Dutch Slavery and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean

136 journal of world history, june 2003
problematic nature of the term “slave” in an Indian Ocean context, 12
its special characteristics included property or chattel status and the
ensuing potential of re-isolation, institutionalized coercion and systemic
exploitation, outsider status or essential kinlessness defined as
“social death,” and lack of control over physical reproduction and sexuality.
13
Two basic systems of Indian Ocean slavery can be distinguished.
The “open system” of slavery could be found in the commercialized,
cosmopolitan cities of Southeast Asia and elsewhere where the boundary
between slavery and other forms of bondage was porous and indistinct
and upward mobility was possible. In the “closed systems” of
South (and East) Asia, with some notable exceptions, it was inconceivable
for a slave to be accepted into the kinship systems of their
owners as long as they remained slaves because of the stigma of slavery;
instead they were maintained as separate ethnic groups. The term
“slave” here includes so-called “true slaves,” those recently captured
and sold in open systems, and those in closed systems of slavery, along
with all other forms of bondage and ties of vertical obligation. 14
This article discusses various aspects of Dutch slavery and slave
12 David Brian Davis observed: “The more we learn about slavery, the more difficulty
we have defining it,” (Slavery and human progress, [New York, 1984]). For the Indian Ocean,
see A. Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, Volume One: The Lands
below the Winds (New Haven and London, 1988), p. 132; B. Stein, “Slavery and Serfdom
in South Asia,” in A.T. Embree, ed., Encyclopedia of Asian History (New York, 1988), III,
p. 490; U. Chakaravarti, “Of Dasas and Karmakaras: Slave Labour in Ancient India,” in U.
Panaik and M. Dingawaney, eds., Chains of Servitude: Bondage and Slavery in India (Madras,
1985), pp. 35, 36–37, 48; T. Raychaudhuri and I. Habib, eds., The Cambridge Economic History
of India, Volume I: c. 1200–1750 (New York, 1982), pp. 30–32, 92–93, 530; M. I. Finley,
“Between Slavery and Freedom,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 6 (1963–64),
p. 23; J. L. Watson, “Slavery as an Institution: Open and Closed Systems,” in J. L. Watson,
ed., Asian and African Systems of Slavery (Oxford, 1980), pp. 12–13; A. Schottenhammer,
“Slavery in Late Imperial China (17th /18th to early 20th century),” unpublished paper
presented at the International Conference on Slavery, Unfree Labor and Revolt in Asia
and the Indian Ocean Region, University of Avignon, 4–6 October 2001.
13 Classical statements include O. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative
Study (Cambridge, Mass., 1982); M. I. Finley, “Slavery,” International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences 14 (New York, 1968), pp. 307–13; H. J. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System:
Ethnological Researches, 2nd ed. (The Hague, 1910); Watson, “Slavery as an Institution,”
pp. 3, 8; P. E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (New
York, 1983), p. 1.
14 Watson, “Slavery as an Institution,” pp. 9–13; A. Reid, “‘Closed’ and ‘Open’ Slave
Systems in Pre-Colonial Southeast Asia,” in A. Reid, ed., Slavery, Bondage and Dependence
in Southeast Asia, pp. 156–67. The Slavery Convention signed at Geneva in 1926
(approved by the United Nations by protocol in 1953) defines slavery as “the status or condition
of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership
are exercised.” The slave trade includes “all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or dis-