VI - Colonial Rotterdam:A Hotbed for Dutch Missionary Work, 1797-1977

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Colonial history is a history of violence and war, of exploitation and exclusion, and of racism and oppression. However, colonial history is also a history of humanism and idealism, of philanthropy and the search for knowledge, and of ethics. Religious, humanitarian and scientific institutions in Rotterdam sought – each in its own way – to make ‘ethical’ interventions in the colonies (including the abolition of slavery). At the same time, these institutions largely determined the information that circulated in the Netherlands about the colonies. They were part of what came to be termed the ‘ethical movement’ in colonial history, but they were also driven by an urge to advance their own interests. As Elsbeth Locher-Scholten argues in her classic study of ethical colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies, the ethical movement in this context was a “wolf in sheep's clothing” — an ethical approach as a new form of oppression and exploitation — that aimed at both development and control. With this in mind, this chapter will explore the ethical movement in Rotterdam's colonial history.

In the historiography, the ethical policy is usually deemed to have started around 1900 and have ended in the 1920s. However, numerous ethical initiatives in society predated the policy, and when the ethical policy stopped that did not mean that the wider ethical movement came to an end.

In the course of the nineteenth century, people in the Netherlands took an increasing interest in the fate of “the Javanese” in the East Indies and “the slave population” and “the free Negros” in Suriname. This meant that religious institutions were now not just there for the needy and outcasts of Rotterdam but also for the wretches and slaves of Java, Suriname and the Antilles. It was thought that Protestant and Catholic missions should encompass both the domestic situation — in Rotterdam itself — and the overseas colonies. Advances in physical and mental healthcare prompted humanitarian institutions (such as the Hospital for Maritime and Tropical Diseases/Port Hospital) to tackle tropical diseases such as malaria, leprosy and yaws. They did so not just to protect the Dutch who travelled to the colonies but also to treat and if possible cure local people suffering from these illnesses in the East Indies, Suriname and Antilles.