History

Soon after the West Indian Company conquered Curaçao from the English in 1634, the first preacher Rev. Fredericus Vitteus arrived on Curaçao in 1635 on request of the Governor Van Walbeeck. Curaçao was then a military station and the preacher was therefore a preacher in garrison. This way the Reformed church started on the Antilles, later named: Reformed church. On the westerly hemisphere, only the Reformed church in New Amsterdam (New York), founded in 1624, is older. The UPC was created in 1825 as a union between Reformed and Lutheran.

Preachers were employed by the West Indian Company. Although the instruction of the board dictated to convert the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Indians and the "blacks" to Christianity, this did not work out very well. The Portuguese and the Spanish were to familiar with the Roman Catholic religion to be converted. The West Indian Company was not concerned about the religious life of the Indians and the imported African slaves. Many years after the abolition of slavery the confine of church fell together with the confine of class on Curaçao.

In 1755 a Lutheran church was founded by a growing number of German and Scandinavian traders. Due to political events between 1797 and 1804 (the invasion of the French and English) and the destruction of the Lutheran church, which went up in flames after being fired at, the church attendance and the activity of the church members dropped both in the Lutheran and in the Reformed church. Due to lack of a Reformed preacher and a Lutheran church, the church building in the Fort was used for combined services, in which the Lutheran preacher conducted the service. In imitation of the occurrences in Germany (were in 1817 the Reformed and Lutheran church were united to one Evangelic church) King Willem I decided for European political reasons to unite the Reformed and Lutheran church in 1825 to the United Protestant Church.

In 1931 several members, originating from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, created their own denomination — the Reformed Church in Curaçao. After some 10 ministers, sent by the mother church, who served consecutively on Curaçao, the UPC and the Reformed church merged in 1984.

In 1937 the Ebenezer Church affiliated with the UPC, and it was later integrated into it. This church was founded in 1929 and  originates from the ministry of Obed Anthony, a Methodist lay preacher from Dominica, and served through the years particularly with English speaking migrants from other Caribbean countries.

The concregation of the Emmakerk, was founded in 1929 and originated as church for the employees of the Shell. The building of the Emmakerk was built in 1940. In 1959 the Emmakerk was incorporated in the UPC.