Commewijne · coffee, cotton, cacao
Frederiksdorp: coffee, cacao, and the cells that still stand
Frederiksdorp on the Commewijne River was laid out in 1747 by the Prussian Johan Friederich Knöffel, produced coffee until 1873 and cacao after that, and is one of the few Surinamese plantations where the police post and the prison cells survive.
Check this This page is compiled from published sources and has not yet been verified on the ground. If you know a name, a date or an ownership detail better than we do, tell us and we will correct it with the source named.
Johan Friederich Knöffel was granted the land in 1747; in Sranan the estate kept the name Knofroe. It grew from 500 akkers in 1770 to 750 in 1795. Ownership ran through the Knöffel heirs, jonkvrouw Uhl in 1824 and Alexander Ferrier with Th. Buttler Parry from 1842 to the Ferrier heirs and Barnett Lyon in the year of emancipation.
The estate ran on forced labour. The present owner puts the number at nearly 200 enslaved people in 1775. For the last decades before emancipation the picture is more confused: strikingly few people are registered against Frederiksdorp in those years, possibly because they were worked at the sister plantation Alkmaar across the river. How many people were freed here in 1863 we have not been able to establish.
The names, however, are solid. At emancipation fourteen new family names were attached to Frederiksdorp: Dadelkern, Keerweg, Kloofhout, Koornaar, Leeftogt, Nijverman, Parterre, Resida, Stan, Veldrich, Weegsteen, Weithalm, Weltevreden and Zeekamp. If you carry one of those names, this is almost certainly your plantation.
After emancipation the work was done by indentured labourers: Chinese, Portuguese and Madeirans in the 1850s, Hindustani from 1873 and Javanese between 1890 and 1939. In 1873 the estate switched from coffee to cacao, producing more than a hundred tonnes a year, until the crop was destroyed by witches’ broom disease in 1905. An attempt to return to coffee after 1943 failed.
The yard has been restored. The former police post with its cells was repaired in 1976 and the other buildings in 2016, and since 2022 the eighteenth-century director’s house has held the North Commewijne Story Museum, alongside the Boni Trail. There is now also a small hotel on the site.
Frequently asked questions
Which family names belong to Frederiksdorp?
At the 1863 emancipation fourteen new family names were attached to Frederiksdorp: Dadelkern, Keerweg, Kloofhout, Koornaar, Leeftogt, Nijverman, Parterre, Resida, Stan, Veldrich, Weegsteen, Weithalm, Weltevreden and Zeekamp.
What did Frederiksdorp produce?
Coffee from its founding in 1747, cotton as well by 1793, and cacao from 1873 at more than a hundred tonnes a year. That cacao was destroyed by witches’ broom disease in 1905. An attempt to go back to coffee after 1943 came to nothing.
How do you get to Frederiksdorp?
By water only. The right bank of the Commewijne River cannot be reached by car; boats and korjalen leave from Leonsberg in northern Paramaribo, usually in the morning and back late afternoon. Our Commewijne day tour (€75 per person) calls here.