The man on the left looking directly at us is Colonel Johannes Loo. He was the leader of this civic guard and, like the other officers, a member of the Haarlem elite. These wealthy citizens could afford painters like Frans Hals. Many of them were – directly or indirectly – involved in colonial trade and slavery. Andries van Hoorn, for example, the man in the right foreground wearing the orange sash, was a board member of the Dutch West India Company.