Agricultural colonies: "pauper paradise"

 

These cultural landscapes demonstrate an innovative, highly influential 19th-century model of pauper relief and of settler colonialism, which today is known as an agricultural domestic colony. The property encompasses Colonies of Benevolence in three component parts: Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord and Veenhuizen in the Netherlands. Together they bear witness to a 19th century experiment in social reform, an effort to alleviate urban poverty by establishing agricultural colonies in remote locations. Established in 1818, Frederiksoord (the Netherlands) is the earliest of these Colonies and home to the original headquarters of the Society of Benevolence, an association which aimed to reduce poverty at the national level. The other component parts were constructed between 1820 and 1823. In Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord, small farms along planted avenues were built for families and this Colony was referred to as ‘free’. In Veenhuizen large dormitory structures and larger centralized farms along planted avenues were built for orphans, beggars and vagrants that worked under the supervision of guards. This colony was called ‘unfree’. Each component part has a distinctive spatial character, connected to the target group for which it was built, and a specific organization of the work, with either family farms or institutions with working farms for groups of individuals. At their peak in the mid-19th century, over 11,000 people lived in such Colonies in the Netherlands.