Dutch study says royal family made huge profits from colonialism
THE HAGUE: King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands said Friday he was personally affected by the “explicit” conclusions of a study that said the royal family reaped huge profits from colonialism and slavery. The five volume Leiden University study, that Willem-Alexander commissioned in 2022, concluded that for hundreds of years the ruling Orange family treated colonialism as a legitimate boon to…
Leiden University's five-volume study, commissioned by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands in 2022, has concluded that the royal family made vast profits from colonialism and slavery. The findings, described as "explicit and striking" by the 59-year-old king, revealed that the Dutch royal family profited to the tune of 500 million euros ($565 million) through their connections with the Dutch East India Company and the country's colonies.
The king accepted the study at the university, acknowledging his ancestors' lack of "counter-current leadership" during the colonial era. Slavery played a significant role in financing the Dutch "Golden Age" of the 16th and 17th centuries, as the Dutch empire extended over present-day Indonesia, Suriname, and several Caribbean islands.
King Willem-Alexander called the conclusion "painful and confronting," having apologized in 2023 for his ancestors' failure to address slavery. The head of the commission, historian Gert Oostindie, stated that the royal family provided "active and unscrupulous" support for the colonial system, though the family's influence on shaping colonial policy was limited, primarily serving to symbolically legitimize the Dutch colonial empire for the public.
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