HISTORY
AND CULTURE
Aruba's
first inhabitants were the Caquetios Indians from the Arawak
tribe. Fragments of the earliest known Indian settlements
date back to about 1000 A.D, as do the ancient painted symbols
still visible on limestone caves found at Fontein, Ayo and
elsewhere. Pottery remnants can still be seen at the Museum
of Archaeology.
Some centuries
later, the first European landed on Aruban shores. Spanish explorer
Alonso de Ojeda is thought to have arrived about 1499. The Spanish
promptly exported the Indians to Santo Domingo in the Dominican
Republic, where they were put to work in the copper mines.
In 1636, near the culmination of the Eighty Years' War between
Spain and Holland, the Dutch took possession of Aruba and remained
in control for nearly two centuries. In 1805, during the Napoleonic
Wars, the English briefly took control over the island, but
it was returned to Dutch control in 1816. Although Aruba continues
to exist within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it functions
independently.
Aruba History
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