15 min
Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam, John Greenwood (c. 1752-1758) EMPIRE LINES
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- Society & Culture
Dr. Jared Hardesty picks up the party debris littered by New England's illegal imperialists, via John Greenwood's 1750s painting, Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam.
Drinking, gambling, and debauchery reign in a private club in Paramaribo, then the Dutch colony of Surinam. John Greenwood's 18th century scene boasts of the illegal behaviour of ship captains and merchants from Britain’s New England colonies in North America, painted for proud display in their Rhode Island offices. This souvenir of a colonial gap year obfuscates the cruelty of Dutch colonialism. But its Black figures hint at the exploitation of enslaved Africans, which underpinned these excesses of empire, and generated the wealth which transformed New England into the birthplace of US industrial capitalism. Painted at a time when it was officially illegal for outsiders to trade on the island, Greenwood's image suggests of the lucrative interimperial trade networks open to individual exploitation, which gave rise to goods like the so-called Surinam Horse. As the sole surviving painting of the artist's time in Surinam, Sea Captains is thus a unique, unintentionally subversive artefact.
PRESENTER: Dr. Jared Ross Hardesty, Associate Professor of History at Western Washington University in Bellingham. He is the author of Mutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate, and EMPIRE LINES listeners can get 30% off the text with the code RISINGSUN30.
ART: Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam, John Greenwood (c. 1752-1758).
IMAGE: 'Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam'.
SOUNDS: MG Studios.
PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.
Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936
Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines
Dr. Jared Hardesty picks up the party debris littered by New England's illegal imperialists, via John Greenwood's 1750s painting, Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam.
Drinking, gambling, and debauchery reign in a private club in Paramaribo, then the Dutch colony of Surinam. John Greenwood's 18th century scene boasts of the illegal behaviour of ship captains and merchants from Britain’s New England colonies in North America, painted for proud display in their Rhode Island offices. This souvenir of a colonial gap year obfuscates the cruelty of Dutch colonialism. But its Black figures hint at the exploitation of enslaved Africans, which underpinned these excesses of empire, and generated the wealth which transformed New England into the birthplace of US industrial capitalism. Painted at a time when it was officially illegal for outsiders to trade on the island, Greenwood's image suggests of the lucrative interimperial trade networks open to individual exploitation, which gave rise to goods like the so-called Surinam Horse. As the sole surviving painting of the artist's time in Surinam, Sea Captains is thus a unique, unintentionally subversive artefact.
PRESENTER: Dr. Jared Ross Hardesty, Associate Professor of History at Western Washington University in Bellingham. He is the author of Mutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate, and EMPIRE LINES listeners can get 30% off the text with the code RISINGSUN30.
ART: Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam, John Greenwood (c. 1752-1758).
IMAGE: 'Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam'.
SOUNDS: MG Studios.
PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.
Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936
Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines
15 min