Raymond T. Smith, John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of a Five

Book Reviews -Raymond T. Smith, John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted negroes of Surinam in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South-America from the year 1772 to the year 1777. Edited by Richard Price and Sally Price. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. xcvii + 708 pp. -Richard Price, John Gabriel Stedman, Reize naar Surinamen, door den Capitein John Gabriel Stedman, met platen en kaarten, naar het Engelsch, Jos Fontaine (ed.) Zutphen: De Walburg Pers, 1987. 176 pp. -Robert L. Paquette, David Eltis, Economic growth and the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. xiii + 418 pp. -Robert L. Paquette, Robin Blackburn, The overthrow of colonial slavery, 1776-1848. London and New York: Verso, 1988. 560 pp. -Jack P. Greene, Selwyn H.H. Carrington, The British West Indies during the American revolution. The Netherlands: Foris Publications, 1988. 222 pp. -H. Hoetink, Angel G. Quintero Rivera, Patricios y plebeyos: burgueses, hacendados, artesanos y obreros. Las relaciones de clase en el Puerto Rico de cambio de siglo. Rio Piedras, P.R. Ediciones Huracán, 1988. 332 pp. In: New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 63 (1989), no: 3/4, Leiden, 237-255 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:32:44AM via free access BOOK REVIEWS Narrative of afive years expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South-America front the year 1772 to the year 1777. JOHN GABRIEL STEDMAN. Edited by Richard Price and Sally Price. Baltimore: The Jöhns Hopkins University Press, 1988. xcvii + 708 pp. (Cloth US$ 95.00) John Gabriel Stedman, a late eighteenth century soldier, had the instincts of an anthropologist, a considerable talent for drawing and painting, a lively pen, and a quick temper that went with an aptitude for riotous living. From February 1773 to April 1777 he served in Suriname as an officer in a force specially recruited in Holland to protect the colonial plantations from the depredations of revolted slaves, and to destroy the settlements of runaways. An account of his experiences, first published in London in 1796, has been republished many times and in many languages, having been recognized as one of the best accounts of life in a slave colony, and a devastating exposé of the sadistic cruelty of the slave regime. A major contribution to the success of the work has been the romantic account of Stedman's love for a young mulatto slave, Joanna, and of his attempts to secure her manumission and that of their son, Johnny - an account that has, over the years, inspired plays and novels as well as secondary accounts with titles such as Soldier in Paradise. Most readers of this journal will be familiar with the splendid Imprint Society version of the original 1796 edition, published in 1971 with an Introduction by R.A.J. van Lier. It has been known for some time that Stedman's original manuscript had been discovered, that it differed in important ways from the edited version published in 1796, and that Richard and Sally Price were working to make available this original, unexpurgated version. We now have the Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:32:44AM via free access 238 BOOK REVIEWS fruits of their labor in this splendid volume, an important event in Caribbean scholarship; area specialists will want to own it, in spite of the cost. The advantage of reading Stedman's own words cannot be exaggerated. Every effort has been made to reproduce the original in every detail and in spite of its idiosyncratic expressions, odd spelling and grammatical errors, there is a subtly different feel to this narrative, making it more vivid and authentic, quite apart from the inclusion of important material that was excised from the earlier version. Richard and Sally Price, and the Johns Hopkins University Press, are to be congratulated on a most successful piece of restoration. Stedman died in 1797, only a short time after the publication of his work, leaving not only the original manuscript version of the book, completed in 1790, but an extensive journal kept while he was in Suriname, and other manuscript notes, all now housed in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota. The fascinating story of how they got there and an account of what they contain is provided in a highly informative Introduction to the present edition by Richard Price and Sally Price, an Introduction showing that one other piece of historical and literary detective work remains to be completed. As the Prices point out, "The text consists of a half-dozen interwoven strands - the romance with Joanna [the slave daughter of a Dutch planter] and his efforts to gain her freedom; the military campaigns against the rebel slaves; his relations with other soldiers, particularly his commanding officer Fourgeoud; the description and investigation of exotic flora and fauna; the description of Amerindian and African slave life; and, most important, the description and analysis of relations between planters and slaves - all structured by a chronological framework taken from his Suriname diaries" [p. XV]. Stedman wrote this narrative some ten years after the events described (having moved to Devon from Holland in 1784), in an English atmosphere where the slave trade and slavery itself were topics of intense debate. Not surprisingly he crafted his descriptions of that institution, and of his relationship with Joanna, his "Surinam wife," to suit his position in relation to those debates. Therefore the material contained in his "Suriname diaries," much of it written at the time of, or soon after, the events it describes, is a vital link in the interpretation of the narrative. A version of these diaries was published in 1962 by The Mitre Press in London, and edited by Stanbury Thompson but it is even less reliable than the 1796 edition of Stedman's Narrative, and it is to be hoped that a definitive version, based on the originals in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, will soon be published. Even in its present form Thompson's Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:32:44AM via free access BOOK REVIEWS 239 edition of Stedman's journal provides illuminating checks on the events described in the Narrative. There are many accounts of life in the West India slave colonies, written by planters, doctors, estate overseers, missionaries and visitors, some of them far more learned than Stedman's but none more credible concerning the texture of relationships between the races, which were at once bar- barically cruel and of the greatest intimacy. He is unusual in his very explicit statements about the value and validity of African religion, customs and physical beauty, and in the relativism of his cultural sensibility. Although the Narrative clearly romanticizes his relationship with Joanna which, from the journal, we know started as the usual arrangement entered into betwween Stedman and Joanna's mother for her to be his "hou- sekeeper" (Joanna was then fifteen years old), it is also clear that he developed an uncommon attachment to her and that he respected her extensive kinship connections. From the journal in particular we get some idea of the extensive exchange of gifts, between Europeans, between slaves, and even between slaves and Europeans, and Stedman was involved in these exchange networks. How many 18th century Europeans would refer to a paramour's mother's brother - a slave - as "Uncle"? It is evident, too, that he was regarded by his fellow officers, and by most of the European colonists, as being unduly concerned for his "Surinam wife" and her child. His mess mates made fun of him, saying that he should do as they do and remember that if children are slaves they will be well provided for, and if they die - so what? "Keep your Sighs in your Belly and your Money in your Pocket" [p. 289]. He did not of course. Although he left Joanna and the boy behind when he returned to Europe in 1777 (and by February 1782 he had married an 18 year old Dutch woman), he did arrange for their manumission, and when Joanna died in November of 1782 he sent for his son and brought him up as part of his family. The Prices' Introduction to this volume contains much interesting comment on the military campaigns against the Bush Negroes in which Stedman was actively engaged during his four years in Suriname. They seem to have been singularly badly managed, and Stedman appeared to have more respect for the rebel leaders than for his own superiors. The original edition contained some 80 illustrations from engravings made from Stedman's own sketches and water colours. At least sixteen of them were made by William Blake and have been recognized as among his best work. Richard and Sally Price show convincingly that Stedman was much more than a passable artist whose work was improved by the engravers; indeed his original drawings and paintings, mostly lost, were probably more interesting than the ones we see. One painting found among the pages Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:32:44AM via free access 240 BOOK REVIEWS of the manuscript is reproduced here and is remarkable for its detail and authentic rendering of the tropical forest scène; by the time the engraver had finished with it, the Suriname forest had become more like rural England. Unfortunately, the reproductions are the one weak aspect of this volume. The Prices acknowledge the work of the person who made the photographs of the original eighteenth century plates, noting the great difficulty involved, but the results are disappointing - except for the two colour plates, which are excellent.

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