World Tokens

St Eustatius, A bracelet of 42 blue beads, 32cm in length, colloquially known as ‘Statia Blues’ (Roehrs, NI Bulletin, March 2001, p.71, this illustrated; cf. van der Sleen, Handbook on Beads, p.108). In good order £60-80

Provenance: Bought from a fisherman on the beach at St Eustatius, 1985.

The legend has it that these bracelets were thrown in the sea by slaves when freed, ‘large blues are still washed up on the shore where before 1750 the large warehouse of the Dutch West India Co had stood’ (van der Sleen). Another myth is that the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians for 30 Statia blue beads. Recent research by van der Sleen in the 1960s has traced all the Statia beads to a single glass factory in Amsterdam, employing glassmakers from Murano and Venice. Via the Dutch East India Co and the slave trade between Africa and the West Indies, the beads found their way to St Eustatius. A photocopy of the Roehrs article is sold with the lot