The Nigerian queens who were brought to Statia against their will
In this story from our Remember Statia print publication, the descendants of a Nigerian mother and daughter trace their earliest roots back to Statia.
Our African ancestry does not begin with slavery, neither did it begin in the Caribbean”.
In 2010 while studying at the Gwendoline van Putten High School on Statia, I received a huge assignment from my history teacher not knowing where to begin. The main question was “Where Do I Come From?” the assignment awakened my interest even more in about my past. Determination kept me going through many years of family research.
As years went by I spent many hours unraveling mysteries, finding new leads and reaching out to unknown relatives across the world. My family often asked me:
Nathaley, why you always diggin’ up the dead?”.
Before I started to research my family’s history, there were three distant cousins who did an excellent job in researching and preserving anything that pertained to our history. David Simon van Putten who started his research in 1987 and made a documentary. The late Eric Montague Euson who spent many years researching and left behind copies of his work. The late Albert Kenneth van Putten who patiently told me everything he knew and trusted that when he passed away the legacy would continue. I’ll always be grateful for the path they paved.
Through a paper trail of old records and DNA testing in 2018 I discovered that I descend from enslaved West Africans. The only people who were my link back to Nigeria were my fifth and sixth great-grandmothers Rozalinda and her mother Belinda. They were brought to Statia against their will and worked on several plantations. Johannes de Graaff, who was the governor of Statia at the time, was also their owner. I assume that their names were European names given to them upon arrival here. There is a small fraction of relatives who disagree with Rozalinda being black and born in West Africa. We found a lot of information about this theory in old records we investigated.
This story has been passed down to us for more than a 150 years.
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Rozalinda, was a beautiful enslaved woman who worked on a plantation. She was admired by a |
On the death record, Louis’ father was not mentioned and only the first name of his unwed mother “Rozalinda”. Besides that no physical description was noted to determine if he was mixed African and European . The reporter of his death was his son William Satchell van Putten, a carpenter who was the grandfather of James Henry Eldridge Timber, the coffin maker.
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Due to the grim time period enslaved people of African descent were constantly dehumanized and given no choice to decide anything for themselves. The whole concept of Rozalinda having a relationship or getting married while being enslaved was out of the question. There’s no story or record that states Jan sought ways to free Rozalinda.
According to my family’s anecdote Jan van Putten was undoubtedly the father of Louis. I eagerly wanted to find a connection with the information my cousins provided. I visited the Rotterdam archive and found records of Jan, his siblings, his parents and other relatives living in Delftsevaart, Rotterdam. I often walked passed that street whenever I went to the fruit market.
Jan Jacob married a native of Statia in 1779, Susanna van Beverhoudt. They would often travel to the Netherlands for their business in trading goods. In 1785 while being in Rotterdam, they had a son, Johannes van Putten. He was baptized on the 2nd of January 1785.
Jan Jacob became a middle man in procuring ammunition for the Rebel Yankees in their fight against the British Crown. Besides that Jan Jacob had an illegal jewelry business on the bay and was ultimately busted and lost everything he owned. He lost a great amount of money and never recovered from it. He died on Statia on the 19 th of September 1819.
Adding to the family anecdote, neither Jan Jacob or his son Jan owned any land or enslaved people and they weren’t part of the West Indian Company. On the Rodney Roll List of Burghers of 1781 the van Putten (notes by Eric M. Euson) the family shows up with a Jacob van Putten being the head of household.
Years later in 1819 on the Register of Deceased Persons there was an enslaved woman named “Sally” living in their house. She was born in Africa, date unknown and died on the 25 th of June 1822, reported by Jacob van Putten, planter. This Jacob (born ca. 1807) was a younger son of Jan van Putten and his Kittitian wife Mary Radcliffe Simmons.
Some of the stories that have been passed down to us raise many questions. They are very romanticized and when it comes to the early genealogy and genetics they don’t seem to add up. Another point is that my cousins who also descended from Belinda, Rozalinda and Louis tested their DNA and only share Nigerian ancestry with me.
This is a photo of Louis’ granddaughter Maria Albertha van Putten, better known as Bertha or Tantan, born in 1886 to (Louis’ son) Louis Adolphus van Putten and Elizabeth Roosberg (a great-granddaughter of Molly Koechi from West Africa).
Maria’s facial features and complexion show strong West African traits as both of her parents were rooted there.
The ultimate question my family and I are asking ourselves is
If Rozalinda’s son Louis was truly the son of the Dutch merchant Jan, why doesn’t Scandinavia or the Netherlands show up in our DNA?”
Could it be that the predominant Nigerian genes simply washed away the white recessive genes? Did our forbearers simply not know who Louis’ real father was – and was he just another enslaved African man whose name wasn’t recorded?
These theories, answers and unanswered questions form a bridge, making sense of the unsensible and restoring what is lost. A lot of the answers have gotten lost in time. Some people may not question the oral history that has lived in our family over 150 years because it simply sounds amazing.
I on the other hand had my doubts and made it my business to search deeper, taking on the challenge to distinguish truth from fiction. It’s a powerful feeling to discover truth and control my own narrative.
These many years of research have led me to create a lifetime treasure, a family heritage book. All of these historic pieces of the past and present will come together. The project is being completed with the help of many family, friends and other sources. The heritage book will be dedicated to all of us, the descendants of two Nigerian queens who were brought to Statia against their will.
Nathaley Weyman
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