• "We hadden nooit ook maar kunnen hopen dat een blanke voor ons zou knielen en om
vergeving vragen". • "Bent u echt, op eigen kosten, naar ons land gekomen om schuld te
belijden? Dan is er hoop voor ons land". • "De schuldige partij wil het zo snel mogelijk
vergeten, maar de slachtoffers zitten met de pijn en de vernedering, en geven die door
aan de volgende generatie". • "Door onze uitbuiting, en uw verontwaardiging, zijn we
verbonden geraakt; zullen we nu verbonden blijven in wederzijdse erkenning en hulp".



The sin of slave trade against Africans and African Americans.

During the month of November 1999, around 3000 leaders and members of almost all churches in The Netherlands gathered together to confess to God the sins of the nation, both historic and current sins, and to ask Him forgiveness and plead for mercy. These meetings were called "Millennium Prayer."
The liturgy of these meetings included one section on slave trade. After re-instating the commandments in Isa. 58:6,7 and Matt. 5:9, the confession reads as follows:
"Nevertheless, we have put whole peoples under the yoke of slavery; we allowed greed and a sense of superiority to turn us into oppressors; in this we abused your holy Name.
We chased many tens of thousands of men, women and children form Africa as if they were cattle, we chained them and stowed them into ships. Above them the Dutch flag was flown and in the captain's cabin your Word lay open. We drowned them cruelly as that was convenient, we traded them at market places and enslaved them at our plantations. Against you we have sinned." In the final and main meeting purposely Dr. Pieter Bos was asked to lead the congregation in this confession, thus officially deputating him to attend the BENIN RECONCILIATION CONFERENCE and to let both the Africans and the Afro-Americans know how the Church in The Netherlands feels about slave trade and slavery: "We confess this as sin and ask for forgiveness."


Presented by Pieter Bos, at the National Reconciliation Gathering, called by the President of the Republic Benin, Mr. Mattieu Kerekou, and in the presence of the President of Ghana, cabinet ministers and parliamentary representatives of 10 African and Caribbean nations and 150 African Americans, November 1999, in Cotonou, Benin.



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