Mosseh de David Rephael Robles de Medina

GEDCOM Note

<h2>Timeline</h2>8 :</td>jdenissen en geboorten bij de Portugees-Israëlitische Gemeente in Suriname 1662-1866, samengesteld door Dhr. C.W.A.A.Nassy (Nederlandse Kring voor Joodse Genealogie 2002).</p>r>Robles de Medina, voorheen Barlo) - Paramaribo</td>valign="top">Marriage (with Maria Robles de Medina, voorheen Barlo) - Paramaribo, Suriname
sche bezittingen en de kust van Guinea voor het jaar 1856 zijn Mozes en Maria getrouwd op 09-02-1853.

Ralph Bennett schreef:
I wanted to point out to you that hidden between the lines of the slave manumissions below, is a story of love played out against the background of the social and economic forces at work in Suriname in the early nineteenth century.

In that provincial and prejudiced society, the Jewish family and community of Moses David Robles de Medina, born 1788, couldn't have been at all pleased that the young man had chosen as his lady-love, the slave woman who came to be known as Maria Barlo. In those days, marriages were most frequently arranged by the young people's parents to ensure a financially beneficial match. But Moses seemed to want no part of a socially acceptable mate.

And contrary to the prevailing myth of the "rich" Jewish plantation owners, the listings make it clear that Moses David Robles de Medina was struggling financially when he began to free his enslaved lover Maria and their slave children. That's the reason that the manumissions take place piece-meal. Listings #2,3, &4 show that one by one over the period between 1833 to 1845, Moses freed his "Suriname-style" wife and 3 of their children.

Then in 1848 he requested a name change for them to Robles de Medina, a common way back then of showing that he officially "recognized" his mate and children.

The freeing of his children continued in listings #9 and 10 from 1849 and 1851. Slowly, as his finances permitted, Moses wasbuying his older children free .....These were the children born prior to 1833 when he set his lover Maria free. Ones born after that were born free to her. That's the reason that she was set free soearly relative to the children ..... so that subsequent children would already be free at birth.

In addition to these listings, I've also found the official marriage in 1853 between Moses David Robles de Medina and Maria Robles de Medina (=her changed surname, even before legal marriage, dating back to the name changes enacted in 1848). The legal marriage relatively late in life was the common way men protected the inheritance rights of their mates and children.

Some of the details I still don't understand .... such as why, in some cases, the free-ers were the siblings of the still enslaved children, rather than Moses or Maria themselves.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it? We must never forget that behind the dry "data" which has survived in the form of the old records, there were flesh and blood people who were living out their passions.

Fondly, Ralph (Bennett)</p>td>name
e Bibliotheek C 135 Nummer 81</p>Wijk A. no. 61. Bewoners zijn opgegeven als 1 blanke, 8 kleurlingen en 2 slaven.</p>