News item | 14-10-2022 | 17:32
The slavery past is a very painful, important and until recently underexposed part of our shared history. From next year, from 1 July 2023 to 1 July 2024, extra attention will be paid to this throughout the kingdom during the Remembrance Year Slavery Past.
For more than 300 years, adults and children from parts of Africa, often also by Dutch slave traders, were kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic under inhumane conditions to the former Dutch colonies: Suriname and the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius. and Saint Martin. The original inhabitants of the various Dutch colonies were not spared either. In Asia, enslaved people were traded to areas under the control of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). For generations, people were born into slavery. They were forced into slave labor all their lives, at the service of the Dutch plantation owners.
On July 1, 1863, slavery was abolished by law in Suriname and the Caribbean islands, then colonies of the Dutch Kingdom. Nevertheless, a large part of the enslaved had to continue to work on the plantations under state supervision for another 10 years in order to limit the “damage of this measure” for the plantation owners. For that reason, for many in the then kingdom, slavery actually ended in 1873. On July 1, 2023, it will be 150 years ago.
From 1858 until long after 1873, people from Asia were also subjected to hard labor in Suriname under Dutch colonial rule with indentured labour.
During the Remembrance Year, the Dutch Kingdom reflects on this painful history. And how this history still plays a negative role in people’s lives today. The national government supports initiatives by or in collaboration with the various groups and communities related to the slavery past. In this way, the Remembrance Year Slavery Past becomes a year from within society itself.
The subsidy schemes
June and July 2023 will see a grand opening of the year across the kingdom, and July 2024 will see the close of the Year of Remembrance. With this commemorative year, the national government hopes to contribute to the permanent increase of knowledge and connection in society.
In addition, the cabinet is making 2 million euros available for the organization of activities during the Remembrance Year by, for example, social organizations and cultural institutions. With this money, larger institutions as well as small local initiatives or individuals can apply for a budget to organize social and/or cultural activities. The implementation takes place via two cultural funds: Het Mondrian Fund and the Cultural Participation Fund.
Initiators, such as museums, theaters and archives, but also private initiators such as artists, creative makers or organizers, can apply for funding for the organization of an activity during the Remembrance Year. The Mondriaan Fund and the Cultural Participation Fund assess the applications independently, via a representative assessment committee with knowledge of the slavery past and the communities involved. Anyone in the kingdom who wants to organize an activity in the Remembrance Year can apply. Information about this can be found on the websites of the Mondrian Fund and the Cultural Participation Fund.