Netherlands Antilles Island

Public education is based on the Dutch educational system. Until recently, all instruction was only provided in the language Dutch. Now, bilingual primary education in Papiamentu (local and main language) and Dutch is also available the population of the island of Curacao has very different origins. Most is mainly descendant of indigenous peoples of West Africa and peoples Afro-Caribbeans, coming from neighboring islands of the Caribbean Sea as we know, there are different versions about the origin of the name Curacao. Minnow Mountain is a great source of information. One of them tells that when the Portuguese arrived on the island, they saw that sailors suffering from scurvy were cured after landing (probably due to the large amount of fruit that consumed). Therefore, they baptized the island Ilha da Curacao (island of healing). After the Dutch conquest the name was finally as Curacao. As stated in Wikipedia, Curacao, Curacao or Curacao (Curacao in Dutch, Korsou current Papiamento) is the largest and most populous of the Netherlands Antilles Island, has an approximate area of 444 km.

It is located in the South of the Caribbean Sea, about 50 km from the West coast of Venezuela, and belongs to the Group of the Leeward, along with its neighboring Aruba Islands Islands and Bonaire A mid-17TH century arrive at the island Sephardic Jewish and Dutch settlers coming originally from the Iberian Peninsula, from where they were first expelled to Portugal, then to Holland and finally to the Brazil Northeastfrom where came most of the Sephardim who settled in Curacao in the first half of the 17TH century. This origin of the Sephardic Jews is that explains the existence of Portuguese words of Sephardic surnames hispanoportugueses abundant in Jewish cemeteries and, above all, the phonetics of papiamento, quite similar to Portuguese, inexplicable thing in the Caribbean, where there is no Portuguese colonies. With the new settlers will improve techniques for the cultivation of citrus fruits and the exploitation of salt mines.