Drawing of the attack on the village of Buku

Titel Leupe: Kaart van het weglopersdorp Mi Sa Lasi en het daarvoor door kapitein Oorsinga opgeslagen kamp.

The Marrons were former enslaved people who had fled the plantations and formed new communities in the Surinamese interior. As their numbers swelled in the course of the 18th century, not least because they tended to raid plantations and then incorporate the slaves there into their own ranks, they became an increasing threat to the plantation system. In the 1760s, the colonial government hoped to improve the situation by making peace treaties with the Auka, Saramacca and Matawai. This hope was subsequently proven idle by the Boni Wars in the 1770s. The pursuit of the Marrons as well as the contacts with those groups the colonial government made peace with, did have the effect that increasingly large parts of the thusfar unexplored Surinamese interior were charted.

The Boni village referred to by as Mi Sa Lasi (I shall lose) here but commonly known as Boekoe (Buku), was discovered in September 1771 by one of the numerous military expeditions which explored the northeasternmost part of the country in that period. In the year it took to capture it, Boekoe became a strong symbol of the impotence of the military in the colony. It lay in the middle of a swamp and was encircled by a palisade taller than a man. Initially it was hoped to reach the village using a ‘barbekot’ (a path made of bridges across the water). As can be seen in the drawing shown here, this had to be done in full sight of the village, which exposed the labourers to regular bursts of gunfire. In the inventory of the enclosures of the letter of Governor Nepveu of 25 July 1772, the drawing is described as a ‘Copy of a drawing giving a view of the village of Baron’s runaways, situated between the Cottica, the Marowijne and the Sea, made in the camp before the village by Sub-Lieutenant Frederici in June 1772’. At that time it was thought, probably incorrectly, that Boekoe was under the control of Baron, one of Boni’s seconds-in-command. A month later, an attack mounted directly through the swamp was launched on the village, which ended in complete failure. Meanwhile, the Marrons successfully continued to use Boekoe as a base from which to attack plantations and then return to with their booty and slaves.

Ultimately , military assistance was requested from the Republic. As it would inevitably take a long time for help to arrive, in July 1772 the body known as the Vrije Korps (Free Corps) was founded, composed of three hundred slaves who had been purchased and been given their freedom for the purpose, selected for their suitability for fighting in the bush. By way of an outflanking manoeuvre these black soldiers eventually succeeded in taking the village on 20 September 1772. They were led by Lieutenant, later Governor, Juriaan François de Friderici; the drawer of this orginal drawing of the copy shown here.

North is lowerleft.