In this powerful episode, Freedom in July, we explore the meaning of emancipation in St. Eustatius. Through oral history, music, ritual, and memory, we uncover how freedom was celebrated, mourned, and redefined by women who shaped a new world from the ashes of bondage. From red ribbons and flamboyant flowers to the rise of education and migration, this episode traces the legacy of resistance and quiet revolutions. With voices like Governor Lady Alida Francis and Mr. Richardson, we remember how the enslaved reclaimed dignity—not through reparations, but through presence. What does it mean to be free when freedom came with nothing but a proclamation?

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Produced by Simpler Media

>> : The whole story that took place on the day of the

emancipation. How people were dressed, they were mainly in

white, and they all had a piece of red

somewhere adorned women, a red ribbon around

the waist, and the men had a red ribbon around their hat.

And that was for the freedom, the sign of freedom.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): Welcome to Whispers of the Past. I'm, um, your host, V.

De Witz. And this is Freedom in July.

In this episode, we turn to the years

1850 to 1900, with a

focus on 1863, a

date etched into the history of the Dutch Caribbean

as the year slavery was formally

abolished. But emancipation

on paper did not mean liberation in life.

Across the Caribbean. Formerly enslaved people

stepped into the new no

land, no compensation,

no real support. And yet,

in the absence of justice, they build something

else. What does it mean to

be free when freedom arrives

empty handed? What does

liberation look like when it comes not from moral

reckoning, but through legal systems by those

who never fully acknowledge that slavery is a

crime against humanity?

On syntastatias, the answers

echoed in rhythms and rituals.

Bottles knocked in defiance, ribbons

tied in red, songs

sung by women who had waited too long to be

seen. In this episode,

we explore what came after emancipation.

Not just the loss, but the legacy.

Through memory, migration and quiet

revolution, station women helped shape the

freedom of their own making.

But before we arrive in

1863, we must understand what

came before. Because for enslaved women,

especially mothers, the fight for freedom

began long before it was ever declared.

Their resistance often took place not on the

battlefield, but in the home, in the

desperate effort to hold onto their children, their

dignity, and their futures. To

begin, historian Dr. Elaine offers us a

regional overview and sheds light on the

emotional aftermath of slavery and the enduring

strength of those who endured it.

>> Dr. Elaine: Some imperial systems had stricter

laws about mother and child

separation than others. Right? So,

you know, it wasn't uniform across time and

space, this practice of mother and child

separation. But I will say, like even in the French

Caribbean, where it was technically

illegal to separate mothers and

children, at least during the period that I

study, probably in earlier periods as well, it was very

common for. For slaveholders to

sort of not sell children

away from their mothers, but to give them away

sort of informally so that they could evade

detection by the law. So there were

ways in which mothers and children were separated even when

they weren't technically supposed to be legally.

If we read archival documents carefully, we can actually

learn quite a bit about enslaved

people's, you know, emotional inner world

and the relationships they had with each other.

And that includes relationships between mothers and

Children. We know that in most slave

societies, women fought very hard

to spare their children from slavery.

So I was looking at some documents

pertaining to a woman named Sophie Lite,

who was born in Martinique but was living in

Trinidad in 1847, at which

point slavery had been abolished in the British colonies,

but not the French. Lite appealed to

the British Crown for help freeing her children, whom she

alleged were being held, uh, in slavery

illegally in Martinique. This is just one

example of many stories from across the Caribbean of

women trying to pursue legal means of freeing their children

from slavery. And in Li Tay's case, the

government actually, uh, declined to help

her. But every so often, we do find

instances of the law intervening on

enslaved mothers behalves,

um, also enslaved or formerly enslaved

women sometimes tried to buy their children's

freedom. So in the French Caribbean, this practice was

called rasha, or redemption.

So women would buy

their freedom or their children's freedom from

slaveholders. In many slave societies,

women could sometimes earn a small

income by selling fruits and vegetables and other

goods. They grew on small plots of land,

and in some cases, they were able to use this money,

save it up, and then purchase themselves or their

children. And then finally, in many

different slave societies, we find records of enslaved

women complaining to local authorities about the ill

treatment of their children. For example, I have looked

at records from the French Caribbean that show

enslaved women lodging complaints against slave owners

for physically harming their children or for not

providing their children with enough food and clothing.

And we can find similar records in other parts of the

Caribbean as well, especially during the latter decades of

slavery, during which time there existed more of a

legal infrastructure to support

slaves claims against

owners.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): For enslaved mothers across the

Caribbean, separation from their children was one of the most

profound and enduring forms of trauma.

Laws varied between empires. Even when

protection technically existed, like in the French

colonies, it was common for enslavers to exploit

loopholes and informally remove children from their

mother's care. In the Dutch

Caribbean, archival records are still limited.

One rare example comes from Curacao, where an

enslaved woman named Virginie challenged the colonial

authorities for. For her freedom and that of her

children. Her successful legal fight

is one of the few documented cases where an enslaved

mother confronted the Dutch state and

won. Stories like

Virginie's suggest there may be many more hidden acts

of resistance within the Dutch Caribbean.

Those stories are yet to be uncovered.

Further research, particularly through oral history

and neglected archives, may reveal the depth of

these struggles. But even now, the

emotional legacy is clear. The forced

rupture of families inflicted deep psychological

Wounds. Wounds that echo across generations.

And then came emancipation. In

1863, the Dutch government finally

abolished slavery, but only after securing

compensations for the slave owners, not

for the enslaved. Those who had endured

lifetime of suffering were given nothing. No

land, no wages, no resources.

And many were forced to keep working on their

exploitive contracts. And some, seeking

better opportunities, began to leave the islands

altogether.

On, uh, Cintostatius, where slavery had also

ended, emancipation brought hardship instead

of celebration. As Mrs.

Sutakao, a long term resident and one of the

founders of the center for Archaeological Research,

explains, this was a moment when

Stacia would have been rising. Instead

it fell into economic decline.

Freed people had few options and little

support. Former slaveholders abandoned

their plantation, leaving behind a community that's

free in name, but struggling to, to

survive.

>> Ms. Sutekau: Well, the Dutch were very late in

abolishing slavery. They were really forced into

it because of St. Martin, because in St.

Martin on the French side, they were free. So it was

easy for them to get to the French side or to

Anguilla be free.

So the Dutch government agreed to the

abolishment of slavery only out of

necessity. They really didn't have a choice.

But instead of rewarding the slaves

that were being abolished, they actually

compensated the slave owners for

abolishing slavery. It's a

deplorable fact that

the people who were actually enslaving them

made more from it than the slaves themselves,

who were suddenly set free with no

income. So what did they have to do? They had to work for

the same people at uh, much

decreased wages or try to

find something else to do. But

instead of standing around, same slave

owners left the island

because they didn't have the

workers to produce the crops that they

needed. And they began to desert the

plantations. Dacia

went into great decline at the

very time it should have been

celebrating and expanding itself,

because now our people were free,

but their opportunities here

were very limited.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): The abolition of slavery in Dutch Caribbean came

not as a triumph of morality, but as a reluctant

response to mounting pressure, especially from

neighboring islands like the French side of St

Martin, where freedom had already been taken.

As Mrs. Tsutakai reminds us, emancipation

did not come with reparation for the formerly enslaved.

Instead, compensation flowed to the former

slaveholders, while those who actually

endured generation of bondage were left without

land, income or any real

opportunity. And yet,

in the face of injustice and abandonment, something

remarkable unfolded.

Across Interstatius, the spirit of liberation

stirred not only quiet resilience, but public

defiance, led in many cases by women

whose name may be lost to History,

but whose voices carry through the street on the

first Emancipation Day. To

guide us deeper into that moment, we turn to the

island Heritage Inspector, Mr.

Richardson, who brings to life the powerful

and unexpected ways this day was

claimed, not by decree, but by the

people themselves.

>> Mr. Richardson: So it's July 1, 1863. That's when

slavery was abolished. And then again, you

see, ah, there's a huge demographical shift on the island

of people. There are formerly enslaved people that

became Methodists through the preachings of Black

Harry.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): In the years before emancipation, the seed of

spiritual resistance were already taken roots across the

Caribbean. And on Syntastacia's, one

voice rose above the rest. His name

was Black Harry. His real name,

birthplace and date of death remain unknown.

To clear up any confusion, around the same time in

the United States, another African American

Methodist preacher named Harry Hozier was

also known as Black Harry. And though the parallels

in their lives are very striking, historians

have agreed that they are not the same person.

Black Harry on Sintostatius left behind a legacy

that was uniquely one of

defiance and spiritual awakening. He

arrived on the island as a free man of color in the late

1700s, during a time where enslaved

people were forbidden to gather for worship.

Yet Harry preached anyway, his

sermons full of fire, hope and uncompromising

truth. He drew crowds, stirred

hearts and offered strength to those still in

bondage. Colonial authorities

quickly saw his influence as

dangerous. He was banned from preaching,

he was punished and ultimately he was exiled

from the island. But his message could not be

silenced. Today, his legacy lives

on in the Bethel Methodist Church and on Black

Harry Lane, named in his honour. His

story is not just about faith, but it's about resistance

and the power of one voice to move people.

It's no surprise then that by the time

emancipation finally arrived in

1863, spiritual conviction and

community resilience were already woven into the fabric

of the island. And as

Heritage Inspector Mr. Richardson

explains, something extraordinary emerged on the

first Emancipation Day.

>> Mr. Richardson: There's a large group of people on the island that

are non religious, and that's an interesting

group because this is a group now that lives in what they call the north

of the island. It's not geographically the north, but it's referred to as

the north. You, uh, know, as they would say locally.

And what you see is that it's still

called the north, actually. And to show you how

people are proud of the north, you, um,

remember recently we got our first female governor,

Ms. Alida Francis, and she was also referred to as

the girl from the North. And remember that the

north is going to be a very part of the station colloquial

landscape and cultural landscape. So

it's July 1st, 1863. The governor at the time

is Governor Rose Van Toningen. And he

reads the proclamation in the Bethel Methodist Church in the

morning at around 7 that people are free

and everyone is

thanking God. Um, those are those that

have been converted to Methodism and also the Dutch

Reformed Church. So it's really interesting because now inside of the

church you have the kind of white

station population and the black station population all

sitting together. But

from the north there's a disturbance,

there's a loud drumming and there's a

chant and people are waving red

flowers in the air. And you can guess

who that was being led by. It was being led by

women. The women were

knocking bottles together, you know, to

create some kind of symphony. And the men were

drumming behind and the women were the ones doing the

singing. And they were singing very

loud. Happy, happy July day I

don't give a damn what the masters say I'm free, I'm free, I'm free

today Humbug, can't humbug me. So there's a whole chant

that these. And they're coming from way out in the

countryside and they're matching all the

way into town, showing that they're free. They're

not religious either. They don't belong to any church, which is

also interesting. And what makes it interesting

is that though in the former

slave registers they were labeled as Protestants. They were

not. They weren't baptized. And that you had

that on station for a long time. And you see that

these women now are chanting, coming through the streets. The

governor writes, writes it in his letter to the Hague describing

how the day went. And you see that they are

really. These women are going to become the

instigators of everything that's going to become. Because out

of the north, as they say, that's where

the power. And you would see that

eventually, as we get into the 20th and the 21st

century, um, where that

Northness then will then come back in the

empowerment of a lot of women on Sint Eustace,

or women of color of the island in general.

And you would see why people are proud of that because

also to note that Mama, um,

Didier, um, Francis Coffey, they're all

also from the north. So they're not from what is called

down street or the South. They're all women from the North.

So the north was always the fighting force of

defying slavery.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): Freedom on Cint Eustatius did not arrive in

silence. It came with rhythm of bottles and

drums. As Mr. Richardson reminds

us, it was the women from the north who led the

charge, singing through the streets, red

flowers in hand, declaring themselves free

in a world that had long refused to see their

humanity. Though

listed as protestant in the old slave

registers, many of these women belonged to no

church. Their resistance wasn't

shaped by doctrine. It was born of lived

experience, ancestral strength, and the

refusal to be defined by colonial

categories. But

emancipation was more than a moment.

It became a memory passed down through

generations. And in these

stories, we find details history often

overlooks. Governor lady alida

Frances, a daughter of the north,

carries these memories not only as a leader,

but as a descendant of those who once sang

freedom into being.

>> : The whole story that took place on the

day of the emancipation, how people were dressed, you

know, you learned that they were dressed mainly in white,

and they all had a piece of red

somewhere adorned on there. The women,

the red ribbon, I heard, I was told, around the waist. And the men

had a red ribbon around their hat, and

that was for the freedom, the sign of freedom. They dance

with what we call the july flower, known

as the flamboyant flower. So there are

stories still that, uh, are

alive, but they're hidden away.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): On syntastacia. Stories of emancipation

have long been held not only in records, but in

memory, passed down through families, preserved in

song and marked by ritual. Governor

lady alida Frances recalls the details that

oral tradition never forgot. White

garments adorned with red, the july flower clutched

in hand, and the quiet pride stitched into every

ribbon. These symbols of freedom were

not random. Red ribbons, flamboyant

blossom, the colors of joy and resistance worn

with intention. But memory

doesn't only live in official ceremonies.

It breathes through folklore,

those stories whispered from one generation

to the next, shaped as much by feeling

as by fact. Dr.

Sahidi, an archaeologist who lived and

worked on the island, shared one such story.

Whether it happened exactly as told is beside

the point. What matters is what it

means and how its symbolism

still pulses through the island's collective

identity.

>> Dr. Sahidi: One of the most powerful ones. For me.

There's a story that's told often on Stacia, and

that is the story of emancipation Day on July

1, 1863, when the

newly emancipated took their blue beads and they

threw them from the cliffs into the sea.

And when you picture that in your mind, you can kind of

envision people throwing the beads from the cliffs,

and you can feel that power, that emotion and that

resistance and that subversive

action symbolize so much. And it still does,

you know, it's still entangled with the way that

people on St. Eustatius

view their ancestors, but also how they view

themselves.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): It's.

>> Dr. Sahidi: Peaceful and steady, but really

strong. And that story, I think, is such a

powerful statement about colonialism and anti

colonialism. And that memory is held so

closely by people today,

I think not just because of its historical

importance, but because that

spirit of resistance and self

agency is still very much entangled in the

contemporary lives of people, people on the island. It's still

relevant.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): The image of blue beads cast into the

sea, free falling from the cliffs, like

a final farewell to bondage, reminds us

that liberation is not just about breaking away.

It's also about what comes next.

And in the years that followed, the spirit of self

determination did not fade. It evolved

quietly, steadily, into a new form

of resistance and renewal. By the

late 19th century, another kind of

transformation began to unfold. This

time not through revolt, but through

rebuilding this new present. On the

island were the Dominican sisters. They

arrived from Europe not just as missionaries, but

as educators, caretakers and community

builders. Part of the century old Dominican

order, founded in 1216 and grounded in

study, service, prayer and community,

Their mission on Stacia took root in deeply

practical ways. As Mr.

Richardson reflect, their work became more

than religious instruction. The sisters helped

raise classrooms from stone, trained the

island's first local teachers, and supported

women in shaping the social fabric of the community.

The same hands that once carried red flowers

in celebration now lifted building blocks of

schools, churches and possibilities.

Holy preaching wasn't always done in words.

It was seen in actions. And this was

a different kind of resistance rooted in

care, education and quiet

empowerment.

>> Mr. Richardson: Yeah, so the Dominican sisters, they came in

around the late 1890s, I think, to the

island. Um, they had an interesting

service of about 99 years on

stage. That's a long time. And quite recently one of

the last sisters died, I think last year in the

Netherlands. She returned, uh, many years after. She was also one of

the first, um, teachers of the Catholic school.

But the Dominican nuns, they come in the time that there's not

an established Catholic church. Uh, what

is a beautiful story of someone. I grew up in

the Catholic Church, so what I do know about

the role of the women's club,

um, this is something that was started, of course, you're now there

are these European nuns, um, coming

from already established Europe to a

small Caribbean island as missionaries, but then

realize that their work are so in depth,

uh, more in depth than missionaries, and

guess who become the pillars of society

also because of working with these Dominican nuns. It's the

station women. They are more than just

converts through Catholicism. They are really

the spearhead of the community, of the social

structure of the community, the welfare of the

community, together with these nuns. So you

see that the women kind of band together to

kind of formalize themselves now together with these nuns

and the nuns, then, you know, they start. One

thing that was instrumental is the building of the current

Catholic Church. There are pictures and documents

of women bringing the blocks up

the slave path. Um, not men,

the men were the stonemasons, but the

women as parishioners brought the stones up the

bay path as we know it. And it's quite steep and it's something

that they were very proud of. So you see that the resilience

of the women are now like, hey, I'm a woman

but I'm not feeble. And you see that in this

mixture of the Dominican nuns, you see also

that music starts to play a huge

role. Not only music, as in the song

and dance that Stacia is known for, but the structural

learning of music. They also started

a school here and many of the. You would see the

first teachers or the first

kindergarten teachers of Fort Peutuschol.

It's interesting. They get their teaching from these

Dominican nuns and get their

qualifications to teach on the island from these

Dominican nuns and not even from an institution in

Europe. So you see that the nun. The Dominican nuns

on the island don't only

install religion,

they kind of install kind of freedom

and entrepreneurship. And then you see

that out of the Dominican nuns a lot of structures

start to go in place. Women start to really lead

the society in different locations. And you see that

the influence of the Dominican nuns and the establishment of the

school isn't even only for Catholics,

but it's also for the Methodists on the island. The Dutch reform

basically for everyone. And you see that

there's a period of kind of, I would say

peaceful unity because you also see it in governing

letters and at the time. And these Dominican

nuns were really instrumental in the

current position of women

today and also the fight for women today.

And you would see that this early installment

of the Dominican nuns on the island and

that 99 year long reign is going

to produce a lot of strong

willed women who eventually

are the grandparents and parents of many of the

stations here today. And it's all because of

that influence of that period between

1890 onwards.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): Mr. Richardson reminds us the Dominican

sisters arrived not only with scripture, but with

structure. Their Mission rooted in

education and community service, wove new

threads into the social fabrics of post

emancipation stacia.

With them, island women built more than

churches and schools. They cultivated

leadership, kinship and quiet

revolutions of care.

But the path forward for Caribbean women did not follow a

single course. While some found purpose in

new institutions, other charted different

routes out of necessity, resistance

or survival. As

Dr. Elaine explains, across the region, many women

chose not to return to the same fields that once exploited

them. The end of slavery did not mean the end

of struggle. It did open the door for

women to redefine their roles in ways that

powerfully shaped the the post emancipation

Caribbean.

>> Dr. Elaine: In the sort of years following slavery.

In the British Caribbean, historians

have documented that a lot of women actually

left plantation labor. So they

decided that they simply were not going to work on

plantations anymore for a wage. They were

going to grow their own crops for

sale and whatnot. This caused a major

panic among plantation owners, right, because they needed

the women's labor. Generally

speaking, though, across the Caribbean, the

majority of women continued to work as

plantation laborers. So in the French Caribbean,

for instance, um, some women, field work,

but most, because of a lack of

available land, had to continue working on

plantations. Some historians have

thought of women's retreat from the fields as

a sort of, um, retreat into

domesticity, as a sort of like

attempt to become proper women

in a sort of European sense of the term

proper womanhood. But I think the more likely

explanation is that field labor was

simply horrendously, uh, hard on the

body, extreme, extremely taxing in

all sorts of different ways. And women just didn't,

as much as possible, didn't want to be subject to

the kind of abuse that took place on

plantation.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): Their refusal to return to the fields was more than a

practical decision. It was a statement, a

rejection of a system that had long devalued their

bodies, their time and their freedom.

In choosing to step away, Caribbean women began

to redefine what work and what worth could mean in

a new world still shaped by the old one.

>> Dr. Elaine: So, you know, women were obviously really, really

important members of their societies. After

the abolition of slavery, you know,

there's been a lot of discussion about

the phenomenon of matrifocal m

households. So this idea that sort

of during slavery and after slavery, women were

the heads of households and men weren't really

involved. And I think that that has been

exaggerated to some degree. And

in fact, men of African descent very

often were very involved in their children's lives.

And, uh, you know, so we don't want to exaggerate the extent to

which households were matrifocal. But at the same

time, it is true that, you know, women took a primary

role in raising children. They often were heads

of household, and they. They were, you know, often very

respected members of their communities. I don't want to

downplay, you know, misogyny and patriarchy,

but, um, you know, we definitely

have lots of evidence of. Of women of African descent across the

Caribbean sort of not playing the role of

demure little housewife, right? Of being sort of

in. Out in public and sort of having some. Quite

a bit of authority in their cultures. And, you know,

they weren't necessarily seen as respectable in the

eyes of Europeans, right? Or in the eyes of elite people of

African descent, um, they weren't necessarily seen as

demure staying inside the house. They.

They sort of enacted their own vision of

womanhood in a lot of different ways. And,

you know, sometimes they did take part in

labor militancy. In 1870,

in Martinique, there was a major uprising.

A lot of plantations were burnt by

field workers. It was very violent, and

women played a part in that. And one of them was named

Lumina, or her nickname was

Suplease, and she was actually hanged for

her involvement in this rebellion. There

are myriad examples of

women taking part in that kind of

rebellious, militant activity in the period

following slavery.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): Across the Caribbean. As Dr. Elaine reminds us,

women were not retreating into the shadows. They were

reshaping society on their own terms.

Choosing not to return to the fields was not just about

labor. It was about reclaiming ownership of their

time, their bodies, and their future.

But unfortunately, emancipation had

not leveled the playing field. The end of

slavery did not come with land, wages, or

justice. It came with absence.

Absence of support, absence of

infrastructure, of the very promises

freedom should have fulfilled.

On, uh, Cintastasius, the absence became its own kind

of exodus. The plantation

economy crumbled, and with it,

opportunities dried up.

Families made impossible choices. Some

stayed rooted in place, while others left in

search for something more.

And so, just as women across the region found ways to resist

through presence, many stations would begin

to resist removement. Migration became its own

form of survival. Next,

Mrs. Tsutakao reflects on what that movement

meant, not just for those who left, but but for the

island they left behind.

>> Ms. Sutekau: This was the beginning of the migration

of people from east Asia to other islands.

They were going to other islands. That

migration would really take off in the early

1900s as the

refineries in Curacao and other

islands and also

developed Tourism on other islands,

um, would offer positions and

jobs to the people of Stacia.

So the Stacia population began to

decrease greatly by our own people

as they went off island. By

the 1900, most of the people that were

left on the island were fishermen,

farmers, grandparents and small

children. As the, uh, young

adults, people who could make a living

elsewhere, moved either up island

to St. Thomas and Santa Croix

and places like that, or to

the Puerto Ricos and other places,

or down island to Curacao and

Aruba, where there were opportunities in the whale

industry. A lot of that took place right

around the 1900s.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): Freedom, when it came to the Dutch Caribbean, was not a

moment of triumph. It was a moment of reckoning.

A proclamation read out loud could not just

undo centuries of violence, Nor could it

rebuild the lives left fractured by bondage.

And yet, from the silence of abandonment rose a

new kind of resistance. Women led the

way, not m always with protests, but with

presence. They sank freedom into the streets,

carried stones up steep path, and taught the next

generation that dignity could not be stolen,

only reclaimed. Their

stories tucked into folklore wrapped in red ribbons.

Whispers in the voices of elders continued to carry

the weight of freedom still unfolding.

Because emancipation was not the end of struggle.

It was the beginning of memory. A memory

not housed in monuments, but but in

movement, not bound to paper,

but passed hand to hand, story to

story. And if freedom lives on in

ways we remember, then we must ask

ourselves what m truths still remain

hidden? What voices

still go unheard? And what does it

mean not just to be free,

but to stay free? In our next

episode, we step into the 20th century,

where the echoes of emancipation give rise

to modern times and a new form of survival.

The fight continues not in

chains, but in choices.