From Santa Martha
More Than a Plantation
Today, little remains of Santa Martha. The plantation, also known as Goed Begin, has largely disappeared from the landscape. Yet the archives reveal traces of the people who once lived there and whose stories continued long after the plantation itself vanished.
Among them was Anna Christina, daughter of Maria Ignees. In 1844, at the age of eighteen, she arrived on Aruba from Paraguaná, Venezuela. Four years later, she and her three young children—François Protus, Jeantil Agapito, and Jan Pieter—were granted their freedom. The records preserve only fragments of their lives, but they offer a rare glimpse into one family during the final decades of slavery on Aruba.
Anna Christina was not alone. The records associated with Jacobus Croes Franszoon reveal other enslaved men, women, and children whose lives became part of the history of Santa Martha. Like many plantations on Aruba, Santa Martha was not simply a place of agriculture; it was a community shaped by families, births, deaths, labor, and survival.
Through Anna Christina and her children, it is possible to trace a family line that continued long after emancipation. The family tree preserved in the archives reveals connections to later families including Van der Croes, Paskel, Hardmijn, Foquet, Crux, and Zollanier. What began as a few names in a slavery register grew into generations of Aruban families whose histories remained intertwined with the island.
Oral histories collected by Ito Tromp add another layer to the story. According to these memories, Adriaan Laclé once lived on the former plantation, creating a possible connection between Santa Martha and later generations of Aruban families. While the plantation itself has disappeared, the stories carried by descendants continue to connect the site to the present.
Many of these records can still be explored today through Coleccion Aruba, where documents relating to Anna Christina, her children, and their descendants have been preserved. Together, archival records and oral histories help reconstruct a story that might otherwise have been forgotten.
