The Dutch Caribbean today
The Dutch Caribbean comprises six islands with a total population of approximately 345,000 Dutch citizens and a relatively large contingent of residents with non-citizen status. This group is estimated at 15-20% overall with speculations about St. Maarten having as much of 50% residents with non-citizen status. The territories formed a constituent entity as Netherlands Antilles: between 1954 and 1986 with Aruba, and between 1986 and 2010 without Aruba. Following the most recent and complex changes of 2010, the descriptive ‘Caribbean Part of the (Dutch) Kingdom’ is now most commonly used when referring to the six islands.
The status of the current ‘Dutch Caribbean’ is not an easy one to explain. The islands do not form a constituent unity and are not all governed in the same way. Since 2010, the Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of four countries in total, The Netherlands on the European continent and three countries in the Caribbean. The three autonomous countries situated in the Caribbean are Aruba and Curaçao (both Leeward Antillean islands close to the coast of Venezuela) and the Dutch part of St. Maarten (a Windward Antillean island east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands). The other three territories in the Caribbean are smaller islands governed from the Netherlands as special municipalities. These are the Windward Antillean islands Saba and St. Eustatius, and the Leeward Antillean island Bonaire.
Not only do the islands have different governmental configurations, they also differ substantially in culture, demographic and in language. None of the islands have Dutch as most dominant language. According to the 2010 census, Dutch is most dominant in Curaçao, where 16% of the households have this as first language. In all other islands this is (considerably) less.
| Island | Status | Population appr. | First language |
| Aruba | Autonomous Country | 112,000 | Papiamentu |
| Bonaire | Municipality | 20,000 | Papiamentu |
| Curacao | Autonomous Country | 160,000 | Papiamentu |
| Saba | Municipality | 1,950 | English |
| St. Eustatius | Municipality | 3,150 | English |
| St. Maarten | Autonomous Country | 45,000 | English |
| Total | 342,100 |
Historically, Suriname is also part of the Dutch Caribbean. This country – formerly known as Dutch Guyana and situated between the French and British Guyana’s – became a Dutch possession in when it was exchanged for Dutch New Amsterdam (now New York). Of all former Dutch Caribbean colonies, Suriname was the only territory in which the creole language Sranantongo was repressed and Dutch became the dominant vernacular. In 1975, Suriname became fully independent. It is currently one of few Caribbean territories which has no ties with a European-based nation or commonwealth.
The Dutch Empire in the Atlantic World
The role of the Dutch in the Atlantic started in the late sixteenth century with individual traders being active in the Caribbean and in early North American settlements. Stipulation in support of creating a Dutch Empire in the Atlantic would shift overtime, responding to failures and new opportunities. In historiography, the resulting three phases of empire are referred to as the First, Second and Third Dutch Atlantic.
The First Dutch Atlantic was driven by the Dutch West India Company (WIC), a chartered company established in 1621, developing overseas settlements in Africa (Elmina on the Gold Coast and Luanda in Angola), in Guiana, Brazil, the Caribbean islands and New Netherlands in North America. The WIC is generally considered an economic failure. Around 1680, a Second Dutch Atlantic emerged, which knew less military involvement and was characterized by a central role of autonomous merchants. Central to their trade were small plantation colonies in Guiana and the free ports of Curaçao and Saint Eustatius. The Third Dutch Atlantic developed in the second half of the eighteenth century, when Amsterdam merchant houses retracted from trade activities and became the bankers for the Atlantic powers, providing mortgages and loans for planters and supporting British-American developments by investments in land, canals, and railways. This network economy ended with wars and revolutions around 1800.
Between 1800 and 1922, the islands were governed as a colonial territory referred to simply as ‘Curacao’. The Dutch colonies in ‘The West’ Curacao and Suriname each had their own Governor and rules and regulations. The constitution of 1922 meant the end of the term ‘colony’, though in practice in the new ‘overseas territories’, not much changed. With the finalization of the first round of decolonization agreements in 1948-1954, the new Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands ratified in 1954 formalized two establishment of two new autonomous countries in the Kingdom: Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. They were amongst the first of non-sovereign postcolonial states in the Caribbean.