Landkaart van de Volkplantingen Suriname en Berbice.

(SURINAM).

Isaak Tirion c.

(Amsterdam

1760)

Hand-colored map.

Attractive and detailed map of the Dutch colonies and plantations along the northern coastline of South America from the Sinnamary (Sinamari) River in present-day French Guiana, to the Berbice River and Fort Nassau, located in present-day Guyana. The map contains a large inset of Paramaribo, the capital of Dutch Suriname, showing town plan, fortifications and approximately twenty ships. Of the fifteen locations around the city that are identified numerically, most intriguing is the 'Portugeesche Jooden Synagoog' (Tzedek ve-Shalom, est. 1736) and the 'Duitsche Synagoog' (Neveh Shalom, est. 1719). Suriname became a most important Jewish population center in the Western Hemisphere and benefitted from special dispensations from both British and from Dutch colonial governments. In the 17th- and 18th-centuries a thriving Jewish community developed there, maintaining close cultural and religious ties to the motherland of the Netherlands. Jews owned vast sugar plantations, and possessed a full-fledged religious infrastructure.