Ganzee (also Gansee) is a former village in the

Brokopondo District Brokopondo is a district of Suriname. Its capital city is Brokopondo; other towns include Brownsweg and Kwakoegron. The district has a population of 15,909, and an area of 7,364 square kilometres. History The Brokopondo district was established ...

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

. The village was home to

Maroons Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into ...

of the

Saramaka The Saramaka, Saamaka or Saramacca are one of six Maroon (people), Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes") in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Guiana. In 2007, the Saramaka won a ruling by the Inter-Ameri ...

tribe, and located on the

Suriname River The Suriname River ( Dutch: ''Surinamerivier'') is long and flows through the country of Suriname. Its sources are located in the Guiana Highlands on the border between the Wilhelmina Mountains and the Eilerts de Haan Mountains (where it is kn ...

. In 1965, the village was flooded after the construction of the Afobaka Dam.

History

The village was founded in the interior of Suriname by runaway slaves. From 1765 onwards, the

Moravian Church The Moravian Church, or the Moravian Brethren ( or ), formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestant denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohemian Reformation of the 15th century and the original ...

embarked on missionary activities among the maroons. First the focus was on converting people. In 1850, the first school in the interior was opened in Ganzee. In 1919, the village had a population of about 500 people and was the capital of the Upper Suriname district. In 1931, a clinic was established in the village. In 1958, plans were developed to create the Afobaka Dam in order to provide electricity for the aluminium industry. The damming of the

would lead to the

Brokopondo Reservoir The Brokopondo Reservoir, officially named Professor Doctor Ingenieur W. J. van Blommestein Meer, and also called the Brokopondostuwmeer, is a large reservoir in Suriname. It is named after the Surakarta-born Dutch hydrological engineer . With a ...

, and flood the village of Ganzee. With an estimated 1,200 people, Ganzee was the biggest village in the area. In 1964, the villagers were transmigrated to

Klaaskreek Klaaskreek is a resort in Suriname, located in the Brokopondo District. Its population at the 2012 census was 2,124. Located northeast of Brokopondo, the main town is Reinsdorp. In 2007, a technical training centre in biological agriculture was es ...

and Nieuw-Ganzee.

References

Former populated places in Suriname {{Suriname-geo-stub

History

See also

References