Our Mysterious Blue Beads

In the Leeuwarden Museum in Friesland, blue beads were seen in a display of prehistoric finds from Europe. At the Louvre in Paris, blue beads were included in a collection pertaining to a Pharaoh. In a museum in Palermo they were labelled as a Temple find dating 600 years before Christ.

In India the beads were identified as having been made in the Middle Ages at Holhapur and Kondaqur and having gone with Asiatic seafarers into Masingo or Southern Rhodesia.

In Indonesia they were part of a "two thousand year old, temple find from the island of Flores." The beads were found in a necklace worn by the famous Zulo King Dingaan, who was killed by the South African Boers on December 16, 1838. Thor Heyerdahl mentions, in his book Aku Aku, finding similar blue beads on a dig in the Easter Islands.

On Kano in North Nigeria a pitcher was found containing 2,700 blue beads. How could this be? What was the truth and they connection between these and our blue beads?

The solution to this riddle was found by Dr. W. G. N. van der Sleen, a chemist and professor of natural history from Naarden, Holland. Dr. van der Sleen was, by all means a fascinating and tireless investigator of the mysteries of their world. He had found the beads in Masingo and traced them to India. But something was not right because he remembered that in the 1920's a friend of his, who as the wife of the Administrator in Statia had sent him some very similar blue beads along with a collection of shells from the beaches of Statia. At that time he was an avid shell collector. He found, when he searched for those beads, that he must have given them away.

Years later, in 1959, he was once again reminded of the beads when an employee of the Royal Antiquities Soil Science brought him shards and fragments of the blue glass found in a newly ploughed field in Graveland. He knew that the shards were of amore recent date than the age given to the glass and that they probably represented rubble from an old glass factory. He went to the field where the rinds were made and dug through more than nine acres of ground, uncovering a handful of beads, pipe bows, shards and pieces of Delft, majolica and German pottery. The pipe bows were easy to date since they show Sir Walter Raleigh being swallowed by a crocodile and some were dated about 1660. He knew these articles were made in Holland between 1617 and the 1660's. But where?

Through a coincidence he found that similar beads had been discovered near the Amsterdam Ringdijk. He talked to an old gardener, who had worked in the area for more than 40 years and saw his collection of the Moerbi Quenecagon (five-sided) and Chevron beads that had been found in the area. These beads were identical to the ones from Statia and other areas.

Through careful research he discovered that the area in Amsterdam and the areas of Graveland had been used as a dump and fill sites for the rubbish of Amsterdam in those times. From 1660 to 1680 the glass factory had made crystalline mirrors and paternoster beads for the Dutch East India Company. The owner, Han Henrixz Soop, had in 1613 made known to the Governor that he had bought glassmakers from Murano and Venice for the purpose of making mirrors and beads "for the primitive people."

It now became clear that seafaring ships of Dutch East India Company had taken those beads all over the world. The only thing left to prove was that the beads of Amsterdam matched the beads found in Statia and other parts of the world. He wrote to museums and others asking for pieces of the beads and had them examined by the Experimentale del Veto in Venice.

Sure enough all the beads were identical, being made of potash instead of soda as was common. He then went back to the finds around the world and began probing that the beads were in areas where the Dutch East India Company had traded through the 1660's and onward. The ships' manifests from that time also revealed the beads had been shipped as cargo to those areas. With great chagrin in the "authorities" in museums around the world had to reliable their finds and admit errors. We know that thirty blue beads were used by the Dutch in the purchase of Manhattan from the Indians.

Many of these beads were stored in St. Eustatius and were used as pavement for wages and a as articles of barter up until the time of emancipation. The wearing of beads as adornment and as a sign of wealth was customary throughout the islands.

After emancipation the folklore of the island states that the locals went to the cliffs and threw their beads into the sea, thus signifying their release from slavery and ability to earn real money. The truth of this folklore is unknown, but most of the based detected on Statia are found at the base of these cliffs or in the sea.

The search for beads is still on of the favourite pastimes of locals and visitors alike. Early in the morning searchers can be seen along the waterfront, with heads bent and backs bowed, hoping to find the elusive blue beads. It said once you have found a bead you will ever more belong to Statia and will return again and again.

We appreciate, that like Staia itself, our blue beads have played an important role in the history of the world and we are grateful to Dr. van der Sleen, who died in the 1960's, for his curiosity and enthusiasm in solving the mysteries of our blue beads.

Thanks to Mrs. R. Rosema for the translation of "Beadology" in Panorama, 22 April 1961.