Vlier opened a girls' school and began teaching. She moved into a house on Gravenstraat, one of the most prestigious addresses in Paramaribo. Alarmed at the lack of knowledge her students had of their homeland, she began drafting the first history of the colony. In the preface of the book, probably written in 1861 1861, she stated that her motivation for writing was that school children of Suriname knew more about the history of foreigners than they did of Suriname. Though Vlier wrote about the
slave trade in her textbook
Beknopte geschiedenis der kolonie Suriname voor de meer gevorderde jeugd (Brief history of the Suriname colony for more advanced youth, 1863), she was cautious with the topic. She called the trade in Africans "illegal", but was aware of the negative impact on the career of Johannes Christiaan Palthe Wesenhagen, another free black who had written about slavery in 1849. Her book contains little criticism of the Netherlands and did not write about oppression of the colonized under Dutch rule. Overall the book has a positive characterization of Dutch administration and became one of the three most-used textbooks in the education system until 1945. In 1881, Vlier published a revised edition, calling it
Geschiedenis van Suriname (History of Suriname), including the 1863 abolition of slavery, which had not been included in the first volume. Two years later, when the
International Colonial and Export Exhibition was held at the site of the
Museumplein in
Amsterdam, Vlier sent a copy of her second edition textbook to be judged for the prizes in the historical documents competition. One of 42 submissions in the category, along with Wolbers history, she took the 2nd place silver medal behind
Michael Théophile Hubert Perelaer's gold medal for his article on military operations at
Celebes in 1858 and 1860. Vlier was not in the Netherlands to personally receive her award, but she traveled to Amsterdam in 1892, where she remained for two years before returning to Suriname. ==Death and legacy==