Author(s): Cynthia McLeod

General

She was an eighteenth-century Black Suriname woman with millions of dollars. But she sought the forbidden: to marry a white man. Why, when she already had so much? Elisabeth Samson's immense wealth puzzled many early historians who concluded that it could only have been the result of an inheritance from a master with whom she had lived and by whom she had been set free. After all, how could a woman in a time of slavery and institutionalised discrimination have accumulated so much wealth?And why then, was she so eager to marry a white man in a time when Whites established their own rules and standards for all? "The Free Negress Elisabeth" is the result of an intensive, historical study of twelve years. The novel is set in eighteenth century Dutch Guiana (Suriname) where it was not unusual for white men to solicit black women. Instead, we remain intrigued with this mysterious, fascinating, and intelligent Black woman's dream of marrying a White man, in defiance of all norms and conventions, to gain the acceptance she craves in Dutch colonial society.