Tracing Dutch Caribbean Migrants in Black Radical Encounters

Microhistories in Transnational Conjunctures, 1920-1940

Abstract

In the 1920s and 1930s, port cities in the Caribbean and the Americas were home to well-organized networks of Black radical activism. Dutch Caribbean people must have been involved in these movements and circuits, though only minor references are known. In this article, I bring together the historiography of these shifting worlds with a range of microhistories in their larger context. I argue that the history of Dutch Caribbean activists in transatlantic political Black movements is not merely an addition to or a small circuit in this larger frame. Intersectionalities in these histories testify to a blending of communities beyond imperial and linguistic fault lines, shaping for those hailing from the Dutch Caribbean new opportunities of being in the world and new configurations of belonging.