In 1731, the Netherlands consisted of more than just its current territory. With the violent colonisation of various territories such as Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, South Africa and Indonesia, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was divided over several continents and the various populations of the territories were involuntarily placed in a submissive position, where they were exploited, raped and murdered. During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, various African populations were mistreated, kidnapped and enslaved to further enable colonial expansion and exploitation. In the 18th Century, the Netherlands was involved in several complex and violently capitalist international relations with the colonial territories. In the current ‘post-colonial’ era, there is insufficient recognition, reparations and construction to repair this narcissistic and abusive relationship.

It took a long time for a somewhat critical awareness of the colonial past to enter the Dutch mainstream. It has also taken a long time in the Academic world. The sociologist Gloria Wekker writes:

Knowledge about Dutch overseas expansion is, not incidentally, in quarantine in a separate special- ization of the discipline of history; it is not an element of Dutch national history. (...) It was Ann Laura Stoler, (...) who first made the important observation (...) that, compared to other European colonial nations like France and Great Britain, it is remarkable that in the Dutch academy, historical research and general ways of knowing have been set up in a way that the history of the metropole is structurally set apart from the history of the colonies.

So too in previous research on the Monster Trial. In the earlier (academic and other types of) publications written about the Monster Trial at Faan, there is hardly any naming of the colonial context in which the country entered in 1731, and the implications that such a context carries. This created an urgent informational deficit, which prevented researchers from making a complete and critical analysis of the case. MONSTER ARCHIEF seeks explicit and concrete links between the Netherlands of 1731 and the various colonial territories. In doing so, we hope to conduct more critical and complete research.