It rained like it meant it yesterday, like rainy season is putting out its feelers.
Rain is a nuisance when you live and travel in a van but for us rain could spell a touch chunk of road once we are back in Brazil. South of French Guiana there is a 70 mile stretch of dirt highway that could be difficult to navigate if it gets seriously muddy. There’s nothing we can do about it but every time there is heavy rain it’s on our minds.
Yesterday afternoon was a doozy. The morning however was sunny but with a cool breeze. We dropped off a big bag of laundry, hopefully our last in Paramaribo and went downtown to check out a tourist site I’ve long wanted to see.
Built around 1660 on the banks of the Suriname River this was where Holland began its colonization of South America. The treaty of Breda signed in the Netherlands in 1667 was designed to redraw the map of the world, bring peace to Europe and divide up their slave operated colonies equitably.
Leaving aside a lot of the complexities, Breda gave the nascent North American colonies to Britain, sorted out who owned what in the Caribbean and split Dutch Guyana into two carving the northern chunk into a British colony.
The fort sits opposite New Amsterdam…
…across the river giving the colonists total control over access to the Suriname River whence they exported valuable timber.
The fort benefited from a breeze off the water but to prove I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer I spent thirty seconds pondering the labor required to offload all these bricks from the ships’ ballast to build the fort.
Which was the moment I remembered that’s what slaves were for. I am astonished to read the modern defense of slavery saying Arabs and Africans kidnapping rivals in Africa are as much to blame for the trade and thus in some manner exonerating slave labor in the New World.
I am a man of my time and my time is passing so I shall leave it to the next generations to explain how up is down and down is up but in my world view enslavement is a disgrace and I see this fascinating slice of history through that lens. 
They had a model of the 17th century settlement under glass making photography a bit tricky.
Kids on a Friday afternoon field trip:
Among the exhibits in Dutch (translated brilliantly by Google lens) was the emancipation proclamation of 1863. Why that date? I couldn’t say but I speculate wildly that they followed the US example set by President Lincoln.
Another class field trip:
This van has taken us to some extraordinary places.
Friday was my 68th birthday so for a history and geography nerd like me this walk was a treat.
It rained later in the day after we had Chinese food for lunch but the water cooled the city off so there was that. 
We paid $165 for Rusty’s export permit so we are ready to drive for the ferry to French Guiana Monday morning. What a rip off that permit is when we get treat like livestock merchants for leaving this country with our own pet. Fortunately he’s worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment