Abstract This article challenges arguments that slavery was not important in early modern China by examining slaving and trafficking practices during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Rather than applying economic and maritime-centric analytical categories derived from Atlantic slavery studies, it calls for the use of contextually defined categories as operational units of observation. Through a systematic digital processing of the Annals of the Ming Dynasty ( Mingshi 明史) developed by the China Human Trafficking and Slaving project, the study shines new light on the persistence of enslavement and capture throughout Ming territory. While the Annals ’ state-centric perspective emphasizes conflict-related capture and official responses to trafficking, analysis of 174 of its 332 juan (rolls) reveals the scale and dynamics of this activity which involved hundreds of thousands of captives. These findings demonstrate that slaving in Ming China is important to understanding China’s place in global slavery studies.

Abstract Between 1810 and the 1840s, tens of thousands of East Africans were transported illegally from Mozambique and the Swahili Coast to Mauritius and Réunion. Referred to as “Mozambiques,” these East African captives were generally men and boys sent to the Mascarenes to work on sugar plantations. While this commerce in chattel labor has been a subject of scholarly attention, we know comparatively little about these individuals’ life histories. Between 1845 and 1847, Eugène Huet de Froberville, a member of the Franco-Mauritian elite, conducted an ethnological study which included interviewing about 300–350 “Mozambiques” in the Mascarenes. Preserved in the Huet de Froberville family’s private archives, long inaccessible to researchers, Froberville’s papers provide valuable information about these individuals’ names, origins, languages, life experiences in East Africa and the Mascarenes, and the ways in which they resisted the system which sought to deny their humanity.

Abstract This article provides an overview and provenance of sources uncovered to-date relating to slavery, especially in the Indian Ocean region, contained the Prize Papers Collection at The National Archives, London. The Prize Papers consist of papers and objects confiscated by the British/English from captured ships as well as legal records from the ensuing court cases at the High Court of Admiralty in London. Presently only partially catalogued, the Prize Papers Project will catalogue this unique “accidental archive” down to document level, making its contents available and searchable in open access and bringing more and more traces of slavery to light. This paper presents examples of sources on slavery, in particular from the recently digitized bound appeals cases from the vice-courts of admiralty in the Indian Ocean region. It contextualizes their genealogy, considers their uses and their pitfalls and explores the opportunities they present for gaining further insight into slavery in this region.

Abstract Eastern Indonesia (east of Bali) was a major source of slaves for the Southeast Asian market and beyond. Up to the 19th century, a plethora of indigenous forms of coerced labour coexisted with European, mostly Dutch, slavery. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the potential of underused written sources to trace the migrations of coerced labour in the 17th–18th centuries. These texts include proto-demographic data, ships’ logs, daily records at colonial ports, and trade geographies. The article discusses types of sources, their possibilities and limitations, and explains the connectivities between regional and wider slaving circuits. The depth of the data allows us to draw conclusions about numbers of traded slaves, slave demography in indigenous and colonial communities, and the workings of slave trade in micro perspectives.

Abstract In the spring of 1696, a letter arrived at the Danish colony of Tranquebar on the Coromandel Coast. The Secret Council of the colony gathered at the fort to discuss a proposition from slave traders in the north to transport enslaved individuals across the Indian Ocean on Danish ships. The Danish East India Company’s involvement in the Asian slave trade, particularly in the 17th century, is known. However, the poor condition of the company archives has hindered in-depth research. Recent preservation and transcription efforts have made previously inaccessible archival material available to historians, providing new insights into the trade and transportation of enslaved people. This article uses the letter from Porto Novo as a focal point to re-examine Danish colonial activities in Asia and their connections in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.