Here I am with the descendants of runaway slaves on Skin Island, in the River Marowijne, Suriname. These children, from the Paramaccaner group, are happy. Across the river in French Guiana, it's a different story.
Here I am with the descendants of runaway slaves on Skin Island, in the River Marowijne, Suriname. These children, from the Paramaccaner group, are happy. Across the river in French Guiana, it's a different story.
The Boni group are descended from the rebels of a great slave revolt in the 1760s, and were chased into French territory by the Dutch marines. There, the traumatised Bonis declared loyalty to France, and have been enjoying French protection ever since. For a while they even gave their children strange, French names like 'Bicyclette' and 'Stylo'. But it's a tough childhood, that turns into a brutal adulthood at the age of ten.
According to one anthropologist, Boni men don't even find love among their women, who know no concept of fidelity. 'Only the sensual experience is valued,' he wrote, 'the identity of the male who provided it is of minor importance'. A terrible thing war, even a war 200 years old.
