It might be the biggest paradox of the Dutch Republic: while the latter established itself through resistance against political slavery and domination by a foreign power, it itself soon grew into a colonial power that promoted slavery across its borders. This project aims to improve our understanding of that paradox.

State and Slavery explores the state of knowledge about the Dutch slavery past. How has this past been presented, evaluated, and examined thus far? And why are some aspects of the slavery past better known than others?

In 2021, Dutch parliamentarian Don Ceder filed a motion asking for an independent national investigation into the slavery past. The research for the subsequent book State and Slavery was carried out by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV)  in Leiden; the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam; the University of Curaçao, and the The National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy (NiNsee) in Amsterdam.