Changes in Registered Gender Distribution of Heads of Household in the Wards of Paramaribo, 1842–1845

Suriname became a Dutch colony during the second half of the seventeenth century. In the period that followed, Dutch colonisers exploited the colony to produce plantation crops and extract precious metals, embedding Suriname within the Dutch Empire of trade. Central to this connection was the city of Paramaribo. It served as the entry point to the colony, the centre for trade, and the most densely populated area. The importance of its inhabitants was demonstrated by the government’s initiative to install the ward registers which tracked the residents of each ward or neighbourhood within the city. These registers were kept between 1828 and 1847 and contain valuable information that can be used by researchers to shed light on the inhabitants of the Paramaribo wards during this period. This data story will aim to analyse changes in the distribution of registered gender among heads of household, using the ward registers from the years 1842 and 1845. The focus on two specific years allows for a targeted analysis of whether the gender composition of registered heads of household in the wards changed over time. Therefore, the question that is posed to the dataset of the Paramaribo ward registers 1828-1847 is as follows: How did gender distribution of registered heads of household within the wards of Paramaribo change from 1842 to 1845? The different wards that will be analysed concern the wards ‘A’ through ‘F’ and the two outer regions of ‘1e BW’ and ‘2e BW’. Differences in the distribution of gender in the registered heads of household within these wards could provide overlooked connections to gender roles and specific characteristics of the wards.

Source criticism

Despite there being quite a bit of information, the data from the wards is inevitably skewed in a specific direction based on the collection methods used by the institutions that produced the original data. Most notably, the original documents separate the population between free and enslaved, providing far less information about the enslaved than it does about their enslavers. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether information was collected on all inhabitants. The stated goal for the colonial government was to carefully note the population of the city (1). Unfortunately, their motives may likely have been different from ours. For instance, if a refinement of property taxes was the goal, then temporary inhabitants, beggars, or certain types of tenants may not have been counted. The emphasis on address in the original documents suggests that those without a permanent place of residence were not counted. Yet, as a port city, we should expect a significant part of those residing in Paramaribo to be sailors passing through. Additionally, we cannot be certain how accurately the government was at counting people. If individuals were allowed to fill out their own cards they may have left out or added information that favours them (to dodge taxes, for instance). If government officials went on the road to collect this data, the thoroughness or corruption of those officials will have had a massive impact on whether people got away with deception. We can also tell from the data that gender was not always noted for the head of the household. For example, there is no such data for ward C in the year 1842, for which year the heads of the household were counted but not assigned a gender. In short, the data is skewed towards affluent long-term inhabitants of the city. Given that the number of free inhabitants did not exceed 10000, small swings may still have a statistically significant effect of the data. This should be considered when drawing conclusions from the data.

Data manipulation

To avoid duplicates – since multiple persons might be linked to the same address – the query calculates the number of distinct addresses (COUNT(DISTINCT?address)). The query then selects instances of picom:PersonObservation that are connected to a sdo:gender, a sdo:address, and a prov:hadPrimarySource. This ensures that the selected persons that result are connected to a gender within and are drawn from the wardregisters. It then restricts the dataset to observations where the date, sdo:dateCreated, is exactly ‘1842’ or ‘1845’ (xsd:gYear). Each address is then linked to a hdsc:wijk or a ward. Finally, the gender URIs are mapped to Dutch language labels ("Man", "Vrouw", or "Onbekend") to make them interpretable within the table that provides the data for the visualisation that follows in the coming section. The query groups the results by ward and gender label and are presented in ascending order by ward, followed up by a selection per gender label. Thus, the output provides, per ward and gender group, the number of unique addresses recorded linked to persons observed in the years 1842 and 1845.

Data visualization

The visualisation makes use of pie-charts, marked with the letter of the corresponding ward, placed overtop their respective ward. The base layer is an edited version of an 1853 map of Suriname by A. Petermann. Additionally, an 1898 map of Paramaribo by W. L. Loth was used to identify the various wards and served as inspiration for the colour (which were digitally added to Petermann’s map) (2). Furthermore, since the wards are denoted using letters, it was decided to edit out the original legend and corresponding letters for clarity. Finally, large texts like ‘Moravian Chapel’, originally on the map, were similarly edited out to create visual tidiness. In cases where the specific metric in question – gender – was not present in the data, ‘NaN’ overtops a desaturated pie chart has been used to indicate this. A final pie chart showing the distribution for the entire city was placed in the bottom right corner alongside a legend explaining the gender colour codes.

Registered Gender Distribution of Heads of Household in the Wards of Paramaribo, 1842

Registered Gender Distribution of Heads of Household in the Wards of Paramaribo, 1845

Conclusion

The plotted maps, charts, and tables provide insight into how the gender distribution of registered heads of household changed from 1842 to 1845. The total number of registered heads of household decreased from 1,355 in 1842 to 1,197 in 1845. This decline is likely due to the exclusion of ward C in 1845, which had 288 registered heads of household in 1842. The number of registrations declined in wards A, D, E, and F and small increases occurred in ward B and 2e BW.
Some results instantly stand out from the visualisation in both years. A result from both years is that women consistently outnumbered men as registered heads of household. This could be due to several factors, such as higher numbers of registration of female heads of household due to their men leaving or their status as widowed marital partners. The distribution of male and female heads of household remained the same in the wards of 2e BW and A, although the total registrations did increase. In the wards of B, D, and E the total share of registered female heads of household increased. Ward F was the only ward where the share of male heads increased, though this may be because registrations in 1845 were very limited at around 30 individuals (compared to around 100 in 1842).

Historical context is key to understanding these patterns. While this data story will not aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of this history and therefore enable the formulation of greater conclusions, we want to highlight one ward in particular. Ward F or Frimangon stands out in the visualisation with almost two thirds of the registered heads of household being females in 1842. Wards E and F were developed during a time of significant growth in the population of people of colour (3). The free population was able to acquire land in ward E and F, creating a street network (notably the Saramaccastraat) that connected the administrative centre of the colony with its free population (4). These wards likely housed high shares of formerly enslaved individuals, which may have influenced the high proportion of female heads in ward F. This data story serves as a foundation for further research by highlighting key patterns in gender distribution among heads of household in Paramaribo in 1842 and 1845. Future research could explore on the reasons behind the high proportion of female heads of household, and whether certain groups were more likely to be included in the registers. Furthermore, the query used in this datastory yielded 1,355 entries in 1842 and 1,197 in 1845, from a total of 13,173 registered individuals in the dataset. Most of these did not list gender and therefore were excluded from the analysis. Future research should consider the possibility that certain demographic groups – such as women – may have been more likely to be registered, affecting the observed gender balance.

Sources

• (1) Gouvernementsblad 1828, No. 4 (5 March 1828), in: Gouvernements-bladen van de kolonie Suriname 1816- 1855 (Roterdam 1856), 67. Original Dutch text: ‘ten einde den staat der bevolking van de stad Paramaribo naauwkeurig te constateren.’
• (2) Augusts Peterson, ‘Plan of Paramaribo. (with) Surinam. (Moravia Church establishments). Lithe. by A. Peterson, 9, Charing Cross. (1853)’ in: The Moravia atlas, embracing statistics of the Church of the United Brethren in her home and foreign departments, compiled from the most recent and authentic sources, by the teachers of the Fullback Academy. 1853 (1853) 10 & W.L. Loth, ‘Plan van Paramaribo’ in: Beknopte aardrijkskundige beschrijving van Suriname (1904).
• (3) Karwan Fatah-Black, Eigendomsstrijd, De geschiedenis van slavernij en emancipatie in Suriname (2018) 84.
• (4) Ibid. 81-82.

Project by

Femke Brink, Romée van Dommele, Daan van der Marck & Geert van der Tier