The Rape of the Sabines—Shocking Execution, and African Fortitude—Description of an Indigo Plantation—The Spanso Bocko, a Punishment—The Troops again re-enter the Woods—The Expedition draws to a Conclusion.
Notwithstanding the successive defeats and repeated distresses of the rebels, news was brought to Paramaribo, on the 12th of August, that they had fallen upon the estate Bergendal, or the Blue Bergh, which is also called Mount Parnassus, situated in the higher parts of the River Surinam, and carried away all the black women, although a military post was stationed near the above place, but without committing any kind of cruelty, as too generally had been their custom. Upon this intelligence a party of the rangers was instantly detached thither to assist in pursuing them; and about this same time the long-projected cordon, or path of circumvallation round the colony, was also began to be cut, by seven hundred negro slaves; which path was henceforth to be manned with military piquets at proper distances, to defend the estates against any farther invasions from without, and to prevent desertion to the enemy from within.
Mount Parnassus, which was the scene of the late rape of the Sabines, is situated on the west side of the River [[292]]Surinam, distant from Paramaribo, if we include the windings of the river, above one hundred miles; and as the situation is pleasant, I present the reader with a view of it, in the plate annexed, as also of the village, called the Jews Savannah, which is distant from town, in a straight line, something more than forty, but by water above sixty English miles. Here the Jews have a beautiful synagogue, and keep their solemn fasts and festivals; here they also have their capital schools and seminaries, for at this village reside some very respectable Jewish families. These people possess particular rights and privileges in this colony, with which they were endowed by King Charles the Second, when the settlement of Surinam was English; and such are these privileges I never knew Jews to possess in any other part of the world whatever.
From Paramaribo, or rather from the fortress New Amsterdam, the River Surinam, like those of Cottica and Comawina, is beautifully bordered with sugar and coffee plantations, as are also several creeks or small rivers that communicate with it; such as the Pawlus, the Para, the Cropina, and the Pararac creeks; but above Mount Parnassus not a single estate, that may be so called, is to be found; neither is the river any longer navigable, even for small craft, on account of the prodigious rocks, and cascades or water-falls, with which it is obstructed as it winds through excessively high mountains and an impenetrable forest. While therefore they form an enchantingly romantic scene to the eye, these natural bulwarks [[293]]prevent the possessors of the colony from making such discoveries as might perhaps reward their labour with very considerable riches.
View of the Settlement called the Jew’s Savannah.
View of the Blue Bergh called Mount Parnassus.
London, Published Decr. 1st, 1791, by J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church Yard.
If, as I have just mentioned, cruelties were become less common in the rivers by the rebels, barbarities still continued in a shocking degree in the metropolis; where my ears were deafened with the clang of the whip, and the shrieks of the negroes. Among the most eminent of these tyrants was a Miss Sp—n, who lived next door to Mr. de Graav, and who I saw with horror from my window give orders that a young black woman should be flogged principally across the breasts, at which she seemed to enjoy peculiar satisfaction. To dissipate the impression this scene had left on my mind, I got into a whiskey, and rode out; when the first thing I saw was a negro girl fall naked from a garret window on a heap of broken bottles: this was indeed an accident, but she was so mangled, though not dead, that she exhibited a spectacle nearly as wretched as the other.—Cursing my unlucky fate, I turned the horses, and drove to the beach, as the only place to avoid every scene of cruelty and misery; but here I had the mortification to see two Philadelphia sailors (while they were fighting on the forecastle of their vessel) both fall over the ship’s bow into the stream, where they sunk, and were no more seen. On board another American brig, I discovered a little tar defending himself from the cross-trees with a hatchet, against a serjeant and four armed men, for a considerable time; till they threatening [[294]]to shoot him out of the rigging, he at last surrendered, and being brought ashore, was dragged to fort Zelandia, in company with two others, by a file of musketeers, where, for having been drunk on duty, they received a fire-cant each, at the captain’s request; that is, they were bastinadoed or beaten on the shoulders by two corporals with bamboo canes, till their backs were black, and swelled like a cushion. However arbitrary this mode of correction, the captain endeavoured to explain the necessity of it; the private American sailors being of a turbulent spirit indeed when drunk, although when sober they may be fairly classed among the best seamen in the world.
Early the next morning, while musing on all the different dangers and chastisements to which the lower class of people are exposed, I heard a crowd pass under my window. Curiosity made me start up, dress in a hurry, and follow them: when I discovered three negroes in chains, surrounded by a guard, going to be executed in the savannah. Their undaunted look, however averse I may be to the sight of cruelties, so attracted my attention, as to determine me to see the result, which was thus:—The sentence being read in Low Dutch (which they did not understand) one was condemned to be flogged below the gallows, and his accomplice to have his head struck off with an ax, for having shot a slave who had come to steal plantains on the estate of his mistress. The truth however was, that this had been done by that lady’s absolute command; but the murder being [[295]]discovered, she, in the hopes of saving her character, besides the expence of paying the penalties, gave up her valuable slave, and permitted the unhappy man to be thus sacrificed. He laid his head upon the block with great indifference, stretching out his neck; when, with one blow of the ax, it was severed from his body.