Presenter: Mark Ponte, City Archives Amsterdam
Moderator: Arnoud Visser, Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professor, Columbia University, and Professor of Textural Culture in the Renaissance, University of Utrecht
In the seventeenth century, steadily more people of African descent came to the Dutch Republic, as servants (whether enslaved or free) or as seafarers. Recent research has revealed that from c. 1630 onward a small free black community emerged in Amsterdam, which can be located in the area around the Jodenbreestraat (‘Jewish Broad Street’). This was an area where also many painters lived, among whom Rembrandt. This new research is based on combining marriage registers with new archival findings, made possible by the progress of All Amsterdam Acts, a large-scale digital humanities project that aims to unlock the complete notary archives of Amsterdam.
Through a combination of presentation and interactive work, this workshop will explore the opportunities and challenges of this type of research, focusing on three components: archival research, digital humanities, and public history (public debates, social media, and exhibitions about the history of slavery).
Mark Ponte is a historian at the Amsterdam City Archives. He has been curator and co-curator of recent exhibitions in Amsterdam (‘Black in Rembrandt’s Time’, Museum Rembrandthuis, 2020. ‘Amsterdammers and Slavery’, Amsterdam City Archives, 2020) and Alkmaar (‘Plantation Alkmaar’, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar, 2022-23).
Workshop cosponsored by the Studies of the Dutch-Speaking World, the European Institute, the Department of History, the Department of English and Comparative Literature, and the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies
