AFRICAN OR CREOLE CEMETERY

This modest African cemetery is the resting place of all freed slaves and their descendants living in the vicinity of Jodensavanne. Indeed, the former slaves had claimed their own cemetery, which was honored by the Jewish council. The wooden crosses contrast with the rich marble tombs imported by the Jewish community. There are some 141 graves in this cemetery, but only 36 were actually identified during the 1999 survey. Originally called the "Negro" cemetery, it was later renamed the "Creole" cemetery. Although some of the graves date from before the abolition of slavery, this is not a slave cemetery: slaves were generally buried on plantations, and were not entitled to such preferential treatment. Those buried here could be non-Jews from Jodensavanne, of mixed Sephardic-African descent, or simply people who had settled along the Cordon Path or the Suriname River. Most of the tombs point east: some reveal exceptional woodwork. The wood used is, among others, wacapou(Vouacapoa americana), known for its resistance to termites and fungi. This is what has enabled some tombs to survive more than a century of climatic influences, and to bear witness today to a past that is steeped in history, sometimes painful but also a beacon of hope.