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Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam, John Greenwood (c. 1752-1758)
Description: Dr. Jared Hardesty picks up the party debris littered by New England's illegal imperialists, via John Greenwood's 1750s painting, Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam.
Drinking, gambling, and debauchery reign in a private club in Paramaribo, then the Dutch colony of Surinam. John Greenwood's 18th century scene boasts of the illegal behaviour of ship captains and merchants from Britain’s New England colonies in North America, painted for proud display in their Rhode Island offices. This souvenir of a colonial gap year obfuscates the cruelty of Dutch colonialism. But its Black figures hint at the exploitation of enslaved Af...