The Dutch version of Frontier Society (Samenleving in een Grens- gebied)
first appeared in 1949. A second Dutch edition of this work has been
published in 1971, in the text of which a number of minor improve- ments
have been made and a few passages added here and there, though on the
whole the work has remained unchanged. The English translation presented
here is of the Dutch text for the second impression. It is more than
twenty years since the book was first published. There have been no
publications since which have induced me to introduce major corrections
or additions to the original work, and although further research in the
Public Record Office in The Hague has brought more material to light,
this did not give cause for altering the picture presented or the
examples given either. This is due in the first place to the character
of the work, being an attempt at presenting a structural and historical
analysis of the development of an exploitation colony based on slavery
into the type of society found in many parts of the world outside Europe
in the period preceding decolonization. But it is probably also a
consequence of the paucity of historical publications about a country on
which there is such a wealth of material available.