Slaves and Sailors on Suriname's Rivers

Extract

On transatlantic slave ships the Africans were predominantly there as cargo, while Europeans worked the deadly job of sailing and securing the vessel. On the plantations the roles changed, and the slaves were transformed into a workforce. European sailors and African slaves in the Atlantic world mostly encountered each other aboard slave ships as captive and captor. Once the enslaved arrived on the plantations new hierarchies and divisions of labour between slave and free suited to the particular working environment were introduced. Hierarchies of status, rank and colour were fundamental to the harsh and isolated working environments of the ship and the plantation. The directors of Surinamese plantations shielded themselves from the wrath of their enslaved by hiring sailors, soldiers or other white ruffians to act as blankofficier (white officer). These men formed a flexible workforce that could be laid off in case tensions on plantations rose. Below the white officers there were non-white slave officers, basjas, managing the daily operations on the plantations. The bomba on board slave ships played a similar role.