Sorry Picard,
Yes they did. Edit: In America I meant. We were the first in the business, we were also the last to quit. Read about Surinam and slavery for more info. It was mainly traders from Zeeland who were slavers, just like most of our sea warheroes are from Zeeland.
How can you say nobody was murdered on Manhatten during Dutch rule? The Dutch eliminated the Natives for several reasons:
1) the Dutch traders found out the Natives (with whom they did business) were just 'middlemen,' so taking them out was in the interest of business
2) as mentioned in my earlier post, a quick genocide was not beneath the Dutch. They did the same in the East Indies (now Indonesia) when they slaughtered thousands of Chinese people (not in the Dutch history books of course but I learned this from my parents);
Also, do you know how many Indonesian civilians were killed by Dutch forces during the so-called "Politionele Acties" in the late 40s? I never read how many in my history book. Goes to show that it's not just the Japanese who leave parts of their recent history out of the school books. It is estimated that a hundred thousand or more Indonesians were killed in this colonial war. If you do some searching on the internet, you will find the "Politionele Acties" are pretty much the Dutch own Vietnam War (avant l? lettre).
You see, we Dutch are no better than America is now, but at least we don't have that much influence in the world anymore. Meaning no innocent people die because our military thinks it's time for another colonial war for the Dutch shareholders of Koninklijke Olie.
|