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Native American Tribes of Curaçao

This is an index to the Native American language and cultural information on our website pertaining to Curaçaoan Indian tribes. Some pages contain more information than others. If you belong to an indigenous tribe from Curaçao that is not currently listed on this page and you would like to see it here, please contact us about contributing information to our site.

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The name "Curaçao" probably comes from an Arawakan name, though its meaning is not known. Although the word Curação does mean "curing" in Portuguese, the first to record this name were the Spanish, who spelled it a variety of ways including Curazao, Curaçote, Curasaote, Curacao and Curacaute before the Portuguese had ever arrived in the Caribbean, so its similarity to the Portuguese word is probably a coincidence. The indigenous Cariban and Arawakan speaking peoples of the Caribbean Islands were disastrously impacted by colonization. By the 1600's the majority of the native population had either died of disease or been enslaved by the Spanish and removed to other islands. Many of the indigenous people who did survive intermarried with colonial Europeans or with Afro-Caribbeans, so although there are no distinct Native American tribes remaining on Curaçao, nor have any of the indigenous languages survived in this region, there are still people of indigenous ancestry living on the island and Arawakan culture has influenced that of Curaçao.

The original inhabitants of the area that is now Curaçao included:

The Arawak Indians

The Caquetio Indians

What about Papiamento Creole? Does that have indigenous roots?

No. Papiamento, which is one of the official languages of Curaçao and is spoken by the majority of the population, is actually a mixture between Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. Only a few Arawak loan words exist in Papiamento, just as they do in English (hammock, hurricane, tobacco, etc.)

Other resources about American Indian history, culture and society in Curaçao:

Indigenous Languages of the Caribbean
Collection of materials about the lost and endangered Indian languages of the Caribbean region.

Review of the Indigenous Caribbean
Online journal of cultural information about the Native inhabitants of Curaçao and the Caribbean.

Sea Travel by the Caquetio Indians
Map showing the routes the Caquetios followed to reach Curaçao and Aruba.

Dutch Caribbean Roots
Historical images and information about the culture of the Amerindian natives of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao over time.

Informal commerce in the colonial Caribbean
News article about archaeological research in Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire.

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