Welcome. This guided tour takes you through the traces of The Hague's colonial and slavery past.
Here, around the corner in the Lower House of Parliament, Dutch slavery in Suriname and the Caribbean was abolished by law on 1 July 1863. That was the last penny in a long process for all Dutch colonies. Yet that abolition did not yet mean freedom for many enslaved people. For example, in Suriname, where they still had to work on the plantations for 10 years. For them, slavery only really stopped in 1873, just a century and a half ago.
All the Netherlands' colonial policies were made in The Hague. That is why you still come across places and buildings everywhere in the city centre where decisions were made and rulers lived. They also left thousands of documents and personal items, which are kept in Hague archives and museums. All these objects and locations bear witness to colonial history.
We accompany this walk with colonial stories from our Hague Municipal Archives. But in doing so, you should always be careful: many sources in the collection say more about the colonial outlook at the time than about the reality; the harsh reality in the distant colonies.
So take a walk through the centre of The Hague, where traces of citizens, administrators and their role in the city's colonial and slavery past can be found everywhere.