Elisabeth Rawson

Elisabeth Samson (c. 1715 – 21 April 1771) was an Afro-Surinamese coffee plantation owner. She was born in about 1715 in Paramaribo to a freed slave, known as Mariana. All of her other siblings had been born as slaves and were emancipated by her half-brother Charlo Jansz. Raised in the home of her half-sister Maria Jansz, Samson was taught to read and write by her brothers-in law who also trained her in business. She began acquiring property at the age of 19, but was banished from the colony in 1736 after being convicted of slander. Her appeal, heard by the Dutch Parliament, was successful and she returned to Suriname in 1739. After acquiring slaves and two small coffee plantations, Samson entered a relationship with Carl Otto Creutz. Creutz was a soldier who was deeded property in 1749 by the governor for his service in making peace with local maroons. Focused on his military career and colonial politics, he turned his plantation, Clevia, over to Samson's management. She brought her own slaves to work on his plantation and within two years, the couple drew up a document confirming their joint ownership of Clevia, as well as of a cattle ranch and two townhomes in the city of Paramaribo. When he died in 1762, his half-ownership and other properties passed jointly to Samson and his brothers but she bought out their interests within two years. Samson continued to acquire properties with various family members, including her sister Nanette, with whom she established a successful export business, which traded using her own ship. In 1767, she married Hermanus Daniel Zobre (1737—1784), and became the first black woman in Suriname to marry a white man. She was a major coffee plantation owner and coffee export trader until her death in 1771. Her success as a business person, black slave owner, and her marriage to a white partner, challenged both the gender and racial norms of the times. While her personal history provides insight into the ways black and mixed-race women contributed to the economy and challenged social norms, it also expands knowledge of 18th-century social organization in Suriname. Her life and the controversies surrounding her choices have been examined by modern scholarship and in literary studies.