Abstract
AbstractThis article argues that we need to move beyond the “Atlantic” and “formal” bias in our understanding of the history of slavery. It explores ways forward toward developing a better understanding of the long-term global transformations of slavery. Firstly, it claims we should revisit the historical and contemporary development of slavery by adopting a wider scope that accounts for the adaptable and persistent character of different forms of slavery. Secondly, it stresses the importance of substantially expanding the body of empirical observations on trajectories of slavery regimes, especially outside the Atlantic, and most notable in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds, where different slavery regimes existed and developed in interaction. Thirdly, it proposes an integrated analytical framework that will overcome the current fragmentation of research perspectives and allow for a more comparative analysis of the trajectories of slavery regimes in their highly diverse formal and especially informal manifestations. Fourth, the article shows how an integrated framework will enable a collaborative research agenda that focuses not only on comparisons, but also on connections and interactions. It calls for a closer integration of the histories of informal slavery regimes into the wider body of existing scholarship on slavery and its transformations in the Atlantic and other more intensely studied formal slavery regimes. In this way, we can renew and extend our understandings of slavery's long-term, global transformations.
Highlights
With regard to colonial societies, this work has undermined dominant assumptions about so-called “Asian” forms of slavery, characterized as “mild” or even “cozy” urban household slavery,[51] and the idea that slaves in Asia were a luxury and not a production factor, mainly serving as “objects of conspicuous consumption by elites.”[52]. These studies have undermined Boomgaard’s argument that “if it is accepted that debt was the chief cause of enslavement, most slaves were not aliens—unless it can be proven that they were subsequently sold outside the community.”[53]. Slave trading did exist on a larger scale than has been previously assumed, in the Western Indian Ocean and in the wider Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago regions.[54]
We have important indications that slave trade and wider forms of coerced mobility created interconnections that deeply affected the trajectories of slavery regimes in both receiving and sending societies.[55]
Much more research is needed to scrutinize the dynamics of the wide variety of slavery regimes, we can already distinguish four types of regimes that are relevant to understanding the varieties of slavery regime trajectories in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago and that help us to see links with the Atlantic and the wider global history of slavery
Summary
The early modern Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds provide a crucial arena in which to test and improve conceptualizations and understandings of the historical transformations of different forms of slavery, 28 Zeuske, “Research Problems,” 87. With regard to colonial societies, this work has undermined dominant assumptions about so-called “Asian” forms of slavery, characterized as “mild” or even “cozy” urban household slavery,[51] and the idea that slaves in Asia were a luxury and not a production factor, mainly serving as “objects of conspicuous consumption by elites.”[52] These studies have undermined Boomgaard’s argument that “if it is accepted that debt was the chief cause of enslavement, most slaves were not aliens—unless it can be proven that they were subsequently sold outside the community.”[53] Slave trading did exist on a larger scale than has been previously assumed, in the Western Indian Ocean and in the wider Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago regions.[54] This should encourage the revision of perspectives on slavery and its transformations, in the colonial contexts, but especially outside European colonial contexts. We have important indications that slave trade and wider forms of coerced mobility created interconnections that deeply affected the trajectories of slavery regimes in both receiving and sending societies.[55]
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