In Amazonia of the Caribbean, we explore the early 20th century on St. Eustatius, when migration and hardship gave rise to a powerful matrifocal society. With men away at sea, in oil fields, or in war, women anchored homes, raised children, ran farms, and led communities.

Through oral histories and expert insights, we uncover how station women without titles or formal authority became the foundation of resilience. From backyards to bakeries, their leadership shaped a cultural legacy of quiet strength, enduring care, and generational survival. Their story is not mythology—it’s the living truth behind the phrase “the women held the island together.”

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Produced by Simpler Media

>> Mr. Richardson: It's one of the lowest, lowest periods of

Stacia's history. And that

population low of 900

is. It's almost like an

island of, you know, the Greek myth of

the Amazonians, the island with only women.

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

Filovit. And this is Caribbean Amazonia.

Before emancipation, enslaved women on

synthesis bore children with no promise of

family and no guarantee of stability.

Their families were scattered by cells,

their love lives controlled by their oppressors.

But in the absence of the patriarchal protection,

something extraordinary took the

matriarchy from the ashes of

slavery station. Women rose

not with speeches or uprisings, but through

kitchens, gardens, classrooms

and songs. They became

leaders not by title, but by

necessity. By

1900, Stacia had become what

anthropologists call a matrifocal

society, a place where women were

the anchors of the home economy and

spirit. This was not a gentle

emergence. It was forced through trauma.

Generational wounds passed down from slavery.

What scholars now call post traumatic slave

syndrome left men often absent by

force or by need. And women carried a weight,

and they did. They tilted the

land, they raised each other's children. They

remembered when the world wanted them to forget.

They didn't just maintain society, they

redefined it. In this episode,

we turn to the years 1900 to

1950, a time when

Stacia's population dwindled, its

economy faltered. This is a story of

survival through presence, a story of strength,

not in the battlefield, but in the backyard, the

bakery and the classroom. This

is the Amazonian of the Caribbean.

To begin, we turn to Mrs. Sutikao, a long

term resident of this island and one of the founders of

the center of archaeological and research, who

describes this time period in Stacia's history.

>> Ms. Sutekau: During that period of time, a lot of the

people who stayed on the island were the grandmothers, the

aunties and the wives of people who

did not have a chance to get money elsewhere, who

took care of their children. So the women were

predominant here. You would have

a predominantly matriarchal, uh, society

living here. There were some men, older

men particularly, and the men who were

fishermen and the men who were also

involved with agricultural section of the

island, they were still here.

We had to feed ourselves. We actually

started growing a lot of potatoes and we were

supplying a lot of the Caribbean with potatoes.

Our potatoes were exceptional. They were very,

very good. Uh, most of the trade was being

done by ships between the island. The Blue

Peter being the most famous ship that was trading

here, down from here, St. Martin, down to

Kuristan it was also a

time when I'm sure

that the people here on the

island suffered greatly, particularly

during World War II. This is a part of

Stacia's history that unfortunately has not

been explored the way it should, as World

War II within the whole Caribbean has not been explored

the way it was. We have to remember

we were Free Dutch, but we were

being surrounded by nations. The French

nations around us outside of St. Martin,

all Vichy islands. So it was not

easy for us to get supplies and materials and everything

into station. There are a lot of

wonderful stories out of Anguilla how, um,

the Anguillans helped us by dropping off

supplies and materials to us

as they passed by from their trips

from St. Kitts to Anguilla so that we would

have supplies on St. Eustatius.

Um, so it was really

low population, huh? Time m. Not a lot of

opportunity on the island itself,

and, uh, a time when we were working

elsewhere.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): As Mr. Tsutaka recalls, the early 20th

century brought with it a shrinking population and

a growing hardship. Amidst the

scarcity, women became the lifeblood of

grandmothers, wives and sisters who

stayed behind while others left in search of

work. These women didn't just keep things

going, they kept the island alive.

Their quiet persistence carried their community

through a time the world barely noticed.

With migration drawing men away first

to oil fields in Aruba and Curacao, and

later some to wartime service and oversea

labor, the rhythms of daily life

fell into the hands of those who remained.

They worked the land, they raised children,

and they traded across island's waters,

preserving not just a fragile economy, but a whole way

of life. This was merely survival.

It was transformation. Out of

absence grew autonomy. And in the face of

hardship, Stacian women quietly reshaped

the island, not in the image of colonial

rule, but through matriarchal strength.

What emerged, as Mr. Richardson, the

island's heritage inspector described, was something

mythic in nature. An Amazonian

of the Caribbean. Not a legend of warriors

with weapons, but a living lineage of

women who, who led through labor, kinship

and power.

>> Mr. Richardson: Yeah, um, there's a period where the population is

going to be 900.

Um, and it's 900 also because

there's a lot going on. Many people

left, many people are working, remote.

And guess who stayed behind? It's the women

that stayed behind with the families, with their mothers, with their

children, and very few men on the island.

And I think it's one of the lowest, lowest

periods of Stacia's history.

And that population low of 900

is it's almost sad because as you

go into the document and you go into society at

the time, it's almost like an

island of, you know, the Greek myth of

the Amazonians, the island with only women. And it

kind of reminds me of that period because the island is

really, if you look at the population split,

it's 900, but there are about 700 and

something women.

Um, and what does that do to society

today? Or what did that do to society back then?

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): By the 1930s, Stacia's population had

dropped just to 900. And of these, nearly

80% were women. A society

shaped not by planning but by migration,

poverty and the long echoes of colonial

neglect. What grew into a

vacuum was not simply resilience, it was

reinvention.

Anthropologists might call this a, uh,

matrifocal society where homes

revolve around mothers, grandmothers and

female kins, and where caregiving,

decision making and heritage passes through

the matrilineal line. But on

synthesis, it went a step further.

Matriarchy was not just a social pattern, it was

a survival strategy.

This pattern emerged across the Caribbean in the wake of

slavery. Centuries of, uh, family

ruptures, forced separation

and economic displacement left women

as the central, often sole and pillars

of family life. As men migrated

for work, first to plantation, later

to oil refineries, women remained.

They raised children, tended farms,

passed down traditions and held entire

communities together with limited means but

limitless resolve.

Faced with absence, women created

continuality. They raised children,

often not just their own, but their cousins,

neighbors, godchildren.

They grew food, led church groups and

told stories that weren't found in any books, but

lived through ancestral lines. They kept

things going when there was nothing left to hold

onto but each other. And

that's why we titled this episode Amazonian of the

Caribbean. Not to suggest some ancient name for

this period, but to recognize something that history

books often ignore.

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a

tribe of fierce women warriors, independent,

self governed and capable of defending their

own. They were seen as an inversion of the

patriarchal norms. A society where women led

and protected themselves. On, um,

Stacia, there were no swords or shields, but

there was power. Women fought not

through conquest, but through consistency.

They claimed their children as their own. When history tried

to say otherwise, they stood at the center of

households, not as exception, but as the

rule. This wasn't mythology, it was

everyday life, a quiet revolution

forged in silence, survival and

strength. Mr. Richardson

continues.

>> Mr. Richardson: So it's quite interesting how things would then

eventually, um, redevelop. And even

to this day, you still see the, there's a

strong willingness in women

on the island, a sort of entrepreneurship,

a sort of drive to do better. But there's also

the maternal side effects of that

independence. And it's so funny is because

I believe that Caribbean women, or women from

stages in particular,

um, were already emancipated

for women's rights way before women rights became a

thing for the wealthy women in Europe. They were

already fulfilling that role 100 years

prior here on the island, um,

because no man, um, um, um,

dare to tell the station lady 100 years ago,

um, that they cannot do something. If you go deep back into

slavery, you would see that many men were

considered breeders for the structural

family of the women. And the women were about

producing strong, healthy kids, like I said earlier.

And you would see, as time goes along

and slavery is abolished, something

that's been instilled in you for about 200 years is hard

to get out. This would then lead to women

being that, you know, I am the head of the

household, I'm responsible for my kids and my family,

basically, you don't need a man. And what you will

also see on that period in Stacia's history

that married women, children carry their

name, um, that many Stacia

last names though, um, the women are

married or maternal last names

being given to sons and daughters even though they're

married, because then they're still, you see that this

structure of 200 years of enslavement kind of

instills into the women's mind that, hey,

before they were my kids and

you were just the dad, you were just the donor, and now they're

still my kids.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): This worldview shaped by centuries of enslavement

wasn't just emotional, it was structural.

What we now understand as post enslavement syndrome

refers to multi generational trauma inherited

from slavery. Not only the physical

brutality, but the forced dismantling of

family systems, the denial of autonomy and

the disruption of identity. Under

slavery, Caribbean families were torn

apart. Fathers were often sold

away or stripped of their rules, and

mothers left to protect and provide alone. They

became the emotional and functional core of the

household. That adaptation was

born of survival. It didn't vanish with

emancipation. It was passed on,

unspoken, inherited and

lived.

Even after 1863, the

systems that replaced slavery still meant

that men were away, away to

plantations, to oil fields, at

sea, keeping them at a distance.

And so women led because they had no other

choice. They learned to stretch food,

teach lessons, heal wounds, bury

the dead, and raise children in their image.

On Stacia that leadership was not temporary.

It became the foundation.

And this is what scholars mean when they speak of the

trauma's long shadow. Not as

something broken, but as something reshaped.

Women turned absinthe into agency. They

became mothers, not just of children, but of

community. And yet, some

dimensions of this inheritance,

transgenerational trauma, remains

difficult to acknowledge. What might appear

today as tough love or emotional distance

or fractured kinship structures may in fact

carry the echoes of survival strategies.

Responses shaped by generation, forced to adapt

under systems of dehumanization.

These behaviors, while sometimes misunderstood,

can be traced back to coping mechanisms developed

in the wake of disrupted family life and denied

autonomy. And that's why

matrifocality on synthesis was

more than a tradition. It was a response, a

quiet resistance, a legacy of care

rooted in generations who had to rebuild

everything history tried to erase.

>> Mr. Richardson: You know, and you see that that kind of development

really forms, unfortunately, the family

structure. And then you see that this would also

lead to women leading, of course, with the Dominican

sisters in that society, of course, because now you

have these women again. And I think that's. It's an

interesting discussion. Because nuns are not

married.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): While men held political office, it was the women

who sustained the island's social fabric. In absence

of formal authority, they became informal

powerhouses, guiding community life with

structure, consistency, and care.

The Dominican sisters, arriving as

missionaries, played a quiet but transformative

role in this evolution. Though they were not

native to Stacia, their presence,

being celibate, independent, and

often deeply embedded in education and

healthcare, offered a powerful model of

female leadership outside of marriage or

motherhood. For many station women,

these nuns mirrored their own realities.

Women navigating a society shaped by

absinthe, migration and historical

trauma, yet holding it together through

service and devotion. Their leadership was

not enforced through doctrine, but lived through example,

discipline, compassion, and public

trust. In this, they became not just

spiritual figures, but social architects

alongside the local women who carried Stacia through

war, poverty, and post emancipation

rebuilding.

>> Mr. Richardson: So what influence of an, uh, independent nun

that's married to Christ will have on

these previously enslaved society of

women who now kind of feels the same

way? These are my kids.

So you see the kind of adverb effects of

different influences definitely coming into Stacia

society, you eventually are going to see this

period of oppression really creates strong,

dominant women. And you also see

in the region, um, you know, oftentimes

people, even if you look at

today's politics, this colonialism

structure eventually will create the

former Netherlands and till east to have about

eight female prime ministers. You know,

quite a lot. Oftentimes, uh, overlooked part

of history when the Netherlands as the main

country in this play still

today, it hasn't produced one. So it shows you what

will actually, um, what women will do. And

many of the social structures that you will eventually

get into the 20th century, such as the establishment

of an artisans

committee, the establishment of a community

center, even to the establishment of proper

burial in public spaces like the public

cemetery, these will all come out of

initiatives from local women. And

you will see that local statio women will even

challenge the status quo for equal rights, for

equal pay. So when it comes to the

position of women, especially from the Caribbean,

you would see that coming out of slavery, it creates

a kind of woman dominated world

also on an island. Because I don't think many people

realize that the empowerment, that dominance of

women, the lack of the family

structure due to slavery would eventually

create, um, schools being run by

women, hospitals being run by women, libraries,

police oftentimes being run by women.

Even though the government structure was male

dominated, for quite a long time, the social

structure was woman dominated.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): This inheritance of uh, independence did not

arrive suddenly. It was built over

generations. From the trauma of forced

breeding under slavery to the isolation brought

by war and migration station women

carried the burden and the gift of

continuality. They did not merely

maintain society, they reshaped it.

They founded schools, organized health

clinics, led unions, and preserved oral

history in their hands. Care became

a form of governance, memory became

strategy. This leadership was not

a wartime measure or a temporary solution.

It evolved into cultural foundation,

one that quietly echoes across the Dutch

Caribbean, influencing islands near and

far. And this wasn't just a

theory. It was a lived reality.

As Governor Alita Francis reminds us, the

patterns of matriarchal strength she witnessed in in the

1960s and 70s were not new.

They were legacies passed down from women who had raised

families in the wake of slavery and amidst

economic displacement. While

men migrated in search of work, women

remained, anchoring households, nurturing

children and shaping the future. With every meal

prepared, every lesson taught and every

story retold, they this wasn't just

survival, it was authorship.

The rise of female leadership in Stacia didn't

break from history. It emerged from

was the evolution of practices born in bondage

transformed into tools of empowerment.

Caribbean women, denied formal power,

claimed another kind, the power to shape

lives, futures and nation.

>> : But in our history, we also

know the situation that still exists today,

where there were men who had multiple families,

and it still exists today. Most of the men

migrated to Aruba and Curacao. They

migrated to work in the oil industry,

Lago and Shell. And so

when I tried to reflect back on those days, the

women were actually in charge. They were left behind,

took care of the children, but they also had to work. They were

women actually doing manual work just to be

able to support their families along with

what their spouses would send back from

Aruba or Curacao to support the family.

And also in those days, women played a prominent role in

agriculture. I remember then we had the Dutch

farmers that would come to St. Eustatius

and the road that we know now as Concordia

Road, on which the carnival

um, village is located. If you would look at all

those homes, they were generally the same types of

homes. Those were the homes that were built by the

farmers. And, um, back then,

my grandmother came to Stacia,

um, to work in the farms. Of course, she

originated from St. Kitts, and there she was

a farmer in the cane fields. And she

got the opportunity to migrate to Saint Eustatius

and she worked seasonally with the Dutch farmers.

That is why the property over which

Wayne Air and all other aircrafts land here on

St. Eustatius, that area is called the farm because it

was, um, the farm ground of the

farmers.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): While women led at home in the fields and

across community life, the deeper strength of

Stacia rested in its values,

quietly interwoven customs that held

the island together when resources were scarce

and families were stretched across seas.

But what did leadership look like in the

everyday? What were the rhythms of

respect, the unwritten rules that lived

in voice, gesture and timing?

Anthropologists speak of social fabric,

but on, um, Stacia, that fabric was stitched daily by

hand. That discipline would love, corrected with

care and expected accountability from

every child, no matter whose they were.

This wasn't just culture. It was survival

strategy, a form of intergenerational social

scaffolding developed in response

to the fractures of slavery and the, uh, desperate caused

by migration. In the absence of formal

institutions, community became the

institution. And within it, every

elder health authority, every

child was watched not just by their mother, but

by the community. To take a glimpse into

this world, we turn to Mr. Burko, a

respected elder in the Station community, known for

preserving the island's history through stories and

folklore. Coming of h in the

1930s and 40s, his reflection

offered not just nostalgia, but a rare,

grounded portrait of society held

together not by wealth or policy, but by

respect, memory and mutual

care.

>> Mr. Burko: Parents was more

cautious and

guiding. You know,

for me then, parents now,

where everything now for me is kind of loose

but in those days I was a

big young man, 19 years and my

cousins come to visit from Aruba

and you can imagine I'm uh,

19 years old and

in the evening time if I go in the afternoon time,

if I go out with them, 9 o'clock

I had to be home. And if we come

home a, ah, little before and we stay outside by the

gate talking, when that

9:00 time come, my mother would just come,

she said, well, you know, it's time to be

now it's 9:00.

You can't do that to the 20 child,

you know, I don't care how small he is,

he tell you what he have to tell you and he going to

continue doing what he have to do. But

it was not so with us. And if

the neighbor's children, sometimes we

would go by the neighbor and pray till up

to a certain time. But when you see getting

up on 9:00, then the mother will

take us and bring us

down and you'll hear her saying, yes, I'll

bring the children and we will go

in. And if the others come by

us, when you see that time come, my

mother would take them, carry them, make sure

that they gone home. So, and the

neighbors wasn't far apart, we was all in one

cluster. But from our door here

to that door there, my mother would take

and they would take us. And you'll just hear

s, uh,

machi or safer

any of the neighbors that you was by, they

will take you home. That time of the

night. As we got a little older then, Cool

Corner was run by Mr.

Punt and just selling

drinks and you know,

candies and stuff like that.

But we couldn't dare leave from

home and go and sit on his

counter. Our parents never

allow us to do that with the bigger

men there talking, whatever they're

talking. We could not do

that. If you have a

penny a stiver then and you

wanted to get candies, you go in, you buy your

candies, but you have to leave.

You couldn't hang around. That's the difference

between and now as a

child if I go and cross the road and an elderly

person said to me, em, where you going?

You done tell them to end your business.

You tell them where you're going. And if he was

doing something that didn't know that your

parents would not tolerate,

they would talk to you and

if you try to retaliate they will take

you and give you a good flogging,

a um, good weapon. And you couldn't go

home and tell Your parents,

because they said going to tell the

parents what happened and what caused

them to do what it did. They never ill treat

you, but they give you a good flogging

until you go home and they

will come behind you and tell your parents

what took place. That can happen

today. I can recall,

um, Queen Juliana, when she

came on a visit. She came

to switch on the electricity. The

electricity came in the 50s. And where

the dive shop is now in that

building there is where they had the first set

of generators in that building.

And the bigger part of that

place is where. And they used to have guards down

there every night. They had guards

staying there night and day. So when the

little boats come in, somebody was there

to control, uh, and

the other section where they have their

gift shop and stuff like that. Now

that used to be where the

farmers would store all their provision

when they shipping to Curacao and Aruba.

When the ship come in, they take them down in bags and

they pile them up there. Then they ship

them to Curacao and Aruba and those

islands in those days.

And it used to be a lot of stuff

inside was pack and what couldn't go

inside the pack outside. And it was

taken those by robots. Tasha used to

produce a lot of provision yams and

sweet potato, sugar cane.

Name it. We had food in those days.

It wasn't like now all the way you pass on the

road, coming to me on both

sides of the road, the farmers used to have planting

and the women used to work with them.

Work some, some work.

And the wives would be there working

and the children all doing their portion.

The smaller ones had. The children had

to go and tend to the animals, milk

the cows and stuff like that, tie

them out and. And then in the afternoon

you had to take them for water. It uh, was like the

Roman animals now, you know, there was,

well control. If you come to the museum, I

can show you the stakes that my father

used for staking out the cows.

So the main cows were staked out. And if a

cow pulled a steak and it goes in somebody's garden,

they understand that, um, that something

went wrong. And

so it was. If it

was done intentionally, they would bring

it to the pound here. The police station was here, where

the fort is now. And

they would take, they had a pen outside,

like where um, the building, they store in that

building now the library used to be

upstairs and. But they had a

pen. And so

many people take the

animals that went in their garden

or whatever, take them there, they

would put them there and then the Owners will have to go and pay a

small fee to get their

animals out. And that fee,

I don't know what they did with it. You know,

I guess maybe they give it to the owners as a

child. I don't know what they read it. But they had to

pay to get their animals out. Now that they

didn't go to receive their

animals, then the police will sell it

for a small fee to anybody

who wanted to buy it. And

the dogs was not allowed to run up and

down like dogs now. I mean, I don't see any

really to that extent that would be.

But they all, every year they had to

buy a, uh, medal. And the

dog will bear that medal until the next

year. Then they buy a next one. It

was very interesting.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): What Mr. Burkle offers is more than memory.

It's a living record of how order, discipline

and neighborly care once held a community

together. But behind those everyday

customs were deep histories, sometimes

spoken, often silence. Because

not everything was told and not everything could

be. As we shift from the rhythms

of daily life to the shadows of, um, inherent

memories, we hear from Mrs. Rivers,

another respected elder in the station community

who spent her career in service as a nurse.

Her reflections carry us into the quiet

space where collective memory meets

cultural omission. What did communities say

about the history of enslavement and what remained

unspoken? Many spoke about how

things used to be about cooking on stoves, living

without electricity, farming and survival.

But often there was little conversation around

the emotional and generational impact of slavery

itself. Its presence lingered more in

the practice than an explanation.

Across Stacia, survival was passed down

not always through storytelling, but through quiet routines,

through skills, through gestures of care.

The memory of enslavement wasn't always

narrated. It was lived,

adapted, and at times

silenced. And in that way, the past

continued, woven into daily life not

through declarations, but through quiet

endurance.

>> Mrs. Rivers: I learned part of it in school, but I heard

him. Yeah, they spoke a lot about it. How, um, this. This

used to be and that used to be and what we used to

use and for

instance, like no wash machine.

No, no electric

ironing more.

And where they used to

cook.

>> Mr. Burko: Cook.

>> Mrs. Rivers: And we used to cook on. Outside

on stones

and. Well, I didn't have much of that

because I was more in the electricity

type time. But my mother and they

grew up with stones, Firestone

and cooking oxide and

baking. Baking. I know lot cuz my mother used to

bake. We had a bakery there

and she would make bread for the community

and cake and pies and

all those Types of things she used to,

we used to make. They would speak, you know,

they would say, but not everything. Only maybe a few

pieces of things in between. In between.

Me, not even my grandfather because I

remember my mother's father. Uh, I was

old enough to know him growing up. Old

enough to know him and

what he used to teach us and so forth. But

he never said anything about

growing up.

>> Unidentified (Podcast Host): What we've witnessed in this episode are not just personal

memories. They are blueprints of a society

that rewrote the rules. A, uh, community

where power lived in mother's hands, not

governors. Where dignity was taught in

silence. And where resistance looked like feeding your

neighbor from your own garden. These

stories remind us that freedom is not always

loud. Sometimes it's a woman holding

her family together. Sometimes it's

a girl learning to read from her grandmother.

And sometimes it's the quiet act of saying,

these children, they're mine. When

history tried to say otherwise,

station women turned a fragmented past

into a foundation from post

emancipation grief. They built matrilineal

strength from migration and war.

They created new rituals of care. And through

it all, they resisted the invisibility

imposed by colonialism. Not through

confrontation, but through creation.

Their legacy lives in Stacia today.

In every grandmother, in every

woman who leads without waiting to be

asked. In every child raised

by a community. They are the

Amazonian of the Caribbean.

So we ask, what does it

mean that so many Caribbean women were

emancipated in action before they were ever

emancipated on paper? And what

would it mean for the world if we valued

care as much as we valued conquest?

If we honored mothers of history with the

same reference that we give to men?

As we conclude this episode, we are

constantly reminded how the seeds sown by women

still shape the soul of modern day

Stacia. Because history

isn't something we remember, it's something

we inherent. And the past,

it never truly ends. It

echoes.

>> Mr. Burko: Sa.