Dutch PM Apologises For 250 Years Of Slavery

Subject: History

Context:

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday officially apologised for 250 years of the Netherlands’ involvement in slavery, calling it a “crime against humanity”.

About the news

The apology comes almost 150 years after the end of slavery in the European country’s overseas colonies, which included Suriname and islands like Curacao and Aruba in the Caribbean and Indonesia in the East.
Dutch ministers have travelled to seven former colonies in South America and the Caribbean for the event.
The Dutch colonial history is littered with blood and tainted with tales of misery of thousands of slaves who were kidnapped and then sold to markets in Europe and America.
The Dutch colonized many parts of the world — from America to Asia and Africa to South America; they also occupied many African countries for years.

Dutch Colonialism In Americas

The Netherlands began its colonization of the Americas with the establishment of trading posts and plantations, which preceded the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia.
While the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 (in present-day Indonesia), the first forts and settlements along the Essequibo River in Guyana date from the 1590s.
Actual colonization, with the Dutch settling in the new lands, was not as common as by other European nations.
Many of the Dutch settlements were lost or abandoned by the end of the 17th century, but the Netherlands managed to retain possession of Suriname until it gained independence in 1975.
Among its several colonies in the region, only the Dutch Caribbean still remains to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands today.
Some of the important dutch colonies were : Suriname, the Caribbean island of Curacao, Brazil, Chile, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Aruba, St. Eustatius and Indonesia.

Dutch Colonialism in Africa (‘Golden Age’ of colonialism)

The Dutch established colonial rule mostly in the coastal areas of Africa and enjoyed a “golden age” of colonialism between the 15th and 17th centuries.
The Dutch had established colonial territories in Africa before the English and French came to loot the continent; they eventually lost their power and handed over territories to the then British Empire and the French in the 18th century.
The Dutch first went to Ghana, one of its earliest colonies in the 16th century and exploited underground mines, mainly gold, there. Thousands of Africans were abducted and sold as slaves to America and Europe from Ghana by the Dutch; they were taken through the Elmina Castle built in Ghana in 1642.
The colonial Dutch arrived in the coast of Namibia in 1793 and seized the port of Walvis Bay, the most popular port of the country, and slaughtered the inhabitants there.
The port of Walvis Bay, which was seized by the Dutch, was then used as a slave port.

They colonized colonize many parts of Africa, including Ivory Coast, Ghana, South Africa, Angola, Namibia and Senegal.

Khoikhoi massacre

The Dutch also carried out massacres to enslave the Khoikhoi tribe in Cape Town in 1659 and 1673 and between 1674 and 1677.
The massacres of the Khoikhoi people by the Dutch is the most well-known of the Dutch colonial traces in Africa.
The Dutch had attacked the Khoikhoi tribe with firearms, killing thousands of Africans. They also confiscated their homes and lands, abducted them as slaves and exploited the natural resources of the region.