"Slave shackles from 1848 that were intended to prevent enslaved Afrikans from St. Eustatius from fleeing to free St. Kitts"
Photo Credits: Hans Erren – Eigen werk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64558721
ST. EUSTATIUS--The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance and other concerned Afrikan descendants of St. Eustatius calls on the Dutch government to move the 250th First Salute commemoration on November 16 from St. Eustatius to The Hague.
While the event marks the 1776 recognition of the United States by a foreign power, it remains a painful reminder of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. The historical figure behind the salute, Governor Johannes de Graaff (1729–1813) was the island’s largest enslaver who committed heinous crimes against humanity.
Descendants argue that celebrating this event shows the contempt in the faces of the island’s Afrikan-Caribbean community and exacerbates the trans generational trauma. A celebration, marked by a lack of sensitivity, demonstrates that the legacy of slavery and colonialism – along with the associated crimes of the past and present-day injustices – persists.
It is shameful to have this distorted narrative – which is not ours – in which the historical truth regarding a period marked by the most heinous crimes against humanity goes untold. "Crimes committed against our Afrikan ancestors, which no language is capable of quantifying the magnitude of these horrific crimes against humanity", states Alliance President Kenneth Cuvalay, "Our Ancestors lived in chains in 1776".
The Alliance also condemns the invitation extended to the U.S. President, citing recent actions that target diversity programmes and erase the contributions of Afrikan-Americans from U.S. history, even in the Netherlands.
Despite recent apologies for slavery from the Dutch King (2023) and the Prime Minister (2022), the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance calls the current celebration a colonial farce that spends massive budgets on foreign dignitaries while leaving island residents, many living in poverty, with nothing but a so-called improved infrastructure.
The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance demands that the Dutch and St. Eustatius governments relocate the First Salute programme to The Hague, invest in history writing that benefits the Afrikan descendants, stop using the island as an exotic backdrop, stop wasting taxpayers’ money, and return 'Statia Day' to the community of St. Eustatius.
A petition has been launched on Change.com: https://www.change.org/move_first_salute_event_to_the-hague
