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Country
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SR
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Name of institution (English)
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National Archives of Suriname
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Language of name of institution
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dut
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Contact information: postal address
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Jagernath Lachmonstraat 174, Paramaribo
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Contact information: phone number
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00597 430035
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Contact information: email
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info@nationaalarchief.sr
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Reference number
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SR-NA-1.05.11.14
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (English)
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Old Notarial Archive of Amsterdam
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Title (official language of the state)
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Oud Notarieel Archief van Suriname
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Language of title
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dut
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Creator / accumulator
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Notarieel Archief
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Date(s)
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1699/1828
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Language(s)
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dut
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Extent
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943 storage units
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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The Oud Notarieel Archief van Suriname (Old notarial archives of Suriname) fonds comprises notarial deeds drawn up by secretaries and sworn clerks acting as notaries in Suriname from 1699 to 1828. It includes wills, prenuptial agreements, contracts, inventories, mortgages, sureties, powers of attorney, certificates, bills of exchange, bonds, and others.
Particularly interesting for the history of the Sephardic community in Suriname are the Protocollen van de Jurators van de Joodse Natie (Protocols of the Jurators of the Jewish Nation), placed in between inventory numbers 780 and 803. They refer to the activity of the office of "jurator", created in 1754, specifically to assist the Jewish community. It includes the notarial deeds of "jurators" Isaac Nassy (1754-74), Jacob de Barrios (1779-86), Abraham de Mesquita (1792-99), and Isaac de Barrios (1811-19). The following are some examples of this series:
no. 788, 1779-80: contains information about the partnership between Selomoh Gomes Soares and David de Isaac Cohen Nassy, to open a pharmacy shop in Jodensavanne under the name of Soares & Company.
no. 789, 1781-83: includes the inventory of David Nassy's library. The range of books included those related to his professional needs. Nassy was a notary translator, a planter, an apothecary, and a physician. See Cohen (1991).
Other series of the Oud Notarieel Archief van Suriname include further information on Sephardim. It is the case of the Inventarissen en prisaties (taxation) subseries (nos. 152-301), which comprises inventories relating to some Sephardic planters and traders, such as David Nassy (no. 172, fols. 193v-201v). Each volume includes an alphabetical index. Another series of particular interest is Testamenten, codicillen en akten van opening van besloten testamenten benevens besloten testamenten, which contains wills of several Sephardim. These volumes also contain alphabetical indexes that are very helpful for researching their contents.
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Archival history
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By determination of the royal decree issued on December 22, 1816, the documentation of the Oud Notarieel Archief van de Kolonie Suriname (Old notarial archives of the colony of Suriname) from the period prior to February 27, 1816, was transferred to the Netherlands. Later, two new royal decrees issued in 1919 determined the transfer of a second collection of former notarial documents to the Algemeen Rijksarchief (later Nationaal Archief) in The Hague in 1921, which mainly concerned the period from 1816 to 1828.
In October 2009, Suriname and the Netherlands reached an agreement on the transfer of the Suriname archives, including the Oud Notarieel Archief, to the National Archives of Suriname.
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(source: Bijlsma, R. 2021. "Inventaris van het digitaal duplicaat van de notariële archieven van Suriname, 1699-1828 (1836)") (1.05.11.14)
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Administrative / Biographical history
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Regulations on the drawing up of authentic deeds were established in the colony of Suriname early on. An ordinance of February 19, 1669, stated that all deeds (namely contracts, sales letters, bonds, powers of attorney, attestations, mortgages, assignments, etc.) should have two witnesses present and pass by the secretary's office to be considered valid. It was also decided to appoint officials, known as "jurators" for each division of Suriname, to be present when deeds were signed. In due course, sworn clerks were added to the secretary, before whom deeds could also be passed.
In the case of the Jewish Nation, a new office was established in the year 1754 by the appointment of a specific "jurator". According to the instructions given to this office, this "jurator" was expected to perform his duties on behalf of the Jewish nation, and he was obliged to submit his protocols every six months to the secretary.
In 1828, new regulations were issued for notaries in Suriname, and it was determined that this office should be entrusted to six officials under the name of "gezworen klerken van de kolonie Suriname" (sworn clerks of the colony of Suriname).
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(source: Bijlsma, R. 2021. "Inventaris van het digitaal duplicaat van de notariële archieven van Suriname, 1699-1828 (1836)") (1.05.11.14)
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System of arrangement
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Documentation is organized by types of documents or notaries. Series are organized chronologically.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2023
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Bibliography
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Ben-Ur, Aviva. 2009. “A Matriarchal Matter: Slavery, Conversion, and Upward Mobility in Colonial Suriname.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, 152–69. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Davis, Natalie Zemon. 2010. “David Nassy’s ‘Furlough’ and the Slave Mattheus.” In New Essays in American Jewish History, edited by Pamela S. Nadell, Jonathan D. Sarna, and Lance J. Sussman, 79–94. Cincinnati, Ohio; Jersey City, NJ: American Jewish Archives of Hebrew Union College; Jewish Institute of Religion; KTAV.
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Davis, Natalie Zemon. 2016. “Regaining Jerusalem: Eschatology and Slavery in Jewish Colonization in Seventeeth-Century Suriname.” The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 3 (1): 11–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2015.29.
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Nahon, Gérard. 2016. “Nefusot Yehuda (Bayonne) et Beraha ve-Shalom (Surinam): Livres et Lecture Au XVIIIème Siècle.” In A Sefardic Pepper-Pot in the Caribbean: History, Language, Literature, and Art, Michael Studemund-Halévy, 362–428. Barcelona: Tirocinio.
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Roitman, Jessica V. 2019. “Feckless Fathers, Fraught Families: Abandonment and Cultural Change in the Early Modern Jewish World.” In Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities, 541–64. Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Leiden ; Boston: Brill.
Roitman, Jessica V. 2019. “Feckless Fathers, Fraught Families: Abandonment and Cultural Change in the Early Modern Jewish World.” In Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities, 541–64. Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Leiden ; Boston: Brill.
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Roitman, Jessica V., and Aviva Ben-Ur. 2014. “Adultery Here and There: Crossing Sexual Boundaries in the Dutch Jewish Atlantic.” In Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800, edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, 183–223. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004271319_010.
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Vink, Wieke. 2010. Creole Jews: Negotiating Community in Colonial Suriname. Leiden: Brill.
