It was highly frustrating. Finally, Alex went looking for two men whom he knew had known Caesar well. One of them he did not find, hearing that he had succumbed to his injuries. The other sat silently in a corner with his arm in a sling. When Alex asked him what had happened to Caesar, he answered, “No-one knows. No-one has seen Caesar any more. We don’t know whether he is dead, because no-one has seen his body. We also don’t know whether he has deserted to join the bush-negroes. No-one saw anything. Since the time we arrived at Buku Caesar has never been seen again.”170
Alex walked in silence back to his room. Caesar was gone, gone for ever. He did not know what to think, but he did know that he would never see his friend again. Later Alex heard that more than thirty Redi Musus had deserted to join the Boni-negroes during the first year, and in the case of a further twenty it was not known whether they were dead, had fled or had gone over to the Alukus.
Buku had fallen! Yes, Buku had fallen, but the Bonis were not yet beaten. The plantation owners would discover that soon enough.
RUTGER
The fall of Buku was the topic of conversation for several weeks. The colonists were relieved. Thank God! The wretches in the bush had been beaten. One could now continue peacefully with all the festivities and other pleasures. One feast after another was organized. There was money enough. No-one was as rich and affluent as the Suriname planter.
Feasts in Paramaribo and feasts on the plantations. On Sunday 27 September 1772 thanksgiving services were held in the church to thank God for the defeat of Buku. The colonists and planters now had nothing more to fear. The few escaped negroes who wandered round the bush in small groups could no longer be a danger. No, every reason for festivities.
In the meantime the state troops had already been recruited in Europe, and by the time news of the fall of Buku reached the Netherlands they had already embarked and were on their way to Suriname: well-formed battalions of marines and two warships. Governor Nepveu and many inhabitants along with him now considered the troops to be superfluous, and while this was being discussed with the fatherland one of the warships already lay in the harbour of Paramaribo. It was then February 1773.
The commander-in-chief, Colonel Fourgeoud, and the officers were well received, but Fourgeoud and Nepveu soon came to disagree with each other, and as had happened in the past, various parties formed in the colony, one taking the side of Fourgeoud, who he claimed had received from the Prince of Orange command over all the armed forces in Suriname. This party saw Fourgeoud and his men as the saviours of Suriname. The other party took the side of the governor, who found Fourgeoud to be arrogant and regarded him and his troops as a burden on the colony because they were costing so much money.
The officers remained idle in Paramaribo and were soon welcome guests at the feasts and parties in the colony. They themselves decided that they had struck lucky in this way. At all gatherings there was talk of the expensive soldiers. The men would make sarcastic remarks about these lads who were just profiting from the money provided by their plantations. The ladies laughed up their sleeves and made furtive remarks that they would not normally have been able to make out loud.
Rutger was constantly annoyed at all these goings-on. Amongst friends and acquaintances he could not help but talk about colony’s financial situation. The wealth was more pretence than reality. In his opinion catastrophe was just around the corner. He was ridiculed, considered a pessimist, a spoilsport. There was money enough and the wine flowed richly.
Rutger knew that the accumulated debts of the Suriname planters at the banks already totalled more than fifty million. This meant three million in interest annually, and the plantations could usually not produce this.
Then, all of a sudden, in 1773, the moment of truth dawned. The Amsterdam stock exchange crashed. Apparently, far too much credit had been accorded to the Suriname plantation owners. Plantations went bankrupt. The banks would never recover their money. What did happen was that many merchant houses suddenly found themselves to be plantation owners. A manager then had to be appointed, and in most cases this was the former plantation owner.
Rutger considered this to be not a very good solution, for the manager or overseer received his money whether the plantation made a profit or not. He employed another method. At his administrator’s office the manager received a salary that was a fixed percentage of the profit. This naturally met with some opposition. The manager, who had previously himself been the plantation owner, could no longer flaunt his wealth, no longer give binge parties, and it was Le Chausseur’s fault. Rutger and Elza were no longer invited to card evenings and parties by some families. At first Rutger found this most unfortunate for Elza, but after she had told him that it was no problem at all for her, he happily ignored all the gossip and went his own steady way.