I think she really gets me.

This is really an amazing museum we went to today.  It documents the beginning of mankind, from its start in Africa to the slave trade.  That’s pretty ambitious for a museum but it does it very well.  The museum is divided up into 9 separate, and here’s the important part, AIR CONDITIONED, rooms, each documenting different time periods.  The Beginning is evolution, focusing on the much debated (according to them not me) start of all human civilization in Africa.  Next is the Lands of Abraham, an incredible display of clay tablets, pottery, bronze artifacts and artwork dating 2500 years BC.  Then it’s on to the slave trade, including the partial replication of the holding area on a slave ship.  Curacao played a major role in the slave trade, being a facility for the Dutch West Indies company, where young children were shipped in to become “trained and broken” before being sold off , mainly in the Americas.  The last rooms deal with emancipation and civil rights. 

We learned so much.  The artwork and artifacts were overwhelming.  You could easily spend hours there and not take it all in.  The major theme I think the museum tried to convey was that all these rich, advanced civilizations, such as Egypt, and these major figures in religion, such as Abraham, all came from the cradle of civilization in Africa, as we all did.  Yet somewhere down the line, the people of Africa became expendable.  In fact, according to the Dred Scott case of 1857 the Supreme Court ruled the Africans were

Very eye opening.  There may be museums like this in the United States but I’ve never seen them, and I’m glad Tristan and Tessa had the opportunity to see it.  If you are ever in Curacao it’s a must see.