Daniël & surroundings
The plantation Daniël is part of the Tera Kòrá zone in Bándabou. This zone includes:
- Two large residential neighbourhoods, Grote Berg and Tera Kòrá;
- The smaller neighbourhoods Dominguito, Martha Koosje, Sosiegu near Kleine Berg, Castelita, Bai Klaas, Pos di Wanga, Duzu, Shon Manuela and Krakeel;
- And also the former plantations Daniël, Fontein, Harmonie, Kleine Berg, Kunuku Abou (now Kashutuin), Kunuku Largu and Siberie.
On this page: Daniël and surroundings, starting at Kunuku Largu (near Malpais) up to and including Bahada di Daniël.
The rest of the zone follows on the page Tera Kòrá and surroundings (see also the schematic map).
Siberie and Fontein are covered on their own pages.
From east to west along the Weg naar Westpunt, the following lie one after another:
Kunuku Largu
Just before Grote Berg, opposite the plantation house Papaya, right next to the landfill and the transmitter hut, lies Daanchi Bon, also known as Cunucu Largu di Malpais. A certain Daniël once lived here who, because of his kind heart, was called Daanchi Bon (good little Daniël). Next to it, a kunuku road runs at right angles to the main road. In the 17th and 18th centuries that was the main road from Willemstad to Banda Abao. An abandoned pig farm stands here, and on the little hill to the west of it lie the foundations of a number of kunuku houses about which little is known; they do not even appear on the accurate Werbata map. They may have been part of the former kunuku Daanchi Bon.
The present Weg naar Westpunt past Julianadorp and Zegu was only built in the 19th century.
Grote Berg (Grootberg, Groote(n)berg, Ceroe Grandi)
The rocky hill, a limestone plateau, was occupied by enslaved people during the struggle for freedom in 1795 in order to cut communication between (the colonial administration in) Punda and Bándabou. It was their most advanced post at the start of the struggle. From here the enslaved people intended to march to the city to demand their freedom from the colonial administration. At Grote Berg, however, there was a clash, and in the end they were defeated by the colonial army and had to retreat to Fontein and its surroundings.
The plantation house, a two-storey building, dates from the 19th century and was regarded as a landmark: all the plantations west of it were called the Western plantations. Grote Berg had a sizeable livestock herd but was not profitable and was often auctioned as a result of successive failed harvests. The monumental building is empty today.
Asphalt plant
Also at Grote Berg, south of the plantation house, stand the ruins of a former small asphalt plant built by the Americans during the Second World War. The small ruin is a sturdy concrete structure with two small square rooms that once had a roof. Each room has two holes, and the whole is covered with good-quality tar in which old-fashioned electric wires are stuck. It is a WWII asphalt plant that the Americans used to build the paved Weg naar Westpunt.
Harmonie, alias Ramel Josa*
This former plantation was split off from Grote Berg when its owners, two brothers, each wanted their own part. The parts were later joined together again and today, together with part of Daniël, form part of the subdivision plans of the property developer Halabi. Harmonie had its own plantation house on the very tip of the rock plateau. Apart from the foundation and the floor, its ruin was demolished when stones were needed to repair the Weg naar Westpunt. The archaeological institute NAAM, together with the Werkgroep Archeologie (Archaeology Working Group), has carried out research at the former plantation house of Harmonie.
Kleine Berg (Seru Chikitu)
Kleine Berg is a knoek (small settlement) beyond Harmonie and north-west of Grote Berg on the road to Westpunt. At Sosiegu, a small kunuku between Grote and Kleine Berg, stands the plantation house Kleine Berg – at least, that is how it is registered at the land registry. According to François van der Hoeven of the Werkgroep Archeologie, who bases himself on the Werbata map of 1911, the former plantation Kleine Berg covered the whole area of and around Tera Kòrá, including the kunukus Shon Manuela, Bai Klaas, Doesoe, Pos di Wanga, Dominguito and Martha Koosje.
Martha Koosje, Marta Koshi, Marta Cosje (1835)
According to Van der Hoeven, the government bought the plantation at the beginning of the 20th century and possibly made an exception for the plantation house of Kleine Berg – something that happened quite often in the past. Kleine Berg is better known in popular speech as Martha Koosje and was named after a former owner, Martha Kosse. The plantation house used to be a kind of inn where travellers from the city to Bándabou and vice versa could freshen up, have a bite to eat and change transport before continuing their journey. Both landowners and enslaved people made use of the facilities of Martha Koosje.
It was also said that Martha helped escaped enslaved people by hiding them. Kleine Berg was further known for its large goat pen. Not much farming could be done because of the rocky and clay soil. Small dams were made in the ground, however, in which rainwater could stay for as long as a year. Near the plantation house, for example, a dam of its own had been built for everyday use.
Martha Koosje now houses a restaurant, apartments and a dive centre.
The waist of Curaçao
At Kleine Berg Curaçao is at its narrowest: you can see the sea and Bonaire on both sides. The ideal spot, then, for a “border post”. All traffic from the west of the island to the city and vice versa passed here, and so a police post stood here where, among other things, the transport permits for agricultural produce going to the city were checked. Even so, divi-divi pods, charcoal and even goats were stolen, and drink smuggled ashore at bays in Bándabou also passed through here. The traffic passing the police post consisted of, among other things, carriages with one or two horses, ox carts and (mule and) donkey carts, and it was quite busy.
By way of illustration: between 5 July and 4 August 1887 the following passed here: 100 carriages with one horse, 12 carriages with 2 horses, 80 ox carts, 631 mule carts, 20 donkey carts, 50 ridden horses, 11 ridden mules, 1,304 ridden donkeys, 30 unridden horses, 6 unridden mules and 914 unridden donkeys…
The police post building still stands at Kleine Berg, between former police houses that have been restored. And across the road, in the middle of the mondi (bush), stands the former small police cell.
During WWII the post was also used by American soldiers. The Werkgroep Archeologie discovered, for example, that the garage for the police car of the Kleine Berg police post was built with the typical building blocks the Americans used on Curaçao in WWII. The garage turned out to have been a barracks first.
As for the rest of the zone: Sosiegu and Dominguito are both small kunukus between Grote and Kleine Berg.
Daniël (Dain, Malpais)
“The plantation Daniël, on the road called the prayer without end” is said to have been founded in 1650 by a shipwrecked man who washed ashore there on the feast day of Saint Daniel. That is said to be the origin of the plantation’s name.
Another explanation for the name is that it refers to the merchant Daniël Ellis, who laid out the plantation and the relatively small plantation house in 1711. The Ellis family also owned the plantations Santa Cruz, Knip and Savonet, among others. Because farming and livestock did not yield much, the plantation was often auctioned, and Daniël was also used as lodgings for travellers going from the city to Westpunt and back.
The plantation Daniël was also called Dain, or Malpais, because it was split off from the former huge plantation Malpais. In 1867 Daniël got a remarkable owner: the formerly enslaved Lourens Serni, who had obtained his freedom in 1850. Among other things, he kept livestock at Daniël. In 1894 the estate was bought by another formerly enslaved man, Adolf van Uytrecht, illegitimate son of the large landowner Willem van Uytrecht, who from 1902 lay buried opposite the plantation house. More about that below.
Another remarkable resident was the Lebanese Salvador, who first owned the small plantation Mina Scharbaai*. Salvador later lived here with his wife, renting the house from the Van Uytrecht family. His brother was Napoleon, father of the late Joe Black, well known on Curaçao as the owner of lottery offices.
Ghosts
During the first half of the 20th century the plantation house stood empty and dilapidated for years because it was haunted: residents saw a female apparition standing in front of the mirrors, combing her hair. And a cross was painted on the big tamarind tree in front of the house because someone had once hanged himself from that tree…
The walls of the plantation Daniël were also pulled down when stones were needed at the start of the Shell refinery and people were paid for them. A great many dry-stone walls of plantations disappeared on Curaçao in this way…
Only in 1976 was the plantation house restored to its original state, and after being sold several times it was fitted out as a hotel and dive centre. Since 1997 a hospitality business with a restaurant and a few guest rooms has been based here. The plantation house today stands on a piece of land that used to be many times larger than it is now.
(see Werbata map)
Receiving station
Right next to the plantation house, hidden in the mondi, stands a wooden house with a pointed roof which, curiously enough, residents also call the “plantation house”. Post delivered there was addressed “next to the plantation house”, which later probably became simply “plantation house”.
During the First World War, the first radio receiving station of Curaçao stood here, with a two-kilometre-long antenna mounted high above the ground.
The site at Daniël was suitable for the two-kilometre antenna because it was flat and because the antenna could be pointed towards the Netherlands. Not many other places on Curaçao were suitable for this. Every morning at 4 o’clock the messages received were taken along by the man who brought milk to the city by donkey cart. Residents also called the receiving station Marconia, after the Italian Nobel Prize winner Guglielmo Giovanni Marconi, the inventor of radio and wireless telegraphy.
The receiving station, which moved to Mundo Nobo in 1926, is described in detail in the (digital) publication Wireless telegraphy receiving station Daniël by Fred Chumaceiro.
Bahada di Daniël:
A striking spot between Daniël and the plain of Hato is the Bahada di Daniël (Daniël’s descent): a sloping part of the high terrace down to the – hard to reach – middle terrace, where a kunuku lies.
No traces of habitation have been found there, but according to the archaeologist Dr Jay Haviser there was a farm here in Spanish times (!) where livestock was raised intensively, with cattle hides as the main product. Some six strange platforms of stacked stones are thought to have been used to dry the hides.
Others dispute whether there can have been a tannery here: the process requires a lot of water, and there was none in that area. Water-rich plantations did later have tanneries, as can be seen from the watertight tanks that remain.
So for the time being the stacked stone platforms at the Bahada remain a mystery.
Tera Kòrá
Especially at the edge of the plateau near Daniël the colour of the soil changes and, because of the iron compounds in the rocky ground, becomes ever redder: Tera Rosa, or Tera Kòrá (red earth), which in the rainy season turns into red clay that used to be used for pottery.
Kapiya di ohochi
Just before the crossroads of the Weg naar Westpunt and Willibrordus, west of Daniël, lies the former small neighbourhood Castelita, also called Castalida. It used to consist of only 10 houses, and the Kapiya di ohochi (twin chapel), designed by Ben Smit, still stands here. It was built by Christiaan Engels and Lucille Engels-Boskaljon, an artist couple who used the chapel as a studio. The marriage had been childless for 12 years, but after Lucille drank from a nearby spring she turned out to be pregnant with twins: the later well-known medical specialists Engels. For years the little chapel was regarded as a symbol of fertility, and at its reopening a few years ago several twins were present whose parents had prayed in or near the chapel.
Wilma Limburg-Josepha lived opposite the chapel and inherited its care from her foster mother, who had had the key for more than 40 years. According to Wilma, the Engels-Boskaljon couple wanted to build a small church with its own cemetery and had started with the chapel. It never came to that, however, and the couple’s request to be buried there was not granted either.
When there was not yet a church at Tera Kòrá, Holy Mass was said here, attended by many residents who, for lack of space, stood outside, and according to Wilma Josepha even weddings took place here.
Cunucu Abou (Kashutuin)
Cunucu Abou (Koenoekoe Abou), or Kashutuin (Cunucu di Cashu, Kasjoe Thuin (1827)) – cashew garden – lies opposite Daniël and is where Kunuku Aqua Resort, an apartment complex and a number of houses have now been built. The “graf di Cunucu Abou” (grave of Cunucu Abou) belonged to Adolph (Dòlfi) van Uytrecht (1858-1902), once owner of Daniël. He was an illegitimate, acknowledged, non-white son of Willem van Uytrecht, large landowner and owner of the plantation Santa Cruz, among others, and Françoise Serafina de Conde. Dòlfi bought Daniël in 1894 after inheriting the plantation Santa Cruz from his father. His grave (300 by 155 cm and 70 cm high) was clearly visible from the road: Dòlfi wanted to be buried close to the main road “so that he had a good view of the ladies passing by”. When the apartment complex was built on that spot, the grave was demolished a number of years ago.
*The origin of the remarkable name Ramel Josa is unknown.
Sources:
- Buurtprofiel Tera Kòrá, a publication of the Ministry of Social Development, Labour and Welfare
- C. do Rego: Sklabitut, rebelion i marcha di katibu 1795
- Report of the Werkgroep Archeologie, Daniël, 20 April 2017
- W. Renkema: Het Curaçaos plantagebedrijf in de 19e eeuw
- A. Huijgens: Landhuizen van Curaçao
- P. Brenneker: Sambumbu, various editions
- The newspaper Nobo: Konosé bo isla, edition of 18 February 1995
Unless stated otherwise, the photos of the plantation houses Daniël and Kleine Berg (Martha Koosje) are by Anita de Moulin, R.I.P.
Photos of the Harmonie archaeology, the Kleine Berg police post and Bahada di Daniël are by the Werkgroep Archeologie.
Special thanks to Fred Chumaceiro for the photo of the receiving antenna at Daniël – photography Soublette from the collection of the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen.
With thanks to: Frensel Mercelina, Wilma Limburg-Josepha, R.I.P., residents of Tera Kòrá, led by Henry Fabias
