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Koloniale Mythen en Benedenwindse feiten: Curaçao, Aruba en Bonaire in inheems Atlantisch perspectief, ca. 1499-1636

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Location research
Date
2018
Language
Dutch
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978-90-8890-602-2
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Organization, Governance and Management Repository
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Alofs 2018.pdf
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The historiography of the so called Spanish period of the Leeward past (ca. 1499-1634/6) is still dominated by colonial myths about the indigenous inhabitants of the islands of Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire and Spanish encomenderos Juan de Ampiés and Lazaro Bejarano. Indigenous inhabitants are described from a Eurocentric perspective either as Giants (Vespucci) or as docile subjects of European colonization. In 1588, Juan de Castellanos in his ‘Elegías de los claros varones de Indias y la historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada’ defended the encomienda system by praising De Ampiés and Bejarano. Twentieth century historians have reproduced colonial imagination. European newcomers are depicted as bringers of Christianity and humanism or as founders of the (post-) colonial context of the Netherlands Antilles. Also, modern literary authors were inspired by these colonial myths. In 1970, medical doctor and poet Chris Engels (pseudonym: Luc Tournier) implement archaeological research in Aruba to find out if the native population were Giants. Cola Debrot based his novel The persecuted (De vervolgden, 1981) on the life and work of Christian humanist Bejarano. In 2003, humanist and author Frank Martinus Arion pleaded for the creation of a statue for Bejarano: ‘as the first Curaçao governor using heart and soul for our island and more than once proved its usefulness. In addition, he was one of the first humanists of the new world’. This publication is an exercise in the deconstruction of colonial myths and the creation of a decolonized native Atlantic Leeward historiography.
Citation
Alofs, L. (2018). Koloniale Mythen en Benedenwindse feiten: Curaçao, Aruba en Bonaire in inheems Atlantisch perspectief, ca. 1499-1636. Sidestone press. 178 pages.
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Sidestone press
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14473/817
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