Colonialism and slavery
The colonial and slavery past is an important theme in education and research at Leiden University. Particular attention is also paid to structural abuses that arose from this history and that often still persist in the present day.
Leiden University holds extensive knowledge and expertise in these fields. Leiden researchers study the impact of the colonial and slavery past on identity, society, the economy and the state. They conduct their research using local sources, specifically in colonial and post-colonial Africa, the Caribbean region and South and Southeast Asia.
The University also acknowledges that, as an educational and research institution, it has an important role and responsibility in promoting knowledge and understanding of this history. We therefore look critically at our own role in that past, as well as at the repercussions within our present-day academic community.
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Historian Karwan Fatah-Black: ‘There are people alive today whose great-grandparents lived in slavery. That history lives on in very many places.’ -
University president Annetje Ottow: ‘Leiden University needs to acquire a better understanding of its role in the colonial and slavery past.’ -
Historian Alicia Schrikker: ‘Hidden stories bring into view uncomfortable histories of colonialism, where good and evil are sometimes intertwined.’ -
Historian Gert Oostindie: ‘As university community, we need to have the courage to look critically at ourselves and take concrete steps.’ -
Literary historian Rick Honings: ‘Ethical politics cannot disguise the fact that the Dutch East Indies were forcibly colonised, oppressed and plundered.’ -
Lawyer Evelien Campfens: ‘Only in very rare instances looted art is returned to the country of origin. Thanks to new laws changes seem to be on the horizon.’ -
Asia expert Nira Wickramasinghe: '‘Slavery is one but not the only destructive outcome of Dutch colonialism in the Indian Ocean world’'
