Slavery: the story of João, Wally, Oopjen, Paulus, van Bengalen, Surapati, Sapali, Tula, Dirk, Lohkay

Foreword.Together we write history /Taco Dibbits --Slavery : an exhibition of many voices /Eveline Sint Nicolaas, Valika Smeulders --Dutch colonial slavery /Eveline Sint Nicolaas --Living inside the slavery system --João : caught in the crossfire in Dutch Brazil /Stephanie Archangel --Wally : surviving on a plantation in Suriname /Eveline Sint Nicolaas --Oopjen : wealth in the Dutch republic /Eveline Sint Nicolaas --Paulus : a ‘moor’ in the Dutch republic /Valika Smeulders, Lisa Lambrechts --van Bengalen : shipped to Batavia, Banda, Cape Town and Dokkum /Maria Holtrop --Thinking about freedom --Surapati : from enslaved servant to sovereign /Maria Holtrop --Sapali : an independent society /Valika Smeulders --Tula : liberty, equality and fraternity /Valika Smeulders --Dirk : from abolitionist to slaveholder /Valika Smeulders, Lisa Lambrechts --Lohkay : beads versus laws /Valika Smeulders --Talking about slavery --Current thinking about slavery in the Netherlands /Karwan Fatah-Black, Martine Gosselink --Works in the exhibition.

"What did a woman who lived and worked under slavery know about her ‘owner’ in the Dutch Republic? What did an owner of a sugar factory in Amsterdam know about the circumstances under which the sugar he processed was grown? And what did a freedom fighter on Curaçao know about the struggle for equal civil rights in Europe? Under Dutch rule during the colonial era, more than a million men, women and children from Asia and Africa were enslaved and shipped to the other side of the world. Very little is known about their lives. Using a variety of sources, Slavery provides a portrait of ten people from this period: people who suffered under the slavery system, people who rose in resistance against it and people who profited from it. This broad palette of individual experiences reveals diverse facets of the Dutch history of slavery and gives us a unique isight into the societal reality of the time"--