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November 28, 2005

Zwarte Piets and Zwarte Peper

I wanted to visit Rembrandt's house and Andy wanted to visit the Ship Museum (Scheepvaart Museum). Somehow Andy won the battle with his passionate speech on wanting to see a museum that focuses on a shipping company conquering the world. It was our lucky day, Sinterklaas and his Piets had invaded the Scheepvaart museum that day too.

Because of all the festivities not many people were actually there to see the exhibits. The top floor of the museum told the story of the Dutch rise to power and little did we know that it all began with Pepper (peper). The Dutch were getting their pepper from the Portuguese until a conflict occured. The Dutch decided to go to Asia to get their own pepper and there began the Dutch domination of the trade industry. The Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC) was a company with its own army. I'm trying to imagine Amazon.com with 11,000 troops.... naw...

Deeper into the museum were paintings of slaves with their hands cut off, the punishment for attempting to escape. There were replicas of boats where slaves were crammed into in the most unhygenic quarters to be shipped off to islands to grow coffee. Very enlightening indeed.

Next we wander out to the dock to explore the lifesize ship replica and mingle with these Piets with their faces painted black. Oh sure, now the Dutch are saying that the black faces are because they come down chimneys but I'd like to note that Sinterklaas remains pristine. We look around and there are other Dutch families of African descent and I just wondered had they been upstairs? Andy and I both found the whole situation disturbing.

Britta is crying so there ends this post!

Posted by jana at November 28, 2005 10:39 AM