John Gabriel Stedman
British-Dutch soldier, slave catcher and author (1744-1797) · Netherlands · On the map · Writers · Died at 53
John Gabriel Stedman was a Dutch-British army officer and writer best known for writing The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).
John Gabriel Stedman is read about 38 times a day, in 8 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 21 September 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.
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Photos 7
A map of Stedman's Surinam, from the original edition of Stedman's Narrative
An Arawak woman, wearing a loincloth of woven beads, from Stedman's Narrative.
Illustration of a Dutch plantation owner and slave from William Blake's illustrations of the work of Stedman's work first published in 1792-1794
"A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows," by William Blake, originally published in Stedman's Narrative
Illustrator William Blake's "Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave", 1796. Stedman's attitudes toward slavery were complicated, although he witnessed many atrocities committed against slaves firsthand
An engraving of Joanna from the original edition of Stedman's Narrative.About this person
This narrative covers his experience in Suriname between 1773 and 1777, where he was a soldier in a Dutch regiment deployed to assist colonial troops fighting against groups of maroons. He first recorded his experiences in a personal diary that he later rewrote and expanded into the Narrative. The Narrative was a bestseller of the time and, with its firsthand depictions of slavery and other aspects of colonialism, became an important tool in the fledgling abolitionist movement. When compared with Stedman's personal diary, his published Narrative is a sanitized and romanticized version of Stedman's time in Surinam.
