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DH | Exhibition features Curaçao slave child at royal court

HomeMediaDH | Exhibition features Curaçao slave child at royal court
Exhibition features Curaçao slave child at royal court | Daily Herald

THE HAGUE–Historical Museum of The Hague will dedicate special attention to a Curaçao slave child who, together with a second male slave child from Guinea, served at the court of Stadtholder Willem V in the 1800s at the exhibition titled “African Servants at The Hague’s Court” which opens September 21.

In the 1760s, Curaçao-born Sideron and Cupido from Guinea were given as a present to Stadtholder Willem V as children in slavery by Dutch West India Company WIC that was involved in the slave trade from Africa. At that time, Willem V was still in his teens and not Stadtholder as yet.

The entrusting of African children to the care of a European ruler was not uncommon prior to 1800. Black people, often children, had been given as gifts to northern European rulers by their southern European counterparts from the first half of the fourteenth century.

Willem V, the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic before it became a monarchy, was sworn in as a member of the board of the WIC company in 1768, and was destined to become governor-in-chief of both WIC and East India Company VOC. Documents reveal that Sideron was born on Curaçao and came to Court in 1763, at the age of eight. Cupido is first mentioned in 1766.

The children slept above the stables, received instruction in skills such as dancing and were supposed to entertain Willem V For this they were paid a wage of 159 guilders a year. Around 1778, Cupido and Sideron were both promoted to the position of valet. It seems likely that they were constantly in the retinue of Willem V, the later Prince of Oranje-Nassau and father of Willem I, the first King of the Netherlands.

In 1795, when Willem V was forced to flee to England by the Patriots, he took his two black valets with him. Apparently he trusted them completely. Cupido departed for Oranienstein, Willem’s castle and estate near Dietz in Germany. Sideron remained with Willem in England until approximately 1802 when they both moved to the German estate.

Sideron and Cupido appear in various paintings beside Stadtholder Willem V (1748-1806) or his wife Wilhelmina of Prussia (1751-1820). Various of these paintings and drawings from the British Royal Collection, the Dutch National Museum Rijksmuseum and the State Service Cultural Heritage will be shown at the exhibition. The stories of these two young men will be told using these paintings and drawings, as well as various documents.

Through this exhibition, Historical Museum of The Hague wants to dedicate attention to royal court servants of African descent, often portrayed next to stadtholders, princes and princesses, and to focus on this generally unknown aspect of the shared Dutch history.

“The Dutch slavery past was often in the news in the last few years, but there was little attention for the presence of black people in the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th century. With this exhibition we want to highlight the shared Dutch history from a new perspective,” said museum Director Marco van Baalen.

Through the exhibition and the side-programmes, the museum wants to bridge a link with the current discussions on the slavery past and racism. The Curaçao-born artist Tirzo Martha will create a special piece for this exhibition in which he will show his personal interpretation of the story of Sideron and Cupido.

On November 23, the museum will host a public lecture with Martha and art historian Adi Martis from Aruba about the exhibition African Servants at the Court of The Hague. Sideron’s story will be discussed, but also the position of young Curaçaoleans in the Netherlands and in Curaçao, and the impact of history on this group.

On the occasion of the exhibition, guest curator Esther Schreuder will publish her book Cupido and Sideron. Two Moors at the Court of Orange. Art historian Schreuder did extensive research on Sideron and Cupido for several years.

Schreuder managed to trace the origins of Sideron and Cupido and in her book she describes in detail the lives of these children, and later as adults, at the royal court. On October 19, Schreuder will present her book to Dutch Caribbean Book Club.

In another side-programme hosted by the museum, Curaçao-born researcher and historian Valika Smeulders will give a lecture on January 7, 2018, about Sideron, his life, how he was looked at then and now. Smeulders will analyse the construction of identity and heritage of then and now. Her lecture will be followed by a heritage walk in The Hague.

Bron: Daily Herald

20 reacties

  1. This posting is not necessarily @Philippe Maaskant, since someone who suggests, in order to advance the discussion on race-relations, to adapt the wording, replacing ‘slave’ with ‘forced laborer’, cannot in any way be taken seriously. It is like this person I met at this party, who, based on religion, could not eat pork, indicated when a platter of finger-food with pork-items passed by. After eating a piece of sausage, “I just call it ‘cheese'”. The twisted explanation for educating young minds on the matter of race, says it all. But thank you @Maaskant, anyway for helping me conveying my point(s).

  2. @hoedanook,

    Children taken away to be slaves..
    Do you know what happened with children in Africa at that time? That is what I mean with “add context”
    Tell me what you know about it..

    You cannot judge an “attitude” on someone stating objective facts or asking questions.

    In my opinion it is a pity that black people keep repeating the slave history. I do not understand why they want to confirm and repeat the old master/slave history. So over and over again, white people have to explain their children why black people feel that way. “They were slaves, son” The kids had no idea that his black friends were different, but from that time on he feels sorry for them, as they were slaves in the past.
    You do not feel sorry for your peers, but mostly for the underdogs. That is how we continue to keep the race gap.

  3. @Maaskant
    No surprising answer. Sideron was taken away at a young age and given to a member of the board of the WIC company as an object, what an envious situation. Nevertheless, he majority of slaves were not that ‘lucky’.
    Why it matters: History , culture and religion help shape the way we see ourselves and the way we look at others. Typically, you would like to judge the matter “in the context of that time”, humans as objects to be traded (‘just as they trade everything’; your words!). And attitudes like yours, if supported by a majority, will not contribute to anything. No matter how many exhibitions of slave children are being held.
    We see such attitude displayed in, for example the presence of Dutch troops in Afghanistan, where these troops are aware but ‘look away’ at a practice called Bacha bāzī, basically the sexual exploitation of young boys by older men, in order to not upset the newly established order.
    Suggestion fact check Edmund Burke; “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

  4. @hoedanook,

    Question is: these black people working for William, did they receive a salary comparable with similar functions at the court? Where they allowed to leave and move back to Africa if they wanted? As far as I can see, the salary and conditions were not bad. I guess many other people in that time would like a job like that. Why can’t we stick to the facts and judge things in the context of that time? And yes, Dutch people joined the slave trade, just as they trade everything that is to be traded nowadays. It is a pity that the slave trade seems to be one of the few things Curaçao can talk about. Stop acting as victims. Be proud on something else.

  5. @Philippe Maaskant

    I absolutely understand your need for tangible items, like some text or database, where you find security by constantly checking that what you’ve been taught is correct. However (hoedanook), we live in a digital age that makes it possible to even fact-check from your mobile device. Robots, not humans, will do the work. Quite boring. So to satisfy that urge in you, I have to regretfully refer you to somewhere else (PS: it is now possible to plug large chunks of text into a search engine in order to find the source).
    What personally interest me with regard to this topic is if the accumulation of facts together with education and the benefits of being able to ‘look back’ (retrospect) and analyze, has led to new thinking. For example, Willem V, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, was a slave owner. I believe Washington set his slaves free after a process of maturation. However, Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the declaration of independence, a document that proved very useful until today in the struggles for civil rights, emancipation and combat against oppression. Washington and Jefferson fled oppression. What did Willem V do? Willem V, Prince of Oranje-Nassau and father of the first King of the Netherlands was forced to flee to England. As ‘stadhouder’ and later royalty, his life is well documented. Can we discern from all these documents some line of ‘development’ with regard to their view on oppression, or the exploitation of their fellow-man? Was having slaves nothing other than an entitlement to Willem V and later royalties?
    Maybe Tirzo Martha, Adi Martis, Esther Schreuder, Valika Smeulders and others can contribute to answering such questions, because it could help clarify policy by the Dutch during that period and beyond. Not some Dutch imitation of the movie ‘The Butler’.
    As stated before; “The more you know about the past, the more prepared you are for the future.”

  6. @hoedanook,

    So what about the WIC monopoly? I assume you admit a mistake in your text?
    And with regard to my earlier statements..It would be nice if you shared the context and the link to the text with our audience.

  7. @hoedanook,

    All of this (transatlantic slavery) could never ever happen thanks to the African empires themselves who gained their own wealth from slavery and later sold slaves to the white men!

  8. @mario1,

    If you like to talk about other slavery mention slavery in the Roman Empire. Slavery in Africa, Slavery by Arabians, Ottoman slavery etc.

  9. Comment from the person, @Philippe Maaskant, who suggested to, in stead of ‘slavery’ use (a less charged) the term like ‘forced labor’, was to be expected. Whatever (hoedanook) the urge may be, I believe in 1460 + something, the Portuguese founded the Colony Cabo Verde and received permission from the Crown in Seville, Spain, for slave trade. A bishop Chiapas (?) petitioned King Charles V about a century later, to replace the “indian slaves” with more ‘durable’ African slaves, which laid the foundation for the transatlantic slave trade.
    I also understand the urge from others to, next to whitewashing, try to minimize the role the Dutch played in this despicable period of history. However, from the middle of the 1500’s, England, Spain and the Dutch (Portuguese that moved to Holland) were the key perpetrators in the transatlantic slave trade. Sideron, a boy born on Curaçao, image in paintings from that period brings part of these relationships to light.

  10. @hoedanook.

    WIC had a monopoly on slave trade? Can you explain from who? As far as I know, many companies were involved from many countries. In Holland it was decided to regulate “the slave market”. In order to prevent competition between Dutch companies (of which the Middelburgse compagnie and not the WIC was the largest in slavetrading …) there was an agreement about the African coast and which company should go where.

  11. @Mario1
    Theodore Roosevelt wrote: “The more you know about the past, the more prepared you are for the future.” Of course this past must be relevant to one’s situation.
    After King Charles V allowed for significant up-scaling and wide-spread slave trade, the Dutch West India Company (WIC), who already held the monopoly on slave trade, decided to ‘reorganize’ and transfer the center of slave trade from Cabo Verde to Curaçao. WIC abandoned piracy and conquering wars to focus solely on slave trade.
    See also: Bart Jacobs, 2012, Origins of a Creole: The History of Papiamentu and its African Ties. The Gruyter. And,
    Martin us, Efraim Frank, 1996, The Kiss of a Slave: Papiamentu’s West African Connections. PhD Dissertation, Univ. of A’dam.

  12. hoedanook

    It definitely does not make me uncomfortable at all. I just mentioned that we ALSO have to keep the other side of Dutch occupation in mind, i.e. Indonesia.
    I certainly did not ask anyone to react with wikipedia facts.

  13. I was under the impression that the topic was; an exhibition titled “African Servants at The Hague’s Court”. Particularly the lives of Sideron and Cupido. I realize that this topic makes a lot of people uncomfortable and they would like to change the focus on for example Indonesia. To the extend that they keep repeating the same thing over and over again (Walk Free Foundation). May I suggest the singing of ” Wilhelmus van Nassouwe ben ik van duitsen bloed”….. Of course ‘uit volle borst’, over and over again. Hopefully it will take away the anxiety. Remember however, Sideron and Cupido also served Willemstad V in Germany….

  14. Slaves in Toraja society in Indonesia were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Torajan slaves were sold and shipped out to Java and Siam. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women—a crime punishable by death. Slavery was abolished in 1863 in all Dutch colonies. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha (Japanese: “manual laborer”) were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java, meaning that there was a death rate of 80%.

    Jakarta. As many as 714,000 people in Indonesia have fallen victim to modern slavery practices, a recent study suggests, making it the eighth-largest country in terms of number of people living in modern slavery.

    The Walk Free Foundation, a global human rights group dedicated to ending modern slavery, released its “2014 Global Slavery Index” on Thursday, which estimates the number of people in modern slavery in 167 countries.

    Indonesia ranked eighth with 0.28 percent of the country’s population considered slaves, namely children denied an education by being forced to work or marry early; men unable to leave their work because of crushing debts; and women and girls exploited as unpaid and abused domestic workers.
    Jakarta. As many as 714,000 people in Indonesia have fallen victim to modern slavery practices, a recent study suggests, making it the eighth-largest country in terms of number of people living in modern slavery.

    The Walk Free Foundation, a global human rights group dedicated to ending modern slavery, released its “2014 Global Slavery Index” on Thursday, which estimates the number of people in modern slavery in 167 countries.

    Indonesia ranked eighth with 0.28 percent of the country’s population considered slaves, namely children denied an education by being forced to work or marry early; men unable to leave their work because of crushing debts; and women and girls exploited as unpaid and abused domestic workers.
    Jakarta. As many as 714,000 people in Indonesia have fallen victim to modern slavery practices, a recent study suggests, making it the eighth-largest country in terms of number of people living in modern slavery.

    The Walk Free Foundation, a global human rights group dedicated to ending modern slavery, released its “2014 Global Slavery Index” on Thursday, which estimates the number of people in modern slavery in 167 countries.

    Indonesia ranked eighth with 0.28 percent of the country’s population considered slaves, namely children denied an education by being forced to work or marry early; men unable to leave their work because of crushing debts; and women and girls exploited as unpaid and abused domestic workers.
    Jakarta. As many as 714,000 people in Indonesia have fallen victim to modern slavery practices, a recent study suggests, making it the eighth-largest country in terms of number of people living in modern slavery.
    The Walk Free Foundation, a global human rights group dedicated to ending modern slavery, released its “2014 Global Slavery Index” on Thursday, which estimates the number of people in modern slavery in 167 countries.
    Indonesia ranked eighth with 0.28 percent of the country’s population considered slaves, namely children denied an education by being forced to work or marry early; men unable to leave their work because of crushing debts; and women and girls exploited as unpaid and abused domestic workers.

  15. Also not many people are aware of the fact that up to a million people were bought, sold and had to endure slavery in Indonedia.
    While slaves in the Americas mostly worked outdoors on plantations, those under the VOC were used in a wider variety of labor. Some were put to work on plantations, but many also worked in cities, burdened with tasks ranging from household work to construction and weapon production.
    The Netherlands has, to use a popular word, ‘een dikke laag boter op het hoofd’, and definitely should straighten out their history.
    A very interesting book by Reggie Baay, ‘Daar werd wat gruwelijks verricht: Slavernij in Nederlands-Indie’ is definitely a must-read.

  16. It seems only the ‘uplifting and glamorous’ side of Dutch slavery is presented? The self-serving side seems easily forgotten? This way some will profit again by presenting historical and artistic descriptions. ‘No man is good enough to be another’s master’(William Morris). Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous en dreadful (Picture quotes.com). Renée van Aller & John de Vries

  17. An exhibition titled “African Servants at The Hague’s Court”.
    After Obama and the movie ‘The Butler’ about African American Servants at the White House, we now have Trump and White supremacists sympathisants in the White House. Charlottesville and the Confederate past and monuments are now ‘center stage’. In The Netherlands, that was one of the main driving forces for slavery, a reckoning with this troubling past must also occur. Therefore, why not copy Trump (merchandising of the US Presidentcy)? Next to the exhibition, Esther Schreuder is merchandising her book on the lives of Sideron and Cupido. Attempts are being made to ‘balance’ this troubling past (read possible “white-washing”) by Martha, Martis and others.
    Will history ever do justice to the exploitation of Sideron and Cupido?

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