Repentance and Reappraisal: Historicising the Defenders of Slavery in the Netherlands

Karwan Fatah-Black; Lauren Lauret

doi:10.51769/bmgn-lchr.12843

Author(s)

Karwan Fatah-Black Leiden University
Lauren Lauret Leiden University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.12843

Abstract

In this introduction to a special issue on the history of anti-abolitionism in the Netherlands, the 160th anniversary of the Dutch abolition of slavery is discussed in relation to the culture of commemoration in the Netherlands and the international historiography of abolition. A reappraisal of the role of the State in the commemoration of slavery coincides with a more critical view of history and a change in perspective on the colonial past. The recent trend of cities and institutions investigating their ties to slavery and subsequently often apologising for centuries of compliance and collaboration necessitates a more integrated approach to the analysis of the ideas that shaped colonial policy. Each contribution in this issue adds to the rich historiography on Dutch abolitionism but redirects the attention towards politicians, governors, investors, publishers and authors who defended the trade in people and their enslavement. The case studies presented here range from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, which makes this special issue the first presentation of how the Netherlands normalised colonial slavery over more than 250 years.

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Author Biographies

Karwan Fatah-Black, Leiden University

Karwan Fatah-Black is assistant professor at the department of social and economic history at Leiden University and senior researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. He studies the Dutch colonial empire in the Atlantic world and specifically issues pertaining to economic development, slavery, emancipation and citizenship. His current research teams study the transition from slavery to citizenship and are funded by the Royal Academy of Arts and Science fund Staatsman Thorbecke and the Dutch Research Council Vidi grant. Among others he published: ‘What is Manumission? A Manumittee-Centric Model of the Manumission Process in Eighteenth Century Surinam’, Esclavages & Post-Esclavages 9 (2024) 1-21 with Camilla de Koning and Ramona Negrón; Serving the chain? De Nederlandsche Bank and the last decades of slavery, 1814-1863 (Leiden University Press 2023) with Lauren Lauret and Joris van den Tol; ‘The power of procedure: punishment of slaves and the administration of justice in Suriname, 1669 1869’, Journal of Global Slavery 7 (2022) 19-47 with Imran Canfijn. E-mail: k.j.fatah@hum.leidenuniv.nl.
Lauren Lauret, Leiden University

Lauren Lauret completed her dissertation at Leiden University, where she also holds an assistant professorship in Dutch History. Currently she is a Dutch Research Council Rubicon post-doctoral fellow at University College London. Her research focuses on how the political elite (re)claimed power after experiencing disruption, with a particular focus on the impact of colonialism on Dutch and British political practice. Among others she published Serving the chain? De Nederlandsche Bank and the last decades of slavery, 1814-1863 (Leiden University Press 2023) with Karwan Fatah-Black and Joris van den Tol; ‘Four Founding Fathers on the Road: New Government Design in the United States and the Netherlands, 1776-1815’, Revue Française d’Études Américaines 173:4 (2022) 78-96 with Dirk Alkemade; Regentenwerk. Vergaderen in de Staten-Generaal en de Tweede Kamer, 1750-1850 (Prometheus 2020). E-mail: l.b.lauret@hum.leidenuniv.nl.