John Gabriel Stedman

Stedman was born in 1744 in Dendermonde, then in the Austrian Netherlands, to Robert Stedman, a Scotsman and officer in the Dutch Republic's Scots Brigade, and his Franco-Dutch wife, Antoinetta Christina van Ceulen. He lived most of his childhood in the Dutch Republic with his parents, but also spent time with his uncle in Scotland. Stedman described his childhood as being "chock-full of misadventures and abrasive encounters of every description".[2]

Stedman's military career began at the age of 16. His first commanded rank was ensign, under which he defended various Low Country outposts in the employment of the Dutch Stadthouder. His rank was later elevated to lieutenant.[3] In 1771, Stedman reenlisted because of overwhelming debt after the death of his father.[3]

Stedman left the Dutch Republic on 24 December 1772, after responding to a call for volunteers to serve in the West Indies. He was given the rank of Captain by way of a brevet, a temporary and honorary authorization for an officer to hold a higher rank.[3] His corps comprised 800 volunteers to be sent to Surinam aboard the frigate Zeelust to assist local troops fighting against marauding bands of escaped slaves, known as Maroons, in the eastern region of the colony. The corps, which was trained for the battlefields of Europe, was unprepared for battle against the unfamiliar guerrilla tactics of its opponents.[3]

After arriving in the colony, Stedman received orders from Colonel Fourgeoud, commander of the newly arrived troops. Fourgeoud was known for dining on gourmet meats, wine and other delicacies while his troops survived on meager and often spoiled rations.[4] He treated Stedman cruelly, inventing tasks for him to complete and taking away his ammunition. Stedman believed that Fourgeoud neglected his duties as an officer, ignoring the well-being of his troops, and that he only retained his title through monetary bribes.[4] Regarding Fourgeoud's poor leadership, Stedman was uncompromising: "I solemnly declare to have still omitted many other calamities that we suffered".[5]

On 10 August 1775, shortly after falling ill in Surinam, Stedman wrote Colonel Fourgeoud a letter requesting both a furlough to regain health and six months' military pay that was owed him. Fourgeoud refused his request twice, although he granted similar requests to other officers. Stedman later wrote, "This so incensed me that I not only wished him in Hell, but myself also, to have the satisfaction of seeing him burn".[6]

In addition to the 800 European soldiers, Stedman fought alongside the newly formed Free Negro Corps (FNC). The FNC, Black slaves purchased from their enslavers, were promised their freedom, a house with a garden plot and combat pay for service in action against the maroons.[7] The FNC originally numbered 116 men, but 190 more were purchased and incorporated into the unit after the original group displayed courage and perseverance in action.[7]

Stedman served in seven campaigns in the forests of Surinam, each averaging three months.[8] He only engaged in one battle, which took place in 1774 and concluded with the capture of the village of Gado Saby. A portrayal of this battle can be seen in the frontispiece of Stedman's Narrative, which depicts Stedman standing over a dead slave in the foreground and a village burning in the distance.[9]

Throughout these campaigns, ambushes occurred frequently and disease spread rapidly, resulting in an enormous loss of troops. These losses were so great that 830 additional European troops were sent from the Dutch Republic in 1775 to supplement the original 800.[9] The campaigns were riddled with sickness, anger, fatigue, and death. Stedman observed the horrors of battle and the cat-and-mouse antics of both sides that resulted in merely pushing the battle across Surinam instead of quelling it.[9]

A map of Stedman's Surinam, from the original edition of Stedman's Narrative

Surinam was first colonized by the governor of Barbados in the 1650s, then captured by the Dutch soon after, who quickly began to establish sugar plantations. In 1683 Surinam came under control of the Dutch West India Company. The colony developed an agricultural economy highly dependent on African slavery.

Two rivers were central to the colonies: the Orinoco and the Amazon. At the time of Stedman's deployment, the Portuguese lived along the river Amazon and the Spanish along the river Orinoco. Dutch colonists were spread along the seaside and the French lived in a small settlement known as Cayenne.[10]

The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam is an autobiographical account of Stedman's experiences in Surinam from the year 1773 through 1777. While Stedman kept a diary of his time in Surinam, which is held by the University of Minnesota Libraries, the Narrative manuscript wasn't composed until ten years after his return to Europe. In the Narrative manuscript, Stedman vividly describes the landscapes of Suriname, paying great attention to flora, fauna, and the social habits of indigenous, free and enslaved Africans, and European colonists in Suriname. His observations of life in the colony encompass the different cultures present at the time: Dutch, Scottish, native, African, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Stedman also takes time to describe the day-to-day life in the colony.

The first pages of the Narrative record Stedman's voyage to Surinam. He spends his days reading on the deck of the Boreas, attempting to avoid those sick from the turbulent sea.[11] The Boreas was accompanied by another ship the Weftellingwerf and three new frigate built transports. Stedman first arrives in Surinam on 2 February 1773. Upon his arrival in Surinam, Stedman and the troops are met by residents of the fortress Amsterdam, along the Surinam River. Here, Stedman gives his first description of the landscape of Surinam.[12] According to Stedman, the land abounded with delicious smells – lemon, orange, and shaddocks. The natives, dressed in loincloths, were somewhat shocking to Stedman at first, and he described them as "bargemen as naked as when they were born."[13]

Parts of the Narrative continue to focus on descriptions of Surinam's natural environments. Stedman writes that parts of Surinam are mountainous, dry, and barren, but much of the land is ripe and fertile, enjoying a year-long growing season, with rains and a warm climate. He notes that in some parts the land is low and marshy, and crops are grown with a "flooding" method of irrigation similar to that used in ancient Egypt. Stedman also describes Surinam as having large uncultivated areas; there are immense forests, mountains (some with valuable minerals), deep marsh, swamps, and even large savanna areas. Some areas of the coast are inaccessible, with navigational obstructions such as rocks, riverbanks, quicksand, and bogs.[14]

In his Narrative, Stedman writes about the contrast between the beauty of the colony and his first taste of the violence and cruelty endemic there. One of his first observations involves the torture of a nearly naked enslaved woman, chained to an iron weight. His narrative describes the woman receiving 200 lashes and carrying the weight for a month as a result of her inability to fulfill a task to which she was assigned.[11]

An Arawak woman, wearing a loincloth of woven beads, from Stedman's Narrative.

Over the course of his Narrative, Stedman relays several stories regarding the state of the slaves and the horrors to which they are subjected. In one story detailed in his Narrative, involving a group sailing by boat, an enslaved mother was ordered by her mistress to hand over her crying baby. The mistress then threw the baby into the river, drowning it. The mother jumped into the river after her baby, whose body was recovered by fellow slaves. The mother later received 200 lashes for her defiant behavior. In another story, a small boy shoots himself in the head to escape flogging. In yet another, a man is completely broken on the rack and left for days to suffer until he died.[15]

Publication history

Illustration of a Dutch plantation owner and slave from William Blake's illustrations of the work of Stedman's work first published in 1792-1794

Stedman's Narrative was published by Joseph Johnson, a radical figure who received criticism for the types of books he sold. In the 1790s, more than 50 percent of them were political, including Stedman's Narrative. The books he published supported the rights of slaves, Jews, women, prisoners and other oppressed peoples around the world. Johnson was an active member of the Society for Constitutional Information, an organization attempting to reform Parliament. He was condemned for the support and publication of writers who voiced liberal opinions, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.

Stedman's Narrative became a major literary success. It was translated into French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Swedish, and was eventually published in more than twenty-five different editions, including several abolitionist tracts focused on Joanna. Stedman was highly acclaimed for his insights on the slave trade and his Narrative was embraced by the abolitionist cause.[16] Paradoxically, it also became the handbook for counter-insurgency tactics in the tropics.[17]

It took almost two centuries for a critical edition to be published. The unabridged critical edition, edited by Richard and Sally Price, was published in 1988. An abridged edition published in 1992 by Price and Price remains in print, as well as two editions published in 1962 and 1966 by the renowned antiquarian Stanbury Thompson. Of Thompson's 1962 and 1966 editions, Price and Price write, "Thompson's work confused as much as it elucidated. Examination of the original notebooks and papers that Thompson had used (which are now in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota) revealed that, not only had he inserted his own commentary into that of Stedman...but he had changed dates and spellings, misread and incorrectly transcribed a large number of words".[18] A facsimile edition of the 1988 unabridged critical edition of Stedman's original 1790 manuscript, edited by Richard and Sally Price, was published in 2010 by iUniverse and in 2016 by Open Road. This latter edition remains available.

"A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows," by William Blake, originally published in Stedman's Narrative

Author William Blake's "Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave", 1796, Stedman's attitudes toward slavery were complicated, although he witnessed many atrocities committed against slaves firsthand

Stedman's attitude toward slaves and slavery has been the subject of scholarly debate. In spite of the abolitionist utility of the text, Stedman himself was far from an abolitionist. A defense of slavery runs throughout the text, emphasizing problems that would arise from sudden emancipation.[30] In fact, Stedman believed that slavery was necessary in some form to continue allowing European nations to indulge their excessive desires for commodities such as tobacco and sugar.

Stedman's relationship with the slave Joanna further complicates his views toward slavery. Stedman described their relationship as one "of romantic love rather than filial servitude,"[31] although Joanna's feelings on the relationship are unknown.

The Narrative is also an ethnocentric text.[30] Some critics argue that the book made Stedman seem like a much more consistent pro-slavery advocate than he intended.[32] But Stedman's attitudes toward individual slaves did not coincide with his attitude toward the institution of slavery. His sympathy for the suffering slaves, expressed throughout the book, is consistently obfuscated by his opinion about slavery as an institution, which according to Werner Sollors was "complicated, its representation strongly affected by the revisions."[32]

According to the editorial introduction to the Narrative, Stedman "larded his autobiographical sketch with amorous adventures."[33] For example, as a young man growing up in Holland, Stedman had concurrent affairs with his landlord's wife and her maid until the landlady became jealous and evicted both Stedman and the maid simultaneously.[33] Stedman details frequent sexual encounters with free and enslaved women of African descent in his travel diary, beginning on 9 February 1773, the night he arrived in Suriname's capital, Paramaribo.[28] 9 February is recounted with the following entry: "Our troops were disembarked at Parramaribo...I get fudled [sic] at a tavern, go to sleep at Mr. Lolkens, who was in the country, I f—k one of his negro maids".[34]

The personal journal that Stedman kept (and the sexual encounters mentioned therein) varies quite a bit from his published Narrative. The image-conscious Stedman, with a wife and children back in Europe, wanted to cultivate the impression of a gentleman rather than the serial adulterer he portrays in his diaries. Stedman's Narrative removes the depersonalized sex with women of color and replaces it with more detail regarding his relationship with Joanna.[35] Price and Price summarize these changes as "While his diaries depicted a society in which depersonalized sex between European men and slave women was pervasive and routine, his 1790 manuscript transformed Suriname into the exotic setting for a deeply romantic and appropriately tragic love affair."[18]

Joanna

An engraving of Joanna from the original edition of Stedman's Narrative.

Stedman first mentions Joanna by name in his journal on 11 April 1773 in relation to his negotiation with her mother for the purchasing of Joanna's sexual and domestic services: "J—, her Mother, and Q— mother come to a close bargain with me, we put it of for reasons I gave them."[28][34] Stedman eventually negotiates an arrangement with Joanna's mother, which he indicates in this diary entry: "J—a comes to stay with me. I give her presents to the value of about ten Pound sterling and am perfectly happy."[34] In the 1790 manuscript edition of Stedman's travel narrative, edited and expanded on from his travel diary, he praised the physical appearance of Joanna, "bespeaking the Goodness of her heart".[36]

Throughout the Narrative, Stedman praises Joanna's character. He often describes instances of what he viewed as her loyalty and devotion to him through his absences and illnesses:

"She told me she had heard of my forlorn situation; and if I still entertained for her the same good opinion I had formerly expressed, her only request was that she might be permitted to wait upon me till I recovered. I gratefully accepted the offer; and by her unwearied care and attention, I had the good fortune to regain my health."[37]

In the nineteenth century, abolitionists circulated Stedman and Joanna's story, most notably in Lydia Maria Child's collection The Oasis in 1834.[38] The first abridged edition of Stedman's Narrative to concentrate on Joanna's narrative was published in 1824, titled Joanna, or The Female Slave, a West Indian Tale. The anonymous compiler of the 1824 version writes in the preface that emancipation is "neither practicable or advisable" but advocates for "the abolition of cruelty".[39] In 1838, Isaac Knapp, a Boston abolitionist and printer, published Narrative of Joanna; An Emancipated Slave, of Surinam. Knapp founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832 along with William Lloyd Garrison. Knapp and Garrison also co-founded the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator in 1831. Like Lydia Maria Child's version of Stedman and Joanna's narrative included in the abolitionist collection The Oasis in 1834, Narrative of Joanna was circulated in a distinctly American abolitionist discourse.

Stedman and Joanna had a son, named Johnny. Johnny was eventually freed from slavery, but not Joanna. However, when Stedman returned to the Dutch Republic in June 1777, Joanna and their son stayed behind in Surinam. Stedman explained this by saying that Joanna refused to return with him:

"She said, that if I soon returned to Europe, she must either be parted from me forever, or accompany me to a land where the inferiority of her condition must prove a great disadvantage to her benefactor and to herself; and in either of these cases, she should be most miserable."[40]

Shortly after his return to the Dutch Republic, Stedman married a Dutch woman, Adriana Wierts van Coehorn, and started a family with her. According to Stanbury Thompson's edition of Stedman's journals, Joanna died in 1782, after which their son migrated to Europe to live with Stedman and was educated at Blundell's School. Johnny later served as a midshipman in the Royal Navy and died at sea near Jamaica.[41]

Little is known about the final years of Stedman's life. The "Army List" continued to print his name until 1805, after he had been dead for eight years. On 5 July 1793, he was commissioned as a major in the second battalion of the Scots Brigade, and promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 3 May 1796. The title page of his book notes that he reached the rank of captain, via the brevet given at the start of his deployment in the West Indies. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, family tradition maintains that Stedman suffered a severe accident around 1796 which prevented him from commanding a regiment at Gibraltar. He retired to Tiverton, Devon. Instructions left by Stedman before his death requested that he be buried in the parish of Bickleigh next to self-styled gypsy king Bampfylde Moore Carew. He asked specifically to be interred at precisely midnight by torchlight. Stedman's final request was apparently not honored in full, as his grave lies in front of the vestry door, on the opposite side of the church from Carew.[42]

• John Gabriel Stedman (1988). Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam: Transcribed for the First Time from the Original 1790 Manuscript. Edited by Richard Price and Sally Price. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
• John Gabriel Stedman (1963). Expedition to Surinam. Being the Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana etc. Edited and abridged by Christopher Bryant. Folio Society, 1963.
• John Gabriel Stedman (1962). Journal of John Gabriel Stedman soldier and author. Edited by Stanbury Thompson. London, The Mitre Press, 1962.
• John Gabriel Stedman (1818), Viaggio al Surinam e nell'interno della Guiana ossia relazione di cinque anni di corse e di osservazioni fatte in questo interessante e poco conosciuto paese dal Capitano Stedman. Milano : Dalla tipografia di Giambattista Sonzogno, 1818.
• John Gabriel Stedman (1813), Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, vol. 1 (2nd corrected ed.), London: J. Johnson & Th. Payne
• John Gabriel Stedman (1813), Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, vol. 2 (2nd corrected ed.), London: J. Johnson & Th. Payne
• John Gabriel Stedman (1800), Capitain Johan Stedmans dagbok öfwer sina fälttåg i Surinam, jämte beskrifning om detta nybygges inwånare och öfriga märkwärdigheter. : Sammandrag. Stockholm : Tryckt i Kongl. Ordens Boktryckeriet hos Assessoren Johan Pfeiffer, År 1800.
• John Gabriel Stedman (1799–1800), Reize naar Surinamen, en door de binnenste gedeelten van Guiana; / door den Capitain John Gabriël Stedman. ; Met plaaten en kaarten. ; Naar het engelsch. Te Amsterdam : By Johannes Allart, 1799–1800.
• John Gabriel Stedman (1799), Voyage à Surinam et dans l'intérieur de la Guiane contenant La Relation de cinq Années de Courses et d'Observations faites dans cette Contrée intéressante et peu connue ; avec des Détails sur les Indiens de la Guiane et les Négres, Paris: F. Buisson
• John Gabriel Stedman (1797), Stedmans Nachrichten von Suriname, dem letzten Aufruhr der dortigen Negersclaven und ihrer Bezwingung in den Jahren 1772 bis 1777. Auszugsweise übersetzt von M. C. Sprengel. Halle : In der Rengerschen Buchhandlung, 1797
• John Gabriel Stedman (1796), Narrative of a five years' expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America from the year 1772 to 1777, elucidating the history of that country and describing its productions. Quadrupedes, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, Trees, Shrubs, Fruits and Roots; with an account of the Indians of Guiana and negroes of Guinea., London: J. Johnson and J. Edwards
• John Gabriel Stedman The Study of Astronomy, adapted to the capacities of youth

Citations

Bibliography

• Aljoe, Nicole N. Creole Testimonies: Slave Narratives from the British West Indies, 1709–1838. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• Collis, Louise (1965). Soldier in Paradise: The Life of Captain John Stedman 1744-1797 London: Michael Joseph
• Cumming, Laura (15 April 2007). "Mind-Forg'd Madness: William Blake and Slavery" The Guardian
• Davis, David Brion (30 March 1989). 'John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam' New York Times Review of Books
• Fenton, James (5 May 2007). "Colour Blind" The Guardian
• Glausser, Wayne (1998). Locke and Blake: A Conversation Across the Eighteenth Century Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida
• Gwilliam, Tassie. “'Scenes of Horror,’ Scenes of Sensibility: Sentimentality and Slavery in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam". ELH, vol. 65, no. 3, Sept. 1998, pp. 653–73.
• Hoefte, Rosemarijn (1998). In Place of Slavery: A Social History of British Indian and Javanese Laborers in Suriname Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida
• Honour, Hugh (1975). The European Vision of America Cleveland, Ohio; The Cleveland Museum of Art
• Kennedy, Dustin. Kennedy, "Going Viral: Stedman’s Narrative, Textual Variation, and Life in Atlantic Studies". 1 Oct. 2011, https://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/circulations/HTML/praxis.2011.kennedy.html.
• Lang, George (2000). Entwisted Tongues: Comparative Creole Literatures Amsterdam: Rodopi Publishing
• Cotton, James Sutherland (1898). "Stedman, John Gabriel" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 54. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 127.
• Pratt, Mary Louise (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation London, England: Routledge
• Price, Richard and Price, Sally, eds. (1988) John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (New edition 2010, iUniverse; 2016, Open Road)
• Price, Richard and Price, Sally, eds. (1992) Stedman's Surinam: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Slave Society Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Abridged ed.)
• Richards, David. Masks of Difference Cultural Representations in Literature, Anthropology, and Art Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
• Sharpe, Jenny. Ghosts of Slavery: A Literary Archaeology of Black Women’s Lives. U of Minnesota Press.
• Sollors, Werner (1997). Neither Black Nor White, Yet Both: Thematic Exploration of Interracial Literature New York, New York: Oxford University Press
• Thomas, Helen (2000). Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Gabriel Stedman.

• Narrative of Joanna; An Emancipated Slave, of Surinam. Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838.
• Bickleigh, burial ground of Stedman, information about Stedman's apparently unmarked grave site.
• Works by John Gabriel Stedman at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Gabriel Stedman at Internet Archive
• The Early Caribbean Digital Archive, Northeastern University