Dutch king says he ‘will not shy away’ from slavery history on rare royal visit to Suriname | Slavery
Dutch King Willem-Alexander vowed Monday that the topic of slavery would not be off-limits as he visited the former colony of Suriname, where the practice ended 150 years ago.
The king arrived in the capital Paramaribo on Sunday with Queen Maxima, a week after the small South American country celebrated 50 years of independence from the Netherlands.
Willem-Alexander said Monday that “we will not shy away from history and its painful elements, such as slavery,” during their three-day visit.
The visit of the king and queen was the first visit by the Dutch royal family in nearly fifty years.
Slavery was officially abolished in Suriname and other Dutch-held territories on 1 July 1863, but it only ended in 1873, after a 10-year “transitional” period.
The Dutch financed their “golden age” of empire and culture in the 16th and 17th centuries by shipping approximately 600,000 Africans, mostly to South America and the Caribbean, as part of the slave trade.
In a meeting with Suriname’s president, Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, on Monday, the king said he was “aware of how deeply this resonates with the descendants of enslaved people and with Indigenous communities. We are willing to engage in dialogue with them.”
Suriname, located on the northern coast of the South American continent, has been struggling with rebellions and coups since its independence in 1975.
But recently discovered large offshore oil reserves hold the promise of changing the country’s fortunes.
Willem-Alexander said the Netherlands was keen to deepen ties “based on equality and mutual respect” with its former colony.
And building a common future, he said, “only makes sense if we take into account the foundation on which we stand, which is our common past.”
The Netherlands issued a formal apology for slavery through then-prime minister Mark Rutte in December 2022, followed by a royal apology from the king the following year.
Willem-Alexander and Argentine-born Maxima will meet behind closed doors with representatives of descendants of slaves, traditional peoples and indigenous groups.
A group of Afro-Surinamese people criticized the royal program for not including wreath-laying at the Paramaribo monument celebrating the abolition of slavery.
Diplomatic relations between the countries were severely strained when he returned to power under the military regime of former dictator Desi Bouterse from 1982 and then as president-elect from 2010 to 2020.
Bouterse’s National Democratic Party (NDP) is now led by Geerlings-Simons.
A study conducted in 2023 revealed that the Dutch royal family earned 545 million Euros ($632 million) in today’s terms between 1675 and 1770 from colonies where slavery was common.
The king’s ancestors, Willem III, Willem IV and Willem V, were among the biggest gainers from what the Dutch report called the state’s “deliberate, structural and long-term involvement” in slavery.
In 2022, Willem-Alexander announced that he was abandoning the royal gold carriage that traditionally carried him on state ceremonies because it had images of slavery on the sides.
