'Wholehearted, without any real reservations': Dutch study says the House of Orange kept the slave trade alive

Leiden — The Dutch royal house did not merely profit from the Netherlands' colonial empire. It actively helped the Dutch slave trade survive, an in-depth historical study commissioned by King Willem-Alexander concluded on Friday. "The involvement of the House of Orange-Nassau was wholehearted and without any real reservations," the researchers concluded after a three-year study carried out by Dutch historians and human rights experts examining the period from 1600 to the present. "The research leaves us in no doubt that the House of Orange shares responsibility for the survival over the centuries of the Dutch slave trade and slavery," the study said, noting that most of the rulers showed no objections to slavery — and that the royal house made huge profits from Dutch colonial policies. The House of Orange has ruled the Netherlands since the late 16th century, first as so-called "stadtholders" presiding over the republic, and later as the royal house when the Netherlands became a monarchy. For most of that time, the Dutch ruled over vast colonies in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, including what are now Indonesia and Suriname — territories held, in significant part, through enslaved labour. Presenting the research, King Willem-Alexander acknowledged the weight of the findings. "We know the effects of colonialism and slavery are still being felt today. Discrimination and economic exploitation unfortunately happen every day," he said in a speech. The findings could stir up the debate around reparations in the Netherlands. In 2022, the Dutch government acknowledged that the Dutch state bore responsibility for transatlantic slavery, and apologised. King Willem-Alexander apologised for slavery in 2023. But the government ruled out reparations, creating instead a 200-million-euro fund for social initiatives — a sum anti-racism campaigners have dismissed as insufficient. The pattern is familiar across the former colonial world: solemn apologies, carefully worded expressions of regret, and an immovable wall where the question of restitution begins. A throne that stood on centuries of human bondage cannot balance its books with speeches. The study was commissioned by the King himself; the history it documents now belongs to the public, and the demand it revives — that empires built on chains must pay for what they stole — will not be settled by a fund dismissed by those it claims to serve.