Patterns of slave trading and slavery in the Dutch colonial world, 1596-1863

Abstract

From the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, slavery played a fundamental role in the Dutch colonial world. This chapter presents a global comparative overview of Dutch colonial slavery, with a heavy emphasis on the history of the slave trade in the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and West Indies Company (WIC) domains. It addresses some of the fundamental differences between the origins of slavery in 'the East' and in 'the West'. The chapter sketches the nature, volume and directions of the long-distance slave trades to the Dutch colonies. From the perspective of the supply of slaves a closer look is necessary to establish the major directional patterns of these forced migrations in the Indian Ocean World. As a European settlement colony on the tip of the African continent and straddling the borders of two supra-regional slave-trading networks, the Cape occupied a unique place in history. Keywords: Dutch colonial world; Dutch East Indies Company (VOC); Indian Ocean World; slave trades; slavery; West Indies Company (WIC)