters carried everything they needed, and that was an awful lot! Captain Stoelman shouted orders, the officers gave orders, and the soldiers just trudged on. So far they had seen neither sight nor sound of a single negro. A strip of ground cleared in the forest had been found. Something people called farming land. It was planted with cassava and maize. Unfortunately, nothing was yet ripe, otherwise they could have used it. It would have been a welcome change from mouldy peas, groats and salted meat with the maggots crawling out. On the captain’s orders the men had had to burn the field. Because everything was damp this did not work, and so the men had to dig everything out and cut it up, and then the resulting pile was burnt.

  Jan felt totally wretched. In all the twenty-six nights he had not had one good night’s sleep. Terrible, those mosquitoes. Now he always wrapped cloths around his head at night so as not to hear the humming and he would put his head in a hollow in the ground with his kit on top. His arms and legs were covered with infected boils. Every time he had been bitten by an insect he had scratched at the bite, and due to his dirty fingernails everything had festered. Worst of all was the pain in his groin. Mites had bitten him there. He had scratched away and everything had become infected and had festered. His uniform, dirty, stinking, wet from the rain, then dry, then wet again, made it even worse. Every step he took was torture. No, he had not imagined it like this. How dreadful! Hell itself could not be as awful as this.

  At night everything was pitch black. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face and every sound could be a poisonous snake waiting to give you a fatal bite or a tiger lurking, ready to tear you to bits. All the men were more or less in the same state as he. All except the native porters, who appeared to have no trouble with all the insects and who seemed to be able to walk on their bare soles much more easily than the soldiers with their swollen feet in heavy boots.

  There came a whisper that it was suspected that a group of Boni-negroes would be encountered. They would have to make as little noise as possible in order to surprise the negroes and capture them. If a group of negroes was captured, they would have to be shot straightaway. From each one a hand would be hacked off as proof back in town. The soldier would get a bonus for each hand. Should a chieftain be captured, his head would be cut off for display in the town.

  Suddenly, shots rang out, and before the soldiers could prepare their weapons for firing, four of them lay bleeding on the ground. The porters had suddenly disappeared. More shots, noise, commotion. “Flee, flee, run for your life, get out of here!” Soldiers ran in all directions. No-one worried about anyone else, each of them just tried to save his own skin. Jan, too, ran, and ran, forcing his way through thorny bushes, scratching his face open, losing his hat, but going on. There lay a fallen tree trunk. He must get over it. He tried to jump, but caught his foot on something. A sharp pain, searing. He could go no further! With a cry he fell to the ground, piercing one hand on a pointed stick that protruded from the earth. Freeing his hand and looking with dread at the blood now pouring from it, he tried to stand up. He could not. His leg, what was wrong with his leg? With a shiver he looked at his left leg, which that lay under him at a strange angle. He began to realize that he would not be able to walk any further.

  Trying with the one hand to compress the wound in the other, he called out loudly, “Help, help!” No reply. Everyone had disappeared. Again Jan screamed, “Help, help me, over here!” Nothing! Again he tried to stand and again he immediately collapsed onto the ground. He shuffled a little on his bottom so as to be able to lean with his back against a tree trunk. His hand was still bleeding. Dizzy, Jan closed his eyes. So this was it! He would remain here and die from loss of blood and from starvation. Perhaps torn apart by wild beasts. How stupid he had been when he had thought back there in Holland that he would come to this land, catch a few negroes and then still find gold. How stupid!

  When Jan opened his eyes again he saw a large negro clad in only a loincloth standing about ten metres away from him. O God, a Maroon! His gun, where was his gun? But he had dropped his gun, and it lay on the ground close to the man. He would now pick up the gun and shoot him.

  “Lord God in Heaven,” Jan prayed with closed eyes, “Let me die straightaway. Let him shoot me in the heart or straight through my head. Don’t let me suffer. Let me die instantly.”

  It was two, at the most three, minutes, but to Jan it was an eternity. Every moment he expected the shot. In a flash his village, his sisters, his parents, his grandma passed before his eyes. He heard grandma asking, “Where is it?” and his sisters replying, “When he comes back from Suurvename.” Everything recalled in a flash. The shot, why no shot? He open his eyes briefly and saw that the man was now standing near him. Perhaps he wanted to shoot him from close by, to make sure he would die. But now Jan saw that the man had no weapon in his hands. The gun was propped up against a tree. The man leaned towards him. Perhaps he would rather strangle him or hack him to pieces with his machete? Jan raised his hands in defence. Still the one hand was bleeding.

  “No,” he cried, both hands in front of his face.

  But t
he man said, “What’s the matter? Get up, get up.”178

  Jan looked at his leg. Perhaps the man wanted to fight him. Then the man looked at the leg, too. He bent down and began carefully to undo Jan’s boot. Jan groaned from the pain. When the boot was removed, Jan looked at the leg, which now had a large swelling at the site of the fracture. Now the man shook his head gently, saying something while trying cautiously to lay the leg in a better position. Then he went to a bush, cut off several branches with his machete and, after having stripped them, lay them on each side of Jan’s leg. He said something again, but Jan could not understand what he meant.

  Some way off lay his pack. The man went to it and got something out. It was his neck cloth. He tore several shreds off and began to fasten the sticks carefully along the leg. Jan could not understand. Was the man not going to murder him, then? It was after all one of the dreaded bush-negroes? The man said, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll be back soon.”179

  Then he went away. Even if he had wanted to, Jan could not have gone anywhere. The pain was too great and he was feeling totally exhausted.

  A little later the man came back with another man. They had a kind of stretcher with them, bound together with lianas. They lay Jan very carefully on the stretcher and took him away.