John Gabriel Stedman

John Gabriel Stedman
Self Portrait of John Gabriel Stedman standing over a slave after the capture of Gado Saby, a village of Maroons in Surinam, from the frontispiece of his Narrative
Born	1744 Dendermonde, Austrian Netherlands
Died	7 March 1797(1797-03-07) (aged 52–53) Tiverton, Devon
Occupation	Military officer, author
Nationality	Dutch / Scottish
Period	1790s
Genre	Autobiography adventure
Notable works	The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam
Spouse	Adriana Wiertz van Coehorn, Joanna
Children	Sophia Charlotte, Maria Joanna, George William, Adrian, and John Cambridge
Military career
Allegiance	Dutch Republic
Service / branch	Army
Years of service	1760–1778
Rank	Captain
Unit	Scots Brigade

John Gabriel Stedman (1744 – 7 March 1797) was a Dutch States Army officer and writer best known for writing The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796). This narrative covers describes his experience in Suriname between 1773 and 1777, where he was a soldier in a Dutch regiment deployed to assist colonial troops fighting against groups of Maroons.^[1] He first recorded his experiences in a personal diary that he later rewrote and expanded into the Narrative. The Narrative was a bestseller of the time and, with its firsthand depictions of slavery and other aspects of colonialism, became an important tool in the fledgling abolitionist movement. When compared with Stedman's personal diary, his published Narrative is a sanitized and romanticized version of Stedman's time in Surinam.