Plantations & people — research with the Roots Search tool

Research lesson for secondary years 1–3 in which pupils research real people on a single plantation via the Roots Search tool.

Introduction

In this lesson you will work with real historical sources. Between 1830 and 1863 the Dutch colonial authorities kept a 'slave register' in which every enslaved person was recorded: name, age, plantation, sex, mother. On surinameglobalgroup.com/en/roots you will find 161,790 people from that register.

You choose one plantation. You will investigate: how many people worked there? How many men, how many women? Which family names appear most often? What crops did they grow?

Exercises

1. Go to surinameglobalgroup.com/en/roots and choose one plantation. Note the name and the district/river.

Own plantation. Example: Vossenburg, Commewijne district.

2. How many persons were registered on this plantation? How many men, how many women?

Read from the "Historical context" panel.

3. Which 3 family names occur most often on this plantation?

Visible in the surnames list under "Family names".

4. Which crops were grown? Was this a sugar, coffee, cotton or cocoa plantation?

Found on the plantation detail page.

5. Compare your plantation with a classmate's via /en/roots/vergelijk. What stands out? Which family names appear on both?

Open class discussion. Shared family names may indicate family links between plantations.

6. Imagine: a classmate finds on "your" plantation a family name from her own family. What would that mean to her? Write a short text (5–10 lines).

Reflection task. No right or wrong answer.

⭐ Follow-up activity

Follow-up lesson: read together Anton de Kom's 'We Slaves of Suriname' (1934). Discuss how De Kom describes the plantations and compare with what you found in the Roots Search tool yourself.