Slavery and the Contest for National Heritage in the United States and the Netherlands

Author(s): James Oliver Horton and Johanna C. Kardux

Source: American Studies International , JUNE-OCTOBER 2004, Vol. 42, No. 2/3 (JUNE-
OCTOBER 2004), pp. 51-74
Published by: Mid-America American Studies Association

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 51

Slavery and the Contest

for National Heritage
in the United States and
the Netherlands

James Oliver Horton

and
Johanna C. Kardux

In the past few years, important history projects on slavery in

the United States and the Netherlands have focused public atten-
tion on what is for each society a difficult and painful past. This
article, by two scholars, one American and one Dutch, seeks to ex-
plore the reactions to the public presentation of the history of sla-
very in each country. For people who value human dignity, a dis-
cussion of their participation in human slavery is never easy, and is

James Oliver Horton is Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and

History at George Washington University and Director of the African American
Communities Project of the National Museum of American History at the
Smithsonian Institution. His most recent publications include Von Benin nach
Baltimore (1999), and Black Bostonians (1979, revised 1999). In the fall of
2003, he held the John Adams Distinguished Fulbright Chair in American Studies
at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He is the president of the Organi-
zation of American Historians for 2004.

Johanna C. Kardux is Director of American Studies at Leiden University, The

Netherlands. Kardux has taught American Studies at Leiden since 1986, after earn-
ing a doctorate in English from Cornell University. She is co-author o/Newcom-
ers in an Old City: The American Pilgrims in Leiden, 1609-1620 (1998; sec-
ond ed. 2001), ana co-editor ofC onnecting Cultures: The Netherlands in Five
Centuries of Transatlantic Exchange (1994). She is currently working on a
book on "Slavery, Memory, and the Political Aesthetics of the African Diaspora. "

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52

very much unlike the grand and heroic history typical of national
celebrations. Reactions in both societies have been intense, for the
history of slavery confronts traditionally positive self-perceptions,
forcing a concentration on issues that contradict the sense of na-
tional heritage in fundamental ways.
For Americans, a people who see their history as a freedom story
and themselves as defenders of freedom, the integration of slavery
into their national narrative is embarrassing and can be guilt-pro-
ducing and disillusioning. It can also provoke defensiveness, anger
and confrontation. For the Dutch, who share the American people's
love of freedom and cherish their own nation's history of religious
and cultural tolerance, the Netherlands' role in slaveholding and
slave trading was so irreconcilable with their sense of national iden-
tity that it was long erased from public consciousness. The inevi-
table return of this repressed past in recent years has been painful
for both the descendants of slaves and descendants of those who
directly or indirectly profited from the Dutch slave trade, giving rise
to feelings of shame and remorse, resentment and anxiety. In both
countries the history of slavery and its memory has recently spawned
public debate and sobering reflection. In the United States, because
of slavery's connection to the Civil War, still the bloodiest war in
American history, the debate has grown more contentious, with the
South less able to escape its role as central focus. The northern states
have followed a path similar to that of the Dutch, attempting to avoid
their responsibility, seeking to erase the memory of slavery from its
historical memory. On neither side of the Atlantic has this been pos-
sible, however. In both the United States and in the Netherlands,
slavery and the slave trade have played a powerful role in shaping
national history and in each nation its unsettling memory has be-
come difficult to ignore.
In the last decade or so, American academic historians have
started to consider what many history buffs, museum profession-
als, business entrepreneurs, and even city council members have
known for generations - history sells. The popular wisdom too of-
ten heard at past scholarly meetings in the U.S., that people hate
history, has been stood on its head. Not only do people not hate
history, they flock to places where they can learn more about the
past, especially if they feel connected to the past they are learning

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 53

about. They come to historical sites and history museums by the

millions. They tune into history TV, and they go to historical mov-
ies to get in touch with their heritage and to find historical context
for their lives. This is, of course, good news for professional histori-
ans who are dedicated to the teaching of good history in schools
and in public places, but there is a strong word of caution to be
added. Visitors most often come to historic sites with preconcep-
tions of the history they will encounter there. Some historic places
carry particular significance for them beyond the history found there,
as sites of heritage. While history may offer points of interest and
even fascination, heritage is intensely personal, connecting individu-
als to the past through their particular community or their ancestors
in ways that help to define their own lives in contemporary society.
As any historic site interpreter or any museum curator knows only
too well, while the broad public is generally fascinated with history,
there are some aspects of history, some interpretations of the past,
that are sure to raise public hackles. The problems often arise when,
at historic sites, history confronts heritage.1
Debates in the United States during the 1990s over such contro-
versial museum presentations as the Smithsonian's Enola Gay exhi-
bition come to mind as examples of the firestorm that can be pro-
voked when history and heritage collide. In that case, the furor over
how to display the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan
during World War II extended to the highest levels of government,
as angry exchanges in the halls of the national congress signaled the
continuation of what became known as the "Culture Wars."2 The
heated conversations about the public presentation of the history of
slavery and its role in the formation of the American experience is
the most recent phase of that debate. With race at the core of any
discussion of slavery, this issue is potentially even more volatile than
former debates. Surely slavery is one of the most sensitive and
difficult subjects to present in a public setting, one almost certain to
provoke strong reaction. This is particularly true in the American
South where the legacy of the Civil War makes the subject even more
complex.
More than a century after the end of the conflict that many
southerners still refer to as simply "the war" one can start an argu-
ment merely by suggesting that slavery and its preservation was

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54

one major cause of southern secession and the coming of the Civil
War. Organizations like the United Sons of Confederate Veterans,
the United Daughters of the Confederacy, or the Southern Heritage
Coalition are dedicated to the preservation of a romanticized memory
of the pre-Civil War South which, if it includes slavery at all, does so
in the most benign manner. The issue is a lightening rod for these
Civil War heritage groups bent on honoring their southern Confed-
erate ancestors who attempted to secede from the United States in
the mid-nineteenth century. Even a casual exposure to their rheto-
ric is quite convincing that for them, the stakes in the slavery history
debate are very high. The Georgia Heritage Coalition describes it-
self as "a group of Georgia citizens taking action to correct the re-
cent abuses of trust by our State government with respect to our
heritage." Its members see an effort to destroy southern heritage,
defined as "the fabric that holds our society together." Many of
these groups believe that they are in the midst of what they call
"Heritage Wars." They see themselves as locked in combat against
forces outside the South which they describe as "anti-Southern, com-
mercial and special interest groups."3
One member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans claimed that,
as a group, southern heritage supporters are under attack by "left-
ists, liberals and Democrats." These groups claim to be open to a
broad membership including "Native Americans and conservative
black Americans," yet some of their analysis of their "attackers" is
based on race. They single out the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and black political lead-
ers for special comment. An article on the Georgia Heritage Coali-
tion website displays a doctored photograph of Reverend A1
Sharpton, black candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomi-
nation, dressed in a German Nazi SS officer with the caption, "Elect
me and we'll carry out the Final Solution on these damned Confed-
erates." This article, authored by Steve Scroggins, identified as a
volunteer contributor to the Georgia Heritage Coalition who lives
in Macon, Georgia, refers to Sharpton as a demagogue character-
ized by "hate speech and extremism."4
To these southern heritage groups, any presentation of slavery is
potentially threatening, and public historians who attract their dis-
approval are particularly vulnerable to their ability to rapidly mobi-

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 55

lize opposition. For example, when John Latschar, National Park

Service Superintendent at Gettysburg National Battlefield, men-
tioned in the course of a speech at the Department of the Interior
that slavery was one of the causes of the Civil War, his comment
provoked a shocking response. More than a thousand angry pro-
testors, using pre-printed postcards, petitioned the Office of the Sec-
retary of the Interior demanding the superintendent's removal.
Any historian who argues for a connection between slavery and
the Civil War, as all reputable historians do, is almost certain to at-
tract the opposition of these southern heritage groups, especially if
the point is made in public. These groups were particularly upset
when, in 2000, U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. inserted lan-
guage into a Department of the Interior appropriation bill, comment-
ing on the state of Civil War battlefield sites. The Congressman as-
serted that these sites are "often not placed in the proper historical
context," and the provision directed the Secretary of the Interior "to
encourage Civil War battle sites to recognize and include in all of
their public displays and multimedia educational presentations, the
unique role that the institution of slavery played in causing the Civil
War." In reality, over a year before the congressional mandate, su-
perintendents at National Park Service Civil War historic battlefields
had decided to reevaluate the history presented at their sites on the
question of slavery, so that Representative Jackson's call simply re-
inforced efforts already underway.5
The reaction of the southern heritage community was predict-
ably intense. To date, the National Park Service has received more
than 2,400 protest communications, most in the form of pre-printed
postcards and individual letters bearing the language of the pre-
printed postcards. The messages range from reasoned arguments
against considering slavery at Civil War battle sites to epithets hurled
at Park Service officials and the Interior Department. One North
Carolina man dismissed any claim that the war was fought over
slavery. "The war was fought over state's [sic] rights & for eco-
nomic reasons," he argued. "You all wanted our cotton & tobacco."
An Alabama critic wrote, saying to then Secretary of Interior Bruce
Babbitt, "you are an ignorant Liberal democrat." A Florida writer
called the secretary a "Socialist, Traitor, Violator of Oath of Office,
Liar," while a Texas critic expressed his feeling more simply; "you

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56

are a bigoted pig."6 Clearly, the project struck a nerve, and as inter-
pretations of slavery and the Civil War are updated at public his-
tory sites, the reaction intensifies.
In 1998 Virginia Governor James S. Gilmore announced, as he
and many other southern governors do each year, that April would
be designated Confederate History Month. That year, however, the
governor added provisions that brought criticism from the south-
ern heritage community that southern governors do not generally
receive. Included in his message was a brief mention of slavery:

WHEREAS, our recognition of Confederate history also

recognizes that slavery was one of the causes of the war;

WHEREAS, slavery was a practice that deprived African-

Americans of their God-given inalienable rights, which de-
graded the human spirit, is abhorred and condemned by
Virginians, and ended by this war;

Reaction was swift and direct. R. Wayne Byrd, president of Virginia's

Heritage Preservation Association, labeled Governor Gilmore's ref-
erence to slavery an insult to the state and as bowing to what Byrd
termed the political pressure of "racist hate groups such as the
NAACP." He took issue with Gilmore's negative description of sla-
very, painting instead a picture of the plantation worthy of mid-
nineteenth century proslavery apologists. It is alarming that at the
end of the twentieth century, in a public statement, Byrd could call
the slave plantation of the old South a place "where master and slave
loved and cared for each other and had genuine family concern."7
Although most of the southern heritage rhetoric does not include
such nostalgic admiration for slavery, Byrd's attitude reflects its gen-
eral tone. One member of a northern branch of one of these groups,
the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
attacked Gilmore's reference to slavery as "a slap in the faces of the
Confederate soldiers, their grandchildren, and the State of Virginia
as a whole."8
The extreme reaction of the southern heritage community to the
public presentation of slavery is unusual, but many, perhaps most
Americans are uncomfortable with the issue. To Americans, almost
by definition a freedom loving people, their national story is a free-

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 57

dom adventure, the narrative of a people steeped in a progressive

struggle for collective and individual liberty. From pre-Revolution-
ary days, Americans have seen themselves as united in a movement
in resistance to slavery. When teighteenth century American patri-
ots protested British tax policy they did so in extreme language.
"Those who are taxed without their own consent, expressed by them-
selves or their representatives, are slaves," declared John Dickinson,
of Pennsylvania. "We are therefore-SLAVES," he concluded. When
the founders of America described their greatest fear, it was the fear
of being reduced to slaves. The condition of slavery was the most
un-American condition that patriots of the Revolution could imag-
ine.9

Herein lies the problem for most Americans. It is difficult to rec-

oncile the fact that American founders argued that slavery was anti-
thetical to the laws of nature and an affront to rights given to human
beings by God, and at the same time sustained themselves and built
a "free country" with slave labor. The difficulty is compounded for
many southern-born Americans who trace their ancestry directly to
slaveholders who were willing to take up arms against the United
States of America, as a means of protecting slavery. It is profoundly
troubling to celebrate the Confederate cause if it is admitted that
that cause was ultimately the preservation of slavery. Once this is
understood, the profound need of some Americans, especially those
from the South, to reject slavery as a cause of the Civil War becomes
clear. The Southern heritage community refuses to accept the fact
that slavery was at the heart of Confederate motivation despite the
mountain of evidence based on the words of founding Confeder-
ates themselves. In the early winter of 1860, the editor of the Charles-
ton Mercury told its South Carolina readers that "the issue before the
country is the extinction of slavery." It charged that "no man of
common sense, who has observed the progress of events, and is not
prepared to surrender the institution can doubt that the time for
action has come - now or never. The existence of slavery is at stake."10
John Singleton Mosby, the legendary Confederate military hero, was
most direct. "The South went to war on account of slavery," he ex-
plained candidly. "South Carolina went to war - as she said in her
secession proclamation because slavery w[oul]d not be secure un-
der Lincoln." Then he added as if to dispel all doubt, "South Caro-

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58

lina ought to know what was the cause of her seceding." This is
difficult testimony to refute, even for those dedicated to its refuta-
tion.11

Northern white Americans do not generally react as strongly to

public presentations of the history of slavery because they generally
see slavery as a southern institution. Only the minority understand
that at the time of the American Revolution, slavery existed in every
colony and initially in every state in the United States. Even they
are often shocked to learn that Newport, Rhode Island was a major
slave trading port, or that New York City was, next to Charleston,
South Carolina, the major urban center for slavery in the country.
Eighteenth century northern Revolutionaries offer many examples
of hypocrisy on the question of slavery. New York's John Jay, the
first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was the first president
of New York's emancipation society and a slaveholder. John
Dickinson, who compared oppressive taxes with slavery, was
Philadelphia's largest slaveholder. Even Benjamin Franklin held at
least one person in slavery. Virginia's Thomas Jefferson and George
Washington, both slaveholders, had many northern counterparts,
though generally not in the number of slaves held. For white Ameri-
cans one thought-provoking and very troubling question might be,
is it un-American to be a slaveholder? In the complex and contra-
dictory history of the nation, there are many such troubling ques-
tions.

Many African Americans are also uncomfortable with the public

presentation of slavery. As the descendants of slaves, the pain and
sometimes the humiliation of remembering slavery can be extremely
unpleasant. This point became obvious in 1995, when the U.S. Li-
brary of Congress attempted to mount an exhibit entitled "Back of
The Big House: The Cultural Landscape of the Plantation." This
exhibit, curated by southern folklorist John M. Vlach, featured pic-
tures of plantation life, including one of blacks working in the fields
under the watchful eye of a mounted overseer. Black employees at
the library registered strong objections to the depiction of what many
called the painful memory of slavery. Ironically, the picture of what
most saw as an armed overseer guarding slaves, which became one
of the most controversial aspects of the exhibit, was inaccurately
described. In reality the mounted white overseer was not armed

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 59

and the picture was taken in the early twentieth century, decades
after southern slavery had been abolished. Yet, this picture, errone-
ously described as the armed containment of slaves, has become
part of urban folklore within much of the African American com-
munity, affirming the nightmarish vision of slavery which contin-
ues to haunt the history of race in America. As one employee put it,
referring to contemporary race relations at the library, "We have a
very fragile work environment. . . we still have a lot of healing to
do."12
Sometimes, black people would rather not recall or even learn
about the horrors of slavery. After a lecture on the history of slavery
at Howard University in Washington, D.C a few years ago, a black
woman was visibly distressed by the description of institution and
the slave trade. During the question and answer period after the
lecture, she directed an emotional comment to the lecturer. Her
voiced trembled as she demanded that we "put slavery behind us,"
not dwell on the painful past, and "get beyond all that." Hers was
an earnest reaction to one of America's most volatile and tenacious

problem. Part of the reason Americans have so much difficulty deal-

ing with the issue of race in the twenty-first century is because they
have not really dealt with the history of slavery and its meaning and
legacy for contemporary society.
In the last few years the memory of slavery in America has been
complicated by the rise of the reparations movement. Demands for
compensation from governments and private corporations have
drawn nervous, sometimes angry, responses. For many American
businesses and institutions, from insurance companies, to tobacco
companies, to universities, the history of slavery can be embarrass-
ing and its memory particularly costly. Recently, some American
descendants of slaves have brought legal action against the British
insurance company Lloyds of London, claiming the firm's under-
writing of ships used in the Atlantic slave trade led to the murder of
numerous African slaves. The case of the Liverpool-based slave
ship Zong illustrates the point. In 1781, its captain Luke Collingwood
murdered 133 slaves, throwing them overboard during the course
of three days, to claim the insurance. These slaves were sick and
Collingwood feared that they would die aboard ship, a loss not com-
pensated by insurance, which did not cover death by natural causes.

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60

With deadly calculation the captain estimated the remaining food

and water supply, which was running low, and threw fifty-four over-
board on the first day, then forty-two the next. He waited two days
to check the supply of provisions before throwing twenty-six more
human beings into the ocean.13
Collingwood made a purely business decision based on the con-
ditions of his insurance coverage. He sought to protect his profits
by murdering his human property, but in the end he too lost, albeit
only money. British Chief Justice Lord Mansfield ruled that Lloyds
of London need not pay the claim because the captain had commit-
ted a willful act. The justice drew a parallel to show the horror of
what Collingwood had done by comparing it to throwing valuable
horses overboard. The modern day suit argues that the companies
that insured slaves were well aware of the inhumanity they were
helping to finance, and were concerned only with the vast profits to
be made in the venture. Since those profits were gained by encour-
aging the trafficking in human beings that led to the death of mil-
lions, the claimants demand compensation for injury they incurred
as a result of the suffering of their ancestors. Although no court has
yet ruled that reparations must be paid, at least one firm, Aetna In-
surance Company, has issued a public apology for its role in the
slave trade, and several American state and local governments have
passed measures requiring companies to disclose information about
any historical involvement in slavery. In 2002, Chicago's city coun-
cil passed such a law unanimously, requiring corporations to reveal
whether they had benefitted, even incidentally, from slavery. This
action was modeled on legislation passed two years earlier by
California's state legislature aimed at insurance companies and other
businesses that had derived profit from slavery during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.
Under these circumstances, facing the memory of slavery can
become more than an academic exercise. There are likely to be sig-
nificant economic consequences, as the reparations debate makes
clear. Thus, it is surprising that one major ivy league university has
begun investigating its own connection with slavery and the slave
trade. Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, an institu-
tion begun in 1764 as Rhode Island College, was named for the
slaveholding Brown family in 1804. Wealthy slave trader and ar-

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 61

dent defender of slavery John Brown financed a major portion of

the school's first library. His brother, Moses Brown and other mem-
bers of the family were staunch abolitionists, but Brown University
has faced criticism for its historic links to slavery.
Yet, the university is among the most progressive of the ivy league
schools with the second-highest percentage of African American
faculty and a graduation rate of 87% of the black students who con-
stitute 6% of the student body. In 2000, Brown University installed
Dr. Ruth Simmons, former president of Smith College, as its presi-
dent. Dr. Simmons thus became the first African American to head

an ivy league university. She had held that position less than one
year when the history of her institution became the subject of heated
campus debate. In the spring of 2001, noted conservative spokes-
man David Horowitz placed a provocative advertisement in the
university newspaper denouncing the idea of reparations with the
headline, "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea
and Racist Too."14 Angry students protested the advertisement, and
demanded an apology. In the fall of 2003, Horowitz spoke to a crowd
of 400 people who packed a lecture room in the university's Salomon
Hall under heavy police protection. He charged that Brown students
were Marxists and attempted to defend himself against the charge
of racism. His appearance on campus and the debate it generated
did nothing to cool the situation.15
Within a few months of Horowitz's appearance at Brown, Presi-
dent Simmons confronted head on the issue of slavery in the
university's past, appointing a 16-member committee to study its
early links to slave owners and traders, and to provide recommen-
dations as to if and how the university should take responsibility
for its history. This bold response to the on-campus reparations con-
troversy at Brown University is one of the most direct efforts to deal
with America's slave-influenced history on record, illustrating again
the difficulty all Americans have in facing this aspect of the national
memory. Yet, it is essential that the nation do exactly that, if it is to
deal successfully with the issue of race in the 21st century.
Americans are, however, far from alone or unique in their diffi-
culty in confronting a history of slavery and racial injustice. The
Dutch have disavowed their nation's slavery past perhaps even more
vehemently. The "essence of a nation," as the nineteenth-century

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62

French historian Ernest Renan said, "is that its people have much in
common but also that they have forgotten a lot of things."16 As the
elaborate, though controversial, public celebrations of the 400th an-
niversary of the Dutch East-India Trade Company in 2002 showed,
the Dutch take great pride in their nation's glorious commercial his-
tory, and still to some extent derive their sense of national identity
from the collective memory of imperial greatness in the seventeenth
century. Without any sense of irony, the Dutch refer to this epoch as
the nation's Golden Age, when Holland ruled the waves-though a
recent poll by the Rijks Museum revealed that sixty percent of the
Dutch were unable to say to which century the Golden Age refers.
While this ignorance can be attributed to the widespread historical
illiteracy that plagues so many of our societies, the virtual absence
from public memory of the Dutch participation in the slave trade
suggests a willful act of forgetting abetted by a few prominent schol-
ars. Dutch historian Pieter Emmer downplays the importance of
the slave trade for the Dutch economy in his book, which received
much public attention. Published in 2000, Emmer's study is highly
controversial especially in Surinamese circles and among Dutch
Caribbean scholars, not only for its conclusions but also for its in-
sensitive tone. Describing the conditions aboard a slave ship, for
example, Emmer writes: "The slaves were packed closely together.
Each slave had about the same space as an economy class passenger
in a Boeing 747."17
To say that the hole of a eighteenth century slave ship to which
slaves were confined for six to eight weeks of ocean crossing, was
no worse than an economy seat on a modern-day trans- Atlantic flight
is more than insensitive, it is also historically inaccurate. Further, it
is rendered ridiculous by the eyewitness testimony of Africans who
survived the Middle Passage and of whites aboard the slave ships.
Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon who made the trip from
West Africa to the Americas, explained that when he ventured be-
low decks in an attempt to attend the sick, slaves were so crowded
together that he was forced to step on chained bodies, as they cov-
ered the entire floor. He reported that each slave was locked in irons
attached to a long chain fixed to the lower deck, binding fifty or
sixty men to the ship and to one another. In 1788 the British Parlia-
ment sought to regulate the space allotted to slaves aboard ship,

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 63

providing that each adult male should be allotted a space 6 feet by 1

foot 4 inches, each adult female 5 feet 10 inches by 1 foot 4 inches,
each male child 5 feet by 1 foot 2 inches, and each female child 4 feet
6 inches by 1 foot. With head room of only four to five feet or less
depending on the size of the vessel, air circulation was a significant
problem. "During the voyages I made," Falconbridge recalled, " I
was frequently witness to the fatal effects of this exclusion of fresh
air."18 Olaudah Equiano, who survived the trip chained below decks,
described the conditions in graphic detail. "The stench of the hold
while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was
dangerous to remain there for any time..." He further reported that
"the closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the
number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely
room to turn himself, almost suffocated us."19
Responding to Emmer, the Dutch-American historian Johannes
M. Postma emphasizes that the slave trade and slavery, as part of
the entire Dutch colonial system, unquestionably contributed to the
nation's wealth, even if it was not its main source of prosperity.20
From the early seventeenth century on, Dutch slave traders trans-
ported about half a million Africans to the Americas, constituting
about five per cent of the total international slave trade. Three hun-
dred thousand of these enslaved Africans were taken to the Dutch
Caribbean colonies Curasao and Surinam, where, in contrast with
the Netherlands, slavery was a legal institution and slave labor the
dominant means of production.21
This dark underside of Dutch commercial enterprise and the
nation's cultural renaissance in the seventeenth century, exposing
the age as gilded rather than golden, was long kept from public scru-
tiny. This amnesia was addressed for the first time by a Surinamese
slave descendant, Anton de Kom in 1934. In his Wij slaven van
Suriname (We Slaves of Surinam), a combined history of slavery in
Surinam and anticolonial manifesto, the radical Surinamese labor
leader and intellectual De Kom describes how black school children

in colonial Surinam learned about the exploits of Dutch naval he-

roes and freedom fighters such as William of Orange, but looked in
vain in their history books for the names of the heroes of Surinamese
slave resistance, Bonni, Baron, and Joli Coeur. De Kom describes the
psychological impact of the systematic erasure of the history of sla-

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64

very from the school curriculum on the slave descendants in the

Dutch colonies: "There's no more effective means to instill a sense
of racial inferiority than this kind of historical teaching in which
only the sons of a different people and race are remembered and
praised."22 The silencing of the Dutch slavery past continued long
after Surinam had become independent in 1975. A brief survey of
six of the history textbook series most frequently used in Dutch sec-
ondary schools in the 1990s concluded that only half of them dis-
cussed this aspect of Dutch national history in some depth, while
two failed to mention it at all.23 One of these textbooks, for instance,
titled The Speaking Past, is remarkably silent when it comes to Dutch
colonial slavery. Twelve, richly illustrated pages are devoted to sla-
very, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era in the United States,
but only one sentence mentions the existence of slavery in the Dutch
Caribbean. It is not surprising, then, that even today Dutch stu-
dents are far more likely to know about slavery in the U.S. South
than in their own nation's former colonies.24
There are of course historical reasons why it has been easier to
forget the history of slavery in the Netherlands than in the United
States. Slavery had been banned from Europe since the Middle Ages
and was only legal in the overseas Dutch colonies, where it was
introduced and institutionalized at the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury. Apart from the crews of the slave ships and the slave traders
in the Dutch slave fortresses on the West African coast, few Dutch
people were ever directly exposed to slaves and the colonial slave
system. Moreover, the majority of plantation and slave owners in
Surinam were not Dutch but French, German, and English.25 Many
Dutch owners of slaves in the colonies lived in the Netherlands, and
never visited their plantations or saw a slave, leaving the operation
of the plantation to overseers and administrators. In fact, most of
them owned only shares in plantations and thus in slaves. Even
those who directly profited from slavery and the slave trade, then,
had little or no first-hand experience of its everyday reality.
The Scotsman John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years'
Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796), a searing
indictment of the exploitation of slaves in Surinam, came out in Dutch
translation in 1799, and was often reprinted and widely read. Its
popularity seems to have had more to do with the lurid appeal of its

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almost pornographic illustrations of cruelties inflicted on slaves than

with the persuasiveness of its antislavery message. Half a century
later the Dutch translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's

Cabin caused self-righteous indignation about what one Dutch re-

viewer called the "cancerous disease" of slavery in the United States,
but only few reviewers concluded from the novel that slavery should
be abolished not only there but also in the Dutch colonies. In fact,
Stowe's novel was generally read allegorically as first and foremost
an indictment of human sinfulness: in the words of one evangelical
reviewer, "Thousands of people are subjected to . . . spiritual enslave-
ment."26
To be sure, some liberal intellectuals spoke out against slavery in
the Dutch Caribbean colonies, but the slave trade was only abol-
ished under British pressure. There was never a strong abolition
movement in the Netherlands, as there was in England, and slavery
was never the kind of divisive political issue that it was in the United
States. The only thing the mercenary Dutch bickered about when
the abolition of slavery in their West Indian colonies became inevi-
table was the amount of compensation the planters were to receive
for the emancipation of their slaves. After debating the issue for fif-
teen years, the Dutch parliament finally decided to pay the slave
owners 300 Dutch guilders for each emancipated slave.27 Since the
compensation fees, totaling 10 million Dutch guilders, were paid
through tax revenue raised in the Dutch East Indian colony Java, it
was not the Dutch tax payers but the exploited native population of
another Dutch colony who bore the financial burden of the aboli-
tion of slavery.28 Long after England abolished slavery in 1833 and
France and Denmark followed suit in 1848, and half a year after
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the Neth-
erlands finally emancipated the roughly 45,000 slaves in Surinam
and the Antilles on July 1, 1863. The former field slaves were re-
quired, however, to continue to work as wage laborers on colonial
plantations until 1873.
The remoteness of the slave trade and colonial slavery from ev-
eryday life in the Netherlands was one reason why this chapter in
Dutch history did not enter public memory and failed to appeal to a
collective sense of responsibility, let alone shame or guilt. Another
reason was that the Dutch history of slavetrading and slaveholding

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66

conflicted with the deeply ingrained tradition of freedom and toler-

ance, which the Dutch claim as one of the most valued aspects of
their cultural heritage and a defining element of their national iden-
tity. In fact, when the American revolutionaries described their quar-
rel with Great Britain in terms of resistance to slavery, they may well
have borrowed this image from the Dutch. The Akte van Verlatinge,
the 1581 Dutch declaration of independence from Spain, which his-
torians have argued was a model for the American Declaration of
Independence, justifies the revolt against the King of Spain by argu-
ing that "God did not create the People Slaves to their Prince." Like
the Americans, the Dutch conceived of the foundation of their na-
tion as a rejection of slavery. This national self-conception was so
irreconcilable with the nation's active engagement in the slave trade
that this historical fact had to be erased from public consciousness.29
The equally cherished tradition of cultural tolerance was put to
the test when the Netherlands found itself being gradually trans-
formed into an immigrant nation in the last three decades of the
twentieth century. This transformation began in the mid-1970s with
the arrival of hundreds of thousands of postcolonial migrants, who
wished to retain Dutch citizenship after Surinam became indepen-
dent in 1975 and were seeking better economic opportunities. The
process of change accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, as Western
Europe was confronted with millions of asylum seekers and eco-
nomic immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe,
and Asia. Since among the migrants from Surinam and the Nether-
lands Antilles there were about three hundred thousand descendants
of slaves, the Dutch slavery past at last was literally brought home.
The reclamation of slavery's past first took public form as Dutch
black communities were preparing for the 130th anniversary of the
abolition of slavery on July 1, 1993. A group of Afro-Surinamese
people in Amsterdam started an organization that aimed to call
public attention to the historical amnesia with respect to the Dutch
slavery past by proclaiming June 30 as an annual day of reflection
and July 1 as a day of celebration, the counterpart of the Surinamese
national holiday Keti Koti ("Day of Broken Chains"). The
organization's chosen name, the 30 June/1 July Committee, was
deliberately confrontational, being modeled on that of the National
Committee 4 and 5 May, which organizes the annual national com-

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 67

memoration of the Jewish and other Dutch victims of World War II

on May 4, during which the entire nation observes two minutes of
silence, and the celebration of the nation's liberation from Nazi oc-
cupation on May 5.
The overt message was clear, slavery is as much part of Dutch
history as World War II. The implicit message was more provoca-
tive: slavery was also a holocaust, one in which the Dutch were not
victims but perpetrators. "Our holocaust lasted 350 years," said
Barryl Biekman, chair of the national platform of slave descendants
in an interview.30 From the annual gatherings the organization held
in Amsterdam from 1993, which were mainly attended by members
of the local Surinamese community, emerged the plan for a national
monument to commemorate the Dutch slavery past. This grassroots
initiative gained momentum in 1998, when, in response to a peti-
tion by a group of black women, the newly appointed Minister of
Integration and Urban Policy, Roger van Boxtel, took up the cause
of a national slavery monument and made it a spearhead issue in
his effort to promote the social integration of ethnic minorities. On
June 30, 1999, Minister van Boxtel formally endorsed the plan in the
presence of Prince Claus, Queen Beatrix's husband. The purpose of
a slavery monument, he said in his endorsement speech, is "not to
buy off feelings of guilt, but to restore slavery to its rightful place in
Dutch history. The monument should be a symbol of a truthful writ-
ing of history, making sure that slavery is not forgotten."31 The en-
dorsement speech had great symbolic significance: for the first time,
the Dutch government publicly acknowledged responsibility for its
slavery past, thus declaring what Pierre Nora has called its "will to
remember."32 The Netherlands was finally ready for a confrontation
with its slavery past.
In the following two years, the government gradually expanded
the meaning of the slavery memorial project to include the idea that
the Netherlands is a multicultural society, perhaps even an immi-
grant nation- a national self-image that is far more contested in the
Netherlands than in the United States. This required a redefinition
of the Dutch traditions of freedom and tolerance, one that included
a collective historical consiousness. As Van Boxtel put it in a speech
he delivered during the presentation of a new edition of Anton de
Kom's Wij slaven van Suriname on November 25, 1999, "We are a

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68

multicultural society. In order to better understand ourselves, to

respect each other, to learn about each other's backgrounds, values
and identity, we need to reflect on the past and the meaning it has
for our present."33 The memorial project's official motto was "joined
by freedom," symbolized by a colorful chain of dolls. This demands
"more than equality, tolerance, or respect," the project's website ex-
plained. "It demands that we show interest [in each other's culture
and past]." Only when Dutch people from different ethnic back-
grounds come to terms with slavery's painful past, will they be
"joined by freedom."34

Figure 1.1: Dutch National Slavery Monument (Nationaal Monument

Nederlands Slavernijverleden). Image courtesy of Reed Gratz.

The "joined by freedom" motto was controversial in Afro-Dutch

circles, however, because it was felt to deflect attention away from
the monument's commemorative function.35 Moreover, although
the government's entry into and funding of the monument project
gave it momentum it was a source of division in the black commu-
nity. While the government collaborated with an umbrella organi-
zation representing a broad spectrum of Afro-Dutch groups, the
Amsterdam-based 30 June/1 July Committee refused to join this so-
called "National Platform" of slave descendants. A spokesperson
for the committee argued that, as long as most Dutch people were
unaware of their nation's colonial past, a national monument was
"untimely" and the government's efforts little more than a "politi-

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 69

cal show."36 At stake was more than slavery's past, committee chair
Winston Kout explained in an interview. The Dutch government
owed an apology and possibly reparation payments to its former
colony and the descendants of slaves.37 Both inside and outside the
Afro-Dutch community, many argued that the past should be left
behind. On the discussion platform of the website the ministry
opened for the memorial project, one (apparently white) respondent
argued that to claim that the descendants of slaveholders are re-
sponsible for the sins of their fathers is a variation of the "insane"
Calvinist doctrine of original sin. Like several other white respon-
dents, he felt that Afro-Dutch people should not indulge in their
role as victims of a distant past, but work on a common future.38
Nevertheless, there was wide support for the memorial plan,
which, it was decided at an early stage, should consist of both a
"static" and a "dynamic" element: a monument and an institute
dedicated to the study, documentation, and public education of the
history of Dutch slavery, modeled on the Schomburg Center for Re-
search in Black Cultures in New York. When the monument was
finally unveiled in Amsterdam's Ooster Park on July 1, 2002, the
memorial project came to a dramatic closure. Expecting to witness
the unveiling in the presence of the queen, Dutch prime minister,
and members of the Dutch, Surinamese cabinet, the crowd of per-
haps seven hundred people, mostly black and predominantly fe-
male, discovered they could follow the inauguration only on a large
video screen that was put up in another section of the park. The
secluded memorial site was kept from the public view by means of
high fences covered with black plastic and guarded by mounted
police and security personnel. The security measures might not have
been unreasonable, given the fact that only six weeks earlier the
Dutch populist political leader Pim Fortuyn was assassinated, ten
days before the national parliamentary elections he was slated to
win on an anti-immigration platform- the first political murder in
the Netherlands in more than three centuries. But the emotional ex-
plosion the discovery of the security measures triggered among the
crowd was evidence of the emotional meaning the memory of sla-
very has for the descendants of the enslaved. Deeply angered, many
slave descendants felt "humiliated;" "slavery is not yet over," "blacks
are oppressed again," several shouted, calling the blacks among the

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70

invited guests "traitors" of their race.39 Intended as a gesture of in-

clusion, the inauguration of the national slavery monument was
experienced by many in the Afro-Dutch community as a sign of con-
tinued exclusion, showing that the wounds of slavery have not yet
healed.

The humiliation many slave descendants experienced during the

official unveiling of the national slavery monument seems to have
contributed to a radicalization in the Afro-Dutch community. The
30 June/1 July Committee's call for reparations and an apology from
the queen was a lone voice in the 1990s; however, when around the
time of the 2001 antiracism conference in Durban, South Africa, a
journalist asked Van Boxtel about the possibility of financial com-
pensation for slave descendants, the Dutch minister said the issue
had never come up in his negotiations with representatives of the
Afro-Dutch community.40 However, when the National Institute of
the Netherlands Slavery Past and Legacy (NinSee), the "dynamic"
element of the national slavery memorial, was officially opened on
1 July 2003, one of the first events it organized was a debate about
reparations (attended by the two authors of this article). The in-
vited key speaker at this debate was Ray Winbush, the American
reparations advocate from the U.S., whose radical position on the
issue found wide acclaim among the almost exclusively black audi-
ence, including board members of the institute. His position would
almost certainly have been resented by the majority of white Dutch
people, who tend to react as emotionally to the idea of financial repa-
rations as Afro-Dutch people to the issue of slavery.41 Since the in-
stitute is wholly funded by the national and city governments, this
radicalization and the fact that only a handful of white Dutch people
were present at the debate raises questions about the national char-
acter of the institute, an institute that most people in the memorial
debates saw as the most important part of the national slavery me-
morial. Of equal concern is the fact that a sizeable group of
Surinamese people in Amsterdam boycotted the annual commemo-
ration ceremony at the national slavery monument in 2003, holding
their own at a rival slavery monument in the city's Surinam Square.
Although these signs of potential separatism are problematic, the
gains of the slavery memorial project are undeniable. The project
inspired the editorial boards of the three most widely read Dutch

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 71

history journals, including that of the national organization of his-

tory teachers, to devote a special issue entirely to the history of Dutch
colonial slavery. This is bound to have an impact on the way this
history will be taught in Dutch schools in the twenty-first century.
Moreover, the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam and the World
Museum in Rotterdam have organized special exhibits on the Dutch
slave trade and slavery history, and other exhibits are scheduled to
follow. In 2003 nearly all Dutch sixth-graders watched a documen-
tary series on slavery on national school television. Moreover, the
public debate about the national slavery monument that was con-
ducted in numerous meetings and symposia, as well as in the more
than three hundred articles on the monument and slavery that have
appeared in the Dutch print media since the spring of 1999 consti-
tutes itself a discursive monument to slavery's past, a modern form
of public memorial activism. In the end, the best memorial to sla-
very may not be the monuments, museums, or historical heritage
sites, but what James Young has called, "the never-to-be-resolved
debate over which kind of memory to preserve, how to do it, in
whose name, and to what end" that has finally broken the silence
that has so long reigned over the historical catastrophe of slavery.42
On both sides of the Atlantic the memory of slavery has caused
embarrassment, anger, and pain. For black people it has too often
been, as African American writer and Nobel Prize winner Toni
Morrison has remarked "a silence within the race," a source of shame,
reinforced by the omission of slavery's past from the history cur-
riculum. The modern civil rights movement began to change that
curriculum, challenging all Americans to rethink their history and
reevaluate their historical heros. It had a tremendous conscious-

ness-raising effect on black communities throughout the Atlanti

world. Slavery is now reclaimed by Surinamese and Dutch peop
of African descent as paradoxically both black cultural heritage,
source of black pride, and a deeply traumatic episode whose legac
still endures in the form of racial prejudice and negative black self
conceptions. In both America and the Netherlands it is no long
easy to ignore and each society is attempting to deal with this trag
aspect of its history in its own way. The history of over 600,000
Americans killed in a Civil War that almost destroyed the nation
makes the history of slavery harder to erase from the nation

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72

memory and makes it a source of contention. In the Netherlands

the erasure of slavery's past from the national history has been more
complete, but with 300,000 descendants of slaves now living in the
country, it is likely to remain so. In different ways and to different
degrees slavery and the racial consequences of its existence have
greatly influenced the social, political and economic history of both
nations. Despite the discomfort and the anguish, each society must
face this aspect of its past in order that it might successfully deal
with the critical issue of race in its present and its future.43

1 On the question of history and heritage see, Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The
Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (Vintage Books, 1991).
2 See, Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, eds. History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other
Battles for the American Past (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996).
3 Georgia Heritage Coalition, http://www.georgiaheritagecoalition.org/site2/
aboutGHC.phtml
(viewed March 10, 2004).
4 Steve Scroggins, "Welcome to the Uncivil War" http:/ /www. georgiaheritagecoalition.org/
site2/commentarv/ scroeeins-uncivil-heritaee-wars.phtml (viewed March 10, 2004V
5 Robert K. Sutton , Rally on the High Ground: The National Park Service Symposium on the Civil
War (Eastern National, 2001), V.
6 National Park History Subject File SCV General #1, 2000, National Park Service, Washing-
ton, DC.
7 "Slavery 'Abhorred/ Gilmore Says,"" Washington Post , 10 April 1998.
8 Larry L. Beane II, Gov. Gilmore s Denigration Proclamation, http: / / www.angelfire.com/
biz/ hpadva/ edlb.html (Viewed April 1998).
9 John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies
(Philadelphia, 1768), 38, quoted in F. Nwabueze Okoye, "Chattel Slavery as the Nightmare of
the American Revolutionaries/' The William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan.,
1980), 3-28, 3. 10 "What Shall the South Carolina Legislature Do?," Charleston Mercury, No-
vember 3, 1860.
11 Manuscript letter, "John Singleton Mosby to Samuel Chapman," Washington, D.C., June
20, 1907 (Gilder Lehrman Collection, New York Historical Society, New York, New York).
12 Washington Post , December 20, 1995; phone interview with Tohn M. Vlach, April 6, 2004.
13 Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 489-490.
14 Brown Daily Herald , March 13, 2001.
15 Brown Daily Herald, October 23, 2003.
16 Cited in Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, (rev. ed., London: Verso, 1991), 199.
17 PC. Emmer, De Nederlandse slavenhandel, 1500-1850 (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 2000), 11 7,
229. In the revised edition of the book published in 2003, Emmer stubbornly retained the
comparison, although he was well aware of readers' angry protests against it.
18 Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America
(Washington, D.C., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1930-35); Alexander Falconbridge,
An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (London, 1788), 16-22.
19 Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by
Himself, reprinted in Arna Bontemps, Great Slave Narratives (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 30-
31.
20 Johannes M. Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990).
21 See Jeroen Trommelen, "De slavernij duurt bij veel mensen voort," Volkskrant, 6 April 2002.
22 Anton de Kom, Wij Slaven van Suriname (1934; Amsterdam: Contact, 1999), 60.

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 73

23 Alex Van Stipriaan, 1 Juli: Tussen symbool en actualiteit (Rotterdam: Landelijk Bureau ter
Bestrijding van Rassendiscriminatie, 1999), 11-12.
24 L.G. Dalhuizen, et al., Sprekend verleden, vol. 2, 2nd ed. Baarn: Nijgh and Van Ditmar, 1990,
164-73. The Dutch implication in the slave trade is not even mentioned. The section on sla-
very in the U.S. cites lengthy passages from Uncle Tom's Cabin, but also from less well-known
antislavery texts such as Henry Bibb's slave narrative and an antislavery tract by Theodore
Weld, while conceding in one sentence in the opening paragraph that there was also slavery
in the Dutch colonies Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles (164). In the most recent (third
revised) edition of this textbook, published in 1999 and still widely used in secondary schools,
this remains the only sentence that acknowledges the Dutch involvement in slavery, though,
as we will see, in the past few years there has been a major effort to introduce the Dutch
slavery past into the classroom through other means, such as school television documenta-
ries and trips to museum exhibits on slavery.
25 Emmer, De Nederlandse slavenhandel, 180.
26 For excerpts of this and other reviews of Stowe's novel, which first came out in Dutch
translation in 1853, see J.G. Riewald and J. Bakker, The Critical Reception of American Literature
in the Netherlands , 1824-1900 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982), 234-45. The quotes are from pp. 241
and 242.
27 See introduction to the Netherlands National Archives7 database of emancipated slaves in
Surinam: http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/nieuws/nieuws/vriieelaten slaven.asp
28 Emmer, De Nederlandse slavenhandel , 205-06.
29 The right of revolution was further justified thus: " [when the Prince, i.e., the King of Spain]
oppresses [the People] , ... exacting from them slavish Compliance, then he is no longer aPrince
but a Tyrant ...." Quoted in Stephen E. Lucas, "The Plakkaat Van Verlatinge: A Neglected
Model for the American Declaration of Independence, in Rosemarijn Hoefte and Johanna C.
Kardux, Connecting Cultures: The Netherlands in Five Centuries of Transatlantic Exchange
(Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1992, 192.
30 Mark Duursma, "Onze holocaust duurde 350 jaar," NRC Handelsblad, 11 June 2002, 7.
31 A copy of this unpublished speech is in Johanna C. Kardux' s possession.
32 Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire," trans. Marc
Roudebush, Representations 26 (1989): 19.
33 A copy of this unpublished speech is in Johanna C. Kardux7 s possession.
34 "Thema: Verbonden door Vrijheid." http:/ / www.slavernijmonument.nl/SA3050000.htm
(Viewed, June 2002). The last quote is from http://www.ninsee.nl/start.htm "Thema."
35 For a discussion of the debate about the symbolic meanings the various participants in the
Dutch slavery debate gave to the monument, see Johanna C. Kardux, "Monuments of the
Black Atlantic: Slavery Memorials in the United States and the Netherlands, "in Heike Raphael-
Hernandez, ed. (New York: Routledee, 2004): 87-105.
36 Janna van Veen, "De tijd is nog niet rijp," Contrast, 27 January 2000, 4.
37 Mark Duursma, "De discussie over het Nederlands slavernijmonument,"
NRC Handelsblad , 28 July 2000, 19.
38 http://www.slavernijmonument.nl/forum.archief (Viewed 18 June 2002). This website,
run by the government for the memorial project, has been relocated to http: / / www.ninsee.nl.
The older contributions to the platform discussion, such as the one I refer to, can no longer be
found on this website.
39 See, for instance, reports of the tumultuous unveiling and comments in all the national
Dutch newspapers, for instance, Het Parool, 2 and 8 July, 2002.
40 Mark Duursma, "Nazaten slaven krijgen geen geld," NRC Handelsblad , 30 August 2001. A
few months before the Durban conference, an advisory committee appointed by the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs had explored the question of financial reparations for slavery and colonial-
ism, but advised against it on the grounds that the victims themselves were no longer alive.
Instead, the committee advised to make moral reparations, by rewriting history books, his-
torical research, monuments, and commemorations. Only present-day victims of racial dis-
crimination were eligible for financial compensation. NRC Handelsblad , 9 July 2001.
41 Typical is Pim Fortuyn's response: in his campaign book, Fortuyn ridiculed the idea of
reparation for slavery, writing that "those who still suffer from their ancestors' enslavement"

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should seek psychiatric treatment rather than financial compensation. De Puinhopen van acht
jaar Paars (Uithoorn: Karakter, 2002), 158. Historian Thomas von der Dunk, for example,
derided the "cult of hereditary victimhood," arguing that the descendants of slaves enjoy
more material benefits from the original source of their citizenship, slavery, than suffering
harm from it. Financial reparations, he concluded, were therefore irrational. Thomas von der
Dunk, "Nazaten van slaven kopen niets voor spijt," NRC Handelsblad, 5 September 2001.
42 James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1993), 81.
43 Angeles Carabi, "Conversation with Toni Morrison/' Belles Lettres 9.3 (1994): 38.

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