Blood on the River

On February 27, 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice (in present-day Guyana) launched a massive rebellion. Surrounded by jungle and savannah, the revolutionaries fought for an entire year – and came very close to succeeding. In ‘Blood on the River’, historian Marjoleine Kars reconstructs a rich day-to-day account of this pivotal event – drawing on over nine hundred interrogation transcripts and other documents collected by the Dutch when the rebellion finally collapsed, and which were subsequently buried in archives.