On Saturday, July 1, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands apologized publicly for the country’s complicity in slavery, stating that he was “personally and intensely” impacted.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte previously issued a formal apology on the government’s behalf in December 2022.
The Netherlands has opened up about the colonial and slave trading past that made it one of the richest nations in the world since 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement took over political discussions.
According to a Dutch study published in June, the royal family made 545 million euros ($595 million) in today’s dollars from the colonies, where slavery was common, between 1675 and 1770.
Approximately 600,000 Africans were transported as slaves throughout the 16th and 17th centuries by the Dutch, principally to South America and the Caribbean, to finance their “Golden Age” of empire and culture.
At the “Keti Koti” (Surinamese for “breaking the chains”) celebrations in Amsterdam on Saturday to mark 150 years since the practise was abolished, hundreds of descendants of slaves from Suriname in South America and the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao participated.
“Today I’m standing here in front of you as your king and as part of the government. Today I am apologizing personally,” Willem-Alexander said to loud cheers from the crowd.
“I am intensely experiencing this with my heart and soul,” the monarch told those attending the event.
“Slave trading and slavery is recognised as a crime against humanity,” the king said.
“The monarchs and rulers of the House of Orange took no steps against it.”
“Today, I am asking for forgiveness for the crystal-clear lack of action, on this day when we are commemorating slavery in the Netherlands,” Willem-Alexander said in his speech, broadcast live on television.
