Colonial Encounters and Slavery in Early Modern Asia

This book is due to be published in December 2025 and is now available for backorder

This volume traces how colonial powers from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century built, adapted, and expanded systems of slave trading and coerced labour across different regions of the globe. Bringing together diverse geographical perspectives and source materials, the contributors investigate how European practices of enslavement—shaped above all by experiences in the Atlantic world—were transferred to, or reshaped by, societies in the Indian Ocean and Asia. In examining the management of slaving routes and labour regimes, the authors combine state-of-the-art quantitative analysis with rich qualitative readings of archival and non-archival sources. The result is a fresh exploration of how colonial archives, when placed alongside other kinds of evidence, open new pathways to understanding the global dynamics of slavery and coerced labour.

Daniel Domingues da Silva is an Associate Professor of History at Rice University, U.S., and the Host of the renowned website SlaveVoyages.org. He has written extensively about slavery and slave trade in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

Hans Hägerdal is a Professor in History at Linnaeus University, Sweden, and has written extensively about East and Southeast Asian history, including Vietnam, Bali, Timor, and Maluku. He has published several articles on slavery in eastern Indonesia.

Angelina Kalashnikova is a postdoctoral student in Kiel University, Germany. Her research interests concern source studies, diplomatics and palaeography, and the incorporation of Siberia in Muscovy.

Dr. Filipa Ribeiro da Silva is Senior Researcher at the IISH. She has specialised in social and economic history of the Portuguese and Dutch overseas empires and interactions with Atlantic and Eastern Africa.