Colonialism and Slavery

An Alternative History of the Port City of Rotterdam

In this book the focus uniquely lies on the colonial and slavery part of a city. Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, is one of the leading European port cities. Its maritime expansion was intrinsically linked to Dutch colonialism, including slave trading and colonial slavery in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This painful history sits uneasy with the city’s contemporary profile, with its large number of ‘new Rotterdammers’ with colonial roots. The present volume provides a summary of the research that has documented this history, with chapters on the contribution of colonial trade to economic development; the city’s involvement in slavery; the role of the urban political elites; the impact on urban development and architecture; the so-called ethical impulse; colonial art and ethnographic collections; colonial and postcolonial migrations; and finally the resonance of this history in postcolonial Rotterdam.

About the author: Gert Oostindie is Director of the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies in Leiden, and Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History at Leiden University. He has published widely on slavery, colonialism, decolonization, postcolonial migrations, and the relevance of the colonial past for contemporary society.