The Cost of Sugar(80)

It was by pure chance that Jan, then a lad of fourteen, had got a job as assistant to the stableman of a rich Amsterdam gentleman. One warm summer afternoon the gentleman had been driving through the village when one of the horses became lame through picking up a stone in a hoof. Jan, who had been sitting at the side of the ditch, had helped the coachman and had carefully worked the stone loose while talking comfortingly to the horse, which was at first very much on edge. As a reward he could come to work for the rich gentleman. It had been good work. There was always plenty to eat and he had a warm spot to sleep in the stable loft. The rich gentleman owned plantations in a land far away to the west, and the old stableman Joris had told Jan during the long winter evenings what a country that was: very warm, fantastic plantations, a land where all the whites were rich, simply because of being white. All the work was done by negro slaves: stupid, ignorant creatures who had been transported over from Africa and sold to the plantation owners. Those people were then set to work in the same way as horses or mules.

Joris knew all about this because he had been a seaman. As a sailor he had journeyed to those western parts. He had experienced everything, including pirates and privateers, and had lost an eye and three fingers. The finest tale, however, was about the gold, which was lying around in the huge forests there just for the taking. Of course, Joris had not found it. He was never there long enough to go and look for it himself. But it was there – he was sure of that.

Jan had listened open-mouthed to all these stories, and Joris had also said that in recent years soldiers were going to that country. Some of those negroes had fled to the bush because they no longer wanted to work on the plantations, and soldiers were being hired in from Amsterdam to catch them and bring them back to the plantations. Joris had said that he would certainly have gone had he been young enough. Jan, now eighteen, did want to go there. He could become a soldier, catching the negroes in the forests. Above all, he knew about the gold, so he could go looking for it. That would surely not be all that difficult. Yes, Jan knew for sure he would return to Holland as a rich man.

When he had made the two-hour trek to his village on his monthly Sunday off to tell his parents that he was going to Suriname as a soldier, they were at first most surprised. Was Jan leaving? Why on earth? He would never get such a good job again. And where was he going? Where was that strange land he was talking about? In the west? Was that perhaps somewhere near the east? Were there Chinamen there with those slant eyes? No, Jan answered patiently, no Chinese, but he would have to catch negroes, those black folks.

“Negroes?” his mother had cried, “Oh, Jan, but those people eat whites. Aren’t they those wild people who cook whites in big pots and eat them, and stick bones through their noses as decoration?”

“No, mother, these are escaped slaves,” Jan had explained, but Ma and Pa still thought that it was dangerous anyway, whether it was slant-eyes or negroes. All those types were really scary. And how was Jan planning to catch them? Jan had explained that it was child’s play. Those folk had nothing and the soldiers had everything – guns, cannon, horses and so forth. But most important was the gold he would find there. He would be returning as a rich man. He would buy marvellous things for everyone, build a big house, keep his own horses and cows.

His little sisters had listened with eyes aglow and ears pricked up. Would Jan buy something nice for them, too, really nice? Indulgently Jan had promised: of course, they only had to say the word. Antje wanted shoes, real shoes with shiny buckles, and Miebetje wanted a dress, a new one from the shop. And mother? Well, for mother a warm skirt and a shawl; for father a new hat and a jacket. And for grandma? Grandma, who had been sitting mumbling in a corner of the room, hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about, but the sisters had called out, “Grandma, you’re getting a foot stove from Jan, a warm one for your feet, and a shawl.”

Grandma mouthed toothlessly, “Where is it?”

The sisters had had a good laugh and shouted into grandma’s deaf ears, “When he comes back from Suurvename and is rich.”

So he had arrived in Suriname, and couldn’t wait to get ashore. It was indeed hot – very hot!





A few weeks later Jan was on his first expedition. How different was the reality! It was truly terrible here in the jungle. Oppressive, dark, even in the middle of the day. They had been in the bush for twenty-seven days now. Progress was very slow. Every bit of path had first to be hacked clear. Negro porters carried everything they needed, and that was an awful lot! Captain Stoelman shouted orders, the officers gave orders, and the soldiers just trudged on. So far they had seen neither sight nor sound of a single negro. A strip of ground cleared in the forest had been found. Something people called farming land. It was planted with cassava and maize. Unfortunately, nothing was yet ripe, otherwise they could have used it. It would have been a welcome change from mouldy peas, groats and salted meat with the maggots crawling out. On the captain’s orders the men had had to burn the field. Because everything was damp this did not work, and so the men had to dig everything out and cut it up, and then the resulting pile was burnt.