On Monday, the Netherlands is scheduled to make an official apology for this atrocity, around 150 years after slavery was abolished in its former colonies.
It was reported in September that the Dutch government was getting ready to issue a formal apology for the European country’s involvement in the slave trade. If this happens, the Netherlands will be the first nation in Europe to do so.
In a recent development, Prime Minister Mark Rutte will speak later on about slavery at The Hague’s National Archives.
Additionally, the cabinet representatives are set to deliver speeches in Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America, as well as on the six Caribbean islands that are still part of the Dutch Netherlands.
Over a period of 200 years, the Netherlands—once the third-largest colonial power in the world—held an estimated 500,000 people in slavery.
Most of them were sold and forced to labour on farms in Suriname and the Antilles after being kidnapped from West Africa.
One of the last in Europe to formally abolish slavery on July 1, 1863, the Dutch kingdom did not actually end slavery until 1873.
Slaves’ descendants and colony residents in particular had been pushing for an apology at the time, but Mr. Rutte’s administration refused.
In July, a panel established by the government ruled that the Netherlands needed to apologize and take concrete steps to address the fallout, such as racism.
