Qualla: Dutch Slave Coast https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/1/1/6/dutch-slave-coast-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Dutch Slave Coast https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast Dutch Slave Coast: Introduction https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast/ Photo credit N. Parr Sculp, Public domain. Writing in the 1690s, the Dutch merchant Willem Bosman described the slave market at Fida with chilling precision: "Markets of men are here kept in the same manner as those of beasts are with us." He was not horrified. He was reporting a business operation. The Dutch West India Company's trading posts along what Europeans called the Slave Coast -- stretching across the shores of present-day Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria -- existed for one primary purpose: to supply enslaved human beings to Dutch plantations in the Americas. From 1660 to 1760, these posts formed one link in a chain of suffering that reshaped four continents.

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Image: N. Parr Sculp | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/1/1/6/dutch-slave-coast-wp/s116-dutch-slave-coast-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Dutch Slave Coast: The Business of Human Beings https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast/ Photo credit Gerard van Keulen, Public domain. Dutch interest in the Slave Coast grew from colonial ambition in the Americas. After seizing northern Brazil from the Portuguese in the 1630s, the Dutch needed labor for sugar and tobacco plantations -- and they needed it in enormous quantities. The Dutch West India Company began...

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Image: Gerard van Keulen | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/1/1/6/dutch-slave-coast-wp/s116-dutch-slave-coast-the-business-of-human-beings.mp3 0:06 2 full Dutch Slave Coast: Entangled in African Politics https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast/ Photo credit Gerard van Keulen, Public domain. The Dutch did not operate in a vacuum. They were embedded in complex local power struggles that they exploited but could not control. The Company allied with the Aja king of Allada, whose authority extended over the coastal trade, and this alliance made the Dutch dependent on his...

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Image: Gerard van Keulen | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/1/1/6/dutch-slave-coast-wp/s116-dutch-slave-coast-entangled-in-african-politics.mp3 0:06 3 full Dutch Slave Coast: The Scale of Suffering https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast/ Photo credit Gerard van Keulen, Public domain. Historian Patrick Manning estimates that approximately 12 million enslaved people entered the Atlantic trade between the 16th and 19th centuries. About 1.5 million died during the Middle Passage -- the weeks-long ocean crossing in conditions of filth, starvation, and despair. An ...

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Image: Gerard van Keulen | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/1/1/6/dutch-slave-coast-wp/s116-dutch-slave-coast-the-scale-of-suffering.mp3 0:06 4 full Dutch Slave Coast: The Ledger That Cannot Be Closed https://qualla.com/dutch-slave-coast/ Photo credit Gerard van Keulen, Public domain. The Dutch Slave Coast left few physical traces. Unlike the stone fortresses at Elmina or Cape Coast, most of the trading posts along this stretch of coast were modest structures -- warehouses and holding areas built for commerce, not permanence. Fort Zeelandia at Jaquim was the e...

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Image: Gerard van Keulen | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/1/1/6/dutch-slave-coast-wp/s116-dutch-slave-coast-the-ledger-that-cannot-be-closed.mp3 0:06 5 full