Six months after its installation, the Statia Heritage and Research Commission finally presented its findings to the public on January 27, 2022, during a town hall meeting. The commission was tasked with investigating the controversial excavations on an 18th century burial ground of enslaved Africans that were carried out by the local archaeological center SECAR. Protests of Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF) Caribbean and others led to the establishment of this commission but, despite multiple requests to the government, UCF Caribbean was not involved in any way during these six months. We decided to do our own research and forge international alliances with endangered burial grounds around the world. This resulted in the creation of the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance, which other organizations and individuals joined. One of these individuals is marjolijn kok from Rotterdam. She is an artist and independent archaeologist, who helped us understand the practices and regulations in archaeology. In this press release the Alliance provides an initial response to the report. We will also make our findings known to the parliamentary Kingdom Committee and the National Agency for Cultural Heritage in The Hague.
Way forward with proposed standards and guidelines
The report of the Commission was released on the same day as the town hall meeting, leaving the public with no time to read the report thoroughly. Already at the start of the protests in June 2021, it seemed very problematic for the present Executive Council to inform the public in a rightful manner. We find the chapters in the report on international standards and guidelines for archaeological research a way forward with archaeology and heritage on St. Eustatius. The problems indicated in the report about the present situation where the government turns a blind eye towards the execution of projects by SECAR and the incompetence of SECAR itself, leaves one to wonder what will happen now. The proposal to create a Heritage Agency will not happen in a day, so we are now in a period of uncertainty with all indications that it will be business as usual.
Marjolijn kok: “If the recommendations of the report on the guidelines for archaeological research are followed, it will be the first policy where the Malta convention and the Faro convention are combined at a basic level. This would be a great step forward in heritage management.
Limitations and concerns
A major problem with this part of the report is that private landowners are seen as owners of the archaeology on their property. This may be the case in the USA but is not part of Dutch legislation on heritage. Especially as more and more foreigners and non-residents of St. Eustatius buy property this would mean that the common heritage is taken away from the St. Eustatius Afrikan community and they are left with just paper reports.
Furthermore, the new to form heritage agency and project for a monument should be careful not to work with the usual suspects as they have shown inappropriate behavior when it concerns Afrikan descendant communities. We are thinking here of Mr. Jay Haviser, the chairman of the committee, who, against all proper conduct in community heritage projects, inserts his own idea about what the monument should look like before anyone else of the community has been consulted. This shows he wants to put a personal stamp on a project that hasn’t started yet for his own personal gain. Another person is Mr. Ruud Stelten, who deliberately withheld information about Afrikan enslaved burials as he knew the St. Eustatius Afrikan descendant community would want to have their say in the excavations of their ancestors. SECAR as the supervisor of these projects also has shown not to care about the people of St. Eustatius and their heritage and has conducted these projects for their own interest.”
Old days and old habits
We are critical as well of the first two chapters of the report which appear to be written by a different hand. The background information contains inaccuracies and is lacking critical events, which raise questions as to whether people or groups are being kept out of the loop. We heard the chairman of the board say that the old days (of science for science only) are long passed, but that’s exactly what took place at the Godet excavations in 2019, and the Golden Rock excavations in 2021. Some parts in the report read like an open application which is inappropriate, just like it highly inappropriate to make a detailed proposal as to what the memorial should look like (see page 38 of the report). We mentioned that earlier.
What happens now?
“As St. Eustatius is still under colonial rule where the Dutch government makes all the major decisions either directly or through the two government representatives, it is our hope that the new Heritage Agency is not an all-white and colonial thinking affair”, says Kenneth Cuvalay, chairman of the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance. “We need Afrikan-centered leadership with people who understand our culture and community, respect our beliefs and traditions and who we can trust to do the right thing and involve us. There may not be many Dutch archaeologists of Afrikan descent but there are plenty in the Caribbean to choose from. Let the problems surrounding the excavations of Afrikan enslaved burials be a lesson for the future and together not make the same mistakes. To empower us, as the Afrikan descendant community, we have to have a genuine say and lead in the matters and be part of the decision-making process.”
The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance will closely monitor future developments and inform stakeholders about our findings. The report is now in the hands of the St. Eustatius Executive Council which, according to the report, cannot handle specialist archaeological matters, and it is unclear whether the Statia Heritage and Research Commission is still functioning. Marjolijn wrote a very insightful academic article on the controversial excavations that is available for the public: "A Future That Does Not Forget: Collaborative Archaeology in the Colonial Context of Sint Eustatius (Dutch Caribbean)"
We will continue the debate on decolonization in archaeology and academia in general. We do not allow colonial thinking people to determine for us how we deal with our heritage and the honoring of our ancestors.
Kenneth Cuvalay, chairman of the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance
marjolijn kok, member of the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance, independent archaeologist
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Information for the Editor
Website: https://afrikanhistoryandconsciousness.blogspot.com/
Contact:
Kenneth Cuvalay, chairman UCF Caribbean / St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance
The St. Eustatius African Burial Ground Alliance protests the excavations of African free and enslaved Africans at an 18th-century African burial ground in St. Eustatius (see https://www.change.org/LeaveOurAncestorsInPeace).
About Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF)
Ubuntu Connected Front is a political party in the Netherlands founded in 2017. It participated in the 2021 Parliamentary election and although it did not receive enough votes to win a seat in the House of Representatives, it was the most popular party in St. Eustatius, receiving 50,8% of the votes. Motto: “Equality is a human right, not a privilege”. UCF focuses on equal rights for people of African descent.
Ubuntu means "humanity" in African Bantu languages. It is often translated as "I am because we are", or "humanity towards others". It is Ubuntu Connected Front’s core belief that all people have rights, which promotes equality of treatment and eliminates marginalization and deprivation.
Black Agenda.
The 'Black Agenda' of Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF) can be found in the "Manifest for NL Transformation" at the UCF website (Chapter 5).
The Black Agenda consists of three pillars:
1. Recognition concerns the impact of our slavery past as a crime against humanity.
2. Justice is about historical restoration of rights.
3. Development aims to achieve equal development opportunities for everyone.
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