Carlos Lopes, President of the St. Eustatius Historical Foundation, and member of the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance, will be traveling to New York to be a special invited guest at the premiere of the captivating documentary “A Story of Bones” on June 11 at the renowned Tribeca Film Festival in New York. In New York, Carlos Lopes will meet Annina Van Neel and Peggy King Jorde who worked closely together on the documentary and are impact producers. "A Story of Bones" tells Nina's journey to create a respectful burial ground. Annina Van Neel: "Saint Helena Island, a British territory is home to the world's most significant physical trace of the Middle Passage, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The St. Helena Burial Grounds (up to 10,000 formerly enslaved Afrikans) are proclaimed to be of global significance. Yet, the local and global descendant community is completely disconnected from this story and the space that holds it. The site remains uncelebrated, neglected and worse, has suffered several destructive episodes."
Although there are thousands of miles between both islands, their stories are the same. Human and cultural rights activists on both islands, St. Eustatius and St. Helena, recently joined forces to "begin to aggressively and surgically address the legacies and institutions of historic racial injustices", as Annina puts it. In New York they have the support of the renowned preservationist Peggy King Jorde who worked on the Afrikan Burial Ground project in New York City in the nineties, where the remains of up to 15,000 enslaved and free Afrikans were found on a six-acre burial ground during a construction project.
The documentary ‘A Story of Bones’
BBC's Storyville describes the documentary as follows: "Twelve years ago, Annina Van Neel, Chief Environmental Officer for Saint Helena’s $350m airport project, learned of the island’s most terrible atrocity – an unmarked mass burial ground of an estimated 9,000 formerly enslaved Afrikans in Rupert’s Valley. It is described as one of the most significant traces of the Transatlantic Slave trade still on earth. Horrified by this historical injustice, Annina Van Neel now fights alongside Afrikan-American preservationist Peggy King Jorde and a group of disenfranchised islanders – many of them descendants of the formerly enslaved – for the proper memorialization of these forgotten victims." And the Tribeca website: "The documentary “A Story of Bones” celebrates Annina’s personal victories, and mourns collective setbacks along her journey to create a respectful burial ground."
Shared history of St. Eustatius and St. Helena
There is the same link between a large burial ground and the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade in St. Eustatius: the recent excavations at the 18th century Golden Rock Plantation Burial Ground and older excavations at the 18th century Afrikan Burial Ground Godet Plantation near the ruins of Fort Amsterdam at the south-east coast of St. Eustatius. During the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade period, the enslaved that survived the brutal treatment of the journey to the shores of St. Eustatius, where kept at barracks that at one time could accommodate up to 450 individuals. Those that died were buried in the area next to Fort Amsterdam known as Godet. The contrast between the Godet and the Golden Rock burial grounds is that the latter were mainly individuals that were enslaved that were established on the island versus those in transit to somewhere else throughout the Americas. The Golden Rock Burial ground is believed to contain the remains of more than 150 enslaved people, one of the largest burial grounds for enslaved Afrikan people in the Caribbean. At least 48 skeletons were excavated.
Afrikan Burial Grounds throughout the Americas
The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance originated from the fierce protests against the excavations at the Golden Rock Burial Ground in 2021. The Alliance seeks connections with similar groups across the Afrikan diaspora community in the Americas. Annina Van Neel: “There are thousands of Afrikan Burial Grounds spread across the globe that bear the untold stories of the great traumas and defeats that people of Afrikan descent endured for 350 years and longer. Stories that are relegated to the most marginalized and isolated black communities with no means to adequately protect and remember their ancestors with the respect they deserve. Now the story is told not only to protect the Saint Helena Burial Grounds, but also gives a voice to thousands of other sites and cultural rights activists, especially those belonging to marginalized and underrepresented groups.”
Screenings outside the US
The documentary will be broadcasted outside the US by the BCC and featured at other Film Festivals around the globe. When Carlos Lopes returns to St. Eustatius, the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance will devote an interactive radio broadcast to the documentary and Lopes’ visit to the Tribeca film festival for the community of St. Eustatius and beyond. “It is important that we as joint Burial Ground Alliances keep addressing the issue,” Lopes emphasizes, “respecting the living means respecting the dead too. We saw what happened during the excavations at the Golden Rock Burial Ground. The descendent community was completely ignored and disrespected." Annina Van Neel: "Today black cultural heritage is excluded from funding, legal protection and consideration. The more commonly accepted colonial heritage and curricula (archaeology, scientific research, history education) supersedes any descendant attempts. Thus, Black histories are made invisible, voiceless and diminished, ultimately dehumanized." Peggy King Jorde welcomes the newly created international alliance: "The relationships we are forging right now will transform the mythology around who we are as an Afrikan diaspora and our story."
The Tribeca Film Festival runs from June 8 to 19 and screening times for "A Story of Bones" are on June 11, 12 and 18. Viewers in the US can buy a ticket for virtual "At Home" screening. "At Home" will not be available outside the USA.
More information: https://tribecafilm.com/films/story-of-bones-2022
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Information for the Editor
Kenneth Cuvalay, President of the “St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance”
- Email: steustatiusafrikanburialground@gmail.com
- Website: http://steustatiusafrikanburialground.org/ (as of June 2022)
Relevant links on the documentary “A Story of Bones”:
- https://abc7ny.com/here-and-now-sandra-bookman-a-story-of-bones-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/11882202/
- http://sainthelenaisland.info/slavery.htm
The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance is a movement that protests the excavations of Afrikan free and enslaved Afrikans at an 18th-century Afrikan burial ground in St. Eustatius (see https://www.change.org/LeaveOurAncestorsInPeace). The protests started in April 2021 and were initially led by the political party Ubuntu Connected Front Caribbean. Located in St. Eustatius and with allies around the world, the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance broadened the scope of the struggle focusing on other Afrikan burial grounds in St. Eustatius such as the Afrikan Burial Ground Godet Plantation St. Eustatius (Godet/Fort Amsterdam). One of the aims is to further broaden the scope of our struggle to the Pan-Afrikanism level, connecting with and working with Afrikan-centered organizations and movements that are also fighting for the preservation of our ancestors’ endangered Afrikan burial grounds around the world and taking control of our narrative that has been distorted.
Spelling of Afrika
Afrika is spelled with a “k” instead of a “c” based on the following insights:
- It is a Pan-Afrikan spelling which relates both to the Afrikan continent and to the Diaspora;
- It reflects the spelling of “Afrika” in all Afrikan languages;
- It includes the concept of “ka”, the vital energy which both sustains and creates.
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 Afrikan descent.
Ubuntu means "humanity" in Afrikan 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.
The 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 people of Afrikan descent throughout the diaspora meaning “Equality is a human right, not a privilege”.
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