3 . Mauritshuis . The Hague . Rainer Ebert , Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) port . Despite protests calling for its removal , city officials have remained staunch , arguing that it is better to retain and contextualise the monument , although little has been done to do so .
The contested history of the Dutch Golden Age is gradually and increasingly acknowledging that monuments and public spaces glorifying discoverers and merchants who made their fortunes on the back of enslaved people need to be re-examined and explored through a more nuanced lens . 4 The Mauritshuis , the museum in The Hague with the famous Vermeer painting of the Girl with the Pearl Earring , is named after its founder Johan Maurits , a 17 th -century merchant who accumulated his wealth thanks to plantations worked by enslaved people in Brazil . In 2017 , the removal of a bust of Maurits from the museum ’ s lobby sparked a national outcry and debate . Erik Odegard , a scholar at the International Institute for Social History in The Netherlands , studied the history of Maurits in Brazil and contends that “[ t ] he societal debate is centred around the question : was the Mauritshuis financed with
money that Johan Maurits earned with slavery ?” If so , “ how are we supposed to deal with that now ? My conclusion is that you have to look at it from different perspectives . Both sides of the debate have been presented much too simply .” 5 The Contested Histories case studies reveal that it is precisely the multi-perspective view that is so often absent in all the cases , regardless of legacy .
The process of memorialisation of the victims and the coming to terms with national slavery heritage in Europe has been a slow , sporadic and contentious process . There has been some progress in commemorating the victims of the slave trade , beginning in the first decade of the second millennium but not without contestations . In France , Act 2001-434 , also known as Taubira ’ s Law , came into effect in May 2001 , which recognises the trafficking of human beings and slavery as crimes against humanity . The law also specifies that the history of the slave trade be taught in schools , commemoration days be introduced , and a national committee – Comité national pour la
4
The Slave Voyages database estimates that The Netherlands brought 554,336 enslaved people to the Americas .
5
“ A broader look at Johan Maurits and his role in slavery ”, NOW ( Netherlands Research Council ), 3 November 2021 : https :// www . nwo . nl / en / cases / broader-look-johan-maurits-and-his-role-slavery
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Observing Memories Issue 6