In 1499 the Spanish were the first Europeans to land on the island of Curaçao and in honor of the tall seafaring natives called it the Island of Giants. After exploiting the native population the Spaniards had no further use for the island and in 1634 the Dutch West Indies Company spotted the potential of the Sint Annabaai Channel as a natural harbor. To this day Curaçao is the seventh largest natural harbor in the world, not to mention the largest in the region. After the Dutch established the harbor and the island as a major trading destination it prospered for many years trading especially in salts, sugar, gold and slaves. As the sugar and gold trades diminished and slavery was abolished in 1863 the island of Curaçao slipped in to decline.
On the twenty first of March, 1651, the Directors of the Dutch West India Company wrote to Governor Pieter Stuyvesant:
“Although we have once before written about the island of Curaçao, ‘that, if we should have no revenue whatever from there it might be advisable to abandon it . . . ’ the enclosed contract made with a Jew, Jan de Illan will prove to you the contrary. He intends to bring a considerable number of people there to settle and cultivate, as he pretends, the land but we begin to suspect that he and his associates have quite another object in view, namely to trade from there to the West Indies and the Main. Be that as it may, we are willing to make the experiment, and you must therefore charge Director Rodenborch to accommodate him within proper limits, and in conformity with the conditions of his contract.”
The discovery of oil in the Caribbean Sea in the early 20th century resulted in a major oil refinery being built on the island, and the subsequent influx of workers created what is now a mixed society of some 150,000 people. The oil boom years were over by the late 20th century, by which time Curaçao tourism was becoming an important industry on the island. With its own island council Curaçao is currently seeking to become an autonomous associated state under the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
May 20, 1890, Bismarck Daily Tribune
Bismarck, North Dakota
A Curious Drawbridge
"One of tbe most, curious drawbridges in
the world," said an officer of a West India
fruit steamer, "is (The Queen Emma Ponton Bridge) in the harbor called St.
Ann's bay, in the Island of Curacao. It is
a pontoon bridge, and one of the pontoons is
a steamer. The steamer was built in Caraden.
Mo. It is a scow 40 feet long, 12 feet
wide and 7 feet deep. There is a single shaft
that runs clear through tbe boat, and has a
40 inch screw propeller on each end. The shaft
is turned by two 9x12 steam engines. When
the draw is to be opened the captain of teh steam pontoon casts off tbe lines, gives a toot
on the whistle, and sets the propellers a whirling, and thereupon half the bridge swings round far enough to let the coming ship pass through.
Then the wheel it reversed and the
gap is dosed.—Exchange.
