EVENT: Last edition of "Lights on: Freedom Fighters" this weekend

This Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 19:30 p.m., discover the fourth and final part of the "Lights on: Freedom Fighters" project with the story of the life of the slave Quashiba. The performances will take place on the seafront of Marigot at the new information kiosk of the Tourist Office.

The dates are to be remembered: Friday 26, Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 August at 19:30 p.m. so as not to miss this last educational, artistic and human experience. As a reminder, in the wake of the 174th commemoration of the abolition of slavery in Saint Martin, the Tourist Office and Stéphie Gumbs launched "Lights on: Freedom Fighters", a free artistic and cultural concept offering theatrical performances embellished with a sound and light experience (visual art by Nozin Prod) which tells the story of emblematic local characters, actors of the resistance in the time of slavery, a show performed in French and in Saint-Martin English. The first editions were thus able to see the life told of characters such as One Tété Lohkay, a slave who takes her nickname One-Tete from the removal of a breast, a punishment reserved for her for escaping from the plantation; George Daniel, herbalist slave in Quartier d'Orléans who confessed to a series of poisonings, criminal acts committed in a process of resistance and the fight against slavery and finally François-Auguste Perrinon, first free of color admitted to Polytechnique and fervent activist of the abolitionist cause who participated in the commission chaired by Victor Schoelcher which will lead to the decree of the abolition of slavery in 1848. For this final edition of Lights on: Freedom Fighters, the organizers have decided to highlight the Quashiba slave. The research work will be more thorough than for its predecessors because Quashiba is less known. While living in slavery on St. Martin, she managed to escape by boat to Anguilla in 1835 with five other slaves, including her two children, Sammy and Jane. Five years later, Quashiba's partner, Matthew Stancliff, bravely returned to St. Maarten to retrieve Quashiba's sister, Minny, and her children, so they too could live in freedom. Quashiba and his family are symbols in the struggle for freedom. A street in Amsterdam bears his name "Quashibastraat", in homage. Meet this Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 19:30 p.m. at the OT kiosk in Marigot to attend the singular staging of this woman who fought for her life, her family and her rights. _VX