"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.

The Dutch capital is the first city in the country to offer an apology. It could be followed by Rotterdam, Utrecht and the administrative capital The Hague, which are also debating the issue.

On the national level, the Netherlands has not formally apologized for its role in slavery.

Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the period of slavery was too far back and a debate over an apology would stoke tensions.

Also on Thursday, an advisory panel in the Netherlands has told the government to acknowledge that the 17th-19th century transatlantic slave trade amounted to crimes against humanity and to apologize for the Dutch role, Reuters reported.

The independent panel, whose recommendations are not binding, was set up following protests over the murder of George Floyd, an African-American in police custody in the US.

It noted that Dutch people's knowledge of the country's colonial past is weak and recommended it be taught in schools.

"History cannot be turned back," chairwoman Dagmar Oudshoorn said in a summary of the panel's findings.

"However it is possible to state the intention that this historical injustice [...] whose ill consequences are still being felt today, be corrected as far as is possible, to make that the starting point of policy."

After Floyd's killing last year, Rutte acknowledged that racism and discrimination were also a problem in the Netherlands and his government helped to set up the independent panel.

However, as he faces the delicate task of reconciling polarized views in the Dutch population, he said his government would not apologize for slavery because it was not his place to pass judgement on Dutch history and doing so would further divide opinion.

While many Dutch view sea captains of centuries gone by as heroes, they are less aware of the role played in the slave trade by the Dutch West India Company — an important source of the Netherlands' early national wealth.

The company operated a chain of fortresses in modern Ghana and historians estimate Dutch traders shipped more than half a million enslaved Africans to the Americas, mostly to Brazil and the Caribbean.

Though slavery was banned in Holland, it was only abolished in then-Dutch colonies, including Suriname, as late as 1863.

Around 50 percent of Dutch people of Surinamese or Antillean ancestry reported having experienced discrimination in 2018, figures published by the country's Central Bureau for Statistics found.

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