Echoes of the past now resonate loud and clear where aspirations of freedom were once reduced to hushed tones and secret drumbeats. Welcome to Museo Tula at Landhuis Kenepa.
Landhuis Kenepa, in Bandabou in the western part of the island, is a sprawling country estate constructed in 1693. Its buildings were fully restored in 2005 by the government’s Monument Foundation. Though once one of Curaçao’s largest and wealthiest plantations, this location is best known in the island’s history as the place where the seeds of slave emancipation first took root.
On August 17, 1795, a slave named Tula informed Kenepa landowner Casper Lodewyck van Uytrecht that the African captives refused to continue working the plantation. He was told to take his complaint to the Lieutenant Governor at Fort Amsterdam, but knowing what fate probably awaited him there, Tula and other leaders of the revolt spread out into the countryside to convince slaves from other plantations to join them in an armed fight for freedom. The sporadic battles against the Dutch in power lasted almost two months, but by October 3, the ringleaders, including Tula, were captured and publicly executed to deter any further insurrection. Though slavery was not officially abolished on Curaçao until 1863, the road to emancipation began at Landhuis Kenepa.
In 2007, a museum displaying rituals, customs, history, and culture from an Afro-Curaçaoan point of view was established at Landhuis Kenepa called Museo Tula. The enlightening permanent and revolving exhibits can be viewed independently or with a guide for groups. Also on site is a gift shop with local crafts and the Creole Kitchen, a unique café featuring Creole-Caribbean-African cuisine. Guided eco-tours of the surrounding countryside, including a 17th-century garden, are also available.
For more information call 888-6396..
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Knip hidden treasured
Walk from the original front side (nowadays the entrance is at the backside, the original front side buildings , stables, "koetshuizen", road, are gone) to the beach. Everything is overgrowned
But you will walk past the well, with steps going all the way down - in very bad dangerous shape
There also is a "watering wall" miniature of the ancient Roman aquaducts. When you continue walking - goats provide narrow passages through the bushes on the way - you will find the old scouts camping ground with ruin, doors and windows and roof missing. Then again bushes with goat trails opening onto dry most of the time Salina, again bushes/trees and the beach
Beautiful walking, about half an hour.
My apologies if all this is known to you.
Lsndhuis Knip hidden treasure
This story looks remarkably like the one I posted on FB a couple of months ago. Hardly anybody know of the original entry, of the trail leading to the beach with the well and the goat watering structure on the trail. Still no hard feelings. The story is important and should be told to allow people to enjoy the trail.
I remember once with a group suggesting to walk to the beach. When they nearly started walking towards the asphalt road I called them back and convinced them to follow me on exactly the opposit direction. It was a great walk for all of them.
Sincerely, Francois A. Nouel,
Friend by relationship of former owners Shon Richard Muskus, whose son Richard Jr. was married to my aunt Esther Mercedes Nouel, now in her 80s.
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