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The Development of Willemstad from a Settlement to a City

by Professor René A. Römer

The specific character of the Caribbean can also be found in the history of this settlement. Caribbean societies are characterized by the fact that they are basically profoundly hybrid in their structure and in their culture, but present themselves at first view as a harmonious whole. For four centuries there has been an encounter of different peoples and different cultures, which in the end resulted in a kind of amalgamation of these elements. Nevertheless, in this new structure that developed the original elements are still there and easy to recognize. Like a work of art, which it is in a certain sense, reality in the Caribbean looks different depending upon the angle from which you look.

Activity on Handelskade; the moored vessel is
the American steamship Zulia, 1900-1910

Take for example the Handelskade: a superficial glance gives the impression of a replica of some Dutch facade as we know them from pictures of the big mansions along the canals of Amsterdam or, for that matter, any other Dutch city; A closer look, however, reveals some fundamental deviations from the original Dutch architecture. The same goes for San Juan, Puerto Rico. The city has the appearance of a Spanish town and the atmosphere still has a Spanish touch, but the notable American influences of the last century, has rendered it definitely not Spanish. Both Willemstad and San Juan, and Havana, for that matter, are typically the result of a process of give and take among different cultural traits in a process that took place over the course of time. In fact they are thoroughly Caribbean in the new form, which resulted from this process of amalgamation. This can be seen not only in the architecture, but also in cuisine, music and dance.
 

Should this bring us to the conclusion that Willemstad is not Dutch? I think this question can be answered both in a positive and in a negative sense. The gables remind us of the Dutch gables and the grid of Punda reminds us of other Dutch colonial cities, such as Paramaribo, Suriname in South America, Cape Town in South Africa or Colombo in Sri Lanka. Here in Curaçao, however, the Dutch building tradition was adapted to the climatological circumstances: the high temperatures on the one side and the cooling effect of the trade winds on the other side. But apart from these architectural adaptations, a very important element in determining the different aspect of Willemstad, as not typically Dutch was the dynamic interchange of Iberian cultural elements, of a qualitatively important group of Sephardic Jews, and the African culture of the slaves, with the Dutch dominated Northern-European, Protestant culture resulting in a local variant of the typical Afro-Caribbean culture. The Afro Caribbean mixture here is a different blend. Curaçao, to my knowledge, is the only place where these three elements, the Nordic, the Mediterranean and the African, had the opportunity to interact in such an intensive way and for such a long period of time.

Willemstad is unique! It is not typically Dutch, or Iberian, or African. The historic growth of Willemstad was a unique process. After these general remarks, let us try to go more in detail into the historic process of the development of Willemstad as it is now.