Yippeeeee!! I just found some old PDFs made by Hans (Admihoek). Several of Arcimboldo and also lots of ours which I thought had been lost forever. I'll start with this one..
Plantation, Bearestyn, Guyana
And here's the text...
The rebels had created carnage amongst the slave keepers. Few whites had survived the bloodbath. One of them was Christina Langbeek, wife of the plantation man-ager; but the captured Dutch woman was not sure at all if being alive was a blessing. From her manor house they drove her to one of those dusty fields where the slaves had spent day after day of their miserable lives under the bloody whip of the guards. Christina knew that the wild and angry men might take with force what they desired, but scornfully she had refused to give herself voluntarily to her former slaves. Now she learned that she had made a wrong decision... They ripped her clothes off and brutally nailed her to a tree trunk. While the captive was howling with pain, the rebels circled around her. Dozends of men and women started fondling and pinching her tender flesh. Again and again they placed dry hay, straw and sugar cane around the trunk and set fire on it. Each time they put it closer to her nailed feet. In the meantime, the ringleader started scorching other sensitive parts of her body. "Don't worry, Mistress, we are not going to turn your white skin completely black," he looked down upon his own bare chest and laughed out loudly. "We are just going to sensitize your delicate body for the bull whip... and to my men's passionate caresses..."
Interested in the historic background? The Beginning of the Berbice Slave Rebellion In Guyana, the African slave population grew as plantations expanded. The main concern of the white plantation owners was to extract the greatest amount of labour from the slaves. Little effort was ever made to improve the wretched and degrading living conditions under which they were forced to live. With the harsh treatment and brutal punishments inflicted on them by their owners, some of them rebelled while others, from time to time, escaped into the forests. Those who were recaptured suffered horrible deaths as punishment, meant also as a deterrent to other slaves who might have also planned to escape. Some of those in Berbice who escaped man-aged to reach Suriname where they joined up with Bush Negro colonies. In 1762, a slave rebellion of 36 male and female slaves occurred on Berbice, then a Dutch colony. But after the slaves repelled a militia force sent by the Governor, Van Hoogenheim, the rebellion was finally repressed by a stronger force of the Dutch militia. Some of the slaves escaped but at least one was executed. However, the repressive techniques of the planters were bringing matters to a boiling point, and just a few months later, on the 23 February 1763, a more organised revolt took place. This uprising became known as the Berbice Slave Rebellion. The uprising initially broke out at Magdalenenburg, a plantation on the Canje River owned by a widow, Madam Vernesobre. The slaves killed the manager and car-penter, burned down the owner's house, and moved on to neighbouring plantations, and as far as the Corentyne, to urge support from the slaves there, some of whom attacked their owners and either joined the others or escaped into the forest. Very quickly, the rebelling Africans were organised as a fighting force by Cuffy, who was a house-slave on another Canje plantation, Lilienburg where the slaves had also rebelled. Cuffy had been brought to this plantation ever since he was a child and was trained as a cooper by the owner, Barkey. ... The rebellion which began on privately owned estates, soon attracted the slaves on plantations owned by the Berbice Association. The rebels burned buildings and cane fields and attacked and killed a number of white men and women. Soon the it reached plantations on the Berbice River, and among the plantations attacked there were Juliana, Mon Repos, Essendam, Lilienburg, Bearestyn, Elizabeth and Alexandria, Hollandia, and Zeelandia. Slaves from these and other plantations joined the rebel forces which moved steadily towards the capital of Berbice, Fort Nassau, located 56 miles up the berbice River on its right bank. When they attacked the planta-tions, they seized gunpowder and guns belonging to the owners. Meanwhile, those among the white population who managed to escape sought refuge on the five ships in the Berbice River, at Fort Nassau, Fort St. Andries at the mouth of the Berbice River and in a brick house at Plantation Peerboom, about 70 miles upriver on the left bank. Some others, in panic, fled through the forest to Demerara. The feeling of hopelessness was compounded by an epidemic of dysentery which affected the whites. On the 3 March, a rebel group, numbering over 500, and led by Cosala, then launched an attack on the brick house at Peerboom which was heavily fortified by the white defenders. The rebels threw balls of burning cotton on the roof which began to burn, but the defenders were able to put out the fire. During a period of inaction, the manager of Plantation Bearestyn demanded why the Africans were attacking "Christians". Cosala shouted back that they would no longer tolerate the presence of whites or Christians in Berbice since they were now in control of all the plantations. After a period of negotiations, the rebels agreed to allow the whites to leave the brick house unharmed and depart for their boats in the river. But as the whites were leaving, the rebels opened fire killing many of them and taking many prisoners. Among the prisoners was the wife of the manager of Plantation Bearestyn whom Cuffy kept as his wife.
It looks like a genuine Arcimboldo but who wrote the story? The PDF is attached.
