6.4.3 The Road to Abolition: The Case of the Slave Virginie
As colonial legislation had made it nearly impossible for slaves to come to the fatherland with their masters in the nineteenth century, one is hard pressed to find evidence of any further presence of black slaves in the metropolis.
For the period 1828–1845, Maduro found only one instance of a slave travelling from the Antilles to the Netherlands. Few years later, one of the very scarce instances of black slaves travelling to the metropolis did make it to the highest echelons of the Dutch government.81In 1852, the Dutch Minister of the Colonies received a request from the governor-general ad interim of Surinam, Ph. De Kanter (1804–1852). The governor asked for advice and a decision regarding the case of the slave Virginie. Virginie had travelled with her master to the Netherlands few years before, and now claimed her freedom in the colonies on the basis of that visit.82 The slave’s master, Baron Raders (1794–1868), a one-time governor of Surinam himself, sent a letter opposing this.83 He staked his claim on the placaet of 1776 and the fact that he knew of several slaves who had gone to the motherland, but did not consider themselves to have been freed on the basis of that visit. All these arguments were contradicted by the procureur-generaal of Surinam. On the issue of the freedom principle, he simply referred to Art. 2 of the Dutch civil code to assert the lasting freedom of the slave, even upon return to the colonies. However, the Minister of the Colonies still doubted. He asked additional advice from a former judge of a Surinam court, consulted again with the procureur-generaal and even discussed the matter with the Minister of Justice. Only after all these persons confirmed the same, did he decide that Virginie was indeed free after having been on Dutch soil.84
Virginie’s case proves two things. Legally speaking, the Dutch freedom principle was clearly confirmed. This is not so surprising. The official abolition of slavery was near, and the only reason abolition took until 1863 was because a compensation scheme for slave owners had not yet been agreed on.85 At the same time, the examples of Raders show that Virginie was lucky, as she found out about the Dutch freedom principle one way or another. This lot was certainly not shared by the few companions who travelled, just like her, as slaves to the Netherlands, but did not know about the principle. In that sense, Dutch soil only became completely free once slavery itself was abolished in 1863.