Country: Suriname
Group: Maroon (Marronu)
Date Finalized: 11/13/20
Team: Abi Pentecost (lead), Rayna Castillo, Nusrat Nijum, Alicia Hernandez
Content Warning: kidnapping
Approximate Time Period: 1600-1770
The Maroon people of Suriname are an ethnic group that is descended from African slaves that escaped plantations in Suriname in the 17th and 18th centuries (Minority Rights Group, 2008). There are reliable sources suggesting that the Maroon people have experienced forced labor.
The Maroon people are made up of two distinct branches that are distinguished based upon their language, culture, and location. Maroon populations came to be as they escaped from Dutch run colonial slave plantations and fled to live in small groups in the jungle. Indigenous populations had a large influence on the lifestyle of the Maroons as they began to “persuade them [slaves] to desert” (van der Linden, 2015). By 1712, the first official Maroon community was formed in Suriname as several groups of escaped slaves consolidated (van der Linden, 2015). The population continued to grow and by the time slavery was abolished in Suriname in 1863, there was an estimated population of 10,000 (Minority Rights Group, 2008). Initially, the majority of Maroon people were men because they were the primary escaped slaves, thus there was a high demand for females in order to maintain the population. Thus, it was very common for Maroon’s to “raid” plantations and take enslaved women and bring them back to their communities (van der Linden, 2015). In order to mitigate violence on both sides, peace treaties between certain Maroon populations and the Suriname government were reached and which created the distinction between “pacified” and “non-pacified” Maroon groups. One important note is that the “pacified” Maroons had agreed (when signing peace treaties) to help plantation and slave owners to “trace and return the non-pacified” (van der Linden, 2015). Thus, while some Maroons were free from forced labor they were instrumental in returning other Maroon people to a life of enslavement. Evidence clearly shows that historically Maroons were subject to forced labor and although there is little evidence for the continuation of this practice in modern times, the long lasting social and historical implications make it a relevant case.
Our team rated the data quality as a 2 for this ethnic group. There was only a small number of accessible and peer-reviewed scholarly sources. Additionally, there was more information about forced labor that slaves faced in Suriname and less so about any existence of forced labor in escaped slave/Maroon populations.
Sources