Science Café
The human story behind colonialism and slavery brought to light.
These are exciting times for research into colonial slavery. For a long time, slavery was viewed primarily as an economic activity, as colonial archives described enslaved people mainly as property, commodities, and labor. That is now changing thanks to modern digitization techniques and the efforts of many volunteers who are making colonial archives searchable online on a large scale. This is good news for those searching for enslaved ancestors, as well as for the scientific community.
It is finally possible to connect all individual mentions of people in archives. This yields new stories and surprising insights into the history of slavery and colonialism. Insights that show that enslaved people were involved, active, and enterprising. They were not merely the helpless and defenseless people they have often been portrayed as until now.
Historian Dr. Coen van Galen of Radboud University in Nijmegen launched a campaign ten years ago to bring the slave registers of Suriname online. This resulted in the Historical Database of Suriname and the Caribbean (HDSC) project. This project seeks to make the human story behind colonialism and slavery visible. In his lecture, he shows what slavery meant for those who had to endure it and how colonialism and slavery had an impact as far away as Deventer. This period is no longer something from long ago and far away, but part of our shared history.
Live music will be provided by Dubio, and the moderator is Lineke Tak.
