TUTUBALEUSDEN

On 19 November 1737 the slave-ship Leusden left Elmina (Ghana) with a ''cargo'' of 700 abducted and imprisoned Africans who would be sold as slaves in Surinname. One of them was the fifteen-year-old girl Tutuba.
On 1 Jabuary 1738, after a success
ful six-week voyage, the Leusden stranded on a sandbank in the Marowijne River and was wrecked. All the crew members were able to save themselves, but the 664 prisoners in the hold met a piteous death because the crew had battened down the hatches. B
y chance, Tutuba and fifteen others survived this disaster. Her tale and the captain''s account are described in this gripping historical novella by Cynthia Mc Leod.