Fort Nieuw Amsterdam
From the same district of Commewijne, we head to the old fort Nieuw Amsterdam.
The fort is strategically situated at the point where the Commewijne river flows into the Suriname river
and from where they jointly flow into the ocean.
The fort was built in the 18th century to protect the plantations along the Commewijne river against pirates and other intruders. It consists of earthen walls and an inner court that is partly used as an open air museum. After a visit to the fort and the small village Nieuw Amsterdam,
The infrastructure are still intact like the following:
-powder houses of 1740 and 1778
-the former eighteenth century commander's residence,
-the sluice of 1781,
-the former barracks which erected in 1740 and improved in 1782
-the state prison until 1982
-a few eighteenth and nineteenth century guns
Currently, the main activities and life daily life earning for descendants of the contract laborers (Javanese-Indoneisch and Hindus-East Indians) are with local fishery, a fish nursery, cattle farm and some small plantations.
The community people are now being advised by the Surinamese government to keep distance from the stretch of riverside frontage due to ongoing project in further building breakwater facility due to natural uprising of water level from the streams.The road is continuously wearing away. At spring tide the brackish water penetrates the agricultural areas that
are thus damaged and have become unusable in some place.
