After persistent crop failures had forced the Dutch WIC to abandon its agricultural program in Curaçao in the second half of the seventeenth century, the land was distributed to private individuals. Company employees, in particular, seized this opportunity to become landed gentry. The earliest houses were situated close to town, but gradually they spread across the island. They were large mansions, generally on a raised terrace, and were surrounded by lower dwellings for the staff and slaves. The entire complex was surrounded by low walls of coral-stone.