The Hague, Jul 1 King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands on Day The 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the kingdom apologized for the country's role in slavery and its consequences.
In the Netherlands July 1 marks 150 years since the abolition of slavery in the kingdom. On this day, King Willem-Alexander delivered a speech at an event at the National Monument to commemorate the abolition of slavery in the Osterpark in Amsterdam.
In December 2022, Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized for the Dutch role in slavery.
“Today, as your king and as a member of the government, I personally apologize. The slave trade and slavery are recognized as a crime against humanity, but the stadtholders and the royal house of Orange did nothing to prevent this. The Second World War showed that one cannot hide behind laws when people are turned into animals. There is also a moral obligation to act. Therefore, I also apologize for inaction,» the king said, quoted on the website of the Royal House of the Netherlands.
He noted that the consequences of the slaveholding past of the Netherlands are still felt in society in the form of manifestations of racism.
The King also said that the independent study he commissioned should shed more light on the role of the Orange-Nassau royal family in the colonial past of the Netherlands and the history of slavery.
It was previously known that the royal dynasty of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands earned at least 545 million euros to date from their colonies at the height of the slave trade between 1675 and 1770
The Netherlands in the XVI- XX centuries were a significant colonial power. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch colonies on July 1, 1863. Currently, several overseas territories of the disbanded Netherlands Antilles are dependent on the Netherlands: Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, as well as the Caribbean Netherlands: the islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius.