A CARIBBEAN CONNECTION

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During the American Revolution Curacao , a Dutch colony in the Caribbean,  served as a strategic and commercial hub.  It also functioned as a neutral port for the flow of war supplies to the American colonies.

Fort Beekenburg 

Fort Beekenburg was built in the early 1700s to guard Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao. It was named after Nicolaas van Beek, the Governor of the island from 1701 to 1704.

Curaçao became a Dutch colony in 1634 when the Dutch West Indies Company captured the island from the Spanish. They established it as a key trading post.

I have been visiting the island this December and finding connections to the American Revolution. Today I was in Willemstad.   It was named after William II, Prince of Orange (1626  - 1650).

At Willemstad 

The British on 20 December 1780, angered by the flow of supplies through Dutch Caribbean ports like Curaçao, declared war on the Dutch Republic to cripple their colonial trade network.  The country now known as the Netherlands in 1780 was called the Dutch Republic or Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.

The Dutch had several colonies on islands in the West Indies. These were Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao,  Sint Eustatius,  Saba, and Sint Martin.  They were collectively known as the Dutch Antilles.

In 1780 the Dutch Republic joined the League of Armed Neutrality which opposed British attempts to control trade with American colonies.

The Dutch as well provided loans to the United States. Their involvement in the American Revolution meant Britain faced another opponent which stretched its navy further while fighting continued in America. 

On 16 November 1776, the fort on another Dutch Island in the Caribbean, St. Eustatius, returned a salute from the American ship Andrew Doria, marking the first international recognition of the American flag.

The States General in the Hague met with John Adams, as Minister of the United States, on 19 April 1782 making the Dutch Republic the second nation (after France) to formally recognize the United States as a sovereign country. 

Adams, who later became President of the United States from 1797 to 1801,  successfully negotiated loans totaling millions of guilders from Amsterdam bankers in June 1782, which helped prevent the young U.S. government from declaring bankruptcy.

After the American Revolution there is no record of any organized movement of United Empire Loyalists to Curaçao or other islands in the Dutch Antilles. They are primarily associated with their migration to British North America (Canada).  However, they shared a historical connection through the geopolitical events of the American Revolution. 




Historian & Author; Member of United Empire Loyalists ' Association of Canada, Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia, Ulster Historical & Genealogical Guild (Life)

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