In recent years, there has been increasing attention for the slavery past. For a long time this part of our past was neglected and a public debate was not possible. The national history was mainly written from the perspective of the glorious days of the Golden Age. Only in the recent decades more attention has been paid to acknowledging the dark sides of our national past. It is becoming increasingly clear that slavery, the slavery trade and forced deportations still make deep scars into today’s society. Ignoring this will complicate healing. Recognition and being able to discuss the slavery past may contribute to healing. Recent national and international developments, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the public debate that followed this by a larger public than the communities of descendants who were fighting for recognition and excuses for a long time, contributed to the willingness of the government to give more attention to the active role the Netherlands played in the transatlantic slave trade. In this article the authors discuss the assignment that the Minister of Internal Affairs gave the Advisory Board Dialogue Group on the Slavery Past, that is to advise which measures should be taken to further healing and reparations for the slavery past. Which measures are necessary to come to a meaningful debate about that shared past? The advised measures given in the report Chains of the past are focused on three central terms: recognition, reparations and excuses.

After apologising for Dutch slavery, the Dutch cabinet has pledged to establish a fund focused on enhancing knowledge and awareness of slavery and its lasting impact, through education. However, when aiming to raise awareness and enhance understanding of slavery, it is crucial to ensure that the knowledge being imparted is sound. To determine the extent to which this is achieved, it is necessary to gain insight into the content of slavery education. Several studies have already been conducted, however, these are mainly based on analyses of slavery textbooks. The author’s research, on the other hand, specifically focuses on what teachers themselves communicate in the classroom. Education scholars argue that history education is a cultural and social practice in which personal considerations play a significant role. Particularly when dealing with sensitive historical subjects, the teacher’s individual input often supersedes the textbook. Hence, the author conducted a study based on 35 in-depth interviews with history teachers to provide an understanding of how slavery history is taught in secondary education. The collected data were analysed using Critical Thematic Analysis, a method that allows for the thematic and critical interpretation of narrative patterns in interviews. The analysis revealed that the lasting impact of slavery that the government seeks to raise awareness of and aims to mitigate, is evident in educational practices. Recognising this lasting impact and making efforts to address it should precede any expansion of the scope of current slavery education.

This article is an attempt, partly on the basis of examples from the administration of justice, both during the slavery period and just after its abolition in 1863, to provide insight into society’s perception of the Curaçaoan Creole spirituality as it has arisen over the years.

In this article the author argues that current, legalistic thinking about changing surnames would benefit from a more psychological approach. This would better meet the needs of descendants of enslaved people who are troubled by the surnames colonial governors administered to their ancestors upon ‘emancipation’. The author traces the history of origin of surnames in the Dutch colonial context and discusses the problems that arise when colonial records would be re-used in the present-day context. In a project commissioned by WODC the Verwey-Jonker Institute researched the question of how suitable the colonial registrations are as a basis for name change requests nowadays. As the author argues, a solely archival-technical approach of the wish to change disturbing surnames is inappropriate, especially now that the Dutch government has made official apologies for the slavery past in December 2022. A more generous gesture is necessary, which makes space for healing and for increasing the accessibility of sources for family history.

By explaining Bonilla-Silva’s framework of color-blind racism this article aims to call attention to the fact that racism and race-based discrimination have changed over time. Despite the presence of a rule of law and a plethora of non-discrimination legislation, through subtle – seemingly nonracial – narratives, processes of racialization and racism can still continue to exist. By linking this framework to the importance of contextualizing and acknowledging the inequalities embedded within Dutch liberal democracy, the article illustrates how current day ‘color-blind racism’ is inextricably connected to the Dutch colonial history of slavery.

This contribution focuses on modern forms of slavery, more specifically labor exploitation. Slavery has been criminalized in the Netherlands as human trafficking. One form of human trafficking is labor exploitation. The authors focus on labor exploitation in global supply chains of Dutch companies. First, they scrutinize the possibilities that Dutch criminal law provides to hold companies liable for labor exploitation in their global supply chain. Subsequently, they analyze Dutch case law on labor exploitation, to identify cases that took place in supply chains abroad. Finally the authors discuss what barriers and difficulties arise in – eventually – establishing liability for these international forms of labor exploitation.