Toespraak van minister Bussemaker bij overdracht slavernijregister Sint Eustatius

Toespraak | 28-11-2016

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour for me to present the fully restored slave register from eighteen-sixty-three to you today. This subject is close to my heart, not only as the Minister of Education and Culture, but also as a wife and mother. My husband is of Surinamese descent. He grew up in the Kingdom. He and our daughter are f4th- and 5th-generation descendants of slaves.

2 surnames are common in my husband’s family - Sylbing and Smiet. Niki Smiet, my husband’s 2nd cousin - who has a Dutch mother and a father of mixed Curaçao-Surinam descent - researched the origins of her name 16 years ago. She found what she was looking for in the manumission registers of the National Archives.

She discovered that Smiet was the name given to her great-great-grandmother Bonetia when she was freed in 1862 – a year prior to formal emancipation. The man who registered her freedom was named Smith. He entered her name into the register as Smiet. Niki Smiet finally understood why she had such an unusual name. More than anything, though, she was especially touched once she understood what that new surname meant for her great-great-grandmother.

Niki wrote:

'For someone whose existence was meaningless, who was someone else’s property and who didn’t even have the right to marry or to choose names for their own children, having your own surname was the ultimate form of acknowledgement. You existed. You had value as a person because you had your own family name. You were finally ‘somebody’!

That feeling of pride went so deep, that Bonetia’s daughter insisted on her children continuing to use her name, which was actually very special back then. That’s why the name of Smiet was passed on from generation to generation – right up to the present day.

Uncovering this history was very important to my husband’s second cousin Niki, who, up till then, knew very little about her father’s family. It gave her a renewed sense of self-awareness and identity, especially considering her interest in the history of slavery and her involvement in women’s rights. The pieces of the puzzle really fell into place for her.

She wrote:

'Now I am proud of my ancestors, proud of my name, and proud of my roots...'

Ladies and gentlemen,

In a moment I will present to you the restored archive that includes the register of names. And the digital version of it.

This particular archive does not contain names given upon manumission. Rather, it contains the names of slaves freed in 1863, a year after Bonetia, and who were registered for the first time as free individuals.

Experts often refer to this volume as an emancipation register. But we should take care not to romanticize it too much. More than likely, there was also an economic reason for registering the names: the government could calculate exactly how much had to be paid to plantation owners to ‘compensate’ them - as they called it back then- for loss of manpower and revenue.

This register is therefore tremendously valuable in a double sense. Because countless stories are concealed behind the names. Stories of anger and grief, of resistance and rebellion, but also of pride and joy. Stories that can be very important for all descendants in the Kingdom and beyond who are eager to discover their roots and their family history, and to reclaim a portion of their identity. Especially if you consider that the names in this register are the names of freed slaves from Statia, and that the register can be more easily accessed.

But it also helps us to learn about the ‘other side’ of the history of slavery... about the slave traders, the Dutch and others, who enriched themselves at the expense of all those who were robbed of their freedom and made someone’s property.

The stories give a face to the ugly scar of slavery – that runs throughout the Kingdom along the former trade triangle of Holland, Africa, and the Caribbean. A scar that far too many Dutch people are barely aware of. And that we must reveal, for the history of slavery is a shared history belonging to all of us citizens of the Kingdom.

Archives are an important source for families, searching for their own history. But also they are, of course, an important resource for historians and writers. Resources that bring the history of slavery to life – just like museums and other heritage institutions. They present hard, cold facts that complement the emotional, personal stories, anecdotes and songs passed down from generation to generation. They make the truth about the Dutch history of slavery more tangible and real for all Dutch citizens.

This is why I am so pleased that you wrote to the Ministry a few months ago to request the restoration of this register. I am pleased not only because you clearly recognize the register’s immense value. But also because this is the first step you yourselves have taken to improve the state of your archives here on Statia.

You are highly motivated to retrieve all the archives of national interest from their current, numerous locations and collect them in a centrally managed repository. And you are also clearly aware of the need for good maintenance and good management – as called for by the Public Records Act. This makes me very happy.

We are eager to help. The people at the National Archives in The Hague are ready to come to the islands to provide training – and to share their vast experience with you as you make the great leap forward. Not only regarding physical conservation and management, but also when it comes to opening up archives for research and public use. Offering you a digital version of this archive, serves as a good start for this.

The motto here is: teach me to do it myself. In other words, they will not catch fish for you to get you through the day, but they will teach you how to fish so that you can catch your own fish forever. It is a project that will require a great deal of patience on everyone’s part, and we’ve already made a good start!

And now the time has come for me to hand over the archive to you.

I hope people with names such as Holbeen, Aldershof and Colling will, like my husband’s 2nd cousin Niki Smiet, research the origins of their family names.

And I hope also that this archive will serve to increase our knowledge and understanding of our shared past. I wish it proves to be an important resource for research. Research that complements the other research projects and shared heritage-programmes devoted to interpreting the history of slavery on the islands. So that the pieces of the puzzle fall into place and old scars are revealed.

And let I be a source of inspiration to continue on the road to good archive management and to create central repositories for this important heritage.