"On behalf of the city, I issue an apology for the Amsterdam city council's active involvement in the commercial system of colonial slavery and global trade of people reduced to slavery," said Mayor Femke Halsema.

In the Netherlands, as in other European countries, debate over the continent's colonial past and role in slavery surged in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.

"It is time to integrate the great injustice of colonial slavery into our city's identity," Halsema added during a speech to mark the abolition of slavery on July 1, 1863, in Suriname and the Caribbean part of the kingdom.

At the height of its colonial empire, the United Provinces, known today as the Netherlands, possessed colonies like Suriname, the Caribbean island of Curacao, South Africa and Indonesia, where the Dutch East India Company was based in the 17th century.

The province of Holland, which Amsterdam is part of, was "a major player in the trade and exploitation of slaves," Halsema said, adding that in the 18th century, "40 percent of economic growth came from slavery".

"And in Amsterdam, almost everyone earned money thanks to the colony of Suriname," she said, citing in particular the city council, which was coowner and coadministrator of the colony.

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