John Gabriel Stedman
John Gabriel Stedman (born April 4, 1744 in Dendermonde , † March 5, 1797 in Tiverton ) was a Scottish - Dutch soldier in the Scottish Brigade of the Dutch Army. He was involved in the suppression of a slave revolt in Suriname . Here he fell in love with a slave whom he tried to buy free. He wrote a widely acclaimed book about his experiences. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Stedman ".
Life
John Gabriel was born the son of the Scottish Robert Stedman (1701–1770) and the Dutch Antoinetta Christina van Ceulen (1710–1788). Stedman Senior served as an officer in the Scottish Brigade of the Dutch Army. Stedman Junior traveled to the United Kingdom in 1755 to receive further training from an uncle. Here, however , he had problems with the strict upbringing of his uncle, a supporter of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Therefore, John Gabriel came back to the Netherlands at the age of twelve.
military
He began his military career at the age of 16. After he was trained as a sergeant in the army , he joined the Scottish Brigade in 1760, which was under the command of the States General . To escape his alcohol and debt problems, he traveled to Suriname as a soldier in 1772. During the crossing, he began to write a diary.
Suriname
A slave revolt had broken out in Suriname and the government called for help from the States General, who sent a mercenary force of 800 men under the Swiss Colonel Louis Henri Fourgeoud to the colony. The Geneva Fourgeoud was involved in the suppression of the slave revolt in Berbice as early as 1763 . Stedman volunteered on October 29, 1772 for this military association that was supposed to fight the insurgents. He received the rank of captain and between 1773 and 1777 took part in various campaigns against the revolting slaves who fled the plantations in the swamps east of Cottica .
Stedman met and fell in love with the 15-year-old slave girl Joanna in Paramaribo . She was a mulatto belonging to the Fauquemberg plantation on Commewijne . With Joanna he had a son, Johnny. According to Stedman, he bought them both free, but Joanna refused to accompany him when he wanted to return to the Netherlands. According to other sources, Stedman could not afford the purchase price and had to leave his lover and son behind. Joanna died in Suriname in 1782.
Europe
Stedman traveled back to the Netherlands in 1777, where he returned to the service of the Scottish Brigade. He was promoted to major and shortly before he wanted to resign from the brigade in 1783, promoted to lieutenant colonel.
In the meantime he had married the Dutch Adriana Wiertz van Coehoorn. The couple moved to Tiverton in south-west England and had five children in total. Johnny, the son of Stedman and Joanna, had moved in with his father after their mother's death. He joined the Royal Navy and drowned as a midshipman near Jamaica at a young age .
Stedman's narratives
During his stay in Suriname, Stedman kept a diary, which he also illustrated himself. He began work on his book on June 15, 1778, and in 1791 handed over the manuscript Narrative of a five years' expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam to Joseph Johnson, publisher in London. Although Stedman had extensively revised the notes from his diary, the work was not suitable for publication. Johnson hired the ghostwriter William Thomson to correct the manuscript. Thomson rewrote the manuscript line by line, changing or deleting passages that he deemed unsuitable for the reader. In some cases he overwritten entire passages so that they turned into exactly the opposite. Thomson was also hired as a scribe for pro-slavery groups during this period. When Stedman received the first revised result in 1795, he refused to accept the work. Until 1796 he was in dispute with the publisher to remove changes. Only after further revisions did he agree to the publication of the book. Some engravers , including William Blake , made pictures based on Stedman's drawings for the book. Stedman's Experiences in Suriname was published in London in 1796 under the title Narrative of a five years' expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam .
Despite the many adaptations and changes to the original manuscript, the narrative played an important role in making the European public aware of the inhuman treatment of slaves. The book was published in various countries until 1818. In 1824 the story about Stedman and Joanna was published separately from the narrative . His diary, which was found around 1940, shows that the published edition had been greatly changed in some parts. His sexual experiences and the horrific descriptions of the acts of violence cannot be found here. His relationship with Joanna is also depicted in a highly idealized manner.
In the version of the book that Stedman had originally sent to his publisher for publication, he describes, unchanged by other people, his impressions and experiences during the military actions against the rebellious slaves in the colony. His stories are based on notes which he made during his stay in Suriname and which he wrote down in a diary. First, Stedman begins by describing the trip to Suriname. The arrival in the colony begins with descriptions of the scents, the tropical plants and the exotic flair, but also contains first impressions about the treatment of the slaves and the violence against them.
In the following chapters, Stedman describes the stay of his troops in Paramaribo, the capital of the Dutch colony. In the city there are different population groups, of which the Dutch, Scots, indigenous people, Africans, Spaniards, Portuguese, French and Jews are listed separately by Stedman. The Dutch soldiers of higher rank are in close contact with the colonial administration and are often welcomed by plantation owners and wealthy residents of Paramaribos. At first there are no marching orders for Stedman's troops, which gives him the opportunity to make various acquaintances. The most important of these is Joanna, a fifteen-year-old mulatto and slave, the daughter of a slave and a white colonist, whom Stedman describes as coming from a good family. Stedman falls in love with Joanna and soon begins an intimate relationship with her; they have a son together.
In addition to the relationship with Joanna, the book deals a lot with the military campaigns, the description of population groups and the country itself as well as observations of the animal kingdom and the flora. Another important topic that runs through the book and comes out again and again is the mistreatment of slaves and stedmans, which was rather unconventional outrage over these abuses for its time. At the beginning of the story, Stedman emphasizes the extent of the exploitation of slaves, for example by the fact that some plantation owners allow themselves to be fanned out by slaves throughout the night. The brutality of slave treatment in the colony is also reflected in the fact that the severing of the Achilles tendon of a slave is classified by Stedman as minor compared to other expressions of violence. According to Stedmans, other punishment rituals of the Europeans include that slaves are hung by the ribs, quartered or burned alive. It is also customary to murder older, disabled slaves, even if this was officially prohibited. Stedman explains that a Dutch woman does not shy away from drowning a newborn because she displeased the screaming. There are many other examples in the book, which are, however, supplemented with some more positive experiences and actions by Stedman himself. Stedman tells in his narrative that the killing of slaves is punished with a relatively small fine and that their statements in the courtroom are worthless.
Stedman's own manuscript from 1790 was found in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota in 1978. In 1988 the original manuscript was published for the first time.
Stedman and Race
Stedman's opinions about the worth and humanity of other races are quite progressive in the cultural context of his time. In the fourth chapter, as he watches new slaves to be sold arrive in the colony, he calls them his fellow creatures. At another point he describes in detail that “negroes” are shaped differently than Europeans, but this in no way shows their inferiority. Furthermore, he says that all people have a common origin, which was scientifically controversial at the time. Stedman also sometimes uses the words slave and negro as synonyms, for example when referring to the aforementioned slaves with "those negroes" in subordinate clauses.
It is striking, however, what an important role the classification of skin colors plays for Stedman and the world around him. He describes the natives of the colony, whom he calls Indians, as "the happiest people under the sun" and then first describes their skin color in detail and his theory of how the difference in skin color between blacks and natives could come about, since both are tropical Climate originated. The focus on “race” or skin color becomes particularly clear at the point where Stedman inserts a graphic that shows the many different names for the different types of “half-breeds” that can arise from relationships between blacks and whites.
Even if Stedman seems to be an exception with his image of man, who falls in love with a colored youth and portrays colored women several times as superior to European women, there are examples in the colony that suggest that there is a small degree of social mobility for There were blacks as long as they were not slaves. This is expressed by the person of Graman Quassi , who, according to Stedman, made it rich and was demonstrably invited to an audience with the Prince of the Netherlands in Europe. In general, however, in addition to the brutal treatment of slaves, there was also a lot of bad treatment in Suriname, which was explicitly based on the color of the skin or the origin of people.
Stedman and Slavery
In terms of slavery as a system, Stedman is significantly less progressive than in his interactions with and descriptions of other races. He considers slavery generally permissible if the later slaves were captured as prisoners in a justified war. Stedman also finds that slavery is very important for the economic exploitation of certain areas. He also says that slavery is just a word and that the condition of slaves in the New World is often better than that of the poor in England.
Despite his belief in the permissibility of slavery, he does not base this system on the inferiority of the other (enslaved) races, but on economic and moral arguments that could apply to all races. Stedman is also, as stated above, shocked by the atrocities committed against slaves and concludes that their position needs to be improved on several important points. As examples, he cites that the statements of slaves in court should apply, that there should be clearer and stricter laws that restrict violence against slaves and he even ponders at one point about the abolition of slavery, which in his opinion is even longer Time should be postponed.
Works
- John Gabriel Stedman: Narrative of a five years' expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam , with engravings by William Blake after drawings by Stedman; London 1796.
- John Gabriel Stedman: Stedman's news of Suriname and of his expedition against the rebellious negroes in this colony in d. Years 1772-1777 , translated by CW Jakobs and F. Kies; Hamburg 1797.
- John Gabriel Stedman: Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam . Transcribed for the first time from the original 1790 manuscript. Edited, and with an introduction and notes, by Richard Price and Sally Price. Baltimore [u. a.]: Johns Hopkins University Press 1988, ISBN 0-8018-3416-3 .
- Stedman's Surinam: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Slave Society. An abridged, modernized edition of narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted negroes of Surinam by John Gabriel Stedman, Richard Price, Sally Price, The Johns Hopkins University Press; Reprint edition, March 1, 1992, ISBN 0-8018-4260-3 .
- Richard Price, Sally Price: Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam. The Johns Hopkins University Press, New York 2010, ISBN 1-4502-0647-6 .
- John Gabriel Stedman: Charms naar Surinamen, en door de binneste Gedeelten van Guiana; by Captain John Gabriel Stedman. Met plaaten en kaarten. Naar het Engelsch. Te Amsterdam, by Johannes Allart. , Amsterdam 1799-1800.
biography
- Roelof van Gelder: Poets in de jungle: John Gabriel Stedman (1744-1797) , Atlas Contact, Amsterdam 2018, ISBN 978-90-450-3272-6 .
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for John Gabriel Stedman at the IPNI
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , accessed November 18, 2014
- ^ Price, p. 218
- ↑ Stedman, pp. 87-89
- ↑ Price, pp 531-532
- ^ Price, pp. 267-268
- ↑ Price, p. 303
- ^ Price, p. 302
- ^ Price, p. 399
- ^ Price, pp. 551-552
- ^ Price, pp. 170-171
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stedman, John Gabriel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish-Dutch soldier and author of a book on Suriname |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 4, 1744 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dendermonde |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 5, 1797 |
| Place of death | Tiverton |