Chapter Doopsgezinden en slavernij – Privé profijt en publiek protest I – Verkenningen

Abstract

In last year’s issue of Doopsgezinde Bijdragen 48 (2022), Ruud Lambour revealed a ‘shocking’ list of 173 names of Amsterdam Doopsgezind shareholders and other investors in the East India Company (VOC) and West India Company (WIC). These commercial enterprises, unique as they were and supported by the Dutch State, were responsible for an economic system of colonial oppression and slavery that generated tremendous wealth. The present article departs from Lambour’s findings and analyses a variety of social, religious, and cultural contexts that might explain how Doopsgezinden coped with the dehumanizing atrocities of slavery, also in comparison with the dominant privileged Dutch Reformed Church which legitimized this horrendous colonial system. Topics include for instance: the ethics of profit making, and of armed resistance; the remarkable number of female stakeholders; some of the homiletic connotations of slavery; and the curse of slavery in daily life, when Doopsgezind sailors were imprisoned by Muslim pirates, etc. Generally speaking, in their slavery-related attitudes the Dutch Doopsgezinden hardly deviated from mainstream (Dutch Reformed) culture. However, the orthodox Calvinist theology in favor of slavery, the so-called Curse of Cham (Gen. 9:22-27), widely embraced by plantation owners, was either ignored or rejected by Doopsgezinden. Also striking is their different, more tolerant view of Islam. It should not come as a surprise that, in the long run, enlightened Doopsgezinden manifested themselves as true abolitionist propagators, a topic which will be dealt with in the second article.