On the day the Amsterdam Museum celebrated its centenary, the National Slavery Museum, just a few hundred metres away, was keeping its spirits up. The completion of its permanent building on Java Island had recently been postponed yet again by three years. A pity, but not unusual. The Amsterdam Museum began a hundred years ago in De Waag on the Nieuwmarkt with just a few exhibits, and has now been wandering around the city for a few years due to renovation work.
The Slavery Museum held the third edition of its “Building Bridges” conference at the H’Art Museum, which had also housed the Amsterdam Museum for a few years. This was because the Hermitage was no longer there. Because of Putin. Director John Leerdam was not about to give up: “We’re already open,” he explained, “and we’ll soon have a temporary venue.” And that could be in various places, such as the exhibition on coffee at the Fries Museum.
Thirty years
It is normal for a new museum not always to get off to a smooth start. For a slavery museum, it is particularly challenging. This was the message from guest of honour Michelle Charters, who devoted thirty years of her life to setting up the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. A few years ago, the museum was able to move into the third floor of the National Maritime Museum in Liverpool as a subtenant, but it is now set to move into its own building in the museum quarter in the old harbour. The opening is scheduled for 23 August 2029, and the architectural plans look magnificent.
The ten-odd years we have now been working towards establishing our own National Slavery Museum will therefore pass quite quickly, given that it took Liverpool more than thirty years to secure a permanent home for its own museum. Thirty years, during which it was also very important for Michelle Charters to keep the issue alive. She did this mainly by keeping the dialogue going and listening carefully.
At the same time, she had to take into account the constant tendency of the white community to just want to move on from that history of slavery. As is often the case with any painful history. She explained that setting up a museum is not simply a matter of housing a ready-made collection, but that new facts and insights are emerging every day.
The Dutch East Indies
The daily stream of new insights is also sparking fresh debate in the Netherlands. It is only through recent research that it has become clear that the Dutch in ‘The East’ behaved far more brutally than previously thought and maintained a system of slavery in Indonesia. It is now clear that a National Slavery Museum in the Netherlands cannot ignore that history, but it is a sensitive issue. The subject was briefly touched upon during the conference.
Another historical fact that is now coming to light is the role of women in the resistance against slavery. Peggy Brandon, chief curator of the Slavery Museum, delivered a passionate speech about the way in which white men have overlooked women in their accounts of history. Yet it was precisely the women who organised the resistance.
Rebellions on slave ships most often took place on vessels where more women were held captive, as they were more frequently brought above deck to be raped by the crew. As a result, the women knew their way around the ships better and were also aware of where the weapons were kept. This gave them plenty of extra reason to fight back against their tormentors.
To round off the evening, Izaline Calister sang a beautiful song about painters who only paint white angels. There’s a whole story behind it, too.
Attended: Building Bridges at the H’Art Museum. Information.
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