It's the 1st of July. Happy Keti Koti! Please join me for a short thread on Dutch history and slavery

Keti Koti is Sranantongo (Surinamese) for "the chain is broken". It celebrates the day in 1863 when slavery was abolished in Suriname (Dutch until 1975) and the six Dutch islands in the Caribbean (including Aruba and Curaçao, all still Dutch in some way)

July 1863 was rather late. Britain had abolished slavery in its colonies in August 1834 and France had done the same in May 1848. Even the president of the United States had signed the Emancipation Proclamation six months earlier

It wasn't that the Netherlands weren't a modern nation by 19th century standards. The country had become a parliamentary democracy in 1848. Living standards were high. It last executed someone in peacetime in 1860

(On an aside, the death penalty would remain in force in the colonies after its formal abolition in the European Netherlands in 1870. The generally held racist belief was that Black and Brown people in the West and East weren't ready for modern society.)

It wasn't a coincidence that the 'Emancipation' didn't come into force until July: there was a assumption that the freed people would want to spend some time celebrating their freedom rather than working. July is rain season in Suriname, so there'd be less work to do

So what? you probably think. Isn't the whole point of being free that you can do what you want? Well, welcome to a very Dutch compromise! Apart from compensation paid to the former slave owners, former slaves were required to work as contract labourers for another ten years

That was in Suriname. The situation on the islands was slightly different but also required the freed people to keep working. Which, so reasoned the government, was in their own interest: the Dutch state would look after them and thus help them become proper citizens

They definitely learned about the hardship of life: as the former slave owners weren't feeding them any longer, they had to buy their own food, making them in many cases worse off. (But they could buy and wear shoes, something they had been forbidden to do until 1863!)

When the ten-year transition period came to an end, pretty much all former slaves left the plantations, which should give you an idea of how well the transition period had worked for them

When I went to school in the Netherlands in the 1990s, none of this was taught, nor did we learn anything about the Dutch role in the transatlantic slave trade. This despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of descendants of these slaves currently live in the country

Keti Koti is not a national holiday. The Dutch government has never formally apologised for slavery. There is a lot of structural racism in the Netherlands. But like elsewhere, things do appear to be moving in the right direction, if often very slowly

So remember to learn your history, even the uncomfortable parts of it. And may those who celebrate it have a very meaningful Keti Koti today!