Bonaire ( bon-AIR, Dutch: [boːˈnɛːr(ə)] ; Papiamento: [bʊˈne̝i̯ru]) is a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles, and is a special municipality (officially "public body") of the Netherlands. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of Venezuela. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather all year round. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs.

As of 1 January 2023, the island's population totaled 24,090 permanent residents, an increase of over 7,500 (o...Read more

Bonaire ( bon-AIR, Dutch: [boːˈnɛːr(ə)] ; Papiamento: [bʊˈne̝i̯ru]) is a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles, and is a special municipality (officially "public body") of the Netherlands. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of Venezuela. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather all year round. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs.

As of 1 January 2023, the island's population totaled 24,090 permanent residents, an increase of over 7,500 (or 45.6%) since 2012. The island's total land area is 288 square kilometres (111 sq mi); it is 38.6 kilometres (24.0 mi) long from north to south, and ranges from 5–8 km (3–5 mi) wide from east to west. A short 800 metres (0.50 mi) west of Bonaire across the sea is the uninhabited islet Klein Bonaire with a total land area of 6 km2 (2.3 sq mi). Klein Bonaire has low-growing vegetation including cactus (Papiamentu: kadushi), with sparse palm trees near the water and is bordered by white sandy beaches and a fringing reef. The reefs, beaches and on-island reserves located on both Bonaire and Klein Bonaire are under the protection of the Bonaire National Marine Park, and managed by Stichting Nationale Parken Bonaire (STINAPA).

Bonaire was part of the Netherlands Antilles until the country's dissolution in 2010, when the island became a special municipality (officially, a "Caribbean public body") within the country of the Netherlands. It is one of three special municipalities in the Caribbean; the others are Sint Eustatius and Saba. 80% of Bonaire's population are Dutch nationals, and nearly 60% of its residents were born in the former Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.

 Traditional old houses with cactus fences, preserved in the outdoor museum of Rincon, BonaireOriginal inhabitants

The most accurate human remains on the islands, dating from 4500 BC, were found in Curaçao. On different islands the most accurate are 2000 BC in Aruba and 1300 BC in Bonaire. These individuals are currently called by the term Archaic Indians. The Caquetío(arawak) Indians, a clan of the Arawak language family, arrived at the islands from South America around 500 AD.[1] Archeological remains of the Caquetio culture have been found at certain sites northeast of Kralendijk and near Lac Bay. Caquetio rock paintings and petroglyphs have been preserved in caves at Spelonk, Onima, Ceru Pungi and Ceru Crita-Cabai.[citation needed] The Caquetios were apparently a very tall people, for the Spanish name for the ABC islands was 'las Islas de los Gigantes' or 'the islands of the giants'.[2]

Spanish period

In 1499, Alonso de Ojeda arrived in Curaçao and a neighbouring island that was almost certainly Bonaire.[citation needed] Ojeda was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa.[citation needed] De La Cosa's Mappa Mundi of 1500 shows Bonaire and calls it Isla do Palo Brasil or "Island of Brazilwood".[citation needed] The Spanish decided that the three ABC Islands were useless because they did not have known metal deposits, and in 1515 the Caquetío were deported to work in the copper mines of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola; the total number may have been between 500 and 2,000.[3][2][4]

Spain colonized Bonaire since 1499 for a period of approximately one century. Likewise, one of the oldest references to the name of the island is found in the archive of the Main Public Registry of the city of Caracas (Venezuela). A document dated December 9, 1595, specifies that Don Francisco Montesinos, Curate and Vicar of "las Yslas de Curasao, Aruba y Bonaire" conferred a power of attorney to Pedro Gutiérrez de Lugo, resident in Caracas, to collect from the Royal Treasury of His Catholic Majesty Don Felipe II, the salary that corresponded to him for his office as priest and vicar of the islands.

 Fort Oranje in Kralendijk, built in 1639

Remnants of Bonaire's indigenous population can be seen in some of the island's current inhabitants. In fact, the majority of the population is of mixed black and white descent, with minorities of Europeans (descendants of the Dutch) and Africans (descendants of slaves)

In 1526, Juan Martínez de Ampiés was appointed Spanish commander of the ABC Islands.[citation needed] He brought back some of the original Caquetio Indian inhabitants to Bonaire and Curaçao. Ampies also imported domesticated animals from Spain, including cows, donkeys, goats, horses, pigs and sheep. The Spaniards thought that Bonaire could be used as a cattle plantation worked by natives. The cattle were raised for hides rather than meat. The Spanish inhabitants lived mostly in the inland town of Rincon which was safe from pirate attack.[2]

Dutch period

The Dutch West India Company was founded in 1602. Starting in 1623, ships of the West India Company called at Bonaire to obtain meat, water and wood. The Dutch also abandoned some Spanish and Portuguese prisoners there, and these people founded the town of Antriol, which is a contraction of Spanish al interior (English: inside). The Dutch and the Spanish fought from 1568 to 1648 in what is now known as the Eighty Years War. In 1633, the Dutch – having lost the island of St. Maarten to the Spanish – retaliated by attacking Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. Bonaire was conquered in March 1636. The Dutch built Fort Oranje in 1639.[5]

While Curaçao emerged as a centre of the slave trade, Bonaire became a plantation of the Dutch West India Company. Salt became a major export product of the island; a small number of African slaves were put to work alongside Indians and convicts, cultivating dyewood and maize and harvesting solar salt around Blue Pan.[6][7] Slave quarters, built entirely of stone and too short for a man to stand upright in, still stand in the area around Rincon and along the salt pans. The slave population grew in the 1710s when a famine and social unrest on Curaçao caused the Dutch to relocate a large number of slaves to Bonaire.[8] Historically, Dutch was not widely spoken on the island outside of colonial administration; its use increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[9] Students on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire were taught predominantly in Spanish until the late 18th century when the British took Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire; the teaching of Spanish was restored when Dutch rule resumed in 1815.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Netherlands lost control of Bonaire twice, once from 1800 to 1803, and again from 1807 to 1816.[8][10] During these intervals, the British had control of the neighbouring island of Curaçao and of Bonaire. The ABC islands were returned to the Netherlands under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. During the period of British rule, a large number of white traders settled on Bonaire, and they built the settlement of Playa (Kralendijk) in 1810.

Emancipation

From 1816 until 1868, Bonaire remained a government plantation. In 1825, there were about 300 government-owned slaves on the island. Gradually many of the slaves were freed and became freemen with an obligation to render some services to the government. The remaining slaves were freed on 30 September 1862 under the Emancipation Regulation. A total of 607 government slaves and 151 private slaves were freed at that time.[2]

 Slave hutsWorld War II

During the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, Bonaire was a protectorate of Britain and the United States. The American army built the Flamingo Airport as an air force base. After Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, authorities declared Martial law, and many German and Austrian citizens, as well as Dutch thought to be German sympathizers, were interned in a camp on Bonaire.[11] Some of these remained in this camp for the war's duration, and others were transferred to new camps that were built on the mainland in the first year of the war.[12][13][14] In 1944, Princess Juliana and Eleanor Roosevelt visited the troops on Bonaire.[2]

Bonairean sailors made an above-average contribution during World War II. German U-boats tried to eliminate shipping around the Aruba and Curaçao refineries and thus eliminate the island's considerable fuel production for the Allies. Bonairean crewed ships also took part in these battles. Among the many, missing after the war, were the 34 Bonaireans who died on these ships (more than on the other islands of the then Dutch West Indies). During hostilities, the site where the Divi Flamingo Beach Resort & Casino now stands served as an internment camp for Germans and Austrians living in the Antilles, mainly because they were distrusted. There were fears they could have sabotaged the giant oil refineries on Aruba and Curaçao that were supplying paraffin to the Allied air fleet.[citation needed]

The camp was in operation from 1940 to 1947. In total, 461 people were interned during this period without trial, most of them completely innocent. Among them were Medardo de Marchena and also the photographer Fred Fischer, then still an Austrian citizen. Many German internees had just fled Nazi violence. But there were also German prisoners of war, some of whom remained after the war. In September 1943, the father of George Maduro, after whom Madurodam is named, asked Queen Wilhelmina to exchange his son for the German internees on Bonaire. The government did not grant the request. After the war, the empty barracks became Bonaire's first hotel: Zeebad.

 Royal visit of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard in 1955Post-war

After the war, the economy of Bonaire continued to develop. The airport was converted to civilian use and the former internment camp was converted to become the first hotel on Bonaire.[15] The Dutchman Pierre Schunck started a clothing factory known as Schunck's Kledingindustrie Bonaire, a partial solution for the large female surplus on the island. In 1964, Trans World Radio began broadcasting from Bonaire. Radio Netherlands Worldwide built two shortwave transmitters on Bonaire in 1969. The second major hotel (Bonaire Beach Hotel)[16] was completed in 1962. Salt production resumed in 1966 when the salt pans were expanded and modernized by the Antilles International Salt Company, a subsidiary of the International Salt Company. Part of the facilities extend into the Caribbean Sea and form the popular dive site known as Salt Pier.[17] The Bonaire Petroleum Corporation (BOPEC) oil terminal was opened in 1975 for trans-shipping oil.[18] Politically Bonaire formed part of the Netherlands Antilles from 1954 to 2010; it is now a special municipality within the Netherlands.[19] In 2011 the island officially adopted the US dollar as its currency.[20]

Dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles

On 10 October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved. As a result, the government of the Netherlands assumed the task of public administration of the Caribbean Netherlands or BES Islands comprising Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba. The three islands acquired new status as "special municipalities" (bijzondere gemeenten), making them part of the Netherlands itself, a form of "public body" (openbaar lichaam) as outlined in article 134 of the Dutch Constitution. Special municipalities do not constitute part of a province.

As a special municipality, Bonaire is very much like ordinary Dutch municipalities in that it has a mayor, aldermen and a municipal council, and is governed according to most Dutch laws. Antillean legislation remained in force after 10 October 2010, with the exception of those cases where Antillean law was replaced by Bonaire's municipal law. It was believed best for the island to not introduce the entire body of Dutch legislation at one time as it would cause confusion. Therefore, Dutch legislation is being introduced in stages. Bonaire retained its own unique culture while residents enjoy the same rights as Dutch citizens, including the right to vote in Dutch parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. Residents also have access to new or improved facilities and government benefits including, but not limited to, universal health care; improved health care facilities; better educational facilities with additional training for teachers, new teaching methods and new school buildings; social housing for low-income individuals and families; a centrally dispatched single police force, fire department and ambulance service.[21] While the three islands are considered to be land of the Netherlands, they are not a part of the European Union, therefore not subject to European Union Law. They are considered to be an overseas country and territory.[22]

Bonaire's non-governmental organization, Nos Ke Boneiru Bèk ("We Want Bonaire Back"), is against the current constitutional relationship with the Netherlands. With reference to Bonaire's 2004 referendum, the organization is of the opinion that such an arrangement was never the choice of the people. The Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations, Ronald Plasterk, replied to the organization confirming that only the "Island Councils in the Caribbean Netherlands have the authority to decide on holding a constitutional referendum, not the Dutch government." In response, the organization gathered more than 3,500 signatures in 2013 favouring a new referendum. In a letter to minister Plasterk, James Finies, chairman of Nos Ke Boneiru Bèk, requested a "new referendum under the right of self-determination". Plasterk responded by advising Finies that preparations for the evaluation of the public entity structure had begun for 2015, but a "possible change of the constitutional relations is not part of that evaluation".[23] The new referendum took place on 18 December 2015.[24] 65% of the turnout voted that they were not happy with the current relationship between Bonaire and the Netherlands.[25][26]

^ Van Buurt, Gerard (2011). "Conservation of Amphibians and Reptiles in Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire". In Hailey, Adrian; Wilson, Byron S.; Horrocks, Julia A. (eds.). Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 1: Conservation Biology and the Wider Caribbean. pp. 145–159. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004183957.i-228.49. ISBN 978-90-04-19407-6. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference Helm was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ Lopez, Barry (1996). "Searching for Depth in Bonaire". The Georgia Review. 50 (3): 545–558. JSTOR 41401267. ^ Anderson-Córdova, Karen F. (2017). "The Voluntary and Forced Movement of Indians among the Islands and the Mainland". Surviving Spanish Conquest: Indian Fight, Flight, and Cultural Transformation in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The University of Alabama Press. pp. 120–149 [137]. ISBN 978-0-8173-9090-7. Project MUSE chapter 1950702. ^ nl:Fort Oranje (Bonaire)[circular reference] ^ Kennedy, Cynthia M. (2007). "The Other White Gold: Salt, Slaves, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and British Colonialism". The Historian. 69 (2): 218. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2007.00178.x. JSTOR 24453659. S2CID 144807834. ^ Misevich, Phil; Mann, Kristin; Silva, Daniel B. Domingues da; Richardson, David; Vos, Jelmer; Mann, Kristin (2016). The Rise and Demise of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Atlantic World. University of Rochester Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-78204-656-1. Project MUSE book 83663. ^ a b van Welie, Rik (2008). "Slave trading and slavery in the Dutch colonial empire: A global comparison". New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 82 (1–2): 47–96. doi:10.1163/13822373-90002465. JSTOR 43390702. S2CID 128869753. ^ Dede pikiña ku su bisiña: Papiamentu-Nederlands en de onverwerkt verleden tijd. van Putte, Florimon., 1999. Zutphen: de Walburg Pers ^ "The Map Room: Caribbean: Bonaire". British Empire. Retrieved 10 October 2010. ^ van der Horst, Liesbeth (2004). Wereldoorlog in de West : Suriname, de Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba, 1940-1945 (in Dutch). Hilversum: Verloren. pp. 69–74. ISBN 9789065507945. ^ Anonymous (15 June 2007). "Imprisoned Innocents" (PDF). Bonaire Reporter. p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2009. ^ Sint Jago, Junnes E. (2007). Wuiven vanaf de waranda (in Dutch). Utrecht: Gopher. ISBN 9789051794960. OCLC 150262823. ^ Captain, Esther (2010). "De interneringen in Suriname en de Nederlandse Antillen". Oorlogserfgoed overzee : de erfenis van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Aruba, Curaçao, Indonesië en Suriname (in Dutch). Amsterdam: Bakker. ISBN 9789035135840. ^ "Divi Flamingo Beach Resort Bonaire". Retrieved 19 February 2009. ^ "Bonaire Beach Hotel". Retrieved 19 February 2009. ^ "Cargill Salt Company". Retrieved 19 February 2009. ^ "Bonaire Petroleum Company". Archived from the original on 2007-03-01. Retrieved 19 February 2009. ^ Cite error: The named reference WOLBES was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ "Introduction of the dollar on Bonaire, Saint Eustace, Saba". 18 May 2010. Retrieved 26 June 2019. ^ Cite error: The named reference GovernmentNL was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ "Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba". DS World's Lands. Archived from the original on February 28, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) ^ "Dutch Minister Plasterk: Constitutional Referendum BES is Island Affair". Government News. Bearing Point Caribbean. August 18, 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-12-11. Retrieved December 7, 2014. ^ Referendum bill Archived 2015-12-23 at the Wayback Machine, government of Bonaire, 9 October 2015 ^ Posthumus, Niels (19 December 2015). "Bonaire stemt tegen huidige band met Nederland". NRC. Retrieved 13 March 2016. ^ The Conference on the Political Future of the Dutch-Administered Caribbean, Having met at Bonaire, West Indies on 1st December 2016, St. Martin News Network, 15 December 2016
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