Dutch Slavery: Our Dark Past

Last week, the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) made an announcement that they will try to demand financial compensations for the damage that was done by their former colonizers in the era of slavery. One of the members of CARICOM is Suriname, a former colony of the Netherlands and former nucleus of Dutch Slavery . Their president and our ‘friend’, Desi Bouterse, has taken a seat in a commission that will coordinate the political trajectory that should realize these compensations. This announcement has led to a new heated debate, whether we should or can redeem the guilt of our dark past by way of financial compensations. This comes merely a week after the official commemoration of the abolition of slavery, 150 years ago. You could easily say that our dark past is a hot issue once again, so let’s take a look at it and clarify some of the difficult issues in the present debate.

 

Golden coach slavery
Literally engraved in the Dutch history. A depiction of slavery on the Royal Golden Coach. (Source: Afro-Europe)

 

The ‘boring’ facts that you need to know

There were approximately twelve million African slaves transported to the New World by European countries. The Dutch brought 400.000 of them to Suriname, 16.000 to Essequibo, 15.000 to Berbice, 11.000 to Demerary, 25.000 to Recife and 100.000 to the Spanish colonies via Curacao. Our share in total, of the slave trade to the New World, was never more than 5%. No European country made more financial losses due to the slave trade than the Dutch. Furthermore, the Dutch seemed to care less for their slaves than the English or the French. Approximately 2 out of 1000 slaves died every day on Dutch slave ships per month, compared to 1 on English slave ships and 1.5 on French ships. The reason for that was the bad medical care on Dutch ships compared to the English and the French, who made more profit out of their slave trade. That was mainly because their area of distribution for slaves in the New World was larger and because they took better care of them. They were less indifferent to the physical conditions of their slaves and they had more medical knowledge to keep them healthy. We didn’t know that less humidity, more water, more food and more fresh air could keep more of them alive. How could we have known?

Why did we trade black people as slaves instead of poor white people? That was purely a racist matter. We could barely see them as equal human beings and slavery was legitimated by the Bible. The Bible has always been a good tool to legitimize every morally objectionable activity, even though it presents itself as a moral guide. You could legitimize throwing gay people from flat buildings or not vaccinating your children and if you read it backwards it could even legitimize child abuse. Thank you Lord, for giving us the Bible! But let’s continue with more serious matters, because there will be plenty of more opportunities to ridicule the Bible.

 

Dutch Slavery castle
Slave cells at Elmina Castle, Ghana. The location where the Dutch picked up a lot of slaves before they were transported to the New World. The skull above the door doesn’t seem to be a sign for a bright future. (Source: FlickR)

 

The abolition of Dutch slavery

Even though it was barely profitable for the Dutch to trade slaves, we were one of the last European countries to abolish slavery. Why? First of all, because we were even more morally indifferent than our fellow European brothers were. We felt no moral affinity with the enlightened ideas of the French Revolution (liberté, egalité, fraternité) and so there were very few people in Holland that were dedicated to fight for the abolition of slavery. Secondly, we already lost so much of our grandeur and trading opportunities we had possessed in the Golden Age, that we stubbornly clung to one of the few opportunities that were left for us in the New World, despite the fact that it was barely profitable. To give this up, would be another blow to our pride and our image. Thirdly, there was no alternative for the men who made their living out of it, so they just kept on going until someone else forbade them to do it. Without their meager income from the slave trade, they wouldn’t have had any income at all, and we didn’t want that to happen.

Last but not least, it took us a while before we found the money with which to compensate the slave owners, YES THE SLAVE OWNERS NOT THE SLAVES. We actually used the money that we had earned with our ‘cultuurstelsel’ in the East Indies when this system became very lucrative for the Dutch government in the 19th century, even though we had to squeeze every penny out of the locals to make it profitable. However, as I mentioned earlier, we had no moral scruples regarding black people and locals in our colonies. That’s why we used this blood money to compensate the people that maintained our other morally objectionable activity, slavery. The English actually paid twenty million pounds sterling in taxes to compensate their slave owners and abolish slavery. That’s another example of our moral indifference compared to that of our European neighbors. Therefore you could say that we have many moral deficiencies with regard to our slave driving past and maybe even more than many other countries. But that rests the question, should we have to compensate the descendants of those slaves for that financially?

 

Dutch Slavery Statue
Monument to 1795 slave revolt, Landhuis Kenepa, Curacao. This was the most famous revolt, in the Dutch slavery past, by the slave Tula and hundreds of other slaves, against a cruel Dutch plantation owner. The slaves lost the battle in the end. Most of the leaders, including Tula, were executed. Their heads were cut off and showed on sticks to the rest of the slaves, to discourage further upheaval. (Source: Flickr)

 

To compensate or not?

Two weeks ago, our vice-PM Asscher said that we are deeply regretful and have much remorse for this dark page in Dutch history, at the commemoration of the abolition of slavery 150 years ago. There was no official apology as some of the descendants would have liked to have seen, but there is actually no real difference between an official apology and expression of deep remorse from a semantic point of view. There are however different legal consequences connected with these different ways of apologizing. Should a state officially apologize, that will legally enlarge the chances, for the descendants and the CARICOM, to obtain financial compensation. Even if we would like to pay these compensations, it’s almost impossible to figure out who should pay them, because the shipping companies which transported the slaves don’t exist anymore. The Dutch state then? Maybe. How much should they pay, and to whom precisely? It’s almost impossible to do historical justice to our dark past, in a financial way, and because of that it will probably never happen.

We actually already paid billions to our former colonies, before and after they became independent, although it was disguised as development aid. How long can you hold our generation morally responsible for the things that happened many generations ago? The only way that we can do this past justice and come to an agreeable solution with the descendants of the slaves, is to commemorate this dark page regularly together. We shouldn’t suppress it in our collective memory anymore, as if Piet Hein, J.P. Coen, the silverfleet, the world-famous Dutch painters and our overwhelming wealth were the only aspects of our Dutch Golden Age and our colonial past. Commemoration seems to be the right thing to do and the only thing we are morally obliged to, even if we do this annually at the national monument in Amsterdam, which is not the right place from a historical perspective. Most of the slave ships actually left from Middelburg and Vlissingen. Besides that, slavery wasn’t present in the Netherlands but only in Africa and the New World, so we have to commemorate slavery separately there and the slave trade here. But that’s just all historical blabla.

For now on I would like to say as I mentioned before: let us commemorate this dark past together, so we can come to terms with it and do justice to the descendants of victims and perpetrators. And let’s do it quick, because the next heated issue about another dark page in Dutch history is creeping in already ………. Srebrenica. We won’t be able to brush them off by saying that we won’t pay THEM, because THAT happened many centuries ago.

 

Literature used:

Emmer, Piet, De Nederlandse slavenhandel 1500-1850 (Amsterdam 2007)

Reinders Folmer-van Prooijen, C., Van goederenhandel naar slavenhandel: De Middelburgse

Commercie Compagnie 1720-1755 (Middelburg 2000)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jordy Steijn
Jordy Steijn
Jordy Steijn is a native Dutch who loves to write about sports, history and everything in between. Jordy has a particular sense of humor, which is sometimes hard to catch, lame or genious but mainly nothing but mere irony and which you could find in most of his articles (that are not about genocide).

20 COMMENTS

  1. Interesting piece! Records have been kept pretty well about slavery and genealogy can still largely be traced. I believe we should compensate them even if it’s just symbolically. We should put our money where our mouth is. Dutch success has been built in part on this ‘blood’ money (and also a lot of other Dutch industries indirectly profited from our slave trade), so it seems unfair and immoral to not to. It’s all about the gesture.

    But this is a political game for Holland. They can’t sell an official apology in times of economic crisis to their voters (even outside of economic crisis they still can’t except for maybe Groen Links and they have never been a substantive part of the coalition.) They might give in, but only in a few decades when memories in a fourth to fifth generation have been diluted even further so that there will be no one to ask for it anymore.

  2. “It’s almost impossible to do historical justice to our dark past, in a financial way, and because of that it will probably never happen.”

    Precisely. Of course some of our past is dark and it’s good to acknowledge that in the way Asscher did. A financial compensation, as you already say, is unrealistic. And then again: what would that solve? And where would this end? When we would have to financially for every black page in our history, the state would be bankrupt in no time.

  3. Will they ask for compensation from the Islamic countries who were responsible for between 11.5 and 14 million slaves. The Arab Slave trade was the most active in West Asia, North Africa and South-East Africa and lasted right up until the early 20th century when western nations put pressure upon them to stop slavery.
    The last states to abolish slavery were Saudi Arabia and Yemen which abolished slavery in 1962 under pressure form Britain. However, it was not until 1970 when slavery was abolished in Oman and Mauritania in 1981 and later again in 2007.
    Despite this, slavery still occurs under the Islam in Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Sudan.
    Will they ask for compensation from these countries? They won’t be cause they already know the answer and are not a soft touch like Europe.
    While recognising past problems, they are not worse than any other country in the world. In fact, the West has been the greatest civilising factor in the world. Because we sugar coat everything non-western and blacken everything from the west, we continue to self-flagellate. It’s time to stand up for our values, our civilisation, culture and – dare I say it – religion. Whether we are Christians are not, we still believe in the basic Christian values.

    • You talk about Netherlands if you are Dutch. Aint you? If you talk about others- why Netherlands is part of coalition attacking Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya?

    • Will they ask for compensation from their forefathers the many African tribes that captured their countrymen and people from other tribes and sold them to the Slave Traders. ?

  4. Money is not a solution to every wrong that has been committed in the past. However, acknowledging and accepting the fact that all that has happened was indeed in an error of ignorance is very vital.
    Yes, the only way forward is to create a lasting friendship with these nations and to uplift them in terms of education and connectivity in the business world.
    Off course this will in turn beneficial to the Dutch society as a whole. keeping the memories of that evil is something that is very bad but one that needs to remembered to stop it from happening it again.
    We are not in the 21st century but still it looks as though all the colonial powers are going back to their old behavior of evil through democracy and getting rid of terrorism.
    For me I see evil being repeated but with a more sophisticated way. Let us for sure benefit from one another in a fair way that upholds humanity in equal terms.
    This piece of information is not only for the Dutch people of which I have strong connections with but with all the European powers that exercised this evil.

  5. Astrid “it’s good to acknowledge”??? it’s good to acknowledge that the superior conditions the country lives right now were mainly earned with pain and blood of other populations? That is your European consciousness or even better these are the Dutch values you have inherited from your ancestors?

    The minimum Netherlands should do is to recognize his past and yell it everywhere in the world (also in the history of school which is absolutely distorted) instead of keeping the population in dark. The Dutch were in the front line of slavery and until last moment they tried hardly and did their best to keep the “slavery” as a legitimate institution. And yes is true, the big majority of dutch people have no clue about their history, what they did to the slaves (the most cruel regime of the dark ages, with 50% of slaves dying during transportation). The only they teach in a Dutch school, is how great the Dutch civilization is and their great achievements. The same in out in the society, not a word how this greatness was achieved and how much did that cost to other continent

    The Dutch lords of that period were those also that were denying to stop slavery “for financial reasons” as you also mentioned Astrid (“the state would be bankrupt”). And not to mention what happened during dutch colonies and how much Netherlands took advantage of his colonies…

    No compensation can pay back million of lives that were lost during the Dutch slavery (actually much more than nazis victims) but at least should be a Ethical compensation which dutch state should have done (like germans did for their dark ages recognizing that period as the most dark of Germany) but instead dutchies prefer keeping people in dark and the absolute silence

  6. Most definitely there should be compensation. What form and to whom would be a bit more difficult but not impossible question. You didn’t only steal a slave, you stole architects, businesspeople, builders, carpenters, dentists, engineers, farmers, geneticists, horticulturists, industrialists, judges, (can’t think of K), but most importantly leaders. Help those economies train and equip people, maybe provide apprenticeships. I am sure if you put your mind and that famous Dutch ingenuity to work on it.

  7. What is this world coming to now we are expected to pay for the wrongs our forefathers did i50 or more years ago political correctness has gone nuts, why don’t we use these historic times to teach the errors of those times and try and change the here and now, there are still to many people that are racist going back 150 yrs or more ain’t going to change that many Africans were just as explicate in the slave trade and things that happened back then, leave it be and carry on trying to make the world a better place NOW

  8. What about stopping celebrating Saint Klaus with Black Piet. Ah no, wait! This is a Dutch tradition. Sorry, the Dutch society have not regreted at all! You can not even recognize your own racism torwards a lot of black people living in the country.

  9. I find it interesting that you try and put the blame for the inhumane treatment of Africans on the Bible. God is not a racist! Stop making excuses and own up 100% to the fact that the Dutch during that time were an ignorant, racist, and scared people. Anybody can take something meant for good and mis-use it. Seems you are still looking for an excuse as opposed to simply facing the truth. The Dutch of that time were really really bad people! End of story.

  10. The Dutch slavetrade was ended in 1815, the first year of the kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands was only slow to end the remaining slavery, relatively slow that is, they were in the European middle group and sill far ahead of the rest of the world. The arabs only abolished the slavery in the 1960’s, officially that is…..

    It was a shoegazing bitter former empire, not into grand idea’s and pretentions like the French,who had taken the Dutch idea of republicanism and equality from enlightenment philosophers who were printed in the Dutch republic to invade the Dutch Republic and turn it into a kingdom, and left it piss poor.

    When Dutch parliament decided to end slavery, one 3rd of Amsterdam was on food supply and living in slums. Allthoug only about 6000 slaves remained and most blacks were already free because their ancestors had escaped or bought themselves free, the slave owners had to be compensated not to wreck the plantation economy alltogether, bitter but a reality of that time. Britain only paid of it’s debt from ending slavery through compensation for the slave owners in the British Empire in 2015. They had a way more slaves of course.

    Indifference? The Netherlands simply wasn’t a world leader anymore and bankrupt for a large part of the 19th century, thanks to French imperialism mainly and a bit of Britain’s sidekick. But keeping slaves alive on ships went together with keeping the crew alive, and better understanding of how to was simply a competitive edge.

    I applaud Britain for it’s attempt and costly efforts to end slavery worldwide, to which the Dutch contributed too btw, but let’s not forget how they got in that position. The Dutch got rich from fair trade with a bit of crime on the side, the British couldn’t compete in the European trade which was dominated by the Dutch and got most of their wealth and power from exploiting the weaker people’s around the world.

  11. So why are we only discussing slavery of Africans only? Slavery has Existed in every civilization since the beginning of time. At one point Africans (Egypt) were enslaving europeans. Even during the African slave trade to the new world, Blacks were enslaving Europeans ie the Berber slave trade? So who will compensate Europeans who were enslaved? What about current slaves? Everyone speaks about slavery as if it no long exists, but it does. What is the world doing to end slavery? Are we not virtue signaling to only discuss slavery in one single aspect of its part in all societies? If we truly abhor slavery, why isn’t there any international movement to end it in our current day? Sex slaves are one of the largest groups of slaves today and no one mentions their plight. We pretend this atrocity is over.

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