Paramaribo

Paramaribo stands on the west bank of the Suriname River, a short distance upstream from the Atlantic, on the northern coast of South America. Its name comes from an Indigenous village recorded in early Dutch accounts as Parmurbo. The colonial town developed around a fort on the riverbank, with broad streets and buildings that combined European forms with materials suited to the tropical climate. Timber became a characteristic feature of its houses and public buildings.

In 1651 English settlers strengthened an earlier French post and named it Fort Willoughby. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Abraham Crijnssen captured the fort in 1667 and renamed it Fort Zeelandia. Although control changed again during the conflict, Suriname became a Dutch possession under the subsequent peace settlements. Paramaribo grew as the administrative and commercial centre of a plantation colony, whose wealth depended heavily on the labour of enslaved Africans. The fort guarded the river approach while ships connected the town to plantations and the Atlantic.

Fire was a persistent danger in a town built largely of wood. In 1821 a major blaze destroyed a large part of Paramaribo, and rebuilding was still underway when another fire struck in 1832. The streets and houses that survived or were rebuilt carried forward the town’s distinctive colonial character into the nineteenth century.