Seru Fortuna

Seru Fortuna, also called Sierra Fortuna (1844), Fortuyn or Sero Papaye, is a hill plateau and residential neighbourhood north of Stenen Koraal and south-east of Hato.

The history of Seru Fortuna is closely linked to that of the nearby, water-rich plantation Hato, the last government plantation to be sold by the West India Company (WIC).

Until 1797 it was the country retreat of senior officers, officials and directors of the WIC, that is, the governors of Curaçao. The governors were more inclined than private plantation owners to give their enslaved people a letter of freedom. M.A. Visman writes that the freed people of Hato, for special services or diligence, were also given a piece of – often government – land as a bonus. These lands can still be found on both sides of the road to Hato – the present Rooseveltweg: from the roundabout at Thorenquest near Marchena lie the neighbourhoods, now divided into plots, whose old names such as Calabare, Juan Hato, Baas Gracie, Guanapa, Nanie, Gora, Jenefoe, Kanga, Guanota and Luis Paula still recall the former owners.

Beltrano

A larger plantation that arose in the same way is Juan Domingo (75 ha), which lies behind Supermarket Esperamos. But the largest part split off from the former Hato is Seru Fortuna, namely 150 ha, which governor Jan Noach du Fay gave to Francisco Bertran, alias Beltrano, in 1731. According to Visman, Seru Fortuna was in fact Du Fay’s personal property, but he was rapped on the knuckles because public servants were not allowed to own a plantation. Du Fay then decided to give the one plantation to Juan Domingo and to sell Seru Fortuna cheaply to Bertran. There was a house and a koekoraal (cattle pen), but as a plantation it meant little because of the barren rock plateau.

It is not known whether Bertran paid the price; in any case he sold the plantation to Jacques Veeris as early as 1735, after which the land changed owners again and again and part of it was divided into plots.

Antoni Valerian

Despite this official version, residents of Seru Fortuna invariably say that the plots were given to their ancestors by the Queen, and the name Bertran is unknown. Others do know of a gift, and that friends and family of the beneficiary were allowed to live here free of charge. Brenneker writes about an enslaved man from Hato, Antoni Valeriaan, who was allowed to choose a piece of land for loyal service to 4 governors and – to avoid quarrels with neighbours – chose the rocky, uninhabited lands of Seru Fortuna and shared them with friends and family. The deed of gift is said to have been lost in a fire. The Valeriaan family is well known at Seru Fortuna, where it owns a large piece of family land.

Paga tera

Be that as it may, at first the hill was not very popular as a place to live. Many years later it became possible to rent a piece of land here, and gradually formerly enslaved people from Hato, and later also from Mahuma and Suax, settled here and a free community arose.

The residents of Seru Fortuna depended on the spring at Hato for clean drinking water. Women and children used to fetch water from the spring in jugs and tins at least twice a day, and men sometimes with a donkey cart. Like the residents of Mahuma, the people of Seru Fortuna had kunukus on the fertile clay strip of Hato. Here they grew mainly beans, maishi chiki (sorghum), from which porridge was made, watermelons and pumpkins, while at home they also had a garden with papaya, peppers, kalbas largu (long gourd), peanuts, lamunchi (lime), giambo (okra) and herbs.

After the abolition of slavery, land use was often governed by the paga tera (pay for the land) system, under which the kunuku holder (farmer) supplied maize stalks to the shon (plantation owner) of Hato as cattle fodder. People also worked for the shon for free on certain days of the year. Even now, several kunukus of residents of Seru Fortuna and Mahuma lie below the edge of the Hato terrace.

The Fortuna zone

Seru Fortuna consists of two former kunukus, Fortuyn (Fortuna) and Papaya – actually two large stretches of mondi (bush) – that were opened up bit by bit. They were connected by various paths, and both are bordered in the north by the rocky coastline of Hato. In the present zone division the two neighbourhoods, Fortuna and Papaya, are further divided into four neighbourhoods:

• Fortuna Ariba: also called Fortuna Bieu, the oldest and northernmost part of Seru Fortuna.
• Fortuna Abou: Fortuna Abou lies at the foot of the hill; it is built up but has no public housing.
• Seru Papaya: the best-known part of the zone, where most of the public housing stands. It was mistakenly called Seru Fortuna, but its official name is Seru Papaya.
• Papaya Abou: lies north-east of the only road running through it, the Caboverdeweg, which connects the Seru Fortunaweg with the Franklin D. Rooseveltweg. Papaya Abou has only a few public-housing homes.

Seru Papaya

Gladwyn – Win – Macaya was born and raised in the Seru Fortuna neighbourhood and still lives there. He says: “Seru Papaya (62 m) also lies on the hill Seru Fortuna, just before Seru Fortuna Ariba. Huge papaya trees once grew here, as well as some four kinds of bèshi (berries). And also kamalia, a purple berry packed with vitamins from which jam was made. You could even get drunk from eating kamalia, and the purple colour around your mouth gave away that you had been on Seru Papaya without your parents’ permission. The berries attracted many birds, and because of that Seru Papaya was really the weekend and holiday retreat for the young people of Seru Fortuna Ariba.

Before the public housing was built there was only one house on Seru Papaya, the house of Mari and Tonie,” says Win.

Public housing

Around 1974 the government built 250 houses here for about 4,000 residents, most of them single mothers dependent on welfare. Because of countless complications in planning and construction, houses were built too close together, sometimes with too many occupants, without boundaries between plots and so with little privacy. The result: “…many social problems, flourishing drug dealing, addiction and poverty: the bread truck and the milkman were attacked, school buses no longer dared to enter the neighbourhood, police cars were pelted with stones and at night the bullets flew around your ears,” according to the media.

The stigmatisation of Seru Papaya as a “problem neighbourhood” also affected the older neighbourhood of Seru Fortuna Ariba, because for years Seru Papaya was wrongly called Seru Fortuna.

Seru Papaya was isolated, and only in the 1980s did it get a social-affairs office, a medical centre, a nursery and primary school, a crèche, a church and a community centre. The church of Seru Fortuna was built in 1983 as one of the last churches on Curaçao and is completely different in style from churches built earlier.

Hayes Nicholls

Hayes Nicholls was head of the school Kolegio Dodo Palm for 25 years and was very active socially in the neighbourhood. For years he and his later successor, Saiseline Welvaart-Senior, together with volunteers from Inner Wheel, Fundashon Shimaruku and the MCB Bank, provided hot meals for the schoolchildren and work for unemployed young people. For lack of enough pupils the school was closed, and it has now been stripped bare.

In the new housing estate at Seru Papaya the streets were named after meteorology, the universe and astrology.

The whole ridge of Fortuna and Papaya is rich in clay. According to the resident and visual artist Salustiano – Selsio – Martha, there are even three kinds of clay to be found here. Especially on Seru Papaya, clay used to be dug and transported by donkey to Santa Rosa, where among other things jugs were made to keep drinking water cool. Clay was also fetched at Hato to build and strengthen the walls of the houses on Fortuna Ariba.

Fortuna Ariba

According to Martha (73), for the residents there was no distinction between the various neighbourhoods in the area: “Seru Fortuna, Muizenberg, Sabana di Huncu, Kurá di Piedra (Stenen Koraal) – the whole area between the hill of Seru Fortuna and Santa Maria was, in our eyes, Seru Fortuna. The only distinction made was between Fortuna Ariba and Bou di Seru – on top of the hill and at its foot. And then there was Santa Maria, the neighbourhood where, for us, the school and the church stood. Of this original Seru Fortuna really only a small part is left: Seru Fortuna Ariba,” says Martha.

Kas di kunuku

Fortuna Ariba, or Fortuna Bieu, is the northernmost part and also the oldest and historic part of Seru Fortuna. Striking is the large number of kas di kunuku (traditional country houses) in Fortuna Bieu: there is one on almost every plot. Sometimes beautifully maintained and possibly extended, but more often empty and dilapidated because the residents have left for the Netherlands. A network of narrow goat paths, the so-called patruli, used to run between the plots, because there were no roads. Those only came after the road to the airport at Hato was built, and with that the whole landscape changed.

Fortuna Ariba has no church or community centre like Seru Papaya; the houses, and especially the plots, are much more spacious here because of how the neighbourhood came into being. Until 2016 the streets had no names, only house numbers. Despite the residents’ well-argued request to name the streets after well-known people from the neighbourhood, names of palm trees were chosen for the streets.

Cas Abou-Zeegening

Cas Abou is a piece of farmland of 30 hectares on Seru Fortuna, officially still owned by Johann Joseph, alias Jozef or Josepp Rafaela.

Rafaela bought the plantation in 1892 for 300 guilders. He went to live here as a farmer, kept a large number of goats and died on 13 March 1928. He left the enormous piece of land to his now 400 heirs, who are represented in the foundation Fundashon Cas Abou-Zeegening. The heirs include the Sling family, who live on part of the former plantation Cas Abou near Seru Fortuna. Cas Abou-Zeegening is family land, tereno di famia.

The addition Zeegening indicates that, like nearby Kurá di Piedra, Cabo Verde and Seru Fortuna, it was part of the former plantation Zeegening, which for a long time belonged to the Jewish Juliao family.

The addition Zeegening also avoids confusion with the well-known former plantation Cas Abou in Bándabou.

Laman di Nòrt

Seru Fortuna lies between the coastal plains of the plantations Hato and Noordkant, which border the sea and each other. So although it does not border the sea itself, the Laman di Nòrt (north sea) played an important role in the daily life of Seru Fortuna. “The relationship with the sea was one of life and death, love and fear. People had great respect for the rough Laman di Nòrt, because several relatives drowned while fishing from the rocks or slipped while collecting kiwa – shellfish – on the slippery rocks. The screaming and crying in the village when someone else had been swept away by the wild waves: it cuts right through you and makes a deep impression on you as a child. But on the other hand, that same Laman di Nòrt put food on the table,” says Charles do Rego, who was born in the neighbourhood. “My grandparents on my mother’s side lived on Seru Fortuna from the 19th century, and my mother grew up here.”

Experienced fishermen say that fish on the north side are generally sturdier in build than those on the south coast, because they are deep-sea fish that also have to be able to withstand the strong current on the north side.

Daily life

In his book Mayra, e mucha di Seru Fortuna (Mayra, the child of Seru Fortuna), Charles do Rego writes that besides fishing, the kunukus at Hato, the gardens at home and hat plaiting also put food on the table. The mondi provided kadushi (cactus), yuana (iguanas) and rabbits as food, as well as shimaruku (a berry), tampañá (cactus fruit) and medicinal herbs such as mampuritu. Also plants such as welensali and basora pretu to sweep the house and yard clean and drive out hairu – negative vibrations – watapana (divi-divi) pods for sale, and the parrot to keep as a pet. Grass and brushwood were also gathered for the goats, but the goats were also taken to the neighbouring plantations Hato and Noordkant to graze, and had to be tracked down with dogs if they got lost.

In years of high unemployment, the men of Seru Fortuna – as elsewhere on the island – left for Cuba, among other places, to work in the sugar-cane fields.

In the old Seru Fortuna, women and girls always slept indoors, boys and men in the extension on the plot or sometimes even out in the open. There were few residents, but each had a sizeable piece of land, sometimes passed down from generation to generation since 1875.

In Fortuna Bieu everyone knew each other, had often grown up together from childhood, and everyone was godfather or godmother to a child of the woman next door, so that a close-knit, closed community had arisen. The young men of Seru Fortuna also did not tolerate men from outside courting the girls of Seru Fortuna.

Togetherness

The residents of Seru Fortuna Bieu enjoy the fresh air and the view of the sea, where, depending on the weather, you can even see the hills of Bonaire. Because of this sense of togetherness, the bario also protested jointly against the arrival of even more public housing in Fortuna Bieu. Over the years the village had already been completely surrounded by public housing on Seru Papaya, Stenen Koraal and Muizenberg. The FKP houses were built in the eastern part of Fortuna Bieu after all, albeit fewer of them and with the agreement that residents of Fortuna Bieu would be given priority when the new homes were allocated.

The Sling family

Well-known families in Fortuna Bieu are Florentina, Rafaela, Jacob, Pieternella, Reina, Reinita, Streden, Hato, Macaya, Macaris, Victoria, Girigorie, Geertruida, Makaay, Laker, Celestijn, Kierindongo, Otto and Valerian, many of whom have meanwhile sold parts of their land.

Very well known in Seru Fortuna is the enterprising and artistic Sling family. Together with Willem Walle they founded the Sentro Recreal Seru Fortuna, the first football team on Seru Fortuna and the first after-school care in the area. Win Macaya, born and raised in the neighbourhood, says: “They organised social, cultural and sports activities in the neighbourhood, and Shon Pa Sling was known far and wide for the come-back parties on the large dance floor in his yard in Fortuna Bieu. Like many young people from the neighbourhood, I learned to dance here, and we played dominoes, volleyball and football here.” The Slings’ yard is still completely surrounded by a natural hedge of palu di brasia trees that stand the test of time very well and attract many birds.

Enterprising and artistic

Another well-known family member is Elsa Hato, owner of Tienda San Antonio and the first woman to receive a licence to sell drink on Seru Fortuna. She also sold cake and mankaron (coconut macaroons) and is the grandmother of Omar Sling, visual and graphic artist. Among other things he created the three barika hel (yellow-belly) birds at the MCB Bank in Punda. Another well-known artistic family member is the visual artist Norva Sling, and various other relatives are active in painting or designing all kinds of everyday objects.

Another grandchild of Elsa is chef de cuisine Kris Kierindongo, who runs the restaurant Vitel Arts here, where dishes are prepared with exclusive local ingredients and small groups can dine by appointment. The best-known member of the family is Francis Sling, known among other things for his large murals in Scharloo and on the Keizershof in Otrobanda.

Kas di Bir

The largest original kas di maishi (house of maize stalks) in Fortuna Bieu is the house of Virginia, alias Bir or Iya, who baked bread, biscuits and cakes. For this she had an indoor oven, the only one still standing on Seru Fortuna and probably one of the few on the island. Besides that she also had an outdoor oven, especially for baking cakes. The house is remarkably long at the front and has two more compartments built on behind it. It stands on a sizeable piece of land where other members of the Rafaela-Girigori family also live, on the border with Kurá Piedra.

Kunuku Hatun

At Seru Fortuna, near the turn-off to Shut, lies Kunuku Hatun, former farmland, which in popular speech was also called Kunukatun. In the old days water was fetched from the spring at Hato via the goat paths in Kunukatun. To get there, you had to pass the site of the later Campo Alegre, which was built on the land of this kunuku in 1948. Kampo, as it was popularly called, is an erotic resort that had to close its doors during the Covid epidemic and was bought by the government in 2025.

Wowo di awa

At Kunukatun there is a natural spring, a wowo di awa or water eye, where the water bubbles up spontaneously and which only runs dry after poor rainy seasons. Do Rego: “Women and girls came here in the morning to bathe, but also to wash clothes. The clothes were wetted and beaten with a flat board, and a special kind of soft coral stone, piedra muhé (women’s stone), was used to scrub the dirt away. Meanwhile the latest news from the village was exchanged and arrangements were made.

Pelted with stones

Men and boys were not allowed to show themselves here in the morning. If you did so as a boy anyway, you were jeered at and pelted with stones, and at home you could also count on a good hiding. Men and boys had their turn in the afternoon. After their work on the kunukus at Hato, the men visited the spring with their donkeys to freshen up before going home along the goat paths over the hill. The men also pruned the poisonous manzaliña trees around the spring – an art in itself – to keep the spot open,” says Do Rego.

The spring is also a gathering place for wild animals such as rabbits and birds such as the blue pigeon that come to drink here. Today it is a popular picnic spot for residents of the area.

Fortuna Abou

Selsio Martha: “Fortuna Abou lies at the foot of Seru Fortuna and used to be called Bou di seru (below the hill). In the bend, just before you went up the hill, there was a public tap, and women walked up with buckets of water on their heads, supported by a rudia (head pad).

Besides Bou di Seru, other names then also applied at the foot of Seru Fortuna, such as den Bré and (Santana di) Walanadré, place names that have now completely disappeared,” says Martha.

Walanadré, Wan Andrés or Juan Andrés was the former owner of a piece of land to the left of the winding road up to the higher Seru Fortuna Bieu. There was an unofficial cemetery here, where enslaved people and others had been buried since early times, and later, during an epidemic, a large number of victims as well. It was not large, and all you saw were bumps in the ground. Children had to go through the santana (cemetery) to get to school but were afraid because rattling chains could supposedly be heard. Probably nothing of it remains; the site has since been built over with houses and is no longer recognisable as a cemetery.

Close to Walandré, also at the foot of Seru Fortuna, lies Domingo Meester, named after a healer who lived there.

Den Bré

Bré is the old name of the area east of the Seru Fortunaweg, between Kurá di Piedra (Stenen Koraal) and Muizenberg Nobo. The entrance to Bré was opposite the entrance to the plantation Sabana Huncu, roughly where a Chinese shop now stands.

Selsio: “Bré was actually a dam, a collecting point for water from the whole area, so from Seru Fortuna and Kurá Piedra. Because it was surrounded by poisonous manzaliña trees, it was one of the few dams you could not swim in. When the dam was full, the water overflowed into the Dam di Lulli (next to Lulli’s house), with an overflow to Shell’s large dam at Muizenberg.

On a little hill on the edge of Bré, overlooking the land, stood a spacious stone house – not a plantation house – where the Corentin family lived, the owners of the plot,” says Selsio.

Only the foundation of this house remains, and behind it a little knoek house still stands. Large culverts with stagnant, polluted water also recall this water-rich part of Seru Fortuna, which was also known as the place where gambling games were held at weekends.

Striking places near Seru Fortuna

• Po atras is a well in the water-rich western part of Seru Fortuna that always has some water in it. Rainwater flows here from the hills to Kunukatun. It is a walk-in well, dug so that animals could drink here, and goats were brought here to quench their thirst. Unfortunately the area around the well is now badly polluted.
• Seru den banki is a hill plateau north-west of Seru Fortuna.
• Seru di Mira Cas Chikitu and Seru di Mira Cas Grandi were two hills standing side by side, just before the last slope on the way to Seru Fortuna, on the border between Fortuna Abou and Muizenberg. Seru Mira Cas Chikitu, the smaller hill, disappeared when the Seru Fortunaweg was built.
• Level with Seru Fortuna, far into the rock plateau, there is a cave that looks like a deep cellar. It is the place where enslaved people of Hato used to commit suicide by throwing themselves onto the rocky floor.
• Bórdo is the edge of the limestone terrace and a place where firewood was gathered for cooking and kadushi was collected for soup. After heavy rainfall the high limestone terrace turns into a horizon of little waterfalls, as the rooien (watercourses) that form here clatter down over the edge of the terrace, the bórdo, and make their way to the sea. Where the water cannot run off, a freshwater pond forms where birds, and even flamingos, like to stay.
• Kabes di hende (people’s head) is the eastern part of the plateau, with a panoramic view over the plain, but unfortunately it is also badly polluted here. Fishermen walk this way to go fishing on the north coast.
• Faro: on the coast you can still see the remains of the lighthouse – faro – that once stood on Seru Fortuna. During the war years red or green lights could still be seen burning here for air traffic, but in 1945 the lighthouse was cleared – with much military display.
• The extreme western edge of Seru Fortuna is called On Ben, after Uncle Bernardo Lak(k)er, an uncle of Chals do Rego who had a kunuku here.

North of Fortuna Ariba lie several plateaus named by fishermen: after the former rubbish dump Shut come Boka Breu, Pieda Grandi, Bordo Mandinga, Bordo di meimei, Bordo Maulo, Bordo Shankuri, Santu Pretu (both on the plantation Noordkant) and the well-known Playa Kanoa (near Brievengat). At Shut, one of the richest fishing spots on the north coast, people collected copper washed ashore to sell it. You did have to keep a very close eye on the waves here.

Sources:

M.A. Visman: Van slaaf tot plantagehouder

Ministerie S.O.A.W.: Buurtprofiel Seru Fortuna

C. do Rego: Mayra, e mucha di Ser’i Fortuna

Drs T. van der Lee: Plantages op Curaçao en hun eigenaren

P. Brenneker: Sambumbu, various editions

With thanks to:

Salustiano – Selsio – Martha, Gladwyn – Win – Macaya, Charles do Rego, Ivy Casimiri, Kris Kierindongo, François van der Hoeven, André Rancuret, Jeannette Juliet-Pablo, Unidat di bario, Komishon di bario Seru Fortuna, Mongui Maduro Library and the Historisch Archief (Historical Archive).