The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective

Drescher, Seymour

doi:10.2307/2166162

Cited by 40 publications

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“…The Dutch also introduced enslavement to the British colonies, which now constitute the United States, when they delivered twenty enslaved Africans to the colony of Virginia in 1619. Unlike in the U.S. and the U.K., in The Netherlands, while a few individuals, particularly clergy, opposed enslavement, widespread abolitionism and abolitionist movements were largely absent (Drescher 1994 ;Emmer 1972 ). Unlike in the U.S. and the U.K., in The Netherlands, while a few individuals, particularly clergy, opposed enslavement, widespread abolitionism and abolitionist movements were largely absent (Drescher 1994 ;Emmer 1972 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Dutch continued trading in enslaved men, women, and children even after it was outlawed in 1814 by acting as middlemen with Spain (Postma 1972 ). The Dutch legally abolished slavery in 1863, one of the last European powers to do so, but then required a 10-year "apprenticeship" (Drescher 1994 ;Oostindie 2005 ), which Whites paternalistically argued was necessary for the enslaved to understand the meaning and responsibilities of their freedom and determine how much former master enslavers should be compensated (Nimako and Willemsen 2011 ). The Dutch legally abolished slavery in 1863, one of the last European powers to do so, but then required a 10-year "apprenticeship" (Drescher 1994 ;Oostindie 2005 ), which Whites paternalistically argued was necessary for the enslaved to understand the meaning and responsibilities of their freedom and determine how much former master enslavers should be compensated (Nimako and Willemsen 2011 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity

Sáenz¹,

Embrick²,

Rodríguez³

2015

International Handbooks of Population

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The International Handbooks of Population offer up-to-date scholarly summaries and sources of information on the major subject areas and issues of demography and population. Each handbook examines its particular subject area in depth, providing timely, accessible coverage of its full scale and scope, discusses substantive contributions for deeper understanding, and provides reliable guidance on the direction of future developments.Volumes will explore topics of vital interest: Population Aging, Poverty, Mortality, Family Demography, Migration, Race and Ethnic Demography and more. Each volume will provide a state-of-the-art treatment of its respective area. The series will quickly prove useful to a broad audience including demographers, practitioners and scholars across a range of disciplines.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity

Sáenz¹,

Embrick²,

Rodríguez³

2015

International Handbooks of Population

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“…At the time of abolition, the Surinamese plantations were still profĳitable and the Netherlands slow to industrialise, which precludes any causal link between capitalism and anti-slavery according to Semour Drescher's essay The Long Goodbye and to various contributions in the volume Fifty Years Later that appeared under the editorship of Oostindie in 1995. 75 By the late 1990s, Henk den Heijer's Goud, ivoor en slaven ( Gold, ivory and slaves ), George Welling's The Prize of Neutrality and Wim Klooster's Illicit Riches , had made a convincing claim that in the eighteenth century, Suriname and Dutch Antilles played a far more prominent role in the commodity trade than hitherto assumed and that together with the trade in Africa, this would approximate to the value of the trade with Asia at that time. 76 Moreover, apart from the WIC trade in slaves, private Dutch slave trade was extensive until the early nineteenth century.…”

Section: Increasing Recognition Of the Importance Of The Atlantic Ecomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Economic Historiography of the Dutch Colonial Empire

Bosma¹

2014

Tijdschrift Voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis/ the Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History

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Colonial possessions were a source of substantial revenue for the Dutch economy for over three centuries. The histories of Dutch trading companies in the East and the West, the Cultivation System and the Dutch Atlantic slave trade have engaged dozens of historians, some of whose work belongs in the select library of the world's most signifi cant historical literature. The way in which economic historians have dealt with the key themes of Dutch colonial history, and the evolution of their perspectives, forms the subject of this overview. In the conclusion, the present fragmented state of the economic history of the Dutch colonial empire is addressed.

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“…Moreover, the Dutch were the last European imperial powers to abolish slavery (in 1863), some thirty years after the British. 69 Even the British forces would not have been able to launch the mission of abolishing slavery successfully, if they had not gained power over the entire island in 1815, wiping out the local government. The emergence of strong anti-slavery societies in Europe and, probably, the low profit margins of sugar plantations that used extensive slave labour, 70 as was the case in the other colonial territories, may have pressurized the British officers to embark on abolishing slavery from its colonies.…”

Section: Abolition Of Slaverymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Abolition of Colonial and Pre-Colonial ‘Slavery’ From Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Wickramasinghe

2010

Cultural and Social History

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Slavery existed in Sri Lanka from ancient times down to the modern period, roughly from the second century and until the mid-nineteenth century. But the institution of slavery showed wide variation in the conditions of individuals and modes of enslavement and also in ownership over the centuries. A clear change could be perceived in the type of servitude among the Sinhalese, especially during the pre-colonial period and in the mode of servitude introduced and practised by the colonialists from the sixteenth century onwards. The article examines these differences in order to understand why and how this system of servitude, which was present from ancient times, came to an end during the colonial period of British supremacy in Ceylon.Slavery in Ceylon differed fundamentally from plantation slavery as it had existed in the West Indies and Mauritius, and as it then existed in the Americas. Immeasurably milder in form, its abolition was easier because there was no formidable vested interest entrenched in the British Parliament to defend its existence, and besides, the abolition of slavery in the Empire in 1833 (though the Eastern Empire was specifically excluded from the operation of the Act) made it inevitable that slavery in Ceylon could not much longer survive. 2 K.M. de Silva's statement may appear surprising to a reader unfamiliar with Sinhalese history. Here, the reference is to both the colonial and the pre-colonial servitude that prevailed in the island before and during the time of British dominion. It may also immediately strike the reader that if slavery was 'mild', then what necessitated its abolition? The article aims to answer this question. By the time the British were drawing up plans to abolish slavery from Sri Lanka, there were two major ethnic communities possessing different kinds of unfree groups in the island:• native Sinhalese in the middle of the island and • European invaders in the coastal belt of the island.WICKRAMASINGHE The Abolition of Colonial and Pre-colonial 'Slavery' from Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

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The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective

Cited by 40 publications

References 0 publications

The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity

The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity

The Economic Historiography of the Dutch Colonial Empire

The Abolition of Colonial and Pre-Colonial ‘Slavery’ From Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

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