History teacher Ger Jan Onrust believes that all companies that already existed in the mid-19th century should conduct research into their own colonial history. Wouter Loeff of Erfgoed Brabant agrees. According to him, we are on the eve of many revelations about our colonial past, also in Brabant. “Many more will be found, the story is not yet finished.” In the last part of her podcast series ‘Black and White Past’, program viewer Cindy de Koning visits the city of Helmond and looks ahead to the future.
Carel Frederik Wesselman bought Helmond Castle in 1781 for 155,000 guilders. With the castle he also acquired the title ‘Lord of Helmond’ and so he had a lot to say about the area and its inhabitants.
The Wesselmannen had shares in plantations. The wind vane in the shape of a ship on the tower of the castle refers to the trading activities of Carel Frederik. His brother Daniel Cornelis was also a trader and owner of slave ships. On one of his ships, the Neptune, a rebellion broke out and the ship exploded.
Carel Frederik Wesselman was on the board of Brabant and it was thanks to him that the canal was built, not entirely coincidentally along the castle. And that contributed to the growth of Helmond into an important city in the region. He could buy the glory with the money he earned from the colonial trade.
‘A hard brutal master’
In 1774 ships (alderman) Johannes Biertempel was locked up in the dungeon of the castle. The former plantation owner had settled in Helmond after people he had enslaved killed his wife.
He was a ‘hard brutal master’, says Henk Roosenboom, who wrote a book about him. The prominent Biertemple was imprisoned for incest with his daughter and sentenced to death for it.
Call for more research
You will also hear the story of the influential Bots family. Without his son Johannes Baptista, there would not have been a Rijks HBS established in the city in 1867: the current Jan van Brabant College. It was the first public secondary school in the area and one of the first in the Netherlands.
The family owned cotton plantations, was an important textile manufacturer and traded in colonial goods. They built a stately building with an accompanying warehouse on the canal. It is known as the ‘house with the clock’.
Ger Jan Onrust is a history teacher at the Jan van Brabant College. He advocates that all companies that already existed in the mid-19th century do research into their own colonial history. “Without history no present, without history no future.”
Wouter Loeff of Heritage Brabant agrees. According to him, we are on the eve of all the revelations that are yet to be made. “Many more will be found, the story is not yet finished.”
Six part series
This year we commemorate and celebrate the abolition of slavery on July 1, 1863. It then took another ten years before the enslaved were truly free. In the new podcast Black and White Past, twenty disconcerting stories unfold in six parts. Stories of people who lived and live in Breda, Bergen op Zoom, Tilburg and Helmond.
Cindy is in places where people lived, dives into archives and learns more about the Brabant of the past and also about the people in question. She visits special places and takes the listener along in her quest and discoveries. All this is framed with an insight into Brabant’s colonial past. Something that more and more cities are now researching or want to do.
Click on the icons below for the new episode of the Black and White Past podcast in your favorite podcast app.