Translations for this series are provided for education and research purposes, courtesy of the New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections.
The Curacao records, in Dutch, document the West India Company's activities in the Caribbean during the seventeenth century; supply information about the administration of affairs on Curacao; and depict the commercial relationship between the islands and New Netherland. The series includes administrative records and correspondence, and business records relating to trade and shipping. The records were maintained by Petrus Stuyvesant, who served as director of Curacao and dependencies during the years 1642-1644, 1646-1664.
Administrative History
The records in this series document the seventeenth-century Dutch administration of the Caribbean islands of Curacao, Aruba, and Bonaire and the beginnings of the development of trans-Atlantic trade routes linking North America, West Africa, the Caribbean, and Western Europe.
The Dutch took control of Curacao in 1634 intending to make it a source of salt, which at the time was vital for food preservation. The records were created by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) during its administration of the trading post on Curacao, as well as shipping and trade on the islands of Curacao, Bonaire, and Aruba. They represent the earliest records of territories still administered by the Netherlands. The Dutch islands became a major trading center under Petrus Stuyvesant and Matthias Beck's administrations as directors-general. Trade also developed between New Netherland and the islands; New Netherland provided building materials, provisions, and merchandise and received dyewood and slaves from Curacao, horses from Aruba, and salt from Bonaire. Salt was critical to the herring industry, in that preserving fish in a brine solution allowed the Dutch to stay at sea longer.
The Curacao records represent two distinct time periods relating to Petrus Stuyvesant's association with the Caribbean: first, as director of Curacao, 1643-1644; and later as a visitor to the Caribbean in 1655 while director-general of New Netherland, Curacao, Bonaire, and Aruba (1646-1664).
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Rights: Translations for this series are provided for education and research purposes, courtesy of the New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections, Mutual Cultural Heritage Project. Rights may be reserved. Responsibility for securing permissions to distribute, publish, reproduce or other use rest with the user. For additional information see our Copyright and Use Statement
This series originally constituted volume 17 of the New York Historical Manuscripts in the New York State Library. The original records are in the Dutch language.
Indexed by E.B. O'Callaghan in Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y. (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1865).
Translated in: Curacao Papers, 1640-1665, trans. and ed. Charles T. Gehring, ed. Jacob Adriaan Schiltkamp ("New Netherland Documents Series," vol. 17) (Interlaken, N.Y.: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1987).