Protests against excavations at 18th century burial ground of free and enslaved Africans on St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[See the events timeline for an overview of protest activities and media coverage since June 2021]

 

On St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean, an 18th century burial ground of enslaved Afrikans is being excavated by an international research team.

The excavations are carried out in a disrespectful manner and there is no involvement and input from archaeologists from the African diaspora nor the descendant community. The reasons why the archaeological research is being conducted are highly questionable. There is a lack of transparency from both the local government and the research team.

The research team is led by the archeological organization SECAR (St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research) that conducted a similar excavation at Godet, a plantation on the west coast of the island. "They worked in secret, left the site in a deplorable condition and put the remains somewhere without telling the local community where they are or what they did with them”, says Kenneth Cuvalay in a press release. 

Despite suspension of archaeological excavations announced by the local government on July 14, objections are still being raised. We have issued a press release on July 19. We still have many questions and concerns. It is one step forward, but we are not quite there yet. Suspension does not mean discontinuance. Does this mean scientific suspension and discontinuation of our ancestral remains in laboratories outside of St. Eustatius? The local government now talks about the installment of a 'commission of experts'. Who will be on this commission? Friends of SECAR? More parachuted civil servants from the Dutch mainland?

St. Eustatius is a small island with 3,500 inhabitants. In the 18th century, it was the largest transit port of the transatlantic slave trade in the Western Hemisphere.

Protest organizers

• Kenneth Cuvalay, Chair Ubuntu Connected Front Caribbean and Tilburg
  
• Derrick Simmons, Coordinator Ubuntu Connected Front Caribbean
  
• Xiomara Balentina, President Brighter Path Foundation St. Eustatius
• George Berkel, Vice President grassroots movement SEAD (St. Eustatius Awareness and Development Movement)

Protest objectives

The objectives of the protests are outlined in the online petition

http://www.change.org/LeaveOurAncestorsInPeace

Summarized:

• the respectful treatment of the ancestral remains;
• engagement of the descendant community in the decision-making and research process;
• the reburial at the original site of rediscovery, and placement of a permanent memorial.

Broader goal

We need to work towards a more collaborative and participatory archaeology in the Netherlands, that has the ethics and sensibility to go into dialogue with us, as the Afrikan descendant community.

We need to start an urgent debate on decolonizing Dutch archaeological regulations and practices.

Moreover, we need to extend that debate to a global level for there are many more African Burial Grounds at risk in the Americas. 

See the events timeline for an overview of protest activities since June 2021

VIDEO: The story behind, A Story Of Bones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Documentary of RT Dutch giving some backgrounds on the documentary 'A Story Of Bones' by St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance leader, Kenneth Cuvalay, and the connection of the story with the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Grounds Godet and Golden Rock, and so many other Afrikan Burial grounds throughout the Americas.

 

Producer: Dwight Sergio Samson, RT Dutch, Amsterdam

 

 

PRESS RELEASE: “Descendent authority decides over ancestral remains and their resting places”

 

 

 

 

Also published in The Daily Herald of July 5, 2022 (see below)

The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance is proud of the fact that Emancipation Day is formally a national holiday in St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire. This is still being fought for in the European Netherlands. Yet Emancipation Day 2022 is a day of great worries as well. The day after the visit of the president of Unesco Netherlands, Ms. Kathleen Ferrier, to the burial ground Godet, access to the site was closed. Big rocks have been dumped in front of the graves with bulldozers and filled with sand. “To protect the Godet burial site”, as the government Facebook page claims. But the rocks were placed without the necessary measures to protect the graves, such as protective shielding in between.

Another worrisome fact was that archaeologist Ruud Stelten, found guilty in the SHRC report of malpractice in handling the remains of our ancestors at the Golden Rock site, was putting pressure on members of the Central Committee to convince them to conduct further scientific research on the excavated human remains of our ancestors. How can the governments representatives allow that to happen? Besides the inappropriateness, it is not just for the Committee to decide on this

Ms. Kathleen Ferrier visited the cemeteries on June 1 on invitation of the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance. The Alliance wants to enroll the Godet Burial Ground and the Golden Rock Burial Ground in the famous Unesco's Routes of Enslaved People https://en.unesco.org/themes/fostering-rights-inclusion/slave-route

The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance emphasizes that we, all Afrikans in the diaspora and especially from St. Eustatius, are the descendant authority, not the government representatives, not the Island Council, not the Central Committee alone, but all of us. This is our heritage. The Alliance will soon present an interim report on these shocking developments that will be presented to the relevant cultural heritage organizations in the Netherlands and internationally.

The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance wishes everyone on St. Eustatius a memorable and meaningful Emancipation Day 2022. We are now a free people and we have the right to decide what will happen to the remains and resting places of our ancestors. Everyone who is upset as we are with these developments, we welcome to contact us. Together we have a stronger voice.


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Information for the Editor

Kenneth Cuvalay, President of the “St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance”
-    Phone/WhatsApp St. Eustatius: +599 3194975
-    WhatsApp Netherlands +31 6 29014308
-    Email: steustatiusafrikanburialground@gmail.com 
-    Website: https://afrikanhistoryandconsciousness.blogspot.com/ or http://steustatiusafrikanburialground.org/ (as of July 2022)

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 2022 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.

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.

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”.
 

Article in The Daily Herald of July 5, 2022