WILLEMSTAD - In March 2023, the UNESCO Memory of the World Committee will make a decision on the nomination file of the Curaçao National Archives, which, in collaboration with the National Archives of Suriname and the Netherlands, the National Archaeological and Anthropological Memory Management (NAAM) and the government of St. Maarten was submitted in November 2021.
The joint nomination was about the Documentary Heritage of the Enslaved People of the Dutch Caribbean.
The National Archives of Suriname has submitted the nomination file to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The nomination file includes, among other things, the slave registers, manumission and emancipation registers, civil status documents of freed persons, the archives of the Inland population of Suriname as well as a special collection of oral stories from the enslaved of Curaçao.
This nomination by the National Archives has been supported by the History Department of the Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Humanities Faculty, NAKS, the National UNESCO Commission Suriname (NUCS) and the National Reparation Commission Suriname.
Darkest period
The registers contain formal and official documentation of enslaved people in the Caribbean that includes names, births and deaths. It is therefore a unique collection of documents that can shed some light on and give a better understanding of the mechanisms behind one of the darkest periods in human history.
In addition, connections can be made from the documents with the Dutch, French and British networks in the Caribbean, which were part of the global network of slavery and the slave trade. Specifically, it includes the archives of the West India Company (WIC) and the slave registers of the British Caribbean that were previously registered in the MoW register. For many people, the documents are an indispensable link in their search for their past and (re)valuation of their own.
In 2021, UNESCO has issued a call to all member countries to submit nominations (2022-2023 nomination cycle) for inclusion in the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register. It only includes documentary heritage that is important for world history and has an exceptional universal value for humanity. Attention is paid to the authenticity of (original) documents, the relevance of the documents to the world, sustainable management and accessibility to the public.
At present, the submitted nominations are reviewed by the technical committee, after which it is submitted to the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
With regard to the collections of the Curaçao National Archives, this concerned the Slave Registers 1839-1863, the digital access to those Slave Registers, the birth, death and baptism registers of enslaved people 1831-1863, the collection Juliana-Brenneker 1856-1914 (1940).