![]() ![]() What seems most striking about Roza Judia is not so much her status as an African-origin property owner, but rather that among her slaves were her own relatives: nieces Ajaja and Fenchy, as well as Mistress Roza’s own grandniece, Hana, daughter of Fenchy. Nearly one third of all free persons living in Suriname were freeborn or liberated Blacks and Mulattoes by the 1790s, a proportion that was to nearly double by 1811 (Wolbers 1861:442, 565). 1 Judia’s status as a free person of color and property owner may have been unusual at the time, but decreasingly so. ![]() By the 1760s and 1770s, Judia owned houses in Paramaribo and three timber manors in the hinterland, including a 1,335-acre plantation named Rosaland and almost three dozen slaves. Roza Judia, alias Roza Mendes Meza, was a prosperous free woman of color and estate owner living in eighteenth-century Suriname. ![]() slavery slave society close-kin ownership kinship slavery elective kinship ![]()
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