About 150 years after the end of slavery in its former colonies, the Netherlands on Monday said it will officially apologise for the injustice.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte plans to give a speech on slavery at the National Archives in The Hague later in the day.
The cabinet representatives are also scheduled to speak in the former Dutch colony of Suriname in South America as well as on the six Caribbean islands that still belong to the Dutch kingdom today.
The Netherlands was once the third largest colonial power in the world and enslaved an estimated 500,000 people for over 200 years.
They were mostly abducted from West Africa, sold and forced to work on the plantations in Suriname and the Antilles.
The Dutch kingdom was one of the last countries in Europe to officially abolish slavery on July 1, 1863, but the actual end came only in 1873.
Descendants of slaves and inhabitants of the colonies especially, had at that time, campaigned for an apology for years but Prime Minister Rutte’s government refused to do so.