Footnotes

Hondius (2008), pp. 91–93; Oostindie and Maduro (1986), pp. 143–144. As mentioned before, I will normally use the term “black” to refer to Africans coming to the United Provinces.

Schorsch (2004), p. 94.

Ponte (2019).

Hondius (2008), pp. 95–97.

Schreuder (2017), pp. 26–27.

Fatah-Black and van Rossum (2014), pp. 65–69.

The obvious disadvantage here is that only those blacks which were declared for are counted, with the real numbers probably being quite a bit higher.

Oostindie and Maduro (1986), pp. 6–9; Buve (1963), pp. 10–11.

Jordaan (2012), pp. 115–117; Oostindie and Maduro (1986), p. 137.

Fatah-Black and van Rossum (2014), pp. 65–69.

Hondius (2011), pp. 384–385; Fatah-Black and van Rossum (2014), pp. 65–69.

In general, see Blakely (1993), pp. 227–228; Oostindie and Maduro (1986), pp. 6–9. More specifically for Zeeland, see Priester (1987), pp. 15–21.

Oostindie (2005), pp. 137–139. Barring better statistics, it is somewhat difficult to compare with France and England. The population of the United Provinces was approximately 2 million in 1784. The city of Amsterdam was home to about 200.000 people at the end of the eighteenth century. If we take into consideration that only 87 slaves came to The Netherlands between 1729 and 1749 and 569 between 1749 and 1781 (with the great majority of them returning), the black population does indeed seem small in comparison with England (with its population of approximately 9 million by the middle of the eighteenth century). The difference with France, which had a population of about 20 million at that point, seems less stark.

Oostindie and Maduro (1986), pp. 6–9.

Blakely (1993), p. 230.

Fatah-Black and van Rossum (2014), p. 61.

The terminology of these acts could differ. Most often, the laws of the States General were called placaeten, but the terms resolutie or ordonnantie (the latter mostly for decisions of the particular States) were used as well. Gerbenzon and Algra (1972), pp. 119–122.

Voet (1707), Liber I, Tit.

The case is discussed by Hondius (2011), p. 381.

This case can be found in Oostindie and Maduro (1986), p. 155; Israel (1995), p. 368.

Schoeman (2012), pp. 1017–1018.

Buve (1963), p. 12.

Oostindie and Maduro (1986), p. 7.

Schorsch (2004), p. 95; Beyerman (1977), pp. 566–568.

Hondius (2011), p. 380.

Oostindie and Maduro (1986), p. 144.

De Jong (1971), pp. 431–432. Classes were gatherings of preachers. Within the structure of the Dutch Reformed Church, they stood below general synods and provincial synods, but above the church councils. Israel (1995), pp. 367–368. Until 1772, the Dutch Reformed Church in the colonies was subject to the jurisdiction of the Classis of Amsterdam.

Jordaan (2012), pp. 109–110.

Sirks (2012).

The real name of the slave can be found in van der Linden (1793), Liber I, Tit. V—De Statu Hominum. As Bynkershoek’s observations were only published in the twentieth century, and the case was not referred to by Bynkershoek in his Quaestiones juris privati, van der Linden, who lived between 1756 and 1835, must have heard of it by another scholar or outside source.

van Bynkershoek (1926), IV, 2966. I have made use of the 1926 translation by Eduard Maurits Meijers. On the case, also see van Kralingen (2014); Van Oosten (1962).

Rapport op de Missive van Gouverneur en Raaden van Suriname, concerneerende de vryheid der Slaaven die in het Vaderland zyn geweest, 19 juli 1775, 4.

Ibid., pp. 15–30. This document seems to have slipped through the mazes of the net of most Dutch historians and legal historians, as I have only found it discussed in short in Jordaan (2012), pp. 87–93. Jordaan mostly limits his explanation to this document and the Placaet itself. Priester learned of the Nepveu document by consulting sources from the province of Zeeland, more in particular the Verzameling Van de Perre-Schorer, 1641–1795 (Van de Perre being the representative of the nobility of Zeeland in the province’s assembly as well as in the States General). By focusing on Zeeland, Priester missed some of the documents that emanated from Holland (though Van de Perre did take note of some of them). As such, he could not see what I believe is pivotal to understand the background of the placaet, namely the fact that the placaet seems to have been almost completely pushed through by Holland, without much independent input from the States General. The documents made reference to in this chapter are from the States of Holland and of the States General.

For background on the Dutch West Indies plantations and the crisis of 1773, see Van de Voort (1973), pp. 153–196.

As these were decisions given in particular cases, we cannot find them referred to in the Placaetboeken.

See NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 1437 and NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 2800. I will refer to both the eerste minuten (the former reference) and the geresumeerde minuten (the latter reference) for each of the archival documents discussed. The difference between the two is that the eerste minuten show what was written down at the meeting itself. After the meeting, the responsible clerk would then re-write and expand upon the eerste minuten, if needed, to make the geresumeerde minuten.

Ibid. The source mentions that the lawyers gave their advice on 30 July 1771. Unfortunately, this advice was not to be found in the eerste or geresumeerde minuten of the meetings of that month.

Buve mentions a 1772 resolution of the States General, which declared that a slave and her daughter who had travelled to Amsterdam were declared free. This has since been restated by many scholars. I have not been able to verify Buve’s source (to be found in a local Suriname archive). I am tempted to believe that Buve’s source might have made a small mistake and was actually referring to the 1771 resolution of the States General mentioned here. Given the similarities between this case and Buve’s source, it seems reasonable to imply that we are dealing with one and the same decision, which was made in 1771, not 1772. Buve (1963), p. 15.

The key phrase reads “als met kennis en bewilliging van haaren heer en Eygenaert Wigbolt Crommelin hier te lande gekomen zijnde, en daar door haare vrijheijd dadelijk en wettiglijk verkreegen hebbende, geene brieven van vrijdom uyt haare slavernije nodig hebben, en dat gen[oemnde] twee personen dienvolgende in Suriname retournerende als vrijgelaten personen sullen worden geconsidereert”.

Israel (1995), pp. 291–297.

The Gecommiteerde Raden were standing committees of the particular States. They supervised the routine administration of each province and helped to develop the particular States into genuine provincial governments. Ibid., pp. 276–284.

Rapport op de Missive van Gouverneur en Raaden van Suriname, concerneerende de vryheid der Slaaven die in het Vaderland zyn geweest, 19 juli 1775, 1–3.

Ibid., pp. 3–5

Ibid., 6.

Van de Voort (1973), p. 103.

Resolutien van de Heeren Staaten van Holland en Westvriesland in haar Edele Groot Mogende Vergadering genomen in den jaare 1776, Eerste deel, 70–76. There were some small changes made in Art. 5, Art. 6 and Art. 7.

Technically speaking, the Union of Utrecht certainly did not consider that an issue such as this belonged to the competence of the States General, but if all Provinces agreed, basically any matter could be tabled there. Israel (1995), pp. 291–297; Fruin and Colenbrander (1922), p. 188.

NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 1498 (eerste minuten), NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 2861 (geresumeerde minuten).

The original remark reads “dat de zaak ter Generaliteit daar heenen zal worden gedirigeerd”, the translation is my own.

Schoeman confirms that there was no official notice given to the Cape Colony by the Heeren XVII about this placaet, see Schoeman (2012), p. 1020.

The original remark reads “De Heeren Gedeputeerden van de Provincie van Zeeland hebben verklaart hierop vooralsnog ongelast te zijn”; the translation is my own.

The Placaet can be found in the Groot placaet-boeck, vervattende de placaten, ordonnantien ende edicten van de […] Staten Generael der Vereenighde Nederlanden, ende vande […] Staten van Hollandt en West-Vrieslandt, mitsgaders vande […] Staten van Zeelandt […] Vol. 9, pp. 526–526. Art. 1 and 3 Placaet of 1776.

Art. 2 placaet of 1776.

Art. 4–6 placaet of 1776. It is interesting that, just like the French Declaration of 1738, a time limit was imposed on the slave’s visit to the metropolis. Bosschaert did not refer to the situation in France, so this could be coincidental.

Art. 7, placaet of 1776.

The content of the placaet was known in Curaçao as well, as Hondius reports that several cases in Curaçao courts referred to it between 1776 and 1852. Hondius (2011), pp. 385–386. For the Suriname publication on 1 September 1776, see de Smidt and van der Lee (1973), pp. 897–898.

For the period 1524–1791, the Resolutiën van Holland have been digitized. One starts finding references to slaves starting from the 1653–1668 index. However, all of these references, except the index for the period 1771–1780, only refer to either citizens from the Republic who have been enslaved in North Africa, or issues involving colonial slavery. It is only in this 10 year period that we find some references to slaves who have visited the Republic, and even then, all of them are clustered in the period between Jan Nepveu’s request and 1777. After that case, there are no more references to be found.

In contrast to the previous cases, we know very little about this man, though Van de Voort found his name amongst records of debtors in 1757. Van de Voort (1973), p. 285.

For the case at the States of Holland level, see Resolutien van de Heeren Staaten van Holland en Westvriesland in haar Edele Groot Mogende Vergadering genomen in den jaare 1776, Tweede deel, 1286–1287

NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 1498 (eerste minuten), NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 2861 (geresumeerde minuten).

NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 1501 (eerste minuten), NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 2864 (geresumeerde minuten).

On this office, see Israel (1995), pp. 454–455.

NL-HaNA, Raadpensionaris Van Bleiswijk, 3.01.25, inv.nr. 342.

Resolutien van de Heeren Staaten van Holland en Westvriesland in haar Edele Groot Mogende Vergadering genomen in den jaare 1777, Eerste deel, 111–112.

Ibid., pp. 328–332.

NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 1505 (eerste minuten), NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv.nr 2868 (geresumeerde minuten)

Resolutien van de Heeren Staaten van Holland en Westvriesland in haar Edele Groot Mogende Vergadering genomen in den jaare 1777, Eerste deel, 776–777.

van der Linden (1793), Liber I, Tit. V—De statu hominum; Gane (1955)., Book I, Tit. 5, Sect. 3. I have made use of Gane’s 1955 translation of Voet’s work. Another author who has discussed the Placaet of 1776 is H.J. Arntzenius (1734–1797), a professor of Roman law at Utrecht University. Arntzenius (1783), Tit. VIII.

It is likely that there were other cases, but municipal archives need to be researched more thoroughly on this issue to convey a fuller image of the Dutch freedom principle.

The translation is my own. The original reads “Dunkt Freher, dat zij egter natuurlijk vrij is, als hebbende hier te lande veel langer als een jaar en zes weeken gewoond alvoorens de laatste Resolutie van H.H.M. aangaande de slaaven der colonien; En voor die laatste Resolutie was een jaar en zes weeken hier te lande ongestoord woonende genoeg om altijd van alle slavernij bevrijd te blijven”. The document can be found at Vrije neegerin Caatje - Amsterdam en Slavernij. In: Stadsarchief Amsterdam. http://​www.​amsterdam-slavernij.​nl/​item/​vrije-neegerin-caatje/​. Accessed 22 September 2018. There are small mistakes in the transcription provided there, as the “alvoorens” is translated by “zoals” instead of “before”.

Mok (2017)

Schoeman (2012), pp. 1020–1023.

Gerbenzon and Algra (1972), pp. 169–174.

Huussen (1999); Drescher (1994); Jansz (2005).

Huussen (1999).

Kunst (1967), p. 108. For the French laws that were applied in the Netherlands, see the three volume series Verzameling van wetten, besluiten en andere regtsbronnen van Franschen oorsprong in zooverre deze, ook sedert de invoering der nieuwe wetgeving, in Nederland van toepassing zijn (ed. C.J. Fortuijn). On this period in Dutch legal history, generally see Berkvens et al. (2012).

Interestingly, in his 1806 Regtsgeleerd practicaal en Koopmansboek, Johannes van der Linden proclaimed a broad vision of the freedom principle. According to this work, every slave became free upon arrival in the metropolis, besides for runaways. This could prove that the 1776 Placaet was indeed considered defunct, or it might have been the case that van der Linden simply added less nuance to this work in comparison with his abridgements to the Commentarii ad pandectas. van der Linden (1806), 10.

Gerbenzon and Algra (1972), pp. 224–226.

The translation is my own. Art. 2, second part Dutch Civil Code of 1838 (“Slavernij en alle andere persoonlijke dienstbaarheden, van welken aard of onder welke benaming ook bekend, worden in het rijk niet geduld”)

Den Tex and Van Hall (1840), p. 1840.

The account of the case is taken from Oostindie and Maduro (1986), pp. 157–164.

Ibid. The letter of De Kanter, which includes the main legal arguments of the parties, is reprinted on page 160.

Rather ironically, this same Baron Raders was also part of a Dutch state commission that was brought into live in 1853 by the Dutch king William III in order to make proposals on the abolition of slavery across the Dutch colonial possessions. Priester (1987), p. 156.

Ibid.

Jansz (2005), pp. 508–511.

Huyghebaert (1981), p. 175; Drescher (2009), p. 146.

Huyghebaert (1981).

One example of this is a painting of the governess Maria Elisabeth of Austria. The painting, by the hand of the Dutch artist Leonard Schenk, shows her during her Blijde Intrede (Joyous Entry) in Brussels. Here, we see her being accompanied by two young, black boys who are holding her train. Given the case discussed below and Maria Elisabeth’s involvement in the proclamation of the freedom principle, we could gauge that the boys were probably once given to her but were not to be considered as slaves anymore. The painting is reprinted in Schreuder (2017), p. 29.

On de Ghewiet and de Sohet, see Gilissen (1981), p. 361. For the importance of legal writing in the Southern Netherlands during the eighteenth century, see Van den Broeck (1990).

de Ghewiet (1736)., Partie prémiére, Tit. II, XXXV. As said before, de Ghewiet’s reference to an 1132 (actually 1232) ordonnance is incorrect. de Ghewiet cited Gudelinus, Christinaeus, Knobbaert and the customs of Antwerp in favour of the freedom principle.

Sohet (1770), Livre I, Tit. LXX. Sohet referred to Voet.

The only person who seems to have noted this case is Ernest Nys. Nys (1890), pp. 144–146.

Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas autrichiens. 3ième série, IV, 503–505. The Geheime Raad was one of the three councils established in 1531 to assist the ruling monarch/governor of the (then still united) XVII Provinces in his tasks of government (the others being the Raad van State and the Raad van Financiën). The Geheime Raad was composed of jurists who mainly helped with the administration of justice and police in this region. See Coppens et al. (1994), pp. 295–324.

On Mornac and Automne, see Arabeyre (2007), pp. 26–27, 580. André Du Chesne was a famous historian and geographer. There were several Bouchets in the sixteenth and seventeenth century (historians, poets, and even a councillor in the Parlement of Paris), but the name does not feature in the Dictionnaire historique des jurists français. The reference to one Carolus is even more obscure. This author wrote a work called de Grassaliis Regalium Franciae libri duo in 1538. The work does not seem to have been preserved, nor do we know anything more about its author (unfortunately so, because if the reference is correct, this would have been a very early pronouncement of the French freedom principle).

Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas autrichiens. 3ième série, IV, 503–505

Ibid.

Gilissen (1981), pp. 403–404.

For more on the Code Merlin, see Heirbaut (2011), pp. 13–31; Coppens (1997).

Recueil de lois et règlemens pour les neuf départemens réunies par la loi du 9 Vendémiaire, an IV, Tome premier (Paris: Impremerie de la République, 1797), 440. To be fully correct, it is unknown to me if any enslaved persons might have entered the Southern Netherlands after Napoléon reinstated colonial slavery and resuscitated the police des noirs.