Curaçao historical timeline

History

Curaçao's history is the history of a harbour: a useless island to the Spanish, the best anchorage in the southern Caribbean to the Dutch, a slave market, a refinery and a cruise port in turn. What a visitor sees -- the forts, the painted merchants' houses, the synagogue, the plantation houses of the west -- is the record of who owned the harbour and who worked for them.

Chronology

1499 Alonso de Ojeda reaches the island on 26 July and finds about 2,000 Caquetíos; by 1515 almost all have been enslaved and shipped to Hispaniola, and the Spanish settle in 1527, calling the place the Useless Island for its poor soil and lack of metals.
1634 The Dutch West India Company's fleet under Johann van Walbeeck takes the island; Punda is founded the same year, Peter Stuyvesant is acting governor from 1642 to 1644, Sephardic Jews arrive from Dutch Brazil, and the island becomes a hub of the Atlantic slave trade.
1795 After the company's bankruptcy in 1791 makes Curaçao a Dutch colony, Tula leads the slave revolt of 1795; it is suppressed and he is executed on 3 October. British forces occupy the island twice in the Napoleonic wars before it returns to Dutch rule in 1815.
1863 The Dutch abolish slavery, compensating owners with 200 guilders per enslaved person; the economy shifts to wage labour and the island lives on trade, farming and fishing.
1914 Oil is found in Venezuela's Maracaibo basin and Shell builds the Isla refinery on the Schottegat at Asiento, where slaves had been traded; Ashkenazi Jews arrive in the 1920s and the refinery brings prosperity and workers from across the Caribbean.
1942 German U-boats attack the Dutch refineries on 16 February 1942 in Operation Neuland, U-156 surfacing two miles off Aruba after nightfall the evening before and opening its attack at 01:31. The Shell refinery on Curaçao was processing eleven million barrels a month and was the largest in the world; Britain needed four tankers of petroleum a day in the early war years and most of it came from Venezuela through Curaçao once Italy closed the Mediterranean. British troops had occupied Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire soon after the Netherlands fell.
1954 The Charter for the Kingdom of 15 December gives the Netherlands Antilles political autonomy.
1969 Riots break out in 1969, driven by discontent with the island's subordinate relationship to the Netherlands, continuing racial discrimination and unemployment from layoffs at the Shell refinery. The Dutch government responded with far-reaching reforms giving Afro-Curaçaoans greater influence over political and economic life and raising the standing of Papiamentu. A visitor who wonders why the local language is used so confidently in public life, rather than kept for home, is looking at the result of this year.
1985 Shell sells the refinery to a local government consortium for the symbolic sum of one Antillean guilder in the mid-1980s, after it had run at significant losses from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1982 to 1985 under global overproduction and stronger competition. The refinery had made the island prosperous for sixty years; from here the economy has to be rebuilt on something else, and tourism is what it was rebuilt on.
1997 The centre of Willemstad and its former suburbs are designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The historic core is four quarters -- Punda, established in 1634, and Otrobanda, founded in 1707, facing each other across Sint Anna Bay, with Scharloo and Pietermaai Smal across the smaller Waaigat. The listing is for the architecture and the harbour entry together, which is why the pontoon bridge and the working harbour are part of the site rather than a backdrop to it.
2010 The Netherlands Antilles is dissolved on 10 October and Curaçao becomes a constituent country of the Kingdom, as Aruba had in 1986, with foreign policy and defence handled by the Kingdom and the island outside the European Union's territory.
2025 The Caribbean guilder replaces the Netherlands Antillean guilder on 31 March, the old currency ceasing to be legal tender on 1 July, at the same peg of 1.79 to the US dollar.

What survived, and how

The waterfront survived because the merchants kept trading and UNESCO listed it; the synagogue survived because its congregation never left; the plantation houses of the west survived as ruins and museums, Savonet inside the national park. Tula survives as the island's hero.

What did not survive is the Caquetío population, gone within sixteen years of Ojeda's landing, and the harbour's innocence: the refinery still stands on the site of the slave market.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

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Checked against Wikipedia — Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is an island country located in the southern…, Curaçao includes the main island of Curaçao, and the much smaller, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao ('Little Curaçao'). The 2023 census recorded a…, Curaçao was originally inhabited by the Arawak and Caquetío Indigenous Peoples. The first Europeans to explore the island were Spanish, who first reached it…, Curaçao was part of the Curaçao and Dependencies colony from 1815 to 1954, and part of the Netherlands Antilles from 1954 until 2010, as Island Territory of…, According to the 2023 census, 78% reported that Papiamentu was the language they most spoke at home; 8.4% reported Spanish, 7.9% Dutch, 3.8% English and 2%…, Spaniard Alonso de Ojeda became the first European to visit Curaçao on 26 July 1499. At that time about 2,000 Caquetios lived on the island. By 1515 almost…, The fleet WIC under Admiral Johann van Walbeeck invaded the island in 1634, Peter Stuyvesant became acting governor in 1642, and held the position until 1644. The Curaçao population grew steadily, partly due to the arrival of…, After the bankruptcy of the WIC in 1791, Curaçao became an actual Dutch colony. The Dutch were able to suppress the slave revolt of 1795. The uprising was…, the Dutch abolished slavery in 1863, bringing a change in the economy with the shift to wage labour. The Dutch state compensated the slave owners with 200…, The economic tide turned in 1914 when large petroleum reserves were discovered in Venezuela. Shell immediately established an oil refinery on the island,…, In 1954, Curaçao, together with the other Netherlands Antilles, gained political autonomy, Curaçao was given an autonomous status similar to Aruba on October 10, 2010. Unlike the Netherlands, the island is not part of the territory of the European…, Tula (died 3 October 1795), also known as Tula Rigaud, was an African man enslaved on the island of Curaçao, in the Dutch West Indies, who liberated himself…, The Caribbean guilder (code: XCG) is the currency of Curaçao and Sint Maarten ... Introduced on 31 March 2025, it replaced the Netherlands Antillean guilder…, It was dissolved on 10 October 2010 ... Meanwhile Curaçao and Sint Maarten became constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the same…, Charter for the Kingdom 15 December 1954, matters like foreign policy and defence done on behalf of the entire Kingdom, The Royal Dutch Shell refinery on Curacao processed eleven million barrels a month and was the largest in the world; Britain required four oil tankers of petroleum daily in the early war years and most of it came from Venezuela through Curacao after Italy blocked passage through the Mediterranean, Five U-boats were briefed in Lorient on 15 January 1942 and the first three sailed on 19 January with orders to attack the Dutch refinery facilities simultaneously on 16 February; U-156 surfaced two miles off Aruba after nightfall on 15 February and commenced its attack at 01:31 on 16 February, British troops occupied Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire soon after the Netherlands were captured by Nazi Germany, Discontent with the island's subordinate relationship to the Netherlands, ongoing racial discrimination and rising unemployment from layoffs at the Shell refinery led to riots in 1969, after which the Dutch government introduced far-reaching reforms giving Afro-Curacaoans greater influence over political and economic life and increasing the prominence of Papiamentu, Shell's refinery operated at significant losses from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1982 to 1985, and in the mid-1980s Shell sold it to a local government consortium for the symbolic amount of one Antillean guilder, In 1997 the centre of Willemstad and its former suburbs were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the historic centre consists of Punda, established in 1634, Otrobanda, founded in 1707, separated by Sint Anna Bay, and the Scharloo and Pietermaai Smal quarters on the Waaigat (September 2026).