Batavia on the Coppename River in Suriname is a former cocoa plantation, military post and state leper colony of the Dutch colonists.

[1] Batavia was also an important military post that was part of the 'Orange Road', a defensive line to prevent attacks on plantations by groups of former slaves operating from the interior.

After sporadic initial visits by priests to Batavia, the leper colony was allowed to have a permanent Roman Catholic mission post in 1836.

[5] Peter Donders joined the redemptorists in 1866 after which he made several missionary journeys to the indigenous and marroon people in the interior.

Donders then worked for several years at the cotton plantation Mary's Hope in the Coronie District, but Schaap send him to Batavia again in 1885.

Despite the abolition of slavery, the management at Batavia continued to make distinctions in the rationing of lepers, to be precise between the blacks and the asians ('contractwerkers').

Batavia was burned to the ground to prevent a future outbreak of leprosy[2] In 2000 plans were made to restore the colony.