Huis op Plantage Clevia 1912

This is a photograph of the Clevia Plantation House, made by an anonymous photographer. The image shows the main house and what appears to be a storage building, surrounded by banana trees, likely located in Suriname. The image creates meaning by visually encoding power structures. It reminds us of Dutch colonial history, as well as the economics of slavery and plantation life. While beautiful, the Plantation House can be seen to represent social and racial inequality. The economic structure of the plantation, and the colonial system that supported it, depended upon enforced labor and the subjugation of enslaved people. Historians consult plantation records, government archives, and personal papers, along with the oral histories of descendants, to better understand the complexities of plantation life. Art provides one window into that history, but its meaning is always contingent on its social and institutional context.