New Dutch exhibition takes unflinching look at slavery
May 19, 2021
AMSTERDAM (AP) — The delicacy of one of the first objects in new exhibition at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum belies its brutality. At the end of a thin iron rod are the artistically interwoven letters GWC — used to brand the initials of a Dutch trading company into the skin of enslaved workers.
The stark contrast between finery and brutality, wealth and inhumanity is a recurring pattern at the museum's unflinching exhibition titled, simply, "Slavery," that examines the history of Dutch involvement in the international slave trade.
Nearby, a huge wooden set of stocks and heavy iron chains and locks u...
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