Werbata, Johannes Vallentin Dominicus (1866 - 1929)

Jonckheer, Willem A. Jr. (1887 - 1960)

Ecker, Enrique E. (1887 - 1966)

1911

Blad II Topographische kaart van Curaçao in 18 Bladen. Schaal 1:20000

J. Smulders & Co.

The Hague

Separate Map

48

48

20,000

Date estimated.

Curacao

Blad II Topographische kaart van Curaçao in 18 Bladen. Schaal 1:20000

15369.004

4

Werbata, Johannes Vallentin Dominicus (1866 - 1929)

Jonckheer, Willem A. Jr. (1887 - 1960)

Ecker, Enrique E. (1887 - 1966)

1911

Topographische kaart van Curaçao in 18 Bladen. Schaal 1:20000

Library of Congress: G5180 s20 .N41; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: Kart. R 13937<1923>; Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden: D A 45,1; OCLC: 777030119, 1090242757, 67934634, 64470964, 1292733842.. Peter VAN DER KROGT, ‘J.V.D. Werbata, een topograaf uit Oost-Indië, karteert in West-Indië De eerste topografische kaarten van de Nederlandse Antillen, 1911-1915‘, Caert Thresoor, inhoud 24ste jaargang, nr. 1 (2005), pp. 3-13; [re: Subsequent English version:] Peter VAN DER KROGT, ‘The Werbata-Jonckheer maps: The first topographic maps of the Netherlands Antilles, 1911-1915’, [Conference Paper:] International Symposium on “Old Worlds-New Worlds”: The History of Colonial Cartography 1750-1950 Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 21 to 23 August 2006 (19 pp.), please see link: https://history.icaci.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Krogt_Peter_van_der_2006.pdf

"Colour lithograph, printed on 18 sheets, plus, 1 legend sheet, housed in original printed tan card folder featuring key map, sheets with old handstamps of ‘Nederlandsche Handelshoogeschool / Rotterdam’ and former inventory numbers in pen to blank margins (Very Good, sheets clean and bright with lovely colours, covers with some marginal fraying and old repairs to spine), each sheet: 46 x 46 cm, would if joined from a map of irregular dimensions, maximum approximately: 119 x 155 cm (47 x 61 inches), that would diagonally measure approximately 390 cm (153.5 inches) long. Curaçao has a land area of 444 sq. km, and is a long and narrow island running diagonally for 58 km, with a width varying between 3.5 and 11 km. The capital, and only major settlement, Willemstad, is located upon a stellar natural harbour along the mid-point of the west coast. Curaçao is arid and generally consists of low, rolling hills, although it has some more prominent highlands, with the tallest peak being Christoffelberg (372 metres). The present colossal work is the first highly detailed scientifically accurate map of Curaçao, printed on 18 sheets, it is, measured diagonally, almost 4 metres long. It shows all the island’s topography and infrastructure in astounding detail, and it is notably the only printed map to showcase all Curaçao’s former slave plantations, depicting their boundaries, major buildings, and physical features. It is also the only island map of the series based upon surveys personally overseen by J.V.D. Werbata. The present example of the map seems to be the first edition, with updated issues appearing over the following years. An edition issued around 1920 updates the map with the depiction of the Curaçaosche Petroleum Industrie Maatschappij (C.P.I.M.), established on the shores of the Schottegat in 1915-16, being a massive refinery, which handed Venezuela oil, and which totally revolutionized the island’s economy, turning it from relying upon agriculture to industry (no sign of the refinery appears on the present map). For a comparison with Sheet XII of the present map, please see an image of the same sheet from this later state, courtesy of the University of Leiden: https://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/view/item/2016777?solr_ nav%5Bid%5D=08cfe7ec3d78b0aaf9ad&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=1 The best topographical map of Curaçao available prior to Werbata’s work was Lt. Col. Johannes C. Ninaber’s (revised by Rainer F. Baron von Raders) Kaart van het eiland Curaçao benevens een plan van de stad en haven, which was issued (Amsterdam, 1836). Done to a scale of 1:50,000, it is predated upon a 1825-6 basic trigonometrical survey of the island, and while it depicts the island major features, and the locations of 120 plantations, it is not sufficiently detailed or precise for modern land management purposes. Please see a link to an image of this map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Curaçao1836.png While there are around a dozen examples of the Werbata map of Curaçao in institutional collections, in all the states, the map is very rare on the market, as we can trace only a single sales record for another example from the last 25 years (sold at a Dutch auction in 2018). The first scientifically accurate and ultra-large-scale maps of each the main islands, as well as the capital city, of the Netherlands Antilles (being Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Maarten and Willemstad), predicated upon advanced systematic trigonometrical surveys spearheaded by the brilliant Indonesian military surveyor J.V.D. Werbata (son of a Dutch father and a Sumatran mother); the maps are amongst the greatest technical achievements of scientific surveying conducted anywhere in the Americas during their era; in extreme detail, they showcase every imaginable natural and man-made feature of the islands; importantly, while the maps appeared around 40 years after the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands Antilles, they are critical resources for the study of slavery, as they are the only printed maps to precisely depict the cadastral divisions of the island’s individual plantations and the outlines of their major buildings; the maps played a vital role in overseeing the revitalization of the islands’ agrarian sector, the industrialization of Curaçao (i.e. the arrival of the petroleum industry), the rise of tourism on all the islands, and the defense of the islands from German U-Boats during World War II; they and were not superseded until the aerial surveys of the 1960s – all the maps are very rare on the market. In the 1630-’40s, the Netherlands acquired various West Indian islands, being Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba (the so called ‘ABC Islands’, located just off the coat of Venezuela), and about 900 kms to the northeast, in the Leeward Islands, St. Eustatius, Saba and the southern three-eighths of Saint Martin (called Sint Maarten in Dutch, the rest of the island was French), with a total land area of 986 sq. km. Collectively, these islands were known as the Dutch West Indies, or the Netherlands Antilles (Nederlandse Antillen), a unified colony governed from Willemstad, Curaçao. 72 73 For much of the 17th and 18th centuries, Curaçao and St. Eustatius were incredibly important trading hubs (including for slaves), where the authorities often turned a blind eye to smuggling and piracy (in foreign waters). There slave-plantation industry also developed in the islands, although due to their relatively arid and unfertile nature, this aspect of the economy was never as vibrant as it was on many of the other West Indian isles (ex. Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, etc.), although its role was not negligible. Traditionally, the mapping the Netherlands Antilles was mainly hydrographic in nature, as maritime trade and defense were backbone of these societies, and while some fine cadastral surveys of isolated plantations were made, there was little incentive to conduct expensive general scientific topographical surveys of the islands (in contrast to the sophisticated surveys the British conducted of their fertile sugar islands from the 1720s to 1770s, such as of Jamaica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, etc.). The West Indies generally experienced a sharp and prolonged economic downturn from the 1820s until the period arround the opening of the Panama Canal (1915). Curaçao’s trade dripped off dramatically, while the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands Antilles (phased in from 1863 to 1873), made much of the agrarian sector financially unviable. As such, few resources were dedicated to mapping the islands. While Curaçao was the subject of a basic triangulated general survey in 1825-6, the nature of this mapping was below the standard required for most matters of land management, infrastructure creation, and property registration. The terrestrial aspects of the other Dutch were scarcely surveyed at all, the best maps being only low quality, small-scale endeavours. Despite the general prosperity of the Netherlands and its technological sophistication, by the end of the 19th century, the Netherlands Antilles were arguably the worst mapped major islands in the West Indies. However, upon the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, some enterprising Dutch officials resolved to revive the economy of the Netherlands Antilles, and that of Curaçao in particular. Their priority was to reinvigorate Curaçao’s agrarian sector, which was in the doldrums. Due to its arid climate and indifferent soils, it was totally reliant upon an irrigation system of dams, canals, dykes, and windmills. This network, while still operating, had long fallen into disrepair, and it poor state severely hindered the ability to produce decent crop yields. The plan was to comprehensively repair, expand and modernize the water system, yet this endeavour would require an advanced large-scale trigonometrical survey of all Curaçao. In 1900, the Dutch government convened a royal commission to investigate mapping Curaçao to advanced trigonometrical standards. While experts endorsed the notion, it initially received strong pushback from some parsimonious officials. However, the new Governor of the Netherlands Antilles, Jan Olphert de Jong van Beek en Donk (1863 – 1935, serving as governor, 1901-9), was an enterprising visionary who understood the great importance of such a survey. In 1903, he notably founded the Curaçaosche Maatschappij tot Bevordering van Landbouw, Veeteelt, Zoutwinning en Visserij (Curaçao Company for the Furthering of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Salt Extraction and Fishery) for reenergizing the island’s economy. The governor not only authorized the funds for scientifically surveying Curaçao, but also agreed to finance the mapping of all the colony’s islands, being Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, St. Eustatius, and Saba. He managed to secure almost 10,000 Guilders for the project, a considerable sum for the time. The first stage in making a modern scientific systematic survey was to construct an accurate trigonometrical framework that defined the general space being mapped. This was done by affixing the locations of basepoints by astronomical observations, and then running lines between these points, resulting in a trigonometrical network covering an entire island. The second stage, which is more difficult and complicated, will be addressed later. In March 1904, the military engineer Lieutenant M.L. Pliester commenced creation of the trigonometrical framework for Curaçao, a project taken up and finished by L. Lens in November 1906. Simultaneous endeavours were undertaken in Aruba and Bonaire. Work in Aruba was commenced by R.J. and J.J. Beaujon, and was finished by Lens, while Lens took sole responsibility of triangulating Bonaire, with both projects completed in 1909. However, completing advanced, large scale ultra-advanced scientific topographical maps of the Netherlands ‘Antilles would require the leadership of an engineer with extraordinary abilities. This individual needed to possess unusual technical skill and the know-how to train locals to become expert surveyors, as well as to manage different teams simultaneously working in multiple theatres, while having experience operating in tropical environments. Nobody in the colony, nor in the Metropolitan Netherlands, had such abilities. Fortunately, however, stellar scientific mapping of the kind desired for the Netherlands Antilles had already been accomplished in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) for some decades. As such, the authorities looked there for a figure who could spearhead the mapping the islands. Enter J.V.D. Werbata: Indonesian Master Surveyor Maps the Netherlands Antilles Johannes Vallentin Dominicus Werbata (1866 - 1929), better known by his initials JVD, was born on Padang, on the west coast of Sumatra, to a Dutch military officer father and a Sumatran mother. Destined for a career in the army, at the age of ten, he was enrolled in the Military School in Gambong, Java. After his training, he became as fusilier in the Netherlands East India Army (KNIL), but soon gravitated towards surveying. In 1884, he was transferred to become an apprentice in the KNIL’s Topographische Dienst (Topographical Service). At this point, something needs to be said of the Topographische Dienst, which was part way into a decades long process of scientifically mapping the entire Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), one of the most vast and challenging places to survey on the globe. The Dienst was responsible for some of the most impressive feasts of surveying in the modern world history, although their efforts are little known today outside of Indonesia and the Netherlands. Their surveys of frontier regions in Borneo and Sumatra were tremendous achievements of technical engineering, while the ‘Residentie Kaarten’ (regional surveys of Java), are exquisitely executed works printed in a stunning, unique form of chromolithography. From 1887 to 1895, Werbata became a central figure in the Topographische Dienst when he surveyed much of Western Borneo. This endeavor was so physically and technically 74 75 challenging that the mere mention of it became legendary throughout the KNIL. Western Borneo was a colossal realm of mountainous jungles and malarial swamps that was one of the final frontiers of mapping in Asia. In 1895, Werbata returned to Java and was promoted to be a senior instructor of surveying for the KNIL, quite an accolade, especially for someone of Indonesian ethnicity, as he would have had to have been much better than any of his European rivals to overcome the army’s institutional racism. Werbata was praised by his commanding officer, who characterized his credo: “that mental strength is indispensable to a surveyor so that no ‘tjot’ is too high, no jungle too hard to find, if it is after all necessary to stretch a surveying line across it”. In 1898, Werbata played a key role in the successful Dutch military expedition in Aceh, for which he was knighted by Queen Wilhelmina. By the early 19-noughts, Werbata was known throughout the Dutch military world was one of the best, if not the very finest surveyor, in their employ. For this reason, in 1906, Governor Jong van Beek en Donk appointed him to lead the mission to survey the Netherlands Antilles. The Antilles Surveys in Focus Werbata arrived in Curaçao in October 1906, just in time to see the completion of the triangulation of the island. His mission was complex and ambitious, and his first step was to train local islanders to become expert surveyors, with an eye to select one or two of the most talented figures to one day be able to supervise surveys on their own accord. As the Governor was only able to secure financing to bring in Werbata to the colony, and as he would only be able to remain on site for two or three years, he would not be around to see the completion of the mapping of all the islands. As such, he had to start the process and then had off the project to his trainees, who would hopefully continue to work to his high standards. Fortunately, Werbata was a superb teacher, and if anyone could accomplish this, it would be him. Even though Werbata ended up personally overseeing only the mapping of Curaçao and the colonial capital Willemstad, he set the tone for the mapping of the rest of the islands, such that all the programme’s maps are collectively known today as the ‘Werbata Maps’. Werbata complted the surveying of Curaçao and Willemstad before returning to Java in 1909. His prodigal student, the Curaçao native Willem A. Jonckheer Jr. (1887 - 1960), acted as his chief lieutenant during the Curaçao survey, and at its conclusion was deemed a master surveyor who could independently manage island surveys on his own. He was able to take over from Werbata, duly overseeing the surveys of Aruba, Bonaire and Sint Maarten. Each of the individual island maps (Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Maarten and St. Eustatius; note that the remining island, Saba was not mapped as part of the programme) were to be made to the exact same standards of projection, scale, draftsmanship and detail. Working within the preexisting structure of the trigonometrical measurements of each island, Werbata and his colleagues were to conduct numerous smaller systematic trigonometrical surveys to fill in the natural and man-made features of the landscape, while plotting these details upon manuscript plats, which would be consolidated to form complete maps of the islands. This was very difficult work, especially as Werbata insisted upon ultra-strict technical precision. All the island maps were to be drawn to an ultra large scale of 1:20,000 (1 cm on the map = 0.2 km on the land), five times that of a British Ordnance Survey, and a much larger than that of maps of any other major West Indian island to date. They were all to be drafted on a polyhedron projection favoured in the Dutch East Indies. The Willemstad survey was done to an even larger scale of 1:5,000. The Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire maps were colossal, with the Curaçao map running to 18 sheets and being almost 4 metres long! The level and comprehensiveness of detail on the maps is astounding and is far greater than that provided upon virtually any other Caribbean map. As such, the Netherlands Antilles went from being perhaps the worst mapped to best mapped place in the region. The ‘Verklaring der Teekens’ (Statement of Signs, or Legend) explains the symbols used upon the maps that identify virtually every imaginable natural and man-made feature of the islands, to the extent that the viewer can almost imagine being there in person. Impressively, this is accomplished without the map seeming cluttered, as the arrangement of details is carefully choreographed. The legend is divided into four categories, with the first being ‘Waters’, noting symbols pertaining to the coastlines, including for anchorages, tidal flats, beaches, cliffs, lagoons, salt pans, quays (whether made of brick or wood), habours, buoys, navigation lights, and coral reefs, etc. Next are symbols for ‘Roads’, and infrastructure, including roads for carriages or carts, horse paths, foot paths, bridges, and dykes, etc. Following, are topographic symbols, plus, some man-made features such as the irrigation systems. Features include the spot heights of peaks (in metres), elevation contour lines at 5 metre intervals (an amazingly precise level of measurement), dry beds even during the rainy season, earthen dams, stone dams, wells, windmills, rainwater reservoirs, forests, swamps, scrublands, orchards, and lone trees. Finally, there are symbols for ‘Small Signs, Abbreviations, etc.’, including for trigonometrical surveying points (basepoints); stone buildings, wooden buildings, clay huts, ‘Landhuis’ (plantation ‘great houses’), churches, ruins, boundary posts, stone walls, plank fences, hedges, spiked wire barriers, boundaries of named private lands, or cadastres (often being of former slave plantations), flagpoles, telephone lines, brick cisterns, etc. Importantly, while the Werbata maps were made around four decades after the end of slavery in the Netherlands Antilles (which was phased out between 1863 and 1873), they are invaluable resources for the study of the slavery era, as they are the only maps to details all the islands’ plantations, providing their names, boundaries, topographical features and depicting major buildings (notably the ‘landhuis’ or great houses). In many cases, the major features of the plantations had not changed since the abolition of slavery, such that one can gain a good impression of the physical nature of the former slave-plantation economy in the Netherlands Antilles. The ‘Werbata Maps’ were published between 1911 and 1915 by the house of J. Smulders & Co. in The Hague. Employing highly sophisticated colour lithography, using bright hues, the map sheets are technically stellar works of printing. The maps were highly regarded in their time, sentiments captured by a Curaçao newspaper, referring to the Curaçao map as “a masterpiece rarely seen…a superb buy!”. Werbata’s efforts were hugely appreciated by the Netherlands Antilles and the home government, and he was invited to join an elite knightly club as a Brother of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. (After returning from Curaçao to the Dutch East Indies, Werbata was appointed as a senior civil servant topographer Batavia. He subsequently headed his own brigade in his hometown of Padang, Sumatra, and later at Magelang, Java, where he died in 1929.). The Werbata maps proved to be incredibly useful, even well beyond initial expectations. There were not only used to improve Curaçao’s irrigation system, so reviving the agrarian sector, but they also aided infrastructure and land management on all the islands. Critically, the Curaçao map appeared just in time the assist the construction of the Curaçaosche Petroleum Industrie Maatschappij (completed in 1916), a massive oil refinery, near Willemstad, that processed Venezuelan crude, and which revolutionized the island’s economy. Werbata’s map of Willemstad guided urban planning as the city experienced strong growth, with all the maps playing a vital role in preparing the islands for the arrival of mass tourism in the Netherlands Antilles. During World War II, the Netherlands Antilles, and Curaçao’s oil refinery in particular, were prime targets for German U-Boats, such that the Werbata maps were used by U.S. and other Allied forces for planning the defense of the islands. Both the U.S. Defense Department and British War Office printed their own versions of the maps for this purpose (today exceedingly rare). The Werbata maps remained the gold standard of cartography of the Netherlands Antilles until the 1960s, when the KLM Aerocarto company was able to map the islands employing aerial surveys, using advanced controlled mosaic methods. Today the Werbata Maps are well known only in intellectual circles in the Dutch Caribbean and the Netherlands. This is regrettable and they are world-class masterpieces of scientific surveying, as well as invaluable records of Caribbean history, that deserve to be widely studied. Moreover, the tale of an Indonesian surveyor travelling to the other side of the world to fulfill such an epic project is an extraordinary story, and an amazing example of global intellectual cross-cultural exchange. (Alexander Johnson and Dasa Pahor, 2022)

15369.000

Separate Map

48

48

15369004.jp2

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Werbata, Johannes Vallentin Dominicus (1866 - 1929); Jonckheer, Willem A. Jr. (1887 - 1960); Ecker, Enrique E. (1887 - 1966)