The Dutch colonial past
Already in the seventeenth century, the Republic threw itself into the slave market, through the infamous triangular trade system: arms were sent from the Netherlands to Africa, which were exchanged for slaves. Those slaves were taken across the ocean and sold to work on sugar plantations, for example. Dutch ships then returned to the Netherlands from South America with products such as sugar, coffee or tobacco.
Through 1814, more than 600,000 enslaved African women, men, and children were shipped to the American continent in appalling conditions by Dutch slave traders. Most in Suriname, others also in Curaçao, St. Eustatius and other places. They have been taken from their families, dehumanized, transported and treated like cattle. Also in Asia, between 660,000 and 1 million people were trafficked within areas under the authority of the Dutch East India Company.
