Willem Suermondt sells a bond tied to two Surinamese plantations, 1780

A rare and historically significant manuscript recording the sale of a bond by Willem Suermondt (1740-1828), a Rotterdam merchant and later burgomaster, to Petrus Cantzlaar. Suermondt sells 50% of a 500-guilder bond, numbered 146, which represented a financial stake in two Surinamese plantations: Leverpoel and De Nieuwe Grond.

Plantation Leverpoel (also known as Liverpool or Leeverpoel) was located at Cottica River, producing coffee and cotton. Plantation De Nieuwe Grond, established around 1745 in the Commewijne district (now Indira Gandhiweg), housed 112 to 125 enslaved people who cultivated coffee and cotton. While profitable until 1826, the plantation declined and was abandoned before the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863.

This document offers a compelling glimpse into the Dutch colonial financial networks, illustrating how individuals like Suermondt engaged in investments directly tied to the forced labour of enslaved people. The economic entanglements of this system are starkly revealed in such records.

Read our blog for more background information.