Nieuw Nederland 2

In part 1 about Nieuw Nederland we already saw that the neighbourhood arose out of Monte Verde. This second part deals with the development of Nieuw Nederland through the years and the relationship between the (amputated) leg of Peter Stuyvesant and the name of the bario.

Boundaries

According to the director of the NAAM*, Dimitri Cloose, the old boundary of Nieuw Nederland is not clear, but the present boundary begins beyond Avila Beach Hotel at the Nuyenstraat as part of the neighbourhood Monteverde, ending at the Sittardstraat. It is bounded in the north and the south by the Oranjestraat and the Penstraat respectively. Wilhelmus Johannes Franciscus Nuyens (1823–1894) was a Dutch historian, Sittard is a city in Limburg, and Oranje** refers to the Dutch Royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau, whose progenitor was William of Orange. Furthermore, all streets in Nieuw Nederland — in keeping with the name of the neighbourhood — are named after Dutch cities and regions such as Den Helder, IJmuiden, Eindhoven, Heerlen and Walcheren. The only exception is the Penstraat, one of the oldest roads on the island, which led to the manor house The Pen.

Improvement of infrastructure

Junnes Sint Jago writes that around 2004 a study appeared in which the then staff member of the executive council, Erwin Raphaela, argued that the government should also tackle social problems such as drop-outs and drug use in the neighbourhood, and should not focus only on repressive action and economic growth to prevent neighbourhood decay. This view was endorsed in the same period by the Van Lennep commission, active in the field of neighbourhood approach. Following its final report, which appeared in 1995, the Stichting Fonds voor Sociale Ontwikkeling en Economische Bedrijvigheid, better known as Reda Sosial, was founded to combat poverty in the neighbourhoods. Only in the year 2000 was the necessary infrastructure laid by the government in Nieuw Nederland, so that a start could also be made on sewerage. In 2016, with funds from the European Union, the infrastructure was developed further, and roads, footpaths, street lighting and further modernisation of the sewerage were added. In Nieuw Nederland people often moved to another house within the neighbourhood itself. But after the government built about 927 public-housing units at Chère Asile and Marie Pompoen between 1948 and 1953, various families moved away from their wooden dwellings in Nieuw Nederland to live in concrete houses. Other wooden houses in the neighbourhood have been renovated over time or have disappeared to make way for new concrete dwellings, but the colourful wooden houses still define the face of Nieuw Nederland.

Stuyvesant's leg

A question mark always remained as to why the neighbourhood has this name. Possibly a cemetery at the former Monte Verde is the key to this secret. This Stuyvesant (or Stuyvesants) cemetery was, like the rest of the later Nieuw Nederland, part of the former estate Monteverde of Leopoldo Camarena. Petrus (Peter) Stuyvesant was the son of a minister who had already entered the service of the West India Company at a young age and was regarded as the brains behind the plan to establish Curaçao as the central point for the trade in enslaved people. He was director-governor of Curaçao from 1643 to 1664 and at the same time, during the period 1647–1664, also the last "Dutch" governor of present-day New York, which was then called Nieuw Amsterdam. In 1644, during a naval battle with the Spanish Armada near Sint Maarten, Stuyvesant was hit in the leg by a cannonball, so that he had to have it amputated. According to tradition a relative, Johannes David Stuyvesant, buried the embalmed leg in the Stuyvesants cemetery at Monte Verde. A letter to the editor in the Amigoe of 23 July 1959 indicates, however, that the cemetery bore that name after the era of Peter Stuyvesant and that there is no connection with the leg in question. In response to this another letter to the editor appeared in the Amigoe pointing out the location: "The leg of Stuyvesant must be buried at Chère Asile, namely in the near vicinity of the building of Naomi Household of Ruth, behind the house of the Pietersz family. It was even known then that the grave lay west of the large tamarind tree that stood there at the time." The Stuyvesants cemetery did in any case exist, as appears from research by the author Charles de la Try Ellis. He writes: "…documents from 1810 indicate that Johannes Davis Stuyvesant was the widower of Maria Gales, a granddaughter of governor Jan Gales, and owner of a 'piece of land known under the name Stuyvesant' at Monte Verde. The cemetery was used to bury family members. In the course of time the name of this part of the neighbourhood also fell into oblivion because Johannes Stuyvesant left no descendants with his surname."

Nieuw Amsterdam, New York, Nieuw Nederland

Although it has thus never been proved whether the amputated leg lay on Curaçao and where exactly, the rumour in connection with the Stuyvesants cemetery persisted stubbornly for centuries. Junnes Sint Jago indicates that during the great hurricane of 1877 graves were broken open by landslides, and the Curaçaosche Courant of 1929 jokingly asked "whether the leg of Stuyvesant, lost since 1877, might also have sunk with the dragging mud to the more southerly part of the terrain, which lies lower and borders the sea" (Nieuw Nederland, that is). According to the author there are indications that Camarena, following this rumour and as a tribute to Stuyvesant, had decided to give this part of his grounds at Monteverde the name Nieuw Nederland. Peter Stuyvesant died in 1672 at the age of 80 and was buried in New York, the city where Camarena too lived for years before he settled on Curaçao…. Well-known "Nieuw Nederlanders" include the anthropologist, versatile artist and poet Elis Juliana*, TV and radio newsreader Esther Arrindel, ex-director of Reda Sosial and Fundashon Kas Popular Herman George, the lawyer Marva Bennet, the writer Lucrecia "Loekie" Morales, the saxophonist Chito Borgschot, the footballer Ronald de Lannoy, the architect Reno Pietersz, and theatre maker and director of cultural affairs Pacheco Domacassé. (Ex-)politicians from the neighbourhood are Dennis Jackson, the parliamentarian John Leonard and Ruth Douglas, doctor and ex-parliamentarian, both based in Sint Maarten, ex-minister and ex-gezaghebber Elmer "Kadé" Wilsoe, former minister Marco de Castro, ex-minister of Labour and Social Affairs Ruthmilda Larmonie-Cecilia and ex-prime minister Maria Liberia Peters. From "den Bònt" (the Volksbond, south-eastern part of the Oranjestraat and the Pater Ludowicus Jansenstraat) come the late health guru Leo Floridas, the former director of the Curaçaosche Courant Pim Elisabeth, the late well-known psychologist Nelson Coffie, the footballer and Papiamentist Antoine Maduro and ex-governor Lucille George-Wout.

*Stichting NAAM is charged with research and management of the museum in connection with archaeology and anthropology.

**It is almost unknown that Elis Juliana had a twin sister and that his name is written with a single "l" and must therefore be pronounced "Eelis".

Sources

Ministerie S.O.A.W.: Wijkprofiel Berg Altena
M. Visman: De herkomst van onze streek- en plantagenamen
J. Sint Jago: article "De opkomst van de Curaçaosche wijk Nieuw Nederland"
J. Hartog: Journalistiek leven op Curaçao
Tessa Everts: graduation thesis, Openbaar park en community garden in woonwijk St Kitts
Pater Eeuwens: Curaçao in 1804
J. van Ditzhuijzen, Napa, 30 January 2016
Dr William Charles de la Try Ellis: collected notebook
P. Brenneker: Sambumbu, various editions

With thanks to: Junnes Sint Jago, Jeroen Heuvel, André Rancuret, Rensley Victoria, Dimitri Cloose, the Historisch Archief and Mongui Maduro Library.

Also read: Nieuw Nederland part 1, De Penstraat parts 1 and 2, and De Oranjestraat.