FVD explained: five misconceptions about the Dutch role in the history of slavery.

In the light of the recent official apology issued for the Dutch role in the slave trade, Forum for Democracy corrects several misconceptions.

Anyone who dares to get involved in the debate on slavery - and on the Netherlands' role in it in earlier centuries, soon finds themselves on slippery ice. One encounters emotions and moral judgements, leaving little room for factual analysis and critical questions. But those who delve into the subject discover that some major inaccuracies prevail in the public discussion. What exactly are we talking about? In the context of the parliamentary debate on the historical role played by the Dutch in slavery, FVD lists the five biggest misconceptions.

1.         ‘Slavery is a Western phenomenon’

It is often suggested that the West in particular was guilty of keeping slaves. In North-West Europe, however, slavery and serfdom had already disappeared during the 14th century. In densely populated England and the Netherlands, not everyone could own more land so some people had to work for someone else to earn their daily bread. Employers considered from day to day which worker was willing to work for the best price. Forced labour was no longer necessary.

When the Western slave trade resumed around 1500, slavery was still very common in the rest of the world - in Arabia, Africa and elsewhere. In the Iberian Peninsula, slavery had been introduced by the Arabs; the Portuguese and Spanish adopted it in their colonies. Virtually all economic activities that required a lot of labour were carried out by slaves worldwide. Often these were people in debt, were convicts or prisoners of war. Arab countries enslaved European Christians on a large scale. In Africa, some 30 per cent of the population lived in slavery.

Slave-free North-West Europe was thus an exception to the rule: even in colonial times, it was the only place in the world where no slavery existed.

2.         ‘Slaves were looted from Africa’

On 19 December 2022, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, apologised on behalf of the State for the role played by the Dutch in slavery in the past. In his speech, he claimed that slaves were "looted" from Africa. In doing so, he used the language of activist groups.

As mentioned above, slavery was very common in African cultures at the time. Africans had a large-scale domestic slave trade and, over time, they also started selling their slaves to European merchants. These merchants had no say in Africa and, once they entered the mainland, they were at the mercy of the Africans. 

The Africans not only determined whether and how many slaves were available for sale. They also determined their age, gender, where they came from and what they cost. Moreover, they determined whether Europeans were allowed to set foot on land at all. So if Africans had not, on their own initiative, offered their slaves - who belonged to their own population - for sale to Europeans, they would never have been shipped to European colonies. They would have remained slaves in Africa.

3.         ‘The Netherlands became rich thanks to the slave trade’

Anyone who thinks the Netherlands owes its Golden Age riches to slavery in the colonies is wrong. At its peak, slavery contributed only five per cent of the economy, research by the International Institute of Social History shows. Author Pepijn Brandon described slavery as "the cork on which the economy floated", but that lacks credibility. The authority on slavery, Professor Piet Emmer, while full of praise for the study, does not like the conclusion: “So 95 per cent had nothing to do with it? I would say, that 95 per cent is the cork on which the Dutch economy was floating in 1770 and not that five per cent.”

Moreover, compared to other Western countries, the Netherlands was not a major player. Those were Portugal, England and France. The share of slavery in the economy there was 30 per cent. Six times higher than in the Netherlands, in other words.

4.         ‘Slaves lived in exceptionally poor conditions’

No one will deny that slaves had to live in wretched and deplorable conditions and, more importantly, were deprived of their freedom. In many ways, however, their conditions differed little from those of the common man at the time. Some facts even suggest that slaves in the colonies were better off than their compatriots left behind in Africa.

The crossing from West Africa to the colonies is often described as miserable and dangerous, and it was - not only for slaves, but also for the ship's crew and passengers. Crew members had less space and the mortality rate was significantly higher than among slaves. Slaves were expensive and thus a big investment for the merchant. He will have wanted to get them across the ocean as healthy as possible. Consequently, there was always a doctor on board.

In the tropical climate of the colonies, living conditions were harsh. There were many diseases, there was hunger and mortality rates were high, both among the black and white population. Slaves did receive corporal punishment, but in this they were not unique. At the time, sailors, for instance, were also regularly subjected to this.

Compared to the slaves who remained in Africa, the Atlantic slaves were probably even better off. Mortality during the domestic African slave trade was higher than during the Atlantic slave trade. Skeletal studies show that slaves in the New World were on average taller than those in West Africa. So nutrition and living conditions in the colonies were probably better.

5. ‘Slavery was abolished despite the West’

Dutch people are made to feel so guilty about the Dutch role in slavery and the slave trade that people feel that both were abolished despite the West. The abolition of slavery in the colonies was allegedly only the result of large-scale and persistent slave revolts. But this too is false.

It is true that there were slave revolts in the colonies. Apart from the slave revolt in Haiti - where slaves managed to found their own state after bloody resistance - these revolts did not have any major consequences. The price paid for slaves continued to rise in the run-up to abolition: they were still seen as a profitable investment.

In Western Europe, the anti-slavery movement gained the upper hand during the nineteenth century. Some people thought free labour was more efficient or wanted to antagonise the elite, who earned handsomely from slavery. But there were also idealists who had moral objections and also opposed child labour, for example. One by one, European countries abolished slavery. The Netherlands did so on 1 July 1863. In the Arab world and inland Africa, slavery persisted.

So the West itself - the first in the world - abolished slavery.