Talk:Dutch colonial empire

Dutch Guiana.
I recently made an edit to this article. It was in the "introduction" or "preface", the fourth paragraph, the second sentence. The sentence reads: Nevertheless, major portions of the empire survived until the advent of global decolonization following World War II, namely the East Indies and Dutch Guiana. I changed 'Dutch Guiana' to 'Suriname', because the only colony in the Guianas, possessed by the Dutch after World War II was Suriname. I'd also like to point out that Dutch Guiana as a colony or country has never existed. Surinam has always been officially known as such or as Suriname, in both Dutch and English, the colony was often unofficially and semi-officially referred to as Dutch Guiana in the 19th and 20th century, in an analogy to British Guiana and French Guiana.

However, this change was reverted by user Davidelit. I'd thought of bringing this up here, because Dutch Guiana never existed and the right name for the colony they possessed at the time is Suriname.

Even in Dutch documentaries from that time you can see it was 'Suriname': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBWImyKJk4&t=30s&ab_channel=WanKowruWinti

In old maps too: https://inter-antiquariaat.nl/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/06/SurinameLavauxDeLeth1-1-640x438.jpg (see upper right corner) https://content.wdl.org/11334/thumbnail/1404324078/616x510.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/03/d7/9503d753126e33ff52e3f05a84659cba.jpg

Title
I think the name should be just Dutch colonial empire, without capitals, just like French colonial empire (as opposed to First French Empire and Second French Empire in Europe). This is a fundamentally colonial topic, as the infobox and categories show. Dutch historiography prefers Nederlandse koloniale rijk, Dutch colonial empire, and doesn't use "Dutch Empire" (Nederlandse Rijk), and only Nederlandse rijk as a shorthand for Nederlandse koloniale rijk. "Dutch Empire" (Nederlandsche Rijk) was never an officially used title, the "home country" was the Dutch Republic (or "Republic of the Seven United Netherlands", as it is clumsily known in modern Dutch historiography). Moreover, WIC and especially the VOC holdings were not directly subject to the state, as the VOC operated as a quasi-state-in-a-state, with authority such as a monopoly on violence including the right to wage war, set up fortresses, appoint governors, a monopoly on trade including the right to conclude trade agreements etc. without approval from the States-General or the Stadtholder or anything. The name "Dutch Empire" capital E suggests a much larger formal and factual state control over VOC and WIC activities and colonial possessions than was factually the case, even though the Dutch state, the Republic, was ultimately responsible and accountable for lots of things (including committing colonial atrocities) the VOC and WIC did. I also see in English-language literature that "Dutch empire" is often written with a lowercase e, even though a capital E is also common. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:02, 8 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I concur. This aligns with the precedent set by the French example, as well as the German colonial empire, and even more so with the Belgian colonial empire (where there is no distinction between overseas and non-overseas empires, unlike in the French and German cases). Nagsb (talk) 10:45, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 22 April 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – Material  Works  14:27, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Dutch Empire → Dutch colonial empire – see topic directly above. It better reflects historiography's preference and avoids suggesting greater formal and factual state control over the Dutch West India Company (WIC) and Dutch East India Company (VOC) than was actually the case. The VOC and WIC were quasi-state-in-a-state organizations, and the Dutch Republic was ultimately responsible and accountable for their actions. "Dutch empire" is often written with a lowercase e in English-language literature. See the examples of the French, German, and Belgian colonial empires. "British Empire" is a well-established exception that confirms the rule. Nagsb (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Support: For consistency & precision Furius (talk) 23:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Support: A colonial empire is a very specific type of empire and for the sake of precision the title should reflect that. That the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal (and Italy for that matter) never ruled over any other empire than a colonial empire is no reason not to include the word colonial in the title. It is a fact that "British Empire" is a well-established exception.--Lubiesque (talk) 16:24, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Weak Support. Support in principle. Although I am wondering  Walrasiad (talk) 23:41, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Strong support per my own rationale given above. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

No mention of Dutch ship-building dominance
I find it strange that the article makes no mention of the Dutch dominance of North European ship-building in the 16th and 17th century. Many ships built in their yards were for customers in other countries. The Dutch not only invented new types of ship, such as the fluyt, but they also introduced new technology, such as the windmill driven sawmill. They could produce ships at much lower cost (the sawmill being one reason for big savings).

Clearly, the Dutch colonies relied on long-distance maritime transport. You can't do that without ships – and you may well need customised designs to meet the requirements of lengthy voyages.

Is none of this covered in sources used by the article? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:42, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

should the apologies for the colonial past be mentioned in the history?
should the apologies for the colonial past be mentioned in the history?

see: nl:Nederlandse excuses voor het koloniale verleden Bart Terpstra (talk) 01:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Declined, fall, or rebranded?
I have noticed that around this december, the infobox and the sub section states that the Dutch Empire ends in 1975? for what reason? does the independence of Suriname as republic suddenly changed the empire status while Antilles was still around having the same status as suriname when it was a constituent country of the Netherlands? it doesn't make any sense. I have searched a keyword for the dutch empire lifespan, indeed most of them says it ends in 1975, but most of them don't even recount the event of the Kingdom charter which happened in 1954, the charter established equal status for the remaining colonies of the Netherlands, and of course New Guinea was an exception, it was still a colony around the same time. So when does it really ends? when suriname gained independence and became republic, no significant change happened to the kingdom status except its losing a territory. In 1986 Aruba gained status aparte and seceede from the Netherlands Antilles, and 24 years later the Netherlands Antilles dissolved, Curacao and Sint Maarten gained the same status as Aruba, while the BES became Netherlands muncipality, it was the last significant changes in the entire Empire's history.

If anyone would assume that the Dutch empire ended in 1975, please state your opinion here before we're reaching a concensus here's what you might wanna see as references:   Mhatopzz (talk) 08:30, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Not everything needs a citation
I just removed all the "citation needed" tags you placed here one year ago. WP:V says any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by inline citations. I don't see how the fact hat FD Roosevelt was the only US president to serve more than two terms or that Belgium won its independence in consequence of the 1830 revolution are likely to be challenged. Moreover, I checked some of the claims at random and saw that they are supported by the linked articles. Finally, the lead section should summarize the article, so that - in a good article - it shouldn't have any inline citations at all. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Rsk6400 Hi. Let's go through each point.
 * This is not a good article, it has lots of issues with it, and my tags are part of highlighting those issues to readers and editors as a caution for using and further improving it.
 * The lead section claim The Dutch were among the earliest empire-builders of Europe, following Spain and Portugal and one of the wealthiest nations of that time. is non-trivial, and it appears that it is not addressed anywhere else in the article either. What is meant by "empire", "earliest", "wealthiest", "nations" etc.? E.g. the Roman Empire was a lot "earlier". Without further explanation or sourcing, this is a very arbitrary assertion that is inappropriate, especially in the lead section that should summarise the main body, where this claim is not further addressed.
 * About Belgian independence, the passage says: The union lasted just 15 years. In 1830, a revolution in the southern half of the country led to the de facto independence of the new state of Belgium. Any claim with de facto in it but without a source is almost certainly WP:POV, because it will by definition not be supported by official documents. Anyone can claim anything was de facto the case (especially that "so-and-so was the de facto ruler of country X" is a notoriously challengeable claim), but Wikipedia requires WP:V. de jure Belgium did not achieve independence until Treaty of London (1839), so legally speaking the union lasted 24 years, which is quite a lot longer than 15 years.
 * The Roosevelt sentence is not about whether FDR served more than two terms; it is about the entire sentence claiming that Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were of Dutch descent. Only the Martin Van Buren article claims this explicitly with RS to back it up. The Franklin D. Roosevelt article never does, and he is not even categorised as such; Theodore Roosevelt is categorised as "American people of Dutch descent", but it's not mentioned let alone supported anywhere in the article. More importantly, even if we find sources for the claim (which I find likely, because it's a Dutch surname), is there any reason to claim that their existence is a direct legacy of the Dutch colonial empire? I just checked, and it seems that indeed the Roosevelt family came to North America between 1638 and 1649, and Abraham Van Buren's ancestor Cornelis Maessen in 1631, as Dutch colonists when the New Netherland colony existed, and not from post-1674 migration (which includes a lot of other Dutch-American families whose descendants are not a direct legacy of Dutch colonialism). This link needs to be established by RS in order for the whole sentence to have any added value, otherwise it's an irrelevant random fact.
 * In summary: of all the examples you've given, I had a good reason to demand a citation. I placed the tags on 16 April 2023, not "placed on April fool's day"; you could have easily checked that in the edit history. If you don't like the tags, you should provide the citations that are asked for, or remove the claims if they cannot be supported by citations instead of removing the tags. Problems don't cease to exist if you ignore them and pretend they're not there. Of the 46 tags I placed on 16 April 2023, 5 have apparently been addressed and removed, but the remaining 41 evidently haven't, so it's inappropriate to remove them. I'm going to restore them, and wish you good luck to providing RS for each of them if you're interested in improving this article. Good day, NLeeuw (talk) 11:31, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

no mentioning to colonial history and slavery
There is no mention to colonial times other than superficial mention, no mention of slavery. No mention of traded Africans, and plantations. Biased and not factually true 2A02:3037:209:C2:14A1:5868:C501:DBE7 (talk) 16:16, 8 June 2024 (UTC)