Like its neighbors Guyana and French Guiana, Suriname is a very sparsely populated country. At just 3.47 people per square kilometer, it is the least densely-populated country in the Western Hemisphere. 90% of the country is part of the wild and undeveloped Amazon rainforest, with virtually the entire population living along the coast.
Together with Guyana and French Guiana, Suriname is part of the Guianas, a region of South America which is often considered culturally part of The Caribbean. People of African descent make up the plurality of the population, though the overall population is very multicultural, with people of South, Southeast, and East Asian descent, as well as Europeans and mixed-race people, contributing to an ethnic mosaic.
The name Suriname may have been taken from the indigenous word "Surinen". Before 1978, the official English spelling of the country was Surinam, a spelling that is retained in the name of the country's flag carrier (Surinam Airways).
The Arawak people were among the first to settle Suriname. The Caribs, another indigenous people, later forcibly conquered the Arawaks. By the 16th century, Spaniards, Englishmen, and Dutchmen arrived in the area. The English colonized the land that would become Suriname first, but in 1667, the Dutch conquered it. Because of the profitable plantations in the Guianas at that time, they sold their New Netherland colony to England in exchange of keeping Suriname in the 1667 Treaty of Breda. This means that Suriname was kept by the Dutch in exchange of giving up New York City.
The plantations employed African slave labor. The Dutch institution of slavery in Suriname was considered one of the most brutal in the entire world. Some blacks who managed to escape retreated to the jungles and integrated with the local natives, with whom they ended up building new societies. Thus they are called the Maroons. They frequently raided the plantations for supplies and freed some of the slaves still living in the plantations.
During the American Civil War, the American President Abraham Lincoln offered the Dutch to settle down freed African-American slaves to Suriname, but nothing came down on the offer. Slavery was abolished in 1863, but it is only ten years later that they could be considered free, due to having to work with pay in the plantations to earn some money when freed.
Later on, the Dutch imported Indians, Indonesians, Chinese, and Lebanese people to take up the slack of the now-freed blacks. Unlike the rest of the Caribbean, most of these laborers were able to retain their culture and language even after generations. While the Indo-Caribbeans of Trinidad and Tobago have mostly switched to speaking English creole, their brethren in Suriname still speak Hindustani. The Indonesian settlers, who mostly came from Central and East Java, continue to speak Javanese privately, making them not only the only significant emigrant population from the Malay archipelago who still speak their ancestral language but also the only one whose language is/was not Malay.note
During World War II, Suriname had a bauxite industry and the United States occupied it, fearing that Nazi Germany, which had already conquered The Netherlands, would invade Suriname. Not to mention that neighboring French Guiana had a leadership that was in league with the Vichy regime.
After the war, the Dutch re-organized its colonies after the loss of Indonesia. Suriname and other Caribbean colonies were granted autonomy. But it was not enough for many independence activists, and they got their wish for independence in 1975.
The country has seen a tumultuous political history. A coup d'état in 1980 led sergeant Dési Bouterse to rule the country for seven years. Elections came by 1987, but Bouterse became dissatisfied with his cabinet that in 1990, he told his cabinet by phone to go pack their belongings and thus being dubbed the "Telephone Coup." There was also a six-year civil war involving Bouterse's government and the Maroons disgruntled by the apparent injustices they faced. Bouterse eventually lost power in 1991, just a year before the war ended, and was tried in absentia by a Dutch court on drug smuggling charges.
In 2010, Bouterse came back, ran for president, won, and was reelected in 2015, incredibly, despite the mounting list of war crime and human rights violations charges leveled against him. In 2020, however, he announced his retirement from politics.
Suriname's economy was once dependent on its bauxite mining, but since then it has diversified, though bauxite remains a major export. Gold now dominates it exports, followed by oil and agricultural produce such as rice, sugarcanes, and bananas.
Works:
Notable Surinamese and people of Surinamese descent:
- American actor Jimmy Smits, whose father is a Surinamese immigrant.
- Tiffany Dupont, best known for playing Queen Esther in One Night with the King, has distant Surinamese ancestry.
The Surinamese Flag
The Surinamese national anthem
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Government
- Unitary assembly-independent republic
- President: Chan Santokhi
- Vice President: Ronnie Brunswijk
Miscellaneous
- Capital and largest city: Paramaribo
- Population: 575,990
- Area: 163,821 km² (63,252 sq mi) (90th)
- Currency: Surinamese dollar ($) (SRD)
- ISO-3166-1 Code: SR
- Country calling code: 597
- Highest point: Juliana Top (1230 m/4,035 ft) (150th)
- Lowest point: Atlantic Ocean (3,646 m/11,962 ft) (-)
