This book provides detailed information about the role of the Dutch in slavery including the legacy in the Netherlands itself. It locates their activities past and present, in linking Europe, Africa and the Americas.

It also provides a critical framework on how to analyse the phenomenon of slavery in the Americas and the trans-Atlantics trade in humans.

During slavery it details the primary role of the Dutch in helping other nations such as the Spanish, British, Portuguese and Americans to establish and expand slavery; as well as the role the Dutch themselves played as traders of humans and as traders of goods across the Atlantic, and between the Caribbean and South America. Moreover, it details their role in the plantation economy of Suriname, and in the production of salt in the Caribbean islands.