The Dutch also controlled northern Brazil from 1630 to 1654, including the area that, when governed by Lisbon, was called Portuguese Guiana.

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange crashed in 1773, which dealt a severe blow to the plantation economy that was further exacerbated by the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

[7] This abolition was adopted by William I of the Netherlands, who signed a royal decree in this regard in June 1814, and who concluded the Anglo-Dutch Slave Trade Treaty in May 1818.

Slavery was eventually abolished on 1 July 1863, a date now celebrated as the public holiday of Ketikoti, although slaves were only released after a ten-year transitory period in 1873.

[8] This spurred the immigration of indentured labourers from British India, after a treaty to that effect had been signed between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in 1870.

[9] As well as from immigration from British India, Javanese workers from the Dutch East Indies were also contracted to work on plantations in Surinam.

[11] In 1916, the U.S. aluminium company Alcoa began mining bauxite on the banks of the Cottica River, near the village of Moengo.

Surinamese guest workers in Curaçao and other islands of the Netherlands Antilles returned to Suriname because there was no more work, which exacerbated the problem.

The Dutch Prime Minister Colijn stated in the Lower House in 1935: However, the situation had improved somewhat on the eve of the Second World War.

Partly due to the importance of Surinamese aluminium for the allied war effort, United States troops were stationed in Surinam under an agreement with the Dutch government in exile on 23 November 1941.

Although the organization and administration was of the colony was limited to these three shareholders, all citizens of the Dutch Republic were free to trade with Suriname.

After the Second World War, during which the Dutch government in exile had pledged to review the relationship between the Netherlands and its colonies, the Basic Law was heavily revised.

In March 1948, revisions to the Basic Law were adopted by Dutch parliament, which introduced universal suffrage for both men and women, which increased the membership of the Estates from 15 to 21, and which introduced a College of General Government (Dutch: College van Algemeen Bestuur) which was to assist the Governor in the everyday government of the colony, and which was the precursor to the Cabinet of Ministers.