Abstract
One of the puzzling questions about the formal Dutch abolition of the slave-trade in 1814 is why a state that was so committed to maintaining slavery in its Empire did not put up any open resistance to the enforced closing of the trade that fed it. The explanations that historians have given so far for this paradox focus mainly on circumstances within the Netherlands, highlighting the pre-1800 decline of the role of Dutch traders in the African slave-trade, the absence of a popular abolitionist movement, and the all-overriding focus within elite-debates on the question of economic decline. This article argues that the (often partial) advanced made by abolitionism internationally did have a pronounced influence on the course of Dutch debates. This can be seen not only from the pronouncements by a small minority that advocated abolition, but also in the arguments produced by the proponents of a continuation of slavery. Careful examination of the three key debates about the question that took place in 1789-1791, 1797 and around 1818 can show how among dominant circles within the Dutch state a new ideology gradually took hold that combined verbal concessions to abolitionist arguments and a grinding acknowledgement of the inevitability of slave-trade abolition with a long-term perspective for prolonging slave-based colonial production in the West-Indies.
Highlights
Seymour Drescher opens his seminal article on the question of Dutch abolitionism or to be more precise, the lack thereof with a quotation from the Sherlock Holmes-story Silver Blaze, in which the master-detective solves his case by t- 1 Like in the Holmes-story, the key to a riddle was a silence, a dog that did not bark
The almost complete absence of abolitionism in one of the most capitalist countries in Europe throws into sharp relieve the thesis most famously put forward by Eric Williams that it was the advance of capitalism that drove the acceptance of anti-slavery arguments by the British ruling class
The Dutch King published a decree abolishing the slave trade in 1814, and introduced a law making participation in the trade a criminal offense in 1818. This decision was in no way brought forward by anti-slavery campaigns inside the Netherlands. It came about as the direct result of diplomatic pressure from London, that insisted on slave-trade abolition as a precondition for the return of several of the Dutch West-Indian colonies that it had occupied in the course of the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France
Summary
Seymour Drescher opens his seminal article on the question of Dutch abolitionism or to be more precise, the lack thereof with a quotation from the Sherlock Holmes-story Silver Blaze, in which the master-detective solves his case by t- 1 Like in the Holmes-story, the key to a riddle was a silence, a dog that did not bark. In his view, ending slavery should be a long-term process, starting with a step-by-step abolition of the slave trade only He supported this gradualist approach by pointing at the experience of the French colonies, and by a more philosophical argument that at this time was rapidly becoming a staple of proslavery thought internationally; that the African slaves, whom he compared to children, while possessing equal rights to all other human beings in principle, would only be ready to use these rights responsibly after a long period of education. reflected both the confidence that Dutch abolitionists drew from the international advances of the movement, and the deep paternalism with which they approached the question: ries start to unite in order to emerge from darkness; that the works of injustice will not withstand under sentiments will be obligated to renounce their ways. Cit., p. 347-368 for two different perspectives on the results
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