History
Document Type
Book Chapter
Abstract
An official Dutch government report described Curaçao in the late eighteenth century as “the only safe port that the state has in the West Indies, one in which more than 300 ships of the largest size can be sheltered and where they are shielded against the force of wind and sea, where all the ships can be keel- hauled and recover from sustained damage, where a defeated fleet or merchantmen coming from our colonies can always flee because of its leeward location…”. Ideal for shipping traffic, the island had long since been an important regional market, described by a contemporary author as a “small paradise of earthly abundance.” The aim of this chapter is to review the island’s commercial heyday, its connections with the Republic, its place in Caribbean trade networks, and the concomitant mobility of its populations.
Publication Title
Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800
Publication Date
2014
Volume
29
First Page
23
Last Page
51
ISSN
1570-0542
DOI
10.1163/9789004271319_003
Keywords
Curaçao, Caribbean, Dutch Republic, Dutch West India Company
Repository Citation
Klooster, Wim, "Curaçao as a Transit Center to the Spanish Main and the French West Indies" (2014). History. 45.
https://commons.clarku.edu/historyfac/45
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
