Conference trans-Atlantic slavery

The conference is fully booked. Are you still interested to come? Please send an email to pr@hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl. You will then be placed on the waitlist, and you will receive an email if there is a spot free for you.

The conference focuses on recent scholarly research on the history of Atlantic slavery, and on the ways in which museums and educational institutions address this past. Those working on the histories of slavery, including students, researchers and museum professionals, are warmly invited to attend this conference. 

This conference will be held in English.  

9.30 - 10.00 – Coffee and tea, registration  

  
10.00 - 10.30 – Opening remarks  

• Word of welcome | Michael Huijser – Het Scheepvaartmuseum 

• ‘Addressing Atlantic slavery: scholarly research and public engagement’ | Suze Zijlstra – Het Scheepvaartmuseum  

10.30 - 12.00 – Panel 1: Slavery in academic research and public history  

Moderator: Jeroen van der Vliet – Het Scheepvaartmuseum

• ‘The Slavery in New Netherland and the Dutch Atlantic World Conference (May 2024): Conclusions and Future Directions’ | Deborah Hamer – New Netherland Institute  

• ‘The Connection between Heritage and Society: An Analysis of the Kòrsou/Curaçao Exhibition at the National Archives’ | Dyonna Benett – Visible Heritage, Connecting in Public and Museology 

• ‘Reflections on 'Our Colonial Inheritance' (from a curator's perspective)’ | Wendeline Flores – Wereldmuseum  

• ‘The responsibility that comes with replica ships. Slavery, the Dutch East India Company and the Amsterdam.' | Stefanie van Gemert – Het Scheepvaartmuseum 

12.00 - 13.00 - Lunch  

With poster presentations from students and early career researchers:

• Corporate Language and Ideology: The Role of Institutionalized Forms of Written Knowledge Production in the Reproduction of Dutch Trans-Atlantic Slavery | Michael Rowland 

• Medicine, treatment and ‘doctors’ aboard two MCC-slave ships | Camilla de Koning

• Effectiveness of Force: Police Punishment and the Enslaved Population’s Likelihood of Escape on Curaçao, 1857-1863 | Béla Boxman 

• A Dutch Free Womb law? | Ida Vos

• The Role of Guns and Gunpowder for the MCC Slave Trade | Philipp Huber 

• Guarding security, managing risks: West African bombas on Dutch slave ships | Matthias Lukkes 

• Stuyvesant as a lens on the transatlantic world – connecting science, art and activism | Thomas Dresscher & Sithabile Mlotshwa 

•  “As he is my servant and estate, as much as my ship is” African and Indigenous enslavement in a “Dutch” merchant house in Boston, Massachusetts 1716-1761 | Sander Rooijakkers 

• The significance of shipboard insurrections during the slave ship captaincies of Jan Menkenveld and his former officers: David Mulders, Daniel Pruijmelaar and Willem de Molder, 1754-1767 | Luc Meijboom 

13.00 - 14.30 – Panel 2: Slavery at sea  

Moderator: Dienke Hondius – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Supplying the plantations in the West. The Texel ‘Schervenwrak’ (1822) in a historical context.’ | Michiel Bartels – Archeologie West-Friesland.

• 'The Amsterdam Private Slave Trade at Sea. New Data and New Perspectives, 1730-1779'. | Jessica den Oudsten – Radboud University Nijmegen and Huygens Institute Amsterdam (research conducted with Ramona Negrón, Leiden University).

• ‘’I was their midwife’: Enslaved Women, Pregnancy, and Motherhood on Seventeenth-Century Slave Ships’. | Andrea Mosterman – University of New Orleans.

14.30 - 15.00 – Coffee break  

15.00 - 16.30 – Panel 3: Aspects of slavery  

Moderator: Jaap Jacobs – University of St Andrews

• ‘New Netherland's Vast American Diaspora: Echoes of a Colonial Legacy’ | Nicole Maskiell – Dartmouth College 

• ‘New Netherland and Indigenous Slavery in the Dutch Atlantic’ | Evan Haefeli – Texas A&M University  

• ‘Collaborative projects on recovering the history of slavery from colonial archives’ | Karwan Fatah-Black – KITLV-KNAW and Leiden University   

16.30 - 17.00 – Closing remarks  

• ‘Introducing the New Amsterdam scale model’. | Oscar Hefting – New Holland Foundation 

• ‘Dutch New York Histories. An ongoing conversation’. | Nancy Jouwe – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 

17.00 - 18.00 – Drinks  

Following the closing remarks, conference visitors will have the opportunity to see a scale model of Dutch New Amsterdam (New York) in the museum. This scale model of 3 by 4 meters is based on scholarly historical and archaeological information, including the well-known Castello plan of 1660, and is a project of the New Holland Foundation. The scale model will be on display until 23 June.  

Following the day’s conference, the John Adams Institute and Het Scheepvaartmuseum will host a public evening program. The keynote of this evening will be given by Tiya Miles, Harvard historian and author of the critically acclaimed book All That She Carried. Miles’ work explores the intersections of African American, Native American and women’s histories in the context of place. More information on the evening program is to be found here. Please note that tickets for the evening program have to be purchased separately here.