When slavery comes up, everyone thinks of Suriname and the Antilles but never of Indonesia. Why has the Dutch history of more than 260 years of slave trade in the Dutch East Indies been collectively forgotten? Exactly 155 years after the (official) abolition of slavery in the Dutch East Indies, Reggie Baay published Daar werd wat gruwelijks verricht (Something Terrible Happened There), a non-fiction book about the unknown history of slavery in the Dutch East Indies. Paul van der Gaag leads a conversation about forgetting, remembrance, and slavery in the "other former Dutch colony." In Dutch.

Share this page