Slave quarters, built entirely of stone and too short for a man to stand upright in, still stand in the area around Rincon and along the salt pans.
Salt became a major export product of the island a small number of African slaves were put to work alongside Indians and convicts, cultivating dyewood and maize and harvesting solar salt around Blue Pan. While Curaçao emerged as a centre of the slave trade, Bonaire became a plantation of the Dutch West India Company. Maarten to the Spanish – retaliated by attacking Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. In 1633, the Dutch – having lost the island of St. The Dutch and the Spanish fought from 1568 to 1648 in what is now known as the Eighty Years War. The Dutch also abandoned some Spanish and Portuguese prisoners there, and these people founded the town of Antriol, which is a contraction of Spanish al interior (English: inside). Starting in 1623, ships of the West India Company called at Bonaire to obtain meat, water and wood. The Dutch West India Company was founded in 1621. A document dated Decemspecifies that Don Francisco Montesinos, Curate and Vicar of "las Yslas de Curasao, Aruba y Bonaire" conferred a power of attorney to Pedro Gutiérrez de Lugo, resident in Caracas, to collect from the Royal Treasury of His Catholic Majesty Don Felipe II, the salary that corresponded to him for his office as priest and vicar of the islands.
Likewise, one of the oldest references to the name of the island is found in the archive of the Main Public Registry of the city of Caracas (Venezuela). Spain colonized Bonaire since 1499 for a period of approximately one century. The Spanish decided that the three ABC Islands were useless because they did not have known metal deposits, and in 1515 the Caquetío were enslaved and deported to work in the copper mines of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola the total number may have been between 5. De La Cosa's Mappa Mundi of 1500 shows Bonaire and calls it Isla do Palo Brasil or "Island of Brazilwood". Ojeda was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa. In 1499, Alonso de Ojeda arrived in Curaçao and a neighbouring island that was almost certainly Bonaire. And the name would have been derived from "buen aire" (good air). Another theory indicates that the name is of Spanish origin, as the Spanish were the first Europeans to colonise the island. French influence, while present at various times, was never strong enough to make the assumption that the name means 'good air'. The early Spanish and Dutch modified its spelling to Bojnaj and also Bonaire. The name 'Bonaire' is thought to be derived from the Caquetio word ' Bonay ', meaning 'low country'.
A short 800 metres (0.50 mi) west of Bonaire across the sea is the uninhabited islet Klein Bonaire with a total land area of 6 km 2 (2.3 sq mi). The island's total land area is 288 square kilometres (111 sq mi) it is 38.6 kilometres (24.0 mi) long from north to south, and ranges from 4.8–8 km (3.0–5.0 mi) wide from east to west. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs.Īs of 1 January 2019, the island's population totaled 20,104 permanent residents, an increase of about 1,200 since 2015. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather all year round. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of Venezuela. Its capital is Kralendijk, near the ocean on the lee side of the island. Bonaire ( / b ɒ n ˈ ɛər/ Dutch: Bonaire, pronounced ( listen) Papiamento: Boneiru,, almost pronounced ) is an island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea.