Golden Rock is the name of an archaeological site in the centre of the island of Sint Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean, named after a nearby former plantation. Golden Rock was the nickname of Sint Eustatius from its prominence as a major colonial trading port in the late 17th and early 18th century. The site contains the remains of a late Saladoid village, an African burial ground, and a village of enslaved Africans.
In 1923, the first proof that once Indigenous peoples of the Americas lived on Sint Eustatius was found by J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, an ethnologist from the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Netherlands. The remains of a Saladoid village were found in the middle of the culture plain at five locations around the present airport. De Josselin de Jong called the cluster the Golden Rock site.
In 1984, a large-scale archaeological research started that continued up to 1987. 2800 square meter was investigated, the largest pre-Colombian excavation in the Lesser Antilles at that time. [1] Two structures circular in shape were found just north of the midden, a very large one and a smaller one. The research showed that the most probable function of the large house in the pre-Colombian era was that of a maloca. [2]
During the excavations the remains of nine indigenous individuals were unearthed. These human remains had since been stored in a depot of Leiden University in the Netherlands and were repatriated to Sint Eustatius in March 2023. [3]
In June 2021, an international team of archaeologists began excavations at possibly the largest African burial site in the Caribbean apart from the Newton Slave Burial Ground in Barbados. [4] [5] The location of this burial site was in the same area as the Amerindian archaeological finds. The burial ground was part of the former plantation Golden Rock, one of the largest plantations of Sint Eustatius in the colonial era and also located in the central plain.
The Golden Rock excavations were halted due to protests by the local community who were deliberately not informed as concluded by a research commissioned by the Sint Eustatius government. [6] [7]
The Netherlands Antilles was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea. The islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies. The Antilles were dissolved in 2010. The Dutch colony of Surinam, although relatively close by on the continent of South America, did not become part of the Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status. People from this former territory continue to be called Antilleans in the Netherlands.
The history of the Caribbean reveals the significant role the region played in the colonial struggles of the European powers since the 15th century. In the modern era, it remains strategically and economically important. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean and claimed the region for Spain. The following year, the first Spanish settlements were established in the Caribbean. Although the Spanish conquests of the Aztec empire and the Inca empire in the early sixteenth century made Mexico and Peru more desirable places for Spanish exploration and settlement, the Caribbean remained strategically important.
Sint Eustatius, known locally as Statia, is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality of the Netherlands.
Oranjestad is a small town of 1,038 inhabitants; it is the capital and largest town of the island of Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands. It’s not to be confused with the far larger Oranjestad in Aruba.
The SSS islands, locally also known as the Windward Islands, is a collective term for the three territories of the Dutch Caribbean that are located within the Leeward Islands group of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. In order of population size, they are: Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. In some contexts, the term is also used to refer to the entire island of Saint Martin, alongside Sint Eustatius and Saba.
The music of the former Netherlands Antilles is a mixture of native, African and European elements, and is closely connected with trends from neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Colombia and islands such as Puerto Rico, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Haiti, Martinique, Trinidad, Dominica, and Guadeloupe. The former Netherlands Antilles islands of Curaçao and Aruba are known for their typical waltzes, danzas, mazurkas and a kind of music called tumba, which is named after the conga drums that accompany it.
The Saladoid culture is a pre-Columbian Indigenous culture of territory in present-day Venezuela and the Caribbean that flourished from 500 BCE to 545 CE. The Saladoid were an Arawak people. Concentrated along the lowlands of the Orinoco River, the people migrated by sea to the Lesser Antilles, and then to Puerto Rico.
Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean region of the Americas. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of 34 km2 (13 sq mi), it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the northern 56% of the island constitutes the French overseas collectivity of Saint Martin. Sint Maarten's capital is Philipsburg. Collectively, Sint Maarten and the other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean.
Golden Rock may refer to:
F. D. Roosevelt Airport is the airport located on the island of Sint Eustatius, Caribbean Netherlands. It was opened as "Golden Rock Airport" in 1946 and renamed for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As of 2012, the only commercial aircraft that serves the island is the DHC-6 Twin Otter, although the runway can accommodate larger turboprop aircraft and some smaller jets. As of 2023, the largest aircraft type to operate at the airport is the ATR 42.
The Caribbean Netherlands is a geographic region of the Netherlands located outside of Europe, in the Caribbean, consisting of three so-called special municipalities. These are the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, as they are also known in legislation, or the BES islands for short. The islands are officially classified as public bodies in the Netherlands and as overseas territories of the European Union; as such, European Union law does not automatically apply to them.
Barbara J. Heath is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville who specializes in historical archaeology of eastern North America and the Caribbean. Her research and teaching focus on the archaeology of the African diaspora, colonialism, historic landscapes, material culture, public archaeology and interpretation, and Thomas Jefferson.
Islam is a minority religion in the Netherlands Antilles. There are about 2,500 Muslims in the Islands, 1000 of which are in the Caribbean Netherlands, or 0.31% of the population. Most Muslims are emigrants from Lebanon, Syria and Suriname.
The small Caribbean Island of Saba boasts a mere surface area of 13 km2 (5.0 sq mi). However, archaeological surveys and excavations, mainly by Leiden University between 1987 and 2006, have presented Saba as an integral part of the pre-Columbian island network in the Northeastern Caribbean. Archaeological finds from Saba include objects that were traded throughout the Caribbean, such as flint from Antigua, greenstone from St. Martin and pottery from the Greater Antilles. These examples indicate that pre-Columbian communities on Saba were not isolated but fully aware of communities and resources on other islands. Numerous archaeological sites have been uncovered on Saba, dating from around c. 1875 BC up until the point of European contact.
The Waterfort, also called Fort Amsterdam, is a fortress on the southwest coast of Sint Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean, of which only ruins remain. It is one of the sixteen known fortresses on Sint Eustatius and is threatened by sea currents and surf.
There are 14 known cemeteries on St. Eustatius a special municipality of the Netherlands, some of which are still in use.
The Godet African Burial Ground is an unmarked historical burial ground for enslaved African men, women and children located at the southwest coast of Sint Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean. The burial ground was part of the former Godet plantation on the island.
The Golden Rock African Burial Ground is an unmarked historical burial ground of enslaved African men, women and children located on the premises of the airport on Sint Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean in the ‘Cultuurvlakte’. The burial ground was part of the former Golden Rock plantation on the island.
The plantations of Sint Eustatius were primarily set up in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by European settlers. Workers on the plantations were obtained from human trafficking, and the proceeds primarily went back to the mother country. In the second half of the eighteenth century, trade became more of a priority to Sint Eustatius rather than the plantation economy.
Fort Oranje is a historic fortress located in Sint Eustatius in the Dutch Caribbean. It is located in Oranjestad, the island's capital, on a cliff overlooking Oranje Bay. It was named after the House of Oranje, the royal family of the Netherlands.