Representing Distant Victims The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics , 1840-18801 maartje janse

This article attempts to add to our understanding of the relations between the Netherlands and its colonies in the little researched period of 1840-1880 when this relation became politicised. This was a direct result of a new notion of citizenship that developed after the 1848 constitution was implemented: many believed that citizens had now become accountable for government policies, that is, as far as they were acquainted with the effects these had abroad. Colonial issues were among the first for which citizens developed new protest forms and demanded that public opinion should be taken more seriously by the government. This means that not only what happened in the colonies influenced the shape and structure of Dutch politics in an important formative stage, but also that sentiments usually connected to the introduction of the Ethical Policy can be traced back much earlier than is often assumed.

only what happened in the colonies influenced the shape and structure of Dutch politics in an important formative stage, but also that sentiments usually connected to the introduction of the Ethical Policy can be traced back much earlier than is often assumed.
Over the course of Dutch colonial history popular awareness at home of the colonies abroad has taken different forms.Following British historiography, the term 'colonial citizenship' is often used to refer to this awareness.However, the concept of Dutch colonial citizenship has not been fully developed as yet, if only because it has not been explored for most of the nineteenth century. 2 It is hard to say if the concept of colonial citizenship can be applied to the mid-nineteenth century at all -we do not know just how prominent the colonies were in the development of national identity.A thorough study of 'Empire at home', assessing the importance of colonial activities (including missionary work) for the development of Dutch national identity is well overdue and would be more than welcome.Authors like Martin bmgn -Low Countries Historical Review | Volume 128-1 (2013) | pp.53-80 a colonial nation'. 5To contribute to our understanding of colonial awareness in the little studied period between 1840 and 1880, this article will explore the way the inhabitants of the Netherlands understood their citizenship to be embedded within the Dutch Empire.We will see that during these four decades Dutch citizens increasingly interpreted colonial citizenship in terms of political responsibility.In contrast to the de-politicisation of the first half of the twentieth century, the period between 1840 and 1880 was rather one of politicisation of colonial citizenship.What is more, moral indignation over colonial issues shaped Dutch political life in an important formative stage.This article aims to answer the question how perceived colonial injustices impacted on the formation of civil society and political life in the Netherlands in these decades.
It is no coincidence that in this period political debates increasingly concerned colonial matters: because of the new constitution of 1848, this was a time in which the role of the people in the political process was reinvented. 6rticularly colonial injustice and suffering produced by slavery and by the Cultivation System (the Dutch government system of forced deliveries of agricultural commodities by the Javanese peasants) proved capable of igniting a sense of responsibility towards colonial subjects and consequently demanding political change to alleviate the suffering.Put simply, representations of colonial suffering and the process of democratisation were mutually reinforcing.
Even as colonial humanitarianism in the Netherlands exerted significant influence on both the political agenda and on political culture, it is difficult to assess its precise outreach among the Dutch people at large.We know that the social movements protesting against slavery and the cultivation system did not gather mass support around the mid-nineteenth century.It was a matter of the support of hundreds or thousands, rather than of hundreds of thousands of individuals.In the Netherlands religious matters were far more capable of mobilising the masses, such as the Aprilbeweging of 1853.It could well have been that religion and social position were more important representing distant victims janse constituents of personal and national identity than were the colonies.Even in the well researched case of British history, in which Empire seems to have been much more central to the development of national identity than in the Dutch situation, doubts have recently been raised by Bernard Porter as to whether the Empire was really as important as has been suggested. 7 we were to ask nineteenth-century citizens to describe the relation of the Netherlands to the colonies, their answers probably would consist of different, partly overlapping, elements.The colonies were first and foremost places of trade, places where fortunes could be made.In 1842, liberal trader and author E.J. Potgieter, in an allegory of the rise and threatened fall of the Netherlands, presented colonial trade as the nation's way out of trouble and the East Indies as a paradise where hard work guaranteed abundant wealth and a bright future. 8At the same time, for most citizens in the first half of the century, colonial citizenship would have been predominantly shaped by religious ideology.For most people, the Dutch colonies were places where missionaries went to bring the gospel, and from whence they reported back to account for the ample funding from the Missionary Society.That the Society for a long time was the largest voluntary association in the Netherlands testifies to the fact that financial support for the missionary project was generally seen as self-evident. 9For many people missionary efforts legitimised expansion of the colonial project.
However around mid-century, to some critical members of the public, missionary efforts were seen as insufficient, or even hypocritical in the light of the injustices colonial rule produced.From the 1840s onward, religious and moral sentiments with regard to the colonies were increasingly translated into political statements.Slavery was the main area of concern.His readers were shocked by Teenstra's claims.However, criticisms such as this ushered in an increasingly politicised phase in the relationship between a significant part of the Dutch metropolitan public and the colonies.From the 1840s onwards, through representations of life in the colonies, especially images of cruelty and suffering, small but important protest movements emerged, contesting the nature of colonial rule.They demanded political reform, rather than conversion, justice, rather than charity.Ultimately, the politicisation of Dutch citizens' relation to the colonies had a great impact on Dutch political culture at large.In this transformation of moral and religious sentiments into political positions, colonial citizenship took on a political form.What is more, here we can distinctly discern the emergence of an ethical movement, almost half a century before current historiography dates it.

Colonial information
Between colonies and metropolis there was a spatial divide that could be bridged by information.A great concern of both government and critics of the colonial regime around mid-century was to gain and spread knowledge about the colonies.The importance placed on colonial knowledge can be explained from its contested nature.Catherine Hall described this as the 'war of representation': imperialism consisted of different concurrent imperial projects that were not necessarily convergent, and indeed were often in conflict with each other -for instance commercial exploitation, colonial rule and projects with a missionary or philanthropic goal.Taking the latter projects seriously helps to unravel the complexity of the imperial enterprise and to understand that colonial philanthropy both challenged and legitimised the imperial project as a whole. 11 Colonial criticism emerged on the waves of increasing information flows and coincided with the rise of public opinion.Knowledge of the colonies was increasingly understood to be a prerequisite for successful government.representing distant victims janse Dutch cities in the 1840s and 1850s. 12Liberals, whose political ideas gained prominence from the 1840s on, also believed that government action as well as public opinion should be 'well informed', that is to say, based on as much factual evidence as possible.History' approach that this special issue is examining, are insufficiently able to grasp the complexity of the relationship between Dutch citizens and colonial subjects.The metaphor of an imperial web, connecting multiple sites, people, institutions and ideas allows historians to investigate how, when and why threads or connections were constructed, who participated in this extension of the existing web and what happened after people, ideas and institutions were connected. 15The problem here is that the connectedness to the colonial subjects that many Dutch citizens experienced was rather one-sided.Most efforts to raise awareness of colonial injustice forged an imaginary bond to those suffering from it.If we want to uphold the metaphor of the colonial web, most connections of Dutch citizens to the colonial project should be added on with dotted lines, to distinguish them from more tangible connections.At the same time, we must realise that to many Dutch citizens the relation they had to the colonies felt very real and was infused with emotions.To understand this type of intense one-sided relationship, we must investigate the different types of colonial knowledge.

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Generally speaking, there were two types of knowledge, according to contemporary observers.Factual information, scientific classifications and statistics became increasingly central to people's worldview.Then there was the 'knowledge of the heart'.This was based on eighteenth-century ideas that everyone was endowed with a 'moral organ', an intuitive knowledge of right and wrong.Especially women were thought capable of acquiring this type of moral knowledge.Emotions function as a moral guide, distinguishing right from wrong. 16Based on this idea, reformers started confronting the public at large with techniques aimed at producing emotions.One of these was a narrative technique in which the distance to the colonies was overcome by making the reader an eyewitness to instances of suffering.This type of story had been developed from the second half of the eighteenth century within the literary genre of Sentimentalism and developed into a broader genre of 'humanitarian narratives'.

Sentimentalism: Colonial horrors disclosed
The development of the genre of Sentimentalism is intimately connected to the rise of the novel.According to Lynn Hunt, this new and very popular literary genre had a profound impact on people's worldview.She even claims that the acceptance of the idea of human rights can be partly explained from new ways in which people had identified with other people's suffering through novels. 17Sympathy -the ability to identify with the suffering other -was the core concept of the rhetorical strategies of sentimental literature.Sympathy had the power to raise awareness of suffering and to direct opposition to it.
The late eighteenth-century British campaign for the abolition of the slave trade was the first major political issue in which sympathy with the plight of others was deliberately, intensively and effectively put to use.Brycchan Carey has demonstrated that during the British campaign against the slave trade, sentimental rhetoric can be found not just in novels, poems and letters, but also in parliamentary speeches, sermons and legal texts, thereby broadening   Ibid., 2, 18-20, 56, 132-141, 151,  the relevance of the sentimental rhetoric beyond the borders of literary criticism. 18 Carey argues, sentimental rhetoric tends to focus on the emotional or physical response of victims and particularly the sufferings of the body are emphasised. 19Signal words are body, flesh, blood, the heart, sighing, blushing, palpitations, fainting and death, but both culmination and goal of the rhetoric is the shedding of tears.Tears were considered the outward sign of true sensibility and, because they are external, served as a form of communication.
Ideally, in a sentimental narrative the victim sheds the first tears, secondly the narrators' eyes brim over when telling the tale of hardship, and finally the reader is expected or even explicitly invited to join them in weeping over the victim's misery.These tears bridge distance in time, space and social standing -relevant divides in the case of metropolitan reformers and colonial subjects.United by their tears, the victim, narrator and reader share the deeply felt conviction that this suffering must end.Right at this point, Carey notes, practical solutions to end the misery are suggested and recommended.
The flood of tears is instrumental in persuading the audience that reform is essential. 20 the nineteenth century, Sentimentalism as a literary technique became unacceptable to the guardians of high culture.Nevertheless, the sentimental fashion did not die in 1800.It continued in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in popular drama and fiction, becoming the typical style of cheap novels for a broad reading audience. 21European and American reformers also continued to use the sentimental rhetorical strategies to mobilise protesters in what is often referred to as 'humanitarian narratives'.These narratives can be either factual -government reports, legal accounts, medical reports -or fictional, such as novels. 22They can convey both factual knowledge and the 'knowledge of the heart'.Thomas Laqueur, in his analysis of the mode of operation of humanitarian narratives, stresses that the mobilising effect of these narratives lies in the fact that in the text the causeand-effect of suffering is minutely examined, and the fact that the suffering

Voluntary associations as hubs in colonial networks
The most prominent Dutch organisations for colonial reform were those advocating the abolishment of slavery (several voluntary associations, active between 1840 and 1863) and protesting the Cultivation System (one voluntary association, active between 1866 and 1877).All put a remarkable emphasis on diffusing colonial knowledge as a necessary prerequisite for colonial protest and colonial reform.
The first abolitionist wave of the late eighteenth century was mainly in the form of protests on paper -at that time no antislavery organisations were established, while at the same time in Great-Britain a hitherto unknown wave of public protest swept the nation. 27It was only in 1841 that a Dutch antislavery society was first established at the instigation of British antislavery advocates of the British and Foreign Antislavery Society (bfass), founded 1839.The Dutch government, which was unable to forbid the new antislavery societies in the Netherlands on a legal basis, did forbid them to ever publish or be active in the colonies, and also implored the antislavery advocates to discontinue their activities in order to give the government the opportunity to investigate the possibility of abolishing slavery. 28 1844, a group of Utrecht liberals were unhappy that no action had been evinced by the government and, knowing that the government was critical of a straightforward antislavery society, they established a 'publishers' association'. 29The organisation was semi-public: membership could only be gained by invitation.Members were all seen as contributing members and expected to send any colonial information to the editors of the aptly named journal Bijdragen aan de kennis der Nederlandsche en vreemde koloniën, bijzonder betrekkelijk de vrijlating der slaven.[Contributions to the knowledge of the Dutch and foreign colonies, especially with regards to the emancipation of slaves].The Society became a nodal point, disseminating a wide range of facts about the colonies, but also bringing together some 150 leaders of opinion (Protestant ministers, Professors, mps, editors of the liberal journal De Gids, among others).
The driving force behind the organisation, Jan Ackersdijck, Professor of Political Economy, was convinced that good government had to be based on statistics ('statistics' here broadly interpreted, roughly the equivalent of systematic information).A free flow of information back and forth between colonies and metropolis was deemed an absolute necessity.This went against the political reality: King Willem II still considered colonial rule to be his royal prerogative and colonial matters were hardly ever discussed in Parliament.
As a result the calls for koloniale openbaarheid, transparency in colonial matters, were considered close to revolutionary.When the revolutionary moment did arrive, in 1848, the Bijdragen stopped.The publishers, like many other liberals, did not know what to demand from government, paralysed as they were by the seemingly impossible solution to the question of abolition.Liberal axioms such as the slave's right to freedom and the right of the slave owner not to be dispossessed by the state without compensation were in juxtaposition, and since the country was still facing a financial crisis, it was unclear where the money for reparation payments was to be found.Between Plans for a free-labour plantation were not realised, but fundraising for the manumission of selected groups of slaves was successful and highly popular among the Dutch pro-abolition public.
The slaves who qualified for financial support in the form of a loan in order to buy their freedom had to be Christians and well behaved.They were monitored after their manumission, probably by missionaries, who testified that 'Suzanna Elizabeth shows that one can remain a faithful domestic servant, even when no longer a slave'.Another story tells of an old man, weak, sickly and exhausted by his life-long slave labour.Oh! Who knows how often he has longingly looked forward to the ever-anticipated message from The Netherlands: slavery is abolished!Of him and other former slaves the Dutch reformers were told that 'apart from one exception, they behave well, quiet, productive, and orderly'. 30hese stories fulfilled an important role in the political debate on the viability of abolition, being presented as proof that abolition would not destroy social hierarchy or productivity, and that former slaves would act responsibly instead of rebelling.These reports, reminiscent of those monitoring the progress of former prostitutes 31 , created a more intimate connection to colonial subjects for the Dutch public.
However, in order to mobilise the Dutch public to protest against slavery, stories of abuse and suffering were most effective.Particularly female antislavery activism was inspired by the stories of the suffering of slaves.The women of the Rotterdam Ladies' Anti-Slavery Committee declared that they were touched by 'the suffering of our own fellow human beings, [...] who have the same bodies we have, sensitive to pain, and whose souls are no less susceptible to sadness and grief than ours'. 32In 1841-1842 they drew up an all-female petition, which was the first to have ever been organised in the Netherlands.In it they referred to the 'cry from Suriname' as the prime mover of their actions. 33128 Rotterdam women attached their signatures to it.
In 1855 733 Amsterdam women signed a similar antislavery petition.It stated: Because of everything that has lately been uncovered about the situation of the slaves in our colonies, especially in the West Indies -and in which Christian family is the fate of these unfortunates not discussed?-the feelings of the signatories have been shocked to such an extent that they could no longer suppress their desire to address Your Majesty directly, with the urgent plea to end this situation shortly. 34ere is more evidence that, at least in the late 1850s, in evangelical circles in Amsterdam, antislavery had become an issue discussed by the whole family.
Children organised fundraisers to free slave children (perhaps inspired by the special children's edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin); women organised fundraisers to free their 'sisters, now still slaves', through arranging raffles and bazaars.The prizes, they hoped, would serve as 'a lasting memory, what is more, as silent yet visible advocates of the slaves cry out to their owners: "Help the slaves!"'. 35

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Stories or objects representing the suffering of slaves were capable of instilling in a metropolitan public a sense of connectedness to the colonies.
As stated above, this did not usually lead to real connections, although these were sometimes sought after.The board members and other agents of colonial protest organisations in the Netherlands maintained correspondence with their contacts abroad.Missionaries, colonial officials, family members who lived in the East or West Indies were often go-betweens between colony and metropolis.They interacted with local elites, participated in local philanthropic networks and played central roles in the colonial web.Within these circles new ideas on educating and developing the indigenous people originated. 36e history of the Maatschappij tot Nut van den Javaan [Society for the Benefit of the Javanese] offers insight into the imagined ties to the Javanese, as well as to some attempts to integrate into this colonial philanthropic network and really impact on life in the East Indies.The Maatschappij was founded in 1866 by former Colonial Medical Chief Willem Bosch to protest against the Cultivation System. 37Not surprisingly perhaps, its publications combined stories of suffering Javanese, 'stretching out their hands' to be rescued by benevolent Dutch as well as factual knowledge about the East-Indies (Bosch wrote a 'Necessary look at the history of Java' in instalments).Here too, members pressed for action 'for the practical good of the Javanese', believing that education of the Javanese would help stop their exploitation: 'If the Javanese learns to think, the system of exploitation will cease to exist'. 38However, the Education Commission of the society experienced problems coordinating their efforts with colonial counterparts -the imagined colonies were always at one's disposal, but the real colonies were far away.The Dutch colonial experts who made up the committee, men like East Indies specialist P.J. Veth, chose to consult experts in the colonies about every decision they faced, because they felt they lacked insight into the Javanese 'character'. 39en the government supervisor of indigenous schools took too long to answer their questions -whether to produce an atlas or three representing distant victims janse help.But when the 3,600 copies of the print that he had suggested arrived in the East Indies -depicting the royal family complete with crown, constitution and sceptre -so that he could add Javanese captions as he promised, it was not to his liking.Another print of 'Dutch animals' he similarly rejected.He never even responded to the suggestion of a side-by-side image of a Dutch and Javanese farm, in order to instil in the Javanese 'the notion of the imperfection of their tools'.The Education Committee was indignant when it turned out that he had passed off their idea to publish Robinson Crusoe in a Javanese-Dutch edition as his own.Every winter numerous local branches hold meetings in cities and villages where before hardly, if ever, the name of Java was uttered, let alone an exchange of ideas took place on the needs of the Dutch-Indies Empire.In popular presentations, the speakers clarify the questions of the Indies for a broad public, usually followed by informal discussion, in which each citizen learns, as it were, to form a healthy opinion on issues and situations that he used to think belonged to the domain of the specialists.artikel -article although anti-slavery propaganda relayed a great many anecdotes of suffering blacks, it was not concerned with realism [...] Slaves, in short, did not threaten, at least as far as the British at home were concerned.Bestowing freedom upon them seemed therefore purely an act of humanity and will, an achievement that would be to Great Britain's economic detriment, perhaps, but would have few other domestic consequences. 63eeing the slaves and rescuing the Javanese similarly contributed to the selfimage of the Netherlands as a civilized, Christian nation.
A brief comparison to another important nineteenth-century issue proves the point of the specificity of colonial issues.In the 1840s, around the same time that concerns for the slaves developed and the first antislavery organisations were established, alcohol abuse became a growing concern, and the first Dutch Temperance Societies were founded.Here too, humanitarian narratives were used to indicate the cause of suffering.The abused wife and children of the drunkard were considered the main victims of alcohol, while in these humanitarian narratives the drunkard himself was painted as the villain.
As he was responsible for his behaviour, the solution suggested was that he should decide of his own free will to stop drinking.Put differently, while the drunkard still had agency, slaves and Javanese inaccurately were denied any agency, as powerless victims of colonial injustices.Even though this idea was partly grounded in reality (colonial abuses were based on a much greater power differences), it was enhanced by the literary representations of their suffering and the fact that for most members of the Dutch public they never became real people.Temperance advocates struggled with the frustration they felt toward the drunkards they could run into on every street corner.They had difficulties regarding them as victims of their own behaviour since the concept of addiction (in Dutch verslaving, lit.'being enslaved') was unknown until the late nineteenth century.Because of the perceived powerlessness of colonial subjects, more than any other objects of care or concern, metropolitan citizens went out of their way to politically represent their interests.
The colonial issues impacted on the development of Dutch political culture at large.The public indignation over the cruelty and exploitation that defined both slavery and the Cultivation System and the political protests that ensued contributed to democratisation of the political process and changed what was considered good politics.For most of the nineteenth century the task of government and politicians was narrowly defined as guarding public order and managing state finances.Moral arguments and appeals to end the suffering and abuse overseas at first were not considered relevant to governing.The spreading of colonial knowledge (both factual and moral), even to remote Dutch villages, had moved people to express their concerns with the wellbeing of colonial subjects.In doing so, they challenged the notion that they were not in a position to judge colonial affairs -previously this had been a matter of just the King and a few colonial specialists.Colonial reformers like Willem Bosch even turned this idea around and suggested that politicians were so corrupted by their love of money that they were the ones who were no longer able to judge colonial affairs.In colonial matters politicians needed the public to tell them right from wrong.Willem Bosch even explicitly developed the idea of a 'moral politics' replacing the current 'calculating politics'. 65cause reform movements in their propaganda had assigned a central role to the knowledge of the heart, women could play an important role in these movements and explore new ways to express their views in political matters.However, it would be an oversimplification to state that these reform movements prompted the political emancipation of women.In reality, whenever in the mid-nineteenth century a movement developed from mere expressions of moral indignation to sustained demands for political reform, in other words: when a reform movement politicised, women were excluded from it, or chose not to participate.For most of the nineteenth century the general opinion among men and women remained that it was not appropriate representing distant victims janse for women to participate in politics. 66In both the United States and the United Kingdom women's earliest explicit claims that they had a right to petition, to speak in public or to vote were directly linked to their participation in colonial projects and their advocacy for suffering indigenous people. 67In the Netherlands the same case can be made for the twentieth century 68 , but in the nineteenth century it was rather domestic moral and social reform, for instance the struggle against prostitution, that linked women's role as mothers of the nation to demands for suffrage rights. 69cause the sentimental narratives generally denied colonial subjects agency, their perceived helplessness stimulated men and women to speak out against the excesses of imperial rule.However, at the same time this 'helplessness' functioned as a crucial legitimisation for the continuation of imperial rule.In addition, in some ways this caricature of colonial victimhood was detrimental to the development of a Dutch women's rights movement.In the mid-nineteenth century Dutch women identifying with and speaking up for their 'sisters' in the West Indies, placed the predicament of the female slaves in opposition to their own relative 'freedom': the slave advocates stressed their happiness that they themselves were free to marry and raise their own children and could even speak out in political matters, as opposed to slave women.As a result they felt less provoked to protest the injustices women faced in the Netherlands. 70

Conclusion
In the period between 1840 and 1880, the sense of connectedness of Dutch citizens to the colonial project increased.Texts, individuals and voluntary associations could all function as links in the chains between individual Dutch citizens and the colonies.Textual representations of the colonies were often meant to incite action on behalf of the Dutch public and stop

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Waaldijk and Legêne, 'Ethische politiek in Nederland', 188, 211; also Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk, Feministische Openbaarheid.De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid in 1898 (Amsterdam 1998) 162-202, 260-270.At the 1898 National Women's Exhibition there was serious interest in colonial issues.Especially the moral and ethno-cultural aspects of Empire received attention, while the politically charged Achin war was intentionally excluded from colonial debate (264-265).6 For a more elaborate treatment of the role of protest movements in the development of modern politics see Maartje Janse, De Afschaffers.Publieke opinie, organisatie en politiek in Nederland, 1840-1880 (Amsterdam 2007).This article is partly based on case studies discussed in more detail there.
13 'Research leads to truth', was the axiom used at the foundation in 1854 of the Indisch Genootschap [Indies Society], a society of gentlemen with colonial experience and knowledge who discussed many colonial issues and published on them on a regular basis.An important source for colonial information was the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië [Journal for the Dutch Indies].Originally published in the Dutch East-Indies from 1838 onwards, it was reintroduced in 1849 by liberal mp Van Hoëvell in the Netherlands.The aim of this periodical was to support a liberal colonial policy through the spread of knowledge on colonial matters. 14Both factual information and emotionally charged literary representations of the suffering in the colonies created new connections in the colonial experience of Dutch citizens.However, in analysing the functioning of the colonies at home, most of the central metaphors used in the 'New Imperial

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could have been prevented is firmly established.Because the reader now artikel -article 61 possesses the knowledge of how the suffering can be stopped, intervention becomes a moral imperative.23In other words, humanitarian narratives instruct readers how to become the victim's rescuers.In the case of Dutch antislavery it was especially the translation of Uncle Tom's Cabin which aroused the public and made the word sympathy fashionable, as one critic put it.The book instantly revived the sleepy antislavery movement.24While most studies of nineteenth century humanitarian narratives focus on British and American texts, the Dutch reform movements also produced numerous examples of this genre.Apart from the publications of the organisations battling slavery and the Cultivation System, some influential mid-century colonial humanitarian narratives which impacted on the perspective of the Dutch public on the issue of slavery in the West were De slavernij in Suriname, of dezelfde gruwelen der slavernij, die in de 'Negerhut' geschetst zijn, bestaan ook in onze West-Indische koloniën![The slavery in Suriname, or: the horrors depicted in Uncle Tom's Cabin, exist in our West Indian Colonies too!, 1853] by Julien Wolbers, W.R. van Hoëvell's Slaven en vrijen onder de Nederlandse wet [Slave and Free under the Dutch Law, 1854] (thought of as the Dutch Uncle Tom's Cabin) and Teenstra's De negerslaven in de kolonie Suriname mentioned earlier.For the East Indies, the most important equivalent was Multatuli's Max Havelaar of de koffij-veilingen der Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (1860), most notably the moving sentimental parable of Saïdjah and Adinda. 25hese books indeed incited protest against colonial policies but at the same time were highly contested.In the reception of these works we see the 'war of representation' in full effect.West Indian planters accused the reformers of exaggeration and lack of knowledge of the colonial reality.The reformers in turn simply dismissed most accounts of non-indigenous colonial experiences as being unreliable due to the corrupting influence of being subject to the fundamentally unjust colonial relations.26Still, they themselves had to rely on eyewitness reports from the colonies.Laqueur, 'Bodies, Details', 176-180.Vaderlandsche letteroefeningen (1856) 151; Janse, De Afschaffers, 91-92; see also Hanneke Hoekstra, 'Melodramatische politiek.De negerhut van oom Tom als inzet van gelijkheid en mededogen', in: Maria Grever et al. (eds.),Grenzeloze gelijkheid.Historische vertogen over cultuurverschil (Amsterdam 2011) 113-128.On the sentimental parable see Carey, British Abolitionism, 39-40.26 Julien Wolbers, De slavernij in Suriname, of Dezelve gruwelen der slavernij, die in de 'Negerhut' geschetst zijn, bestaan ook in onze West-Indische koloniën!(Amsterdam 1853) 3-4.See also the reception of the Max Havelaar, Nop Maas, '"Dat boek is meer dan een boek -het is een mensch".Reacties op Max Havelaar in 1860', in: idem, Multatuli voor iedereen (maar niemand voor Multatuli) (Nijmegen 2000) 7-49.Cover of the second print run of W.R. van Hoëvell's Slaven en vrijen onder de Nederlandse wet [Slave and Free under the Dutch Law].Special Collection, University Library, Leiden University.
1848 and 1853 the Dutch antislavery movement led a dormant existence.The Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter Bevordering van de Afschaffing der Slavernij [Dutch Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery or nmbas] became active in the immediate aftermath of the impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1853.In its journal it also published much information about the physical conditions of life in the colonies, with more emphasis than the Bijdragen on emotional accounts of hardship.The nmbas, as well as affiliated organisations such as the Dames-Comité te Amsterdam ter bevordering van de Evangelie-verkondiging en de Afschaffing der Slavernij in Suriname [Amsterdam Ladies' Committee for the Promotion of Missionary Work and the Abolition of Slavery in Suriname] and several youth organisations, longed to help colonial subjects.They supported missionary activities, mainly through the Moravian Brothers in Suriname.
40 A final ambitious plan to open a model school for native education (on a 'low, really low' level -'civic schools [...] there must be like good infant schools here' 41 ) failed due to lack of funding.After eight years of trying to reach out to educate the Javanese, nothing much had been accomplished.Nevertheless de Maatschappij tot Nut van den Javaan was an important voluntary association because of its influence on Dutch public opinion regarding the Cultivation System, as well as the new conception of politics it introduced.Critics ridiculed the lecture tours of itinerant agents for including even the remotest and smallest villages of the country, noting sarcastically that they went to 'Meppel, Oldenzaal and Beesterzwaag and other places, which have lively communications with the Indies, in order to unveil the secrets of the desa administration'. 42Apologists of the Maatschappij on the other hand valued the newly established connections between remote Dutch villages and the East Indies much more positively, not in the least as a sign of democratisation:

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Photograph courtesy of the Bosch Family.
the plight of the slave and the Javanese was set in sharp contrast to the focus on financial exploitation of the government.A liberal observer in 1867 applauded the establishment of the Maatschappij tot Nut van den Javaan as a way to awaken national conscience.He reflected on the change in public opinion in the past decades.Twenty-five years ago [...] we would have been indifferent to a Society for the Benefit of the Javanese.The Javanese did not affect us.We considered them slaves who should be happy to work for us, their lords and masters.We never thought of education and guidance of these coloured outcasts.As long as the horn of plenty of the colonial surplus kept flowing, the masters were satisfied, and we with them.The opaque glass building of the Ministry of the Colonies was only opened to the initiated and we did not care about what went on inside.Fortunately this situation has changed, fortunately public interest [lit: 'openbaarheid'] has broken the opaque glass; the veils have been ripped away and the Dutch people, through their representation, have gained a part in the administration of the Indies. 64