The research on Amsterdam’s involvement in slavery was published on Tuesday in the form of a book: De Slaverij in Oost en West, Het Amsterdam-Onderzoek. The main conclusion is that “the Amsterdam city council itself was involved in slavery on a large-scale and long-term,” the researchers said.
The research on Amsterdam’s involvement in slavery was published on Tuesday in the form of a book: De Slaverij in Oost en West, Het Amsterdam-Onderzoek. The main conclusion is that “the Amsterdam city council itself was involved in slavery on a large-scale and long-term,” the researchers said.
Mayor Femke Halsema of Amsterdam announced during Keti Koti in 2019 that she wants to apologize on behalf of the city for slavery.
But it was not yet known what should be explicitly apologized for. The municipality therefore required scientific substantiation.
“The Amsterdam city council was itself directly, on a large scale, worldwide, long-term and in many different ways involved in slavery and the slave trade. That has also had an effect on how the city was formed up to the present day,” say the researchers.
Scientific research with an Amsterdam perspective
Cultural historian Nancy Jouwe and scientific researcher Pepijn Brandon have been asked as experts to edit the book, together with Guno Jones (VU University Amsterdam) and Matthias van Rossum (International Institute for Social History).
Forty authors contributed to the book by providing scientific research with an Amsterdam perspective. The book therefore consists of forty chapters.
They weren’t always easy stories. “What shocked me was an article about an order published from Amsterdam to bring enslaved children from Africa to the Americas. That will come in,” Jouwe tells news partner AT5.
Involvement of ordinary Amsterdammers
The research is emphatically about the interrelated slavery histories in the Atlantic area and in Asia. It not only encompasses the political and economic aspects, but it is also about the ordinary Amsterdammer.
“In 1741 there was a petition to the city council of Amsterdam about the importance of Suriname. It said that every Amsterdammer earns a piece of bread. But of course not everyone was involved in slavery in the same way,” says Brandon.
The book is also about the social debate among Amsterdammers in previous centuries, black people in plays and slavery under the VOC.
