Map of the planned extension of the redoubt Brandwagt

Title Leupe: Plaan van de nieuw geprojecteerde Brandwaght aan de mond van Rio Berbice op de Ooster vaste wal.

The redoubt Brandwacht on the eastern bank of the Berbice, roughly halfway between Fort Nassau and the mouth of the river Canje, had probably been a first-alert post since the seventeenth century. Just before 1740 it was fortified to a stronger redoubt, which was given the somewhat pretentious name of Fort Samson.

This project plan for a new Brandwacht ‘on the Mouth of the Rio Berbice’ by Jan Daniel Knapp of 1741, which did not arrive in the Republic until two years later, is rather confusing. It is not clear whether Knapp actually intended this location, in which case it would thus be a project plan for a fortification roughly on the site of Fort Sint Andries built slightly later, so that the name ‘Brandwacht’ should be read as a more general description of a first-alert outpost. At any rate no post was ever realized to this design on the premises of the ‘real’ Brandwacht or Fort Samson, nor in fact on the mouth of the Berbice.

A second map of this redoubts is available, VEL1622A, which appears to show the first floor of the structure.

North is upper right.

This map arrived in Texel on 10 January 1743.

Scale-bar of 120 Rhineland feet = [approximately 1 : 235].