Page 14 - AHATA

a8 local
Thursday 19 June 2025
The Aruban Cunukero

From past to present

(Oranjestad)—Aruba’s culture 4. Lastly you have the “Run-
consists of rich historical traditions away Peasantries”, usually
that make up the Aruban identity comprised of runaway slaves
and lifestyle. However, the life of who acquired farming tools
the cunukero (farmer) is perhaps and cattle through stealing
the most important aspect of our or through secret exchanges
culture, in a sense representing to with other slaves from different
locals the true essence of the Aru- plantations.
ban.
However, the Aruban cunukeros
Historically, cunucus (farms) played back then are hard to place, and
a huge role in the early social and their history may explain why.
economic development of Aruba,
and its relevance dates back to From 1636 (beginning of Dutch
the early days of the colonization colonization era) to before the oil Because of the climate, Aruban
era. Upon being discovered by industry in 1924, Aruba’s popula- farmers in general could not keep
Spanish conquistadors in the late tion consisted of mostly farmers. large quantities of livestock. At a
15th century, Aruba was used pri- These farmers were mostly indig- certain point toward the end of
marily as a ranch, housing horses enous and were characterized as the 18th century, the climate got
and cattle brought from Europe. peasants. They weren’t allowed to so bad that many farmers decided
During the Dutch colonization era participate in trading, but instead to leave the island for a while.
where the West Indian Company were granted a piece of land to
(WIC) dominated the economic live off of. However, in exchange For this reason, the farming econ-
sphere on the island, using the land for this grant, these indigenous omy on the island remained small.
to set up cattle farms and ranches farmers were obligated to work for As the years went by and people
remained popular. the WIC, doing daily tasks such as noticed that these farms could
taking care of or hunting cattle— not really produce any sustainable
Anthropologist Sidney Mintz divid- large majority of which were des- profit, farmers kept their small piece
ed Caribbean farmers back in four tined for Curacao, clean water of land just to live off of. This is why
categories: tanks and chop wood, among the Aruban cunukeros only played
other things. were colonists who settled on the a very tiny role into the plantation
1. The “squatters”, who were island to try their luck at farming. In economy.
mostly comprised of illegal and As much as these farmers were giv- 1767, there were about 120 hous-
poor colonists, runaway slaves en to opportunity to live “free” with es/cunucus on the island. In modern Aruba, cunucus and cu-
and deserters who took advan- a plot of land, their exclusion from nukeros still exist on the island, for-
tage of the Spanish’s weak su- the trading and business world, as These Aruban farmers were also tunately with more freedom and
pervision on Caribbean islands well as being deprived the chance limited to the amount of cattle more opportunity to tap into the
like Cuba and the DR; to become real property and cat- they could keep. Most kept goats agricultural market. These farm-
2. Then you have “Early Yeo- tle owners, made them a unique as cattle, as only those who were ers usually sell their produce on a
men”, who were legal farmers group among Caribbean farmers affiliated with the WIC could keep smaller scale, like during farmers’
who came to the west under at the time. (more) sheep. Of the 76 goat herd- market events and other types of
contract. Once their contract ers on the island, about 45 of them (holiday) events.
expired, they were given a plot The WIC placed a lot of restrictions had less than 30 goats, and only 7
of land for independent use; on these indigenous farmers—a of them had more than 60 goats. Source: “Arubaans Akkoord: Op-
3. Proto-Peasants were planta- method to safeguard their cattle stellen over Aruba van voor de
tion slaves who were allowed deposit on the island. The indige- It wasn’t until the WIC was defunct komst van de olieindustrie (Aruban
to have a small piece of land nous farmers were mostly granted in late 18th century that these Accord: Essays on Aruba Before
to grow food for their own con- less than 7 acres of land. Those farmers were able to obtain more the Arrival of the Oil Industry)” by
sumption. This was to curb the who owned bigger land were ei- freedom as cunukeros. After 1824, Alofs, Luc; Rutgers, Wim; Coomans,
cost of living on the plantations; ther once affiliated with the WIC or the government gave these farm- Henny E. red.q
ers official permission to keep live-
stock, and the obligations once
placed on them were officially dis-
carded.

Because of the dry climate in Aru-
ba, growing food for commercial
purposes was not popular. The
focus was mainly on cattle herd-
ing and taking care of livestock.
However, livestock need food to
survive, and when Aruba experi-
enced its duper dry climate, many
farmers would see a big loss in their
livestock, and hence profit.

Although the WIC at one point did
try to come up with an initiative to
get more people to have land on
the island, the climate never really
allowed real profit from farming.