Montaña di Rei (part 1)
Pos di Gobièrnu... (the government well – English translation of the Papiamentu original)
With sadness you sat watching children and women drag their feet away from your step. At the mouth of the well the ladies would meet, and their chatter, passing a mouth of net, always outdid the song of the chuchubi (mockingbird). Suddenly you were left alone, abandoned like your neighbour Kai djindjin. The only company you ever got was from naughty children killing blòblò in the mondi (bush) that surrounded you and throwing them into the well, pumping the water until your mouth smelled bad. Now and then a black billy goat climbed onto the well, played the strongman, tossed its horns and fell into the well – but who knows. Look, the goat’s owner walks around in vain asking the neighbours whether they have seen a black billy goat with a white spot on its forehead.
The young lads coming out of the school of Brakapoti also used to stop and throw a lump of stone to hear the best ‘djublum’ of any well in Montaña. The bar’i lechi shrub grew so high around your basin that not even a good lookout could spot the well in the kunuku of Shon Bè any more. Even though that well is not the government’s, it is a piece of it. Solitary but with blind faith, you sat waiting to become a source of life again.
And then one day, look: children and grown-ups at the well once more to draw water. Now not with a tin can on the head and knees, or in a barrow with an iron wheel and a wooden body, but in the boot of an American car – so wide and long it carries water. Their bumpers always shining, like the teeth of Lua, who used to come and dance at the well with Itu with the donkey face. At the mouth of the well wicked tongues let it be known that that was why he had won the horse, and from that day on his face became exactly like a donkey’s.
Oh, but that is Birinia, she has grown up. There’s Chela, her legs have stayed just as thin. Chela ran very fast with the children, getting to the wall of the well and back to Ina’s fence before all the others. Merita was just as skinny, but still could not keep up with Chela. Which one is that lady, the colour of a red sweet potato, with thick legs? That is a person from round here; she has only just come to live here.
Aha, it is Ogem’s water plant that has left you all in the street, and now you come to cool blòblò water and dead goats at an abandoned well.
Just some three weeks later the well was solitary again. Only in Lent do children climb onto its basin to free their kites’ tails from the bar’i lechi bush.
Far away, on the field, it could see children running and playing ball, and hitting one another with a tennis ball in a game of baseball. Sometimes its water had to wash out the dirty vocabulary of the lads on that field.
One day the ball games stopped. The telephone company took the ball field away from the children and put up a telephone exchange; the children went to play ball who knows where – the bullies.
And so the government well passed into oblivion. Hidden from view by garoti san hosé, it did not have to suffer the shame when its wall got holes in it. Until the day they cleared all the mondi and brought it out into the open again, just as its mother bore it. So that the youngest child of Yogotí, the tres (guitar) player, could come by and take its picture to sell its herbs, instead of letting it pass on to another life the way it had lived out of public view for the last 40 years. Birinia, Tòchi, Tansha, Martins, Kai djin djin, Ina, Chela, Òn Chimi, Ma Polin, Nono, Jan, Bel,
all of these of its time lie turning over in their graves.
Fenko.
Pos di Gobièrnu was THE public well of Montaña, the village founded in 1840 by the missionary Martinus Joannes Niewindt for the enslaved population. It was one of the last public wells still standing on the island, and unfortunately it was demolished in 2026.
The text above is an impression by Fenko of the characters and events around the well, a tribute to a piece of culture that has been ruthlessly swept away…
The bario Montaña
Montaña is an area in Bándariba, south-west of Groot Sint Joris.
Montaña (di) Rei is an area east of Montaña Abou.
Montaña Abou lies east of Scherpenheuvel, near the Midden Seinpost (Middle Signal Post).
On this page: Montaña (di) Rei
The name Montaña di Rei
In a deed of sale from around 1855 the estate appears under the name “Plantage Vaerscheput, beoosten plantage Kassa Grandie” (plantation Vaerscheput, east of plantation Kassa Grandie). It was also known as Varsche put (1846), Varsche Put or Verschen Put, which was originally a small knoek (settlement) near Montaña. Vaersche means “fresh”, in the sense of fresh (drinking) water. Vaerscheput or Varse Put was later also called Montanja (or Montagne) Ariba, or Montaña (di) Rei.
Montaña Rei literally means King’s Hill and here indicates government land. Under the rule of King William II, slavery was abolished in the Antilles in 1863, and slave owners were paid 200 guilders per enslaved person in compensation. For lack of an alternative, a small proportion of the enslaved continued working on the land of their former shon (master). But when the 6,000 formerly enslaved people received their freedom, requests for a piece of land of their own also poured in. So the colonial government bought certain lands, among other places at Montagne, which were then referred to as Savaan Montagne. These lands were divided into plots and rented out to the freed people for 30 cents a year. In popular opinion the land had been bought by the royal family, hence the name Montaña di Rei. In the same way, a former grain store on Bonaire belonged to the government and was called Mangasina di Rei.
As early as 1862, parts of Montagne and Jan Sofat had already been bought by the government to station district commissioners responsible for renting out the purchased lands.
Hilly
The word Montaña is said to refer to the countless hills in the neighbourhood, many of which have disappeared. Old photos still show the church surrounded by countless little hills and huts with thatched roofs. There were also hills to the right of the church, where a school now stands, and directly in front of the police post. The residents of that last hill were even called “hend’i Ser’i Montaña” (people of Montaña Hill). The neighbourhood was thinly populated, with only a few houses built on the hilltops, such as the Hoenderberg near Montaña Abou.
Because of the urbanisation of Willemstad and overpopulation in the neighbouring districts, Montaña developed into a real bario: various families who owned extensive lands sold them to the government, and many hills were levelled to build houses and schools. Today Montaña di Rei is simply called Montaña Rei or Montaña.
Church life
Montaña was part of a network of church villages founded around 1840 by the pastor and later monsignor Niewindt. Until 1900 Montaña still belonged to the extensive parish of Santa Rosa, where a church had stood since 1839.
In 1899 Montaña, the eastern part of this parish, got a church of its own, consisting of a simple rectangle. It was later lengthened, two side aisles were added and a tower was built against the front façade.
The construction was in the hands of the priest Stephanus van de Pavert, working with Thomas Panneflek, master carpenter at the orphanage of Santa Rosa, pastor Frie of Santa Rosa and also Bellefaas Martis, of whom more below. On 16 January 1900 the Saint Dominic church was consecrated, making the parish of Santa Rosa considerably smaller.
Mgr Julio Henriquez
The square in front of the church is named after Julio Francisco Henriquez, pastor of the bario from 1954 to 1994. Henriquez had been connected with the parish of Pietermaai from an early age as a pupil of Father Lodovicus Jansen. In 1922 he left to study abroad and returned in 1933, when he was first assigned to Willibrordus and Santa Maria before being posted to Montaña.
In Montaña he walked from house to house, and later drove around in an old grey Fiat, to keep himself informed of the family circumstances of his parishioners.
He was famous for his catechism lessons, which he always ended with a joke that nobody forgot. He translated the missal from Latin into Papiamentu and celebrated the services on feast days, such as at Christmas, entirely in Latin.
On the recommendation of the diocese of Willemstad, Henriquez was appointed monsignor by the Pope. On Curaçao only he and pastor Römer of Jan Doret have been nominated for this title.
The sisters’ house
In 1937 the sisters’ house, the Mariagesticht, was built next to the church for the seven Sisters of Schijndel, who had arrived on Curaçao in 1920 together with Frater Radulphus. Their primary task was to provide education. The Sisters of Schijndel wanted to live as close as possible to the people, which is why, besides the sisters’ house at Montaña, sisters’ houses were also built at Santa Rosa, Groot Kwartier and Pietermaai. The sisters’ houses were later given other uses, such as the brick Sint Annagebouw at Groot Kwartier, which is now the headquarters of, among others, Scouting Curaçao. Fire once broke out at the sisters’ house in Montaña, and everyone was already outside when one sister ran back in to bring the sacred hosts to safety.
Rascals
The former teacher, the late Alex Suares, tells about the building behind the church that was the first sisters’ house and also the first school of Montaña. There was also a well here, and at 2 o’clock Sister Inocencia had two boys draw water from the well. Only children who had behaved well were allowed to drink. The rascals, however, managed to sneak in before then to drink from the granite bucket. In time the sisters used the building for other activities. The sisters’ house later moved to a new building next to the church.
