Landhuis Washikemba

OVERVIEW

Washikemba was one of the small plantations of Bonaire's east coast, worked by enslaved people and later by hired labour: goats, aloe, charcoal and lime. The plantation house stands in ruin today among the remains of the farming settlement, on the road between Kralendijk and the Onima coast. The area is now better known as part of the Washikemba–Fontein–Onima Important Bird Area.

HISTORY

The estate flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on enslaved labour, the foundation of the island's economy, and declined with it. The house was abandoned in the 20th century; island tradition says the last residents left because of what happened inside it.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

On Bonaire the house is called the haunted house. Island press and guides record the tradition that the last family fled the house, and visitors report noises and movement in the empty rooms. The stories were collected in Jannet Butter's "The Ghost of Washikemba and Other Stories of Bonaire" (2019). Nothing has been investigated or documented beyond these accounts; the ruin is recorded here as the island's living tradition about a real place.

VISITING

On the east-coast road north of Kralendijk. A ruin on private land — view from the road; do not enter the structure.