Amsterdam –
Mayor Amsterdam in Holland apologizes for his city’s role in the slave trade that enriched the capital Netherlands This was in the colonial era in the past.
“On behalf of this city, I apologize for the active involvement of the Amsterdam city council in the commercial system of colonial slavery and global human trafficking that led to slavery,” said Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema. AFP, Friday (2/7/2021).
In the Netherlands, as in other European countries, debates over colonialism’s past and role in slavery emerged after the Black Lives Matter movement bloomed in the United States (US).
“It is time to integrate the great injustice of colonial slavery into the identity of our city,” Halsema said in a speech commemorating the abolition of slavery on July 1, 1863 in Suriname and the Caribbean, which became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
At the height of the colonial empire, the United Provinces, now known as the Netherlands, had colonial territories such as Suriname, the Caribbean Island of Curacao, South Africa and Indonesia, where the Dutch East India Company was headquartered in the 17th century.
Halsema called the province of Holland, which includes Amsterdam, a ‘major player in the trade and exploitation of slaves’. He added that in the 18th century about ’40 percent of economic growth came from slavery’.
“And in Amsterdam, almost everyone earns money thanks to the colony of Suriname,” he said, citing the City Council, who is the co-owner and co-administrator of the colony.
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