Map of the Western part of Suriname between the river Suriname and Coppename

Title Leupe: Kaart van de Kust van Guiana, tusschen de rivieren Coppename en Suriname.

This anonymous general map of a part of western Suriname, between the Suriname and Coppename Rivers, is more thematic than topographic, although its purpose is not completely clear. Noted in the deepest hinterland on the upper reaches of the Coppename River are such places as an Indian Village of Abram, the Hernhutter (Moravian Brotherhood) settlement Saron (B, with legend of buildings), its accompanying Indian village (A), and the nearby military post on the Saramacca, as well as the ʻOranjepadʼ (Orange Path, a military patrol route) and the ‘Joodsch Dorp’ (Jewish Village, Joden Savanne) on the Surinam. Closer to Paramaribo, west of Wanica Creek, are four ʻOntdekte Wegloopers Dorpenʼ (Discovered Runaway Villages). North of the town, the 1756 planned canal between the Suriname River and the Saramacca and the road running parallel to it laid out slightly later have been drawn in. In lower right it is stated that the soundings noted were collected by the Government ʻUytleggerʼ [commanded by Jacob] Bogman. He was a Swede who was employed for a while by the Society as captain of the said patrol vessel (uytlegger being a flat-bottomed, armed craft) and in 1761-1762 he participated in a number of expeditions against the Marrons southwest of Paramaribo and discovered the four villages referred to here. The post at Saron (see also VEL1686) was founded in 1757 by Hernhutter missionaries from the settlement of Pilgerhut in Berbice, but at the beginning of 1761 it went up in flames during a Marron attack. A few months later the village was rebuilt a little farther upstream, in the vicinity of the military post that the government had established there in the same year. All combined, these clues suggest dating the map to around 1762, even though this makes it difficult to explain why the redoubts Purmerend and Leiden at the mouth of the Surinam River, built in 1748 and 1755 respectively, are absent from it. A second, virtually identical version of this map is found in the map collection of the Maritiem Museum Rotterdam, number K200.

North is below.

Scale-bars of 1000 Rhineland chains / 2 German miles of 15 in a degree each of 357½ Rhineland chains = [approximately 1 : 255,000].