Correction on the Jewish Population of 18th Century Curacao
Raif Melhado
In today's class, I pointed out that the Jews made up half the white population of Curacao during the 18th century. This was part of a larger conversation underscoring that in the late American Colonial period and the early decades of the Republic, the main centers of Jewish life in the New World were in the West Indies and not the United States. In spite of the forthcoming correction, this point remains true.
However, when I quoted the absolute population of Curacao, the figure I remembered on the spot in class turned out to have been J. C. van Laar's gross over-estimate to the Dutch West India Company from 1747. Knowing that the Jews were about half the island, I said that there were over 30,000, when actually they fluctuated between 700 and 1500.
However, when I quoted the absolute population of Curacao, the figure I remembered on the spot in class turned out to have been J. C. van Laar's gross over-estimate to the Dutch West India Company from 1747. Knowing that the Jews were about half the island, I said that there were over 30,000, when actually they fluctuated between 700 and 1500.
"History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles" – Vol. 1, pp. 144 - 145
Domine Rasvelt tells us that the Protestant Church had 266 members in 1731. That figure actually represented 216 families. There also were about fourteen Lutheran families and some ten white Catholic families. All told, there were approximately 240 white Christian families in 1731 as against a maximum of 200 Jewish families. Those figures dispel Van Collen's wild claim of "seven Jews to one Christian." Only about the year 1750 did the Jews represent half of the white population.
While Van Collen's exaggerations were dictated by malice, those of J. C. van Laar, a practicing attorney and clerk in the Curacao Government Secretariat, were the result of misinformation. Van Laar sent the Company directors a 101-page "Memoir" on the state of Curacao in 1747. He gave the population as 70,000 and broke the figure down in this fashion: 7,000 reformed Christians, 300 Indians, 5,700 mulattoes and free Negroes, 3,000 foreigners, 44,000 slaves, and 10,000 Jews. The last he classified as follows: 3,000 women, 5,000 youngsters under eighteen years of age, 100 sailors, 400 planters, 300 aged, and 1,200 able to do guard duty. Not until 1942 did Curacao attain a population of 70,000 which included scarcely 700 Jews. A newcomer to Curacao, Van Laar was short on the true facts. He was deeply prejudiced against the white Creole, whether Protestant or Jew.
While Van Collen's exaggerations were dictated by malice, those of J. C. van Laar, a practicing attorney and clerk in the Curacao Government Secretariat, were the result of misinformation. Van Laar sent the Company directors a 101-page "Memoir" on the state of Curacao in 1747. He gave the population as 70,000 and broke the figure down in this fashion: 7,000 reformed Christians, 300 Indians, 5,700 mulattoes and free Negroes, 3,000 foreigners, 44,000 slaves, and 10,000 Jews. The last he classified as follows: 3,000 women, 5,000 youngsters under eighteen years of age, 100 sailors, 400 planters, 300 aged, and 1,200 able to do guard duty. Not until 1942 did Curacao attain a population of 70,000 which included scarcely 700 Jews. A newcomer to Curacao, Van Laar was short on the true facts. He was deeply prejudiced against the white Creole, whether Protestant or Jew.