Felicia Fricke with Science Cafe convenor CNSI Director Dr. Johan Stapel.
ST. EUSTATIUS--Archaeologists can learn much from secrets revealed by excavating human bones and artefacts, but they can also try to reproduce the past by listening to the living.
Felicia Fricke is an archaeologist from the University of Kent. She told the Caribbean Netherlands Science Café CNSI she has spent the last year speaking to local people and analysing human remains to research the lifestyles of enslaved people in Curaçao, St. Maarten and St. Eustatius. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch Caribbean on July 1, 1863. This means that Fricke was able to interview descendants of people who were enslaved.
Misha Spanner, museum guide at the St. Eustatius Historical Foundation Museum, listened to Fricke's presentation with keen interest. Her reaction was: “It is very true that stories that have been handed down from generation to generation – from former slaves to their children, grandchildren and other relatives – are a valuable source of information about those days.
“We can learn a lot from this oral history, which is not in written accounts. These stories should be given their own merit. We appreciate how Miss Fricke’s is working closely with the Historical Foundation,” Spanner said.
