ST. EUSTATIUS\u00a0 — The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance reveals the names, ages, professions, and religious beliefs of 96\u00a0ancestors who were once connected to the Golden Rock plantation on St. Eustatius. This is part of the project\u00a0“Remember Statia: Tracing Our Origins” that encourages the St. Eustatius community to make the Afrikan\u00a0history of the island more visible and more personal.<\/p>\n
The names are available in this online document:\u00a0https:\/\/bit.ly\/ancestors-goldenrock<\/p>\n
The names in the document are taken from the emancipation registers of St. Eustatius. They provide the name,\u00a0surname, age, gender, profession, and religion of the people of the Golden Rock plantation who were \u2018freed\u2019 in\u00a01863. For St. Eustatius, it was a total of 1,075 people who became \u2018free\u2019. (It is important to note that these are\u00a0not the names of the 69 ancestors whose remains were excavated in 2021)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kenneth Cuvalay, project leader for St. Eustatius:<\/p>\n
Getting the names of our ancestors from archival sources\u00a0and making them known is important to change the narrative. Our ancestors were not just enslaved, they were\u00a0people with a name, a face, a profession, a story. They came from different countries of the continent of Afrika,\u00a0they had knowledge, values, and traditions. They survived the crimes and horrors of the Middle Passage; our\u00a0ancestors virtually live in us.”\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Changing the narrative: researching and reinterpreting our marginalized history<\/h3>\n
\u201cBlack communities have long been marginalized and isolated with no means to adequately protect or\u00a0commemorate our ancestors with the respect they deserve. It’s time to change that. We need to tell their story;\u00a0the past is never really past. Our ancestors were “emancipated” in 1863, but they were given no land to live on\u00a0and were in no way compensated for hundreds of years of abuse, violence, and exploitation.\u00a0That is important to realize to understand our current situation. In fact, St. Eustatius is still being colonized by\u00a0the Netherlands and the African community is still being enslaved in other ways, such as socioeconomically\u00a0and by the destruction of our historical cultural heritage,” Cuvalay said. \u201cPreservation is power and in St.\u00a0Eustatius it is clear whose heritage is being preserved. It is not our heritage; it is that of the colonial powers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participation is still possible\u00a0<\/h3>\n
The goal of the project \u201cRemember Statia: Tracing Our Origins.\u201d is not only to support the community to explore\u00a0its rich African-Caribbean cultural history, but also and especially to narrate the stories of the heroes and\u00a0heroines, many of whom are buried on plantation The Golden Rock, from oblivion and give them a distinct\u00a0place in today’s St. Eustatius.\u00a0It is still possible to participate in the project. If you have roots in St. Eustatius and interested to explore that\u00a0\u00a0further, then you are welcome to write a motivation or inspiration of up to 100 words and send it to the project\u00a0team via website https:\/\/bit.ly\/statia-ancestors All stories collected will be published (with permission).<\/p>\n
About the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance (SE-ABG Alliance)
\nThe SE-ABG Alliance came about as a result of the protests against the excavations on the 18th-century\u00a0burial ground of enslaved Afrikans Golden Rock that were started by a team of international archaeologists\u00a0in June 2021 in St. Eustatius (see https:\/\/www.change.org\/LeaveOurAncestorsInPeace). The protests were\u00a0initially led by the political party Ubuntu Connected Front Caribbean. Located in St. Eustatius and with\u00a0allies around the world, the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance broadened the scope of the
\nstruggle focusing on other Afrikan burial grounds in St. Eustatius such as the Afrikan Burial Ground Godet\u00a0Plantation St. Eustatius (Godet\/Fort Amsterdam).<\/p>\nOne of the aims is to further broaden the scope of our\u00a0struggle to the Pan-Afrikanist level, connecting with and working with Afrikan-centered organizations and\u00a0movements that are also fighting for the preservation of our ancestors\u2019 endangered Afrikan burial grounds\u00a0around the world and taking control of our narrative that has been distorted. Among them are Annina van\u00a0Neel, CEO of the Tiekie Box Project, and protagonist of the awarded documentary \u201cA Story of Bones,\u201d and\u00a0Peggy King Jorde, consultant and defender of marginalized histories and Afrikan burial grounds.<\/p>\n
About Bigi Bon Foundation
\nThe projects of Bigi Bon foundation’s focus on inclusion. Bigi Bon means Big Tree in the Sranan language,\u00a0which refers to its philosophy that Big Trees provide much Shade; Big trees provide shelter, protection, housing, and nourishment to other beings in the forest, just as adults should provide protection to children.Our generation lives under the watchful eye of the previous and we are tasked with keeping a watchful eye on the next generations.
\nThe foundation aims to improve the position of immigrant communities in general and especially the Afrikan diaspora communities, through knowledge generation through media related activities and\u00a0providing learning support. Also: increasing the opportunities of people, especially young people from the aforementioned communities.
\nProject Memre: https:\/\/afromagazine.nl\/nieuws\/project-memre-met-afro-magazine-op-jacht-naar-verhalendie-de-geschiedenisles-negeerde<\/p>\nFor the Alliance is Afrika spelled with a \u201ck\u201d instead of a \u201cc\u201d based on the following insights:
\n– It is a Pan-Afrikan spelling which relates both to the Afrikan continent and to the Diaspora;
\n– It reflects the spelling of \u201cAfrika\u201d in all Afrikan languages;
\n– It includes the concept of \u201cka,\u201d the vital energy which both sustains and creates.
\nIn response to the protests against the Golden Rock plantation, we published a scientific article in January 2022 \u201cA\u00a0Future That Does Not Forget: Collaborative Archeology in the Colonial Context of Sint Eustatius (Dutch\u00a0Caribbean)\u201d.by archaeologist marjolijn kok. We also published the \u201cManifesto: What the FARO Convention\u00a0means for St. Eustatius\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance reveals the names, ages, professions, and religious beliefs of 96\u00a0ancestors who were once connected to the Golden Rock plantation on St. Eustatius. This is part of the project\u00a0“Remember Statia: Tracing Our Origins” that encourages the St. Eustatius community to make the Afrikan\u00a0history of the island more visible and more personal.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2653],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[2583],"class_list":{"0":"post-143520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-article"},"authors":[{"term_id":2583,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mermar","display_name":"mermar","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b97554d899a7ce8df2bc286c2f73beda56ebbc97d5d9ced74f7a04498e0fb0d3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143848,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143520\/revisions\/143848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143520"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afromagazine.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=143520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}