Map of the new extension of Paramaribo

Title Leupe: Schetskaart van de Verdeelinge der Erven voor het Vrye Corps.

This map shows one of the plans for the subdivisions of the three major expansions of Paramaribo on its southern and western sides around 1770. It relates to the third stage. This stage projected an area which adjoins the south of Drambrandersgracht. Lieftinck designed a neighbourhood there which was subdivided into smaller parcels which were specially intended for the members of the Vrije Korps (Free Corps), a military troop of former enslaved people in the service of the Colony, founded that same year, which played an important role in the struggle against the Marrons. In the course of time the population of this part of the town gradually became more mixed, as not all black soldiers used their right to a freehold parcel and some of them preferred to sell to other citizens, but even today this origin is recalled in the current name of the quarter depicted here, Frimangron (from Vrijmansgrond, Free Man’s Land).

North is upper left.

Scale-bar of 20 chains of 66 Rhineland feet = [approximately 1 : 165].