Professor Oostindie, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to start by expressing my sincere gratitude to you, Professor Oostindie, the members of the research committee, and all the researchers for all the hard work you have done, and for the publications I have just been presented with.
Five large volumes, no less! You have certainly performed a thorough study. Extremely thorough.
When I initiated this project in 2022, I set several guiding principles:
- The study would have to be entirely – and I mean entirely – independent.
- It would have to be an in-depth, academic study. One that left no stone unturned.
- And the findings would need to be made available to the general public.
Why was this so important?
Because I firmly believe that it is crucial to know about the past in order to understand the present.
Only by honestly confronting the past – including all its divisions and suffering – can we establish a foundation of trust on which to build our common future.
We cannot move forward unless we acknowledge what happened in the past.
I feel that I have a responsibility to our society, and to the descendants of enslaved people, to provide clarity about the role that my family played in colonial history.
This comprehensive study, conducted by Leiden University, gives us that clarity. And for that I am very grateful to everyone involved.
Your findings are unvarnished, and they are incisive.
I have reflected previously on the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in our country’s colonial past and history of slavery. And on the clear omissions of stadholders and monarchs, who did nothing to address these injustices.
This study confirms the truth of that.
But you have also gone further.
You have shown that our stadholders and monarchs actively supported colonialism and slavery, and approved the suppression of resistance.
In doing so, they bore joint responsibility for maintaining the status quo.
This picture shifted from the time of my grandmother’s reign. Queen Juliana and Queen Beatrix developed a clear process of engagement with post-colonial communities. Your research confirms that too.
But for several hundred years before this, stadholders and monarchs supported the colonial system, including exploitation and violence.
In doing so, they reflected the times in which they lived. In that period, these were the dominant views, in both the Netherlands and Europe as a whole.
But that does not change the fact that there was a lack of ‘oppositional leadership’, which could perhaps have made a difference.
That is a distressing and challenging conclusion, and one that moves me deeply, even at three generations’ remove.
I know that there are many people watching right now who, even today, in 2026, are still feeling the effects of the history of slavery and still carrying the pain. And I feel a deep bond of empathy with them all.
I welcome the findings of your study. For me, the completion of your work is not an ending but an encouragement. I cannot change the past. But what I can do is contribute in the best way I can to the present and the future. That conviction is the common thread running through my life and my reign.
The decision to initiate this study is in keeping with that conviction. We must be aware of our own history in order to learn from it and move forward together.
We know that the consequences of colonialism and slavery continue to be felt in society today. Unfortunately, discrimination and economic exploitation are still daily occurrences, despite the guarantee of equal treatment laid down in article 1 of the Constitution.
For me, your study and its uncomfortable findings provide an extra stimulus to continue doing everything in my power to fulfil the undertaking I gave upon my investiture: to protect the freedom and rights of everyone in our Kingdom.
I will keep working, together with the Queen, to promote unity, healing and reconciliation.
The historical perspective that you have provided is invaluable in this regard. My sincere thanks, once again, for your in-depth study.