by Candyce H. Stapen In the early morning light, the pastel blue, yellow, and pink buildings along Handelskade fronting Curaçao’s harbor seem too picture-book pretty to be real. On a stroll here and through Oranjestad, Aruba, and Philipsburg, St. Maarten, both more bustling than scenic, you discover Dutch street names, gabled roofs, and cafes where keshi yena (Gouda or Edam cheese stuffed with meat or fish) is as common as strong coffee. That’s because Curaçao, Aruba, and St. Maarten—the Dutch half of a two-nation island—bear an indelible Dutch legacy. Centuries ago intrepid Dutch explorers set sail for Columbus’s New World, landing, among other places, on these Caribbean islands. Curaçao and St. Maarten, along with the islands of Saba, St. Eustatius, and Bonaire, make up the Netherlands Antilles, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Aruba is an autonomous member of the Netherlands. Architecture, food, and a strong merchant class are part of the Dutch legacy that stretches back nearly 400 years. Some tradesmen trafficked not only in goods but also in people. Both St. Maarten and Curaçao had slaves, with Curaçao serving as a major slave port. On these islands you can trace the Dutch heritage, and also savor sugary soft beaches, snorkel reefs teeming with tropical fish, and sail the coastline, imagining the possibilities the first Dutch settlers envisioned as they came onshore. Curaçao
Curaçao’s natural harbor, Schottegat, as well as the historic areas of Punda, were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. The row of stately pastel gabled buildings is, arguably, the prettiest harbor in the Caribbean and a striking legacy of the island’s centuries-old Dutch heritage. Legend has it that an early Dutch governor blamed his severe headaches on the strong glare of the sun reflecting on the town’s white buildings, so he decreed that the structures be painted anything but white. The Dutch influence began July 29, 1634, when Johan van Walbeeck sailed into Curaçao with a small fleet and ousted the Spanish. Desired for its potential as a naval base and for its salt, Curaçao, with its proximity to South America, became more valuable as a port for the trade of goods and people. At the Maritime Museum in Willemstad, you can find out about trade routes, naval battles, sea captains, and the role of the Dutch West Indian Company in ferrying goods to Europe and slaves to the Caribbean. By 1788, when the last slave galleon docked in Curaçao’s harbor, the West Indian Company had transported 500,000 Africans into slavery.
Others came to Curaçao as refugees. Jews who had been living in Amsterdam since the Inquisition, began to arrive in Curaçao from Holland in 1651. Mikve Israel-Emanuel is the oldest continually operating synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. The structure, consecrated in 1732, features cobalt-blue windows, mahogany benches, and, in keeping with ancient tradition, sand blanketing the floor. Enroute to the island’s attractions, you may pass a landhuis, one of the small, 18th-century country houses that remain from the days of Dutch plantations. Landhuis Jan Kok, now an art gallery, features native Nena Sanchez’s work, and Landhuis Daniel Country Inn and Restaurant serves nouvelle Creole cuisine. In multi-cultural Curaçao you can find just about any type of food. Jaanchie’s on the beach dishes up iguana stew as well as burgers. Rysttafel Indonesia presents this classic Dutch-Indonesian mega-course feast, and at Old Marshe, the old market, you can sample piska hasa, Curaçao-style red snapper, as well as Dutch favorite keshi yena. Aruba As our Jeep bumps along Aruba’s rugged northeast coast, a landscape of rocky shores and fast-breaking surf, we admire the constant splash of whitecaps on the boulders and enjoy the wind-in-our-face ride. Along the way, we stop at the Chapel of Alto Vista, a Catholic church whose congregation dates to 1750, a natural bridge carved by the unrelenting water and wind, as well as at the ruins of the 19th-century smelter for the Bushiribana gold mine. Its thick, stone walls rise apparition-like from the deserted plain. The 1824 discovery of gold made Aruba even more desirable.
Bustling Oranjestad blooms with examples of the island’s Dutch influence. The Access Art Gallery frequently presents Dutch artists. The oldest example of Dutch architecture on the island, Fort Zoutman, was completed in 1796 and named for a Dutch Rear Admiral who outwitted a British convoy on the North Sea.
Home-cooking on Aruba frequently means Dutch fare. Café the Plaza hosts herring parties and serves such typical dishes as bitterballen (meatballs) and fricandel (Dutch sausage). Papiamento Restaurant is known for its keshi yena and Eetcafe the Paddock, next to the fruit market in the harbor, claims fame as the only true Dutch bar serving popular daily platters. Like Curaçao, Aruba spreads out in a dry desert landscape of red dirt, cactus, and volcanic rock interspersed with divi-divi trees, their branches bent back from the 10- to 25-knot breezes. The hot, dry climate unsuited for agriculture helped spare the island from cultivating slavery. The constant breezes make Aruba a windsurfing mecca, host to international competitions. At Hadikurari Beach you can watch the experts skim the waves. St. Maarten My son grinds the winch, my daughter trims the sails, and I keep a steadfast eye on our competitor, another sleek yacht, as she crosses the finish line just 30 seconds ahead of us. Losing was never so much fun. With America’s Cup Yacht Races, we gain nautical skills on boats that competed in the famous race, appropriate on St. Maarten, home of the celebrated Heineken Regatta held each March.
On March 23, 1648, the Dutch and the French signed a treaty dividing the island. A local tale has it that a Frenchman and a Dutchman started back-to-back in the center of the island, pacing off territory as they walked to the coast. Because the Frenchman took water with him while the Dutchman fortified himself with beer, the Frenchman covered more land, explaining why the French side measures 21 square miles to the Dutch side’s 16. The less charming "truth" is that the superior French naval presence buttressed the unequal split. Two forts attest to the island’s political fluctuations. Although little remains of Fort Amsterdam except a few walls, the structure, built in 1631, served as the first Dutch military outpost in the Caribbean. The Spanish captured the bastion in 1633 and then abandoned it in 1648 to the Dutch. In 1763, Scotsman John Philips, employed by the Dutch, established the Dutch capital of Philipsburg along this protected bay. Although the television transmission tower sprouting out of Fort Willem detracts from the militaristic feel, those who hike the steep hill still reap a panoramic view.
The Dutch side also boasts casinos, as well as some of the best snorkeling and shopping. Little Bay Beach features calm waters and good visibility of the schools of tropical fish, as does Pinel Island, a shallow reef just off the coast. Some of the best island catches, however, are to be found in the stores lining Philipsburg’s Front and Back streets. Shop wisely and you’re likely to reel in a good buy on crystal, jewelry, liquor, and china. The Guavaberry Shop sells liqueurs made from the indigenous fruit, and the Dutch Delft Blue Gallery features hand-crafted Delft platters, bowls, and other items. Candyce Stapen is author of National Geographic Guide to Caribbean Family Vacations. She can almost finish a full Rysttafel, a feast she can’t find in her native Washington, D.C. Good To Know
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In Willemstad, each morning on the Punda side of the canal, the schooners from Venezuela and Colombia tie up, their hammocks and brown T-shirts flapping in the breeze. It’s only 8:30 am, but these merchants have been here for hours, carefully arranging their stacks of papayas, sweet potatoes, red peppers, and baby mangoes. Watermelons, cut open to reveal pink pulp, edge the front of some stalls like a rock border. As my daughter and I stroll by, the fish stall vendors shout out the names of their catch, "Dorado, piscadara, purunche!" At the souvenir booth, the carved wooden birds on the mobiles sway with the crowd of shoppers.
Situated on a former slave yard, the Museum Kurá Hulanda, in Otrabanda section, showcases the island’s African heritage through sculpture and carvings, and also provides the Caribbean’s most detailed exhibit on slavery. View the traps and cages used to capture people, and see a replica of a slave ship hold that mashed hundreds into a space 50 humans would find crowded. The best way to visit with children is to attend the evening living history skit, when characters and plights put a face to the abstract notion of slavery. Afterwards, during the docent-led tour of the museum, kids can ask questions.
The Dutch presence, however, long predates the gold rush. In 1636, near the culmination of the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and Holland, the Dutch took possession of Aruba, although no European settlers arrived until the 1750s. In 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, the English claimed Aruba, and the French gained control in 1810. As a result of Napoleon’s defeat and the redrawing of political alliances, the Dutch regained control of Aruba in 1816. In 1986, Aruba became a self-governing member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Willem III Tower, added in 1868, once served as a lighthouse. Now the structure displays Aruba’s first public clock and houses the Aruba Historical Museum. De Oude Molen, the second-oldest example of Dutch architecture, rises atop the now-closed Mill Restaurant. This former working mill built in 1804 in Friesland, Holland, was reconstructed in Aruba in 1974.
Christopher Columbus, first sighting the island on November 11, 1493, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, named the landmass for the saint. The arrival of the Dutch in 1631 sparked renewed Spanish interest and a skirmish, which drove the Dutch away. Through the years the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English all laid claim to the island. In 1644, a Dutch fleet commanded by Peter Stuyvesant—later New York’s governor—led a three-week unsuccessful siege during which a Spanish cannonball shattered his leg, necessitating an amputation.
The Emilio Wilson Historical & Cultural Park in Dutch Cul de Sac traces a slave’s life on an island plantation. You can tour the restored Doctor’s yard, sugar mill, boiling house, and school, plus the gardens where cassava, sweet potato, corn, and sugarcane grow.
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