Daphney and Adriana in the Dutch Series Guyana

27 January, 1813.  The Essequebo and Demerary Gazette of 27 January, 1813  has a notice from Cathrine Oxley. She is looking for a well known "Negro Woman" of the Ganga nation. People are asked to deliver Daphney to the 'undersigned' or to the colony jail.  Where did Daphney go? She was famous - why was she well known? Did her fame make her a target for the people to catch her? Did Daphney inspire others to 'absent themselves' from the slave owners?

In another  edition of the gazette , John Willouhby is offering a reward for Adriana . She "belonged" formerly to a Reverend .

There is a list published in some editions of the Gazette of the  "Runaway and Arrested Slaves in the Colony Jail" On the 8th January, 1813 , the list includes Amelia and Margereth.


These notices are published between notices talking about sale of imported claret, and "superfine baltimore flour", and pickled beef and pork and fashionable hanging paper with borders.

Newspapers.. signs of civilised societies. Print.  Capitalism. Buying and selling property. There will be a public vendue of the dead Mr Crawford. The language is what we know as proper English. eleven excellent Negroes and a gold watch.

and the Carpenter Moses.

  The Berbice Gazette of 9 June, 1812 publishes the names of the Negroes who are sold by 'Public Vendue;'
The Administrators of Berbice took ownership.. when the 'proprietors were unknown'. There was no setting free , but instead selling.

The people laying out the gazette and printing the gazette probably thought nothing of the notices.

We have learned about the Middle Passage, of the horrors of the slave trade.

The notices in the newspapers  with this casual reference to the property , women and men owned by women and men show the extent of the horror, of the normalcy of slavery by people who wrote and spoke proper English.

The two notices , about Daphney and Adriana though, tell about the resistance to the oppression. That they either 'absented themselves' or 'run away'.  There are probably other names in court documents, others who were punished.  The archived gazettes now present the names of the enslaved.

The naming in the gazette was for punishment.

 Now the time has come to use those archives, and take those names and honour them.


( The National Archives of the Netherlands completed a massive project to restore some of the Dutch historical documents related to Guyana. They also digitised the documents (89,000!) and put them online - the Dutch Series Guyana collection.    )