Curaçao: History, Heritage and Harmony

In this episode of The Moreish Podcast, Hema is joined by Sheedia Jansen, a Freedom Alchemist from Curaçao. Together they delve into the rich history and culture of the Caribbean island. Sheedia shares insights on Curaçao's colonial past, from its Indigenous Caquetio inhabitants to Spanish and Dutch rule, the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, and the influential contributions of the Afro-Caribbean, Dutch, and Jewish communities, and explains the relationship with the Netherlands as part of the Netherland Antilles.

The island's linguistic diversity with four languages, and the shift from oil refinery to tourism as its main economic driver, Curaçao was known as the Caribbean's best kept secret!

The conversation highlights the importance of preserving local culture amidst a blend of global influences, and listeners are encouraged to explore the unique elements of Curaçao's heritage and contemporary life.

Connect with Sheedia:
https://www.heysheedia.com/
YouTube
The Dungeon podcast

Resources:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Curacao
https://www.curacaohistory.com/ 

Transcript

Sheedia: When I first heard that discovered is not the right thing, it felt like, you know, my mind could not compute but really how can you discover something that’s always been there? And the Indigenous people were already there.

Hema: Sheedia, so great to see you. Thanks so much for joining me on The Moreish Podcast.

Sheedia: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited and honoured  to be part of this.

Hema: We have so much to talk about, but before we dive in, why don't you introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are, where you are and the work that you do. 

Sheedia: Yeah, so hello, I'm Sheedia. I'm coming from  Curaçao, born, raised, bred, lived here my entire life. I have travelled for a few years, but never not been a citizen of  Curaçao. And, um, what I do is professionally I'm a Freedom Alchemist. And that is like the overarching umbrella of all of everything that I do. And what it means to me is that I help people experience more freedom by challenging the norms. And with that, I run a podcast as well that's called The Dungeon that is more specifically to Caribbean people and challenging and talking about taboo topics. I do that with racial awareness events.

Last night we had a dialogue session, for example, talking about how does racism play a role in  Curaçao. Last night it was specifically about, racism and relationships. That's just an example of the many different ways that I work in the racial awareness space. And I'm also a coach, which, Interestingly enough, I'm saying that as the third thing, but for a while it was like the number one thing in my life, but now it's, it's a little bit more on the side, and I do that working with people one on one, creating group projects as well. And something else that I forgot is I teach Papiamentu online as I have a course that I do that in.

Hema: That I think, your course in Papiamentu is how I found out who you are. I was doing some research

Sheedia: Huh huh.

Hema: trying to find some people who are knowledgeable about the different Caribbean countries to come on and join me on the podcast. And I think it was your course and your YouTube channel that I found first, that allowed me to reach out to you. 

Sheedia: Yes.

Hema: So we're talking today specifically about  Curaçao because that's your home country, that's where you're knowledgeable about, that's what you're passionate about, but let's talk about where  Curaçao is because it's not necessarily one of the Caribbean countries that people think of first off.

Sheedia: Yes, yes. And at the same time, it's such a beautiful country, you know? And I kinda, for a while, the tourism, Tourism Bureau had this slogan that Caribbean's best kept secret, and I kind of hate that it's no longer the Caribbean's best kept secret. But we're located on the Southern Caribbean. We are 40 miles away from the Venezuelan coast. We're part of the ABC Islands, which were all Dutch Caribbean colonized islands and it's Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, but Curaçao is actually in the middle of those three. And Curaçao is also the largest Dutch Caribbean island. In regards to like dimensions, we are 171 square miles, which is 444 square kilometres.

I used to be a tour guide, so I know all this stuff. And the population is currently just around 150, 000. 

Hema: So

Sheedia: Yeah.

Hema: Not a super huge country in terms of population or in terms of land mass, but a country that has a very rich history.

Sheedia: Yes. Rich, and also like, I find our current position that even though we're so small, we absorb so much culture because of our location, and also because of the fact that we speak four languages, and that's something that I really, really love about  Curaçao. Yeah.

Hema: I’m so excited to learn more. I was doing some research and I made some notes that's going to come out in some of our conversations, but let's go way, way back and talk about who were the original inhabitants of  Curaçao.

Sheedia: Yes, so the original inhabitants were Caquetios They were Arawak speaking Indigenous group that came from the Venezuelan coast, mostly the coastal area of Venezuela. And they used to take these kayaks, if you would call them, that they made out of tree trunks, and come to  Curaçao. And, I mean the research is really intense and ongoing right now, so I might not have the latest and most accurate knowledge of it all, but I do know that they were also often travelling  groups, so they would not always stay in  Curaçao, like they would go back and forth between the mainland of Venezuela and  Curaçao.

Hema: Yeah, I love that you've said that the research is ongoing because in all of the research that I'm doing for all of the Caribbean countries, one commonality amongst many of them is the Indigenous people coming from the South American mainland, Venezuela specifically, and moving their way throughout the Caribbean.

Sheedia: Yeah.

Hema: But a lot of the information that we have or that's written in history books as of today is being re-looked  at, right, in terms of the fact that the people that wrote these books and gave the accounts are the people who we're going to talk about next who colonized the islands.

Sheedia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yes. Yes. And I think it's cause when you sent the information of, what we were talking about, I'm like, uh, I don't really know the most accurate information. But then I remembered, actually, the research is ongoing, and as you said, the people that wrote it were also the people that made sure these, a lot of these communities went extinct.

So they're not the most trustworthy people and we have to, I think we have to approach history and archives with our whole bodies, you know? Like, I feel that maybe this thing that's written might not be accurate. I don't have any proof, but it doesn't feel real to me. I think that should be valid when we are looking at these topics.

Hema: I agree. And as you know, you living in  Curaçao and knowing the culture and knowing the people, it's people like you that have much more intimate knowledge and probably have access to people who have some of the knowledge and have stories to tell. And one of the things that I'm hoping to do with this podcast is not only share a little bit of the history from the perspective of someone knowledgeable and someone from the Caribbean but also hopefully tap into some of those stories in the hopes that we don't lose them.

Sheedia: Yeah, yeah. That’s beautiful.

Hema: The, the Indigenous people were there.

Sheedia: Yes.

Hema: And then somebody else came across the island. Let's talk about that. 

Sheedia: Yes, so the way we learn it in school is that we were discovered by Alonso de Ojeda. Which when I first heard that discovered is not the right thing, it felt like, you know, my mind could not compute, but really, how can you discover something that's always been there? And the Indigenous people were already there. They came in. The Spaniards, so Alonso de Ojeda was a Spaniard, so when he came, there’s two names that he gave the island.

One was Isla de los Gigantes, which is Island of the Giants, because the Indigenous Caquetios were taller than the shorter Spaniards, and after exploring the island, he then called it Isla Inutil, which means useless island. And that is very indicative of how they saw  Curaçao at that time, because we did not have any gold, we don't have a freshwater source other than rain, and it doesn't rain as much here, it's a pretty dry island.

So for Alonso de Ojeda and Spain, it was pretty useless. In fact, even when the Dutch came along, they didn't even really need to, needed to fight to take over the island.

Hema: And the name, The Useless Islands, I was reading that they dubbed the ABC Islands, The Useless Islands, as, as a group.

Sheedia: I didn't know that part. Yeah, but it makes sense.

Hema: So the Spanish made their way there around 1499.

Sheedia: 99. Yeah, 1499.

Hema: And when they arrived on the island and they were there for almost 100 years?

Sheedia: Yeah, 1499 to 1634. They were there because that's when the Dutch came and they didn't really use the island either. I've learned that towards the end of the Spanish stay they did start seeing that the location was very handy for um, storing things or their boats or whatever and then continued their journey between the South American mainland to wherever else they were going.

Hema: When the Spanish quote, discovered the island, even though they didn't think that they considered it use, useless, did they settle? Did they bring more people over or did they just sort of plant their flag and move on?

Sheedia: The Spaniards were the ones that took some of the Indigenous people and moved them to mainland Venezuela and used them as workforce, so as enslaved people. So, yeah, they did do that because to them, the island itself was useless.

Hema: I was reading that many of the Indigenous people were enslaved and moved to Hispaniola for the, for mining, in the copper mines.

Sheedia: Yeah, that, that would make sense too. But I do know that some of them were taken to Venezuela to work as well.

Hema: I think out of that, we can say that, the Spanish enslaved the Indigenous people and then used them as labour in other parts of the region.

Sheedia: Yeah, yeah. That's for sure.

Hema: After 1634, was the arrival of the Dutch.

Sheedia: Yes. The Dutch came and for them, Curaçao was very important because they were pirates. You know? And the way that not only the location of  Curaçao, we're located very close to the South American coast of Venezuela, but also our harbour is natural and interesting that it has a very small canal that goes in and then it's like open on the inside.

So you could store a lot of ships. You can't enter in and all you have to do is protect the entrance of the harbour, which they did. And so that's how they used it then to that's a benefit that they found in Curaçao at that time.

Hema: When the Dutch came in, did the Spanish leave or did that, was it sort of like both of them were on the island?

Sheedia: No, they left. 

Hema: They left.

Sheedia: Yeah. And with the Dutch is pretty much the, the end of the Indigenous people era because, the ones that were left, a lot of them died then with the diseases that were brought over. And we don't have a lot of trace as in how those Indigenous, that Indigenous blood still live in us because likely a lot of people don't have an Indigenous blood within them.

Hema: Oh, so there, would you say there is almost no, or there are no Indigenous people remaining?

Sheedia: No, no. For sure there aren't any groups that say we're Indigenous. There might be people that have some of that Caquetio original blood within them but never heard of any of those people.

Hema: Do the Indigenous traditions still live? 

Sheedia: Not really, but I've heard some words that are from Indigenous origin. For example, iguana, or iwana, that comes from an Arawak word we use in Papiamentu all the time. So that is, one of the ways that that is still alive, but even that, we need to do more research and become more aware of it because there is not a lot of awareness when it comes to those things.

Hema: Interesting. 

Sheedia: Yeah.

Hema: The Dutch colonial period, from my research, was 1634 to 1795. And then for me, when I was looking at this, there is a gap between 1795, and 1816 where I don't know who was on the island. 

Sheedia: Yeah, you are right. So technically it stayed mostly a Dutch island around 1804 and wait, 1795 was not the end of the Dutch rule. That was when the slave revolt happened.

In 1795, Tula, who was inspired by the slave revolts that happened in Haiti, led a group of enslaved people that just stopped working. And he realized that the Bible was saying, that we are all created equal, and he was wondering, so why isn't that the thing? Because they were practicing Catholicism and they had priests and all that stuff at that time. So, he was like, we have to go and speak to the governor and have a conversation about it. He started in Kenepa, which is one of the plantations on the west side of the island. And he went from plantation to plantation, working his way to town to speak to the, with the governor, but the plantation owners ended up not liking that. They boycotted him and they got some slaves to turn on each other and they ended up killing the whole slave population that was moving in that direction. And then they publicly executed and three other people in town to kind of, show that you're not allowed to do that.

Hema: These enslaved people and Tula and this slave revolt, what were the origins of these people?  

Sheedia: That, we lack so, so much information about that. I don't know how much information we can find about it. We do know that they were all enslaved, likely all African descent, and the only reason we know what Tula's intentions were was that there was a Dutch priest, a Catholic priest that wrote a very small paragraph about his interaction with Tula. And that's how we can interpret and start to think, okay, what was he meaning? What was he thinking when he got that idea? Because he was, it's clear he knew about the Haitian Revolution, which we don't know how he knew about it, likely because there was  things that were happening, people, enslaved people were on ships that were being transported from island to island.

So that's probably how he knew about it. We knew that he knew about certain things that happened in France, which also may be because people were talking at that time. And we knew he had a very beautiful heart and was really for humanity, but he was also very spiritual and Catholic in his approach.

So, those are the things we knew, but pretty much all of it comes from a little paragraph that this Catholic priest wrote.

Hema: In a lot of Caribbean countries, there is a direct understanding and history of the enslaved people coming from Africa and being brought over, but enslaved people from Africa were moved from island to island and country to country. So it's quite possible their origins were African, but they came from another country, not directly from  from Africa.

Sheedia: Yeah, actually for  Curaçao in particular, there's a good chance that they were directly from Africa because we ended up being more of a slave port than a place with budding plantations. So they would come in and then be sold to the other islands. So it was like,  Curaçao was primarily a slave market than, you know, a plantation, or we didn't have gold, we didn't have a freshwater source, we didn't have those things.

Hema: Was it during the time of the, the Dutch colonial period that this slavery started and happened or did, was it already taking place during the time that Spain was on the island?

Sheedia: No, it was purely the Dutch thing. The Dutch and the Jewish thing, which I have to mention as well, because have the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere that's been in continuous use, the Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, and that's because when the Dutch came, they brought the Jewish with them because the Jewish, one because of language, they spoke Portuguese, the Sephardic Jewish community that came from Portugal, then Spain, and then Netherlands. I might be mis be construing the Portugal and Spain, but from those two places and then the Netherlands. So they came here, they knew a lot about ships. They knew a lot about, the, their languages was on point. And so they were also part of the slave trade, which is not something we learn in school at all.

Hema: When the Dutch brought the, this Jewish community from Portugal, they were bringing them over as enslaved people or as laborers.

Sheedia: As pretty much as equals, because, the, the Jewish people, they were escaping, and they were just living in the Netherlands at that time, and they were brought as experts or equals or, you know, people that know something.

Hema: They were escaping, the Sephardic Jews were escaping Portugal. Do you know why they were escaping Portugal and moved to the Netherlands?

Sheedia: It was persecution, I don't know exactly what was happening, I can't quote very historically why they were escaping.

Hema: Tell me about the Dutch West India Company. What was it? What did they do? What's the history of that?

Sheedia: It was a company that was settled by the Dutch government and was funded by the Dutch people. It was one of the first publicly traded companies and it was basically to transport goods. Things and goods, but that included people and African people specifically. And so they played a huge role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade for the size that they were. And it wasn't just the West Indian Company, there was also the East Indian Company that did the same thing on the other side of the world.

Hema: The Dutch West India Company, the dates that I have for that are around 1660 is when it started. So tell me about the Dutch East India Company. And, and when it started and what did they focus on?

Sheedia: They did the same thing. We, we have not learned a lot about the East Indian Company, but I do know that they were heavy in Indonesia. Indonesia was a Dutch colony, for a long time. And so they were doing their, their thing on that side of the world as well.

Hema: So we already have, the Indigenous people who were wiped out by the Spanish, essentially, there were the Spanish people and then the Dutch, the Jewish people from Portugal, the enslaved Africans. 

The Dutch held control over Curaçao for a very long time. And when I read that in 1954, Curaçao was granted autonomy, what does that mean?

Sheedia: It's not that Curaçao was granted autonomy, we have to, it's the Netherlands Antilles. So the Netherlands Antilles was a country that formed, that had six states in it. And each state was an island. So you had, Aruba, Bonaire, Saba, Stetia, and St. Martin. St. Maarten, the Dutch side of it, formed one country.

And so you so that country was autonomous within the Dutch Kingdom, which means that you have layers, right? So you have the Netherlands, which is the head of the Dutch Kingdom, you have a group of countries, you have two other countries, really, that was part of the Dutch Kingdom at that time, so that's the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname. And then if we look at Curaçao's position, Curaçao was just a state within the Netherlands Antilles, but because Curaçao is the largest island, we were like the center of it all. The governor lived here, the governor's palace is here, those type of things. 

And if I have to clarify also what that means is, because our relationship currently with the Netherlands is the same as the Netherlands Antilles had with the Netherlands, which was a, a position that changed in 2010. What it means is that we are self-governed for internal affairs. We elect our own government, prime minister, we have a parliament, those type of things. But when it comes to international affairs, passports and military are big ones when it comes to that. That's what the Dutch is in charge of. And that sounds very beautiful when I say it, but there are so many ways that the Dutch tries to infiltrate legally and illegally within our internal affairs as well. So that also is a thing that sometimes people are not even aware of.

 And it has its benefits, I think. Because when I think about independence, I would absolutely love independence. But I don't think it's necessarily the solution. Because if we look at the countries that are independent, both Latin American, Caribbean and African countries, their colonized country is still heavily influenced in so many things that happens in that country. And so, when I look at it that way, that's not necessarily the solution. The way I see it personally is that something else needs to happen in between, and that is a decolonization period of letting go of that relationship and  finding a way to break free from it, but also I don't think that each place can do it individually. Like, we gotta come together

Hema: Yeah.

Sheedia: to do that. And that's why I believe in podcasts and platforms like this, because once we start seeing that, hey, we're all having the same issue, we can start coming together.

Hema: That's a really interesting perspective because, it's not until someone like you sort of puts it all together that helps me, and hopefully the people listening to this, really see that big picture of what that could look like and what that means.

What do you think the culture, or who do you think influenced the culture of Curaçao the most?

Sheedia: That is….I'm not sure you can fully answer that, and that I think is the beauty about Curaçao. We are, if you look at us racially, most Curaçaoans are from Afro origins. One way or another, we have, African blood within us. And then you have a big population of the Dutch and other, people that came from other Caribbean islands. But even the people that came from other Caribbean islands mostly have Afro Indigenous African blood running through their veins. So that in itself is interesting, but we are a mix of things, right? We have the drums and we have our original very beautiful  Curaçao music and food and those type of things, but we also embrace all of it, you know?

Like you can, it, somebody was talking to me during Carnival and he was like, I can hear all sorts of music. You know, you'll hear the soca, you'll hear the dancehall, you'll hear bachata, you'll hear salsa, you'll hear merengue, you'll hear tumba and tambu, which is our local music, and ritmo kombina, which is also local. So, it's all of it

Hema: Yeah.

Sheedia: mixed together, and I absolutely love that about  Curaçao.

Hema: So what I'm hearing from you as somebody sort of removed from it is, it sounds like, it is a mixture and a combination of the people that at one point were on the island.

Sheedia: Yes, yes. And we do have Dutch-influenced music as well. I just don't listen to it as much, that's why I I forgot about it, but yes.

Hema: And when we talk about Carnival, Carnival in itself was a rebellion and a revolt from the enslaved African people.

Sheedia: Yes. Yes.

Hema: You said that there's four languages spoken in  Curaçao. What, what are the four?

Sheedia: Papiamentu, native language of ours. Dutch, English, and Spanish.

Hema: Do you speak all four of them?

Sheedia: Yes. So English is not even my native language, right? It's, it just isn't.

Hema: What, what is the predominant language spoken?

Sheedia: Papiamentu. 

Hema: Okay.

Sheedia: Yeah. I believe it's 78 percent of the island speaks Papiamentu at home as their first language. Yeah.

Hema: As we, wrap up the, the history portion of this episode, let me ask you a couple of more questions. You said that  Curaçao was, was, uh, the Caribbean's

Sheedia: The Caribbean’s

Hema: kept, best kept

Sheedia: best

Hema: secret, which to me implies that tourism is a big part of industry. 

Sheedia: Yes. The biggest.

Hema: it is the biggest industry right now in  Curaçao?

Sheedia: Yeah, yeah.

Hema: And after that, what would you say?

Sheedia: I think it's commerce between countries and ourselves and those type of things. Don't quote me on that 100%, but for a long time the oil refinery was our biggest source of income. The island grew because the oil refinery was there, but it closed down. So that's no longer our largest industry.

Hema: Before we wrap up  the history of  Curaçao, what do you want people to know about the culture of your country?

Sheedia: It's a beautiful mix. It is perfect for people that have ADHD like me, who loves a blend of things and, and all of that, but also for me, it is important that we preserve what's actually ours so that we don't get too distracted with other cultures in that process. So it's embracing ourselves first and then everyone else.

Hema: I love that. In the show notes of this episode, I'm going to leave some links to some of the things that we talked about and maybe some additional readings so people can get to know  Curaçao a little bit better.

And I thank you so much for joining me today to give us a little bit of an overview of  Curaçao, the ABC Islands and your home.

Sheedia: Thank you. Thank you for having me.