CaribSeek Books | Welcome Oil | Roots of our Future by Linda M. Rupert

1915-1940
V - Welcome Oil[1]

"If one year must go down as a turning point it is 1915. That was the year in which the Royal Dutch/Shell Group decided to extend its activities to Curaçao. It marked the beginning of a new era for the entire Colony, for the whole community, and for all sectors of the economy... Oil brought employment, income and purchasing power. Everything connected with oil thrived: trade and the port, building and the public utilities. But economic activities which could not cater to the oil industry or its labour force were doomed to fall into the background: crafts and home industry, agriculture and stock breeding."[2]

The rfinery was built on the site of the old Asiento Plantation, on the northern rim of Schottegat Bay (CHA).

The industrial revolution, so late in coming to Curaçao, arrived with a bang when the oil refinery opened in the 1920s, transforming the island into a major regional petroleum center in just a few years. The widespread social and economic changes brought by the refinery were unprecedented in Curaçao's history. For the first time since the Dutch arrived, Willemstad's trade sector was not the center of the island's economy, and the merchant elite no longer had a monopoly on power and prestige.

Although initially there was some skepticism as to the impact the refinery would have on the economy, this was quickly silenced by the early 1920s. The economic malaise of the previous hundred years was wiped out virtually overnight and, along with it, the basic class foundations of society that had stood for almost 300 years. New immigrant groups totally changed the character of the island's citizenry, from the lower class all the way up to the elite. Curaçao's population more than quadrupled in fifty years, from 32,959 in 1914 to 134,250 in 1965 (see Table 3); much of this growth was due to immigration.

The early twentieth century also saw major regional and world changes that affected Curaçao. The opening of the Panama Canal to the west of Curaçao and the definite emergence of steamships over sailing gave new life to the island's shipping sector. World War One had a largely negative effect on Curaçao's commercial sector, disrupting trans-Atlantic shipping routes; virtually wiping out trade between Curaçao and the Netherlands; and further stimulating the island's dependence on the United States as a source market. During the war the prices of US goods rose significantly. Dutch neutrality in the war, however, benefitted Curaçao.

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Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry