Marienburg sugar factory site

Mariënburg, on the Commewijne River, began as a sugar plantation founded in 1745 by Maria de la Jaille. In 1882 the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij bought the abandoned estate and opened a central sugar factory on 23 October that year, fed by a twelve-kilometre railway, the first in Suriname, that brought cane from the surrounding plantations. To work it the NHM imported contract labourers from Java; the first arrived in Paramaribo on 9 August 1890 and were sent to Mariënburg, which is why the site sits at the centre of Suriname's Javanese history.

On 29 July 1902 a dispute over wages ended with the killing of the director, James Mavor. The next day soldiers fired on workers who refused to disperse, killing 24 and wounding 32. A monument to the uprising was unveiled in 2006 and a new version by Rahied Abdoel installed in 2022; a separate monument to 120 years of Javanese immigration was dedicated in 2010.

The factory closed in 1986. The halls and rusting machinery still stand, deteriorated but visited, and a Culinary, Craft & Art Center opened on the grounds in December 2023. There are no published opening hours; the site is usually reached on a Commewijne day trip by car or bicycle from Paramaribo.