Affie Anna Terzol

We see her standing on her bare feet – she was not allowed to wear shoes because she was enslaved. She grew up in Suriname’s capital Paramaribo and probably worked from a young age at the home of the slave owner Samuel Benjamin Sanches. It is rare that we are able to match the face and name of a child in slavery. Sanches earned his living by hiring out enslaved people. He and his wife also bought the freedom of some enslaved people before the official abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863. By that time, Affie Terzol was 13. Her story reveals how complex the history of slavery is.