Sabana di Huncu/ Muizenberg Nobo
Sabana (di) Hu(n)cu / Muizenberg Nobo
In the catchment area of the large dams of Muizenberg, and between Muizenberg Nobo and Sun Valley/Sunset Heights, lies the agricultural area Sabana di Huncu (Sabana Hoenkoe), or Savaan Honk (1828). According to the ethnologist Paul Brenneker, huncu is a kind of agave, the sisal agave, also called pita or Agave vivipara. On Curaçao it was used mainly for the production of (ship's) rope: from white huncu people made white rope — Cabuya Maníri — and from dark huncu black rope, called Cabuya Cábua, according to Brenneker. The area was once full of this agave, but the meaning of huncu has been lost and, against better knowledge, the region is now called Sabana Hundu.
Jan Hendrik de Lannoy
The very fertile agricultural grounds of Sabana Huncu — also called Sint Jacob or Plantage de Lannoy — had since 1776 been the property of a real count, Jan Hendrik de Lannoy (1737–1798), who in 1776 had also bought Asiento and lived there. De Lannoy had a little shop in Punda, and archives of the Roman Catholic Church record that in 1793 he sold 500 roof tiles to the parish priest of the church at Otrobanda.
In 1796 De Lannoy also bought the government plantation Rooi Canarie, whereby the administration retained the right to draw water from the wells on the terrain for the benefit of the garrison. He also bought the adjoining Sufisant and Monte Carmelo near Muizenberg, so that he owned an enormous contiguous terrain and thereby became one of the largest landowners in the middle division.
Forced marriage
A good catch, then, as a marriage candidate. According to Christel Monsanto, the archives of the De Lannoy family in the National Archives record a remarkable story: Jan Hendrik had, before witnesses, asked Anna Barbara Alpeter to marry him. He changed his mind, however, when he met the black beauty Dominga Sabana and went to live with her. Anna's mother then strove for 20 years (!) to force De Lannoy to keep his promise of marriage. In the end she sought her right all the way up to the Hoge Raad (Supreme Court) in the Netherlands, and won: the marriage between count Jan Hendrik de Lannoy and Anna took place on 24 September 1786 in the Fortkerk. That was then the location for entering a legal marriage under Dutch law. De Lannoy is said to have told his brand-new mother-in-law: "You can force me to marry your daughter, but you cannot force me to share a bed with her." A year later they were divorced.
Maria Maai
Els Langenfeld quotes from old documents of Plantation Rooi Canarie that "Jan Hendrik shared his life and his bed with the negress Dominga Sabana. They had two mulatto sons, Andries Louis and Martinus Albertus Girigorie." De Lannoy bought the knoekje (small holding) Maria Maai (now known as Amerikanekamp) in the Indiaanse Ranche (now known as Rancho) for the two boys, on condition that they might not sell it as long as their mother was still alive. Martinus died childless; Andries had nine children and more than 100 heirs to the land, to which Dein had meanwhile been added. He also had four houses in the city, so enough possessions to give rise to many conflicts, especially in connection with land ownership.
Marrying the neighbour
It did not get any easier when a descendant of De Lannoy married a member of the De Windt family, owners of, among others, the neighbouring plantations Noordkant and Waterloo (Waterloo is the present Sun Valley and Sunset Heights).
Another neighbour and plantation owner, Emmanuel da Costa Gomez, also married in; his name is still connected with the grounds between the present Rio Canario and Muizenberg, namely Monte Carmelo, Dein, Kanga, Normandi (near the bar/restaurant De Fles on the Schottegatweg) and a piece of Weis near the church of Groot Kwartier. And so it happened that a very large part of the middle division of Curaçao came into the possession of one family.
Vanished landhuis
Back to Sabana Huncu. After Jan Hendrik's death in 1798 his life partner Dominga Gracia Sabana was owner of Sufisant, Muizenberg and, in 1803, also of Maria Maai (Amerikanekamp). Sint Jacob, alias Sabana Huncu, was already in her possession. Yet the name Sabana Huncu does not appear on the very accurate Werbata map (1911). And on the cadastral map it is listed as Sabana Hundu. The landhuis is called Sint Jacob on both maps but in popular speech was always Sabana Huncu.
The former landhuis estate was in any case 270 hectares in size and belonged to the medium-sized plantations of central Curaçao. Of it, years ago, only foundations and a small part of an original outbuilding remained, behind the present concrete factory at Sabana Huncu.
Because the landhuis lay fairly safe and remote, the title deeds of Seru Fortuna and surroundings were reportedly kept here. With the collapse of the landhuis these have been lost.
Also vanished is the family cemetery of the De Lannoy family at Sabana Huncu, which must have lain west of the landhuis. It is known that various family members were buried here, the last two as late as 1826 and 1828. Enslaved people of the family also found their last resting place here.
The only silent witnesses still standing are a few Palu di Sia trees: characteristic of plantation Sabana Huncu was that it was entirely surrounded by Palu di Sia, which in the past were often planted as fencing.
Pastures
It was an important plantation for the surroundings because of the big well where everyone came to fetch water. The Pos di Sabana Huncu is fairly broad and flat, is nowadays covered over, and lies close to the access road to Sunset Heights, on the border of both neighbourhoods. Various other wells also still stand on the terrain, where much vegetable and fruit is still grown by Portuguese and Haitians.
The green grass fields of Sabana Huncu were in the past also intensively used as pasture for the livestock of kunukeros from the surroundings, such as Banban Rojer of Cabo Vèrdè.
Brenneker tells that at Sabana Huncu clay and colouring agent were also dug up for the clay bakeries (potteries) at Fontein, Kirindongo and Trai Seru.
Kueba di Pirata
A well-known location at Sabana Huncu is the former Cueba di Skloof (Cave of the Slave), a cave in the hill at Sabana Huncu. It lies on the coast with a beautiful, wide view of the coast and nearby areas. The ideal place to hide the loot of the "pirate gang": seven respected citizens, one of whom was a sailor and the others had well-paid jobs at, among others, the Antillean Airline (ALM), the jeweller Spritzer and Fuhrman, Shell and a large contracting firm. Around 1960 the men robbed, several times and in ingenious fashion, among others their own employers, and finally also various Roman Catholic churches. Until one of them got pangs of conscience and went to confession with the priest of Barber. The priest made him pray for hours for repentance, which made it a piece of cake for the police to arrest him — still deep in prayer.
Expensive slide
Selsio Martha, who grew up in nearby Seru Fortuna, tells: "On the slope of Seru Fortuna we had, unsuspecting, made a slide from torn-open cardboard boxes, and during the ride down we ended up amid thousands of coins and banknotes. Our parents did not let us touch it; after all, it could be money coming from brua, black magic. Later the place swarmed with police officers and detectives, who also discovered big bags of money under an old car wreck in which we children always played too. Money was also hidden at Papatona, a social club opposite landhuis Kurá Piedra. Spritzer's jewels were found back on Seru Kurá Piedra, but the greatest part of the loot lay in the cave Cueba di Skloof, which from then on was called Kueba di Pirata. Before the eyes of a shocked community the gang members were arrested one by one, except the sailor, who suddenly stayed at sea longer than planned. When he finally set foot ashore, he was arrested too."
Dam di Muizenberg
Sabana Huncu — read Muizenberg Nobo and Sint Jacob — were, because of their location by the water-rich main rooi, offered to Shell for sale for 25,000 guilders. The oil giant was not interested, but reversed its decision in 1947 and then had to pay four times as much for the additional water supply: 100,000 guilders for 280 hectares of Muizenberg and Sint Jacob. For 75,000 guilders Shell built here its largest dam on the island, good for 650,000 cubic metres, together with a large water-extraction area.
Around 1970 the clearing of the big mondi (bush) between Suffisant, Seru Fortuna and Sint Jacob began. In phases, the construction of 500 public-housing dwellings of the Fundashon Kas Popular (FKP) at Sint Jacob then began. As part of the housing programme, the school for primary education, Laura Hart, was built in 1990.
According to the neighbourhood profile of Muizenberg, the streets in Muizenberg Nobo are mainly named after capitals of Caribbean islands and Latin American countries, such as Kaya Montevideo, Kaya Port Au Prince, Kaya Rio de Janeiro, Kaya San Jose and Kaya Santiago de Chile.
In the part of Muizenberg Nobo that was built on the former plantation Sint Jacob the streets are named after the Venezuelan states Aragua, Barinas, Falcon, Merida, Miranda and Nueva Esparta.
(The source repeats here the sentence about the school Laura Hart, built in 1990.)
Protected nature area
In the dam there used to be a big pump, and pipes ran to the oil refinery. On the edge of the Muizenberg dam there was also a well, which likewise filled up during the rainy season, but it was later filled in.
The embankment — the dam ridge — is suitable for a walk, and in the rainy season boys liked to take a dive in the dam and in the past even used a coffin to sail across the water. Through the reflection of the sky the water turns into an idyllic little lake and an attraction for birds and other animals. Even shrimps are caught in the dam. The water area around the Dam di Muizenberg counts as a protected nature area under the international RAMSAR Convention on wetlands.
Muizenberg Bieu
The bario Muizenberg Bieu has a different origin story from Muizenberg Nobo. Muizenberg Bieu is a so-called oil village, laid out around 1945, in the same period as Suffisant, by the oil refinery for its guest workers. This story is dealt with under Sufisant.
Sources
- Langenfeld: De geschiedenis van de plantage Rooi Canarie
- Brenneker: Sambumbu, various editions
- Ministerie SOAW: Buurtprofiel Muizenberg
- R.H. Nooyen, article in La Union, 13.07.1978, "Famia franses na Korsou"
- J. van Soest: Olie als water
With thanks to: Selsio Martha, Edwin Martina, François van der Hoeven, Christel Monsanto, André Rancuret and Mongui Maduro Library.
