ABSTRACT
Suriname is a multi-ethnic society, consisting of immigrants from all continents. The first people were the Amerindians or Indigenous people who were decimated with the arrival of Europeans from around 1500 (Knight, 1990: 37 ff.). Since the sixteenth century people from the Netherlands, France and England tried to establish settlements but without permanent success. The first permanent settlement was established by English from the Island of Barbados who introduced slaves from West Africa. Suriname became a Dutch colony in 1667 and remained so until Independence in 1975.
