Chinese Surinamese
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| about 40,000 (2011) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Paramaribo · Wanica | |
| Languages | |
| Hakka Chinese · Cantonese · Mandarin · Sranan Tongo | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Chinese Caribbean |
Chinese Surinamese are Surinamese residents of Chinese origin. They are predominantly found in Surinam, as well as in the Netherlands and the Dutch Antilles, especially Curaçao. Chinese Surinamese are a small part of the Surinamese people. There are about 40,000 Chinese among the 566,846 Surinamese people, constituting about 7% of the total population. The majority of the Chinese Surinamese consider Hakka (Dongguan, Huiyang or Bao'an) of Guangdong as their ancestral homes. There is a small minority of Heshan, Guangdong Hakka as well.
Many Chinese Surinamese are active in the retail and business community. Six percent of the Chinese in the Netherlands are from Suriname.
In 1853, planters in Suriname feared a labor shortage when slavery was about to be abolished. They asked the government to recruit other workers from abroad.
The government of Java recruited a group of 18 Chinese for contract labor in the Catharina Sophia plantation in Saramacca. Because of the high acquisition costs, it was decided to get a second group, not from Java, but from China instead. In 1858, 500 Chinese laborers were recruited by the Dutch consul in Macau. They arrived in Suriname in April, but it turned out that no one wanted to hire people to do work that slaves would do "for free".
Because of this, the contract with the Chinese was changed without their knowledge by Governor Charles Pierre Schimpf, in favor of the employers. The Chinese could now be treated like slaves. When they would revolt against this, they were, without due process and contrary to existing regulations, punished by police with cane strokes, an unlawful act that was repeated again and again.
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Wikipedia