When we speak about black history, we tend to conjure up a familiar gallery of intellectuals and freedom fighters. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, CLR James, Frantz Fanon: the legacies of these leaders are celebrated worldwide. Less well known, in the English-speaking world at least, is Anton De Kom; but he is no less deserving of a place in history.
De Kom is to Suriname what Mandela is to South Africa: a heroic patriot, an advocate of the oppressed, and a symbol of resistance against colonialism. His magnum opus, We Slaves of Suriname — originally written and published in 1934 — was the first history of slavery and Dutch colonialism in Suriname written by a Surinamese man. It was composed while he was exiled to the Netherlands and under surveillance for anti-colonial protests. After its publication, he and it were censored and neglected for years by the Dutch, let alone the West in general.
But then came the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, and a renewed interest in examining the racial injustices of the past. There has since been a surge of interest in De Kom. Last February, the Dutch government pledged to honour him “with a generous gesture”. He became the first Surinamer to be included in the canon of Dutch history, alongside Vincent van Gogh and Anne Frank. And this month, the first ever English translation of We Slaves of Suriname will be published, 88 years after its completion.
The book is, in part, an ode to De Kom’s homeland: a beautiful, tropical wonderland, teeming with life. But it also tells the history of Suriname, from the beginning of European settlement — which very quickly led to the catastrophic demise of the nation’s aboriginal peoples — to when the Dutch fully colonised it in 1667, turning it into a plantation colony. From this point onwards, thousands of enslaved Africans were imported, to work producing sugar and coffee to export back to the mother country.
For De Kom, slavery was personal. He repeatedly refers to the enslaved as “our fathers and our mothers”, and deftly weaves his own autobiography into the history of Suriname. His father was born a slave, and later became a farmer. He was part of the generation of slaves emancipated into “free” citizenship under Dutch rule, yet haunted by memories still fresh in their minds, and stories passed down by their elders.
Early in the book, De Kom invites “the white reader”, who he believes will be sceptical of what he writes, to contemplate a sailing ship. For De Kom, the image is not one of freedom; it represents instead the torture of his ancestors:
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe