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Image Reference
BEN1
Source
Pierre Jacques Benoit, Voyage a Surinam . . . cent dessins pris sur nature par l'auteur (Bruxelles, 1839), plate xliv, fig. 90. (Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University)
Comments
A forest scene by a riverside. A runaway is sitting in his shelter, with various utensils, including rifle, and canoe. The author writes that it is not rare to find, in the most remote places, a black man who spends entire years secluded and isolated from communication with other men. The author once encountered one of these runaway slaves in an almost impenetrable forest where he had lived for three years. He had no family or companionship and lived off of crabs, monkeys, snakes, bananas, everything that nature offered. He had only ventured twice to Paramaribo [the capital city], to trade various forest products for lead shot, powder, and gin (p. 59, our translation).
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