Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 256

Price Realized: $ 375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(IMMIGRATION.) Papers of William Nille, an Afro-Dutch immigrant from Suriname. Approximately 100 items in one box; generally moderate wear. Various places, circa 1924-1973
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

William Jullius Nille (1899-1971) was born in the colony of Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), and then lived on the Dutch island of Curaçao. He arrived as an immigrant to New York in 1921, worked as an elevator operator, and in the late 1920s married a Georgia-born woman named Sarah Williams. They had no children. At some point in the 1940s they removed to Savannah, GA, where he was a laborer at a car dealership.

Included in this lot are his 1924 naturalization intention certificate, and 3 letters from his family in Paramaribo, the capital of Dutch Guiana, 1925-1932. A few letters are addressed to Sarah Nille. One from New York friends dated 26 July 1973 describes life in Harlem: "It is very bad here now, not safe day or night. People are crazy now, do anything to anybody." The approximately 70 photographs include a 1930s group portrait of the multi-racial Netherland Guiana League, posed in front of the American and Dutch flags. Numerous snapshots show Nille with his wife and friends in the city and countryside.