Understanding Slavery in Early Modern Asia

Abstract

This chapter aims to discuss the ongoing project of building up a connected and comparative picture of slavery in the early modern world that reveals its multi-ethnic and interconnected nature in an era of global expansion. Minors sold by their parents, however, represented something of a special subcategory at least in principle, since if someone offered to buy them out of slavery, then they would return to the state of freedom rather than becoming a freedman. Luis de Molina cites the postclassical civil law maxim “the birth follows the womb” and the established conventions at the time of Justinian and in contemporary Iberia. Bengali slaves were also common throughout India because of the Mughals' continual wars in the northeast. The Indian subcontinent and Ceylon were not the only sources of Asian slaves in Portuguese Asia. While Molina provided a limited discussion of slavery in Southeast Asia, Vaz again offered a much more detailed and practically useful treatment.