Woerden Vlieland

Looking for a new lead in the never ending search for the name Vlieland , we found an unexpected one .
We found in a list of freed slaves of Surinam a man with the last name Vlieland and the first name Woerden . Who lived on the Plantage a la Bonheur.
So we started to find out why this man was called Vlieland and was a manumission slave.

Well what is Manumission, or affranchisement, is the act of an owner freeing his or her slaves. Different approaches developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Jamaican historian Verene Shepherd states that the most widely used term is gratuitous manumission, "the conferment of freedom on the enslaved by enslavers before the end of the slave system".

The motivations for manumission were complex and varied. Firstly, it may present itself as a sentimental and benevolent gesture. One typical scenario was the freeing in the master's will of a devoted servant after long years of service. A trusted bailiff might be manumitted as a gesture of gratitude. For those working as agricultural laborers or in workshops, there was little likelihood of being so noticed.

Date manumissie of Woerden Vlieland 31-12-1846

Then we searched for the plantation
Plantages /plantation A / A-La-Bonne-Heure
(alias: Ala Bonheur)
Sranan Tongo Naam /name Smaradoekoe
Locatie/location Commewijnerivier
Grootte /size
500 akkers/fields (1819)
Producten/products
Koffie (1819); Indigo (1828)
Eigenaren /owners
1819: R. le Chevalier en P. Portielje qq.
1824: Hendrina Johanna Franke
1834: Hendrina Johanna Franke en A. Wildeboer
NB: De informatie op deze pagina is afkomstig uit vele bronnen, deze kunnen worden geraadpleegd op onze bronnen pagina.
NB: The information on this page comes from many sources, which can be consulted on our sources page.

In the census we find about the owner of the plantation nr 245 Hendrina Johanna Franke 239 278/23 Coloured
number. Head Folionumber . Inventory color
Then we try to learn more about the plantation.

A la bonne heure was a coffee plantation in the Surinamese district of Commewijne. This plantation was on the Commewijne River next to the Zoelen and Geertruidenberg plantations

This plantation, the history of which is relatively unknown, was built around 1745 by Abraham Lemmers and dissolved in 1885. The plantation was originally called Smaldoek, or in Surinam: called smaroekoekoe, a name that probably originated because of its narrower and longer shape. According to the map of Alexander de Lavaux, the wife of Charles Godefroy, from plantation Alkmaar, was the next owner.

In 1793 the wealthy Gideon Adriaan Diederik de Graaff became the owner of the plantation. He owned four plantations and was the administrator of 27 other plantations. His sister was married to Pieter van der Werff Pieterz III. The owner of the plantations "Dordrecht" and "Killenstein". De Graaff probably changed the name of the plantation to "A la bonne heure".

The plantation then became the property of the Le Chevalier and Portielje fund, which also owned the Crommelinsgift, Dordrecht, Fakkertshoop, Leliëndaal and Tourtonne plantations.

The fund in turn sold the plantation to Hendrina Johanna Francke, who turned it into an indigo plantation. This cultivation quickly disappeared due to the emergence of synthetic dyes. In 1834 there were only three plantations growing indigo in Suriname, which was probably the reason that in 1834 Francke sold half of the plantations to Anthony Wildebroer.

Gijsbert Christiaan Bosch Reitz became the next owner. He was also the owner of the Geertruidenberg and Zoelen plantations. The plantation was adapted by Reitz's son Jean Philippe in a sugar cane plantation. The sugar cane was sold to the Mariënburg central factory.

In 1882, Reitz founded, together with the banker J.G. Sillem and the management of the Nederlandse Handel-Maatschappij in Amsterdam set up the NV Landbouw Maatschappij Commewijne. In 1884, the shareholders were already faced with the choice between liquidation or capital expansion. The company then decided to take over all shares and continue the exploitation for its own account. A year later, the shareholders' meeting decided to dissolve the company

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