Rudolph Davis Dance Company performing the Ponum dance during celebration of the 158th anniversary of emancipation from slavery at Watkins House on Boardwalk Boulevard on Thursday, July 1.
PHILIPSBURG--The apologies offered by Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema on behalf of the Dutch capital’s administration for the active involvement of the Amsterdam city council in the commercial system of colonial slavery and the worldwide trade in enslaved people are “a start” said Prime Minister of St. Maarten Silveria Jacobs during her speech on the occasion of Emancipation Day 2021 on Thursday, July 1.
‘No More Auction Block’
Hosted by Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (ECYS) Rodolphe Samuel, the 158th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Abolishment of Slavery in St. Maarten was marked with a cultural manifestation and several speeches under the motto “No More Auction Block” at Watkins House, which once was a slave depot on Great Bay.
From left: ECYS Minister Rodolphe Samuel, Governor Eugene Holiday, First Lady Marie-Louise Holiday and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs honouring the ancestors by laying flamboyant tree flowers in the waters of Great Bay.
By means of song, dance and poetry the times of captivity, atrocities and hardship of the ancestors, the slave trade and the abolition of slavery were depicted in song, dance and re-enactment.
Jacobs said in her Emancipation Day speech that even though there is no physical auction block anymore where people are physically being bought and sold, “we are still in meetings around conference tables and now virtually bargaining for our lives, bargaining for our souls with the blood, sweat and tears of our own people, also for a few pieces of silver for our survival.”
Apologies
Jacobs said a “concerted” step had been made in the city of Amsterdam on Thursday when the mayor apologised for Amsterdam’s role in the history of the enslavement of people, which she said contributed at that time 40 per cent to the economy of the Netherlands. “It’s a start,” she said about the mayor’s apologies, to the audience’s applause.
“That auction block signifies that we were not regarded as humans, we were things, possessions to them. We were seen as less but today … we sit as equals at the table, and every day I see the recognition and the respect growing,” Jacobs said.
The Emancipation Day theme “No More Auction Block” captured the core of the lives and struggles of the enslaved forefathers, said Governor Eugene Holiday.
“It captures the essence of the meaning of emancipation, which is a call for a just society. For our enslaved forefathers, emancipation meant no more being held captive, no more being dropped off at slave depots such as this, no more being bought and sold, no more forced separation from family members. It meant no more denial of property ownership. It meant no more being beaten to work as opposed to being paid to work, it meant no more being governed by the rule of the whip as opposed to being governed by the rule of law.”
‘No more’
“For our forefathers ‘no more’ stands for their fight to end these inhuman brutalities and indignities inflicted on them under the system of slavery based on a difference in skin colour. ‘No more’ symbolises their fight, their cry and their hope for freedom, equality and justice. That is the message of the spiritual song ‘No More Auction Block For Me” which was sung by black soldiers during the US civil war.
“Standing at this former slave depot here in Philipsburg, is a reminder that this song also echoed the struggle and hope of the enslaved people in St. Maarten,” Holiday said.
“Building on the ideals of our forefathers, Emancipation Day reminds to act to ensure that our students stay in school to become agents of economic and social change, to act to provide greater employment opportunities for our youth to help counter poverty, to act to secure more affordable housing and to act to improve access to health care.
“Emancipation Day as a call for a just society, therefore, summons each of us to take up one of those or another just social cause to promote and realise equal opportunities, equal rights and justice, irrespective of race, creed, sex or country of origin.”
Samuel pointed at the special design of the auction block building, which was built in the form of a ship.
“I believe that the inspiration must have come from those who were brought here in the ships as slaves,” he said.
“Imagine being brought here in the hull of a ship, tied in such a way that you cannot stand, you cannot move. Imagine how it must have been when the ship moved from the left to the right and in all different directions because of the waves. Imagine what someone who survived the journey so that they can be auctioned here in St. Maarten went through. How it must have been to have your hands and feet tied, not having the right to decide what happens to you.”
As part of the official Emancipation Day programme, filmmaker and artiste Jonathon van Arneman and National Institute of Arts (NIA) premiered the local film production “Atlantis Rebirth” at Caribbean Cinemas in Cole Bay on Thursday afternoon.
