Tag: Holland stamp

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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.

 

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Well we think we are independent, we have a constitution, a flag, and Austrian stamps

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell of locals seizing an opportunity and holding out just long enough for world opinion to force the hand of the colonial power.

The stamp today is a very well done virtually real stamp from 1949. An American stamp from the same year would not be nearly so well printed. While the stamp says Republik Indonesia, as of the day of issue the area was still officially the Dutch East Indies. The rebellion had contracted with printers in Vienna, note Wein in small letters on the bottom, to print stamps. They were to be mainly marketed by an American stamp dealer named Proofs. A few of the stamps made it to Indonesia and were sold for postage but cancelled copies are so rare that the Scott catalog has not enough data to set a value.

The stamp is issue C24, a 75 sen air mail stamp issued by the rebel forces in Dutch East Indies on August 17th, 1949. It is part of a 13 stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the Indian flown airplanes that were ignoring the Dutch blockade and bringing supplies to rebel held areas. The stamp shows a rebel sentry and a DC4 airliner over Lake Toba in Sumatra. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 95 cents. There are later overprints of these stamps celebrating actual independence and these are worth less.

Holland expended a great deal of effort in a failed bid to hold on to their Dutch East India colony. While the rule had become slightly less repressive with less peasant forced labor and more educational opportunities, independence movements were dealt with harshly and rebellious leaders like future president Sukarno spent much time in jail. At the time World War II broke out there were three active rebellions against the Dutch. One centered on Islam, one Communist, one centered on Indonesian nationalism lead by Sukarno. Sukarno was charismatic and spoke many indies dialects as well as Dutch, English, French, and Japanese. He had been well educated in Dutch schools When Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies they released Sukarno from jail and encouraged him to rally the people in favor of the Japanese war effort. He did so and during Japanese occupation he was allowed to head a group of Indonesians to work on the formation of an independent Indonesia. This group wrote a constitution and Japan was preparing to recognize Indonesian independence when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan and they surrendered. Sukarno then got to work, he personally proclaimed independence and got most of the Japanese occupiers to turn over their arms to the new Indonesia. Quickly the Dutch administration reappeared from exile with a brigade of the British Indian army and took the biggest city Jakarta. They rearmed Dutch POWs held by the Japanese.

At first there was no fighting and the Indonesians helped the British and the Dutch get the surrendered Japanese soldiers home. Sukarno was at the time wooing the west. He understood there was much anticolonial sentiment in the west and he had ingratiated himself somewhat by respecting all religions in the 1945 constitution, excluding sharia law. He also without western help put down communist rebels within  his movement. The Dutch sent more troops and fighting broke out with Sukarno’s forces being pushed from much of the country. The Dutch  had many casualties however and America was against them, threatening to cut off Marshall Plan aid if independence was not granted. The Dutch yielded late in 1949 and independent Indonesia was recognized with Sukarno the first President.

I know this stamp seemed a little fake at the time of issue. This stamp so well reflects the history of the time that any resurgence of stamp collecting in Indonesia  could see a big  run up in the value of the stamp. The stamps printed in Vienna were very attractive and did a great job showing off the birth of the nation. Indonesia is a populous nation with many well off people. How could any patriotic Indonesian stamp collector not have these stamps in their collection. Get them while they are still cheap!

Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Don’t trump Tromp even if you are the Bestevaer

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story of rival Dutch Admirals who have now mellowed into history until they can be sister(ships).

The stamp today is from an interesting time. The stamp is from the Netherlands, from the time during World War II when it was under German occupation. The stamp shows no markings to indicate German control, and the figure on the stamp was a long ago figure from Dutch history. From the situation on the ground in 1943, it might have seemed the war was over for the Dutch.

The stamp is issue A54, a 7 and a half cent stamp issued in German occupied Holland in 1943. It is part of a seventeen stamp issue. The stamp depicts Admiral M. A. de Ruyter, a Dutch Admiral from the 17th century. The Scott catalog lists it’s value as 25 cents cancelled.

Admiral de Ruyter was born into a modest background and began serving as a sailor at age 11. His maritime service was not stricktly naval. The Dutch were on the high seas mainly for trading and this was true of de Ruyter as well. He was involved with trade with the Irish and in the Mediterranean. The issue for the Dutch was that since there trade was so lucrative it often drew the hostile attention of the British, the French, the Swedes, the Barbary pirates and privateers from Dunkirk.

De Ruyter had proven very adept when called in to the situations described above. Even in his civilian work, he had done much to free Christians held as slaves by the Barbary pirates, often by paying the ransom out of his own pocket. A statue of de Ruyter stands in Hungary today honoring him for saving some Hungarians that had fallen to the Muslim pirates. His help in freeing the German/Polish city of Danzig from the Swedes may be directly linked to why the German occupiers of 1943 Holland thought him worth, and safe to remember.

As I stated though, he was not a man of noble background. Many of his rivals in the Dutch Navy were. There was much pushback when it was attempted to promote de Ruyter above more prominent people with more seniority. de Ruyter did not seem much interested in these political squabbles and often turned down assignments.

Things came to somewhat of a head when a Dutch Admiral named Tromp was killed in battle. His son, Cornelis felt he was deserving of inheriting his father’s position. The Dutch Navy thought otherwise and de Ruyter was appointed to a special rank that only he ever held and moved to Amsterdam. This was okay because at sea de Ruyter was referred to as the Commodore, a rank that does not even exist in the Dutch Navy. Regular sailors referred to him has the bestevear, which does not mean the best ever but is an old Dutch way of saying grandfather.

The trumping of Tromp junior proved only temporary. First came a non-fatal stabbing at the front door of his house. This crime was committed by a disaffected Tromp supporter. Later when de Ruyter was killed in battle leading a Dutch/Spanish fleet against a French/Italian fleet, he was succeeded by Cornelis Tromp. The Dutch navy today still ties together de Ruyter and Tromp by having sister ships named after them. As is usual, the Tromp is the flagship.

Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.