Holland’s Plan for America’s Slaves

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/hollands-plan-for-americas-slaves/?src=recg

In 1863, American blacks were not the only enslaved people with emancipation on the mind. On the northeastern coast of South America, in the Dutch colony of Suriname, some 30,000 slaves also prepared for their day of freedom, which would arrive with the government’s emancipation mandate of July 1, 1863, six months after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

As in the United States, a certain nervousness prevailed. The Surinamese planter class feared a resulting decline in agricultural production in the Dutch colony and hoped to recruit additional laborers from abroad to aid the post-emancipation economy. Meanwhile, many whites in the United States feared emancipation and a post-slavery society for both economic and racist reasons. And for many, including Congress and President Lincoln, colonization was a popular alternative.

It makes sense that in light of these twin anxieties, the Dutch and the Americans might try to work out some sort of grand, post-slavery bargain. But it is only in recent years that evidence scattered across archives in Europe and the Caribbean has come to light documenting the resulting web of trans-Atlantic diplomatic correspondence – including, most notably, a cache of documents from the Netherlands’ national archives in The Hague showing how the Dutch made a serious attempt to acquire American freedmen.

The earliest correspondence took place well before the Emancipation Proclamation. In July 1862, the Netherlands approached the American government with a plan to colonize freed American blacks in Suriname, where they would serve five-year labor contracts before receiving free agricultural lands and citizenship. Secretary of State William Seward redirected the Dutch inquiry to Caleb Smith, the secretary of the interior. Smith responded with a terse but inconclusive phrase that reverberated across the Atlantic: “the Government is not, at present, prepared to make any arrangements to that end.” For the moment, the Dutch seemed to have lost their chance. Yet, only a few weeks later, Lincoln authorized Seward to direct the American minister in the Netherlands, James Pike, to enter into negotiations with the Dutch for exactly this purpose.