Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine July 2019 | Page 203

Fort Oranje, the oldest
structure still standing
on St. Eustatius (1636),
clinging on to the edge of
the cliff.
National Symbol
The abundance of martial
monuments is reflected in the
coat-of-arms of St. Eustatius
which calls itself “The Historical
Gem of the Caribbean”. The
shield is topped by a so-called
‘mural crown.’ It is shaped like
the wall of a castle or fort. It
has four towers, each with four
battlements: four times four
makes sixteen – to symbolize
the sixteen fortifications that
still echo a time when the island
was the hottest property in
the Caribbean. St. Eustatius
was the trading center of the
region in the second half of
the 1700’s. Because of all the
money that was made on the
island, it became known as the
Golden Rock. That was worth
defending! connects Lower and Upper
Town.
The north and south of the
island rise up straight from the
waves and are not accessible
from the sea. But the east and
west coasts are lined with
cliffs. It is on the edge of these
cliffs that the fortifications
were constructed. The first one
was Fort Oranje, the oldest
structure still standing on the
island and dating back to the
arrival of the Dutch in 1636. It
is perched right on the edge of
a bend of the cliff, strategically
overlooking Oranje Bay, Lower
Town (the former commercial
heart), and the path that The entrance to the fort also
features in the coat-of-arms:
as a symbol of the place it
presently still occupies in
all ‘national’ celebrations.
Originally, it had four bastions,
but the one on the corner of
the cliff (called ‘Goats Point’)
tumbled down in the early
1700’s. Two thirds of the bastion
‘Nassau Point’ also succumbed
to the force of gravity, rain and
roaming goats. On the part still
remaining stands the bell that
used to signal the curfew for
the enslaved workers in town.
The current bell is still tolled
every day at 6:00 am, 12:00 pm
and 6:00 pm.