On 1 July 1863 the Dutch government abolished slavery in its colonies Suriname and the Antilles.
It was one of the last European countries to do so.
Why was this?
In this video you're going to learn about the Dutch road to the abolition of slavery.
The Dutch government abolished slavery in its colonies on 1 July 1863.
This is relatively late compared to other European countries: Spain (1811), Great-Britain
(1834), France (1848).
Why were the Dutch so late?
So first of, how did the Dutch slave trade work?
It started with a Dutch ship that sailed from one of the harbors of the Netherlands (Vlissingen or Amsterdam) and was packed with goods intended for West
African merchants.
Because that's where the ship was heading to.
For example the castle of Elmina (in present-day Ghana).
There the Dutch traded their goods for African slaves who had been captured by West
African slave traders.
The captured Africans were handed over to the Europeans who put them on their ships.
The journey from West Africa to the New World (or the Americas) took six weeks
in the most favourable weather conditions but in worst case it took four months.
Now the Dutch slave traders they tried to keep their slaves alive, because a dead slave isn’t
worth much.
However, abuse, torture did occur.
Not to mention the outbreak of diseases like smallpox and dysentery.
Most Dutch ships sailed to Suriname which was a colony in the north of Latin America. Or to one of the islands north of it: Curacao or Sint Eustatius.
Did you know that during the 17th century the Dutch held a part of Brazil for a while. From 1630 – 1654.
Once in the colonies they were sold off.
In Suriname plantation owners had contracts with the WIC for a certain amount
of slaves against an agreed price.
These contracted slaves were brought directly to the plantations. Do notice:
not all slaves worked on plantations.
There were three types of slave workers: field slaves (40%), artisan slaves (15%), domestic
slaves (10%).
The remaining 35% were children, the elderly and disabled.
Work in the field, on the plantations, was by far the hardest work.
There were differences: the sugar plantations had a bad reputation with working days from six in the morning till
six in the evening, but it could exceed to 16 hours of work a day.
Cotton plantations were the least bad a field slave could get with working days not more
than 8 hours a day.
Conditions on the plantations varied.
There were stories of notorious plantation owners who tortured their slaves by the slightest
offence.
There are also examples of owners who had more 'humane' policies.
There was resistance against this all.
In French Haïti a revolution broke out where the slaves rebelled against their overlords,
massacred the French and established a new state.
Inspired by these events on the Dutch island of Curacao Tula led a revolt against the Dutch
overlords.
This revolt was crushed and Tula was executed on the breaking wheel.
The Maroons of Suriname freed themselves from slavery and settled in the Surinamese interior.
From their they launched raids on plantations to set free the enslaved or to loot and murder.
Or both.
But what about Dutch resistance against the slave trade?
This existed in the form of abolitionism: a movement that strived for the abolition of slavery.
But the abolitionist movement in the Netherlands wasn't that strong.
By 1800 the Dutch weren't the most enlightened of the European people.
The discussion was officially kickstarted when the French (who had taken over the country
by that time) established a National Assembly in Den Haag in 1797.
By that time the overseas Dutch colonies had been captured by the British.
And even the British hadn't abolished slave trade by this point.
Only the Danes.
So why the hurry, was the idea.
It was only after Napoleon's defeat and the return of Willem I that the slave trade was
to be abolished.
This is ironic: the slavery wasn't abolished during the revolutionary times, but during
the conservative era that followed it.
A new Kingdom of the Netherlands was proclaimed.
Willem I was pressured by the British to abolish the slave trade (the British had abolished
trade in 1808), especially because they threatened not to return the former Dutch colonies to
the Netherlands.
The British then took the lead against illegal slave trade and while the
French, Spaniards and Portuguese continued with illegal shipping barely any Dutch merchants
tried to illegally ship off African slaves.
Some of these illegal foreign ships did end up in Suriname.
Measures against this were effectivily carried out from 1826 when a registration system was
introduced.
The only “Dutch” ships that were intercepted were ships with Dutch papers while the captain
and crew was not Dutch.
After centuries the Dutch slave trade ended without
much of a fuzz.
However, this did not equal the end of slavery.
How did that come to an end?
Cause only in 1863 the Dutch abolished slavery.
Why was this?
In Britain during the 19th century a middle class had developed.
They wanted to resist against the elite and they advocated against
slavery.
But the thing was: in the Netherlands such a middle class hadn't developed itself yet.
Dutch historian Piet Emmer wrote the following about it:
“That English enthusiasm prevented illegal slave trade in the English colonies, because
public opinion and officials were convinced that they were fighting for a good cause.
Shipowners, investors and planters who disagreed with this view had better remain silent.
This was not the case in the Netherlands.
In our country the slave trade came to a standstill because Dutch shipping companies no longer
saw any profit in it.
[…] There was hardly any belief in the 'good cause'.
In the Netherlands, this was usually dismissed as typical English hypocrisy with a philanthropic
veneer.”
When the British abolished slavery in 1834 there was fear among Surinamese plantation
owners that the slaves would run off to the west of Suriname where the British had their colony. This
turned out to be barily the case.
When the French abolished slavery in 1848 there was fear on Sint Maarten
that there slaves would run off to the French part of the island.
This actually happened so most Dutch plantation owners on Sint Maarten set them free to they could continue the work on the plantations.
From that moment slavery de facto ended on Sint Maarten.
A slave revolt on Sint Eustatius that was crushed with twelve deaths as a result.
When the French actually abolished slavery in 1848 the Dutch feared that the slaves would run off to where the French had their colony.
Therefore the Dutch government pressured plantation owners to treat their slaves better.
So let's look at the political road to the abolition of Dutch slavery.
In 1842 two different Dutch groups signed a request to abolish slavery.
The Dutch king gave an evasive answer.
Ten years later public opinion was influenced by the American bestselling book: Uncle Tom's
Cabin.
Also in the Netherlands books that advocated against slavery began to appear and by the
1850s it was clear slavery was going to be abolished in the Dutch colonies.
The question was when and how? Because it would however take another ten years to happen.
The 'scare of 1848' subsided and the worst abuses had ended.
New laws were implemented concerning limitation of punishment, as well as improving nutrition,
clothing and shelter.
The Dutch government was concerned about two cases: compensating the slave owners and
the future of the colony. What would happen of all the people that use to work on the plantations would be set free and now leave the planations?
What also attributed was the fact that from 1848 the Netherlands had become a parliamentary
democracy.
Legislation therefore proceeded much more slowly then when just one man (the Dutch king)
was in charge.
And what had to become of the plantations?
What if the slaves would leave these and there was no-one to work on it?
For that the Dutch government obliged the slaves to continue their work on the plantations
áfter slavery was abolished.
In Suriname this was for another ten years.
Also, each slave owner got 300 guilder of compensation for each slave he possessed.
The Dutch government was able to finance this because of the profits of the notorious
Cultivation System on Java in the Dutch East Indies,
On 1 July 1863 a number of 32,911 Surinamese slaves were were now free people.
This day of emencipation was celebrated in Paramaribo (the capital of Suriname).
The festivities continued for three days and there were no noteworthy incidents.