Elisabeth Samson
1715 – 1771
First wealthy free black woman of Suriname who fought for the right to marry
Elisabeth Samson was a free-born Afro-Surinamese woman who became one of the wealthiest plantation owners and won the legal right to marry a white man.
Elisabeth was born in 1715 as the free daughter of Mariana, an African woman who had earlier purchased her freedom. She learned to read and write and built a fortune through coffee and timber plantations.
In 1764 she asked the colonial government for permission to marry the white Carl Otto Creutz. Marriages between 'people of colour' and white people were officially forbidden. After a court case that went all the way to The Hague, her request was granted — a precedent that broke the colonial apartheid system.
At her death in 1771 she owned four plantations and hundreds of enslaved people. Cynthia McLeod's novel 'The Free Negress Elisabeth' (2000) and the film of the same name renewed attention for her story.
Sources
- Cynthia McLeod — De vrije negerin Elisabeth (2000)
- Nationaal Archief, Hof van Politie 1764–1767