Private bank InsingerGilissen said on Monday it is launching an investigation into its role in slavery, in the form of a university doctoral research project.

Insinger & Co was one of the most successful and profitable companies involved in slavery and archived documents show it “played an active role in the Dutch slaving past, through trading colonial goods and investing in plantations”, the bank said in a statement.

“We regret the role that the Insinger & Co. firm played as a trading house in an economy that was then partly based on colonialism and slavery, and think it is important to have a clear picture of this part of history,” the bank said.

The bank is now working closely with the International Institute of Social History (IISG), a leading authority on research into the history of slavery. “The research carried out in recent years, including from the IISH, has shown how widespread the involvement of Dutch institutions and companies in slavery and the slave trade was,” the statement said.

Acceptance

The Netherlands has been slowly coming to terms with its role as a slaving nation and in July 2023, king Willem-Alexander formally apologised for the Dutch slave trading history.

In the run up to that event, the mayors of all four major cities apologised for their role in facilitating the slave trade, while the Dutch central bank (DNB) published a report detailing how it was founded with capital from colonial entrepreneurs and provided financial services to slave traders.

Amsterdam has also announced long-awaited plans to build a new waterfront museum to “tell the whole story” of the Dutch history of slavery, which should open in 2030.

Slavery was finally abolished in the former colonies of Suriname and the Dutch Antilles on July 1, 1863.

Slavery and the Netherlands: what you need to know

However, slaves in Suriname were only fully freed in 1873, since the law stipulated that there was to be a mandatory 10-year transition period. Owners were also paid compensation of 300 guilders for every enslaved person they released.

At its height in the 1770s, slavery generated over 10% of the gross domestic product of Holland, the richest of the seven Dutch provinces which made up the republic, according to social history researchers.

The income from the tobacco trade, sugar processing and shipbuilding was boosted by the use of slave labour used to grow crops on plantations, according to researchers at the IISG.

As a whole, slavery generated some 5.2% of the Netherlands’ GDP – just slightly less than the proportion generated by Rotterdam port today.