Culture
Emancipation Day 2025: USM lecture on the 'Zout steeg Three' and premiere of documentary 'AWO, NOW, NU'
For Emancipation Day on 1 July 2025, the Department of Culture and the University of St. Martin hosted a lecture by Dr. Jay Haviser on three enslaved Africans whose remains were found in Philipsburg in 2010, and the premiere of the first episode of Roland Roi Colastica's documentary 'AWO, NOW, NU', according to the government.
By SXM Daily ·
Reported 9 July 2025.
To mark Emancipation Day on 1 July 2025, the Department of Culture and the University of St. Martin (USM) hosted a lecture and a documentary premiere, according to the Government of Sint Maarten.
The Zout steeg Three
Dr. Jay Haviser of SIMARC gave a lecture titled "Remember Africa's Children the Power of 3". According to the government, he described the 2010 recovery of three human skeletons in Philipsburg, confirmed to be first-generation Africans who worked salt as enslaved labourers around 1660 to 1680.
Genetic research by the University of Copenhagen, with additional strontium isotope analysis, traced where the three came from, the government said. Found on Zout steeg, they became known as the Zout steeg Three, and Archaeology Magazine listed the find among the top ten archaeological discoveries of 2015. Haviser also presented long-term plans to return the remains to their homelands in West Africa.
'AWO, NOW, NU'
Educator Roland Roi Colastica premiered the first of three episodes of his documentary "AWO, NOW, NU", which uses video interviews to explore what young people in the Dutch Caribbean know about slavery and its legacy. According to the government, he intended to roll it out to the other islands.
The Department of Culture holds the Emancipation Day commemoration at a different venue each year, the government said.
For background, see Emancipation on Saint Martin: freedom in 1848 and 1863, and Emancipation Day and Sint Maarten National Heritage Foundation wins Dutch research grant to study slavery and emancipation. The 2022 commemoration is covered in Emancipation Day 2022: 'Ancestral Echos'.
Sources
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