Berg en Dal (Suriname)
| Berg en Dal | ||
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Coordinates: 5 ° 8 ′ N , 55 ° 4 ′ W Berg en Dal on the map of Suriname
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| Basic data | ||
| Country | Suriname | |
| District | Brokopondo | |
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| Waters | Suriname | |
| Time zone | UTC −3 | |
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Berg en Dal ( Sranantongo : Bergi ) is a village and a former plantation in Suriname, South America, in the north of the Brokopondo district on the left bank of Suriname at the foot of the Blue Mountain.
Military post, gold mine
European, Dutch and colonial history of Berg en Dal began a military post to protect the north downstream at 1713 with the investment Suriname nearby plantations against raids of Marron . The post was created on the Blue Mountain, which is also called Armadille Hill (Armadillo Mountain) or Parnassus Berg (Mountain of the Muses) on old maps .
1717 was here under the mine director Salomon Herman Sanders from Hessisch Oldendorf of that time exclave Hesse-Kassel after gold dug. These activities were stopped in 1722 by Governor Hendrik Temming , as the costs for the owners of Suriname and operators of the mine, the Sociëteit van Suriname , were disproportionate to the yield.
Plantation
Temming, however, found the place suitable to start growing sugar cane here . In the same year he took possession of 1,500 acres (1 acres = approx. 0.43 ha ), bought more land at auction from the Sociëteit am Blauen Berg, including the buildings of the abandoned gold mine, and acquired further farmland on the opposite side of the river. During his tenure (1722–1727) - which usually ended in death during this period - he enlarged the sugar cane plantation to a total of 5,000 acres , which was operated by around 80 slaves .
During the term of office of Governor Joan Raye (1735-1737), who had married the widow of his predecessors Hendrik Temming and Carel Emilius Henry de Cheusses (1728-1734), Charlotte Elisabeth van der Lith (1700-1753), Berg en Dal was in converted to a wood plantation. Charlotte Elisabeth van der Lith was the sole owner of the plantation at the time. Raye had founded the Breukelerwaard sugar cane plantation on the upper reaches of the Commewijne during his brief tenure as governor . In contrast to Berg en Dal, the soil here was more suitable for planting and the shipping of the products to Paramaribo was much shorter. After his death, Charlotte Elisabeth inherited the widowed Raye, née van der Lith, Breukelerwaard. From then on, she managed both plantations as the owner until her death in 1753 with great assertiveness and skill. From 1774, the year her daughter from her first marriage, Johanna Baldina Couderc, née Temming, moved her residence from Paramaribo to Amsterdam , the plantations were run by administrators in Paramaribo. Charlotte Elisabeth van der Lith's heirs lived in the Netherlands and Germany from 1774 .
emancipation
On July 1, 1863 , slavery was abolished in Suriname ( Sranan: ketikoti ; broken chain or freed from chains). As compensation for the “loss”, the Dutch state paid the owners 300 guilders per slave. For the owners of the 315 slaves from Berg en Dal, the compensation total was 94,500 guilders, which were paid out down to the smallest co-ownership share. At the same time, surnames were given to the Berg en Daler slaves in the maternal line such as u. a. Helstone , Herrenberg, Hongerbron, Horb, Lemberg, Muringen, Seedorf , Walden.
New owners, mission station
After emancipation, the descendants and heirs of C. E. van der Lith in the Netherlands and Germany sold their co-ownership shares in the Berg en Dal and Breukelerwaard plantations. Via the administrator in Paramaribo, Guillaume J. A. Bosch Reitz, the largest part of the Berg en Dal wood plantation came into the ownership of the mission company of the Moravian Brethren , Christoph Kersten & Co (CKC) in Paramaribo , in 1870 and at an auction in 1882 . The mission management in Herrnhut decided to buy it in order to set up a main mission station for missionary work in the bushland among the Saramaccans on the upper reaches of Suriname. The missionary work of the Evangelical Broedergemeente (EBG) among the slaves of Berg en Dal had become possible in the 1830s, as on many other plantations; and in 1839 the first church was built here. This church was also a school for the children of Berg en Dal. Until 1856, however, it was forbidden to give writing lessons to slaves.
In 1870 Berg en Dal consisted of a manor plantation house, a director's house, a church, a small hospital, a carpenter's shop, a kitchen garden and a small number of livestock. The village consisted of about 80 small wooden houses and the wooden ground had an area of 9,750 acres .
Despite the beautiful location on the river, Berg en Dal had become a dreaded malaria place ( Sranan: dede kondre ; place of death) for the European sisters and brothers of the EBG over the decades . The term used by the missionaries at the time was perhaps a little exaggerated, but the location of the village posed a problem. In Suriname, east winds prevail. Since the buildings of the plantation are or were standing on the west side in front of the Blue Mountain, the wind and exhalations remained “hanging” on the mountain behind the village. Especially during the rainy season, this led to the outbreak of tropical diseases and the inadequate medical care also to deaths. As a result, from 1914 Berg en Dal was given up as the main mission site.
Missionaries
After the first missionary couple Eduard and Marie Lehmann, née Treu, who moved to Berg en Dal in 1870 after the plantation was bought by the EBG, the couple Karl Wilhelm Raatz followed. Bartels, born by his second wife Malvine Raatz, has preserved a watercolor from the mission station. It shows from right to left the plantation house and from 1870 the house of the missionaries, the police station and the church at the foot of the Blue Mountain. The picture was probably made between 1879 and 1885 when she lived here. Karl Wilhelm Raatz died on November 24, 1885 in Berg en Dal and was buried on the Blue Mountain. A cemetery was laid out on the ridge at the time of slavery . Some graves have been preserved until today (2010).
Police station
A police station was established at the end of the 19th century. The gold diggers working in the gold fields above Berg en Dal had to register and de-register here. In addition, Berg en Dal was at times the court for crimes on the mines. At this time there was a regular ferry service with steamboats to and from Paramaribo.
Decline and future
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With the construction of a road connection Paramaribo- Paranam to the Brokopondo reservoir in 1968, Berg en Dal was first developed by land. This started the migration of the residents to Paramaribo, which reached its negative climax with the so-called jungle war in Suriname from 1986 to 1992, when Berg en Dal was practically uninhabited.
For decades, the former plantation of around 2,400 hectares (about half on both sides of Suriname) remained unused, except for illegal gold digging activities on the Blue Mountain. In 2003, the owner, C. Kersten & Co NV, in consultation with the parent organization, the Moravian Church Foundation in Amsterdam, commissioned a feasibility study for tourist use.
After the positive outcome of the study and the securing of funding, President Ronald Venetiaan broke ground in early August 2007 for the construction of the ambitious Berg en Dal eco-project . By the end of 2008 45 lodges, a swimming pool, a restaurant, a bar, medical facilities and conference buildings had been built here. Overall, the project with 8 million was US dollars estimated and it was the first major investment in tourism in the interior of Suriname. The main financier was the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) with 6.5 million US dollars . In addition, the owner CKC issues so-called “green shares” for capital investors to finance the eco-project.
On December 20, 2008, the official opening of the Berg en Dal Eco & Cultural River Resort took place , which was also carried out by President Venetiaan. The resort offers overnight accommodation for a maximum of 150 people.
Church bell
The church bell of the last church in Berg en Dal, built in 1912, has stood in the entrance area of the resort since 2015. The bell was a gift from the Moravian Brethren in Saxony. The wooden church building collapsed in December 2003 and the bell is all that remains.
See also
literature
- CFA Bruijning, J. Voorhoeve (main editor): Encyclopedie van Suriname . Elsevier , Amsterdam / Brussel 1977, ISBN 90-10-01842-3 , p. 58 [see discussion].
- Albert Helman : Zaken, zending en bezinning . C. Kersten & Co. NV (ed.), Paramaribo 1968 [for the 200th anniversary of the Kersten company].
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Een souvereintje op de Blauwe Berg Parbode dated November 30, 2011 in Dutch, accessed December 10, 2017 (his middle name was Herman and not Herbert).
- ↑ She died in 1753 as a widow Charlotte Elisabeth du Voisin, widowed Audra, widowed Raye, widowed Henry de Cheusses, widowed Temming, b. van der Lith.