The history of slavery is inextricably linked to the history of Zeeland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the province played a major and structural role in the transatlantic slave trade. Shipowners from Zeeland, especially in Middelburg and Vlissingen, equipped about 70% of all Dutch slave ships. In the eighteenth century, the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (MCC) was the largest private company involved in the trade in enslaved people. Under the Dutch flag, an estimated 600,000 Africans were enslaved and transported to the Americas – nearly 300,000 of them on ships from Zeeland.
Not only large trading companies, but also many individual citizens of Zeeland were directly or indirectly involved: as investors, crew members, suppliers, shipbuilders or clergy. Traces of this history can be found in nearly every town and village in Zeeland. Yet this aspect of the past remained underexposed for a long time. Only in recent decades has awareness grown that this is not a closed chapter, but a shared history that continues to affect social inequality, racism and representation.