The repatriation to St. Eustatius is not an isolated event but part of a shifting Dutch policy. The Netherlands has recently committed to returning thousands of colonial-era items, including the "Java Man" fossils to Indonesia in 2025 and 2026. Experts like those at the Research Center for Material Culture are actively developing new frameworks for handling ancestral remains to ensure future returns are conducted with transparency and community consent. Afrikan Burial Grounds St. Eustatius recognized by UNESCO
: The bone fragments belonged to the Carib (Kalinago) people, who lived on the island before Spanish and later European colonization. The repatriation to St
The repatriated remains belong to three original inhabitants of the island, including an adult male, a female, and her unborn child. Dated to be approximately 1,000 years old Experts like those at the Research Center for
“We sang the release song,” said Eliza Marten, a Kalinago spiritual leader who traveled from Dominica for the ceremony. “We called their spirits to leave the cold halls of the museum and return to the warm wind of our island. We could feel them listening.” The repatriated remains belong to three original inhabitants
They have traveled across the ocean twice now. The first time, they were cargo. This time, they were guests of honor, finally home to stay.
At the time, Dutch colonial archaeologists, often operating with impunity, shipped thousands of Indigenous skeletons, skulls, and funerary objects to the Netherlands. They were cataloged, measured, and displayed in institutions such as the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology) and Leiden University’s anatomical collections. The remains were studied for “racial science,” a pseudoscientific field that sought to classify and hierarchize human populations, providing intellectual cover for colonial domination.
For St. Eustatius, a small island of just over 3,000 people known for its blue waters and the ruins of a once-thriving slave-based economy, the return of the three ancestors is a deeply symbolic step toward reclaiming its pre-colonial identity.
