Martina Amoksi
2023

This study will assess the 18th-20th century socio-economic development of Kawina Ndyuka and Pamaka Maroons (two of Suriname’s six groups) in eastern Suriname. The research will determine the drivers for historic period migratory and settlement choices of the enslaved Africans that escaped plantations in the Tempati Creek and Upper Commewijne river and their subsequent migration to the Marowijne river and Tapanahoni river.

According to oral historical accounts, three ancestral settlements were reported to have been established in Tempati Creek (White 2018). The clustered settlements in question are: Poitiede, Beekawe and Kondee. The contemporary habitation of both the Pamaka and the Kawina Maroons are proximal to these Tempati Creek ancestral settlements.

This study will also assess how their contemporary habitation in their traditional territory is affected by the expansion and development policies of the large-scale mining sector. Since the eighteenth century this region has experienced routine natural resource exploitation driving migration and settlement within the area. The Tempati Creek region is of current interest to the large-scale gold mining sector where both the Pamaka and Kawina Ndyuka Maroons are considered proximal “host communities” to which the extractive industry is beholden. This study is timely because Maroons are also deliberating with the government of Suriname about the right to land and decision-making power about development in their traditional territory. This data may help offset the lack of evidence about Kawina Ndyuka and Pamaka Maroon historical and contemporary use of what they define as their traditional territory.

Martina Amoksi studied history at the Institute for the Training of Teachers (IOL) in Suriname where she obtained her MO-B diploma. She is a full- time lecturer at the Anton the Kom University of Suriname. She received her PhD from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) in September 2023. In 2009 she completed her master’s degree in history at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in 2009. Her book was published in 2009; The maroon women in the city: A historical analysis of the impact of urbanization on maroon women in Suriname in the NiNsee/Amrit series. From 2007 to 2012 she worked as a researcher at the National Archives of Suriname.