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Emancipation Day 2024: Emilio Wilson Park commemoration recalled resistance to slavery

St. Maarten marked 161 years since the abolition of slavery on Monday 1 July 2024 with an ecumenical service and cultural programme at Emilio Wilson Park under the theme 'Before', The Daily Herald reported.

By SXM Daily · July 3, 2024

Reported 3 July 2024.

St. Maarten marked the 161st anniversary of the abolition of slavery on Monday 1 July 2024 at Emilio Wilson Park in Cul de Sac, The Daily Herald reported. Officials, performers and spectators dressed in red for the morning commemoration.

The 2024 theme was "Before". According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, it was chosen to reflect the time before enslavement, the long road to emancipation and the steps the enslaved community took to win its freedom, the Herald said.

Music, poetry and resistance

An ecumenical service was followed by a cultural programme with local musicians, singers, poets, dancers and storytellers, according to the Herald. Governor Ajamu Baly was among the speakers.

One segment focused on resistance: a group of nine read letters almost 200 years old, in which local officials asked neighbouring territories to return people who had escaped slavery, along with laws meant to keep the enslaved in bondage, the paper reported. Resistance and escapes to the French side led to de facto freedom in June 1848, 15 years before emancipation was proclaimed on 1 July 1863.

The commemoration ended with officials and spectators dancing to Respeck Band's "Freedom" in the park, the site of a former 18th-century sugar plantation, according to the Herald.

Sources

• The Daily Herald: Emilio Wilson park awash in red to mark 161 years since emancipation (3 July 2024)

Source: https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/emilio-wilson-park-awash-in-red-to-mark-161-years-since-emancipation