Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies

Abstract

Slavery in the Dutch Atlantic world has five distinct themes: the early colonies of Brazil and Nieuw Nederland; the West African forts; the plantation colonies on the Wild Coast (Suriname, Essequibo, Berbice, and Demerara); in the West Indies on the islands of Curaçao, St. Eustatius, Bonaire, Saba, St. Maarten, and Aruba; and the Dutch participation in the transatlantic slave trade. At the height of slavery’s development during the last quarter of the 18th century, there were over 150000 slaves in the Dutch Atlantic settlements, which amounts to just over 6 percent of all slaves in the Americas and the West Indies. The vast majority of the slaves lived and worked in Suriname (60000) and Essequibo/Demerara (60000). The Dutch West Indies were more trade entrepôts than a plantation complex, without a large enslaved population. In 1863 slavery was abolished in all Dutch colonies. The emphasis in the historiography has been on the Dutch participation in the transatlantic slave trade. In total, Dutch slave traders shipped around 600,000 enslaved Africans to the New World, which is 5–6 percent of the total of the transatlantic slave trade. The Amiens peace in 1803 was the de facto end of the Dutch slave trade, and in 1814 the Dutch abolished the transatlantic slave trade de jure. The surviving records of Dutch slavery and the slave trade are among the richest of all nations, particularly the privately operated slave trade after 1720. During the 18th century, for instance, the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (MCC) equipped a total of 113 slaving voyages. On 25 May 2011, the archive of the MCC was inscribed on the UNESCO International Register “Memory of the World.” This article privileges the literature available in English, but it also includes some of the most important studies written in Dutch.