Who owns the dead in the slave cemetery? How St. Eustatius struggles with historical heritage

These have been tough weeks for Nicholas Budsberg. In mid-August, the American archaeologist submitted his resignation to the St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research (Secar). He had only been in service for a year.

Budsberg has now left Sint Eustatius. “There was no point in staying any longer. The Secar archaeological research center is technically bankrupt due to a conflict with the island government. It wants to collaborate more closely with Secar in archaeological research, but Secar wants to remain independent. As a result, the subsidy is in danger of stopping. That’s why I don’t see a future here.”

The other reason for his departure is that Budsberg himself clashed with the Secar board. “I didn’t agree with the policy. Two years ago, the research center received a lot of criticism for its handling of the excavations at the Golden Rock plantation. They then hired me because of my expertise in ethical anthropology. But the board did not want to listen to my proposals. In my opinion, their views were too conservative and harmful to the archeology on the island.”

Shipwrecks and fortresses

Anyone who visits the Caribbean island stumbles over history. Oranjestad is an open-air museum full of dilapidated colonial houses and churches. The small capital is located on a plateau overlooking Gallows Bay, where shipwreck diving is practiced. On the beach road in the lowertown you drive past stretches of wall of old warehouses of the West India Company. At the end of the eighteenth century, Sint Eustatius or Statia, as the English-speaking islanders call it, was a center of international trade. Then the island had more than ten thousand inhabitants, now three thousand.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the 21 square kilometer island was protected by sixteen forts – proof of the strategic importance of St. Eustatius for the Republic. The free port flourished due to the sugar trade and the Dutch and Zeeland slave trade. Many tens of thousands of Africans were sold here to American and Caribbean colonies. A number of Africans were put to work on the sugar cane plantations of St. Eustatius. Around 1750, when the island was economically flourishing, there were 75. In 1781, St. Eustatius was plundered by the British and periods of French occupation followed. The island fell into disrepair.

A hundred years ago, Leiden archaeologist Jan de Josselin de Jong was the first to start excavations on St. Eustatius. He mainly investigated pre-Columbian sites, including on the former Golden Rock plantation, near the current airport. This excavation became the center of a controversy two years ago. One that still continues.

Are these my ancestors?

“My family knew there was a large slave cemetery at Golden Rock. My grandfather worked as a volunteer for De Josselin de Jong and told stories about it.” Misha Spanner is a theater maker and guide at the Sint Eustatius Historical Foundation Museum in Oranjestad. As a child, she often found pottery and other artifacts. “This island is full of history. That was normal for us.”

Yet the uncovering of the large cemetery in June 2021 was of a different order for Spanner. “I had helped with excavations before, but this really touched me, to see dozens of human skeletal remains lying around. I thought: are these my ancestors? How did they die?”

The cemetery, discovered during the quarrying of crushed stone, was on a scale unprecedented in the Caribbean. Also for the Leiden archaeologist Ruud Stelten, who led the Secar team. “I did field research on Statia for eleven years and we often found human remains, but this was much larger. We dug up more than seventy bodies, but there was at least double that number.”

The find led to anger among some of the islanders, because they were not known in the excavation of their possible ancestors. The archaeologists were accused of ignoring guidelines regarding heritage participation. These were recorded in 2005 Treaty of Faro: “the approach to cultural heritage is not only expert-driven. People give meaning to heritage. Anyone who wants it has access to heritage and can help determine how it is handled.”

Stelten, who now works in Australia, says the criticism surprised him. “It was no secret what we did. The residents helped us more often with field work and the lab. Schoolchildren came to see the excavations.” Still, looking back on the commotion, he says that he “may have done it differently now. For example, by pushing the island government more to involve the residents.” Although in his view the board members were responsible for communication. “They were the client.”

The island administrators were shocked by the controversy and media attention. A small, vocal group was against disturbing the graves and against the fact that the excavations were carried out by white scientists from the Netherlands and the US. In particular, the political organization Ubuntu Connected Front Caribbean (UCF), led by Kenneth Cuvalay, stated that the Secar archaeologists used “disrespectful” methods and promoted “heritage tourism”.

Also read this article: An African man was buried in a prehistoric cemetery four hundred years ago

Not included

In July 2021, the island government halted research work at Golden Rock. An investigative committee was set up, led by Jay Haviser, an American archaeologist who works on Sint Maarten. It stated in a report in January 2022 that the excavations “were not inclusive and that the vision of the community was insufficiently represented”.

A poll conducted by the committee among a hundred residents also showed that a large majority was positive about archaeological research, provided that it was done respectfully, and about DNA research into the identity of the human remains.

A “fundamental problem” that the Haviser Commission identified was that the island government had “no archaeological expertise” and had left too much to Secar. Haviser advocated establishing a heritage agency and appointing a heritage inspector. He is expected to be appointed soon.

Two years later, Kenneth Cuvalay of the UCF still judges the archaeologists harshly. “Secar is corrupt. The board consists mainly of white Dutch and Americans who act as if it is their heritage. Their mandate must be withdrawn and a new organization must be created, because Secar has caused a lot of emotional damage in the community.”

According to Cuvalay, the archaeologists were mainly concerned with serving the interests of their “white scientific vision.” He also sees no point in DNA research into the human remains at Golden Rock. “Determining identities is something that white scientists are particularly interested in.”

Mandatory monitoring

A spokesperson for Secar says it rejects criticism of the lack of diversity. “Many board members have lived on the island for thirty or forty years. They are also Statians. We would like more local people on the board, but not everyone is interested.”

The spokesperson confirms that there is discussion with the island government about the mandate and the annual subsidy of 50,000 dollars (47,000 euros). “The board wants more control over the archaeological fieldwork, but Secar has always been an independent foundation. We always gave advice to the board and helped with hiring archaeologists. The relationship with the island government is difficult, but we still want to help.”

American archaeologist Grant Gilmore, one of the founders of Secar in 2004, also believes that the board should act more actively. “The island government is obliged to monitor construction projects archaeologically. This must be done by an independent organization. Direct administrative supervision of archaeological research is undesirable. Then you have to ask permission for everything.”

Gilmore also states that the Netherlands must do more to resolve the archaeological impasse. “You can call that neo-colonial, but the Netherlands is responsible, because the Dutch government took over the administration of Statia a few years ago and then started many new construction projects that archaeologists must be involved in.”

Gilmore is referring to the administrative intervention by The Hague in February 2018 on St. Eustatius due to “mismanagement” and “major neglect of the tasks” of the executive council. Civil servants were flown in from the Netherlands to put things in order. Outgoing State Secretary for Kingdom Relations Alexandra Van Huffelen (D66) said this spring that she hoped that “democracy can be brought back” on the island in 2024.

Also read this article: How the excuses that Mark Rutte did not want came after all

Dealing with the dead

The anger about the administrative intervention was reflected in the fuss surrounding Golden Rock, says Xiomara Balentina, chairman of the Statia Cultural Heritage Implementation Committee. “Secar only consulted with the Dutch administrators about the excavations. That led to great annoyance. At Statia we have our own way of dealing with the dead.”

The committee leading Balentina must find a suitable location to rebury the remains of the 72 Africans from Golden Rock, which now lie in the former mortuary. “There will also be a monument for all the enslaved people buried here.”

That search is going slowly, says Balentina, because the board has few staff and there is no digital land registry. “We are still waiting for information and that is frustrating, because we want to move forward,” says Balentina. She also calls the financing of the monument “challenging”. The recent Dutch apology for the history of slavery released a fund of 200 million euros, but in order to receive money from that fund, the committee must first set up a foundation.

Balentina hopes the remains of the Africans can be reburied close to Golden Rock. The committee is considering a roundabout near the plantation as a location for a monument. “The community will determine what form that monument will take.”

‘Big problem’

The key question that Statia struggles with: is heritage for science, or for the people who live on it and have a bond with it? Secar was able to conduct archaeological research at his own discretion for a long time, but is now accused of rigidity and a lack of diversity, also by the departing archaeologist Nicholas Budsberg. “The archaeological research really needs to be improved, because the population is now suffering from the damage that has been caused,” says the American. In his view, Secar in its current form constitutes “a major problem”.

Budsberg thinks that the island government can do more to involve the population in its own history. “Most Caribbean islands have beaches and diving, Statia has a unique heritage. But if you emphasize science and historical tourism, you miss the stories of the people descended from those who once suffered in this place. Today’s Statians must tell those stories, and archaeologists must help them. Not the other way around.”

A version of this article also appeared in the October 11, 2023 newspaper.