CaribSeek Books | Small Scale Crafts and Industries | Roots of our Future by Linda M. Rupert

X - Small Scale Crafts and Industries[1]

"Curaçao completely lacks a spirit of partnership and industry. Our economic life only revolves around the alternatives of buying and selling, but not of partnership and production. We lack this ability to create, to make, to produce. Our outlook is satisfied with a kind of gymnastics which only moves between the prices of purchase and sale, and nothing more. That is why all the major industries are in the hands of foreigners."[2]

Straw hats were the island's only major export made by women (CHA).

Contrary to this sentiment, which has been echoed by many writers and observers throughout Curaçao's history, the island has, in fact, developed many small scale local industries over the centuries. Although some were in the hands of foreigners, many were created and sustained by locals from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and social classes. Although none ever rivaled trade or shipping as a mainstay of the economy, many provided regular employment and income at critical moments for large sectors of society. Together, these varied activities demonstrate that the entrepreneurial spirit has been alive and well among all sectors of Curaçaoan society.

Small scale crafts came into their own in the nineteenth century, spurred by the growing free black population and the general

economic downturn. Already by the early 1800s "relative to the limited population, there was an excessively large number of artisans on Curaçao," although "their incomes were low, their motivation was slight, and their product was often of mediocre quality."[3] The overall decline of trade also motivated some merchants to branch out, investing in and/or selling locally-made handicrafts, some of which were made right in their own stores. Internationally, industrialization brought the many new products which local wealthy merchant families coveted for their personal use. This created new opportunities for local craftsmen, who often produced imitations of European and American goods, often working right out of their own modest homes.

Like so much of the island's economic activity crafts and industries were, with several notable exceptions, largely an urban phenomenon. Throughout the first half of the century, high rates of manumission and the increasingly common practice of allowing slaves to work for wages created a dynamic class of urban blacks and mulattos; following emancipation several thousand newly independent Afro-Curaçaoans entered Willemstad's labor market. Otrobanda, in particular, became a bustling center of diligent enterprise; dozens of local craftsmen did a thriving business from their workshops along its narrow streets and alleyways. Most craftsmen produced items only for local consumption and they felt the limitations of this restricted local market. Purchasing power for some high quality items was confined to a very small upper class who had easy access to European and US imports and so "tended to feel that the local product was inferior."[4] Products for the lower class majority, on the other hand, were sold at very modest prices, and barely made a living for their producers. The social position of local craftsmen varied depending on the status of their particular craft, their degree of skill, and their level of independence.

The crafts sector provided interesting examples of coordination across social classes. The Roman Catholic Church organized cooperatives among the poor black majority to develop small scale local industry, such as making rope, sandals and straw hats, and curing hides; often these were supported by successful merchants, who gave advice on production and marketing. The extremely productive hat plaiting industry required a particularly organized trade network, made up of the rural women who made the hats, the town merchants who sold them abroad, and immigrant peddlers who served as middlemen. This model was repeated on a smaller scale in other industries. There was also a distinct racial differentiation within the craftsman community. Goldsmiths were almost exclusively white and were considered to be of the highest status. The middle sector was a multi-racial group made up of furniture makers, tailors and shoemakers. At the very bottom were the black carpenters and bricklayers.

The arrival of Shell dealt a major blow to independent craftsmen, many of whom exchanged their tools for workers' overalls, trading independence for higher wages and the guarantee of full time employment. The widespread social and economic changes that swept over the island put an end to many small scale local industries. As general economic prosperity increased, Curaçaoans of all social classes, from urban workers to the elite, increasingly were able to purchase imported products, rather than locally made ones. As the twentieth century progressed, small scale artisans found their work in serious competition with these cheap imports, ownership of which carried a certain status. More and more stores opened, selling imported goods, replacing what locals had once produced for themselves. Traditional lime burners, furniture makers, tailors and goldsmiths, among others, all "were doomed to disappear"[5] after the arrival of Shell.

Local crafts and industry saw short-lived but significant revivals during the worldwide disruptions in international trade that were caused by the Great Depression and World War Two, when imports to the island virtually ceased. For example, a shoe factory opened just before the war and was quite successful until imports resumed; thereafter it was unable to resist foreign competition. Some craftsmen held out well into the second half of the twentieth century. However, these were but temporary reprieves. By the 1960s most of Curaçao's traditional small scale crafts were history.

But if Shell was detrimental to traditional crafts, it helped open up opportunities for a new generation of modern local industry. Already in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the opening of an electric plant, a water desalinization plant, and several small factories that produced ice, cold drinks and other products for local consumption signaled Willemstad's entrance into the industrial era. The arrival of Shell gave a major boost to this emerging sector. Some new industries were directly affiliated with the refinery; others simply found a niche in the general climate of prosperity. Sephardic Jews, many of them descended from the major merchant families of the past, have had a particularly active role in the development of these local industries. Until well into the twentieth century, however, development of modern local industries was slow due to several factors: lack of sophisticated infrastructure; the changing needs of foreign customers; a small domestic market; lack of significant local purchasing power; lack of local raw materials; and the tendency of well-to-do locals to purchase abroad.

Many new small modern industries emerged after World War Two, as government policies began to favor import substitution. Some industries that were geared to direct consumption benefitted from the overall rising standard of living; these included bakeries, drink factories, flour and pasta makers and ice factories. Alongside the many new industries that were established by international corporations there were also many locally owned ones. In 1967, 1576 local companies appeared on the Trade Registry; by 1976 this number had almost doubled to 2652.[6] That same year, there were forty-eight import substitution industries registered on the island, of which thirty were at least partly owned by locals.[7]

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Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry