In the Netherlands, King Willem-Alexander officially apologizes for the slavery practiced by his country

The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, on Saturday July 1 issued his official apology for his country’s involvement in slavery, saying he felt “personally and extremely” affected.

“Today I stand before you as a king and a member of government. Today I apologize,” Willem-Alexander said, to cheers, at an event marking 150 years of freeing slaves in the former colonies.

“I feel this deep in my heart and in my soul. The slave trade and slavery are recognized as crimes against humanity. The kings of the House of Orange [from which the current monarch descends] did nothing to prevent it. Today I apologize for this inaction,” Willem-Alexander continued.

Thousands of descendants of people enslaved in the former South American colony of Suriname as well as the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao attended the annual celebration in Amsterdam called “Ketikoti” (“breaking the chains” in English). Sranantongo, one of the languages ??of Suriname).

In December 2022, the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, launched the process, saying: “We can only recognize and condemn slavery, in the clearest terms, as a crime against humanity. In his Christmas speech, the King of the Netherlands then welcomed the government’s apology for the role of the Dutch state during 250 years of slavery, and called it the “beginning of ‘A long way “.

The country trafficked around 600,000 Africans

According to a report commissioned by the Dutch Interior Ministry and published in June, between 1675 and 1770 the colonies earned the royal family the equivalent of 545 million euros, at a time when slavery was widespread. .

The distant ancestors of the current King of the Netherlands, William III of Orange-Nassau, William IV of Orange-Nassau and William V of Orange-Nassau, were among the greatest beneficiaries of what is described in the report as a “deliberate, structural and long-term involvement” in slavery.

Slavery helped fund the Dutch “Golden Age”, a period of prosperity through maritime trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. The country trafficked around 600,000 Africans, mostly to South America and the Caribbean.