Fort Zeelandia
On the beautiful Suriname River.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Dutch settlers set up a trading post near the indigenous village of Parmurbo. In 1651 the fort was conquered by the English and they named it Fort Willoughby after Francis Willoughby. 16 years later the fort was conquered again by Abraham Crijnssenfort, he called it Fort Zeelandia. A Zeeland coat of arms can still be seen on one of the gunpowder magazines, because Arbraham Crijnssenfort came from Zeeland.
After this event, the fort was again conquered by the English and shortly afterwards it fell back into the hands of the Dutch. Fort Zeelandia was expanded with five bastions, three of which still exist, they were built on the side of the Surinamese river. The first bastion was called Middelburgh, the second bastion Zierikzee and the third bastion Veere.
After the French attacked the plantation around Fort Zeelandia in 1712, they decided to remove the two bastions that had been built on the land side and a new fort was built, Fort Nieuw-Amsterdam. Fort Zeelandia became a barracks and later a prison.
Before the outbreak of the 1940 war, many German missionaries were already working in the Dutch colony. About 50 German missionaries were imprisoned in Fort Zeelandia during the war. Later they were taken to Huize Melati, a Roman Catholic mission boarding school in Para.
In 1967 a Surinamese Museum was built in the fort. A day before the independence of Suriname, the statue of Queen Wilhelmina was moved from the Independence Square to the fort. A flagpole was placed on the old spot, on which the new Surinamese flag was hoisted the next day.
In 1982, Desi Bouterse and his soldiers moved into the fort. It became the headquarters of the then military rulers and was used to imprison opponents of the regime.
Around December 8 of that same year, fifteen political opponents of Desi Bouterse were tortured and then shot on the ring wall, on the side of the Suriname River. An event known as the December Murders. A memorial was erected in 2009.