Although Bonaire's future seems inextricably entwined with its remarkable coastal reefs and its austere natural beauty, the island's past is tied to an altogether different set of resources and attributes. With a comfortably dry climate and steady trade winds (the very conditions that have made it a windsurfing mecca), Bonaire has long been recognized as an ideal locale for the production of salt. For over three centuries, the island's culture and prosperity was dependent upon this most important of the world's spices. Salt is still produced on Bonaire, though the stunning salt beds of Pekelmeer are also home to one of the hemisphere's great populations of flamingoes. Bonaire's first inhabitants were the Caiquetios, a branch of the Arawak Indians who sailed across from what is now Venezuela around 1000 AD. Traces of Caiquetio culture are visible at a number of archaeological sites, including those at Lac Bay and northeast of Kralendijk. Rock paintings and petroglyphs have survived at the caves at Spelonk, Onima, Ceru Pungi, and Ceru Crita-Cabai. The Caiquetios were apparently a very tall people, for the Spanish dubbed the Leeward Islands 'las Islas de los Gigantes' (the islands of the giants). The name the Caiquetios gave to their island was adapted into Spanish as 'Boynay.'

After a falling out with Queen Isabella in 1495, Columbus lost his exclusive rights to explore the New World, and the Caribbean became open territory. Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci (from whom the Americas derive their name) were among the first to take advantage of the situation: in 1499 they landed on Bonaire and claimed it for Spain. Bonaire had neither gold nor sufficient rainfall to encourage large-scale agricultural production, so the Spanish saw very little reason to develop the colony. Instead, they forced the native Caiquetios into slavery on the large plantations of the island of Hispaniola. By 1515, Bonaire had been mostly depopulated.

In 1526, Juan de Ampues, governor of Bonaire, Curacao, and Aruba, began to raise cattle on the island. He brought in a number of Caiquetios and some Indians from Venezuela as laborers, and within a few years cows, sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, and horses were being raised on the island. Valued less for their meat than for their hides, the animals needed little tending and were generally let loose to wander freely around the island. Before long they greatly outnumbered the human inhabitants, and today the island counts substantial populations of donkeys and goats among its wildlife.

Over the next few centuries, few of the island's inhabitants were to arrive willingly. There was a small inland settlement at Rincon, safe from the predations of pirates, but development was not encouraged as it was in other, richer colonies. Bonaire's immigrants were mostly convicts from the Spanish colonies in South America. Dutch admiral Boudewijn Hendricksz dropped off a group of Spanish and Portuguese prisoners, who founded the town of Antriol. For much of the next 300 years, even after the island was ceded to the Dutch, Bonaire remained a notorious penal colony.

Register At CruiseLineFans.com For Free