Tula: The Revolt by Jeroen Leinders (review)

Jeroen Leinders's novel, Tula: The Revolt, translated by Brian Doyle-Du Breuil is a welcome addition to the gradual interest in the genre of African Caribbean historical maroon communities and slave revolt narratives. Tulajoins the list of narratives, fictional and historical, such as Aphra Benn's Oroonokoor The Royal Slave, Namba Roy's The Black Albino, My Name is Not Angelicaby Scott O'Dell, Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World, Aimé Césaire's, The Tragedy of King Christophe, and Derek Walcott's Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes.

Set in Curaçao, the largest of the Dutch Caribbean islands, Tula: The Revoltbegins as a peaceful protest movement for better treatment of the enslaved, as dictated by law. For the pacifist Tula, problems could be solved by talking to the plantation owner, and failing that, appeal directly to the governor. The seed for this awakening among enslaved is the news about the successful Haitian revolution, in addition to news that Holland itself had become a colony of France. The logic then as articulated in the novel is that since France had abolished slavery in her territories, it was reasoned that the enslaved in Curaçao, a Netherlands colony but now under France, would also be freed (52-55). The narrative is quick to point out, however, that France would never compel the Dutch to free their slaves in the Caribbean. The great disappointment felt among the enslaved waters the seed of the revolution. Lenider subtly inserts the second difficulty facing the leaders of the enslaved: how to persuade the general enslaved population to rise up not for total liberation but for a modification from a slave system to an indenture system. The major obstacle here is that majority of the people fear the whiplash more than they desire improved conditions of service (17). Leinder implies at this early stage in the novel that this narrow vision by the enslaved of a modified slave system in which they can continue to be enslaved is bound to fail. Slavery cannot be modified; it can only be abolished. Thus they start off by believing that their victory does not rest in weapons, but in a unity of spirit. But that unity, like plants, needs to be cultivated carefully and patiently, but time is against them (14).

The novel reveals the disturbing realities of competing loyalties that Tula struggles with: one, the pacifist influence of Christianity, and two, the influence of his African mentors, Jorboe, and Tula's father's fatalistic attitudes to slavery and belief in the inevitability of white supremacy over blacks. These confuse Tula for a while (18). From the white priest the enslaved are taught that the wages of their enslavement is entry into the white man's Christian heaven, and hence they needed not fight for fair treatment and freedom on earth, so it is not surprising that Tula turns to him for counsel. He fails at this point to fully understand that the priest represents a religion that is used to justify slavery, and to kill any spirit of rebellion by preaching acceptance of the status quofor the promise of paradise after death. Improbable as it seems, it is fascinating how Tula does not recognize the priest's duplicity when he refuses to bless his marriage to Speranza. Leinder inserts this episode to reveal the Catholic Church's collusion with the slave plantation system. Dim witted as Tula seems to be represented here, this nevertheless prepares him to better understand the priest's latter behavior as a failed diplomat for the white government during the war (21:110-116).

Leinder sets out to make Tula a Christ figure as well as a warrior hero. He succeeds ultimately to weave the two character types together in the believably throughout the narrative (50). In making Tula sometimes incredulously naïve in his thinking that there can be rapprochement between masters...