Groot Kwartier
Groot Kwartier is a former kunuku, north-east of the Schottegat. Here and at Santa Barbara the first Spanish villages on Curaçao were established.
The island has been in the possession of the Spaniards since 1499, who in 1502 established the village of Poblacion de Santa Anna, close to the Sint Anna Bay (the present Schottegat).
The location must have been east of Biesheuvel and close to the present Matancia. The original islanders, the Caquetio Indians, were forced to settle there too, in order to perform manual labour and services for the Spaniards.
Village burned to the ground
When the Dutch arrived in 1634, the Spanish governor of Curaçao had the little houses in the village, the little church made of maize stalks and the warehouses with the dyewood in them burned to the ground and the wells poisoned. The Spaniards and the Indians thereupon fled to the west "of the island". The Dutch caught a few horses and fought their way to Santa Barbara, where the Spanish headquarters had been established, to demand the surrender of the island.
The Dutch built a small fort on a hilltop near the water wells "south of the borders of Chango and Matansja, on the newly built road from and leading to 'Kwartier', 'Corrie' and 'Tras di Seroe' in the second district". At the official surrender of the island the Spaniards were forced to ship the majority of the Indians off to Coro. Twenty Indian families stayed behind at Groot Kwartier to perform manual labour and services for the first Dutch administration, which was based in the Ruiterkwartier. The Ruiterkwartier then covered the whole area between Groot Kwartier and Saliña Abou.
Valley of the Indians
The street names of Groot Kwartier, in popular speech Kwartí, are named after Indian tribes, such as Comanchestraat, which forms the separation between Groot Kwartier on the one hand and Traai Seru and Brievengat on the other. Here one also finds the Siouxweg, Arowaken-, Caiquetios-, Mohikanen-, Azteken-, Zapoteken-, Navajos-, Montezuma-, Cherokezen-, Pawnis- and Toltekenweg.
Groot Kwartier and surroundings were, according to older residents, called "the valley of the Indians" and covered the whole area between Rancho and Matancia, where the Indian slaughterhouse was located. On the Comanchestraat one can still see the Roi di Indjan, a natural walk-in well that dates from the Indian era. The nearby Brievengat was also inhabited by Indians, and on the corner of Andres Belloweg/Bonamweg there was even a large Indian cemetery.
Groot Kwartier later became known as Weis, which is the name of the first owner of the lands north of the church of Groot Kwartier. Also well known on Curaçao is Weis Afó, north-west of Rio Canario, where the criminal investigation department (recherchebureau) now stands.
Orangery
Rustenberg, and later Rustenburgh, as Groot Kwartier was first called, was laid out in 1694 as one of the first Dutch settlements. It was established in 1695 by WIC director Jeremias van Collem and, at about 200 hectares, was a large plantation in the middle division.
Many fruit trees such as bananas later stood here, and an orangery with as many as 400 Laraha trees, and there were also Divdivi cultivations.
In the 17th century, livestock farming in particular was practised, and many goats, sheep and dairy cows roamed here. There was also some salt extraction from the poor salt pans in the Schottegat, and a nopalerie (field of nopal cacti) was also laid out for the cultivation of cochineal. Cochineal was an insect from which a carmine-red dye was prepared, which in that period was very popular in the European textile industry.
Most important water plantation
But Rustenburgh/Groot Kwartier was known above all as the most important "water plantation" in the Ruiterkwartier, which supplied ships in the Schottegat with fresh water.
The estate formerly bordered directly on the Schottegat, which was handy for a so-called water plantation: the wells of Groot Kwartier were connected via a system of pipes to water reservoirs at the Schottegat, where around 1909 small boats could "fill up" with water to deliver in the city, but above all to ships.
According to the Werkgroep Archeologie, such a water reservoir of plantation Groot Kwartier still stands in the Schottegat, only the present asphalt lake has been laid out on that spot. Possibly this is still the only limestone water reservoir of its kind on Curaçao.
At Groot Kwartier in 1820 as many as 100 enslaved people were at work, which was an exception, certainly compared with the other neighbours in the Ruiterkwartier.
The plantation house
The most striking thing about the plantation house are the 10 large white pillars on the east side on which the front terrace rests. The pillars were part of a gallery that is still open on the ground floor but was closed off on the first floor.
The plantation house was originally built in a U shape and was later enclosed. On the south side are the kitchen and a rain tank, and on the long east and west sides lie spacious terraces with a beautiful view of the Schottegat.
On the east side there once also stood a warehouse and a large windmill for grinding maize into flour.
Officers' recreation centre
Rust en Burgh was the recreation centre for higher-ranking officers, including the commanders of the cavalry in the Ruiterkwartier and the directors of the WIC. It is not known why the name Groot Kwartier was later chosen. Groot Kwartier and the more easterly Klein Kwartier never had any military significance.
But through an English invasion Groot Kwartier did become the location of a memorable military incident.
Manuel Piar
In the front garden old cannons stood for a long time as a memento of a feat of arms: when the English had landed at Piscadera in 1804 and wanted to march around the Schottegat from Plantersrust and surroundings, they were stopped at Groot Kwartier by a group of citizens, marines, soldiers and gunners and artillerymen under the leadership of the Curaçaoan Manuel Piar.
The euphoria afterwards was all the greater because many citizens had fought with implements, tools and the like, and the victory was regarded as "of the people". Piar had the gift of persuading and motivating people to pursue a common goal.
At Kanga and Dein as well, Piar achieved crushing victories in 1804, as a result of which the British fled in panic to Piscadera and hastily embarked.
Manuel Piar (1774–1817) was born in the Rifwaterstraat, Otrobanda, and is regarded as a hero both on Curaçao and in Venezuela. At the age of ten he moved to Venezuela with his mother, taught himself to read and write and mastered the Dutch, Spanish, English and French languages.
Like his compatriot Luis Brion he played an important role in the Venezuelan struggle for independence, led by Simon Bolivar. Piar was commander-in-chief of the Venezuelan army, received the title General in chief and was later also called Libertador de Guayana. As the son of a mulatto woman he also integrated former enslaved people, Haitian soldiers and indigenous groups into his army.
Struggle for emancipation
Besides his striving for independence, he also fought for equal rights for mulattos and mestizos, which brought him into conflict with the white elite and with Simon Bolivar. As a result he was shot in 1817 after being sentenced to death by a court martial under Brion.
After the execution on 16 October 1817 against the wall of the cathedral of Angostura, he was buried in the common cemetery at El Cardonal in Angostura. He was denied a Christian burial, so he was not buried in consecrated ground either, and his remains were never found.
In 2021–2022 symbolic remains of him were interred in the Panteón Nacional in Caracas. There lie empty graves of heroes whose remains were never found. In Piar's coffin, among other things, earth from the Rifwaterstraat and sand from Groot Kwartier and Kanga-Dein were added, locations on the island that played an important role in his life.
Graf di Kwartí (Grave of Kwartí)
The estate Groot Kwartier was, at the time of the battle in 1804, in the possession of the Englishman Benjamin Philips, the second husband of Martha Elisabeth Lamont. Martha inherited the plantation and the plantation house from her stepfather Casper Lodewijk van Uytrecht, but preferred to live herself in the nearby, much smaller Gaito, and around 1830 she rented out the estate and the plantation house of Groot Kwartier.
Benjamin Philips and others are buried in the cemetery that lay opposite the plantation house by the Schottegat, as the plantation formerly bordered directly on the Schottegat. Around 1930 there were still 3 graves here, but they disappeared with the construction of the Nieuwe Havenweg.
On the north side of the crossing Schottegatweg/Cas Coraweg there lay, according to Brenneker, a second cemetery of Groot Kwartier, the Graf di Kwartí.
The Jesurun family
The plantation was for a long time, since the end of the 18th century, in the possession of the governor, Abraham de Veer, namely from 1834 to 1863. His enslaved people had complained to the parish priest about ill-treatment, whereupon De Veer forbade the priest to come to his estate any longer.
In 1863, the year of the abolition of slavery, the estate was sold to Daniël Jesurun. The progressive Jesurun managed the plantation from 1874 to 1900 and in 1888 was one of the first planters on Curaçao to place windmills on his wells. There was also the mill that was used for grinding maize. Jesurun made Groot Kwartier into a flourishing agricultural and livestock business. Through inheritance the estate remained in the hands of this family until 1964.
Agricultural experiments
In 1913 the government bought 150 hectares of the former plantation and divided it into 70 plots of 2 to 3 hectares for small tenant farmers. The author Jaap Soest tells that in that same year the government also spent 20 hectares of land on setting up a model plantation. Under the guidance of an agricultural expert a vegetable nursery with, for that time, a modern irrigation system was laid out, while on another piece of land experiments were carried out with soil cultivation for maize, coconut, date and banana plants.
The former experimental farm for agricultural experiments at Cas Chikitu and a large part of the cattle business there moved to Groot Kwartier, where machines for planting small maize, maize mills and motor ploughs were purchased. New breeds of livestock from Tenerife, Barbados and the United States were also introduced, with which the herd was considerably expanded.
Oil villages
Until the establishment of Shell in 1918, a great deal of farming was done in Groot Kwartier and surroundings. Maishi chikí (sorghum), beans, peanuts, melons and pumpkins were still grown, as well as dates, mangoes and vegetables, and there was livestock farming as well. Well-known hofjes were those of Wiwi, Yari, Yeye, Biesheuvel and Grimau, the latter known especially for the mill and smithy that stood there. Other activities with which people earned income besides farming were lime burning, chopping firewood, producing charcoal and selling water.
Besides townspeople and sailors, years later neighbourhood residents also made use of three wells at Groot Kwartier whose water was of high quality: neighbourhood children went with buckets on home-made wheelbarrows to fetch water, and at every house there were at least 2 barrels: one with drinking water and the other with water for bathing, for household use and possibly to water plants.
Urbanisation
For the thousands of workers who came to Curaçao, after 1923 Shell built so-called "residential parks", or "oil villages", at Julianadorp, Bullenbaai, Suffisant, Biesheuvel, Rio Canario (Emmastad) and Groot Kwartier. The import of labourers started the process of urbanisation in the areas around the Schottegat and changed the appearance of Groot Kwartier drastically.
There was a lot of new construction, with spacious houses for Dutch employees in Emmastad and simpler dwellings for workers at Groot Kwartier.
Shell acquired a few hectares of Groot Kwartier as property and part of Rio Canario on a long lease. Around 1937 and 1941 Shell built 221 houses, the majority of them at Groot Kwartier and a small part at Rio Canario. The refinery preferred these neighbourhoods, which were close to the workplace. To expand the building sites at Groot Kwartier, Shell swapped with the government a few plots at Scharloo for the construction of the Juliana Bridge over the Annabaai. The street names in the oil village Groot Kwartier refer to Dutch naval heroes such as the Tjerk Hiddeslaan.
The 60 hectares of the Rustenburg complex it bought in 1939 from the Senior family for fls 64,000.
Utility strip
Shell also provided schools, banks, churches, cinemas, medical and sports facilities and supermarkets for its employees and workers. Thus on 23 July 1943 the Henderson Supermarket opened at Groot Kwartier, on the location where Mangusa Rio is now situated. From the supermarket westwards, up to the present Rio Frio, lies the so-called utility strip (utiliteitenstrook), for the benefit of both the residents of Emmastad and those at Groot Kwartier: after the supermarket follow the bank, the church, the (Marnix) schools, the hospital (now a maternity clinic), a few large multi-storey houses of which it is not known whether they also belonged to Shell, and finally Rio Frio, which was Shell's former training school.
Plantation house saved!
To prevent Shell from also demolishing the plantation house of Groot Kwartier, Frans Vreugdenhill bought it in 1964, after which he restored the house at his own expense. It was then rented to the Venezuelan consul, as a result of which the house was renamed Casa Venezuela. It was restored again in 2010 and then rented successively to an insurance company and a trust company.
Wooden church
The Roman Catholic church played a large role in the upbringing, education and poverty alleviation in the neighbourhood. Groot Kwartier used to belong to the parish of Santa Rosa. On 29 September 1929 the parish of Groot Kwartier was founded, dedicated to La Birgen del Carmen. The house of prayer was a temporary wooden church, actually more a large barrack, in which the first nursery school was later housed.
In 1939 the neighbourhood got a new church building. The Catholic neighbourhood structure is clearly visible here: the church with the churchyard and the sisters' house, surrounded by as many as five schools.
The Sisters of Schijndel
In the footsteps of the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten, the Salesian fathers and brothers, the Sisters of Roosendaal and the Brothers of Tilburg, the Sisters of Schijndel took over education in Groot Kwartier from the Sisters of Roosendaal. Besides the schools they also took care of orphans and wards (girls under guardianship) and developed a unique handicraft there: hat plaiting as a means of livelihood.
After 9 years, in 1929, the Sint Anna Convent was founded in Groot Kwartier, whose brick building is now the home of, among others, the Jeugdcentrale Curaçao, the foundation Scoutshop and the Vereniging Scouting Antiano.
Groot Kwartier and surroundings
Well-known neighbourhoods near Groot Kwartier are Chango, or Chalgo in popular speech. Also known as Matancia, in earlier times an abattoir where the Caquetio Indians from Brievengat and surroundings slaughtered cattle for the WIC.
West of Matancia stands the secondary school Kolegio Alejandro Paula, formerly the Peter Stuyvesant College, which opened in 1953 and was built to a, for that time, very modern architecture. The independence party Pueblo Soberano of Helmin Magno Wiels (1958–2013) found it unacceptable that the school was named after Stuyvesant, founder of the slave trade on Curaçao, and changed the name to Kolegio Alejandro "Jandi" Paula (KAP). Paula (1937–2018) was a writer, teacher, politician and former director of the National Archive. The statue of Stuyvesant was taken off its pedestal and stored away, but disappeared mysteriously.
Rust en Burgh actually lies west of Groot Kwartier, on Shell terrain, but is also called Groot Kwartier.
The neighbourhood Pariba di Kwartí literally means "East of Kwartier" but actually lies opposite Groot Kwartier. Corcháng (origin of name unknown) and Newton are old names for places close to the plantation house.
Weis is the name of the first owner of the lands north of the church of Groot Kwartier. Another neighbourhood north of the church, and also derived from the family name of the original owner, is Gosie, or Gozie (1867).
Soledat (Solitude) lies east of Groot Kwartier; a water reservoir stood here for a long time. Seru di Soledat is a hill on the Schottegatweg, opposite the Digicel building and south of the Damacorweg. A water tank once stood here.
Iland lies at the beginning of the Gosieweg, opposite the maternity clinic and just before the entrance of the Marnixschool.
Biesheuvel is also a small oil village, laid out by Shell.
Hòfi Biesheuvel is a still-existing hofje of two hectares that was presumably laid out in the 18th century or earlier. It lies on leasehold land and is half full of fruit trees, a party centre and a few small houses that are rented out. The other half is rented to a Chinese for vegetable growing. In the hòfi there are two wells with windmills.
In memory of the rich water past of Groot Kwartier there is also the Seru di boko (= water barrel), which lies behind the Capriles clinic. On Emancipation Day the price of water was raised from 60 to 75 cents per boko.
The Capriles Clinic, the country's psychiatric hospital, is popularly called Monte Cristo, after the old building on the Rif in earlier times.
Sources
- van Soest: Olie als water
- Ministerie S.O.A.W.: Buurtprofiel Groot Kwartier (Neighbourhood profile Groot Kwartier)
- Hartog: Geschiedenis Curaçao in het kort
- Brenneker: Sambumbu, various editions
- Wikipedia
- Renkema: Het Curaçaos plantagebedrijf in de 19e eeuw
With thanks to Elvio "Boy" Maduro, Lionel Cordilia and Jeroen Heuvel.
See also: Pages of Het Ruiterkwartier and Suffisant / Muizenberg bieu and Rio Canario.
