A different angle on Beverwijk

A remarkable walk through Beverwijk

Beverwijk is an historic town near the Dutch coast, just to the north of the present-day canal linking Amsterdam to the sea at IJmuiden.

 

On April 13, 2024, a town excursion took place in Beverwijk, starting from the 14th Century Great Church past various historical places, ending at the Kennemerland Museum. In the Great Church there are several mourning boards and funerary chapels of families associated with the colonial past, as explained by Jan Kramer, who investigated the history of the church. Wim Goedegebuur then played the 18th Century Müller organ, which was donated by Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck, owner of the Scheybeek country estate and three plantations in Suriname.

the 14th Century Great Church of Beverwijk

From the Great Church we walked past the Lutheran church De Swaen, led by local historian Fred Schweitzer and Jan Kramer. In 1771-1778 this address was owned by Susanne Lespinasse, the patroness of Susanna Dumion (1713-1818), a Surinamese woman who was later freed from slavery by her owner, and died at the respectable age of 105 years! Her grave was recently rediscovered by Mariska de Jong in Haarlem. Susanne and her housekeeper Susanna undoubtedly spent the summers in Beverwijk during this period. 

We then visited the locations of long-gone houses where Claes van IJperen used to live, a man who played a part in the start of the Dutch slave trade. We continued past the country houses of Akerendam, Scheybeek and Duijnwijk, all of which have a colonial background and were owned by families associated with slavery. Jan Lapro, the last owner of Duijnwijk, returned to the Netherlands with three 'slave girls' from the East Indies, who had been given him by a local sultan. He gave the ladies their freedom at the notary before sending them home by ship. Evidently that was also possible at that time!

the Scheybeek mansion

At the Kennemerland Museum, who were so kind to provide us with a location for the afternoon programme, we were offered lunch by Mariska de Jong. Next, Fred Schweitzer and I each gave a lecture. Fred mainly focused on a city map from the 17th century with detailed information about Beverwijk and some well-known inhabitants, following which I spoke of the relationship of Beverwijk with the slave trade and Surinamese slavery. Finally, the guests made a tour of the museum and the exhibition of the Surinamese Maroon culture, opened one week previously.

A summary of my lecture is below.

Beverwijk and its slavery past

Surinamese and Caribbean slavery was a system of human exploitation on an industrial scale: in Suriname alone it affected 220,000 people over a period of 200 years. The slave owners were a numerical minority and did not view those people as persons, but merely as a means of production. On the plantations, the victims were literally worked to death, having an average life expectancy of 8 years. 

Nowadays we look with horror at the unabashed drive for profit of those days, at the cost of thousands of unfortunates. The astonishing thing is its occurrence during the Enlightenment, in which humankind, reason and civilization became mainstream thinking.

Fort Elmina, conquered by the Dutch after Claes van IJperen had tipped off the Dutch authorities that it was weakly defended by the Portuguese. This became a major centre of the slave trade.

Beverwijk was more connected with slavery than you might think. During the 17th and 18th centuries, many rich country estates around Beverwijk were owned by Amsterdam families with interests in slavery. And here are some other examples:

Claes van IJperen, before he became mayor of Beverwijk, was the Director General of the Gold Coast for the West India Company, and closely involved in the start of the Dutch slave trade in 1637.

A young man named Gerrit Pater left Beverwijk for Suriname in 1705. In 1710 he married a planter’s daughter, who possibly brought him a starting capital. He died in 1744 as a colonial magistrate, owning three plantations. He was the richest man in the colony and half of Suriname was in his debt, which says something of the spending habits of the planters...

Surinamese plantations owned by Gerrit Pater

The connection between Amsterdam and Beverwijk

The stench of the rich city of Amsterdam must have been unbearable, especially in the summer heat, because at the time, the pretty canals we admire nowadays were open sewers. Compared to the city, in those days the tidal headwaters of the Wijkermeer were an idyllic place out in the country. So in summer, the rich town residents sought refuge in their mansions situated between the dunes and the Wijkermeer. 

The deep tidal inlet from the Zuyderzee, with the Wijkermeer as its headwaters and Amsterdam at its mouth.

 

Wijkermeer, painting by Solomon Ruysdael showing the tower of the Great Church of Beverwijk in the distance.

Originally, Amsterdam wealth came from European trade such as iron, timber and grain carried from the Baltic, Scottish wool traded against Dutch roof pantiles, and salt carried in from Portugal. Only decades later the colonial trade of the Dutch East India Company and the West India Company played their respective parts. Much later still in the 17th century, the Society of Suriname was founded.

Let us have a look at the latter two.

The West India Company (1621)

The WIC was founded in 1621, authorised by the States General and financed by public and private capital. The WIC was intended to give the Spanish and Portuguese colonies a headache by privateering - legalised piracy by ships manned by the Company and Dutch soldiers. And as early as 1623 the WIC investigated the slave trade from Angola, following the Portuguese example. In 1630 the WIC conquered Portuguese Brazil, which was a Dutch colony until 1654. In 1637 the WIC took the West African fort São Jorge da Mina from the Portuguese, in which Claes van IJperen from Beverwijk, then Director-General of the Gold Coast for the WIC, played a leading role.

After the Peace of Münster of 1648, the end of the 80 Years’ War with Spain, privateering comes to an end. The WIC’s attention then shifts to the trade in colonial products and the slave trade to the Americas. They have contracts with slave traders in the West Indies. In 1674 the WIC goes bankrupt, but it makes a restart. Gradually it will play a role in governing the new colony of Suriname in addition to Curaçao and other islands, and later the Company becomes a shareholder in the Society of Suriname.

The Society of Suriname (1683)

The Society was founded in 1683, with the WIC, the city of Amsterdam and Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck as shareholders. The latter is an adventurer, a former soldier and a real battleaxe, who buys his share with money borrowed in Amsterdam. The Society is a colonial exploitation company charged with the administration and defense of the Colony. Suriname supplies must be routed through Amsterdam, an awkward regulation inspired by the import and export dues levied by the city.

Many members of the Amsterdam elite were directors of the Suriname Society with secondary interests in plantations. 

the 18th Century Mariënbosch plantation house, Suriname

Mansions and rich families

During the 17th and 18th centuries, many of the rich country estates on the shores of the Wijkermeer were owned by Amsterdam families with colonial interests. I will mention a few of their names: Bicker, Geelvinck, Boreel, Coymans, Pels, Trip and Sautijn. Those families formed a restricted clan, many of whom had lucrative colonial board positions. The estates also often changed ownership within their own "bubble" through inheritance, intermarriage and mutual sales.

The Scheybeek estate was the property of members of the rich Geelvinck family for a long time. They already were involved with the WIC in 1621. Over a century later, Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck was the owner of Scheybeek for almost 20 years. She had inherited the Surinamese plantations Boxel, Het Yland and Sinabo & Gelre from her husband Lucas Pels. The beautiful Müller organ of the Great Church of Beverwijk was donated by Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck. 

Surinamese plantations owned by Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck

Over the years, we also see well-known family names as owners of the Akerendam mansion, each with important colonial connections: Bicker, Geelvinck, Pels, Boreel and Sautijn.

The original Westerhout country house was built around 1627 by Balthasar Coymans (1555-1634). The Coymans family has a long history of slave trade. Marriage and inheritance created relationships with the Boreel and Geelvinck families, both with interests in the WIC and the Suriname Society.

Let's look at the Coymans family.

The Coymans family

Balthasar Coymans II, together with his brother Joan Coymans (who both died in 1657) extended the scope of the Coymans trading house originally founded by their father Balthasar I (1555-1634). They originally traded gold, Swedish iron, pitch, linen and spices. Their cousin Isaac Coymans (1622-1673) was Chief Merchant at Elmina for a while and actively involved in the slave trade from about 1653. 

Soon, the Coymans company acted as brokers in the slave trade via Curaçao. Their Cádiz (Spain) branch contracted the WIC as a supplier, because the Spaniards were not allowed to trade in Africa as a result of the Tordesillas treaty of 1494, which divided the world between Spain and Portugal. 

funerary board dedicated to Balthasar Coymans II, a slave trader buried in the Great Church of Beverwijk

Sophia Trip, the widow of Joan Coymans and sister-in-law to Balthasar II, led the commercial empire between 1657 and 1670. Her sons Balthasar III and Jan then took over. Isabella Coymans (1647-1705), owner of the Westerhout estate and married to Jacob Boreel, was their cousin.

Old money and investors

Many country estates on the Wijkermeer were originally established before 1650 with capital earned from European trade. Only later in the 17th century did the slave trade and the plantation economy enter the picture. The later owners of those country estates were often connected with the WIC and the Suriname Society, and thus earned a percentage of the slave trade returns. They developed the country houses and their associated gardens with funds, the origin of which is doubtful. 

Location of 17th Century mansions along the shore of the Wijkermeer. The hazy contours show how this expanse of water had shrunk by 1850.

Around 1750 so-called negotiations were created, investment funds from which the Surinamese planters could negotiate loans. Those planters borrowed crazily to pay for their extravagant lifestyle. Due to these negotiations, the money flow became less transparent, which raises questions about their investors. How much did they know about the human exploitation in the colony? Or did they know and look away all the same? In the end, these investors lost almost all their money which I think served them well...

I sometimes compare this with the investors in Shell Oil. Did they know what was being perpetrated by Shell in Nigeria? Shell is still being sued for the pollution and the injustices done.

Conclusion

Shouldn’t we enjoy the beauty anymore of all those historical monuments? That would take things a little too far. But perhaps we should sometimes remember the dark side of all that splendour.

Akerendam mansion situated in Beverwijk

 

The best preserved part of Africa in South America

Exhibition of the Maroons in Suriname

On April 6, 2024, an exhibition was opened in the Kennemerland Museum in Beverwijk, Netherlands, about the culture of the Maroons in Suriname. It was an initiative by Mariska de Jong and Iwan Jhintoe, two Maroon descendants living in the Netherlands, and I put a lot of work into it together with Mariska and the museum, thanks to Cees Hazenberg and Teatske de Jong. 

part of the exhibition

 

Following the opening, I gave a lecture about the Maroons. See abstract below.

About the Maroons and slavery

Surinamese slavery was a system of human exploitation on an industrial scale: in Suriname alone it affected 220,000 people over a period of 200 years. The slave owners were a numerical minority and did not view those people as persons, but merely as a means of production. The victims were often worked to death. The planters used oppression and dehumanization as their tools -  humiliation and denial of identity. This still affects their descendants today. 

The 18th Century Mariënbosch plantation house

 

There would have been no Maroons without slavery. As a result of the harsh living and working conditions, many fled the plantations into the forest. They and their descendants are called Maroons. 

The connection with Kennemerland

The Kennemerland region behind the dunes to the west of Amsterdam was closely connected with Surinamese slavery, and therefore also with the "maroonage", the flight from the plantations that resulted from slavery.

There was someone named Gerrit Pater, a Beverwijk-born young man who left for Suriname in 1705 and died in 1744 as the richest man in the colony, owning three plantations. Half of Suriname was in his debt.

And many rich country estates around the Wijkermeer - the headwaters of an inlet of the Zuyderzee - were owned by Amsterdam merchants, heartless investors of the 17th and 18th centuries, who had interests in plantations. 

The Akerendam mansion at Beverwijk was the property of Amsterdam plantation owners

 

The first Maroons

The first Maroons probably already fled the plantations in British times. After the conquest of Suriname by the Dutch in 1667, the British planters gradually departed. 15 years later, most plantations were Dutch property. The number of plantations then grew rapidly, increasing the number of enslaved workers and the flight from the plantations.

Resistance and peace

By 1750, about 3000 Maroons lived deep in the wilderness of Suriname. Many were engaged in a bitter guerrilla with the planters and the government, who were steadily losing the struggle. In 1758, Paramaribo finally throws in the towel and offers peace to one Maroon tribe: the Okanisi. Then in 1760 the first treaty follows with Okanisi, followed by treaties with the Saamaka and the Matawai. Other groups however never make peace, such as the Aluku of Captain Boni.

The 1760 peace treaty between the Colonial authorities and the Okanisi tribe. source: National Archives, through Wikipedia.

 

The Surinamese Maroons of today

Present-day Maroons are directly descended from the Maroons of the past. The peace treaties allowed a hard but secluded and peaceful life in the forest, and as a result, they preserved many of their original African traditions.

Maroon village of Gunsi, upper Suriname river.

  

African roots

In Africa, traditionally there is an animist belief and a strong bond with the ancestors. This is clearly present in today’s Maroons. Many of them feel a strong connection with nature, everything around them containing its own power or spirit. They practice the water ritual, which honours their ancestors, and many other rituals, for example around life and death. They have also preserved the oral storytelling tradition of Africa such as the stories about Anansi, the spider.

The bond with nature

An example of the bond with nature is the Kankantri, the African kapok tree, which also grows in South America. The Kankantri is worshipped in the forest because it houses a busigado, a forest spirit. Sometimes a meal is placed under the tree for the busigado, and unaccountably, the food has always disappeared the next morning! 

Kankantri, the ghost tree

 

Rituals and ancestors

Rituals are highly important in the Maroon culture. They strengthen the ties within the community and with the ancestors, at birth, marriage, illness and death, but also on other formal occasions, such as the opening of the exhibition in Beverwijk. Here the water ritual was carried out, which has the deeper meaning of the journey of the ancestors over the ocean and also has a cleansing function. In addition, a libation was offered to Mother Earth. I was present at the ritual, and it made a great impression.

Anansi - photo and overlay by Ted Polet

 

African storytelling

Where there is no written language, knowledge and wisdom are transferred orally from generation to generation with stories, often about Anansi, the spider, which were handed down from West Africa. Those stories aren’t just for fun - they also have a deeper meaning. In Africa, Anansi, the son of Mother Earth, is the messenger of the gods to mankind. He steals wisdom, but accidentally drops it to the ground. And then this happens ...

The river took the wisdom that Anansi had gathered to the sea, which it spread all over the world.

And that is why a little bit of wisdom lives in us all.

Mother Earth

In Ghana, Mother Earth, the mother of Anansi, is called Asaase. In Suriname she is called Mama Aisa or Gronmama (literally: Earth Mother). She is the goddess of the dry, exhausted earth and of death and welcomes the deceased in the spirit world. You even have to ask her permission to bury someone’s body.

Asaase Yaa/Mama Aisa (source unknown)

 

But she is also the goddess of fertile earth and new life - look at the infant in her arms in the image above. And so once more, we touch the beliefs of the Maroons: a life cycle that starts before birth and continues after death.

Secret messages

The Maroon culture is full of secret messages, which are well understood by the recipient. They are in embroidery patterns, wood carvings and the painted pattern on utensils. The 'pari' or paddle is used to steer the pirogue, but it also directs life, which is shown in the carving at the top and the painted pattern on the blade.

 

Pari, or paddle for a pirogue. Photo by Mariska de Jong

 

The secret messages are also in the language of the Apinti drum and of the "telephone tree" .

Apinti

Apinti is a way of speaking with a drum. Its origin lies in West Africa, and the sound can be heard for miles in the jungle. Once it was used to signal the presence of an enemy in the forest. Speaking with the drum is a difficult art. The drummers must be inaugurated and must have a thorough knowledge of the rules. Apinti also has a ritual meaning. The drummer not only speaks to people, but also with the supernatural. 

Apinti 'doon' - the drum played in the forest. Photo by Mariska de Jong.

 

The telephone tree has deep recesses in its trunk, and gives a hollow booming sound when you knock on it it with a stick. The language of the telephone tree is the same as that of the drum.

My friend Olan Dinge knocking on the trunk of the telephone tree, Gunsi, upper Suriname river.

 

The flyer designed for the exhibition

Maryam

Christmas is the feast of the weak.

Today, Christmas Eve, 2023, I held my first grandchild in my arms once again. She is six weeks old and perfect, and it was sheer wonder to see how little she needed to still her hunger and to carry her around till she slept.

I just saw an interview on TV of the Moroccan author Abdelkader Benali. He told the story of Maryam, to whom an entire book of the Quran is dedicated. Maryam, who retires into the desert when she is unaccountably pregnant, because she isn’t a girl of ill repute. No, said God, you aren’t a girl of ill repute, but you will bear a prophet. She is given water when she is thirsty, and when she is hungry, there is a fig tree that lowers its branches so she can pick the fruits to eat. Traditionally, the fruits of the fig tree are important for safe childbirth. 

 

Maryam, an old Persian miniature (Wikipedia)

 

The Quran story is different from ours, but not very much. No different from Mary and the ox, and the ass, and the child in a crib. That also is a story of poor people, of refugees, of weak ones who can only find refuge in a stable, between the beasts breathing softly and giving warmth so the child won’t go cold.

It may well be that this child was a Palestinian child, over 2000 years ago.

I won’t say that all Palestinians are without guilt. But when I think of the Palestinian children in Gaza, who have been bombarded for months in revenge for an horrible act of terror, I feel cold. Starry-eyed children, innocent little ones, of whom by now over eight thousand were slaughtered by a revenge exercise that even the vengeful God of the Old Testament couldn’t have thought of.

 

Christmas 2023. Drawing by Emad Hajjaj.

 

And then there are the three Wise Men from the east. The wise men who were led by a star that appeared in the sky. Wise men who may have come from Afghanistan, or Iran, or possibly from the North African desert, to pay tribute. Those people are nowadays locked up in what amounts to concentration camps, as they aren’t welcome anymore in Europe, as laid down in the new Migration Pact. The Christmas story is acted out again day after day, even now. But we haven’t learned a thing.

The churches in Bethlehem are empty in 2023, because no one goes there anymore. “How can we illuminate a Christmas tree whilst Palestinians in Gaza are killed in their thousands?” Ashraf Tannous says, a Palestinian preacher in the Lutheran church of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. 

 

The child Jesus in a pile of rubble. Source: NOS.

 

In the Lutheran church of Bethlehem, the child Jesus normally lies in a crib in the stable, surrounded by Joseph and Mary and the three Wise Men from the east. The child is now pictured in a pile of rubble, wrapped in a keffiyeh, the Palestinian shawl which emphasises its Palestinian identity. It reminds us of the thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza, killed by the bombardments.

Christmas is the feast of the weak. Let us spare them a thought when we sit at the Christmas dinner.