Atlantic Dutch Slavery
WIC trafficking and Surinamese plantations
The Dutch West India Company and private traders shipped over half a million Africans across the Atlantic. Surinamese and Caribbean plantations, financed from Amsterdam, ran on terror and produced sugar and coffee wealth for the Republic.
Damage
Dutch West India Company slavery fed Suriname and Caribbean plantations from African trafficking.
Lives lost
Hundreds of thousands shipped; high voyage and plantation death rates
Value lost
Plantation and trade profits for the Dutch Republic
Record Points
- Dutch traffickers carried an estimated 550,000 to 600,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
- Suriname's plantation regime was notorious for extreme brutality and high mortality.
- Amsterdam financiers and the city itself profited through plantation loans, insurance, and processing.
- The Dutch abolished slavery only in 1863 and then imposed a further ten-year forced apprenticeship.
- A 2023 royal apology followed centuries of official silence about state and municipal profit.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
West AfricaSurinameCaribbean