CURAÇAO. - It is the largest (447 sq. km.) and most populous (80,000 inhabitants) of the 6 islands that make up the Netherlands Antilles (Nederlandsche Antillen-C.).
It is situated, like Aruba and Bonaire, facing the northern coast of Venezuela (all three together measure 918 sq. km. with 120,000 inhabitants). Also part of the Netherlands Antilles are St. Martin (the southern half; the northern half is French), St. Eustatius and Saba in the Leeward archipelago, east of Puerto Rico (76 sq. km. with 4,532 inhabitants). On the whole the Netherlands Antilles extend over 994 sq. km. and number 140,000 inhabitants, all Black, with the exception of 6,000 foreigners (1,600 Dutch), and in great majority Catholic.
More than the tropical products (cotton, coconuts, cane sugar, cocoa, etc.), already common throughout all the islands, what is important in C. and Aruba is the refining of Venezuelan petroleum, which takes place in three large plants. It is to this recent activity that the two islands owe their economic prosperity.
The capital of the Netherlands Antilles is Willemstad (40,000 inhabitants), in C., which serves as an outpost for Venezuelan Maracaibo.
Bibliography4 works
Giuseppe Caraci
THE APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF CURAÇAO
It comprises the islands of C., Aruba and Bonaire, commonly called the Dutch Antilles: they were discovered by Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499 and remained in the hands of the Spanish until 1643, when they were conquered by the Dutch.
The first missionaries were the Hieronymites, who went there from S. Domingo shortly after the Spanish conquest and remained there until the coming of the Dutch, who drove them out and forbade the practice of the Catholic religion. During the 18th century, the religious assistance of the faithful was attended to by missionaries of various institutes and also of the secular clergy, who settled on the island as colonists. In 1773 the apostolic prefecture was erected, raised to a vicariate in 1842 and entrusted to the Dutch regular province of the Dominicans. The area of the mission is 2,975 sq. km. The spiritual state, according to the statistics of 1948, is as follows: pop. 147,694, of whom 107,694 are Catholics, 37,100 Protestants, 1,700 Jews and the rest pagans. Priests 57, of whom 3 are of the native clergy; coadjutor brothers 130; sisters 319; seminarians 2; teachers 372. The parishes are 24, the mission stations 7, the churches and chapels 34, the hospitals 4, the pharmacies 5, the schools, among elementary, middle, higher and vocational, are about seventy.
Bibliography2 works
Antonio Mazza