Study puts Dutch royal colonial income at nearly €576 million

A Leiden University investigation presented to King Willem-Alexander on Friday 2 October found that the House of Orange-Nassau received colonial income equivalent to nearly €576 million in 2024 values. The research examined the Dutch royal family's relationship with colonialism from about 1600 through the post-colonial period.

According to the researchers, almost €566 million of the total came from the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. They found that relatively little of the calculated income came directly from transatlantic slavery or slavery in the Caribbean, with most of the wealth tied to the wider colonial economy during the nineteenth century.

Lead researcher Gert Oostindie said successive Dutch rulers regarded colonialism as legitimate and important to the Netherlands, and that royal family members supported colonial expansion and warfare. The research identified King William I, who reigned from 1813 to 1840, as having a particularly direct role in colonial affairs.

The project was initiated by Willem-Alexander in 2022 and involved about 60 researchers over nearly four years. Researchers were given access to relevant Royal House archives, while an independent committee set the framework and selected the researchers. The project produced five books, including studies of people living under colonial rule in Indonesia, Suriname and the Caribbean.

Willem-Alexander called the conclusions confronting. In July 2023, he asked forgiveness for his ancestors' failure to act against slavery during the Netherlands' national commemoration of the slavery past.