No Grounds for Freedom

Part 1: Nos ta Bai Hulanda  There is a children’s song in Papiamentu in which the Netherlands is made synonymous with the prospect of ‘a better life’. It goes like this:     https://vimeo.com/358802422   There are slightly different versions of the song. Sometimes the ribbon is green. Sometimes it’s white, but the destination is …

The Price of Freedom: Manumission and the Status of ‘Freed’ Slaves

“If I can say it. Let me. I think that Blacks in the Diaspora feel captive despite the patent freedom we experience, despite the fact that we are several hundred years away from the Door of No Return, despite the fact that the door does not exist.” — Dionne Brand One of the aims of …

Libertas est naturalis

Image in titel page of Corpus Iuris Civilis from 1560, Biblioteca Digitale Universitá di Bologna The foundations of the ruling that took place on the third of July of seventeen hundred thirty six in The Hague, regarding an appeal conducted by Maarten Hempel, the legal representative of Paulina Meyer, the widow of Jan Ellis, against …

First research meeting: Architecture | 19 of February at 13:00 | Het Nieuwe Instituut

Architecture | 19 February 2019 13:00 | Het Nieuwe Instituut  Photo: Sven Van Haezendonck Legal architecture—the courthouse and the courtroom—provides legal discourse to a proper space, and as such it is an essential factor for understanding the complexity of space. Legal architecture provides not only a structure, a space, an almost sanctified place for the …

Transcript of the ruling of the case against Claes by The High Court in The Hague on the 23 of June of 1736

  English translation (for Dutch scroll down)On the 23rd of June 1736, Report f20 of the claimant, pled before the council, Mr. de Grande Claes, where possible assisted in his need by Mr Hermanus Noortkerk, committed to him from 25 November 1735, for his appeal to the court of law of the city of Amsterdam, …

Saidiya Hartman on Freedom

“To believe, as I do, that the enslaved are our contemporaries is to understand that we share their aspirations and defeats, which isn’t to say that we are owed what they were due but rather to acknowledge that they accompany our every effort to fight against domination, to abolish the color line, and to imagine …

A Genealogy of Freedom

The first chapter of Hollands Aeloude Vryheid opens with an examination of the biblical origin of freedom. Van der Hoeven writes that “from the beginning of humanity, there is not known, the least subjection, much less slavery. The Freedom with which the first was created passed on to those born of him.” Van der Hoeven …

Ancient Freedom: The Batavian Myth

Emanuel van der Hoeven published his anti-Orangist Holland’s Ancient Freedom, without the Stadholderate in 1706, after the death of William III and during the second stadtholderless period. The book is a criticism of the office of stadholderate (the head of state of the Dutch Republic), which van der Hoeven considered a danger to the long-standing …

Allegory of the power of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands as a maritime power

The text underneath the engraving says, Neptune offre l’empire de la mer à la republique de Hollande. Elle est accompagnée de la religion et des deux compagnies d’orient et d’occident, sur le devant Mercure lui montre une carte des parties du monde ou elle étend son commerce. I have translated the text as follows, Neptune …

Ancient Freedom: A Hermesian Paradigm

Dedication to Willem de la Palma, director-general of the North and South coasts of Africa for the United Chartered West India Company. Headpiece in Hollands Aeloude Vryheid, buyten het Stadhouderschap by Emanuel van der Hoeven (Amsterdam, 1706). Copper engraving by Romeyn de Hooghe The headpiece that adorns the dedication page depicts the allegorical representation of …