Description

Nicolaas Simon van WINTER (1718 – 1795).

Amsterdam: Pieter Meijer, 1774.

Nicolaas Simon van Winter (1718 – 1795) was a Dutch merchant and eminent playwright and poet, and the husband of Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken, a dramatist of great talent in her own right. The proprietor of the firm of Jacob Muhl & van Winter, which traded in precious woods, indigo and dyes, Winter was visiting the Dutch colony of Berbice (today the northeastern part of Guyana) on business when he witnessed the Berbice Rebellion (February 23, 1763 – April 15, 1764), the first major slave revolt in South America. The uprising began when a house-slave named Coffij led 5,000 of his fellow enslaved Africans against the Dutch plantation regime. Coffij’s men were merciless towards the Dutch planters they encountered and for a time were highly disciplined and successful, taking over much of the southern part of the colony for some months. However, the Dutch eventually mounted a reprise and defeated the rebellion, exacting terrifically cruel punishments upon the slaves they held responsible.

Prior to his trip to Berbice, Winter was an ardent supporter of slavery, which greatly benefitted his business. However, the horrors of the institution of slavery and the savage brutality by which the Dutch punished the rebels shook him to the core. He returned to the Netherlands as an ardent Abolitionist.
Winter decided to write Monzongo, of de koningklyke slaaf [Monzongo, or the Royal Slave], which became “the most popular anti-slavery production staged across the Netherlands until well into the nineteenth century” (Abrams).

Present here is the very rare first edition of Monzongo, published in Amsterdam, in 1774, by Winter’s best friend, Pieter Meijer. It is well known for its full-page engraving which shows a dramatic scene of struggle labelled with the lines ‘…Wreedaart, die de onnoozelhied verdruckt! Lig daar…’ […Cruel, who suppresses ignorance! Lie there…].

In the play’s ‘Voorbericht’ (Forward), Winter reveals his motives for writing the play:

“When in the year 1763 the Colony of Berbice was overrun by the slaves, and the astonishing punishments had been inflicted upon them, I found the feelings of some of my countrymen, and even of some of the most learned among them, very different from my own. I attempted to bring to their attention the unbecomingness of slavery; to make them hear the voice of humanity, and the justice of simple nature, and to excite their compassion. From this attempt was born the little poem or tragedy, Monzongo, or the King’s Slave. I have seen a pleasant effect of conviction from it in the circle of my acquaintances; and although the condition of the world as yet gives no hope that oppression and slavery will entirely cease among mankind, we see nevertheless that the voice of humanity here and there is gaining strength… For me, it will be comfort enough, if my poetic work may give an opportunity to alleviate the fate of some, or even of one, unfortunate person.”

While Winter wanted Monzongo to convince elements of the Dutch public to turn against slavery, he could not possibly take direct aim at the Netherlands’ plantation-slavery economic complex – it was simply far too powerful. Indeed, in 1770, 40% of the economy of the Netherlands was dependent on a slavery-based supply chain, and the matter of slavery was an extremely divisive, and even emotive, issue. Winter was personally a major beneficiary of the ignoble institution (he duly divested his business to his son). As such, if Winter wrote a play that mounted a full-on assault upon the Dutch plantocracy, practically all theatre managers in the country would refuse to stage it. Moreover, even if he made just oblique references to actual Dutch persons or institutions, Winter could fall afoul of the notoriously harsh Dutch libel laws.

Thus, in composing Monzongo, Winter had to employ a parable, staging the play as slave revolt of Amerindians against Spanish rule in Mexico in the time of Cortés. In doing so, he hoped that the audience could extract a timeless message that could be applied to the contemporary Dutch colonial empire. Winter hoped that making the Spaniards the villains of the play, he could tap into the inherent Hispanophobia that had been part of the Dutch psyche since the days of the Eighty Years War (1568-1648), when the county fought for its independence from Spain. In this vein, he hoped that the audience would identify with the rebelling slaves who, like their forbears, sought to shake off the yoke of Spanish fanaticism and tyranny. Taking the spirit a little further, the audience would perhaps understand that they shared more humanity with the enslaved Africans in the Caribbean than they were previously aware.

Specifically, the story is set in Veracruz in 1519, immediately after the Spanish invasion of Mexico. It sees Monzongo, the former King of Verragua, living as the slave (under the name Zambiza) of Ferdinand Cortes (Hernán Cortés). He had been married to Melinde, the daughter of the King of Zempaola, but the couple had become separated upon being enslaved. Monzongo had since taken up with a fellow slave, Semire, the former Princess of Hispaniola. Another key character is Monzongo’s best friend, the slave Quantimoc (Cuauhtémoc).

It is noted that Cortés, although seemingly unaware of Monzongo’s royal origins, treats him with a relatively high degree of respect. When Cortés temporarily departs Veracruz to continue his conquest of Mexico, he leaves his lieutenant, Pedro de Alvorado, in charge. Unlike Cortés, Alvorado is sadistically cruel to the slaves, causing them to revolt.
Under Monzongo and Quantimoc’s leadership, 2,000 slaves mount a rebellion against Spanish rule. Alvorado soon captures Monzongo and Melinde, while the rebellion continues under Quantimoc’s leadership. Eventually, Alvorado and Semire meet each other in hand-to-hand combat, whereupon Alvarado is killed and Semire is mortally wounded. Cortés, who has rushed back to Veracruz, defeats the rebellion and regains control. He then sentences Monzongo to death.

Shortly before his expected execution, Monzongo addresses Cortés in what became the most famous lines of the play:

“Your interests alone drive you to this region,
Your predatory eyes are set on the gleam of gold.
[…] You plunder Land after Land,
And slaughter entire peoples, burn their Emperors alive.
If, for a moment, you cease killing mankind,
You put people in chains, women and children alike,
And force freeborn humans into horrible slavery.
What right have you to this?
No right, ’tis tyranny; ’tis public violence. Religion, nor reason,
Could ever give a semblance of right to this inhumanity.” (p. 69)

A moved Cortés remarks that the “rebellion must have sprung from despair”. He then grants Monzongo and Melinde their freedom and invites then to rule the Kingdom of Zempaola and to promote Christian doctrine. Thus, in this occasion, a slave rebellion has triumphed while the chief oppressor has come to realize the absurdity of enslaving his fellow man.

It will never be known how many people Winter’s play caused to turn towards abolitionism, but Monzongo always got rave reviews, and was top bill at many theatres for about 60 years (it was last performed at the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg in 1833 and the Koninklijk Theater, The Hague, in 1834). Several of the Netherlands’ most famous actresses savoured Semire’s part as tragic fighting heroine. Monzongo was surely not without consequence.

While the present work is the first edition of Monzongo, the play was republished innumerable times, beginning with its appearance later that year within an anthology of the works of Winter and his wife, Tooneelpoëzy van Nicolaas Simon van Winter en Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken P. Meijer (Amsterdam, 1774).

A Note on Rarity

The present work is very rare. We can trace 7 institutional examples, held by the Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam, Utrecht University Library, University of Leiden, Cambridge University, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and the Bibliotheque Nationale Universitaire de Strasbourg. We cannot locate any sales records for any other examples.

References: Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam: OTM: OK 63-7118; Utrecht University Library: Moltzer 7 F 25 dl 1-3; University of Leiden: Maatschappij Nederlandse Letterkunde (M5); 1088 B 20: 3; Cambridge University: 7000.d.1455; Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: 163861_A; OCLC: 26253097, 1520598679; Sarah J. ABRAMS, ‘The Legitimacy of Resistance in Dutch Abolitionist Theater’, in Sarah J. Adams, Jenna M. Gibbs and Wendy Sutherland (eds.), Staging Slavery: Performances of Colonial Slavery and Race from International Perspectives, 1770-1850 (2013), pp. 49-76; Cor DE VRIES, ‘In traanen wegsmelten bij Monzongo. Reacties op de opvoering van het eerste anti-slavernijtoneelstuk in Nederland’, Historica, no. 3 (2018), pp. 12-16; Michiel van KEMPEN, Een geschiedenis van de Surinaamse literatuur, p. 242; MULLER, America, p. 305.