"Deck, or Skiff" (caption translation). This engraving shows a flat barge covered in a thatched dome crossing a river. On the right, a white overseer observes enslaved people preparing goods to load onto the boat. Benoit explained that "each plantation along a river has a canoe which is used by the slaves, as well as skiffs which are large flat boats covered with leaves used for work, for the transport of merchandise." Pierre Jacques Benoit (1782-1854) was a Belgian artist, who visited the Dutch colony of Suriname on his own initiative for several months in 1831. He stayed in Paramaribo, but visited plantations, maroon communities and indigenous villages inland.

"Figure 52" in Pierre Jacques Benoit, Voyage à Surinam; description des possessions néerlandaises dans la Guyane (Bruxelles: Société des Beaux-Arts de Wasme et Laurent, 1839).

Benoit, Pierre Jacques

French

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

BEN5a

South America--Suriname--Paramaribo

"Pont, ou embarcation", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed March 20, 2023, http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/2388