PRESS RELEASE | St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance to host community events in St. Eustatius in December

The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance will host several community engagement events in St. Eustatius in the next coming weeks. 

• On Sunday, December 11, there will be a screening of the documentary ‘A Story of Bones’ in the Lion’s Den in Statia at 4 pm. 
• On Thursday, December 15, a walk-in session for residents is organized to hear the ideas and opinions of the community on what should happen to the excavated ancestral remains.
  
• Another activity is a walking tour to the Godet burial ground where excavations of human remains took place in 2012 and 2018. Date is to be announced.
  

Marjolijn kok, an archeologist from Rotterdam who is part of the Alliance and specialized in community archaeology, traveled especially to Statia to hear and listen to the views of the community and to answer questions.

St. Helena documentary ‘A Story of Bones’

 

The story of the Golden Rock and Godet burial grounds are not unique. There are many Afrikan burial grounds in the Americas that tell a similar story. One of these is told in the documentary ‘A Story of Bones’ about the remains of 325 so-called liberated Afrikans that were reburied in St. Helena Island in August this year. Protagonist Annina van Neel got the help of Peggy King Jorde in New York, advocate for Afrikan burial grounds worldwide. 

 

Annina van Neel and Peggy King Jorde together with one of the two directors of the documentary, Dominic Aubrey de Vere, will be joining in online after the screening to answer questions of the audience.

UNESCO Nomination for Golden Rock and Godet burial grounds

 

 

 

 

 

In November this year, the Alliance nominated the Golden Rock and Godet burial site in St. Eustatius to be included in Unesco's Routes of Enslaved People. This project plays a major role in "breaking" the silence surrounding the history of slavery and placing this tragedy that has shaped the modern world in the universal memory. The nominations have been prepared in close cooperation with Unesco Netherlands and have been endorsed by the public entity St. Eustatius and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW).

How to get involved?

All events and activities will be announced in the media, here and on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/groups/steustatiusafrikanburialgroundalliance/  

You can also send a Whatsapp to +599 319 4975

What the Alliance is about

 

 

 

The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance came into existence during the protests against the Golden Rock burial ground excavations in April 2021. The main goal behind the protests was to urge for a respectful treatment of our ancestors’ remains, a dignified reburial and -as a descendent community- to be part of the decision making process. Nothing around the excavations and the reburial of our ancestors' remains can be decided without our consent. We will not rest until they are finally getting the respect and peace they deserve. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

President of the Alliance Kenneth Cuvalay: “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. We are proud and honored to now work together with Annina van Neel and Peggy King Jorde to show the world that our marginalized history is valuable and has been ignored for too long.

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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 February 2023)
-        Facebook www.facebook.com/groups/steustatiusafrikanburialgroundalliance/

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).

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.

In response to the controversial excavations, we published a scientific article in January 2022 “A Future That Does Not Forget: Collaborative Archeology in the Colonial Context of Sint Eustatius (Dutch Caribbean)”. We also published the “Manifesto: What the FARO Convention means for St. Eustatius”. A full list of activities is available at our activities timeline.