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As Emmanuel & Emmanuel have noted, "the contribution of the Jews to the development and welfare of Curaçao ever since 1634 is so stupendous that their history is inseparable from that of Curaçao."[29] Throughout the nineteenth century Curaçao's Jews made important advances and major contributions to the island's economic development in virtually every arena. With the WIC out of the picture, they consolidated their position as the island's premier merchants and shipping magnates; what they lacked in numbers, they more than made up for in entrepreneurial spirit. The list of names of the island's commercial elite from this period almost reads like a roster from the synagogue.

While Jews in the Netherlands received full citizenship rights in 1796, their brethren in Curaçao had to wait almost another thirty years. When the ban on Jewish participation in local government was finally lifted in 1825 this opened the way for the emergence of a new generation of Jews who could wield political as well as economic power. By 1830 the first Jews were serving as members of the Council of Commerce and Maritime Questions and the Communal Administration Council. The first Jewish representative was appointed to the Island Council in 1844; by 1850 the Council was made up of five Protestants and two Jews.[30] From then on, Jews would be well represented politically. As the century progressed, a rising new group of Jewish merchants emerged to challenge the established old families economically and politically; they were to become major players in the second half of the century (see Chapter 4).

But if their relative power was increasing, throughout the nineteenth century the actual number of Jews declined considerably. Faced with an uncertain economy, many Jewish merchants emigrated in search of more lucrative trade opportunities, taking advantage of their well established commercial and family ties around the Americas. When the Dutch retook the island from the British in 1816 Curaçao had just 1021 Jews (312 men, 410 women and 299 children) out of a total white population of 2781, compared to a peak of 2000 in 1798;[31] the island's Jewish population had been almost halved in just twenty-seven years. The fact that women outnumbered men four to three clearly shows that many of the merchants had only temporarily left the island to seek gain elsewhere. The number of Jews on the island rose and fell quite erratically throughout the century (see Table 2): a sudden drop in their numbers is a hint that times were particularly difficult for the island (especially taking into account relatively high birthrates), while a sharp rise might be a clue that local economic conditions had improved sufficiently to bring the wanderers back home (or that they had encountered persecution or oppression abroad).

Table 2
The Jewish Population of Curaçao (1750-1865)

So many Jewish merchants emigrated to the free port of St. Thomas in this period that the small Danish island had a street and even an entire neighborhood named after Curaçao. Because of their well deserved reputation for commercial excellence, Curaçao's Jews were officially welcomed on the South American mainland; Venezuela and Colombia even rushed to abolish certain discriminatory statutes in an effort to attract the emigrants. Dozens of well-connected Curaçaoan Jewish merchants settled on the northern coast of the mainland, especially in the busy ports of Coro, Puerto Cabello, Maracaibo, Barcelona, Valencia and Caracas in Venezuela, and Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, and Rio Hacha in Colombia. Santo Domingo, Haiti, St. Kitts, Puerto Rico, New Orleans and New York were other popular destinations.[32] These settlements reinforced Curaçao's trade ties; merchants who continued to live on the island were more disposed to trade with friends and family members in Curaçao's distant markets.

Coro, in particular, was a major destination. "The Curaçaoan Jews settled there not as undesirable refugees, but as merchants and sailors whose aim was to employ their capital, their credit and their experience to the benefit of the province of Coro, Curaçao and themselves."[33] So great was their influence that the Venezuelan government even briefly appointed a Curaçaoan Jew as mayor, although irate Catholics soon had him ousted. Curaçao's Jews regularly contributed to the upkeep of the local garrison and sometimes even to the payment of government employees. But their situation quickly soured when they became reluctant to continue pouring money into what they considered to be poor government administration. In 1855 a band of soldiers attacked Jewish homes and businesses, desecrated the cemetery and called for the Jews' expulsion; shortly thereafter 160 returned to the island. Attacks such as this were not uncommon. Not all of the discriminatory statutes against Jews were eliminated; for example, the Colombian constitution expressly forbade Jews from engaging in retail trade or settling in the interior. Catholic Church leaders and government officials did not always abide by the new laws. In cases of blatant discrimination the Dutch government sometimes intervened directly on behalf of the Jews.

In spite of the overall difficult economic situation, Curaçao's Jewish merchant community had access to a large amount of money; according to one estimate, 45% of all the island's private wealth in the late nineteenth century was in the hands of Jews,[34] although there were about twice as many Dutch on the island. In the island's most difficult years, they repeatedly dipped into their own pockets to bail out the government, voluntarily furnishing loans in 1797, 1798, 1805, 1816 and 1820. In 1816, out of a total of 12,000 pesos that was lent to the government, 4500 came from the Jewish community and 2250 from Jewish shipping magnate Abraham J. Jesurun, who also bailed out the Venezuelan government in the same period and even issued his own island coins (see Profile, Chapter 9).

Jews also had become the island's shipping magnates, exercising a virtual monopoly on the docks. Between 1843 and 1875 the Jesurun family built a mercantile fleet of over one hundred vessels, which traveled regularly to Amsterdam, New York, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, and, especially, St. Thomas and the coastal ports of South America. To service this fleet, the Jesuruns owned three local shipyards (see Chapter 8).

Throughout the nineteenth century, with the WIC out of the picture, and as successive droughts hit the island, many Dutch plantation owners sold their properties to Jewish merchants, who sought weekend retreats from their residences in the overcrowded, walled-in neighborhood of Punda. While many of the previous plantation owners had been Dutch-born WIC employees who only stayed on Curaçao for a few years, most of these nineteenth century rural estate holders were born and raised on the island, often belonging to well-established families who had been on Curaçao for several generations.

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Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry