Common Contracts

License: Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden

September 23rd, 2014

• Filed
  September 23rd, 2014

This chapter shows the drivers behind the increasing centrality of the city in to the colony, and highlights some of the limits to its growth.275 The chain of production, distribution and consumption of drink and timber are followed by a discussion of river work and how local government changed Paramaribo’s relationship with its hinterland. In this relationship the presence of markets in the town added more mercantile activity to the city, making it more than just a shipping point. However, given the nature of dock work in the colony where there is an abundance of both enslaved labour and sailors, the Waterkant did not develop into a fully functional port area. The driving forces behind the centrality of the city were both the attempts by local government to regulate trade, the change of plantation management into the hands of administrators (see chapter 7), the growing ability of the enslaved and formerly enslaved to peddle their wares in town and the growing number of free town dwell