© DVN, een project van Huygens ING en OGC (UU). Bronvermelding: Marcel Otto, en, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/en [13/01/2014] Adopted by Denie Kasan .
SAMSON, Elisabeth (born Paramaribo, 1715 – died Paramaribo 21/22 April 1771), businesswoman, first free black woman in Surinam to marry a white man. Daughter of Nanoe, also known as Mariana (died 1737?), a manumitted slave. Elisabeth Samson married Hermanus Daniel Zobre (1737-1784), plantation owner, on 21 December 1767. The couple had no children.
Elisabeth was the seventh child of Nanoe, a former slave and concubine of a planter, after whose death Nanoe’s freedom was bought by her children, who had already been manumitted. Thus Elisabeth, Nanoe’s youngest child, was born as a free black person and always remained proud of this fact. The origin of her surname is not clear. The name Samson suggests that it came from a Jewish master, but the first Jews of this name did not arrive in Surinam until years later. Nor did this name occur among the colonists. It is possible that Elisabeth’s grandfather was named Sam, and her father was therefore given the name Sam-son, son of Sam. Elisabeth grew up in the household of her half-sister Maria Jansz (died 1753), who was married to the trader Frederik Coenraad Bossé (died 1742). On 25 July 1725, ten-year-old Elisabeth was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church at Paramaribo. Through her half-sister and brother-in-law, she was in close contact with the white elite and thus became closely acquainted with the business world. She learned to write and do sums, and helped out in Bossé’s trading company with the correspondence and administration.Legal battles
In July 1736, Elisabeth Samson was involved in an incident that would lead to her conviction for slander and perjury. A coppersmith by the name of Peltser had called the then governor, Raye, a scoundrel, in the aftermath of an argument between the governor and Peltser’s wife. Samson heard this and reported it to Raye. A police investigation followed, but the prosecuting counsel decided not to prosecute Peltser, because other witnesses had not been aware of any insult. Raye, however, insisted on a conviction, with the result that suspicion fell on Elisabeth Samson. Now that a guilty party had been found – and a ‘black’ one at that – racist sentiments surfaced. Raye himself, for example, said that it was typical of black people to abuse their freedom (this being a reference to Elisabeth’s free state), and to demonstrate nothing but hateful and recalcitrant behaviour towards whites. In the meantime, the case had come before the Court, and on 25 April 1737 Elisabeth was sentenced to ‘eternal’ banishment from the colony. She then travelled to the Netherlands, where her lawyer had appealed the case to the States General. On 31 October 1739, the States General ruled against the prosecuting counsel of Paramaribo and reversed the verdict. After this victory, Elisabeth returned to Surinam.
Elisabeth Samson owes her reputation mainly to her second legal battle, caused by her intended marriage to a white man. From approximately 1751 until 1762 she had lived in Paramaribo as the common law wife of the German army captain Carl Otto Creutz, with whom she managed various coffee plantations. After his death, she planned to marry Christoph Policarpus Braband, sexton and organist of the Reformed Church and director of a sawmill. In February 1764, they notified the Commissioners of Matrimonial Affairs of their intention to marry, but their union was forbidden by the Police Council, the highest governmental body. Racial motives played a role in this, since blacks and whites were formally forbidden to mix. Again Elisabeth appealed directly to the States General, and three years later judgement was passed: there appeared to be no law forbidding marriage between whites and blacks. The marriage could therefore have gone ahead, if only Christoph Braband had not died in January 1766. In the meantime, however, Elisabeth had found a new husband, and on 21 December 1767 she married Hermanus Daniel Zobre in Paramaribo.
Businesswoman
Elisabeth Samson was an outstanding businesswoman. She and Carl Otto Creutz owned two plantations, and after his death her possessions expanded to include his estate as well: half of his plantations and several houses in Wagenwegstraat in Paramaribo. After the death of her elder sister, Catharina Opperman, Elisabeth and her half-sister acquired even more plantations. Elisabeth also bought those inherited by Creutz’s German family after his death. Elisabeth and Nanette thus grew into such important coffee exporters that they had their own frigate built in Amsterdam in 1767. This proved to be a bad investment. In November 1769 the ship sprang a serious leak in the Atlantic Ocean: the crew were saved, but the ship and its cargo were lost.
The value of Elisabeth’s property increased fivefold in the years between 1763 and 1771, when her possessions were valued at well over one million guilders. Estimates of her annual income vary from 40,000 to 100,000 guilders. To put this in perspective, in those days the governor earned around 10,000 guilders a year. On Elisabeth’s plantations the main crop was coffee, which took little space to grow and yielded high profits. The work on her plantations was done by slaves.
Death and inheritance
In April 1771, Elisabeth Samson died at the age of 55. She was buried in the Nieuwe Oranjetuin in Paramaribo, but she was presumably not given a gravestone. Apart from a few legacies, Hermanus Daniel Zobre inherited all of Elisabeth Samson’s property. Several of the plantations had only been half-owned by Elisabeth, so Hermanus Zobre had to share their management with the co-owner, Elisabeth’s half-sister Nanette.
Elisabeth Samson is an important but controversial woman in the history of Surinam. Her self-amassed wealth, as well as her marriage to a white man, distinguished her from other black women and caused a commotion in eighteenth-century Surinam, where there was a clear divide between whites and blacks. The fact that she was a slave-owner makes her a questionable figure in the eyes of Surinam’s black population. Her life story is told in the historical novel De vrije negerin Elisabeth (The free Negress Elisabeth) by the writer Cynthia McLeod.
Author: Marcel Ottolast updated: 13/01/2014