ABSTRACT
By 1749 the Dutch governor had had enough and he opened negotiations with the Saramakas. He used as a precedent a British Maroon treaty of 1739 in Jamaica. He had the approval of the Dutch authorities in Holland, but the local legislators remained opposed to negotiations with their former enslaved property. The governor presented Captain Adoe, a Creole and chief of the Saramakas, with a “fine large cane” with Suriname’s coat of arms engraved on it, as a present. Captain Adoe gave him “a handsome bow” and arrows, which he had made himself.
