Dichter in de jungle: John Gabriel Stedman (1744–1797), by Roelof van Gelder

摘要

John Gabriel Stedman is known today mainly as the Scottish officer who foughtfor Suriname’s planters in the 1770s to safeguard their property from the attacksby a new wave of maroons. Two books tell that story: Stedman’s Narrative ofa Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, newly transcribed from the original 1790 manuscript, edited, and with an introductionand notes, by Richard and Sally Price (1988) and Stedman’s Surinam: Life in anEighteenth-Century Slave Society (1992), an abridged and modernized editionof the Narrative with an introduction by the Prices that analyzes other eventsof Stedman’s life as well. In Dichter in de jungle, Roelof van Gelder discusses allphases of Stedman’s life: his youth and the first years of service in the ScottishBrigade of the Dutch Republic (1744–72); his four years in Suriname (1773–77);the resumption of his military career in the Republic (1777–82); and his finalyears in England (1784–97). The book is the work of a scholar who has a profound knowledge of eighteenth-century European history and is cognizant ofthe relevant literature on Suriname. There are two areas where I tend to disagree with him.