Creating a Public Database of Slaving Voyages across the Indian Ocean and Asia

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This article describes a major new initiative funded by a grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities to identify slaving voyages by Arab, Chinese, European, Indian, Southeast Asian, Swahili, and other vessels in the Indian Ocean and Asia and add them to the existing SlaveVoyages website. The article argues that the new database is needed to expand our historical knowledge about slave trading as a global phenomenon by reconstructing the maritime commerce in slave and other forms of coerced labor in the Indian Ocean and maritime Asia in ways that will help historians and the public trace the movement and life histories of enslaved peoples within and beyond the Indian Ocean world. The article concludes with a call for collaboration from researchers who can identify and contribute new voyages to this important project.