Slavery

About the project

In 2021 the Rijksmuseum will be organising its first exhibition about slavery. It will concentrate on the Dutch colonial period, from the seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries. It will touch on countries and regions that were active in the slave trade and slavery. That means that we will not only be examining transatlantic slavery (the Netherlands- Africa-Americas triangle), with the role that the Dutch West India Company played in it, but also Dutch colonial slavery in the countries around the Indian Ocean, where the Dutch East India Company was active. We will also be highlighting the effects of the system in the Netherlands itself in that period.

Aim of the project

The exhibition will shine a spotlight on ten historical individuals. Not only the enslaved and slavers but also people who freed themselves, an African servant in the Netherlands and an Amsterdam sugar refiner. What were their lives like? What was their relationship to the slavery system? Could they make their own choices in life? The exhibition will not give clear-cut answers to every question but will delve deeper into a system in which people regarded other people as their property. By putting names and faces to the history of slavery we make the subject accessible and personal to the public as a whole.

Related publications

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.

Related Events

During the exhibition there will be an extensive program with events that will take place inside and outside of the museum.

• Jörgen Raymann will be co-organising and presenting a talk show that for six Sundays will take place in the Rijksmuseum. Every show will have a varied program of lectures, dance, theatre, music and debates/ panel discussions.
• There will be a symposium held on the use of various sources in the research of and presentations on slavery.
• The curators of the exhibition will travel across the country to discuss the local connection with slavery during lectures and to speak to an as varied as possible group of interested people.
• In 2021 the NTR will broadcast the new documentary by Ida Does, which shows the process of organising this exhibition.

Related projects

Rijksmuseum & Slavery

Partners and Sponsors

This project is supported by the Scato Gockinga Fonds/ Rijksmuseum Fonds, Mondrian Foundation, Stichting Democratie & Media, DutchCulture and Fonds 21.