Page 11 - AHATA

Friday 4 July 2025 locAl
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The Aruban Cunukero

From past to present

(Oranjestad)—Aruba’s culture away Peasantries”, usually
consists of rich historical traditions comprised of runaway slaves
that make up the Aruban identity who acquired farming tools
and lifestyle. However, the life of and cattle through stealing
the cunukero (farmer) is perhaps or through secret exchanges
the most important aspect of our with other slaves from different
culture, in a sense representing to plantations.
locals the true essence of the Aru-
ban. However, the Aruban cunukeros
back then are hard to place, and
Historically, cunucus (farms) played their history may explain why.
a huge role in the early social and
economic development of Aruba, From 1636 (beginning of Dutch
and its relevance dates back to colonization era) to before the oil
the early days of the colonization industry in 1924, Aruba’s popula- 1767, there were about 120 hous-
era. Upon being discovered by tion consisted of mostly farmers. es/cunucus on the island. In modern Aruba, cunucus and cu-
Spanish conquistadors in the late These farmers were mostly indig- nukeros still exist on the island, for-
15th century, Aruba was used pri- enous and were characterized as These Aruban farmers were also tunately with more freedom and
marily as a ranch, housing horses peasants. They weren’t allowed to limited to the amount of cattle more opportunity to tap into the
and cattle brought from Europe. participate in trading, but instead they could keep. Most kept goats agricultural market. These farm-
During the Dutch colonization era were granted a piece of land to as cattle, as only those who were ers usually sell their produce on a
where the West Indian Company live off of. However, in exchange affiliated with the WIC could keep smaller scale, like during farmers’
(WIC) dominated the economic for this grant, these indigenous (more) sheep. Of the 76 goat herd- market events and other types of
sphere on the island, using the land farmers were obligated to work for ers on the island, about 45 of them (holiday) events.q
to set up cattle farms and ranches the WIC, doing daily tasks such as had less than 30 goats, and only 7
remained popular. taking care of or hunting cattle— of them had more than 60 goats. Source: “Arubaans Akkoord: Opstellen
large majority of which were des- over Aruba van voor de komst van de
Anthropologist Sidney Mintz divid- tined for Curacao, clean water It wasn’t until the WIC was defunct olieindustrie (Aruban Accord: Essays
ed Caribbean farmers back in four tanks and chop wood, among in late 18th century that these on Aruba Before the Arrival of the Oil
categories: other things. farmers were able to obtain more Industry)” by Alofs, Luc; Rutgers, Wim;
Coomans, Henny E. red.
freedom as cunukeros. After 1824,
1. The “squatters”, who were As much as these farmers were giv- the government gave these farm-
mostly comprised of illegal and en to opportunity to live “free” with ers official permission to keep live-
poor colonists, runaway slaves a plot of land, their exclusion from stock, and the obligations once
and deserters who took advan- the trading and business world, as placed on them were officially dis-
tage of the Spanish’s weak su- well as being deprived the chance carded.
pervision on Caribbean islands to become real property and cat-
like Cuba and the DR; tle owners, made them a unique Because of the dry climate in Aru-
2. Then you have “Early Yeo- group among Caribbean farmers ba, growing food for commercial
men”, who were legal farmers at the time. purposes was not popular. The
who came to the west under focus was mainly on cattle herd-
contract. Once their contract The WIC placed a lot of restrictions ing and taking care of livestock.
expired, they were given a plot on these indigenous farmers—a However, livestock need food to
of land for independent use; method to safeguard their cattle survive, and when Aruba experi-
3. Proto-Peasants were planta- deposit on the island. The indige- enced its duper dry climate, many
tion slaves who were allowed nous farmers were mostly granted farmers would see a big loss in their
to have a small piece of land less than 7 acres of land. Those livestock, and hence profit.
to grow food for their own con- who owned bigger land were ei-
sumption. This was to curb the ther once affiliated with the WIC or Although the WIC at one point did
cost of living on the plantations; were colonists who settled on the try to come up with an initiative to
4. Lastly you have the “Run- island to try their luck at farming. In get more people to have land on
the island, the climate never really
allowed real profit from farming.
Because of the climate, Aruban
farmers in general could not keep
large quantities of livestock. At a
certain point toward the end of
the 18th century, the climate got
so bad that many farmers decided
to leave the island for a while.

For this reason, the farming econ-
omy on the island remained small.
As the years went by and people
noticed that these farms could
not really produce any sustainable
profit, farmers kept their small piece
of land just to live off of. This is why
the Aruban cunukeros only played
a very tiny role into the plantation
economy.