"Funeral Convoy of a Quality Person, Preceded and Followed by Negro Slaves" (caption translation). The funeral procession for an important/wealthy European involved slaves, who hold umbrellas over the chief mourners. "When a rich person dies," Benoit writes, "his coffin is carried by a dozen blacks. Family and friends follow, dressed in black. Their heads are covered with a sort of hat that entirely hides their face; a black veil is attached to the coffin and the slaves who walk behind each one carry a large green umbrella over the heads of the persons who accompany the coffin" (p. 23). Benoit (1782-1854), a Belgian artist, visited Suriname around 1831 and apparently stayed for several months. The 100 lithographs in his book (hand colored in the John Carter Brown copy), accompanied by textual descriptions of varying detail, are derived from drawings he made during his visit, which included time in Paramaribo, the capital, as well as trips into the interior visiting Maroons and Amerindians. Forty of his lithographs, with our translations from the French text, are shown on this website.

"Figure 16" in Pierre Jacques Benoit, Voyage à Surinam; description des possessions néerlandaises dans la Guyane (Bruxelles: Société des Beaux-Arts de Wasme et Laurent, 1839).

Benoit, Pierre Jacques

French

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

BEN15a

South America--Suriname--Paramaribo

"Convoi funèbre d'une personne de qualité, précédé et suivi de nègres esclaves", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 6, 2023, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/2356