There are many ongoing debates in Dutch society about the issue of decolonization and the awareness of the slavery past. These debates are still going on, for example, concerning the reparation claims in the Caribbean territories, or the issue of the acceptability of the figure of “Zwarte Piet” (Black Peter) in the popular St. Nicholas celebrations. The foundational myth of the Dutch Republic is that of resistance against the domination by the Spanish state, which was presented as a form of enslavement. In the document called the Act of Abjuration, they claim that no one has to live enslaved. Yet, from the very beginning of its existence, the Dutch Republic was involved in large-scale slavery and the slave trade, both in the Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean. In 2022, these debates led to a public apology from Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte about the role of the Dutch state. This book is the answer to a parliamentary motion to investigate the past responsibility of the Dutch state in colonial slavery and its effects on society until today. It shows how the Dutch Republic and its successor state, the Netherlands, were complicit in colonial slavery. It is one of the main publications in the framework of the year of national commemoration of the legacy of slavery, 2023–2024. Following up on the publication of this book, a research agenda was published (see Captain, Allen, van Rossum, Vyent, Dutch Colonial Slavery, and Its Afterlives: Research Agenda 2025–2035, Leiden: KITLV, 2024 [open access]).

The focus of the volume is on colonial slavery as a part of a colonial system, also known as chattel slavery. It does not include the modern forms of slavery that persist in many parts of the world. It also deals with questions such as cultural constructions and terminology, and its subjective and derogatory character. Slavery also had an impact on culture and religion and on the social order in the affected areas, including the Netherlands itself, a phenomenon described here as afterlives. Afterlives include the emergence of a cultural archive, or mental legacy that reflects internalized feelings of superiority and assumed inferiority, leading to feelings of racism, and intergenerational trauma among the descendants of enslaved individuals. Throughout the book, the following questions are discussed: “in what socio-economic, political, and societal context have the Dutch been involved in slavery, and what were the long-term consequences? How have the stakeholders, including the enslaved, the entrepreneurs, and others, dealt with the issue of slavery up to the present day? How can we create space for redress and healing?” (p. 13)

The book contains 29 chapters, written by more than thirty specialists, including academics and non-academic experts. For some of the fields of research with much existing research, these take the form of a critical review, for others, the focus is rather on the importance of the topic and the lack of - existing research. It also contains interviews with a number of prominent experts on the multiperspecitivity of the public debate on slavery. Additionally, there are short informative interludes highlighting specific topics that were not treated within separate chapters, like the role of taxes, the ceremonial use of the royal Golden Coach, etc., as well as methodological information, including the use of Digital Humanities, Oral History, the Digitization of Slave Registers, or visual sources.

The book is subdivided into four sections, each of which is preceded by a work of art, which was commissioned from contemporary artists as illustration. The first section is about current issues, including the role of Dutch academia and government, as well as local politicians and mayors, the topic of slavery in education, both in the Netherlands and in the former colonies of the Caribbean and Indonesia, the commemoration and the issue of reparations and transformative justice. The second section is about slavery and its abolition and afterlives. It contains chapters on the transition from slavery to “Free” Labor, Dutch Politics and its position on the topic of slavery in the Nineteenth Century, the forced relocation and illegal slave trading after Abolition, the role of the financial sector, colonial unfree labor in the nineteenth-century Dutch East Indies, and the languages and literatures of the former Dutch Colonies. The third section shows different chapters on Dutch colonial slavery worldwide. Until the 1970s, the historiography on Dutch involvement in slavery was mainly on the Atlantic world and the role of the West Indische Compagnie (WIC) and the Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC). More recently, there was not only a shift of attention towards slave resistance and the agency of the enslaved people but also the migration of colonial subjects to the Netherlands. These include chapters on the Dutch Caribbean islands, Suriname, Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo, North America, Dutch Brazil, South Africa and the Southwest Indian Ocean, South Asia, and Indonesia. The fourth section, finally, deals with early formation of slavery and colonialism, and includes chapters on the role of the Princes of Orange, the State’s General, different players in the organization of slavery, such as the group private investors, the Sephardim community in Curaçao, the position of the Dutch Reformed Church, and the economic and social impact in general.

The book tries to give a complete survey of the state of the art of the research on Dutch involvement in colonial slavery and its afterlives. It describes the roles of various actors, such as enslaved people, administrators, and merchants in the Netherlands and the colonized societies. It covers a large scope of topics, spread over different geographical areas and a long time period. The book investigates them all and tries to make comparisons between different places and times. As such, it is an ideal research guide for investigations on a broad range of topics related to the history of Dutch slavery, but as well to the history of slavery more generally. The consequence of the broad range of topics is that the individual chapters are relatively short and cannot always go into much depth. Also, the number of references is limited, which does not allow the authors to present the available literature on the different themes in its entirety. It is a synthesis and critical reflection of existing research, and a starting point for the further research agenda.