Marjoleine Kars has been named winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize for Blood on the River: a Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (The New Press). Kars accessed a previously untapped Dutch archive to reveal the little-known story of a 1763 slave rebellion in Berbice, a Dutch colony in present-day Guyana. Drawing on nearly 900 interrogation transcripts – extremely rare verbatim accounts from suspected rebels, bystanders, and witnesses – she is able to provide a unique day-by-day account of the revolt, in the words of both colonists and, crucially, the slaves themselves. Read more
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