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Curacao and Sint Eustatius 1943, You go your way and I will go mine

Independence can be a tricky thing of a dependency. They are after all dependent So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

A Queen looks down pleasantly at a view of an exotic island that is a part of the Dutch colony of Curacao. The stamp is however from the war years of World War II. Thus Holland is occupied by the Germans and Queen Wilhelmina is in exile in London. There is no fighting going on but change is in the air.

Todays stamp is issue A30, a one and a half cent stamp issued by the Dutch Colony of Curacao on February 1st, 1943. This stamp features the dependent island of Sint Eustatius. Other stamps in the six stamp issue show other islands that were part of the colony. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

The Islands was first spotted by Christopher Columbus and changed hands many time until coming under the Dutch in the treaties that ended the Napoleonic wars. In World War II the islands of the colony became hosts to many sailors and Queen Wilhelmina promised self rule post war. She toured the USA and Canada during her exile but did not visit the Dutch colonies. Here though is where it gets complicated. The peoples on the islands were majority blacks descended from the old slave trade that Holland was a big part of. They were not Dutch and did not even speak it.

The island of Curacao could see itself as an independent country. Oil had been discovered in nearby Venezuela and the Dutch oil company Shell had set up a large oil facility with a refinery and oil storage. It provided much employment and fit with the old Dutch model of their trading posts being natural transshipment posts with low tariffs. In the late 40s an open air brothel called Campo Alegre or Le Mirage was set up staffed by foreign women to service guests on the island. It was government owned and still operates today. Thinking this tax base gives a economic future and grating under Dutch administration, Curacao voted for independence. This lead to the colony then known as the Netherland Antilles going defunct.

Imagine thinking you could build a country on this.

The oil refinery, currently not operating in Curacao. As with the brothel, outsiders needed to work it.

Several of the smaller islands in the colony voted to stay colonies of Holland. They have small populations and a mother country checking on them is more appealing. They seemed to not trust being a dependent of an independent Curacao. I can understand that and commend Holland for giving them a choice.

Curacao is having it’s own set of problems. A labor dispute at Shell caused a period of rioting. Shell then decided to end the operation on Curacao and turned over the facility to the government for 1 Guilder. It is currently leased out to the Venezuelan national oil company but at a much lower level of employment and that lease ends next year. Curacao is talking to China about it and appealing to Holland for more aid.

P. S. Between writing and publishing there has been a court ruling taking the oil facility from Venezuela and giving it to Conoco, the American oil company. They had sued in countries with Venezuelan oil assets to get compensated for other assets nationalized in Venezuela without payment. Conoco decided it uneconomic to operate and it closed in 2019.

Also La Mirage, which closed for COVID, was declared bankrupt by it’s unpaid janitorial service. 125 sex workers and 85 others were put out of work. The sex workers had been on 3 month visas to Curacao. It is estimated that 25,000 females had worked there since 1949.

Well my drink is empty. With their honey pots closed, will Curacao go hat in hand back to Holland? Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.