The Cost of Sugar

by Cynthia McLeod

  Perhaps they wanted to murder him in the village with a lot of show, thought Jan, but he couldn’t care less. Nothing mattered any more. He would soon be dead, and how was not important. It seemed as if the men had to walk a long way. They sometimes weaved their way with difficulty through the thick bush and also went through a small creek, holding the stretcher up high so that it would not get wet. It seemed like hours. Jan closed his eyes and lost consciousness. When he came to, he was lying under a thatched roof. Someone was washing his face with fresh water. He saw negro faces looking at him, mostly women and children except for the two men who had carried him and some older men.

  The women were not looking particularly friendly and he heard how some of them bickered with the two men. Jan could not understand them, but realized that the women were angry that he had been brought here to the village. One of the older men said something in a soothing tone of voice and appeared to be explaining something.

  Later, the women left and an old man wrapped a dressing made of leaves and herbs very carefully around Jan’s leg and bandaged it. Now it was less painful. Then he removed all Jan’s clothes, washed him with fresh water containing herbs, and treated all his wounds and ulcers. While he was doing this he was constantly talking. Jan understood nothing, but everything felt very good and soothing. After that one of the women brought him a large calabash with a kind of delicious, strong soup, made from fish and pieces of cassava. The men lifted him carefully from the stretcher and lay him in a hammock. Wonderful, everything felt. What peace! His hand had been bandaged as well. A greasy liniment had been spread on the boils in his groin and he had been given a cloth for his shoulders. No damp, stinking, heavy clothes, no mosquitoes, no pain, what a blessing! At last he could sleep.

  And sleep he did. It was late the following day before he opened his eyes again. The old man, whom everyone called Ta Jusu, came to tend to him again. Again he was given that delicious food. Jan had the feeling that he was now in paradise. Were these the dangerous negroes who had to be hunted and shot dead? Were these the people whose food crops had to be destroyed and burnt so that hunger would finally force them to surrender? Why, in fact? Because they had chosen for this life instead of slavery? There were no better or kinder people on earth, of that Jan was now convinced. Had a single soldier bothered about him for one second? No – everyone had thought only of himself.

  Six weeks Jan stayed there in that village, six weeks of rest and heavenly bliss. He saw the women busy working, saw them baking loaves of cassava, drying and smoking fish, pounding rice, stripping maize. He had already understood that they were laying down large stores of food. Everything was communal, for everyone. Not that one had a lot and the other nothing. He saw how cleverly they knew how to make use of everything, making rope, roof covering, herbs for healing. He was ashamed to think that he had in the past been of the opinion that they were really stupid, because only whites had any brains. But all the whites put together could come and learn their lessons well from these negroes.

  He now understood, too, how this small group of two hundred to three hundred souls managed to avoid being caught by the soldiers and always be one step ahead of the army. He saw how the women cared for the children, how they helped each other. They often stood near him while they were artfully plaiting their hair. Sometimes a child would come to him, show him something and laugh with him. And all the time Jan asked himself why. Why could they not live happily in their villages in the bush? He resolved never again to participate in the persecution and shooting of Boninegroes.

  Once when Ta Jusu was nursing him and carefully applying a liniment to his wounds, Jan asked why in fact those men had not killed him. He was, after all, the enemy. Ta Jusu had explained that in their view the soldiers were not the evil ones. They had just arrived from Holland and had not done anything to the negroes. They were simply being misused. The real enemies were the planters and the government and now also that wretched Swiss colonel, who had sworn to exterminate all the negroes in the bush.

  When Jan’s hand was completely healed, the old man allowed him to try to stand up. It was still difficult with his leg, but he was given a hefty stick that had been cut out of a thick branch and could try very carefully to walk a step or two. His leg was still being treated with herbs and leaves and was still bound with strips of cotton between the two branches. All wounds and ulcers on his body had healed, his clothes were freshly washed and clean, and he always had his shawl on.

  After six weeks, when he could walk quite well, the old man told him that it was time for him to return. He was given a message that he had to pass on to that wretched Swiss man. Jan understood that this was Colonel Fourgeoud. The bush-negroes would never surrender, never. All they wanted was peace, and to be left alone. If they were no longer persecuted, then they would raid no more plantations, for then they would live peacefully here in their villages and live from what they planted and from what the bush provided. Becoming slaves again – never! Jan wanted to pass on the message, but how?

  The next day the old man took him in a korjaal180 along a small creek and set him down at the back of a plantation. He could simply follow the path and walk through the plantation until he came to the house towards the front of the estate. They would be sure to look after him there. The old man trusted that he would not betray them and say anything about the village. Jan would rather cut his tongue out than say anything about the village, Ta Jusu could be sure of that.

  How amazed the slaves working in the fields were suddenly to see a soldier walking through the plantation, and how surprised, too, was the planter who awoke from his afternoon nap to find a soldier sitting on his veranda! This soldier told him in a matter-of-fact way that he had got lost in the bush and had become separated from the group. He had wandered around in the bush for about six weeks before ending up at the back of the plantation. Now, these new soldiers were obviously well trained men, for this was no starving, exhausted man standing in front of him, but someone who had endured all hardships and appeared fresh and lively. With such soldiers they would soon get the better of that rabble in the bush and this expensive war could end. The Dutch state had at long last sent some good men. Contented, the planter then sat with his guest and the family at dinner, intending to travel with Jan the following day in his tent boat to Paramaribo.

  Captain Stoelman’s commando was no less surprised when suddenly one of the soldiers stood before them who had been given up as dead. Who knows, more of them might return, although it was in fact certain that most of the thirty-two soldiers in that group had been killed or had drowned. Four of them they had buried themselves, since they had not survived their injuries. Jan was now allocated to the same commando as Lieutenant Reindert Andersma, which was under the command of Captain Hamel. This division was preparing for a twelve-week-long expedition. They would be responsible for the completion of a certain part of the cordon path and would have to set up watchtowers between the military post near to the devastated l’Esperance Plantation and the Tampoco Creek in the Boven-Commewijne district. From there they would also have to carry out raids against the Maroons in the region.

  Jan wanted to pass on Ta Jusu’s message. But how? And to whom? If he were to say that he had stayed six weeks with the Maroons, it would be demanded of him that he say where they were, and he would never betray them, never. With whom could he speak without putting himself in danger and endangering those good people?

  That Lieutenant Andersma? He seemed a decent type. He was always cheerful and Jan had noticed that he spoke less roughly and harshly to the soldiers than did the other officers. He would talk to Lieutenant Andersma. Where would he do that? Not in the soldiers’ quarters. That was too dangerous. Dare he visit him at home? In Fort Zeelandia?

  During the days that followed, Jan was constantly in the neighbourhood of the fort and watched the lieutenant’s house. By the afternoon of the third day he had summoned up enough courage and was just about to knock on the door when he saw an elegant lady
approaching with a slave two steps behind her. The lady had hardly reached the veranda when Lieutenant Andersma opened the door and came outside. With a laugh he put his arm around the lady and went inside with her. Jan understood very well that this was not the moment to knock and talk about the Maroons. But all right, he would wait until the lady had left. But by the time darkness fell and he knew that the lady was still indoors, he walked back to the soldiers’ quarters.

  Two days later he tried again. He now saw that the lieutenant was sitting on the veranda. Jan went straight up to him and asked if he might speak with him.

  “What do you want to talk about, soldier?” asked Lieutenant Andersma, stretching out lazily in his chair and removing his feet from the foot-rest.

  “About the Maroons, Lieutenant,” said Jan submissively.

  “Far too much has been said about them, lad,” laughed Andersma. “But go ahead, tell me; perhaps I’ll hear something new after all.”

  Jan began to relate what had happened to him. When he ended by saying that the Maroons had been so good and kind to him, Andersma burst out laughing. “Young man, that is a fine story, really good. Just save it for when you’re back in Holland with your girls. Ha, ha: but you don’t think I believe it, do you?”

  “It is true, Lieutenant, really true, and the old man, that Ta Jusu, he said, he said ….” Jan stuttered with embarrassment.

  “Ha, ha, soldier. Cut it out. Your story is great, really, and good for telling your friends around the campfire if they want to lose heart,” laughed Andersma. “Ha, ha, this is certainly an original way of trying to get out of the service, eh?”

  At that moment Jan saw the same lady as before approaching. When she was near the veranda, Andersma stood up and took a few steps towards her.

  “Sarith, darling, come here. This soldier has been telling an amusing story.”

  Andersma put his arm in that of the lady and drew her towards him. “Guess what he is claiming? He says that he was rescued in the bush by the Boni-negroes and that they healed his broken leg. He’s now trying to persuade me to be kind to those dear escapees there in the bush. Don’t you find it great, dear? Shall we move into the bush and go and lie in a hammock with the Maroons? Ha, ha.” The lady laughed, too, and said, “It will have happened in his dreams.”

  Still laughing, Andersma said, “Go and tell your tale to the captain, and he can have a good laugh, too. Good day.”

  Jan understood that the conversation was over and mumbled, “Good day, Lieutenant, madam.” He turned and left the veranda. Well, now he knew. No-one was going to believe him. He would simply say nothing; it wouldn’t help, anyway. If only he could get away from the army, it didn’t matter where, but just away! Jan understood full well that refusing to go on an expedition meant, in military terms, deserting, and carried the death penalty. He therefore had no choice but to go along, but he knew for sure that he would never fire at a Maroon and in fact would even warn them or help them if he could.

  Meanwhile, everyone in Paramaribo had again become mightily scared in the face of the raids by the Boni-negroes. Colonel Fourgeoud’s men were suffering defeat after defeat. Time and time again came the frightening news that yet another plantation had been raided and whites had been murdered.

  Within a short period the plantations Peron, Suynigheid and La Félicité fell. Even though the leaders Baron and Joli-Coeur had died a year earlier, their names were still mentioned in fear and trembling by the colonists. Joli-Coeur had raided the Rodenback Plantation with his group. They had succeeded in capturing the director, a certain Schulz, infamous for his atrocities against the negroes, and had hung him upside down by his feet. In the meantime the negroes ravaged through the plantation house, helping themselves to the wines and rum. Schulz recognized Joli-Coeur, who was born on this same plantation and had lived there until fleeing at the age of twelve. Trembling, the director had called out, “Don’t you recognize me, Joli-Coeur, don’t you know any more who I am? I was good to you, wasn’t I? I even gave you something from my own table when you were a child. Release me, please.”

  Joli-Coeur had answered, already dancing with delight, “I remember very well, Schulz. I remember especially the time you raped my mother and had my father whipped to death when he tried to help her. I remember all that. Yes, I’ll release you.”

  And with those words he separated Schulz’s head from his body with one stroke of his razor-sharp machete. Everyone knew this story, and it was embellished every time it was told. The one time Joli-Coeur had first thrown Schulz to the ground and all the negroes had danced on him. Then again, he had hung upside down for twenty-four hours, and when he had asked for something to drink, the negroes had emptied a bottle of wine just along the side of his mouth so that not a drop went into it. In any event, if a child was being naughty, the slave who was caring for him or her needed only to say, “Joli-Coeur is coming”181, and the child would become good and sweet-tempered again.

  Even before Reindert Andersma’s group left, there came at the end of August the news that a commando comprising a hundred soldiers, thirty native rangers and the inevitable porters under the command of Captain Boltz had been attacked by the Maroons in a swamp. They had paid particular attention to the Black Rangers, whom they regarded as committing fratricide, and without bothering themselves too much with the Europeans they had unleashed a bloodbath among these negroes. Even so, only a few European soldiers, exhausted, starving and sick, managed to embark on the journey back to the town. The rest had already succumbed to exhaustion and disease.

  The disagreement between Colonel Fourgeoud and Governor Nepveu flared up again, because the latter was of the opinion that Fourgeoud was sacrificing human life needlessly by undertaking sorties during the rainy season.

  Of the five hundred men who had arrived from Europe before 1775, there were no more than two hundred left. They had been sent to fight a small group of negroes. It was, however, a small but highly motivated group of negroes. They fought to achieve just one thing, the highest virtue: freedom, no longer to be enslaved. For the rest they wanted nothing from the whites; all they wanted was to live in freedom in the Suriname bush. Hundreds of innocent soldiers met their death in the jungles of Suriname, and not particularly at the hands of the Maroons. They died from disease, starvation and exhaustion, or from drowning in the swamps. Their fighting wasn’t motivated. They were in fact playthings in the hands of the group of whites who misused them: the planters, the colonial government, the directors of the Society in the Netherlands. These individuals simply could not grasp that there was no question of fighting against people who waged a ‘guerrilla’ struggle just to be ‘free’. They needed the slaves. Everything must be sacrificed for the production of the things that would bring them a pile of money: cotton, coffee and sugar.

  Especially sugar …

  SARITH

  When Sarith heard that Reindert Andersma would be spending several weeks on the Boven-Commewijne River between l’Esperance and Tampoco Creek, her enthusiasm knew no bounds. That was after all where Klein Paradijs was located. On the other side of the river, true, but that was no problem. Reindert had only to walk from where he was based through an abandoned plantation and he would be opposite them. She just needed to send a slave with a boat to the other side to collect him. Even before the military had left Paramaribo she was back on the plantation. She was really nice and sweet to Julius, who was glad that his wife was in such a good mood and had come back to the plantation of her own accord.

  There were two reasons for Sarith’s show of affection. In the first place she had discovered that she was pregnant, and she had to admit to herself in all honesty that she did not know whether Reindert or Julius was the father of the child she was expecting. But Julius must definitely not know of her doubts. Reindert had told her time upon time that she must not expect anything of him. He had a wife and children in Holland, and he did not want to jeopardize his position or that of Sarith. The other reason was that Julius should accept th
at the military who were encamped there should on occasion visit the plantation.

  She therefore described to Julius how the poor lieutenants and officers were having such a tough time there in their camp. Now they were so close, he would certainly not mind if they came now and then to Klein Paradijs for a good meal, a good bath or a good night’s sleep. Julius, as hospitable as all Surinamers, of course did not mind. The poor lads were having a difficult time and especially those who had stayed at the plantation the previous year were most welcome.

  And therefore a boat often went to the other side of the river to collect an officer, but this officer was always Lieutenant Andersma. Sometimes when Julius returned from a journey or from a visit to a neighbouring plantation, he would hear that an officer had eaten there, or had rested in a bed for a time while Kwasiba washed and ironed his clothes.

  Then Julius had to go to Paramaribo for a couple of weeks. It was mid-September. He would then travel on to Joden-Savanna for the annual Feast of Tabernacles. Of course Sarith would go along too, wouldn’t she? But to Julius’ amazement, Sarith refused. Julius simply could not understand this. Sarith, who grabbed at every opportunity to be away from the plantation, now did not want to go. “Oh, at this time of year it’s so hot and dusty in town,” she said. “No, I prefer to stay here.”

  “But aren’t you afraid, then?” asked Julius. “You yourself have been saying how unsafe you feel here.”

  “Oh, not really,” answered Sarith. “The Maroons will most certainly not dare come round here. It’s very well known that there are so many soldiers around.”

  Julius decided therefore to go alone, but not to travel on to Joden-Savanna, rather to return in about ten days’ time, after completing his business.

  A few days after Julius had departed, Sarith lay in her bedroom. Next to her in bed lay Reindert Andersma. He had left the group the day before, saying that he would be away for about three days, being on the track of something special. He would prefer to go alone, without soldiers or slaves. Sarith did not worry about what the slaves in the house thought of all this. Mini-mini just cared for Jethro. Nicolette she had already threatened enough. With Kwasiba, however, she did have to be careful. Kwasiba wasn’t pleased with all this. She could see it from the way Kwasiba looked at her, and in addition Kwasiba wasn’t treating Reindert with due subservience. She would always send one of the other slaves to pour him drinks or serve him. But Sarith resolved to give Kwasiba some money and so buy her silence.