The early history of Suriname dates from 3000 BCE when Native Americans first inhabited the area. The Dutch acquired Suriname from the English, and European settlement in any numbers dates from the 17th century, when it was a plantation colony utilizing slavery for sugar cultivation. With abolition in the late 19th century, planters sought labor from China, Madeira, India, and Indonesia, which was also colonized by the Dutch. Dutch is Suriname's official language. Owing to its diverse population, it has also developed a creole language, Sranan Tongo.
The KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies at Leiden was founded in 1851. Its objective is the advancement of the study of the anthropology, linguistics, social sciences, and history of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Area, and the Caribbean. Special emphasis is laid on the former Dutch colonies of the Dutch East Indies, Suriname, and the Dutch West Indies. Its unique collection of books, manuscripts, prints and photographs attracts visiting scholars from all over the world. On July 1, 2014, the management of the collection was taken over by Leiden University Libraries.
Leiden University Libraries is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave direction to the development and spread of knowledge during the Enlightenment. This was due particularly to the simultaneous presence of a unique collection of exceptional sources and scholars. Holdings include approximately 5,200,000 volumes, 1,000,000 e-books, 70,000 e-journals, 2,000 current paper journals, 60,000 Oriental and Western manuscripts, 500,000 letters, 100,000 maps, 100,000 prints, 12,000 drawings, 300,000 photographs and 3,000 cuneiform tablets. The library manages the largest collections worldwide on Indonesia and the Caribbean. Furthermore, Leiden University Libraries is the only heritage organization in The Netherlands with five registrations of documents in UNESCO's international Memory of the World Register.
The Netherlands Antilles was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was dissolved on 10 October 2010.
Surinamese people are people who identify with the country of Suriname. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Surinamese, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Surinamese.
The Colony of Curaçao and Dependencies was a Dutch colony in the Caribbean Sea from 1634 until 1828 and from 1845 until 1954. Between 1936 and 1948, the area was officially known as the Territory of Curaçao, and after 1948 as the Netherlands Antilles. With the proclamation of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 15 December 1954, the Netherlands Antilles attained equal status with the Netherlands proper and Suriname in the new Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Javanese Surinamese are an ethnic group of Javanese Indonesians descent in Suriname. They have been present since the late 19th century, when their first members were selected as indentured laborers by the Dutch colonizers from the former Dutch East Indies.
Surinamese people in the Netherlands are people in the Netherlands who come from a Surinamese background. From 1667 to 1975, Suriname was a colony of the Netherlands.
Bernard Arps, Professor of Indonesian and Javanese Language and Culture at Leiden University, Netherlands, was born in 1961 in Leiden.
Andries Teeuw, better known as A. Teeuw in scholarly circles and Hans Teeuw to his friends, was a Dutch critic of Indonesian literature.
Suriname was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1954 and 1975. The country had full autonomy, except in areas of defence and foreign policy, and participated on a basis of equality with the Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands itself in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country became fully independent as the Republic of Suriname on 25 November 1975.
Surinam, also unofficially known as Dutch Guiana, was a Dutch plantation colony in the Guianas, bordered by the equally Dutch colony of Berbice to the west, and the French colony of Cayenne to the east. It later bordered British Guiana from 1831 to 1966.
The 1969 Curaçao uprising was a series of riots on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, then part of the Netherlands Antilles, a semi-independent country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The uprising took place mainly on 30 May but continued into the night of 31 May – 1 June 1969. The riots arose from a strike by workers in the oil industry. A protest rally during the strike turned violent, leading to widespread looting and destruction of buildings and vehicles in the central business district of Curaçao's capital, Willemstad.
The Curaçao Slave Revolt of 1795 was a slave revolt in the Dutch colony of Curaçao, led by the enslaved man Tula. It resulted in a month-long conflict on the island between escapees and the colonial government. Tula was aware of the Haitian Revolution that had resulted in freedom for the enslaved in Haiti. He argued that, since the European Netherlands was now under French occupation as a sister republic, the slaves on Curaçao should get their freedom as well.
Hendrik Ulbo Eric"Bonno"Thoden van Velzen was a Dutch anthropologist, Surinamist and Africanist.
Gloria Daisy Wekker is an Afro-Surinamese Dutch emeritus professor and writer who has focused on gender studies and sexuality in the Afro-Caribbean region and diaspora. She was the winner of the Ruth Benedict Prize from the American Anthropological Association in 2007.
Jeanne Henriquez is an Afro-Curaçaoan educator, historian and activist. She published articles and made videos to explore the history and impact of colonialism on her Curaçao community. After teaching for over two decades, Henriquez became the director of the Center for the Protection of Women. She worked to alleviate domestic violence and provide educational and employment training for low-income women. She has worked with the Museum Tula to develop materials to reclaim the history of Afro-Curaçaoans and the African diaspora throughout the Caribbean. She was awarded the Cross of Merit from the Government of Curaçao for her activism for women and the Afro-Curaçaoan communities.
Simon Everhardus Hendrik Sanches was a Dutch navy nurse and laboratory technician who planned to commit a coup d'état in Suriname on the night of 7 to 8 November 1947. The coup was betrayed, and he was sentenced to seven months imprisonment and was later pardoned.
Johann Rudolf Lauffer was a Swiss-born soldier, colonial administrator and businessman. He became Director of Curaçao and Dependencies after a military coup d'état on 1 December 1796 and served until 13 January 1803.
Pieter Cornelis (Piet) Emmer is a Dutch Emeritus Professor of Colonial History at Leiden University, specialising in the European Expansion, and related themes of slavery and immigration.
