PHILIPSBURG--Under the theme “The Water Remembers,” the sixth annual Emancipation Day celebration was held Sunday, July 1, at Captain Hodge Wharf in Philipsburg. It has been 155 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed liberating the enslaved Africans in St. Maarten on July 1, 1863. Governor Eugene Holiday and Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin, among other dignitaries, attended the early-morning celebration which started just before sunrise.
The Department of Culture at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (ECYS) hosted the annual Emancipation Day observances, which focussed this year on the role the ocean played in the emancipation story, including in the Middle Passage.
As the ocean has also been a place for baptism and redemption, and in honour of ancestors lost at sea in a quest for freedom, the Culture Department created a memorial in their remembrance, which began at 5:15 as a sunrise sacrament to the sea.
The ceremony featured performances by dancers of National Institute of Arts (NIA), Indisu Dance Theatre of St. Maarten and Dancing Dimension, poet Deborah Jack, Emancipation Community Choir, Marigot St. Martin Children’s Choir and others.
Directed by Director of the Culture Department Clara Reyes the participating artistes presented a highly visual performance filled with emotion and passion about the suffering slaves and their liberation from captivity.
Several speakers referred to the celebration’s theme, such as Prime Minister Romeo-Marlin who said “The Water Remembers” puts into context recent discussions on climate change and the possible negative impacts the rising of sea levels can have on the future development of St. Maarten.
“These are the waters that claimed the lives of our ancestors who resisted captivity and chose death over slavery by jumping overboard the slave ships. These are the waters that our ancestors unwillingly sailed on, arriving in chains on the shores of this island to face a life of hardship. These are the waters that fed our people with its bounty of fresh fish and other seafood delicacies like conch, crab and lobsters. These waters are where our ancestors left St. Maarten to go to further their studies and pursue a better life throughout the neighbouring Caribbean islands, the United States and Europe,” she said.
“Therefore, when we say ‘The Water Remembers’ we must be thankful to God and we have to treat this wonderful natural resource with care. It has provided for us in the past, it continues to provide for us in the present and we definitely will need the water to ensure a sustainable future,” the prime minister said.
Governor Eugene Holiday said the Atlantic waters to the northeast and the Caribbean waters of Great Bay remember our forefathers’ courage, their resistance to being enslaved, their ultimate sacrifices and their stance for freedom, honour and respect. “We are, as a result, forever connected to the Atlantic and Caribbean waters,” he said.
“Today, July 1, is the commemoration of the unrelenting desire and struggle of our forefathers to be free; free from the atrocious and brutal system that enslaved them. They struggled to be free so that today, we are free. Emancipation is therefore a day to celebrate, to remember, with appreciation, honour and respect. To do so we are reminded this morning of the role of water in emancipation. That is why we stand here this morning at our Great Bay shore. We stand here at this water to remember, we stand here to reflect and show respect, we stand here to celebrate and to appreciate, we stand here to pay homage for their passage and we stand here to bear witness in our forefathers’ honour.”
Governor Holiday said the water remembers the appalling conditions the captive forefathers endured during the Atlantic crossing; as well as the beating, mourning and groaning in the belly of the slave ships; the resistance, the fights on board to escape from bondage into freedom; the desperate flight overboard into the perilous waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean, the cries and the escape routes to freedom to neighbouring islands.
It is the governor’s hope that this and all future observances of Emancipation Day serve as a source of greater consciousness and understanding. “As a source to remind us that our emancipation journey, like the continuous flow of the Atlantic into Caribbean, is not finished. Not finished because, while St. Maarten is known for its enormous opportunities, there are concerns of questionable labour market practices, of racial biases, of discrimination and of other dehumanising behaviour in our society and around the world.”
He called upon the community to invest in the further deepening and broadening of the knowledge of the significance of Emancipation Day by “preserving the symbols of the legacy of the strength and resilience of our forefathers” in re-erecting the statue of One Tete Lokhay and by dedicating, as he has suggested before, a liberty monument with visitor centre in remembrance of the Diamond Hill Estate Slave Run.
“This to ensure that the Emancipation Day message will be remembered, appreciated, honoured and respected as a symbol of liberty, equality, justice and hope by all.”
The programme featured several other speakers, including Minister of ECYS Wycliffe Smith, President of Parliament Sarah Wescot-Williams, former Minister of Finance Michael Ferrier, historian Daniella Jeffry and “plein air” artist Roland Richardson.
The ceremony was closed off with the symbolic laying of wreaths in the form of flamboyant tree flowers at the water’s edge. NIA’s Rudolph Davis led the audience in a rendition of the Ponum dance, after which breakfast was served.
