17th Century Dutch seafaring

In my planned new book ANANSI, shipping plays a major part because most of the slave trade went overseas. I’d probably take things too far writing an extensive article about this subject - it might bore many readers. Therefore I will restrict myself to a short introduction and a few images.

replica of Henry Hudson's 1609 vessel, showing the tall narrow stern

 

Around 1600, the Dutch Republic was at war with Spain, meanwhile developing into an important trading nation, which cried out for shipping tonnage. Apart from smaller coastal and inshore craft, hundreds of seagoing vessels a year were built in the Netherlands. The invention of the wind-powered sawmill in 1592 speeded up shipbuilding. Nor did the development of new types of ships hesitate - better hull shapes and rigging emerged. The first thing noticeable was ships increasing in size, and a reduction of the tall and extremely narrow stern to better proportions. This can be seen in the replicas of early ships such as Henry Hudson’s Half Moon of 1609, and the slightly older White Swan of Willem Barentsz, the polar explorer who perished at Nova Zembla, 1597.

replica of Willem Barentsz's vessel of 1596, also showing the tall stern and tubby shape

 

Types of ships used in Dutch seafaring

The first one to publish an extensive description of Dutch shipbuilding was the Amsterdam alderman Nicolaes Witsen. His cousin Jonas Witsen, another member of that wealthy family, owned three plantations in Suriname, where his harsh policy caused a slave revolt in 1704.

a fluyt (left) and a pinnace (right), the latter beeing careened and its hull scraped.

 

Nicolaes Witsen in 1671 described several types of vessel that gave a great boost to Dutch seafaring. One of those was the fluyt, a long-hulled ship with rounded bows and stern, which had a simple rigging plan, a large cargo capacity and surprisingly good sailing properties. Another vessel described by Witsen is the Dutch pinnace, a medium-sized ship with an ornate stern, looking like a smaller version of the great Dutch East Indiamen.

another view of a fluyt, showing the rounded hull, steep tumble-home and narrow poop

 

The fluyt was a three-masted vessel about 120ft long, a general-purpose cargo carrier of the Dutch mercantile marine, with an acute tumble-home to the hull and a narrow deck. About 80% of Dutch seagoing cargo vessels was of this type. They sailed to the Baltic, to the Mediterranean, went whaling near Greenland and made far voyages to the East and West Indies. Thus, they also took part in the West India Company’s slave trade. The number of enslaved people carried on such a trip was up to 600, they were armed with 15 or 20 guns and had a crew of up to 60. The mean round trip on the triangle trade (see below) took 516 days, including time spent at anchor or chasing after cargo, human or otherwise.

a mid-18th Century galliot, gaff rigged with a tiny mizzen mast - note the flush deck, the pronounced sheer and the square topsail and topgallant sail

 

For coastal traffic, and also in the colonies, smaller vessels were used such as the hooker and the galliot, probably developments of fishing and inshore vessels. They were up to 80ft long and usually flush-decked with a pronounced sheer. Originally galliots had two masts and a sprit or gaff rig, but in the late 18th Century three-masted square-rigged galliots were built as well. For communications purposes and for transporting Company Directors and members of Government at home and in the Colonies, both the East and West India Companies used armed yachts. And finally there were real warships, two- and three-deckers, which are outside the scope of this article. They were comparable to big East Indiamen.

typical armed yacht with an ornate stern cabin

 

General arrangement of seagoing ships

Both the fluyt and the pinnace, to which I will restrict myself, had a tweendeck or steerage below the main deck. A screened-off section of this forward of the mainmast was usually assigned to the crew as accommodation. Astern of the mainmast most ships had a quarterdeck extending to the stern, even though it doesn’t show as such in Nicolaes Witsen’s drawing, which only has a short quarterdeck. Under the quarterdeck was the officers’ accommodation. Right at the stern was a poop deck, below which the skipper’s main cabin was situated. Forward under the forecastle was the domain of the warrant officers - the boatswain, the carpenter and the cook and their mates. The area of deck between the forecastle and the mainmast was commonly called the waist. Often there were gangways along the bulwarks at the level of the quarterdeck, to enable the forecastle to be reached without passing through the waist.

Nicolaes Witsen's drawing of a medium sized pinnace, this one with a quarterdeck cut short forward of the mizzen mast

 

The headroom in the steerage under the maindeck depended on the size of the vessel, and commonly was between 5 and 6 feet. It should be remembered that for the carriage of slaves, the steerage was converted in West Africa, fitting half-height berths, if that word decribes hard planking, for an additional row of inmates a few feet above the tweendeck level. Thus, such a ship could carry 500 or 600 people. The kind of conditions encountered down there can easily be imagined.

Rigging

The rigging of most merchant vessels was simple, in order to enable the ship to be sailed with as few people as possible. This particularly was the case in the fluyts, which only had lower sails and topsails to each mast, one fitted to the lower mast and the other to the topmast, an extension. The sails were square-rigged to yards, spars that were braced round to the wind. The luff (forward) side of the sails had to be braced by a tackle called the tack, in order to present a tensioned edge to the wind and prevent the sail from flapping. The leech (the downwind edge) of the sails was tensioned by the sheet (another tackle) and could be released a little to spill the wind and let the sail do its work.

a late style galliot, three-masted and square-rigged, sailing close to the wind

 

Sailing close to the wind, these ships were not at their best - they ran better with a beam wind or the wind on the quarter or from astern. Therefore the route of these square-rigged vessels usually followed the prevailing wind. Fore-and-aft rigged vessels such as a galliot perform better when sailed close to the wind.

Cargo and passages in the triangle trade

The triangle trade to West Africa and the Caribbean consisted of three distinct passages, and was laid out in such a way that the vessels followed the prevailing wind and the ocean currents, or at most sailed with the wind abeam. From Europe they carried trade goods used as bartering material to buy people, ivory and gold on the West African coast. These ships sailed with the north wind along the Portuguese coast, which carried on into the Northeast trade to Cape Verde and the anchorage of Gorée near what is now Dakar. Thence they continued south into the ocean for some distance, to avoid the chance of contrary wind at the edge of Africa. They then continued east towards Elmina, where they had to report to the Dutch Governor. From Elmina they might be directed towards other trade posts to discharge and load. The ship was re-supplied there and the steerage converted into a slave deck.

crowded conditions aboard a slave ship - note the plan of the additional 'berths' created on a gallery about 3ft over the steerage deck

 

Often vessels spent weeks or even months at anchor on the coast, or they sailed to and fro to collect cargoes of people being offered on the beach or at other trading posts. The skipper had an important function in negotiating the trade. When eventually the (often human) cargo was completed, they departed to their destination across the ocean, sometimes venturing as far south as Angola to find the wind. Then they continued in the trade winds and through the doldrums (the belt of calms on the equator) to the Caribbean. This part of the trip could take months and often took place at a great cost of life.

schematic map of the Atlantic, showing the routes of the triangle trade

 

It must be remembered that the crews were also prone to disease and death in those ships, due to the bad food and spoiled water. Sickness and death touched them as well as the cargo of human wretches in the steerage, the crew's death rate for the entire trip being about 10%. In the steerage this was often exceeded due to the frightful living conditions of the poor people chained down there.

From Suriname or Curaçao, the vessel eventually turned north to the North American coast carrying tropical produce, picking up the west wind there to sail back to Europe.

To be continued.

A report of the Suriname trip

September 2022

In 2022 we made a trip to Suriname, also known as Dutch Guyana. We made short excursions each lasting a few days, from the capital Paramaribo. The trip was managed by Waterproof Tours, who had arranged for local guides and lodges to spend the night. Without exception, we were very happy with all that was done to make our trip a success. 

 

1 – Rapids in the jungle

Gunsi on the upper Suriname River (south of the large reservoir) was one of our first destinations. Our guide on this tour was Olan Dinge, a likeable young Saamakan who runs a small business called Inside Suriname Tours. He arranged our trip up the river, showed us around and was our cook for three days. We had come by taxi from the Little Paradise lodge at Domburg (see below) and ended up in Atjoni near Pokigron, the starting point of pirogue traffic to the settlements along the upper Suriname river.

 

a pirogue on the river

These pirogues are equipped with a powerful outboard engine and whisk you through the rapids in the jungle at breakneck speed. Such a craft is full of people and in the bows they often carry a pile of cargo. 

 

Saamaka Maroon Museum, Pikin Slee

Gunsi is a beautiful spot close by a few islands, where the river tumbles over several rapids. We stayed in a primitive lodge with a glorious view of the river from the balcony, and the next day made a trip further up the river to the Saamaka Maroon Museum at Pikin Slee. In the jungle area it is pleasantly cool compared to the coastal area.

 

2 – Commewijne District – a former plantation area

The second part of our trip was into former plantation territory along the Commewijne river. Our mode of transport was... a bicycle, starting with half an hour’s cycling along the road to Leonsberg, which is not for the faint-hearted. Even though most Surinamese car drivers are very considerate, occasionally we had to flee into the verge! At Leonsberg we took a tiny ferry across the Suriname River to New Amsterdam. 

 

cycling near New Amsterdam, Commewijne District

We visited the remains of the fort, then continued to an abandoned sugar mill at Mariënburg, and found another ferry across the Commewijne river, ending up at our destination, the restored plantation house of Mariënbosch. Here we were warmly welcomed by our hosts, the Abdoelrahman family. We spent an enjoyable two days there and explored the former plantation trail along the river, before returning to Paramaribo. 

 

Mariënbosch plantation house

There is little left of the old plantations, apart from a few settlements and a network of old canals and sluices. Following our return we booked a dolphin spotting trip that took us back to the mouth of the Commewijne river, where we saw the river dolphins, who came to investigate those strange two-legged creatures in boats!

 

3 - Western Suriname: Bigi Pan and Maratakka

Our third trip was into the west of the country, crossing several great river bridges by car until we were collected by a light aluminium skiff powered by an outboard, taking us to the Bigi Pan nature reserve, a shallow brackish lagoon and swamp area rich in bird life and fish. 

 

Bigi Pan nature reserve

At Bigi Pan we were received at 'Aunt Gerda’s Lodge', one of half a dozen structures built on posts in the middle of the water. There was a crew of three, all family members of the owner (a lady known as Aunt Gerda). Tris was our cook, and the skipper, Sergio, showed us the most beautiful spots in the lake. Having spent the night at Bigi Pan, and having gone on a fishing expedition, we returned to the small town of Wageningen, where we were collected for an excursion by pirogue into the rain forest. They took us to a jungle lodge on the Maratakka river owned by the same family. 

 

 Maratakka River at Aunt Gerda's lodge

We made an excursion further up the river, looking at the squirrel monkeys and bird life. Here we spent another night, under a mosquito net in the open jungle, under a roof and behind a steel mesh to keep out wildlife! Aunt Gerda herself cooked for us, and we were well looked after by our wildlife guide Miquel, his cousin Dillon who skippered the boat, and Gerda’s husband Cassidy.

 

4 - Paramaribo and two nearby country houses

Until now, I left out Paramaribo and two country houses where we were lodged, about an hour’s drive from the city. First of all Paramaribo, where we stayed between the trips in Villa Famiri, a small pleasant hotel in a quiet quarter of the city. On our first day we made a city tour by bicycle, under the expert guidance of Mid Zandveld, a local guide. Cycling in the busy Paramaribo traffic is a bit hair-raising, but once you get used to it, it's not too bad. 

 

Paramaribo city tour

From Paramaribo we went  to the Little Paradise lodge in Domburg, which has a beautiful garden. We were well cared for by owner Erik Kuiper and his wife Neeta. Less than half an hour’s cycling from the lodge takes you to the little town of Domburg on the Suriname river, and Erik showed us round in his garden full of flowers and exotic trees. 

 

in the garden at Little Paradise

Another country house to the west of Paramaribo is 'Linde's Lust' at Sidoredjo, Saramacca. This also is situated in a beautiful garden, and from there, together with Linde Braber, the owner, and local artist and weaver Sherida Pinas, we visited Bert Tokaja, an indigenous basket weaver, who explained about his craftmanship. 

country house Linde's Lust

 

Before returning home we spent our last day in Paramaribo, where the streets were deserted because of a holiday of the Saramaccan (Saamaka) people, and a great party of this Maroon tribe took place in the Palm Gardens.

 

The complete photo album of our trip in Suriname can be viewed here.

Recent developments

Recently, tempers flared in the Surinamese capital Paramaribo, which frankly shocked me after our pleasant trip to Suriname last September. Unfortunately, the country is on the brink of disaster after years of fraud by corrupt politicians. The state treasury was cleaned out and the perpetrators are still at large. The recent Santokhi administration, who inherited this shambles, is not popular after a tough Covid lockdown and a strict monetary policy, which brought the country even further to its knees. Inflation is more than 50%, the people are destitute and official nepotism is rife – apparently that cannot be eradicated in Suriname. 

 

central market in Paramaribo

 

Many of the problems in Surinamese politics are attributed to the electoral system and the division of Surinamese politics along ethnic lines. In the district system, which also is partially ethnic, there is no proportional parliamentary representation for everyone and any attempt to change that is blocked. The electoral system has its origins in the colonial era (if I understand correctly, the Dutch have introduced the right to vote one district at a time) and the hasty independence that was pushed through in 1975 by Dutch PM Joop den Uyl and Surinamese PM Henck Arron. If I read the comments correctly, this makes Suriname virtually ungovernable.

Poor Suriname, it all makes me a sad and I can only hope the best for all those nice people we met during our journey. The country has so much to offer and the people deserve better.

 

Research and the author's doubt

edited - some content transferred to newer post.

ANANSI: researching the West African stories

Ask an average passer-by what he or she knows about Anansi, and if you get an answer at all, you are guaranteed to hear that they are children's stories, thanks to the many children's films and books about Anansi. There are indeed children's stories about Anansi, but there is more: the spider Anansi is a mythical figure and a sly trickster in Akan culture in West Africa. He is the son of the Akan earth goddess Asase Yaa, and his folk tales have been told for centuries. 

 

village scene in central Ghana copyright H.Schalkwijk 2012

The word Anansi literally means "spider" in the Akan language, which is spoken in today's Ghana and across the border in Ivory Coast. The stories are usually told after dark because the spider and its legs have the shape of the sun with rays, and it isn’t wise to tell the tales in daylight. The stories of Anansi travelled to Suriname and the Caribbean with the slave trade. Anansi gave slaves on the plantations courage as his devious tricks made him equal even to a powerful enemy.

Anansi... copyright Ted Polet

There are a few good examples of the stories on the Wikipedia page about Anansi. They were transcribed a hundred years ago in West Africa by Africanist R.S.Rattray, and they are also told on the Caribbean islands and in Suriname. Surinamese author Anton de Kom wrote down a collection of stories in his book Anangsieh Tories. On the Caribbean islands the spider is called Nanzi, or sometimes Aunt Nancy. 

Anansi is very similar in character to his European counterpart, Reynaerd the Fox. There is even a connection with the stories about Brer Rabbit, which were told on the North American plantations (well-known are the stories of Uncle Remus, written by Joel Chandler Harris). For example, Anansi fights with Tar Man, a sticky scarecrow, to which he becomes glued for his pains. There is a similar story about Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.

Disclaimer

African storytellers often start with the disclaimer that their tale is just a rumour, a story that you should not pay too much attention to. Just in case someone in the audience feels slighted!

Like the African storytellers, I also have a disclaimer. I may have done a great deal of research, but I also know my limitations. As an author without African, Caribbean or Surinamese roots you can never actually penetrate the culture beyond few millimetres - skin deep, so to say. My book Anansi is a story that never really happened, but it is set against the background of the slave trade and the plantations. I have researched the subject as well as possible, but undoubtedly there is much that I overlooked. If I have made mistakes, at least I can say they are honest mistakes.

Research and doubt

ANANSI (like my other books) has as its primary theme a relationship between two people from different cultures, who in spite of persecution hold on to each other. I use the slave trade in all its horrors as a background for the story, but the true subject is the hope of freedom shared by the main characters, about love and perseverance and the sacrifices that you make for one another. 

I worked on the book for a year and a half and often doubted the wisdom of my choice of colonial slavery as a background, especially since you can never satisfy everyone with such a controversial subject: some will find that I am not 'woke' enough (I hate that terrible word), others that I am blotting the 'glorious' past. That is why I tried to look objectively at all the available material during my research. That proved quite difficult: the more I read about this black page in history, the more I was dragged into it.

source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/slave-trade

I recently bundled all my notes into a single text file, containing texts of websites, articles by historians and extracts that I made myself - lists with points of attention after reading books or websites. The entire list covers a stunning 95,000 words, as much as the size of the book itself. 

Comparing all the source material turned out to be a huge task, because a lot has been written about slavery and much cannot be considered complete or correct. Authors of articles on the internet sometimes contradict each other, or their opinion is biased. But after filtering out all the contradictions, a deeply disturbing picture about the slave trade and the plantation economy remains. I have described some atrocities in Anansi, but I never exaggerated a thing. If anything, reality was worse than I dared write, or the book would make too unpleasant reading.

Even now, I still discover new sources that put some things I wrote in Anansi in a different light. Then doubt hits me again: did I write well enough? Can I do better? Doubt is the author’s best tool.

To be continued.

ANANSI and slavery

In November 2022 I wrote ‘not before time’, in view of the long-delayed announcement of slavery excuses by the Dutch government. The final date of these excuses, December 19, was subject of more controversy, both in the Netherlands and in our former colonies of Suriname and the Caribbean islands. July 1st, 2023, would have been more fitting - 160 years after slavery was formally abolished, and 150 years after the 10 year-long State supervision period ended.

source: national archive of Curaçao/Caribbean network

Whether December 19 was chosen out of political opportunism, with interim elections coming up soon, or because the Cabinet only wanted to clear away another agenda item before Christmas, we will never know. 

It takes empathy and modesty to make proper excuses, neither of which come easily to politicians. An ‘awareness fund’ was announced, but who will properly begin to address the still extant consequences of slavery in present-day society? I’d have thought that the most important issue.

Compensation for slave owners, not the victims

In 1863, the slave owners in Suriname received compensation for the ‘damages’ they incurred to the amount of 300 guilders for each released slave (if I remember correctly the amount paid on the Caribbean islands was 200 guilders), but the people themselves received nothing. Under State supervision, they had to continue working for their former masters for 10 more years, against minimal wages, and in addition the former owners’ duty of providing food, housing and medical care had been cancelled. As a result, those released sank back into dire poverty, and in some cases they are said to have begged for a return to slavery. Even then, there was no end to human exploitation in the colonies. Recently I wrote of the treatment of contract labourers, with the brutal suppression of the rising at the Mariënburg sugar works as a notorious example.

Text from the 1863 law abolishing slavery

ANANSI

Let us return to my new book ANANSI, an historical novel against the background of the slave trade. The Dutch manuscript was recently submitted to the publisher, following initial editing, re-reading and correcting the text many times. The planned publication date of the Dutch version is the middle of June, shortly before Keti Koti, the ‘broken chains’ celebration of Abolition on July 1st. The English edition of the book is in an advanced stage, and release of this is planned later in summer.

The book contains many historical elements, which were carefully researched and forged together to create the background for a gripping tale. One of these is the mutiny in the Paramaribo garrison in 1688, and the ensuing murder of Van Sommelsdijck, the governor. The story begins in what used to be the Gold Coast, the African headquarters of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). Evert Adriaansz is a rebellious sailor hailing from Amsterdam, who is sent to Elmina after a conflict over the daughter of one of the Directors of the WIC. Having arrived there, he is shocked by the horrible excesses of the slave trade. He is all alone there without friends or prospects, but after a time he meets the attractive slave girl Efua.

Elmina, Ghana

They feel irresistibly attracted to one another, but as the forbidden relationship comes to light, the girl is sold and put aboard a ship bound for Suriname. Evert manages to get aboard another ship and after many wanderings sets out to find her on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean, a search full of hardship in the interior of 17th Century Suriname.

The Suriname River, Gunsi

The ANANSI story revolves around the folk tales of the smart spider Anansi, which are handed down in West Africa from mother to daughter and travelled with the slave trade to Suriname and the Caribbean. Efua is a storyteller, who relates the tales she learned from her grandmother, and takes them with her to Suriname. Eventually, the Anansi tales also play a part in the ending of the story.

Writing and research

You may wonder how my books take shape. Naturally, each author has his or her own approach. My manuscripts develop like a tree or an organism, branching this way or that before I see my way forward. At the beginning of the project I have no idea where the tale takes me and how it will end, but often I have a hunch which leads to a string of new chapters. And sometimes I have a key scene in mind which must have a place in the story, such as the reunion between the main protagonists of The Batavian, Mark and Leila, who after several years encounter one another in a scruffy little health centre in Greece, where Mark also meets his daughter for the first time.

I do a great deal of research for my books, which generally keeps pace with writing. Not everything can be learned from books, so I often find inspiration and ideas in the actual places where a scene in the book is set, talking with people and so laying the foundation of an authentic story. It also works the other way round, when a story results from having visited a place when travelling.

slave dungeon, Elmina

Ten years ago Henriette and I visited Ghana, and the horror I felt in the slave dungeons of the former Dutch West India Company fortress of Elmina undoubtedly contributed to the theme of ANANSI. And last year we travelled in Suriname for three weeks, where we were immersed in the culture and I learned much that made its way into the book. I spoke with many people there, including several from the Maroon community, and they taught me a great deal about their culture. Who knows for instance, that many Surinamese consult their ancestors before taking an important decision? They have a strong bond with their ancestors, which they inherited from their African roots.

Our slavery history is a controversial topic in the Netherlands, which I have done much research into. Opinions about the subject are very divided and even among renowned historians there is a heated debate between those who regard slavery as just another historic detail, and those who think it is about time to face the unwelcome facts.

And how about my own opinion? We cannot measure the past against present-day norms and values, but even in the historical context the sheer scale of exploitation, humiliation and cruelty in the Colonies is astonishing. And although it is often disregarded, there was criticism of slavery even in the 17th and 18th Century, before the Abolition movement became established. There were Churchmen such as Justus Heurnius and Gisbertus Voetius who preached against slavery in no uncertain terms, and I found part of a letter written by an 18th Century sailor, who does not hide his horror at the living conditions in the slave quarters aboard a slave ship. So nobody should claim that slavery in those days was such a fact of life that no one cared. If you do, you haven’t understood a thing.

translated from a letter written on an 18th Century slave ship

When I was interviewed by the newspaper De Ware Tijd in Paramaribo, I was asked whether my novel wasn’t going to romanticise slavery too much. A valid concern especially if you wonder why a white Dutchman takes it into his head to write a book with such a controversial subject as its background. I gave the journalist a clear reply: in my book ANANSI, I am not going to mince words about slavery.

At this stage I won’t yet tell too much about my new book to avoid a spoiler, but in the weeks to come I will occasionally lift a tip of the veil still surrounding the book.