Suriname is said to be a melting pot of races, cultures, languages and cuisines.
You have the original indigenous people - the Amerindian tribes of Arawaks, Caribs, Tiryos amongst others; then you have the descendants of African slaves, the town blacks or "foto nengre" and those of mixed race - the Creoles; then you have the descendants of the runaway African slaves who escaped the plantations into the vast dense jungle - the Marrons; then you have the indentured workers from other former colonies brought in to work on the plantations when slavery was abolished in 1863 - the Javans and other Indonesians; then you have the Jewish-Portuguese, who were some of the first plantation owners in Suriname; the Chinese immigrants, and then you have the whites, the Dutch, "bakras" or "boeroes".
