6.4.1 The Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of Holland: Unclear Situation

The Dutch Republic did not escape the Revolutionary fervour of the end of the eighteenth century either. In 1795, with assistance from France, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed.

Abolitionist philosophy had also spread in the Netherlands during the second half of the eighteenth century. Although older historiography has tended to believe that abolitionism was never very important, more recent research has brought some new perspectives. For example, between 1755 and 1807, 144 publications related to slavery and the slave trade appeared in the Republic, with 131 of them being critical about slavery and/or the slave trade. Whilst there was still a difference with the situation in England, where abolitionism had become a mass social movement, the Dutch debate clearly was not that muted as has been thought before.⁷⁴

Arend Huussen has asked the question whether this abolitionist fervour actually resulted to anything when three drafts for a new constitution (to replace the 1579 Union of Utrecht as the “constitution” of the United Provinces) were drawn up: the 1796 Plan van Constitutie, the 1797 Ontwerp van Constitutie and the 1798 Staatsregeling voor het Bataafsche Volk. The results were sobering. Where some representatives initially still wanted slavery to be discussed, this soon broke down to requests to discuss the slave trade, but not slavery itself. And by the time the 1798 Staatsregeling was created, after the 1797 Ontwerp had failed to receive popular support, there was widespread agreement in the National Assembly to mention neither slavery nor the slave trade in the new Dutch constitution.

On a cursory note, one could ask whether the French law of 28 September 1791, France’s codification of the freedom principle, also became part of the Dutch laws during the period of the French annexation between 1810 and 1815. Whilst this transplantation of the French freedom principle happened in the Southern Netherlands, I have not found proof to establish the same for The Netherlands. Two decrees, one of 8 November 1810 and another of 6 January 1811, included long lists of French laws which were to be applied in the areas of the former Dutch Republic. The law of 28 September 1791 was not amongst them (and neither were the later decisions inspired on the Declaration of 1777).⁷⁶

Not much thus seems to have changed concerning the treatment which black slaves could expect whilst in the Netherlands. There were probably not many of them in the metropolis at this point, given that Surinam was taken over by British forces between 1799 and 1816. That being said, we simply lack cases to ascertain conclusively what would have happened to a slave claiming his freedom at this point.⁷⁷