Klein Curacao

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History

History

Klein Curaçao – Then and Now by Susan Campbell A short boat trip away, Curaçao’s sister island Klein Curaçao (klein means “little”) is a popular day-trip destination for locals and visitors alike. But its history is mystery to most. That was then…

Today, it’s a barren island save an ancient lighthouse and a massive rusty wreck of oil tanker Maria Bianca Guidesman, but throughout the ages, this little rock has hosted some surprising guests. The island was once also very fertile, but when mainland farmers decided to use it as grazing land for goats, it became barren very quickly, as goats eat every kind of plant. The loss of vegetation com­ bined with lots of seabird guano – the island is still an important nesting site – did turn it into a place that created phos­ phate, a much coveted material in the late 1800s for use as a component in fertilizers.

36 Nights

Then, in 1871, English mining engi­ neer, John Godden, saw an opportunity to profit from the phosphate, and mined it unimpeded until the island became com­ pletely barren of anything useful at all. But perhaps the most surprising past occupants of this little rock were the Germans. In 1888, the Dutch didn’t protest when German naval engineers descended on the island intent on building a naval shipyard and using it as a base for a Deutsche Karibik, a German Caribbean Colony. But the project never came to fruition as tropical storms washed away the foundations of the new wharf and the Germans ran out of money to fund its E

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