Paragraaf 3.4: slavery

Summary paragraph 3.4: Slavery

European countries had to produce lots of raw materials cheaply.

A lot of labour was needed to cultivate the crops.

On large farms, called plantations, a huge number of slaves from Africa have worked, because slaves were cheap and were used to the warm climate.

Slavery was not a new idea, the Romans and Greeks already did it, too, but they were kind and gentle to the slaves and paid them money.

In this time that was not the case.

The Dutch used and traded slaves.

In total approximately 352,000 slaves have been transported from the Netherlands to West Indian colonies by the WIC between 1621 and 1730, 279,000 from Vlissingen and 73,000 from Amsterdam on.

After 1730, the MCC traded slaves as well as the WIC which meant that even more slaves were traded and transported over the Atlantic. (The MCC traded just over 31,000 slaves, about 4,500 died at sea)

The Dutch gained Surinam in the treaty that ended the second Anglo-Dutch war in 1667, but the colony has never been a great success, partly because maroons could hide in the jungle.

Maroons often attacked the plantations to free slaves, which were encouraged to run away and start revolt, because they knew that maroons existed.

There were revolts regularly between 1715 and 1763, and in the worst of revolts in 1963, planters freed slaves to form an army to fight the maroons.

Plantations = large ‘farms’

Maroon = runaway slave