Surinam’s Bush Negro leaders re-established contact with Africa in 1970

Evidence

Quite recently, the history of the Bush Negroes had an interesting closure: “Several times, the Tribal [or Paramount] Chiefs (Granmans) of the Bush Negroes had expressed a wish to journey to West Africa, the land of their origin, in order to re-establish contact The journey [described here] was offered them by the Government of Surinam and made during three weeks in November 1970.” Sylvia W. de Groot, “The Bush Negro Chiefs Visit Africa: Diary of an Historic Trip,” in Richard Price (ed.), Maroon Societies, op. cit., p. 388. De Groot recorded the following observation by one of the chiefs upon his visit with a Ghanaian king: “Granman Gazon, speaking in the form of a parable, was to remark: ‘A dog is driven away from his yard. His master does not notice it or, at least, pays little attention to it and does not go looking for him to bring him back. When the dog finally gets hungry, he tries to find the way back home.’ As he explained his meaning, ‘Both the dog and his master (here the king) had fallen asleep for three hundred years. Now the dog is awake and has also awakened its master’” (p. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1969