Gasparito – Rais.cw

On the border between Kas Chikitu and Veeris, with a direct view of the Sambil shopping centre, lies a built-up hill with the remarkable name "Seru Fransés" (French Hill). According to older residents of the neighbourhood, the French were here when they tried to conquer Curaçao. French and English conquerors often landed in the nearby bays of Sint Michiel and Piscadera and later moved on to the city, plundering as they went.

But north of Seru Fransés there are also various pieces of land and small plantations that were once owned by French immigrants. Thus the hill looks out over the small bario Mina Scharbaai, named after a French lady who owned a small plantation with a little plantation house there. Unfortunately this little house was demolished in 2025. Mina Scharbaai borders in the east on Sans Soucis, a small neighbourhood on the Schottegatweg-noord. According to the author Father R.H. Nooyen, around 1744 the name Didaco Sansouci appears, and in 1783 Nicolas Sansouci, as godfathers in the baptism registers of the Santa Anna church. Nooyen reasons that one of them may have been the owner of Sans Soucis: west of Sans Soucis (= carefree) lies Paradijs (Paradise), of which it is certain that it was once owned by Thomas Frans Paradis. Finally, east of Sans Soucis lies the former plantation Ma Retraite (= my retirement), once owned by the Frenchman(!) Gaspar Anthony de Quirigazu, affectionately nicknamed Gasparito in everyday speech…

Cattenbergh

The name Ma Retraite was not given to the estate by Gasparito. When he bought it in 1745 it was still called Cattenberg(h) or Kattenberg* (in 1827 and also still in 1861). In a deed of sale from 1825 the name Ma Retraite appears for the first time as an alias and remained in use alongside or in place of Cattenbergh. The plantation was also known as Klein Sint Kruis and Koeimans. But none of these names has held, because traditionally popular speech determines the final name of the neighbourhood. And Gasparito it has remained.

Who was Gasparito?

Gaspar Anthony de Quirigazu (also written Quirigasoe) was a soldier and, as commander, was stationed at the fort at Boka Samí. When the French attacked Curaçao in 1713 he had to fight against his own countrymen. Perhaps he was so popular because of that and was given Gasparito as a nòmber di kariño, an affectionate nickname. But possibly the surname, which is hard to pronounce, also played a part. Gasparito was a well-to-do man, because in that same year he was assessed in the ransom (brandschatting) for France: in an attack by enemies the occupiers usually demanded money and jewels if they did not want everything to be bombarded flat, and by order of the government the richest inhabitants — in proportion to their estimated wealth — had to bring this amount together.

Gasparito always kept the title capitán, even when he left military service and bought the knoek (small estate) Cattenbergh, west of the Schottegat. He "planted" there, as it was called, from 1745 to 1754. Between 1745 and 1747, besides Cattenbergh, Gasparito also bought the plantation lands opposite, Roosendal, and a piece of Maria Magdalena, which was also called Sint Magdalena. Both lands were sold again in 1748, probably because they stood in the way of the repayment for the larger Cattenbergh.

According to Nooyen, the chronicles of the Santa Anna church, the first Catholic church on Curaçao, show that Gasparito was married to Barbara Baptiste, a Frenchwoman. Their daughter Joanna Maria was baptised in 1741. Gasparito also had a son, Cornelis Quirigazu, who appears as godfather in the above-mentioned documents. In 1744 a certain Gracia Quirigazu also lived on Curaçao, who also had a daughter named Joanna Quirigazu, and the baptism registers indicate that in 1792 a certain Johannes Nicolas de Quirigazu was godfather at a baptism.

In 1783 Joanna Maria Quirigazu appears as an owner of enslaved people, which was then stated in documents as "social status". Nooyen concludes that the name Quirigazu continued to occur on Curaçao for a long time, but then under the popular spelling Girigacio.

Het Joode Quartier (The Jewish Quarter)

Gasparito lies north of Marchena, south of Roosendaal and west of Sans Soucis and the "gemeene Weg naar Hato" (common road to Hato), which as of 1774 was changed to the "gemeene Weg naar de plantagie van de West Indische Compagnie" (common road to the plantation of the West India Company).

Gasparito — then still called Cattenberg — came into being shortly after 1654, when a number of Sephardic Jews who had fled from Brazil settled on the edge of the north-western shore of the Schottegat. They were assigned the brackish lands by the West India Company, and the area immediately got the name Joode Quartier. They were allowed to farm here, had their own house of prayer, cemetery (Beth Haim) and legal system.

The Jewish Quarter extended from the WIC plantation Rooi Canarie in the east to the plantation Welgelegen (Habaai) in the west, today known as Schottegatweg-West.

On the small plantations in the Jewish Quarter, tobacco and sugar, among other things, were grown, but Gasparito, Valentijn, De Hoop, Bleinheim and Heintje Kool were known above all as water suppliers to the city, to visiting sailing ships and later also steamships.

Lice and Limes

Gasparito supplied not only drinking water of good quality; in 1754 the inventory also mentioned 25 tubs of 250 to 300 litres filled with lime juice. Lime juice was still being produced in 1756 as well. Aloe fields were also laid out, and at the beginning of 1841 experiments were made with cochineal cultivation. The cochineal is a species of scale insect that likes to grow on the nopal cactus and covers itself with a fluffy layer. Inside, however, it contains a red pigment, called cochineal or carmine red, a natural dye that was formerly used in the textile industry and was very popular in fashion.

In 1855 and 1865 American ploughs were still being used at Gasparito for agricultural purposes.

Expensive plantation

The plantation house of Gasparito had a core with a saddle roof and a gallery on both long sides. On one side were two normal dormers, on the other side a large dormer the width of the room. The façade was provided with moulding and was slightly arched with a triangular top finish.

In contrast to many plantations and plantaadjes, Gasparito remained unencumbered by mortgages for long periods, except towards the end of the 19th century. In later years it was bought mainly for living pleasure, and the price was, in proportion to large plantations in the western division, rather high: 14,000 guilders for only 69 hectares of land, simply because it lay so close to the city.

Special owners

But the remarkable owners of Gasparito could afford that: from 1801 to 1806, for example, it was the well-known physician Waters Forbes, who also owned various other plantations, including Ronde Klip.

From 1811 to 1825 the ship's captain Marten Lourens Ellis was the owner of Cattenbergh. In the English period he acted as an interpreter for the sailing in and out of vessels. He was the eldest son of Daniel Ellis and a scion of a prominent planter family on Curaçao that owned various large plantations, mainly on Bandabou.

In the 10 years of his ownership, namely from 1825 to 1835, Abraham de Veer Jr, once acting governor of Curaçao, expanded Gasparito with several adjoining parcels. In the deeds of sale there then appear:

A: Ma Retraite
B: Klein Sint Kruys, alias Koeymans (Koeimans) and Cattenbergh;
C: Hermitstel on the road to Hato;

The next owner from 1835, H.W. De Quartel, expanded Gasparito with the lands of Maria Magdalena, situated west of Buena Vista.

In 1841 J.B. Gravenhorst, president of the court, was the owner, and it was he who had nopaleries (nopal-cactus plantings) laid out at Gasparito in connection with experiments with the rather costly cochineal cultivation.

In 1853 Jan Schotborgh Claaszoon was the owner and Gasparito was united with the nearby plantation Roosendaal. It was probably split off again later, because the circumference of Gasparito is in the end only 69 hectares.

Shell

The plantation house of Gasparito was built on a small hill north of — and like that of — Marchena. In the accompanying photo by Neervoort van de Poll from 1885 one can still see an aloe field, a cactus fence, a well and mahogany trees of plantation Gasparito, with on the right the plantation house of Marchena, demolished in 1955. The centuries-old plantation house of Gasparito, ex Cattenbergh, disappeared in 1956 through 40 years of expansion of the Shell installations. As early as 1924 Shell had regularly bought small parcels of Marchena and Gasparito, and in 1947 the rest of Gasparito was also added to the Shell grounds.

Together with a part of Marchena, Rozendaal, Heintje Kool and Villa Real, Gasparito forms part of what is now called The Marchena Yard: the extreme south-western, undeveloped part of the refinery area that borders on the Nijlweg.

Palu Blanku

Gasparito as such is thus hardly an inhabited bario any more. The greater part now lies on refinery grounds, and although the plantation house, like that of Marchena, has been demolished, oil installations or offices were never built there.

Small parts of Gasparito still lie outside the industrial area: for example, the pumping station at Palu Blanku used to be called Pòmp di Gasparito, and the last part of the Nijlweg, connecting to the roundabout, runs straight through a former part of Gasparito.

From the roundabout of Palu Blanku the Schottegatweg turns off in a southerly direction towards Marchena. The whole left-hand side here, with several small shops, snack bars, a Chinese minimarket and other small businesses up to Staal Antillen, Heru N.V., is still Gasparito. Staal Antillen stands in Marchena and thus marks the border between the two former plantations. One of the commercial buildings opposite the pumping station has as its address: Gasparito, Palu Blanku no. 1.

And driving from Rio Canario towards Palu Blanku, just before the roundabout you find a strip of small houses on the right-hand side of the road. Older residents indicate that this part is also still Gasparito. There used to be a road here — Kaya Gasparito — with traffic in both directions. It was also said that there was intense haunting here…

The inkpot

In September 2014 the Archaeology Working Group visited the former plantaadje Gasparito on the grounds of the oil refinery. Nothing is left of the plantation house itself; the only silent witnesses are a water tank and… an old inkpot.

*It is unknown whether many cats roamed about there. There was also a Cattenbergh in the Ruiterkwartier (Zuikertuintje and surroundings) and Seru di Pushi (Cat Hill) at, among others, Sint Michiel and north-west of the church of Montaña. And the bario Gato owes its name to the many wild cats that roamed there.

According to the author M.A. Visman, in official documents Cattenberg was always written with a "C", never with a "K", so perhaps people were referring to a "cat", which is a gun emplacement from earlier times. But even then no connection can be made with the name of plantation Cattenberg, according to Visman.